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Francis Bell
A communications and public affairs professional focused on delivering policy recommendations, briefings and key findings to a political and industry-level audience. Formerly a Parliamentary Researcher for two Labour Members of Parliament with experience on the Defence Select Committee and International Development Committee.
Labour and the Reform Conference: Unless the Government Change the Narrative on the High Street, They’ll Need to Start Thinking the Unthinkable.
As I moved through the cavernous halls of Birmingham’s monstrous and brilliant testament to showing off, the NEC, last week, each element of the Reform conference had something to teach me.
The flow of the place was in itself a telling example, intentional or not, of Reform’s ability to form a narrative.
The fervour of the security queue, with slightly trepidatious single lobbyists in suits mixing with excitable members clad in union jacks and Reform Party football shirts. The central hall, with its unashamed adverts for gold bullion and hot dog stands, confused in its layout and unsure of its relevance to the big show at hand. This was the home of the breakaway stages, all collected in one hangar of the NEC and shouting over each other as speakers battled for supremacy and attendees could be seen confused at what these policy roundtables were in aid of with the final destination of the main hall was so tantalisingly close.
If the breakaway room was the befuddling shrimp cocktail served as a starter, the hall was the centre piece, the traditional roast beef, the grand stage, where Reform’s great and good act out their X-Factor-style performance art and capture the imagination and the identity that so many people in the UK are craving right now.
Therein lies the problem for the current government, they can do thoughtful policy and expert-led chin-scratching that the ‘breakaway room’ at the Reform conference was so devoid of, but they are incapable of garnering a feeling of belonging, hopefulness or national identity that so energised the converts in Birmingham and across the nation.
As Polly Curtis, CEO of Demos, put eloquently in her summary - “[Reform] are tapping into the feelings of the country, not their reasoning.”
Ahead of the Labour conference this weekend, I recognise that the brutal realities of governing may mean that you cannot simply spin your way out of a doom-cycle, but what this government can do is ensure that what they’re (reasonably) good at - consulting with sectoral experts to create systemic change - is felt in the most tangible possible way across the country, and build the story around that.
One of the panels that I attended in the breakaway cavern was on the desolate nature of the UK high street. A policy area that surely captures the feelings of an electorate sensing their local identity is being chipped away by a global move away from town centres to front rooms.
As the party is very thin on the ground in terms of MPs and senior Council members, it’s perhaps understandable that not a lot of depth of thought was given to very reasonable questions surrounding the use of Local Government Pension Schemes and the like in order to boost investment in UK businesses that would have a positive knock-on effect on the high street. Instead these were batted off in favour of apportioning the blame for the decline of the UK shop-front to ‘Turkish Barbers’ and vape shops. One question was dodged in favour of talking about a so-called ‘banter ban’ that has taken place in pubs.
But Reform are all about breaking the established rules. They are just at the beginning of their arc and many of their converts don’t need robust policy positions, they are captivated by the hope of meaningful change. Change, not in abstract marginal changes to GDP, but change that occurs in front of their eyes.
Be that Sarah Pochin’s promise to ‘ban Turkish barbers’ from the high street if she gets the chance, or, from a Labour Government’s perspective, more hopefully, a material change to the places in which they live.
That is why I came away from the conference with a clear lesson. If the government do not change the high street, they will not change the narrative, and they will not win the next election.
From a systems-perspective, there have been positive noises from both the Chancellor and the Pensions Minister regarding a step-change in appetite to reform the financial system in order to divert more investment capital towards the UK. A reforming of the social contract between savers and society whereby pensioners can see their investments at work in the local area would be a remarkable change in tone from invisible funds being funnelled overseas in indexes investing more in any given day in Amazon than the UK economy.
I hope we see this type of thinking and policy building given the fuel it needs at the Labour conference, because it needs to produce results fast. Labour needs to divert more capital into UK businesses and reconnect people with their high streets within four years or that, may, unthinkably, be that for them - and a populist government will get a crack at the problem.
Structurally, the devolution deal may also present a fresh headache for the government attempting to refresh and rebuild the high street. Reform poses a genuine challenge in areas like the North East, where in 15 constituencies Reform candidates finished second in the General Election and, although Labour currently holds the mayoral position, it is not hard to see a newly elected Reform mayor complicating the regeneration of areas like South Tyneside - recently awarded £20 million to improve South Shields town centre and local community assets.
In multiple towns and cities across the country, people are attaching flags to lampposts. There may be more insidious reasons for this behaviour, but one element of it is surely the craving for identity and belonging in their communities - from the pub to the chip shop to the local butchers.
So if the government does not want to contemplate the unthinkable, it must contemplate the tangible change the electorate desires in their town centres, foster a collective belonging that transcends the stage, and move heaven and earth to rebuild the British high street.