Through a dogged focus on skills, Labour can heal the UK’s political divides

Ask anyone close to the Labour leadership and they’ll tell you that the policy Keir Starmer cares about most is skills. After 13 years of Conservative rule, it’s the closest thing, he would argue, to a silver bullet for a variety of economic conundrums , including immigration, employment and productivity.

This view was shaped both by Starmer’s upbringing and his early political career. He’s made no secret of his father’s credentials as a toolmaker. As a child, Starmer observed how people looked down on his father’s vocation. He’s also talked about how, during his time as shadow immigration minister, he travelled the country speaking to people who run businesses of all sizes, asked them about the biggest inhibitor to their success and got the same answer every time: skills.

Improving skills could help create a less polarised society

The economic benefits are clear. A broad training programme in areas such as digital skills and data could boost GDP by 3.4% and create 200,000 new jobs, according to a 2021 report from PwC. But a concerted focus on improving skills could have another impact: a less polarised society. After seven years of heated Brexit debate, awkward Christmas dinners and raging culture wars, could it be skills policy that finally lays our divisions to rest?

Consider this: one of the best indicators of how people voted in the EU referendum was their level of education. The average level of support for Brexit among degree holders was 26%, according to the National Centre for Social Research. This rose to 50% for those with A levels as their highest qualification and 61% among people who left formal education after their GCSEs or O levels. For those with no qualifications, support for Brexit was a staggering 78%.

Of course, this isn’t really about education. It’s about the “us versus them” mentality that’s developed in a country where some people go off to university, land professional jobs and have successful careers while others are denied those opportunities. That division has whipped up a lot of anger, but since 2016, there have been two shifts that mean education is becoming a less reliable way of predicting voting intentions.

The status of graduates and non-graduates is being rebalanced

First, both main political parties are focusing on alternatives to university. For example, the Conservatives introduced the apprenticeship levy in 2015 and Labour has pledged to introduce flexibility into it and the creation of a new body, Skills England. While it’s hard to see how reducing the total amount of money available exclusively for apprenticeships will lead to more apprenticeships being created, a new overarching body responsible for regulation of all apprenticeships and vocational training would be a welcome step to a more interoperable system.

Second, attitudes towards higher education have changed as people rethink the importance of pursuing a degree. In 2016, a Barclays poll found that 85% of students hadn’t considered any alternatives to university. By comparison, recent Multiverse research found that more than four in ten people (44%) think young people have better job prospects by being an apprentice. That’s four times as many people who say the same about university.

As the political attention afforded to apprenticeships has increased and they have become viewed as a desirable route into the workforce, a rebalancing has happened. The status of a university education has diminished, with school leavers skirting hefty tuition fees in favour of well-paid jobs in prestigious industries such as tech, finance and law. The “us versus them” mentality between graduates and non-graduates seems finally to be subsiding.

Making education less of a dividing line carries political benefits

But why is this important to Labour? A focus on skills-based training will mean that education will become less of a dividing line and more people will feel the benefits of the opportunities that a Labour government can create. And that’s important for longevity. Although a Labour victory at the next election feels within grasp, if Starmer clinches the keys to No 10, his biggest challenge will be staying in power for more than one term. Unlocking the skills challenge can contribute to that ambition.

In 2019, we saw how successful the Conservatives were at playing a divided country to their advantage, winning over those who felt “left behind”. Labour has to limit the risk of that happening again. But, through a dogged focus on skills, Starmer can equip non-graduates to secure high-paying jobs, making education less of a dividing line in the UK and healing the Brexit rift once and for all.