Local government is at the heart of Labour’s renewal.
Sir Keir Starmer MP was elected Labour Leader determined to rebuild the frayed relationship between Labour nationally and the party in local government.
Labour councils were on the frontline of protecting communities against Conservative-imposed cuts, innovating to find new and better ways to support residents, and attracting investment and jobs into their areas.
While Labour was out of power in Westminster, we were in power in many town halls up and down the country, but too often we didn’t harness the achievements and experiences of our councils.
Now, that’s changing. Keir is determined that Labour will listen and learn from the best of local government. Labour’s leader in local government, Cllr Nick Forbes, is a member of the Shadow Cabinet, and his contributions earth our debates with his broad experience of leading a council in such difficult times.
A council leader sits in every frontbench Labour parliamentary team, advising shadow ministers on key policy issues. These spokespeople are backed up by a sounding board of other leaders with frontline expertise.
“Keir is determined that Labour will listen and learn from the best of local government”
Leading shadow cabinet members, including Keir, take part in regular Zoom calls with councillors and council leaders. As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, this allowed us to listen, learn, and better hold the Government to account for their failings on test and trace, personal protective equipment and shielding, and their broken promises on funding that are now leading to drastic in-year cutbacks.
Labour has forged a new relationship between our MPs and council leadership that is a real partnership. It benefits us all. It’s made us sharper as an opposition, and it’s forging a real sense of teamwork that will make us stronger as we head towards next year’s expanded set of local elections.
We are ambitious for Labour local government to do even more. Deputy Leader Angela Rayner MP has launched a programme to support more people from under-represented groups into local government – younger people, women, black, Asian and minority ethnic people, disabled people – and to give more of the key workers that kept communities running during the pandemic the chance to run communities as councillors.
We know local democracy works best when it truly reflects the experience of the communities we seek to represent. We want to see Labour councillors open up power to the communities they serve, so people have a bigger say over the decisions that affect them.
That’s not just the right thing to do, it directly contrasts with the Conservatives who are intent on controlling everything from Whitehall despite all the evidence that it leads to failure.
As Labour embarks on the long journey back to power nationally, we know we must learn from our party’s achievements in local government.
Whether it’s Plymouth’s community-led energy generation projects, Greater Manchester’s experience of devolved health care, Preston’s pioneering work on community wealth building, or Camden’s ground-breaking work on diverting at-risk young people away from crime – the local innovation we’ve seen will shape our party nationally as we renew to win.
With the country in the worst recession in Europe, made all the worse by the Government’s failure to get a grip on COVID-19 infection rates, we know it will take the best of Labour local government to lead economic renewal in our communities.
For Labour, local government is now where it always should have been: right at the heart of our party.