Thirteen years of the last Labour Government, the still prevalent attitude that “We don’t trust the Tories” and massive media hype launched the Greens on the way to their narrow victory in Brighton Pavilion at the general election just over a year ago. And the honeymoon is still continuing. After the 2011 local elections, the Greens were able to form a minority administration on Brighton and Hove Council.
The Iraq war was the tipping point in Brighton Pavilion, with the Green vote rising from 3,806 at the 2001 general election to 9,530 in 2005. Some Labour voters, members and activists were lost for good. Some people said that those voters would have gone anyway and the Iraq war was “just an excuse” but that kind of thinking is naive and exactly why we continued to lose votes. Listen, acknowledge and then do something about it should have been Labour’s response. Unfortunately, the message sent out was parental and patronising in tone – more “We know better” than admitting we had got something wrong.
So with foreign policy turning off traditional Labour voters and a weak Liberal Democrat presence in Brighton, the Green strategy was simple: target the traditional Labour vote with traditional Labour policies. “Roll up, roll up to keep post offices public.” “Step this way, if you would rather spend taxpayers’ money on education and social care instead of Trident and identity cards.”
These were basic hearts-and minds-arguments, and it was clear there were enough like-minded voters to secure victory. But there was still one significant hurdle to be overcome. Voters in Brighton Pavilion were still not convinced the Greens could win a general election.
Enter, stage left, Caroline Lucas: high profile, articulate and, by the end of the election campaign, a celebrity candidate. She played a trump card in arguing for the Greens to have a single and identifiable leader and then combining that role with her status as an MEP. She became a natural choice for media interviews and current affairs programmes such as the BBC’s Question Time. She became a national political figure.
The timing was propitious for the Greens. The nation was fed up with the old two-party politics. The MPs’ expenses scandal was sickening, especially for people on low incomes. The Greens had only one real target in the general election campaign and in their one target seat, Brighton Pavilion, they didn’t miss a trick.
My public meeting on climate change with Ed Miliband was disrupted by Sussex students, resulting in the police being called. The student union paper, The Badger, reported, “Earlier that day, the Green candidate for the same seat, Caroline Lucas, spoke to Sussex students and condemned the Government’s education policies. She encouraged students to protest at the expansion of Heathrow Airport and argued that direct action was justified if the Government policies continued to ignore the environmental consequences.”
Brighton is a university city with a history of political activism, especially at Sussex University. Student numbers can swing an election in Brighton and university tuition fees were a gift to the Greens. How hard can it be to decide where to place your cross on election day when there are three political positions presented: higher tuition fees from the Tories, a free university education from the Greens and a “review” from Labour? Did we forget how to do politics? Why would any student vote for a review? The Greens targeted the student vote consistently and increased turnout from the universities.
As someone who didn’t get the chance to go to university, I believe in the value of education for its own sake. It should not be a commodity for those who can afford it.
I disagreed with the policy of the national party, but the local party was behind me and the traditional Labour supporters were sticking with me – and that was what mattered.
It clearly bothered the Greens that they could trash New Labour, but they were having trouble undermining me. Their final tactic, a few days before the election, was for Caroline Lucas to publish an article, saying how much she respected me personally, but stressing that a vote for me wouldn’t get a traditional Labour voice in Parliament.
Many people liked the idea of an independent Green MP who wouldn’t say one thing to get their votes and then be pulled into line once they got into Parliament. This is something Labour needs to think about very seriously – and that is not to deny the realities of taking difficult decisions when in government.
Much of the media and the public loved the idea that the Green Party could make a breakthrough. Unlike the British National Party, here was a political organisation with a clean image, proudly idealistic and saying what a lot of what people wanted to hear. “The first Green MP” made for a great headline and the media bought into the story, talking up the Greens’ chances. This was their final hurdle and the media helped them to leap over it.
So can Labour regain Brighton Pavilion? For Green activists, this was a first-time goal and 2011 was not just another election. They galvanised a national campaign and aimed it principally at Brighton Pavilion and getting their first MP elected. Six-figure donations enabled them to recruit full-time communications and campaign managers. I estimated the cost of their poster campaign alone during the Labour Party conference in Brighton in 2009 at around £30,000.
To break through in the House of Commons generated excitement and interest among Green Party members and supporters, the wider public and the media. There can never be another “first time” at Westminster for the Greens and this is likely to be a weakness at their next general election campaign.
I am proud of the campaign Labour ran, proud of our achievement in defying the bookies to finish second, with just 500 fewer votes than the party got in 2005, and proud to have had the backing of the trade union movement.
I sought genuinely to engage with the community in Brighton Pavilion, running local campaigns about housing, saving the local fire station, post offices and getting better facilities for young people. Labour’s campaigns were about things that mattered to local people, not just asking for their vote. We always reminded voters about Labour’s achievements, but although these were acknowledged, people wanted a clearer and bolder vision of where we were going.
We worked hard to generate more Labour activism and people’s generosity was truly humbling. But we had the resources of one constituency party in a marginal seat and the national party did not take the Green threat seriously.
Looking to the future, there are a lot of lessons to be learned. Perhaps the most important one is that the national leadership must recognise that local Labour members are best placed to understand what works in the areas and what doesn’t.
The local Labour voice needs to be reflected in our policies and we need a mechanism that allows feedback to be used constructively, not condemned as disloyalty. Elections cannot be about nothing more than statistics, hanging on grimly to clearly unpopular political positions and arguing that a vote for anyone other than Labour will let in the Tories. That’s not good enough and anyway, in places such as Brighton, it simply won’t work.
Nancy Platts was Labour’s candidate for Brighton Pavilion at the 2010 general election
