Why the left keeps losing the voters it needs

A resounding victory for Reform UK alongside a catastrophic loss for a Labour party almost unrecognisable from its traditional self, implores those on the broad left of politics to look inwards and reflect on why their message is failing to resonate beyond metropolitan strongholds. I want to preface this by saying the vast majority of my own views lie on the left of politics. Yet, this does not mean that I believe that all Reform voters are all evil, but rather that Reform has been good at marketing while the left has not put up a good enough fight. If the left wants to defeat Reform electorally, it must first understand why its message resonates with so many people. While I believe that most of the fault for the recent results lies with the current parliamentary Labour Party, I think the left as a whole must look inwards and do things differently.

Reform UK clearly has a good marketing strategy, which other parties are stubbornly refusing to learn from. I am not calling for pandering to their policy, but at the very least, the left should not be obtuse with its campaigning and make a better effort to understand what matters to the broader electorate. The largest factor affecting British voters is the material quality of their lives; Reform capitalises on this fact, and scapegoats the UK’s immigration and asylum policies as a reason for the decline in conditions. Its explanation for these problems is simplistic, but politically effective nonetheless. Broadly, the Greens have tried to push for some kind of alternative to this but have paid less attention to how their campaign optics may work against them on other issues. Labour’s response has been to pander somewhat, which is equally fruitless.

The Greens are populist – a description embraced by Zack Polanski. Some campaigners and independent candidates attempt to encourage single issue voting, which affects their image nationally even if it works in certain areas. For example, Zach Polanski himself agreed with the sentiment that Palestine is on the ballot. For clarity, he did also state that many things are on the ballot. While I support pro-Palestine sentiments I have some issues with this style of campaigning. The obvious point is that this encourages single issue voting. The statement is also, of course, inaccurate – this is a local election and has no effect on foreign policy. It worked in progressive areas like Hackney, but it did not work to convince voters who already have an image of the left not caring about “local” or “home” issues and are vulnerable to being lured in by Reform. Slogans like this are short, sweet, and easy to report by local and national media. They are also, crucially, easily taken out of context by competing parties. The voters in progressive areas are already sympathetic to the left wing of Labour and, therefore, to most of Green Party policy. They are already likely to be pro-Palestine. There is no need to use sensationalist and single-issue slogans like this there. The more pressing task is to convince other, more conservative parts of the country outside of London that they should come (back) to the left. In other words, to win, the left must take the Reform vote back. They will only be able to do this by thinking about the optics of their campaigning.

Most of the Greens’ campaigning has resigned it to be the party of a disgruntled “woke” middle class, or of young people with a similar social ideology who are university-educated and live in major cities. Broadly speaking, the voting intentions of urban populations tend to be more towards progressive parties than those of rural populations. There is a plethora of reasons for this.

Firstly, there is a classist attitude in leftist circles, or a prevalence of the so-called “politics of disrespect”. In the UK, the current largest political divide in terms of voting intentions is educational attainment. A large contributing factor in access to a university degree is socioeconomic background, but this is overlooked and much of the educated left wing are very patronising towards those who vote for right-wing parties and do not have a university degree. Perhaps I am not the best person to comment on these observations since I hold a degree, live in a city, and am a PhD student, but I can’t help but feel uneasy when I hear the recycled joke that Reform voters “have only got one GCSE and three teeth.” The goal is to change their minds, and painting voters as fascists who are incapable of reasonable conversation before even trying to appeal to them is simply not working.

I think there are more subtle problems with the way in which Polanski, for example, communicates on these issues. The “I don’t want to wipe someone’s bum” line in reference to migrant workers who contribute to the social care system in the UK was demeaning and widely reported by press. I don’t seek to attack Polanski’s entire political outlook for a clumsily worded statement (I don’t like purity testing), but I do think classist and racist sentiments are common in “educated” circles.

I think there are broadly two camps. One of them justifies migration by arguing that people immigrate to do jobs which people feel they are “too good” for and so we should be grateful, which was exactly the sentiment Polanski expressed. This creates a separation between jobs that “we” do versus jobs that “they” (immigrants) do. It is both demeaning towards any person, immigrant or not, who works in a sector like social care, and racist as it paints immigrants out to be the “other”. The other camp makes exclusive reference to immigrants who are “doctors and lawyers”, and so middle-class earners, who contribute “positively” to society. I think both camps incorrectly attribute an arbitrary definition of “contribution” to society as a condition for living in safety and with dignity, which harms everybody in the population and not just immigrants. It also largely contributes to the classist language used to speak of Reform voters.

I think many on the left expect political perfection from everyone. Some people argue that there is no room for social conservatism within left wing political parties or groups. I think this is true to some extent. I just contest the notion that left-wing spaces should purity test, or police language.

I consider myself a feminist before anything else – my largest political interest is women’s liberation, which is both economically and socially motivated. However, I still think there is merit to compartmentalising. It is reasonable to assume that most of the UK electorate would not hold the same views as me on this subject, hence if I were campaigning to convince them to vote against Reform, for strategical reasons, I probably wouldn’t mention feminism and rather try to reason that their lives would be materially improved by voting for left-wing parties instead.

I think the most effective campaigning involves putting the material conditions of the population first. For example, many people have concerns of their resources being “stolen” or “taken” by immigrants. Reform capitalises on these. It is reasonable to be concerned about the declining living standards and increasing wealth gap in this country. The problem is not resources being given to those who have migrated or are seeking asylum, but rather the lack of resources available for anybody. I think focusing on people’s living conditions and financial problems, rather than appearing socially progressive enough for the big cities, is the key to a successful left-wing campaign. Ideally, the Labour party should return to its roots and stop pandering to the right, and the broad left should improve its campaign strategy.