‘We need social club socialism’

There could have been no base more fitting for Andy Burnham’s Makerfield by-election campaign than Stubshaw Cross Community and Sports Centre. 

Running the campaign from this unassuming social club served as a perpetual reminder of the sort of Member of Parliament that Andy Burnham was promising to be: rooted in place, present, and determined to be in touch with ordinary people. 

As others have observed, the club remaining open to its regulars throughout the campaign meant that party members, Cabinet ministers, and the many Labour grandees who came to campaign in Makerfield were frequently, and literally, rubbing shoulders with local people and voters. This constituted a welcome challenge to the psychological distance promoted by the doorstep encounter at the centre of conventional election canvassing, which rarely escapes the feeling of transactionality. 

At this campaign centre, politicians entered a space that belonged to the community rather than the party. The conversations that followed felt less like campaign encounters than ordinary interactions with people as they are. 

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Against the backdrop of Burnham’s pledge to force “Westminster to focus on the places it usually looks past”, this was hugely significant. The proximity between the political class and the people of Makerfield facilitated by Stubshaw Cross Community and Sports Club secured Burnham’s reputation as the one thing that voters tend to feel politicians are not: honest. 

The lesson, however, is bigger than one successful by-election campaign. 

Labour is, it seems, falling back in love with social clubs. Having seen how Stubshaw Cross electrified Burnham’s Makerfield campaign, the party has had a fresh taste of the political value these once treasured institutions can still offer. But if the party’s interest in them extends no further than their utility as campaign backdrops, it will have misunderstood what made Stubshaw Cross so transformative for Labour’s campaign. 

There is, admittedly, a deep irony to all of this. Britain’s social clubs were central to the formation and development of the Labour Party in the twentieth century. Their role was not cosmetic but highly political. They provided spaces where trade unionists, socialists and co-operators met one another, exchanged ideas, educated themselves, built relationships, and organised collectively. Politics was not something that arrived every few years in the form of an election campaign but was woven into the everyday life of communities through social clubs. 

Today, the enormous potential of social clubs must be rediscovered, and they must be recognised as more than props to be deployed during election campaigns. 

What is that potential? At the very least, social clubs can help to reconnect formal politics with everyday life. They offer independent, trusted spaces where political parties, trade unions and civic organisations can meet people outside of the rhythm of the election cycle, or the occasional by-election, and begin to rebuild relationships over time rather than in the frantic weeks before polling day. At a moment when distrust of politics is widespread, that kind of sustained presence matters. Trust is rarely won on the doorstep in a brief conversation. It can be built through repeated and sincere encounters in places that people already know and value. 

This is precisely what made Stubshaw Cross such an effective base for Burnham’s campaign. It lent credibility because it was already a respected institution within its own community. The campaign benefitted from the trust that the club had accumulated over many years. That is not something any purpose-built campaign office, however well branded, can easily replicate. 

Social clubs may prove even more important if Labour is serious about governing in a genuinely transformative way. Makerfield’s new Labour and Co-operative MP will soon become Prime Minister, and inherit the enormous task of delivering not just any change, but structural change. Many of the priorities that Burnham has indicated, such as returning key services to public ownership, implementing a land value tax, and pursuing constitutional reform, will all provoke determined opposition. And whilst governments can legislate for reform, they cannot sustain it without support beyond Westminster. They need people and institutions capable of making the case for change in communities across the country, and countervailing forces to resist the pressure to accept the status quo. 

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That was once one of Labour’s great strengths. It possessed not only representatives in parliament but institutions embedded within everyday life that could nurture political discussion and collective action. If social clubs are once again to become part of Labour’s political imagination, it should not be because they make attractive campaign venues. It should be because they help rebuild the civic foundations on which democratic politics depends and through which radical change can be won. 

So Labour is right to be rediscovering its love for social clubs, and the party’s not alone. Investment in civic spaces is gaining momentum. Support from government, local authorities, trade unions and philanthropists – including a new £2.7 million National Lottery programme for the 21st Century Social Clubs initiative – suggests growing recognition that democratic renewal requires investment in community institutions. 

Alongside this investment, if the respect for these institutions (symbolised by Burnham’s decision to donate part of his first paycheck to Stubshaw Cross Community and Sports Centre) can be translated into a wider programme for the renewal of social clubs across the country, there will be genuine cause for optimism.

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