As predictable headlines follow Ed Miliband committing to speak at the TUC rally on March 26th, Rob Marchant takes a more detached look at how the relationships between Party, movement and workplace demographics interact.
As predictable headlines follow Ed Miliband committing to speak at the TUC rally on March 26th, Rob Marchant takes a more detached look at how the relationships between Party, movement and workplace demographics interact
Let’s not be daft – no-one sensible is saying that Labour is “in the pocket of the unions”; however, it is not a particularly wild claim that Labour’s two historic constituencies among the employed have been public sector workers – largely unionised – and the unionised private sector. New Labour’s genius for electoral success was, of course, its ability to fashion a broader church than Labour had ever before managed. “Post-New” Labour, however, is a different animal.
While Labour has been busy getting back those it lost to the left during those years, such as leftist Liberals, it seems not to have spent so much effort in re-establishing contact with those it lost to the right. One school of thought, of course, says that these people are negligible in number. But that seems unconvincing: the centre ground in politics is perennially important.
In any event, my contention is that much of Labour’s lost vote was taken from that other large demographic, private-sector workers from non-unionised workplaces – who nevertheless believed in public services; and that, although they are people who Labour really needs to keep, the party is disengaging from them in important ways.
Firstly, in Labour’s public utterances of late it has been quick to emphasise the limitations of the free market. Reasonable, but some will hear this as “we don’t like business any more”. When a party spends most of its 100-year history at loggerheads with business, it’s easy to see New Labour’s warmth towards it as a mere 10-year aberration. Unfair too, as Ed Miliband is hardly anti-business but, in Opposition, it’s often the noises that count, rather than the policies.
A small retrenchment can be perceived as a large one.
Next and surely counter-intuitively, during the period of New Labour government, unions ended up with more clout in the party than at the beginning. For example, union funding went from a low of 33% in 2002 to 82% in Q3 2010. Now, although some Tory conspiracy theorists might be surprised to learn that unions do not go around buying policy positions, it would also be hopelessly naïve to suggest that unions, with a generation of leaders seemingly more punchy than their predecessors, might not have more influence on the tone of Labour politics – and we must bear in mind that people outside the unionised sector may not relate to that tone.
Finally, Labour appears slightly obsessive on the issue of high pay, when the aspiration to “do well” is one of the things which attract people to the private sector. Whilst legitimate concerns exist about excessive pay distorting good management practice, the focus on high pay comes across as a populist response to public anger about the City – a very specific case – with a wink to Labour’s traditional supporters. But the message to private sector workers, most of whom don’t work in the City, is that their reasonable aspirations to wealth are disdained by Labour.
That said, does this all matter? Are non-unionised, private sector workers really the key to electoral success? Well, think about the following: the public sector has kept steady at just under 30% of total employment for most of the last three decades – but the proportion of unionised workers has dropped by roughly half since its peak in the late 70s. It is acknowledged by the TUC that the bulk of these losses have taken place in the private sector, deindustrialisation being one obvious cause.
So, a big part of the unionised private sector has gone: also the increasing “grey vote” as a proportion of the electorate lessens the impact of all working people at the ballot box. So, in the old days, Labour could practically win an election simply with the support of its two traditional demographics; in 2015, simply, it cannot. This is not to undervalue them as the core of the party’s support, but they’re simply not enough.
In short, little by little Labour seems to be disengaging from those private sector workers that it won over, although perhaps unwittingly. This disengagement matters, because Labour’s old constituency is no longer enough and it has picked off those who will support the party to the left already.
A couple of good opinion polls do not a summer make; Labour cannot just leave those to the right for David Cameron.
Rob Marchant is a management and communications consultant, blogger and eco-entrepreneur; he previously worked as a Labour party senior manager through the 2001 and 2005 general elections. Rob blogs at The Centre Left and his twitter handle is @Rob_Marchant.
54 Responses to “Labour must speak not only for organised labour”
Rob Marchant
@James (Doran), well that serves me right for making assumptions doesn’t it? Thought his comments were a tad rude (even for you ;))
Ok firstly I agree entirely with your comment about private sector workers and City bonuses. Because that is not my concern, and in fact I am against City bonuses for loss-making companies myself (isn’t everyone). This is a really specific case. The problem, as ever, is when we generalise this case out to pay in general, i.e. salary rather than bonus. For a start, who is to define what is high pay and what is not? It gives an opening to all those who would happily pull down anyone with aspirations to a better life (financially-speaking, that is), and puts off those who have those aspirations. And yes, we do put people off there, especially Ed’s fabled “squeezed middle”.
Re your stats from dear old Lord Ashcroft, I am skeptical on two points. One is that he is a Tory (sorry to be so ttibal, but there you are).
The second, more importantly, is that the maths of comparing two percentages like that – for the record, I have a maths degree from a decent school – is exceedingly dodgy. You don’t know what the range is in each case, for example, or the error margin, not to mention the sample size. For example, suppose the question were “Is Ed Miliband Labour leader?” you would get 100% in Swing and 100% in Lab people. Oh, you could say, look how the Labour voters agree with the swing voters. You see the problem? It depends entirely on the question you ask and is therefore not meaningful. By asking the right questions you can manipulate the results entirely.
Anyway, with the best of intentions I think you are looking to show that the party as a whole is well-aligned with swing voters. However, sadly, I think you are way out on this – Peter Watt is much closer in his Uncut article about decontaminating the brand. We have moved back into our comfort zone, rather than stepping out towards the swing voters (I know you don’t like the idea of “centre”).
Dave Citizen
Oh dear Rob – your most recent comments bring me somewhat depressingly back to my original point (8.): is the aim to get labour back into power or is it to change the country. For me it is definitely the latter and doing that means convincing people and leading them towards real change, not adopting policies that appeal to swing voters so we can have another Labour government that presides over rising inequality because the media and the focus groups tell them it will “contaminate the brand”.
Rob Marchant
@Dave, ah yes – so much easier if we could just eschew getting into power completely, eh? Then we can talk about changing the country without actually having the inconvenience of doing something about it. To repeat: no-one in any major party has tried curbing the wages of the better-off since the 1970s – is that really a good basis for policy in the 21st century?
Dave Citizen
Rob – we seem to be misunderstanding each other. Any society in which people pay more tax if they make more money has a system that curbs the ‘wages’ of the better-off. The question is one of what balance to strike. In recent years Britain has struck a balance that has produced steadily rising inequality. I take it from your comments that you think the current balance is about right and/or that the status quo on taxes is the only realistic political position. My arguement is that settling for this balance is damanging Britain and progressively making it a worse place for most people (a view supported by some pretty impressive research). I raise examples of other economically successful countries to show that a different balance can realistically be struck. I believe a political base can be constructed around such a principled stance. It seems we are unlikely to agree on the best route to achieve change but perhaps we should also focus on the destination. I think more could usefully be done around agreeing how a labour or left of centre Britain would look given, say, 10 years of Labour power?
james doran
I’m not sure the focus on high pay is actually about lowering it but about linking it to performance and wage growth throughout the workforce. But then, you are correct in saying that this is an area that can be off-putting for some.
We know from the governor of the Bank of England that there’s a wage squeeze going on, and at a time of above-target inflation, this is a worry for many people. So perhaps inflation and wage stagnation are issues which need greater attention.
What strikes me in reading Peter’s article and those written by yourself in recent months, is that although there is a warning of this comfort zone, there’s little in the way of suggested policies which would see us better.