Election Results 2015

I can't even properly explain how depressed I feel right now about the election results.  The sad thing is I can't pin it down to anything more I personally could have done. 

I did all the right things - I gave donations and committed to monthly giving towards the Labour Party General Election fund.  I campaigned until it hurt.  I went to all sorts of areas to campaign (Keighley, Pudsey, Bradford West, Bradford South and numerous different council wards).  I delivered a small forest worth of leaflets.  I put my children in full time day care and took loads of time off work to do all this. 

Bradford Labour Group maintained a majority on Bradford Metropolitan District Council for the second year running, and 3 out of the 5 constituencies now have Labour MP's, so this was an achievement of sorts I guess, but those MP's should have been in government, not in the opposition.

There is nothing more that I could have done and yet I feel like I failed.  I am only 1 person but the same feeling could be felt by hundreds of thousands of party activists.  Collectively we achieved so much and sacrificed so much to do it.  We had millions of conversations with people on the Labour Doorstep over the last 5 years and it feels like it was all for nothing. 

I have seen all sorts of comments on various social media platforms ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous and although I hate that we are now stuck with a Conservative government that is democracy.  Sometimes we do not get what we want or what our country desperately needs. 

But, this is not a time to give up.  It is time to regroup, focus on what our core principles are and keep reaching out to the people in our communities.  We need to get right back to being a grass roots movement and properly connect with members, supporters and communities. 

There are people who seem to think that being a member of the Labour Party means being a member of 'new Labour' which is ridiculously untrue. The Labour Party is a broad church of people from all sorts of different traditions and backgrounds. If more traditional Labour people got more involved then there would be less of the 'new' Labour people that some don't like.  I'm a big believer in changing things from the inside by getting involved.  
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We achieve so much more together by our collective endeavour than we do alone.  The world is so very individualist and yet the area I am proud to serve (Clayton & Fairweather Green) has amazing groups of people who work closely together, volunteering for the greater good of others and our community. 

We need better political education so that our hard work as councillors (or MP's or community activists) is properly communicated and understood.  There is so much we do in the background that no-one ever sees and if we never communicate it then the people we have worked hard for will never know. 

I had too many conversations with people who said that they think all politicians are the same.  It's a common refrain but is genuinely not true.  We need to communicate why that's not true.  Each person in an area needs to feel a connection with their local representatives. 

Issues around immigration were also raised and it's a hard conversation to have.  Not everyone who expresses their concerns about immigration is a racist and to label them as such is appalling.  Most of the people I listened to on this subject were concerned that if immigrants are coming into our country for work then this reduces the number of job opportunities for our own nationals.  It puts pressure on our NHS and other public services. Also even though non-UK citizens are not able to receive benefits until they have been resident here for 2 years there is a perception that immigrants are costing our country millions in benefit payments.  Whereas the truth is that EU migrants are actually contributing more into our economy than they are taking out. See http://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/britons-lose-out-because-of-eu-migration/

Also while on this subject the conversation about immigration never really divides out non-EU migrants, EU migrants and asylum seekers and each group has different effects on our country.

No-one ever really properly addressed these concerns at a national level.  It was only those people we managed to talk to in our doorstep conversations that we could discuss the issues with.  There was the fabulous "I am an immigrant" campaign but it felt like too little too late.  These issues should have been addressed over the last 5 years.

Anyway it may seem like it's all over for now but we will fight on. I will fight on.