Mandelson says Labour must do ‘more than win’ and sets out ‘three Ms’ it needs

Peter Mandelson has warned Labour needs “to do more than just win” the general election, setting out “three Ms” that are required – “momentum, mandate, majority”.

The former senior New Labour adviser and minister said Labour firstly needed a mandate because it would have to “reconstruct, rebuild, transform, change the whole ethos of this country”, and “people have got to know what they’re voting for” and “what they’re determined to back when we’re in government”.

He told the Jewish Labour Movement annual conference on Sunday that momentum is needed too and a “wind in our sails”, though “phasing and pacing” is key rather than “flooding the shop window” with goods, policies and ideas in February and March.

Thirdly, Labour needs a “clear “majority” to implement its promises.

“Just winning is not a solution; we need to do more than just win.” He warned that without these “three Ms”, “we will not have strong and sustainable Labour government”.

Election will be ‘about the economy’

He suggested he would not look for a role himself in a Labour government, saying he wants “others to take on the mantle of ministerial responsibility”.

He added: “I’m doing what I hope Jeremy Corbyn will do after the next election – become a retired grandee…it’s a wonderfully comfortable status to enjoy.”

He predicted the election will be “about the economy”, with the Tories unlikely to headline on immigration given their record, but said he was “really pleased” Labour had such a “brilliant duo” in charge in leader Keir Starmer and shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

Meanwhile Mandelson called Labour campaign chief Morgan McSweeney a “very feisty effective guy”, and that when the history books are written on the party’s transformation from under Corbyn to Starmer, “there’ll be no member of the team who gets a better write-up”.

Mandelson on why Starmer’s politics have changed

Another packed out session:@lordmandelson and @Gabriel_Pogrund discuss global politics, current affairs and what we can learn from 1997 in 2024 pic.twitter.com/P16hKKqg0M

— Jewish Labour Movement (@JewishLabour) January 14, 2024

Asked at a fireside chat with Sunday Times journalist Gabriel Pogrund whether Keir Starmer’s opinions had changed or been “allowed” to “reveal themselves”, Mandelson said Starmer had hcanged “because the world’s changed”.

He highlighted global conflicts, Covid, former prime minister Liz Truss’ handling of the economy and a shift from an “era of basically cheap money where frankly you could make all sorts of commitments” to one where higher interest rates are likely to be “stuck for some time”.

“It would be a very peculiar politician…who did not reflect and rethink in a whole number of areas.”

Differences between ’97 and today are “seismic”

Mandelson said when people ask about the differences between 1997 and today, he said it is “seismic”.

Former prime minister Tony Blair that year running for and coming into office faced “an economy that was actually growing” with strong investment and productivity. That is a “stark dramatic contrast” to now, where we have public services “falling apart” after austerity.

Whereas New Labour need to “put our foot down on the economic accelerator”, a Starmer government would have to “restart the entire engine, the entire economic motor of the country”.

Asked by Pogrund what he’d be advising Starmer now, he said it boiled down to “one word – strength: strength of purpose, strength in their decisions, strength in their projection. That’s what the public wants.”

But he praised Starmer for “the biggest turnaround in our party’s condition and electoral fortunes of any time in my adult life”.

Considering similarities with his own work seeking to transform the party from the early 1980s, he said even left-wing then-Labour leader Michael Foot was “light years away” from Corbyn. Foot “wasn’t a hard left individual”, but was “ineffectual”.

Discussing the potential timing of the election, he said we “may well” not have an election until November, but “in my view if they see an advantage, they’ll go earlier”.

He said the election is “not stitched up already”; there may be some “amazing coincidence of economic forces” that makes voters feel better off or the Tories may attack any sense of Labour policy “weakness” or party division, albeit he does not see any now. “We’ve got to make sure that we don’t offer that vulnerability.”

Labour must not ‘slip into’ protectionism but green investment key

Asked about Reeves ‘securonomics’ vision, Mandelson said that we “of course” need to secure supply chains, such as critial goods and essential raw materials, and “we want to reindustrialise the country”.

He added: “But here’s the point: We left the European Union…we’ve inflicted this terrible damge on ourselves by creating distance, barriers, frictions and costs…it’s not going to be reversed, so therefore what we’ve got to do to offset that damage is keep our economy open to the rest of the world.

“We must be careful that the essential moves that we have to take to secure our economy and supply chains do not slip into a different way of thinking about sort of protecting the economy from the rest of the world – we’ve got to do more business with the rest of the world.”

Mandelson defended Labour’s green investment plans, warning the country would remain “deeply mired in this sort of current malaise our economy is in”  unless we raise public and private investment. “Investing in the energy transition, which is going to take place in any case; it’s just a matter of how and over what period and the extent to which we and our industry benefit from that energy transition.”

But he added: “We’re not going to be able to raise money in the international markets for love nor money if we haven’t succeeded in stabilising our public finances.”