
‘UnSeat’ is politics made personal
Momentum’s ‘Unseat’ campaign targets individuals and contributes to the deeply divisive rhetoric we have seen in recent political discourse.
At the General Election on June 8th, the Conservatives were dealt a shock result. Losing their majority in parliament was coupled with many of their high-profile MPs being left with slender majorities: Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, was the most high-profile of these, who saw her majority in Hastings & Rye cut to just over 300 votes. It was a blow, yes, and of course it is now reasonable for the Labour Party to target those seats in order to win. The return to relatively strong ‘two-party politics’ makes that task easier.
‘UnSeat’, however, takes that to the next level, and an uncomfortable one at that. Parties target seats based on their majorities: for example, no matter how much Labour figures may detest (or not) Theresa May and her politics, the idea that the party would target Maidenhead is preposterous. Indeed, even a seat that is number 100 on the Labour target seat, with a majority of almost 8,000, is probably out of reach. Which therefore begs the question about why ‘UnSeat’ is targeting Grant Shapps’ seat in Welwyn Hatfield?
In order to win power at the next election, or simply move forwards in the number of seats the party holds, Labour will need to win Southampton Itchen, with its slender Conservative majority of just 31 votes. Southampton Itchen, however, is nowhere to be seen on UnSeat’s target list. Indeed, the seat with the smallest majority is the Home Secretary’s Hastings & Rye constituency, with a majority of 346. You have to go to through Southampton, Glasgow, North Wales and Leeds to get to an ‘UnSeat’ target seat.
That’s because ‘UnSeat’ is not about winning power for the Labour Party at the next election: a campaign based on narrow seats would do that. This is about personalities, and making politics overtly personal. The targets are all well-known Conservative MPs: Stephen Crabb in Preseli Pembrokeshire; Education Secretary Justine Greening in Putney; Anna Soubry in Broxtowe; and Philip Davies in Shipley. This is about contributing to the ‘Conservatives are evil’ rhetoric we have seen form the left in recent years.
Momentum isn’t targeting any of the 28 seats held by the Scottish National Party that are statistically easier for Labour to take than Grant Shapps’ Welwyn Hatfield constituency, nor are they targeting two of Plaid Cymru’s four seats with similarly small majorities. They’re focussed on targeting individuals: Anna Soubry, a prominent critic of left-wing abuse against female MPs and candidates after the election is put on the list while others are left out. Philip Davies is included with his Shipley constituency’s majority of over 4,000 votes, but not neighbouring Pudsey that has a Conservative majority of just 331 votes.
If Momentum and ‘UnSeat’ was about anything over than targeting individuals, they would be targeting the seats with the slimmest majorities, not identifying more difficult seats because you dislike the member. The startling message from this is that Labour members and activists on the left would sooner target a few ‘evil’ prominent Conservative MPs than work with any ground strategy to deliver a Labour Government. But it is now clear that the left would rather indulge in buzz-words and attacks against the “enemies”, highlighting them and targeting them personally, than attacking their policies and winning people over.
The Conservative Party’s 2017 campaign backfired so dramatically because it was personal. Everything was about boosting Theresa May’s presence even as her ratings fell and demonising the Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn. The same is true to a more limited extent of Hillary Clinton’s campaign against Donald Trump. Politics isn’t meant to be personal on such a level as this, and yet the ‘UnSeat’ campaign manages to be just that. Labour activists should be targeting to win, not to settle grudges. If they don’t, this will backfire as badly as the Tory campaign in 2017 and Clinton’s in 2016.
