Learning Lessons: Shared Purpose

This is part three of our series ‘Learning Lessons’ series which provides a space for candidates from across England, Scotland and Wales to share both what they heard on the doorstep and where they think Labour should go next.

What Bury can tell us about the general election to come is worth reflecting on carefully. Not because it offers a neat blueprint or an easy answer, but because Bury North has long been one of the country’s truest bellwethers. Bury North voted Leave by almost exactly the national margin, and our political instincts and anxieties have often foreshadowed the wider national mood before it fully arrives elsewhere. Historically, Bury North has almost always returned an MP from the party of government, with my own election in 2017 the rare exception.

Bury bucked the trend once again in these local elections, held just shy of a year since we hosted the return of Oasis in the borough. The elder Gallagher once quipped: “people will never forget how you make them feel.” He’s right. Their brand of nostalgia, optimism and coming together is rare in this line of work, but it needn’t be. We must make emotional connections and make ‘feeling good’ the delivery unit’s priority. We should set out how things will be better sooner rather than endlessly explaining why things might not be as bad for as long. Politics is not a technical manual. People want a working country and competence, of course, but they also want goal celebrations and singing to the chorus two beers in.

That means speaking more directly to the strivers, the play-by-the-rules families, the people who work hard, contribute, and try to do the right thing yet too often feel politically unseen. It also means understanding that patriotism and pragmatism work together. British common sense still matters deeply to voters, whether that is energy security, controlled migration or backing British industry, including recognising the role North Sea oil and gas still plays in the transition to the renewables revolution.

Bury can also teach us an important lesson about how Labour holds together both socially conscious and economically aspirational voters, including many pro-European voters, without sounding detached from national identity and everyday concerns.

The electorate in places like Bury is not ideological in abstract terms. It is practical, values-driven and heavily shaped by whether people feel politics respects effort, contribution and belonging. That coalition thinking is how Bury North cam to have its first ever Labour minister and its first minister of any kind in almost 30 years. Our poorest and most vulnerable are rightly our starting point, but success for everyone must be central too. We need to talk up life here, injecting optimism into our rhetoric and keeping it in full view every day.

Language matters. And the language of rights and responsibilities matters especially. People still believe strongly in fairness, but fairness is understood as a balance, including when it comes to immigration. Rights should be protected, opportunities expanded and support available, but there is also a strong expectation that contribution – beyond five years living here – responsibility, and playing by the rules matter too. The government’s changes to indefinite leave to remain reflect this balance. Trust quickly begins to erode when politicians lose sight of it.

Reform is tapping into the same instincts its leader took advantage of during the Brexit referendum campaign. Until the local elections, many who had not voted since that referendum found themselves, a decade on, inspired to vote again for the cheerleader responsible for that disastrous decision. Extraordinarily, he seems to be able to simply shoo off questions over a £5m foreign donation (which has presumably softened the blow of the cost-of-living crisis he helped create through Brexit). His interviews are always done with a smile, no matter how upsetting or unthoughtful some of his rhetoric is.

Where Labour won off the Tories in Bury, in North Manor, the electorate knew the threat to the one-time all one-nation Remain Tory ward and decided the best way to defeat Reform was to vote Labour. This may be my strongest takeaway from the election as I reflect on honour of representing my family’s hometown – where I have never hidden my view about how damaging Brexit would be and has proven to be.

We have to continue remaking the deal with Europe and make sure that sentiment and settlement is on the ballot at the next general election – not just for Labour voters, but for the North Manor Tories and progressives everywhere too. At that point, and sooner than then, we must say clearly: do not lose this new deal with Europe.