Morgan McSweeney, a council estate in Barking and the fight against populism.
07/10/2024

Morgan McSweeney, a council estate in Barking and the fight against populism.

Adam McNicholas

With the appointment of his new Chief of Staff, the Prime Minister put the fight against populism at the top of the political agenda.

He is a man of few words. So when he speaks, people listen. The appointment of Morgan McSweeney as the Prime Minister’s new Chief of Staff is significant not because of his predecessor and the headlines surrounding Sue Gray’s departure. But it signals a deepening of electoral politics at the centre of government.

That should be the main take away from the consolidation of the Prime Minister’s team in Number 10.

At an event in Liverpool during Labour party conference, McSweeney gave a speech that should have been afforded a much bigger platform. Because what he had to say was a deep analysis of the country, what’s not working and the political fight that confronts the new government: populism.

The role of Chief of Staff should be a deeply political one. Where the political outlook of the Prime Minister and his Chief of Staff align to frame the question that the government is seeking to answer.

In the lead up to the General Election, bad public policy was guided by populism and easy answers, with the Rwanda policy as the symbol of this, McSweeney told a room full of Labour activists, campaigners, politicians and staffers.

Giving an insight into what guides his politics, he told how the fight against the British National Party in Barking and Dagenham offered lessons for defeating populism and the politics of easy answers.

Rubbish in the front gardens of a council estate was blamed by the BNP on immigrants. McSweeney and a team of local activists took aim at the local council and set about fixing the institutions that were, as he put it, failing those they are there to serve. Ann and Jo had their gardens cleaned up, the BNP was defeated and 51 red roses (Labour councillors) took to the seats of the council chamber.

And therein lies the idea that has guided McSweeney on his journey from local political and community organiser, to election strategist and now to the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff.

McSweeney has built his career - as one of the few successful electoral strategist on the British left, on taking aim at institutions that have failed those they were set up to serve. Whether the local authority in Barking or the Labour Party - who had ‘somewhere along the way become a private club’ detached from the working class people whom it was set up to serve.

He cited a report by Professor Alexis Jay, into the failings of institutions in Rotherham, where public bodies systematically failed to protect working class girls from exploitation. ‘Every part of the state failed’. It’s a symbol of what goes wrong when politics shies away from challenge and political parties leave a vacuum for populists.

In conclusion, McSweeney took aim at populism saying that ‘Fear exists where the state fails’. ‘We beat them but not their ideas’ he said. What can we expect from the changes in Number 10? This speech gives a good idea.

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