At least the UKIP leader avoids the dizzying spin which the voters are seeing through so clearly.
At least the UKIP leader avoids the sort of dizzying spin the voters are seeing through so clearly
With the dust finally settling on what has been a turbulent few days of electoral politics, we can at last look back and reflect properly on what has undoubtedly been UKIP’s time to shine.
The ‘main’ parties have serious lessons to learn, Labour included. Yes, we secured an additional 300 plus local authority seats along with an additional seven MEPs, which is undoubtedly good news. But for all of this it has been a bad few days for the party.
At 31 per cent, Labour’s total share of the vote in the local elections fell from the 38 per cent seen in last year’s vote, which included the kind of shire counties which have never been Labour’s natural territory. Meanwhile the Conservative Party trailed by just 2 per cent; in the European elections just 1 per cent separated Labour and the Conservatives.
Whichever way you look at it, the gap between Labour and Cameron’s Tories is just too close, and fails to provide any sense of Labour marching on to the clear victory which Ed Miliband so wants to radically change the country.
So what does the party do now?
Firstly, accept that UKIP is a force not only to be recognised and take them on accordingly.
The Labour MP for Bassetlaw John Mann was right over the weekend in criticising the party’s abject failure to properly tackle head on UKIP and expose it’s lack of policy on bread and butter issues like education and the NHS. The past few days should act as a wakeup call to Labour HQ that UKIP are breathing down the party’s neck, and it would be refreshing if front benchers publically admitted as much rather than defended an election campaign which failed to inspire.
Secondly, we need to start to look like an insurgent, change-making party, rather than carrying on in the mould of the other parties of sound bites and spin which impress no one.
Phrases like ‘working hard for hard working families’, ‘cost of living crisis’ and ‘one nation Labour’ have become so worn out that one wonders if some in Labour feel that the more they say them the more true they will be. These catchphrases should not be a substitute for a properly constructed and clear vision for the country. The voters were telling all the main parties that they want change, not more of the same.
Finally, we need to look and sound more look normal people as opposed to zombies connected to pagers for the words and phrases to persistently repeat in the television and radio studios.
The uncomfortable truth for Labour is that we have much to learn from Nigel Farage – we disagree with all he stands for, but he nevertheless avoids the dizzying spin which the voters are seeing through so clearly.
Miliband needs a repost to this. A good start would be to appoint Alan Johnson as party chair, to bat for the party when the chips are down and to get out into the country and explain what a Labour government on people’s side would actually mean.
Labour can win next year but the work and change that will be needed is immense. It’s time to get to it.
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10 Responses to “The uncomfortable truth is that Labour can learn something from Nigel Farage”
Sparky
Ed Miliband: it’s not prejudiced to be concerned about immigration
Funny he should now say that, because it directly contradicts almost every pro-immigration post on this site since it started. For years, we’ve been told by the Left that it was simply racism. And now, suddenly, it isn’t. Why is that?
Matthew Blott
So the way to power is to start accusing members of the Tory front bench of homicide? Aside from being utterly barmy as a strategy on its own you should of course realise anyone saying this would end up in court for libel.
SemiPartisanSam
You are quite right about Ed Miliband’s phrases becoming worn – his long winded definition of “One Nation” yesterday (after being asked to give a one word answer) epitomises the long way he has to go in order to build a rapport with the electorate and help them to understand his ideology, goals and motivations:
http://semipartisansam.com/2014/05/28/one-nation-the-intellectual-bankruptcy-of-the-labour-party/
I fear, however, that you are wrong about the need to attack UKIP in a more head-on way. Even if Labour did not lead the charge during the recent election campaign, UKIP were subject to intense attacks and scrutiny from the establishment in general, as well as the media, and came through relatively unscathed:
http://semipartisansam.com/2014/05/24/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-nigel-farage/
Sadly (but understandably), people do not want to grapple with the fact that many UKIP voters made a positive choice when casting their ballots, and did not simply fritter them away as a protest vote. An all-out attack on UKIP now will only make it seem as though Labour is attacking and belittling those voters – hardly a formula to win them over in 2015.
SemiPartisanSam
Well said. The one surefire way to not get back into power is to succumb to the temptation to base a campaign on anti-Tory histrionics such as this. What’s needed is a positive alternative, something that might actually distinguish the two parties from each other in the eyes of an electorate only too happy to say “a plague on both your houses”.
Trofim
“The employers don’t offer living wages”.
So those people weeding in the field over the road are dead then? Amazing what corpses can do nowadays.
The reality is young Brits are not strong, robust or fit enough, not to mention being reluctant to do the kind of work for which God invented eastern europeans. God created Brits to do higher things.