How Labour's Ground Campaign Plans Reveal Its Huge Electoral Ambition
Keir Starmer holds a Labour pledge card (Credit: PA Images / Alamy)
5 min read
PoliticsHome has got hold of documents revealing how Labour will target voters on the doorstep throughout the campaign – and they show the huge scale of Keir Starmer’s ambition at this election.
On polling day, the Labour Party won’t bother knocking on the doors of reliable supporters, which is the opposite strategy to recent years.
Instead, activists taking part in the 'get out the vote' operation on 4 July will contact: those who promise to vote for them but aren’t good at turning out on the day; those who have voted Labour historically but haven’t promised to do so recently; undecideds who should be Labour according to modelling; and, most optimistic of all, supporters of minor parties.
‘Squeeze’ voters – those who’ve said they support, for example, the Greens or Reform – will receive “bespoke and targeted messaging” and “two-horse race” literature throughout the campaign. They will be prioritised for candidate visits on polling week.
‘Persuade’ voters – the recently undecideds – will be visited by candidates and “influential canvassers”. Where there are too many voters for the candidate alone in a winnable seat to contact, candidates from unwinnable seats are brought in to help contact persuadables, Campaign Confidential is told. They are known as “trusted messengers”.
But before polling day it is hero voters – 2019 Tory to Labour switchers – who are considered the most important target. “For every 10 voters we tried to contact in the 2024 Local Elections we gained one vote on average, while for every 10 hero voters we tried to contact we gained four votes on average,” Labour’s paper says.
The party plans to use more sophisticated triaging of voters than ever, with organisers advised to “use the demographic profile groups to tailor your message to reflect the life experiences of these [hero] voters”.
Inside the party HQs
At 4 Matthew Parker Street, some staff are in as early as 5.30am. On the upside, there is a prize for whoever is involved in the biggest Labour misstep of the previous day: Australian campaign chief Isaac Levido hands out a toy koala or kangaroo (details vary) to the lucky Tory staffer.
Despite a dismal launch and poor polling, there is a reasonably positive atmosphere in CCHQ. They are hopeful that the election will, at some point, wake up to a strategic weakness in Labour’s messaging: “change” to what exactly?
The thinking goes: where is the motivation to vote for a Labour government not promising any more money but merely reform, just like the Conservatives? “Pointing at us and shouting ‘change’ isn’t going to cut it for 43 days,” says one Tory source.
Labour gets a slightly later start in its Southwark HQ. At 6.30am, national campaign coordinator Pat McFadden has a meeting of the core strategy group – 10 key people, including McFadden and his deputy Ellie Reeves.
At 7.30am, the next tier of the campaign – the bigger delivery group – gathers, inviting in the head of field, the head of external relations and party fixers. Another meeting in the early afternoon ensures every area of the operation gets a look-in, with representatives from press, policy, visits, the parliamentary party and the leader’s office.
The atmosphere is said to be professional and collaborative, although there have been lots of hushed conversations in the horse-trading around selections in recent days.
A number of staffers were moved into an overflow office, but in a bid to keep them happy people from each team were relocated rather than whole teams. The new HQ – complete with a decent kitchen – is thought to be the best the party has had.
“Things will go wrong but we’ll pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off,” Morgan McSweeney told them all last week.
Location, location, location
Conservatives say there has been a “massive uptick” in local candidates being selected and a clear recognition in the party’s messaging that local is the only way to go.
“It’s a way of distancing yourself from stuff you’re not happy with,” says one leading activist. “Hyper local campaigns are the new way to do it. We can’t completely abandon the party brand, but local campaigns are best,” another confirms.
"It's going to be local, local, local,” as one Conservative candidate tells PoliticsHome editor Adam Payne.
Runners and riders
The short campaign starts today – which means spending limits kick in from now, by the way – and the parties are looking to finalise selections ahead of the legal deadline for nomination papers on 7 June.
For Labour, assuming there are no further deselection attempts, that is a simple matter of endorsing its list of candidates at a meeting on Tuesday. For the Tories, it still involves the huge task of choosing a staggering number of candidates, with an estimated 180 yet to be picked at the time of writing.
Ironically, given Labour’s long-standing focus on internal democracy, its ruling body is imposing candidates wholesale on local parties whereas CCHQ is going through the lengthier process of shortlisting centrally before holding association votes. One approach makes a party look efficient yet autocratic; the other keeps members happy while giving the impression of disarray.
The key question: who’s done a better job of vetting them all in such a short amount of time? Answer to be revealed over the coming five weeks and the next Parliament…
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