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Labor faces continued decline in its traditional territories unless it challenges “an enduring perception of us as ineffective, complacent or indifferent,” warned a stark report from a group of party deputies.
The Labor for the North study concludes that some of the ‘red wall’ seats lost to conservatives in 2019 ‘may be lost forever’ unless it addresses a deeply rooted ‘northern issue’, including ‘the perception of that they are a party centered in London ”.
A year after the worst result of the Labor general election since 1935, the report concluded that many voters in the north of England still did not see Labor as representative of the area, even though the ratings in Conservative polls fell nationally to root of the pandemic.
The report warns: “If left unaddressed, these numbers indicate a steady decline. Constituencies and communities, which we have long taken for granted, have fundamentally changed.
“These places began to fall into the hands of the Conservatives in 2017 before leaving Labor en masse in 2019. Unless we recognize how and why, there is a possibility that they will be lost forever. Without understanding what is not working for us at the local level, we cannot hope to regain power at the national level. “
Separately, in interviews with The Guardian to mark a year since Saturday’s 2019 general election, 11 Labor council leaders and former MPs warned that the party had a great task ahead of it to regain the trust of its former voters who are they went over to the Conservatives for the last time. December.
They unanimously welcomed the appointment of Keir Starmer as leader as a step in the right direction, but said that the problems facing the party were more entrenched than Jeremy Corbyn or Brexit.
Phil Wilson, the former Labor MP from Sedgefield, who elected a Tory for the first time in nearly 90 years in 2019, said he was under the impression that some regretted casting their vote for the Tories, but that Labor was still “a hell of a long time. ” way ”to earn back seats like yours.
“What [Starmer] Basically what we have to do is get a million miles away from Corbyn and his worldview … We still have to regain credibility in the economy. We have to assure people that we believe in Britain, ”he said.
His opinion echoed a hard-hitting report by a group of Labor MPs in the northern seats, led by shadow health minister Justin Madders, Bootle MP Peter Dowd, and Bradford MP Judith Cummins. South.
The 10,000-word document says that Labor’s “long withdrawal” from northern England dates back to Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide and that some of the voters lost since 2017 “will be very difficult to regain.”
It suggests that Labor produce a full-cost “northern manifesto” at every general election, appoint a shadow minister for the north of England, develop an alternative leveling agenda, and “embrace inclusive northern and national identities … that reflect patriotism and pride in a diverse northern identity ”.
A survey conducted for the report laid bare the challenge: “All of our survey responses described great pride in their local areas, and how often we were seen to ignore this.”
The report urges Labor not to “get caught up in debates over divisive cultural issues” because it will alienate more socially moderate voters in northern seats if the party is seen to prioritize “divisive issues of identity and culture” over employment and the economy.
The “real danger” for Labor is the cultural divide that is developing between the seats on the “red wall” that the party lost in the last election and among younger voters in various cities where it is dominant.
He adds: “We have a lot of work to do to restore trust with former voters. We must accomplish this not by going back to a bygone era, but by making sure to listen to their concerns and aspirations and, more often, to tune our policies and perspectives to their priorities.
“The biggest risk for the Labor Party is that, in this recently turbulent politics, we don’t hear our former voters make efforts to reconnect with them and allow another party to build lasting ties.”
Four seats from Durham, Bishop Auckland, Sedgefield, Darlington and North East Durham, went to Tory in December. Simon Henig, Durham County Council Leader, said The pre-2016 political landscape was irrelevant in today’s debate.
“The fact that Tony Blair had a 25,000 majority in Sedgefield is completely irrelevant. It is prehistory. There is a new landscape that has been forged by Brexit and what happened with that referendum and the way the 2019 elections unfolded has reshaped England.
“The key will be what happens after January. What impact does that have? So does that meet what people were voting for or not? And if not, what happens as a result of that? “
