‘Nasty party politics won’t save the Tories. Voters are sick of divisiveness’

This summer has shown us the shape of the next election. Fresh from a narrow escape in the Uxbridge by-election (and a crushing defeat in Selby, which many people seem to have forgotten), the Tories have decided to embrace a new strategy. They would call it a ‘wedge issue’ plan in which they attempt to position Labour on the wrong side of public opinion on some issues. But to most of us, what it looks like is the return of the ‘nasty party’. What does this mean? It means constant focus on how cruel the government can be to those seeking asylum in Britain. It means a complete abandonment of UK leadership on climate change. And it means Lee Anderson on our TV screens. All. The. Time.

Rishi Sunak may appear less overtly ideological than some of his predecessors, but we should make no mistake that this is one of the most right-wing governments in living memory, and the GB News-ification of the Tories is incredibly dangerous and worrying for those on the receiving end of their attacks. We in the Labour Party need to be prepared to fight it.

On the Wirral, we have had our own experience with the nasty party. Anderson’s GB News colleague, Esther McVey, was an MP here and spent her time in office developing the poisonous rhetoric that is now so common across her party. I ran the campaign that beat her in 2015, one of the bright spots on an otherwise disappointing night for our party. The Wirral is now a Tory-free zone, and we are determined to keep it that way, despite the attempts to gerrymander constituency boundaries to make her old Wirral West seat more winnable for the Tories. There are three main lessons to share about that campaign that we should all keep in mind for the upcoming election campaign.

We need a relentless focus on the issues that matter to people

First is that Labour needs to relentlessly focus on the issues that matter to people. The public’s top priorities are the state of the NHS, the cost-of-living crisis and the environment. They see their wages failing to keep up with inflation. They see our public services crumbling, waiting lists growing, relatives not getting the care they need. They see inaction on the climate crisis.

When Labour is talking about these issues, and offering solutions, then we are winning. That doesn’t mean that we don’t call out Tory cruelty, of course we do, but it means we remain focused on talking about the state of the economy, action on climate change and the NHS under this shambolic Tory government.

People respond better to hope than hatred

Second, we need to offer people hope. In that Wirral West campaign, and the other winning campaigns I have run on the Wirral, we found that people generally respond better to hope than they do to hatred. The Tory delusion is to think that people are fundamentally selfish and motivated by negative emotions. I don’t agree. I find people, in Wirral West and across the country, to be fundamentally decent and motivated by wanting the best for their family and their community.

When Labour can offer that hope, whether it is through our vision of a functioning social care system that really gives dignity to people, our mission to end the scandal of in-work poverty and give people security at work or our determination to make the green transition a new industrial revolution and bring high quality jobs back to communities like ours, then we can take people with us.

Labour members must channel their anger into organisation

Finally, we need to channel our anger into organisation. On the Wirral, the campaign against McVey and her politics galvanised our activists. Some years before, I set up Wirral Young Labour, and we were growing and winning awards for our activism. The influx of motivated campaigners helped to swell the number of Wirral Young Labour activists, creating a base for young campaigners in the local party.

That infrastructure exists to this day and has been a bedrock of successful defences of Wirral West and Wirral South from the Tories in 2017 and 2019, as well as supporting other campaigns across the North West. The lesson is that if you want to win, you need to get organised.

Voters want change and are sick of the politics of divide and rule

If Labour remembers these lessons, then I think we can be confident going into a critical election. Britain wants change, and the new Tory tactics reek of the desperation of a party that has nothing left to offer.

Not only will this nasty party politics fail to win them the election next year, it will only make it harder for them to win back seats like Wirral West in the future, where people are sick of this politics of divide and rule. There is no room for complacency. It’s time to get organised and offer Britain the real change it needs.