Last week’s resounding victory in the Barnsley Central by-election was a great result for Labour. The fact that the Tories were pushed to third place (behind the UK Independence Party) and that the Liberal Democrats dropped to sixth place and lost their deposit, was the icing on the cake. So far, understandably, the attention has been on what the result means for the Lib Dems, and to a lesser extent for the Conservatives. But there are also important lessons for Labour.
First, we mustn’t get carried away. Barnsley Central is not a typical constituency by which you can test the political weather. Barnsley has been solid Labour territory since the 1920s and one swallow doesn’t make a summer. (Although two, if you count Oldham East and Saddleworth, shows that the weather is certainly getting kinder to Labour.) Barnsley’s overwhelming demographic is “white working class”, which is not typical of every seat. But winning back support among these voters is crucial in many parts of the country if we are to hold office again.
The Searchlight Educational Trust recently produced some excellent research highlighted by David Miliband. It broke down attitudes to race, identity, immigration and nation into six groups. On the left are “confident multiculturals” and “mainstream liberals” (around a quarter of the population). On the far right sit “latent hostiles” and “active enmity” (nearly another quarter). But just over half of the population comprise of “identity ambivalents” and “cultural integrationists”. The latter accept diversity as long as there is an integrated national culture, the rule of law, and respect for authority.
But “the real swing voters”, according to David Miliband, are the 28 per cent of “identity ambivalents”. He describes them as “economically insecure, worried about their local community, feeling threatened but open-minded and accepting of diversity (as long as their security is not threatened)”. It is people from this 50 per cent of the population who make up the majority of people in Barnsley.
Barnsley’s economy was once built on coal. I grew up 10 miles away in a pit village called Edlington. The pits not only provided work, but a strong sense of community and identity. The miners’ gala would be held at the miners’ welfare club (the “welly”), where my dad, a railwayman, played for the colliery cricket team. But an economy built on coal was replaced by one based largely on public sector investment and a private sector comprising mainly retail and distribution jobs – and not enough of them. The cuts are hitting weaker local economies like Barnsley much harder, with youth unemployment being higher in Barnsley than in most parts of the country – and identity is also a casualty.
In focus group terms, Barnsley is full of “Mrs Duffys”. Like Gillian Duffy, they are redoubtable, proud people who speak as they find. They are not bigots or racists. They are patriotic – and rightly so. When England play in the World Cup, we do fly the flag. But they are also worried – about the direction of the country and in particular the lack of prospects for our young people (what Ed Miliband calls “the broken British promise”). When they highlight immigration as a worry, they want to see a system that is tough, fair and effective, but the issue is often a proxy for other grievances such as a lack of jobs or low wages. The fact that Labour increased its share of the vote in the by-election shows that Labour can win back support from white working-class people who, as well as feeling economically insecure, have felt undervalued politically by Labour in recent years. They also felt particularly alienated by the MPs’ expenses scandal.
Barnsley showed that we regain the trust of working-class people when we show that we “get it”. When we show that we will champion what Ed Miliband calls “our cherished institutions”. That does not just mean local libraries and the National Health Service. Our cherished institutions also include the armed forces, the local police, and a belief in the importance of the family.
We reconnect when we show that the values of aspiration and rewarding hard work are Labour values, and that defending living standards for hard-working families will be central to Labour’s economic alternative. Protecting the most vulnerable will go hand-in-hand with helping people to get on and do well in life. Job creation will go hand-in-hand with a tough approach to welfare to work.
Equally, being tough on crime is every bit as important as being tough on the causes of crime. One of the reasons UKIP did well in Barnsley was because they had large billboards that said prisoners should not get the vote. Labour needs to understand that there are few votes in trying to out-libertarian the coalition.
So there was much to cheer about and learn from the Barnsley result. We had a brilliant candidate in Dan Jarvis. His victory demonstrated that we are making progress electorally and it showed that the Labour party is changing – I had not seen so many young people campaigning on the streets for Labour since the mid-1990s. The win was another important step along a journey to regain the trust of the British people. And that includes winning back support in working-class communities, too.
Michael Dugher is Labour MP for Barnsley East
