Labour is “coming back to finish the job” of the New Labour government, Lisa Nandy has vowed, saying the party has undergone a dramatic transformation and is now “fit to govern”.
In an interview with the Guardian, Nandy revealed Labour was now working with the former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane, who was previously tasked by Michael Gove to develop his levelling up strategy. Haldane is working with Nandy on the party’s strategy for regional growth, which Nandy described as “dead” under the Conservatives.
The shadow levelling up secretary spoke at the Labour conference in Liverpool at an event with the Conservative-led thinktank Onward, a leading proponent of levelling up, alongside the Tory MP Danny Kruger. “They came to this conference because they can see that levelling up under the Tories is dead. It is the only answer for the country and Labour is where it’s at.
“That gave me a lot of confidence that the prize isn’t just within our reach – that better country that we want to build – but it’s absolutely within our reach. I never thought I would say this three years ago either.”
Nandy said she had always spoken pragmatically about the chances of Labour winning the next election after losing swathes of voters in the north of England in the disastrous 2019 election.
But she said the party was now at a moment in history – compounded by a new ideological divide with the Conservatives – where it was able to seize a majority if Keir Starmer could convey a vision for the country.
“Two years ago, I came to a conference and said that we have a mountain to climb to win the next general election, she said. “We’d lost our entire Labour base in every nation and region of the UK. And it wasn’t clear whether there was a route back for some of the voters that we’d lost in the places that we love.
“And in the last couple of years, we’ve proven that we are fit to govern and that is largely accepted by the public. This conference is about proving to the country that we’re ready to govern, that we have a plan, a vision, and a strategy for all people in all places to get this country working again. We are at the top of the mountain looking outwards.”
Nandy said the trio of her, Rachel Reeves and Starmer would develop the party’s “story” over the course of the conference. “It’s all about vision. They need to feel that they have the right to make a contribution to the country’s success, a stake in the outcome, skin in the game, and that they’ll share in the rewards of that success,” she said.
“That’s what’s been missing for a very long time. It was missing in places like Wigan. A lot of people had felt they weren’t just written off, but they were written out of our national story. Now most people in every region and nation regardless of background feel that they’ve been written off by their government. We’ve got to tell the story of how Britain can be different. That’s what Rachel and I did, that’s what Keir will do.”
Nandy said Labour should be talking openly about building on the achievements of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in government and going further.
“There was a plan under the last Labour government that we rebuilt our great northern cities. Liverpool has been literally transformed before our eyes. And there was a plan to extend that to every part of the country, working and sharing in the proceeds of the country’s success – and to get power and decision-making back into people’s hands. And we didn’t finish the job.
“This is about coming back to finish the job. We can do this. The public wants it, they’re ready for it, the country is desperate for it. You can’t solve any of the national problems that we’ve got without a great rebalancing of power and wealth in this country.”
Speaking at the Labour conference, Nandy pledged to boost the building of social housing and an overhaul of renters’ rights, making longer-term tenancies the norm and stabilising rent increases within tenancies.
In the speech, Nandy said Labour would take the opposite approach to economic growth to that of Liz Truss. “The people of our country are our great untapped asset. Labour will tilt the balance of power back in their favour, so those with skin in the game, who are in it for the long haul, will feel the whole system pulling in behind them. That is how you grow the economy.”
