Impact At The Labour Conference: Fringes, Factions and First Impressions

Impact’s Head of Lifestyle and Chair of UoN Labour, Alice Nott, travelled to Brighton back in September to witness firsthand the trials and tribulations of Labour’s 2021 party conference.

The annual Labour Conference took place at the end of September, with delegates and members from all sides of the Party flocking to Brighton for five days. It was a who’s who of left-wing political figures and, with it being the first in-person get together in two years, there was certainly much to discuss.

The constitutional changes on how the next leader of the party would be elected dominated the first days of the conference, with many unsure if Keir Starmer would be able to pass the rule changes in the face of the left faction and some union resistance. The new National Campaigns Coordinator and the MP for Birmingham Ladywood, Shabana Mahmood, took this opportunity to make her mark on the conference stage. Mahmood told the conference that they should “get off Twitter” and into the communities, making a case for “bridge-building politics”. This was perhaps in response to the recent Twitter storm caused by alleged transphobia from Labour MPs such as Rosie Duffield. Mahmood spoke in favour of increasing the threshold for the open selection trigger ballots process from one third of local parties and one third of affiliates to 50% of both. This was after trigger ballots disproportionately affected women and ethnic minorities in the last election. Mahmood also spoke of her regret at spending the summer of 2019 preoccupied with her potential ousting from the Party, preventing her from campaigning more widely. The rule changes were eventually all passed, with Unison endorsing the changes in a last-minute shift from their previous position of abstention.

During the conference, David Evans was also approved as Starmer’s pick for General Secretary. Evans’ appointment followed some opposition as he has been described by some as a “factional figure”, who had not been in Party management as long as other candidates. Evans then went on to give a speech about his intolerance for bullying, making reference to the experiences of his disabled brother.

The conference stage was not the only place impressions were made, however. One noticeable absentee was Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham. Instead, Burnham, the internet-styled ‘King of the North’, had to make his mark in the fringe events that ran alongside the main part of the conference. The Guardian reported that all the events Burnham addressed often saw the room packed. This perhaps explains his exclusion from the conference platform, as Starmer’s team did not want the sometimes outspoken Mayor overshadowing the leader’s first opportunity to speak in public. In that first impression – and what an impression at 90 minutes long and over 7,000 words in total – Starmer took the opportunity to set out his vision. Beginning with a focus on his upbringing, Starmer spoke of his experience visiting his mother in the intensive care unit and the dedication of the NHS staff. Recalling his father, a toolmaker, Starmer took a jibe at the Prime Minister, suggesting that Stanley Johnson could also be considered a kind of “toolmaker”.

Starmer then went on to talk about his time as Director of Public Prosecutions. Introduced by Baroness Lawrence, mother to the late Stephen Lawrence, Starmer talked about his experience prosecuting Jane Clough’s killer and his eventual friendship with her parents. Starmer made commitments to speeding up the process of prosecuting violence against women and tougher sentences for the perpetrators. Other policy commitments, such as a ‘Green New Deal’ and increased funding for the NHS, were also laid out. Education was an area on which Starmer focused a significant amount of time, alluding back to the New Labour government.

Luke Pollard, Shadow Environment Secretary under both Corbyn and Starmer, tweeted that Labour was “back in business”. Alistair Campbell, former Director of Communications under Blair, tweeted his relief at “the Party hearing a Leader actually defend the record of a Labour government”. That is not to say, however, that the response was wholly positive. Hecklers in the audience were heard voicing their dismay at the direction Starmer’s policies seemed to be taking, with his lack of commitment to a £15 an hour minimum wage and suggestion that he would break pledges made in last year’s leadership election to get into government. Owen Jones wrote in The Guardian that: “The Starmer leadership’s only trick is to kick the left. They have nothing to say, no compelling answers to the crises afflicting and defining Britain in 2021. They have no future; and alas, so long as it remains under their management, neither does the Labour Party.”

Despite the criticism, polling seems to suggest the speech was received well. An Opinium poll conducted by Sky News suggests Starmer’s maiden speech as leader outperformed both his predecessor and Boris Johnson’s first conference speech as Prime Minister. However, a YouGov poll suggested that this performance did not lead to a corresponding jump in the polls. As the UK begins to switch its priorities post pandemic, attention will now be on whether Keir Starmer can live up to expectations, resuscitating the party from years of defeat.

By Alice Nott

Illustration by Harris Raphael Page Design by Chiara Crompton