Labour emerged on July 5th with a significant majority, but a fragile one. Despite winning 411 seats, the party secured just 33.7% of the vote – significantly less than the 43.2% Tony Blair won in 1997.
The general election also shifted Britain’s electoral geography in important ways. Reform UK is now the second-place party in 98 constituencies across the UK, 89 of which are held by Labour. Meanwhile, the Green Party came second place in 40 seats, 39 of which are held by Labour. With the Liberal Democrats already eyeing up Labour seats they can challenge in 2029, Keir Starmer needs an agenda that can appeal across the political spectrum and is capable of holding together a support base that is far less cohesive than it has been in recent years.
Championing a pro-protections agenda could be the glue Labour needs to do this. Our recent polling with More in Common found that 79% of the public think that rules and regulations are important for creating a stable economy and a secure society, whilst just 21% said regulations hold the economy back and intrude on people’s lives. And this support holds across the political spectrum. Strong rules and regulations were seen as important by voters planning to vote Green (91%), Conservative (85%), Liberal Democrat (87%), and even Reform UK (69%) – alongside 82% of Labour voters.
Our polling also shows that several key swing voter groups are amongst the staunchest supporters of strong regulation. 88% of voters who switched from the Conservatives to Labour (many of them so-called ‘Labour returners’ or Red Wall voters), think regulations are important (compared to 12% who think they are burdensome). This was among the highest figures across all voter groups.
A mixed message on protections
The public’s appetite for strong rules and accountability is not all that surprising. After years of scandals and rule-breaking, trust has reached an all-time low in Britain. 45% now say they would ‘almost never’ trust a political party to put the national interest before their own party and nearly three quarters of the population believe that there is ‘one rule for the rich and another for the poor’.
Championing a pro-protections message would do two things in this context. Firstly, it would show the public that Labour is serious about ‘fixing the foundations’ and is committed to raising social and environmental standards across the country. And secondly, it would commit the new Parliament to improving accountability across Britain and show that Labour is not willing to let anyone sit above the law – or indeed below it. What’s more, regulations are often a cost effective way of bringing about change, which would allow Labour to be bold in government whilst staying within their much touted ‘iron-clad fiscal rules’.
Since winning the election, Labour has made a number of proposals that play into this agenda. They have promised stronger online safety laws, criminal liability for water bosses who fail to meet environmental standards, and an end to no fault evictions for renters across up and down the country. Our polling suggests these are the types of measures that will have broad appeal across the electorate, offering a positive vision of a well-regulated Britain that works for everyone.
But the picture isn’t always a positive one. Labour has also come under significant pressure recently from the business lobby to water down their worker protections proposals and take a harsher line with unions. Rowing back on these sorts of progressive and popular measures could come at a price for the party – especially given that the current crisis of trust has been driven by the previous government’s poor record on sanctioning rule breakers.
Talking Protections
So what does a clear narrative on regulation look like? We’ve joined forces with one of the UK’s leading progressive communications organisations, NEON, to co-produce a messaging guide that sets out exactly this. Our new guide, Talking Protections, offers ways for our growing and diverse network to tell a compelling story about regulation in a way that engages with the widest possible audience. The guide draws on extensive research we’ve commissioned over a number of years on the sorts of messages that resonate with different audiences.
First and foremost, we discuss the importance of framing ‘regulations’ as ‘protections’, emphasising that these are key instruments for looking after the things our communities care about. Emphasising the universalism behind protections is key here, as they are so often about providing a minimum baseline which no one in society should fall below.
The guide also develops a ‘protections lexicon’ of words and phrases that are helpful to employ. Emphasising words such as ‘the rules’, which present regulations as an important way of delivering accountability, rather than using phrases such as ‘red tape’, which reinforce the idea that regulations are burdens, is key. Furthermore, stressing that regulations are common sense solutions to problems in society is important for seizing the common ground and demonstrating that deregulation is a minority interest in Britain.
We’ll be launching the guide at an online event on the September 12th alongside NEON. We’ll use the session to explore in greater depth the most effective ways of talking about protections and how we can emphasise different framings to engage specific voter groups. More in Common will also be joining us to discuss our recent polling, touching on why this is such an important political narrative for Labour to lean into. We hope to have lots of people from our diverse network on the call so that we can discuss how to make this next Parliament, a Parliament of protections.