Shoring up the Red Wall

There are now fewer than two weeks before the election and things are not looking good for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. Despite climbing from the mid-20s to the low-30s in some polls, they are still 11 points back on some counts. The hope was that the campaign of 2017 would repeat itself; if the voters compared Johnson and Corbyn they would prefer the latter and that the Labour manifesto would spark widespread enthusiasm. However, Southside seems to have fallen into the trap of fighting the last war. Labour has risen in the polls but so have the Conservatives and Corbyn’s personal ratings still languish beneath the Prime Minister’s. The campaign isn’t working. 

Labour has been plagued by intransigent concerns about anti-Semitism, anxiety over the cost of their manifesto, and its confusion about its Brexit policy. All of this came to a head with Corbyn’s genuinely disastrous interview with Andrew Neil and YouGov’s MRP which predicted a healthy Conservative majority. The Tories are set to break through the ‘Red Wall’ of traditional Labour seats. If this happens it will be impossible not to describe the Corbyn era as an utter disaster, as Labour not only failed to win power but lost seats to the most shambolic British government of this century. However, there is still time to turn things around.  

The greatest asset for Labour right now is that, unlike the Tories, they have room to grow, but it will not be an easy task. The most difficult obstacle is the matter of anti-Semitism. Corbyn has apologised for it and sped up disciplinary measures in the party. So why is it still an issue? Part of the problem is that when questioned on the subject he appears extremely chippy and not contrite. This was the major problem in the Neil interview. If we are generous it could be read as frustration that his work on the issue is not being recognised, but it is extraordinarily easy to read his reaction as dismissive. The leadership needs to foreground the contribution that Jewish people have made to the labour movement in the UK, from Harold Laski to Sydney Silverman to Ed Miliband. They need to show that the Labour Party would not exist without the Jewish community; they are indivisible. Corbyn needs to meet publicly with leaders like Chief Rabbi Mirvis, respond to their concerns with empathy, and speak to the problem of anti-Semitism specifically. One of the most frustrating things about Corbyn’s reaction to anti-Semitism is his tendency cover it with generalities about anti-racism. It is hard to doubt that Corbyn was a vocal campaigner against apartheid, but this does not address the issue at hand. It reads as evasive. A strong, direct, and exclusive engagement with the concerns of the Jewish community may not be enough to repair the damage done but it will at least show leadership. This will have salience not just in the Jewish community, but for all people who are weighing Corbyn’s credentials to be Prime Minister, though I must confess my doubts that he will be able to regain the trust of the Jewish community.

The main battleground of this election is Brexit and Labour has been barely noticeable, save for the declaration of neutrality, but the MRP seems to be prompting a rethink. There has already been a pivot towards shoring up the Labour leave seats. This is essential. The seats Labour is set to lose to the Tories are pro-Brexit or at least want the Referendum respected. The question is how they can win these voters back without alienating the Remainers, who constitute the overwhelming majority of their base. This is the tightrope Labour has comprehensively failed to walk since the Referendum. They need a message that can appeal to both groups and being neutral is not it; nor is relying on the non sequitur that working class people in all parts of the country have been harmed by austerity. That is true, but it is not a message on Brexit, let alone an effective message. You have to say something and, once again, it has to be specific. 

Labour’s message to leave supporting voters needs to be as direct as possible: you wouldn’t trust Boris Johnson to deliver a pizza without eating half of it, why would you trust him to deliver a Brexit that will protect your job? Labour needs to attack Johnson’s Brexit deal and his character flaws. Stress the risks that his deal poses the British automotive industry, for example, that is vital in some of these seats. Detail matters and they need people like Ian Lavery making this case; a Labour leaver must lead the charge against Johnson’s deal. In this campaign Labour has been desperate to avoid Brexit, because the leadership has made a consistent hash of it, but it is the defining issue of the election. Johnson has been criticised for avoiding the debate on climate change because it is so important, what does it say about Labour if it is not willing to fight the Tories on Brexit?

This does not mean that Labour needs to stop talking about austerity, but rather they need to realise that this election is a total war and all fronts need to be engaged. Austerity can be tied to matters of trust as well. Can you trust a Conservative Party that has gutted public services to restore them to pre-recession levels? Certainly, Labour has not made their lives easier by running what is essentially a second term manifesto. The radical nature of Labour’s plans would be more palatable if they had already proven that they could be trusted with the public purse. They haven’t, but this is what they have to work with. Labour’s anti-austerity message, coupled with a clear line against Boris Johnson’s deal, could be sufficient to cut through to voters. The risk here is that by chasing the Leave voters, Labour will alienate Remainers and send them running to the LibDems or Greens. This is a risk, but so long as they stick to their commitment to a Second Referendum, they ought to be able to staunch the flow. 

The Labour Party tried to make an election about Brexit an election about austerity. It isn’t working and if they don’t change tack then they are set to be decimated. They need to show Leavers and Remainers that Boris Johnson’s ‘oven ready’ deal is half-frozen slop that you wouldn’t give to your dog.