“The fundamental solution is to restore democracy to the Labour Party, ensuring we’re listening to affiliated unions and the wider trade union movement.” – John McDonnell MP
By Ben Hayes
After the May Elections: What Next?, an online event co-hosted by the Trade Union Coordinating Group and Arise: a Festival of Left Ideas, brought together hundreds of attendees covering locations such as Edinburgh, Glasgow, South Queensferry, Durham, Bury, Burnley, Salford, Leeds, Stoke-on-Trent, Leicester, Luton, Oxford, Tottenham, Islington, Hackney, Ealing, Kent and Bridgwater, and members of unions including the UCU, UNISON, Unite, PCS and CWU.
Chairing, General Secretary of Equity, Paul Fleming, opened by echoing the calls of numerous MPs for a change of direction as well as leadership in the wake of results from local and devolved elections. Emphasising the importance of distinguishing between “the politics of personality” and the “‘comms aren’t good enough’ line” as opposed to “those who are connected to the material reality that the Labour government isn’t moving far enough or fast enough on the economic and structural changes that our country needs”, he pointed to the TUCG’s new pamphlet Restructuring the Economy: Towards a New Alternative Strategy as an example of the agenda needed to defeat the reactionary right.
Leeds East MP Richard Burgon agreed that whilst “the defeats of so many good Labour people has Starmer’s name written all over it“, a change of leadership was necessary but not sufficient: “someone in the Cabinet who’s sat silently through the Winter Fuel cuts, while disabled people were targeted, while appalling language was used about migrants, while the government gave Israel a free pass and civil liberties were attacked isn’t going to cut it”. Highlighting the urgent need for a set of policies which could stop the drift towards a government led by Reform, he pointed to a pattern where, in many places, Labour “lost votes to the left and seats to the right”, and called for 10-point alternative vision that members could campaign on around the country: including measures such as equalising Capital Gains with income tax, introducing a windfall tax, a mass programme of council housing, public ownership of energy and water with a freeze on bills, an end to private firms “leeching money out of our National Health Service” and universal free school meals. Proposals such as this, Burgon argued, would “materially improve people’s lives and show that Labour is back on their side”. He accompanied this with a call for reforms to clean up Britain’s political culture and reverse internal rule changes introduced in recent years, pointing to the case of Andy Burnham being blocked from selection in the Gorton and Denton byelection as having sent “message up and down the country that Labour will not tolerate different voices or different perspectives (…) when you centralise power, you do not strengthen the party, you disconnect it from the communities it exists to represent.”
General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union Fran Heathcote pointed out that whilst the PCS does not have a party affiliation, election results in Scotland and Wales “decided who our members’ employers would be”, and, whilst expressing relief that Reform were limited to opposition in both of these cases, noted that in England that was “no escaping the reality” that they were the main winners. Warning that the party’s agenda was to “slash public services, cut social security, attack workers’ pay, pensions and rights, and shackle trade unions- all to give tax breaks to their corporate and super rich funders”, she argued that the current government’s failure to deliver fundamental was putting the better things it had done at risk- raising Capita being awarded the contract for the payroll of over 250,000 civil servants as an example of it “too often feeling like more of the same”. Heathcote stated that many voters were clearly looking for something different to what was on offer from the government and the right-wing opposition parties, pointing to the election of the SNP and Plaid Cymru to office in devolved Parliaments and the strong Green vote in various parts of England. Calling for co-operation between these forces and those fighting for progressive policies within the Labour Party to oppose the Reform agenda and put pressure on the government to offer a meaningful alternative.
Seema Chandwani, a Councillor representing West Green ward in Haringey, reflected on the area’s longstanding status as a ‘Labour heartland’: home to the Broadwater Estate, formerly represented by the late Bernie Grant in Parliament, and with a Labour administration being returned at every election since 1971, including under sometimes incredibly challenging local circumstances- until coming under No Overall last week. The scale of disillusionment, she revealed, was so strong in some wards that Greens who were put forward as paper candidates and did not campaign still ended up finding themselves elected. Chandwani discussed her experiences of campaigning, with local residents raising “personal concerns about Lammy and Starmer, the Winter Fuel Allowance, disability cuts, Gaza, and our stance on immigration”, and bemoaned the fact that even the more progressive policies passed in this Parliament, such as the Renters’ Rights Act, did not feature in any of the literature sent out by the party: “we gifted seats away”. She concluded with a warning that if national messaging continued to suggest that little could be done and “we don’t give people the option to vote for something that they believe in and that would improve their lives (…) we are finished as a movement”.
Prison Officers’ Association General Secretary and current TUC President Steve Gillan linked Labour’s results in the Scottish and Welsh Parliament elections with those in English local authorities- arguing that, in all these cases, “the warning signs were there”. Whilst acknowledging there had been some progress on areas such as employment rights, he believed the legislation ultimately passed has not been strong enough, and that the trade union movement “has got to be a lot louder than we’ve been over the past 10-15 years, otherwise we’re just going to get more of the same”. With his local county council in Essex seeing a large Reform majority elected, Gillan mentioned that his union was also seeing some members expressing support for the party, and called for the trade union to both counter its narrative and fight for change in the here and now, highlighting the case of privatisation in the prison service as an area crying out for reversal. He concluded with a call for the government to move on from talking of hope to delivering it, and for the labour movement to “push, push, and push so that there is an Employment Right Bill 2 that encompasses everything that we want on the agenda for working people, so’s that there’s no division in communities, so that people have decent jobs, people have decent housing, people will get to see the doctor, and there’s a fair immigration system that doesn’t put the blame on migrants coming into this country.”
MP for Hayes and Harlington John McDonnell contrasted the level of “incredibly creative” analysis, ideas and ambition coming from the leadership with the wider labour movement, pointing to the TUCG’s pamphlet and Chandwani’s work on an anti-poverty strategy in Haringey: “it’s almost like living in parallel worlds”. Examining the roots of the party’s “appalling” election results, he outlined how the Labour Together thinktank was “captured by a small faction under Morgan McSweeney” and backed by corporate interests, positioned itself in the core team around Keir Starmer- ensuring that the rhetoric of his leadership campaign was sidelined in favour of a narrower approach. This sidelining of large sections of the party, he argued, meant that government policies “have not been capable responding to the crisis that working people were enduring” and alienated millions who voted in the hope of change at the last general election: “I don’t think anyone would have thought that we would seek to continue to impose a two-child limit, or cut welfare benefits, or cut the Winter Fuel Allowance, or appoint Peter Mandelson himself to a high position. I don’t think anyone would have thought that’s what a Labour government does. Mistake after mistake was made”. McDonnell shared the assessment that “on the doorstep there’s absolute animosity towards Keir Starmer, all confidence and trust in him has gone”, and called for a fundamentally different approach to both policy and party management: “the fundamental solution, is to restore democracy to the Labour Party, ensuring we’re listening to affiliated unions and the wider trade union movement, drawing on their frontline expertise in the development of our policies. And also make sure local parties have the right to select their candidates, with CLPs discussing what issues they like.” He also echoed calls for reversing the increase of MP nominations required to advance to the next stage of a leadership contest, and urged a “really thorough debate regarding analysis of the economic situation that our people face, and the policy programme that we need to bring forward. In that way, I think we’ll be much stronger and can go into this next election having started implementing those policies”.
Concluding, Fleming thanked all participants and attendees, and urged support for initiatives taken by Arise and the Trade Union Coordinating Group in the period ahead.
- You can watch After the May Elections: What Next? in full here.
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