Sir Keir Starmer must look North to rebuild Labour’s hopes - Andrew Vine

These men and women, scattered across a dozen Yorkshire constituencies, are the heart and soul of Labour – passionate, sensible and in tune with the concerns and needs of the people where they live. Those qualities enabled them to see their party hurtling towards disaster at last year’s election, losing seats in once-traditional heartlands and returning its worst performance since the mid-1930s.

So when Labour Together published its damning verdict on what went wrong, there were no surprises for these seasoned members who had seen it coming all too clearly on the doorsteps whilst out campaigning.

The voters who said they couldn’t countenance Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister, those repelled by anti-Semitism in the party, the people frustrated at Labour’s ambivalence on Brexit and everybody who simply didn’t believe the manifesto was affordable all told the same story.

The report set out in painful detail for anyone concerned about Labour’s fortunes what went wrong in December – and there is little comfort to be drawn about what lies ahead.

The party is at risk of losing a further 58 seats it currently holds, and if it is to win the 124 additional seats it needs to form a government in 2024, Labour would have to increase the number of MPs it has by 60 per cent. No party has ever achieved that.

Whilst committed Conservatives might be rubbing their hands in glee at the plight of Labour, voters who favour the centre ground and have at various times swung between the two main parties have cause to be concerned. That’s because our region – and the wider country – needs Labour as a credible party of Government, which it simply wasn’t under Jeremy Corbyn, however adored he was by his fervent supporters.

It isn’t healthy for our politics to be dominated by one party, of either right or left. There needs to be debate and the exchange of ideas, especially in the circumstances we all now face, with the twin uncertainties of the pandemic’s economic consequences and of how life outside the EU will unfold.

Whilst not in office, Labour has to rediscover how to become an effective Opposition, holding the Government to account, scrutinising policy and advancing a coherent set of policies of its own.

Dispirited through they are, the activists I know have taken some heart from the start made by Sir Keir Starmer as leader, his reshaped shadow cabinet and firmness in wresting back control from the hard left. His forensic questioning of the Prime Minister has exposed the chinks in Boris Johnson’s armour – the tendency to obscure a poor command of detail with bluster and a lack of substance behind the slogans. But that’s only a start. Exposing the Prime Minister’s shortcomings in the Commons matters greatly, but by itself it won’t win back seats in Yorkshire such as Don Valley, Rother Valley, Wakefield or Keighley, which only a few years ago were unthinkable as Conservative.

There needs to be a major effort to reconnect with constituencies like these if Labour is to rebuild. Viewed from our region, Sir Keir still looks like the epitome of a London-centric politician, a wealthy senior barrister and knight of the realm who has little in common with the lives and concerns of people in Yorkshire towns and cities.

Labour’s drift into being a party that spoke more for left-leaning residents of the capital than for its traditional supporters in northern industrial seats worried about their jobs in an age of globalisation is going to take some reversing. But that needs to happen. Once the threat of Covid-19 recedes, Sir Keir is going to have to start visiting our region’s constituencies that turned from red to blue and embark on a comprehensive programme of learning about them.

He must talk to his party’s activists and take heed of what they tell him in order to shape Labour policy. They understand what makes the people where they live tick and share their concerns.

The voices of northern voters need to be heard. Mr Johnson convinced them that he was a man who listened and understood. It is the gravest indictment of Labour’s recent record that it failed to listen to traditional industrial communities with whom the party had historic links.

Whether those ties can be restored is far from certain. If the Conservatives deliver the change for the better and investment that our region, and the wider north, has been denied for too long, Labour faces an uphill struggle. But for the health of our politics, the party needs to climb back into serious contention. To do that, the best place for Labour to start rebuilding is right here in the seats where Yorkshire voters abandoned it.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor