Keir Starmer's First General Secretary On What Labour Must Do Next
David Evans, former Labour general secretary, Image by Alamy
6 min read
David Evans was instrumental in turning Labour into an election-winning machine. He tells Francis Elliott about soothing Angela Rayner's rows with Keir Starmer, why he backs Shabana Mahmood to take tough action on migration and what he and Morgan McSweeney did to take on the far right
David Evans, Labour’s former general secretary, reaches for the Joni Mitchell songbook: “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”
“She’ll leave a big hole,” Baron Evans of Sealand says of the departed deputy leader Angela Rayner. “She would have the right instincts on so many issues. It was a little bit counterintuitive from someone from the left, but she was rock solid on things like patriotism and ASB [anti-social behaviour].”
In the battle to keep Labour tuned in to the working class, Rayner’s voice would often carry the day, he says, overcoming the objections of the “more squeamish”. An ally in the fight has been lost.
The start of the relationship was “rocky”, he acknowledges, pointing out that he had to relieve Rayner of many of her party roles when appointed in May 2020, as part of Keir Starmer’s efforts to wrest control over the machine.
He also confirms that there were occasions he had to mediate between Starmer and his “fiery” deputy: “There are times when the general secretary has to pour oil on the water.”
But he says he came to admire and value her “quick brain”, and pays tribute to her steadfastness in the fight to root out antisemitism, suggesting the respect was mutual.
“I feel really sad, not least because I know her lad who has a learning disability, like my brother.”
Evans says it was realising that he wouldn’t always be around to protect his younger brother Rob, after he rescued him from bullies one day, that led him to political activism as a young man.
It was the hire of a young organiser to help with his work in Barking for The Campaign Company several decades later that led him to the top of the party, however.
Morgan McSweeney’s political education helping turn back the tide of the British National Party (BNP) has become a well-established part of Starmerism’s origin story. The imperative to listen to and not judge voters attracted to far-right populism remains highly relevant.
Evans says he and McSweeney first identified “community influencers” (partly by asking how many Christmas cards they sent) and then worked with them to understand local issues, like unkempt gardens.
That helped the council position itself on the side of residents and gradually drain the wells of resentment that were fuelling the BNP. (Evans is careful to pay tribute to the companion work being done by Dame Margaret Hodge at the same time.)
Thirteen years later and the echoes are deafening. He describes the cost of living and small boats as the “twin perils” facing the government and suggests that its future hinges on the extent to which people feel better off and that the boats have been “stopped completely or significantly reduced” by the next general election.
Backing new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to do whatever is necessary, the 64-year-old says ID cards would help the government give voters something that proved it was taking action to protect the rights of those in the UK legally.
“We can’t duck [small boats], we can’t ignore it... but I know that Shabana will grip it. She will do it. She’ll be doing a really quick but thorough review, and she will be coming back with some solutions that will probably test some within the party because they will have to be bold. The key thing is a genuine deterrent.”
Asked why Reform UK was rampant, he says: “The art of politics is the art of competitive storytelling. And the story being told by the populist right is undoubtedly gaining traction with a very large number of people.
“We spent a lot of time taking the barnacles off the boat in terms of the reasons why people felt alienated from us, and that was an extensive, difficult job but we did sufficiently well in that regard to persuade enough people to get the result that we got.
“It was the most recalcitrant, sceptical people who were from the more working-class, less affluent, more socially conservative base – an absolutely critical component of our coalition that we have to construct to win anything.”
One of the lessons Evans passed on to McSweeney is what he calls his “psychological” segmentation of the electorate into pioneers, prospectors and settlers.
While the first may be confident in a changing world, the latter archetypes are less so, one acutely aware of status while the settler is most anxious.
Which is Keir Starmer? After some nervous laughter, the former general secretary concedes that the leader is a pioneer, “as am I” and most party members. The challenge for Labour is never to forget it needs all three to win.
Evans reveals that Labour’s strategists struggled to frame a ‘change’ election message in a way that would appeal to those he terms “settlers” who want most of all to feel safer.
The Labour peer says he wished he had done more to better align the party’s internal structures with the new realities of political power, agreeing, for example, that it might be time to give metro mayors like Andy Burnham a more formal role on bodies such as Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee.
“We haven’t changed and developed to actually give [devolution] practical expression. The metro mayors, for example, aren’t yet properly reflected in the rulebook.”
He also wants it to learn from sister parties abroad, including from Denmark where the centre-left grouping has enjoyed political success by rooting itself in its working class.
“There is no route to sustainable power for centre-left parties unless you have good relations, good contact and support from working-class voters. You cannot create a rainbow coalition of other voters.”
With that, Evans declares he is off to a Progressive Policy Retreat in Las Vegas: “The Democrats are in a worse position than we ever were.”
Despite a year in which public support has collapsed, the economy stagnated and after the resignation of its deputy leader and US ambassador to scandal, Evans insists that the party will enjoy its conference.
It’s part of the natural political cycle that the tribe “dissipates” after a successful election as key figures take up posts in government and the demands of administration and politics pull in opposite directions. “It’s gonna be spiky.”
“I think the conference will be good.” Really? “Yeah, because we really need to get together.”
