Labour needs to start listening to voters before it can win again
Yesterday’s local elections should have been an easy win for Labour. The Conservatives have led government for more than a decade – driving policies that have eroded our social safety net and left many worse off. Tory mismanagement during the pandemic has made matters worse, costing lives and exacerbating inequality. So what went wrong for Labour?
Despite Keir Starmer’s efforts to reform the party and connect to communities who feel left behind, Labour still has a problem when it comes to listening to voters.
This isn’t because Labour doesn’t want to listen. After the party’s defeat in the 2019 General Election, leading figures like Lisa Nandy emphasized the importance of getting out to listen to people instead of “sitting in meeting rooms in Westminster trying to debate this out amongst ourselves with the help of a few thinktanks”.
The real problem Labour needs to tackle is an entrenched political culture in Westminster where the word ‘listening’ is used more often than not to mean ‘consulting’.
Instead of spending time really understanding the problems faced by voters, Labour and other political parties have typically spent the bulk of their time coming up with policy solutions and then seeking feedback – either in focus groups or on the doorstep.
Over time, this solution-orientated communication style in politics has become so deeply ingrained that voters have started to communicate in the same way whenever they talk about issues they see as political. Put simply, voters jump straight to solutions before they finish defining their problems.
This phenomenon has had two disastrous impacts. Firstly, getting out and talking to voters no longer means they’ll feel listened to. People may talk about their desired solutions but they don’t always get into the detail of how problems have shaped their lives, and we miss out on a vital chance to make people feel heard as a result.
Secondly, solutions are inherently partisan. By focusing on solutions rather than problems, Labour has missed opportunities to reach out and build a broad coalition because conversations are shut down too quickly. People retreat into their biases once they start talking about solutions instead of delving deeper into the real problems at hand and connecting to others who have been similarly impacted
If Labour is to have any chance of winning in 2024, Starmer must urgently solve this problem and build a new culture where voters feel heard. Labour must fundamentally change the way it communicates to reach out to communities who have given up on the party, by nudging them to keep talking about problems before retreating into partisan solutions.
Given this challenge, it’s not surprising that in a recent survey of Labour in Communication’s members, David Lammy and Lisa Nandy were rated as the party’s best frontbench communicators. Both Lammy and Nandy have successfully zeroed in on the importance of active listening when they communicate with voters, leading with empathy and giving people space to talk.
Spending more time listening as a party, doesn’t mean we should give up on thought-leadership. As well as really getting to grips with the issues impacting people’s lives, Labour must set out a positive vision for a fairer Britain in the aftermath of the pandemic. We should make the case for a green economic recovery to combat the climate crisis, and set out a plan for supporting SMEs and investing in infrastructure. But we must centre lived experience in our approach – rehumanizing, not dehumanising people’s stories, to give people a real stake in the movement.
Emeka Forbes
WA Communications