Recent polling showing Reform UK ahead of both the government and the official opposition has sent shockwaves through the political establishment. It’s led Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch to march further to the right, rushing out even more draconian policy ideas aimed at people with leave to remain in the country. More alarmingly, in an echo of former leader Ed Miliband’s ill-judged anti-immigration mugs of 2015, the Labour leadership is now aping Reform’s agenda—and imitating Reform’s branding—with social media adverts boasting about the number of people the government has deported. They have even raided the imaginations of political satirists to come up with the idea of videoing deportations as they happen.
Such an approach is not just deeply depressing, it’s also doomed to failure. A study of European electoral data suggests that when social democratic parties move to the right they simply end up alienating supporters. Voters tend to prefer the original to the copy. The answer isn’t to try to replicate the populist’s framing, it’s to have a more compelling story to tell about who we are and what the future could be. All politics is a battle of stories—at the moment, the Labour Government isn’t even trying to tell one.
In a new chapter to mark the launch of the paperback version of my book, Another England: Time to Reclaim our National Story, I set out how the early months of this new government have been of a piece with its general election campaign—timid, lacking in vision. As ever, a glimpse at our nation’s past reveals the alternative options hiding in plain sight. In 1945, Labour won a similar (indeed, smaller) majority under Clement Attlee; but the way that Attlee and his colleagues approached their task could not have been more different.
Back then, Labour faced an even greater set of challenges than it does today. After suffering years of underinvestment on top of war damage, the famous debt-to-GDP ratio, which keeps the chancellor awake at night, was well over twice what it is today. Yet Labour rejected the economics of austerity in favour of investment and egalitarianism. It oversaw a comprehensive welfare system including a state pension; the nationalisation of key industries; a massive council house-building programme; the introduction of legal aid and prison reform; and the setting up of the Arts Council. And then there was the crowning achievement: the creation of the National Health Service in 1948. All this during some of the darkest economic days we have ever experienced.
In 1945, Labour believed it could—and, in fact, had to—attempt to make bold changes. And it had the courage to face down the concerted opposition of the ruling classes and their cheerleaders in the mass media. Labour under Keir Starmer seemed to believe that boldness and vision would cost them the election; Clement Attlee’s Labour shows that it is exactly that boldness and vision that wins votes and provides a genuine mandate for meaningful change. Labour in 1945 had a vision and they had confidence—in themselves, in their programme, and in the support of the public. Above all, they had a compelling narrative: that deeply difficult decisions, such as the continuation of rationing, were steps towards tangible, meaningful benefits: greater equality, thriving public services and affordable homes.
Labour might as well put out the welcome mat to Reform UK
Today, Labour’s crisis of courage is preventing it from making a public case that genuinely progressive reforms to the tax system—including wealth taxes on the super-rich—are necessary, as is higher borrowing to fund much-needed investment. Instead, we’ve had the spectacle of Starmer’s government cutting winter fuel allowance for pensioners; maintaining the two child-benefit cap that they once called “obscene and inhumane”; failing to bring water back into public hands; cutting back green investment; and trying to outdo Nigel Farage on immigration. They might as well put out the welcome mat to Reform UK.
When it comes to Reform’s other card, English nationalism, Labour’s crisis of courage has, if anything, even more serious risks: above all, dangerously strengthening the hard right by echoing and legitimising some of its core preoccupations. Take the Southport race riots last summer. They had their roots in years of Islamophobia, including from a Tory government and right-wing media that had legitimised and normalised racism and poisoned political debate. The far right and neo-Nazis were deeply involved, their hate-filled content amplified by online bots operated by Russia and others to try to destabilise the country. And many of the rioters saw their actions as a twisted form of patriotism. They chanted “English till I die” and “You’re not English any more” as they threw bricks at a mosque. They draped themselves in English flags as they attacked Muslim passersby.
But, in his response, Keir Starmer failed to state clearly that there is nothing patriotic—or indeed “English”—about terrorising people who have come to your country from abroad to seek refuge. He chose instead to stick almost exclusively to terms of law and order. By not using the moment to stand up for ethnic and religious diversity, he ducked an important opportunity to defend and champion multiculturalism and pluralism.
Labour’s leadership appear to think that the question of England’s political identity is too risky to be properly acknowledged. I believe they are wrong. But, more than that, I am increasingly convinced that it is their reluctance to engage with this question that is at the heart of their wider lack of confidence in their relationship with the electorate. Ultimately, it seems, the Labour leadership do not believe that England would ever elect a genuinely radical government.
But England has done it before—and is ready to do it again. The sooner progressives can find a way to express that radicalism in a way that connects to the experiences and aspirations of the people of England, the sooner that day will come.
Another England by Caroline Lucas is out in paperback on 20th February
