Eyes to the Left

Welcome to the latest instalment of Eyes to the Left, Trafalgar Strategy’s updated newsletter. In the run up to the election, we’re talking about a subject we know a lot about: campaigning.?

Having run successful campaigns in the UK and North America for political parties, individual candidates and companies, we will dissect the key points and highlight the latest data. And with the Labour Party so widely expected to win, that’s where our focus will be.

Today we are taking a closer look at foreign affairs, how Sir Keir has approached Labour’s long running anti-semitism issue and what it means for the upcoming election.

A Clean Break

In the Corbyn years, the perception that the Labour Party was a soft touch when it came to foreign policy was often tied up with antisemitism and an anti-western worldview. It was not just Corbyn’s failures over anti-semitism but also his equivocation in condemning Russia over the Salisbury poisonings back in 2018 that saw his personal approval ratings plummet. Together, the combination was toxic.?

How things have changed. Last week’s return to the Labour Party of former MP Luciana Berger marks another stepping stone in Sir Keir Starmer’s long quest to rid the party of the antisemitism seen throughout the Corbyn years. Her need for a police escort at Labour’s 2018 party conference was sadly just one of many grim moments in Jewish/Labour relations. Now, Berger’s return coincides with Sir Keir Starmer eyeing his third anniversary as Leader of the Opposition. He has successfully revived the Labour Party as an electoral force, navigating the party out of some of its darkest days and leaving it near unrecognisable to that day in 2018. So what has changed and why is it so important.

From the off, Sir Keir came out swinging. Never one to pass on an opportunity to remind us of his QC days, he demanded all anti-semitism investigations be on his desk for review just days into the job before commencing a blitz of expulsions and apologies. This swift justice was accompanied by commissioning the independent Forde Report to add more considered recommendations for change.?

Material electoral results soon followed, notably the winning of Barnet Council - a traditionally Conservative seat with a substantial Jewish population. In 2022, it was Starmer's unwavering stance against antisemitism that was seen as the difference maker as Labour successfully won the council for the first time in its history.?

Tackling antisemitism at home is one thing, but Starmer’s biggest challenge came in the harrowing hours following October 7th 2023. While hard to imagine the relief within Labour’s Head Office that Corbyn was not leading the comms against his former “friends” from Hamas; the crisis has forced Starmer to address one of foreign affairs’ most charged issues. Yet his uncompromising backing of Israel at Labour’s party conference, five years after Berger required security, sent a clear message to the electorate that Labour will not stray from the consensus on foreign policy issues.?

Starmer’s approach was sensible and measured. Foreign affairs are unlikely to win you a General Election, barely showing up on the radar of polls showing the issues voters care about. But the public perception of being a soft touch on the world stage can certainly lose you one. It is here where Labour have often been at their weakest and as the awful war in Israel / Gaza drags on, Starmer will continue to face challenges as he holds a party internally divided over Israel united.

Adding up

Here are some of the numbers that have caught our eye:

• We may have said that foreign affairs doesn’t win you elections but new YouGov data shows that most Britons are now braced for WW3, with 53% believing it's likely that another world war will occur within the next 5 to 10 years.?
• A new Labour Together poll puts significant weight to a turning tide on Britain’s coasts with almost half (44%) of voters in these areas now favouring Labour, marking a significant 20-point decline in Conservative support since 2019. Britain’s coast has consistently backed the winning side over the past four decades, including Thatcher, Blair, Vote Leave, and Johnson.
• Following Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds’ suggestion that Labour may row back on it’s ￡28bn green pledge, new polling shows they could be about to give up on a vote winner. New data from More in Common showed that among people intending to vote Labour, the pledge is the second most popular potential manifesto promise, just behind abolishing tax breaks for private schools.

Poll of polls (figures taken from The Spectator data hub)?

Candidate watch

Yuan Yang, Labour Candidate for Earley and Woodley

• Yang is the former Europe-China Correspondent at the Financial Times and a regular contributor to BBC News. She co-founded Rethinking Economics, a charity that campaigns to make economics teaching more relevant to the real world. Yang has also served as the Vice-President of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China, defending press freedoms in the country.
• Boasting endorsements from prominent economic figures like Doughnut Economics author Kate Raworth and former chair of the UK Committee on Climate Change Lord Adair Turner, Yang will be seen as a good prospect for junior ministerial roles should she form part of Labour’s cohort of new MPs.?
• Yang is campaigning on a variety of local issues, including fighting for increased NHS funding, working with trade unions to create well-paid green jobs locally, campaigning to make sure new council homes are insulated to a high standard and older homes are retrofitted, lowering heating bills for all, and implementing measures to reduce traffic and air pollution around local schools.
• This new constituency was formed by combining parts of the existing constituencies of Reading West, Reading East, Maidenhead, and Wokingham so there is not a strong historical precedent to rely on to predict the election’s outcome. However, the Telegraph’s recent bombshell poll projected that Conservative candidate Pauline Jorgensen will get 31% to Labour’s Yang on 35%. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems polled at 19%, Reform at 7%, and Green Party at 6%. So while Yang can’t be complacent in her fight to win a place in the next Parliament.