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You might think the last thing Labour needs now is this deputy leadership contest, the unavoidable fallout from Angela Rayner’s sad plunge from grace. But these two combatants, Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell, may ignite exactly the rethinking Labour needs. Like it or not, whoever the contestants were, this would be framed as establishment v insurgent, or as proxies for Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham. It’s for Phillipson and Powell to strike out and show they are their own people. In truth, Phillipson is not very establishment and Powell not very insurgent.
Any party would be in a state of ferment after falling further than any previous government in its it first 14 months, with inflation stubbornly high and growth flatlining. It reels from the shock of scoring 20% in opinion polls while Nigel Farage’s Reform UK rides high on 31%.
Large numbers of Labour MPs on thin majorities are projected to lose their seats at the next general election. But beyond narrow self-interest, they can all see the historically terrifying price of failure this time. The possibility of handing power to a demagogue Trumpite xenophobic authoritarian would make a Labour failure not just a blow against social democracy (again), but an emergency for the country, its European defence and trade alliance, and even its democracy and the rule of law.
What needs to emerge from their debate is what is missing from the government so far, a sense of direction, what and whom they are for, where they want to go and why. No red thread pulls together a list of things they have done, unacknowledged for lack of language and sense of purpose. Rail and steel nationalisation, buses back to council control in England, huge investment in green energy, renters’ rights, workers’ rights (undiluted), falling hospital waiting lists – none of this is linked into coherent self-definition.
Some things, quite expensive and good, slip below the radar: everyone knows about the winter fuel allowance cut, but who knows that an extra 2.7 million people, 6.1 million in all, can get a £150 energy discount this winter? A mumbling government is unsure if it wants to be cast as leftist or even leftish, despite losing many more voters to Greens and Liberal Democrats than to Farage.
As education secretary, Phillipson can boast of the most already done so far. Her determination to stick to early years as a priority was hard fought as the most effective engine of opportunity: others wanted that considerable budget to be spent on more politically visible education for older cohorts. But her near-universal free nurseries from nine months old started this month, plus a Sure Start revival now called Best Start, with 300 nurseries within primary schools and more to come, planting education – not mere childcare – as the purpose of her early-years spending. Free breakfasts for all primary schoolchildren in England, free school lunches extended to many more, begin the prevention of hungry children. Despite the hullabaloo, removing VAT exemption from private schools is highly popular and the money goes to state school teachers in England, further education renewal and now a big push on apprenticeships, on the rise at last.
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But too little of any of this has landed with the public due to bad errors on benefits, mistakes that sprang from uncertainty about their message, never mind missions that never resonated. This contest is likely to raise the difficult issues. The failure to address child poverty head-on has been the gaping void for Labour people. The 2024 party manifesto said: “Labour will develop an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty.” I expect both Powell and Phillipson to come out for abolishing the two-child benefit cap that damages 1.6 million children. If so, Rachel Reeves would be obliged to do it in her budget.
Powell will draw many of the disaffected now she has become an involuntary outsider. Wisely, she is unlikely to stray far from the fold of existing policies she voted for: throwing bricks at the government is not a winner with Labour members, only with those who long ago departed. Attempts to draw her on a wealth tax by Nick Robinson on Political Thinking drew a sensible answer that she wasn’t about to write the budget. But both will reject the current Starmerite notion that “delivery” will overcome present misfortunes: it did nothing to save Joe Biden, who delivered a lot. The one who tells the missing story of what Labour is for – and why – in the most lyrical and persuasive language deserves to win.
But their greatest duty, above all, is to take the fight to Farage and show Labour how to hit back hard, taking no prisoners. Be unafraid to call out racism: the timid and delayed response to the terrifying march of 100,000 people at Tommy Robinson’s beckoning is indeed a klaxon. No need to worry that some who are seduced into this poison don’t see themselves as far right or racist – history shows us that “ordinary people”, even “ordinary majorities”, can be drawn into the politics of hate by malign demagoguery exploiting immigration as a proxy for all grievance. Both candidates need to show how best to challenge this lethal toxin, which is more pressing than any slight difference between them.
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Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
