‘We’ve got to go out and win’: Labour launches 2023 local elections campaign

Labour launched its 2023 local elections campaign in Swindon with a series of short and energetic speeches from Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves. “We’ve got to go out, and we’ve got to win them,” the Labour leader told a room full of local activists and journalists, declaring that the question at the heart of the elections in May is “do you think Britain deserves better”. The deputy Labour leader stressed that “local government matters, having a Labour council matters”, adding: “When we’re in power, we make the right choices.” The event was received very well among the local activists I spoke to afterwards. Leader of the Labour group on Swindon council Jim Robbins said he was “really pleased”, telling me: “It’s obviously massive for us to get that sort of support from the national party. It makes a really difference.” Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for North Swindon, Will Stone – who is also a local councillor – said the launch was “really positive”, adding that “the energy seemed fantastic”.

Swindon was a natural choice for the launch for various reasons. The local party is targeting several gains at the elections in May in order to take control of the council, which has been led by the Tories since 2004. That the three speakers at the launch were flanked on either side by Stone and Labour’s candidate for neighbouring South Swindon – former MP for Lewisham East Heidi Alexander – was also suggestive of Labour’s longer-term ambitions for the area. Both constituencies were represented by Labour MPs throughout the New Labour years, before being taken by the Tories in 2010, meaning they are often viewed as bellwethers (though the Conservative majority in North Swindon has grown substantially since 2010, reaching 16,171 in 2019). On a canvassing session around Central ward following the launch – a key ward Labour is looking to hold on to in May – Robbins also tells me about Swindon’s central role in one of the Labour Party’s greatest achievements, the creation of the NHS, with Nye Bevan having drawn inspiration from the town’s Great Western Railway medical fund, set up in the 1840s, following several visits.

The local elections – as they often do – will offer key insight into the current mood of the nation. Labour had a disappointing set of results in 2019, the last time many of these seats were contested, and so will be under pressure to make gains. In a pre-local elections briefing earlier this month, pollster and Tory peer Lord Hayward said the Tories appear to be moving from a “dire” position to a “difficult” one, noting the potential for Rishi Sunak’s favourability ratings to pull the Tories’ polling up. He also echoed the conclusion of fellow polling expert David Cowling in his recent piece for LabourList that a Labour victory in the next election is far from guaranteed, despite the party’s continued strong performance in the polls.

And the Labour leadership remains keen to stress this reality. Addressing an away day of prospective parliamentary candidates last weekend – attended by more than 90 of the party’s candidates, LabourList understands – Starmer acknowledged that Labour has got itself into a “great position”. But the Labour leader added: “As I say to the shadow cabinet every single week, no complacency. Complacency will kill us. If we think the job is done, we will lose the election, you won’t be MPs, we won’t have a Labour government and the millions of people who need a Labour government would be let down because we’ve been complacent. That will be unforgivable.”