Can Sir Keir ever tell the electorate they’re wrong?
As Labour continues to tank in the polls the Party is gearing up for the regular ‘Are the electorate wrong’ debate.
The answer to this question is always simple: Of course.
But the complications come when Sir Keir is asked to deliver the bad news to the voters.
As this fight gets started, he needs to remember that while voters can be wrong, you must never tell them!
In Beyond the Red Wall, Deborah Mattinson describes conversations with voters from across the so-called Red Wall.
Her frustration with these voters, who remain uncompromising on things like Overseas Aid, takes hold only once where they discuss a local Labour-run council resurfacing of pavements in a local town centre.
Mattinson rather vaguely remarks that voters did not give credit to good things the council does because they assumed it was always meant to be doing these good things, and then criticizing Labour for not doing things they were unable to do.
The council, however, were unable to just say to voters ‘You’re wrong.’ This is because politicians quite rightly like being liked. But it does leave them in a bind.
You may recall the man in Hartlepool who said he couldn’t vote Labour because of various reasons that were actually the fault of the Conservative Government.
Sir Keir could potentially fall foul of the same situation. Mattinson (who is returning to Labour as an adviser to LOTO) doesn’t offer an easy solution.
Does history offer an answer?
Let’s take the thorny issue of LGBT rights within the Labour movement. Essentially, it’s not been a great ride and it’s fallen down on the very same issue as the council resurfacing in Mattinson’s book.
To begin with there was a disconnect with voters and the Party.
In 1987 nine out of 10 thought there was something wrong with same-sex sex.
The Left of the Labour Party disagreed: ‘Red’ Ken supported LGBT spaces, trade union block-votes secured support for LGBT rights within the Party, and Peter Tatchell ran in the 1983 Bermondsey by-election (he was roundly defeated after the Right of Labour and the Liberals joined together in a factional-cum-homophobic onslaught).
Yet by the end of the Labour 13 years in power, LGBT rights were at a new high — complete with media and public support.
Yet, just like the council in Mattinson’s book Labour came away with no new votes* because people thought the Government should have made these progressive choices anyway, without reflecting that their own opinion had been changed by Labour’s actions in office.
While this sort of ‘right side of history’ type attitude is often trotted out by the Left it ignores the central truth New Labour proved: You can be at odds with the electorate but just don’t talk about it.
New Labour advanced same-sex rights and freedoms at an unprecedented rate.
The UK went from the national media asking the Prime Minister: ‘Are we being run by a gay mafia?’ at the start of Blair’s term in office to civil partnerships, equalised age of consent, and the scrapping of S28 by the close of Brown’s leadership.
Yet Labour was only able to achieve these things by being elected. And it did that by remaining silent on things that ran contrary to the views of the public.
The 1997 manifesto made one mention of sexuality: ‘Our attitudes to race, sex and sexuality have changed fundamentally. Our task is to combine change and social stability.’
This was hardly a fulsome rejection of homophobia but it didn’t matter because in the end homophobic legislation was only dismantled by winning votes of people who had previously voted for Thatcher.
Sir Keir must heed this warning: the public can be wrong on very fundamental things (equality, the economy, security, etc.) but just don’t tell them they’re wrong.
The East Coast university campus slogan ‘Silence = Violence’ must be shunned if progress is to be made on things that are for the benefit of all but are anathema to the public.
It was therefore surprising to see Blair suggest Sir Keir take on the culture war issues — a latter-day Corbynite? — when he never did himself.
The public didn’t see Blair’s radical plan on sexual liberation on his pledge card because he knew they’d reject it.
So, and this goes back to the need for Labour to have popular policies rather than political parrots, Sir Keir needs something to talk about other than culture wars (which he has studiously and correctly avoided so far).
The answer for that current void of uniquely Starmer-esque policies is to be found in The New Working Class: How to Win Hearts, Minds and Votes and has been repeated by Sir Keir regularly: he wants the UK to be the Best Country To Grow Up In And The Best Country To Grow Old In.
Essentially that means: A new deal for the early 30-somethings who have young children, and a new deal on social care. Crack those and you have your pledge card sorted.
That doesn’t mean accepting that because the electorate is wrong you must be wrong, but rather going back to the People’s Priorities (I’m sorry) — whatever they might be — and dump the fluff. Change comes with being elected.
Sir Keir knows this, but as the inevitable debate takes place within Labour — does the Party?
*Getting accurate polling on LGBT voters is impossible and anyway my point is about straight people who went from voting from inalienable-right-to-be-gay-Thatcher to watching Elton John getting a civil partnership with tears in their eyes.
