Labour urged to connect education policy to ‘party of work’ brand

Labour’s ability to reconnect with voters in towns without universities or large numbers of graduates will partly hinge on developing an industrial strategy and education policy that helps brand it “the party of work, of good jobs”, according to a shadow minister.

Stephen Kinnock, who launched the Labour centre grouping Renaissance earlier this year, was speaking at a fringe meeting at the party’s conference in Brighton on 28 September.

Labour needs to win 124 more seats to form a majority in the House of Commons, with 60 per cent of the most winnable seats on that list in the North, the Midlands and Wales, and 104 of them “in small towns, not in cities or in university towns”, Mr Kinnock told the meeting, titled “Beyond the bubble: insights into what Britons really think”, and hosted by pollsters Ipsos MORI.

Renaissance held focus groups “with about 60 former voters, people who stopped voting Labour sometime between 2010 and 2019”, said Mr Kinnock. Most of them were “up for voting Labour again if it made some very significant changes”; “half voted Leave, the majority were not graduates of university”, added the shadow minister for Asia and the Pacific.

Shared characteristics of these former Labour voters were that they were “deeply patriotic, proud to be British”, “believed in personal responsibility…believed in contribution”, plus that they “identify strongly with the concept of work, being working people” and what that means for “community and identity”, he continued.

The focus groups presented a “very challenging picture” for Labour, but several potential “stories” or “narratives” about the future direction of the country cut through with these voters, Mr Kinnock said.

He argued that Labour should focus its appeal to voters on being “the party of work, of good jobs” – even including such phrasing on its branding.

Highlighting the importance of manufacturing, Mr Kinnock said that “so many people who spoke to us” in the focus groups “were devastated by the fact that so many good jobs are leaving this country and going to Asia. Why are our supply chains so exposed? Why were we having to import personal protective equipment from all over the world [during the early stages of the pandemic]?”

He added that it would be crucial for Labour to build “that sense of an industrial strategy…that’s going to bring those good jobs back to those communities”.

His fellow Labour shadow minister Alison McGovern, another member of the panel at the meeting, appeared more sceptical, highlighting the extent of automation in modern manufacturing.

The conference saw Labour unveil a policy to tax private schools by an extra £1.7 billion to deliver extra funding for state schools. But beyond that, shadow education secretary Kate Green had little further to add in her speech to the conference – and offered nothing on higher education.

From the audience at the fringe meeting, Anne-Marie Canning, chief executive of the Brilliant Club, asked why Labour was not focusing more on education given the need for post-pandemic recovery.

Mr Kinnock said Labour’s education policy has “got to be about focusing on reskilling, about the green agenda. [Shadow business secretary] Ed Miliband’s announcement of £3 billion for green steel was a perfect example about creating jobs out of our proud manufacturing sector, but focused on the future…We can’t do that unless we have a strong education sector, strong skills for the future…to deal with the impact of artificial intelligence.

“I think we’ve got to connect the education argument back to the work argument and back to the skills argument.”

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com