Labour voters in Sleaford didn't drift to the right, they stayed at home instead

Another by-election, another chance to bash Labour. In Sleaford and North Hykeham, the party came fourth, weeks after it lost its deposit in the Richmond Park results. Sleaford is solid blue and Richmond is mostly Lib-Dem with a few Tory blips, but it’s not about the winning: it’s about how badly Labour lost. This is what fires up doomsayers lamenting Labour’s demise under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

The right-wing dissing Labour is part of their job description. But what of progressive naysayers who, in the midst of a populist right resurgence, are kicking the main opposition party, willing it into irrelevance?

In a populist right moment, like the one we’re having post-Brexit and Trump, it isn’t that far-right positions are held by a majority; it’s that such views are louder and mainstreamed, creating the illusion of consensus and sending progressives into a silent retreat. Look again at the Sleaford election: Labour voters (much like Democrats in the US) stayed at home. So the job of the left is to re-energise progressive voters, across class lines.

In our Brexity, anti-migrant times, you don’t do this by playing into the existing narrative, because that just assures everyone that the framing is correct – making the populist right louder and the progressives more disillusioned. This is why it’s so counter-productive for Labour MPs to suggest the party ditches free movement, or stops “obsessing” over diversity. It’s bad enough that this would be to abandon values for which progressives fought long and hard. It’s bad enough that conceding to the anti-migrant narrative commits economic sabotage for the sake of being agreeable about a lie over migrants taking jobs, homes and resources. In strategic terms, this is shooting the Labour Party in the foot, because in effect it tills the soil for the populist right.

Voters in some areas are worried about the effect of migration and Labour should be hearing those concerns. But the party’s task now is to provide credible solutions. Controls on free movement won’t fix wage stagnation, job insecurity, a housing crisis or deteriorating public services. But a progressive economic policy – one that clamps down on exploitative employers and commits to investment in housing, infrastructure, reskilling and the welfare state – can bring tangible, material change. So that’s one more reason Labour shouldn’t concede to the existing narrative on migration – it’s the wrong solution.

Meanwhile, Labour’s Brexit position struggles as neither side is in the mood for the compromises necessary if the country’s going to come out of this in one piece: many Leavers don’t want to hear about soft Brexit, while Remainers are clinging to the anti-democratic mirage of a second referendum. Labour, with voters in both camps, could get squeezed. Yet it’s also uniquely positioned to drive its current, unifying narrative, accepting the Brexit vote while pushing for an exit in which the country thrives, rather than plummets. But instead of clarifying and boosting this line so it cuts through to voters, some are using recent by-election losses to attack the Labour leadership. Again.

Which brings us back to the original question: what is this intended to achieve? Will it herald a new left, or is it more likely – in the time available – to cede more ground to the right and abandon progressive politics in Britain? It’s up to us now to shift the narrative to a unifying, credible and more hopeful one – and we’ll never do that while progressives are themselves divided.