2015 Election Review: Labour's Future

We set up an independent inquiry into why Labour lost in 2015 because we wanted hard empirical evidence on the record that couldn’t be ignored. Labour will only be able to form another government by learning the lessons of defeat. The Inquiry included Compass, Progress, the Co-op Party, the Fabian Society, the Labour Group of the Local Government Association, and the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation. Over the summer of 2015 we published our findings in a series of messages on Labour List and the New Statesman website. We republish them here, and also include unpublished messages on Scotland, the General Election campaign,and the 5 May 2016 election results. The published messages generated a great deal of debate. Many who wanted a different and better Labour Party disputed the Inquiry’s findings on voters’ views on reducing spending, and on welfare and immigration. But, in the aftermath of Labour’s defeat, our findings have been backed up by the great majority of polling and research findings (see Appendix 1). The voters preferred the Tories’ offer and that is why they won.Our task now is to take note of why we lost and build a future for the party. This doesn’t mean adopting the Conservatives’ approach. It means building a vision of the country based on Labour’s values of family, work, fairness and decency, and rooted in the concerns of the people we represent.