In the run up to the next general election, progressive collaboration has a new name, and a new form: Win as One. Win as One fully launched on 12 December 2022 and is a landmark campaign to transform British politics by finally delivering proportional representation, and more preferable answers to the crises we face, through this collaboration.
The new campaign, spearheaded by the pressure group Compass, highlights 62 vulnerable seats across the country – including 11 in the North West – where support for progressive parties outnumbered support for regressive parties at the last general election, but where the Conservatives still won.
Win as One in the North West
The 11 North West seats are:
- Warrington South
- Bury North
- Bury South
- Bolton North East
- Heywood and Middleton
- Cheadle
- Leigh
- Hazel Grove
- Altrincham and Sale West
- Burnley
- Southport.
These seats – labelled ‘tragedy’ seats by Compass – will be decisive in determining the outcome of the next election, with Win as One focused on encouraging cross-party collaboration to help the best-placed progressive candidate win in each seat. The constituencies will become key battlegrounds at the next general election as mounting public support for a new political settlement threatens to trigger a seismic shift in British politics.
There are many other marginal seats in the region, where Tory majorities could be overturned with help from progressive collaboration, with Cumbria being another big focus. Depending on where new boundries are confirmed to be, other realistic target seats might include places like Workington and Whitehaven.
Support for progressive collaboration
Country wide, Compass has identified that support for progressive collaboration and proportional representation has reached new highs, as a recent survey reveals. A YouGov survey commissioned by Compass revealed that 79% of people are so fed up with the current two-party system, that they want a future Labour government to work with other parties. Also, 56% of the public are now backing reform of our voting system in the form of proportional representation.
In light of this new data, Win as One will seek to back progressive candidates who commit to proportional representation and electoral reform.
This isn’t just about getting rid of a Conservative government. It’s about putting in place politicians – a government, and a different political system – that want to deliver. It’s about encouraging delivery of the changes we need. In response to the various crises that we face, leaving those currently in charge, who simply wish to maintain the status quo and merely put a sticking plaster over the ever-widening cracks, is unsustainable.
Similarly, it’s about the Labour Party not having all the answers either. Like the Conservatives, the Labour Party is a broad coalition of people across parts of the political spectrum. For both parties having this broad, and often fractious, range of views within one organisation can lead to too much infighting and inward looking. Policy that is designed to appease the party rather than the country – as well as looking for short-term wins over the other ‘side’, as opposed to the long term good of the country – is for politics and for everyone.
Growing frustration with the two-party system
In this vein, the survey reveals growing frustration with our two-party system and its inability to deal with these crises engulfing the nation:
- 51% say that on the critical issue of climate, the system is unable to address the challenges we face.
- 50% don’t think the system can address inflation and the economy.
- 63% don’t believe it can address immigration.
- 63% starkly say our politics is failing on wealth inequality.
- 64% say the system isn’t able to cope with the housing crisis.
The polling shows that just changing the government from Conservatives to Labour isn’t enough – voters want an entirely new political system.
Compass believes that this is a system that breaks the two-party duopoly. A system where cooperation is not only encouraged but required. A system where everyone’s voice is heard and represented, and their views have a place at the table. Because there is no monopoly (or duopoly) on knowledge or solutions.
Politics as normal is not an option
This is a system that is built with proportional representation as its base. Where the solutions to the crises we face have input from a wider, more represented, range of parties and people who can think more outward and long term as a result. The fact that our current system doesn’t allow politics to happen like this, means it’s not fit for purpose. It’s broken. It isn’t serving the whole country in the ways we need it to.
So, the message for Keir Starmer is clear – politics as normal is not an option and Labour must reach across to other progressives to create a winning coalition that can transform our democracy and deal with the escalating crises we face.
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