Why Labour must take the insurance offered by a progressive alliance

My lasting impression from canvassing in the Tiverton and Honiton by-election is that people across the political spectrum are ready for a Labour government.

When Neil Parish’s excuse was that he had Googled John Deere and naked women had popped up this did not get him out of trouble, I hitched up my caravan and set off for Tiverton. Having canvassed in Cornwall and Plymouth for the last year, I was certain the Tories would not win. There’s no enthusiasm for this government and people are looking for an alternative.

I helped Kate Ewert get elected to Cornwall Council in May 2021, in a division that has only ever been either Conservative or Independent Tory. We did it with a disciplined, on-message campaign, briefing canvassers on our radical Cornish Labour manifesto. A document that included policies such as doubling the council tax on second homes and saving money by in-sourcing services went down very well with voters across the spectrum. Such positive solutions cut through and gave people a reason to vote Labour for the first time. Meanwhile in Honiton, Jake Bonetta became the first Labour member of East Devon council for 20 years, beating the Tories by quite a margin. This May we canvassed for Jason Chamberlain, helping him get him elected on Tiverton town council.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking everyone identifies with a party. Most people are just as likely to switch from Tory to Labour to take, what we regard, as the shorter step to a centre party. I hear canvassers come back from a doorstep saying ‘she’s a Tory’ and I think: ‘You gave them no reason to vote Labour.’ That has to change; data is important but persuasive conversions and votes win elections.

The message from these victories must be: ‘Where we work it, we win it.’ I believe that, had we piled canvassers in, debunked the Lib Dem’s deliberately misleading bar charts and had thousands of persuasive conversations we could have been the party that’s support grew exponentially through the campaign and Liz Pole would be a Labour MP. The question, however, is how thinly we can spread resources at a general election.

The result in Tiverton and Honiton shows the Tories have no divine right to hold seats anywhere. During weeks of canvassing, it was clear people were ready for change. Many of the 38% who eventually voted Tory accepted that it was likely that Labour will win the next general election, and were not scared by the prospect. Amongst the thousands who switched to the Lib Dems most wanted a Labour government, some saying they would vote Labour at a general election. The Lib Dem activists and supporters I quizzed all wanted a Labour government. So why did they vote Lib Dem, not Labour?

Liz Pole is a very good candidate. We campaigned on local and rural issues and the cost of living, outlining our policies to grow and make more in this country, investing, training, increasing productivity… Making the case for Labour’s economic competence. We pointed out that the median wage increased by £8,700 between 1997 and 2010, whereas we have suffered the longest period of wage stagnation for two hundred years with Tory austerity and mismanagement.

These ideas are powerful, and were converting many on the doorstep. At the start of the campaign they would say they were voting for us; but that turned into responses such as ‘I like what you are saying, good luck’ as the campaign wore on. But we didn’t have the budget or volunteers to cut through. The Lib Dems threw everything at it, with campaigners arriving from across the country. Residents received at least six different Lib Dem leaflets, including the dodgy bar charts. The lazy media’s self-fulfilling prophecy suggested people were switching to the Lib Dems long before in fact they were.

To win the next election we need to take seats like Truro and Falmouth and Camborne and Redruth. We can’t win St Ives, but if the Lib Dems take it from the Tories that will help us gain power. The coalition government imposed uncaring, un-Keynesian austerity that will take us years of investment to get over. The current Lib Dems are an intellectual vacuum, not even a pale shadow of Issac Foot’s West Country radical liberalism, Beverage’s moral outrage against poverty or Keynes’ social democratic economic vision of prosperity for all that led to the post-war consensus. Though a solution-free zone, they know they can’t afford to prop the Tories up again and they see that right-wing policies have done a lot of harm.

The nightmare scenario for us, and the people struggling most, is that we lose the next election because we are too proud to compromise. We needn’t compromise on policy. Radical ideas are the ones that people like most: taxing unearned income higher, building 150,000 social homes a year, alongside an emphasis on our economic competence and investment strategy.

We want a Labour majority. A progressive alliance in which we stand down candidates where we came third and the Lib Dems do the same makes it more likely that we wouldn’t have to rely on the Lib Dems after the election. If we fail to get 325 seats, a supply and confidence deal would involve proportional representation, meaning that everyone could vote for whoever they like.

Depriving people of the chance to vote Labour in one election may mean their vote will count for the first time ever, helping to get a regional top-up Labour representative next time around. If you have a labour MP don’t you want a Labour government? If you don’t, wouldn’t you want regional Labour MPs to represent you? Losing the next election will mean almost 20 years of the Tories making us poorer. We need to take the insurance of a progressive alliance.