‘Labour must mobilise the whole country around its missions – or risk failure’

In December, Keir Starmer confirmed that ‘mission-led government’ remains at the centre of Labour’s programme. This is welcome, and can help address serious policy problems like chronic short-termism. But it will only be successful if the Prime Minister and the government truly commit to mobilising the whole country around the national missions.

Some of the most famous examples of successful missions include NASA putting a man on the moon – popularised by the economist Maraina Mazzucato – and the rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines in 2020-2021. These ‘technological missions’ relied on clear, ambitious, time-bound goals to encourage technological and scientific innovation.

But are Labour’s missions the same as these examples? No. Labour’s missions rarely concern cutting-edge technological innovation.

In a new Demos paper published today, we argue they are instead ‘socioeconomic missions’, which primarily relate to positive change or innovation in relation to society and/or the economy.

Socioeconomic missions

Why does this matter? Because socioeconomic missions are different in nature to technological missions, and therefore need a different approach to achieve them.

Socioeconomic missions operate under conditions of very high complexity. Social innovation does not occur in laboratories or research centres, but is developed and diffused through socially-oriented organisations.

And, most importantly, socioeconomic missions demand partnerships between many different actors from different sectors and institutions – what we call ‘cross-sectoral mobilisation’.

For example, the government’s mission for 75% of five-year-olds to reach a good level of child development is very different from developing cutting-edge space technology. Methods for inspiring innovation in building space rockets cannot be copied and pasted to building a school-ready population.

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Improving child development requires mobilising local authorities, Family Hubs, schools, nurseries, families, charities and more around this goal as a national mission – recognising the numerous factors which influence child development.

The theory that missions will help galvanise successful partnerships between central government, local government, business, trade unions, civil society and citizens is not new. It has featured in the rhetoric of the governments led by Theresa May, Boris Johnson and now Keir Starmer.

Yet the May and Johnson governments never succeeded in turning this into reality – witness the failure of ‘levelling up’ and its twelve associated missions.

The Prime Minister knows that central government cannot achieve socioeconomic missions by itself. Indeed, the Plan for Change states that the missions “are not just government missions, but missions for the entire country – a partnership between public and private sectors, national and local government, business and unions, alongside the whole of civil society”.

We fear this insight is at risk of being lost. If Labour wants to achieve its missions – and to be able to communicate their success ahead of the next general election – it must mobilise cross-sectoral coalitions.

Making Britain ‘mission ready’

However, as a country we aren’t ‘mission ready’. This is because there are serious barriers to mission mobilisation.

Local government’s capacity has been hollowed out since 2010. Businesses are excessively focused on short-term shareholder value. There are too few opportunities for formal cooperation between government, business and trade unions. Civil society organisations’ finances are fragile. Mobilising citizens around missions is challenging as surveys suggest record low trust in government and politicians.

Labour’s national missions must therefore be accompanied by ‘enabling reforms’ to unlock cross-sectoral mobilisation. Each mission requires its own bespoke approach to determine which sectors and actors to mobilise.

But initial policy directions could include increasing the capacity of regional and local government; corporate governance reform; mission-oriented partnerships with civil society organisations at the national and local levels; and mobilising citizens to be involved in the development, design and delivery of missions. In a future paper, Demos will explore specific proposals to tackle the barriers to cross-sectoral mobilisation.

Mission-led government has enormous potential to help bring the country together and build a more collaborative democracy in which, together, we can address the collective challenges we face.

Translating a ‘decade of national renewal’ from rhetoric to reality requires the government to recommit to the missions agenda and embrace the bold enabling reforms which are needed to mobilise the whole nation to achieve them.

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