{"id":783134,"date":"2026-09-26T10:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T10:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783134\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T10:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T10:44:13","slug":"labour-must-reunite-progressive-voters-to-win-the-next-election-says-lucy-powell-labour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783134\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour must reunite progressive voters to win the next election, says Lucy Powell | Labour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Labour must \u201creunite the progressive voter coalition\u201d if it is to take advantage of a split on the right and win the next election, the party\u2019s deputy leader has said.<\/p>\n

Lucy Powell, who won the race to be deputy leader 12 months ago with a warning that Labour was losing the fight to be heard as Reform UK surged, said the government now had a second chance under Andy Burnham<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Guardian, Powell said the party had clearly required a \u201cchange of leader\u201d to revive its fortunes and tell a better story, after becoming \u201ctoo technical and pessimistic\u201d.<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s improved poll ratings have led to speculation this week that Andy Burnham will call a snap election, but the prime minister rejected that on Friday and said the next contest would be in 2029.<\/p>\n

However, the Labour conference will get underway this weekend with polls beginning to show for the first time in almost two years that Labour might be within touching distance of winning a majority at the next election \u2013 12 months on from polls that suggested Reform UK<\/a> could win a huge victory.<\/p>\n

Lucy Powell, pictured at Broughton high school, Preston, says whichever party manages to unite its voter coalition is the one that wins. Photograph: Joel Goodman\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Powell said Labour was beginning to get a hearing again and should not be embarrassed to show its values clearly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the evidence from recent elections \u2013 right across the board \u2013 it\u2019s clear that whichever party manages to unite its voter coalition is the one that wins. And for us on the left, that means bringing our centre-left bloc back together,\u201d she said. But she added that \u201cincludes some who have considered Reform as they have lost faith in the status quo\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said Labour would bring progressive voters who had turned to the Greens, SNP or Plaid Cymru back to trusting Labour over the coming months and years \u2013 saying they had not always seen Labour as the best chance to defeat right-wing politics. \u201cI\u2019ve always thought there was a clear majority in this country who didn\u2019t want the kind of politics of Reform and that divisive blaming of others \u2013 they didn\u2019t like it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge has been that sentiment has not all come to Labour and the progressive coalition was very, very fragmented. And part of our task and challenge is to reunite that progressive alliance and that voter coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we can. We\u2019ve got red shoots of hope coming through. There are a lot more choices for people [when it comes to political parties] \u2026 but the task is to rise above that and to be the leaders of the progressive change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of her conference speech, the education secretary said she will use her new role to announce an expansion of anti-harassment work in schools, having called in her deputy leadership race for Labour to be more explicitly progressive especially calling out racism and misogyny.<\/p>\n

She will say schools must go further than the strategy announced earlier this year to tackle misogyny, where pupils will learn about deepfakes, image-based abuse and online harassment.<\/p>\n

Powell said schools would be required to \u201cembed healthy relationships and belonging into every part of school life, not just RSHE [relationships, sex and health education] lessons\u201d and show they were helping to create real-world, authentic community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe simply cannot just teach our way out of misogyny,\u201d she said. \u201cSchools with strengthened RSHE teaching but no wider culture shift will not shift attitudes.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said Labour was now \u201con the front foot\u201d and the party would talk more boldly about choices like workers\u2019 rights and free childcare hours.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLet\u2019s not be embarrassed about that, that\u2019s what we are,\u201d she said. \u201cWe lift children out of poverty, we take the difficult decisions in order to do that. I think at times we\u2019ve been a bit worried about the reaction rather than just being clear about why we\u2019re doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a real strong desire for that clearer political communication. Of purpose, of story, of values. Andy knew that that\u2019s what he needed to do. That was what the moment required,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Powell said it would be obvious under Burnham what Labour\u2019s values were \u2013 suggesting he would not make the same missteps on issues like welfare.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re not for pensioner poverty, and we\u2019re not addressing that, and we are not supporting people who need the safety net, then what are we for?\u201d She added that the government under Starmer had \u201clost sight of some of the politics and the purpose\u201d once they came into power.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be clear-sighted about what we\u2019re doing, who we\u2019re doing it for and clearly articulate that every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really encouraging to see that people are coming back. Andy\u2019s shown that we can win in places like Makerfield against Reform, and in some key council byelections we previously lost to the Greens in May.\u201d<\/p>\n

Powell declined to agree directly with the chancellor, John Healey, that Burnham\u2019s government was offering \u201ccontinuity\u201d. \u201cWe are on the same manifesto, but look I think people want change. We have to seize that opportunity of that second hearing to really punch home with that Labour story and the underpinning of why we\u2019re doing what we\u2019re going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Powell said she wanted to use the social media ban for under-16s as a moment to think about how to help young people to build real life communities that would replace the online world \u201cso that people aren\u2019t just accessing all their content and all their thoughts from social media \u2026 We\u2019ve kind of ended up with this highly connected world where actually isolation has become a bigger feature.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labour must \u201creunite the progressive voter coalition\u201d if it is to take advantage of a split on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-783134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}