Labour: planning for the next election?

by Alex Black, Senior Consultant, WPI Strategy

This week, a background political debate over homeownership has gone public, with Sir Keir Starmer and Michael Gove shadow boxing in the print media - Labour in the Times, and Tories in the Sun.

The detailed intricacies of planning regulations - not a topic that generally excites much passion - seem likely to become a key dividing issue in the next election:  the Labour Mayors for London, Manchester and Liverpool have signed a joint letter arguing for rent controls; meanwhile the Conservatives have promised to deliver housing for young aspiring homeowners, despite their backbench rebellions on the issue.

On the policy level delivering enough homes in the right places, there are many arcane factors: inspectorate assessments, judicial reviews, net migration flows, resource neutrality calculations - these are all massively important in terms of outcomes, but usually escape public attention for obvious reasons.

There is a well-documented debate in the Conservative Party over development, and it is an easy target for Starmer to punch at. However, the fact that he is punching is not interesting in itself - politics is a contact sport - the real interest is in the specific attack lines that he has deployed in doing so.

In the Times, Starmer floated that Labour would look at building on the ‘green belt’. Around London this means the Tory shires, although around England’s other devolved cities the local political picture is more mixed and not necessarily without cost to Labour.

Back in February, Starmer made a speech outlining the Opposition’s five missions, as all Leaders of the Opposition do. However, this speech was heavily splashed with the headline that the UK was on track to dip below Poland's GDP before the end of the decade. The source of this claim was not, as reported, “Labour Party research” but came from an article in the Spectator - not usually noted for being left-wing - published 7 months before.

The main takeaway from these two interventions should be that Labour are serious about power. Diligently watching and cataloguing opportunities to drive wedges into the Government, Tory MPs and their voting base. 

Labour are increasingly confident, and this week’s jabs on housing were road-tested at PMQs earlier this month. Starmer publicly mentioning the idea of paving over the greenbelt breaks a political taboo that has existed since the mid-20th century, when it was first legislated for by the Attlee Government. Paradoxically, this threat to the commuter belt comes just at the moment where the Tory ‘Blue Wall’ may be turning Labour, due to younger voters being priced out of London.

While Labour’s various planning attack lines should prove too controversial to actually carry out, they are nonetheless indicative of Labour’s intent and morale. All the showboating in the broadsheets hints at Labour’s preferred issue to define the coming General Election: housing frictions are a salient issue for many voters, and could prove a major mobilising factor as the country goes to the polls next year.