Election 2026: Is Labour repeating Sir Keir Starmer’s mistakes? – Jonathan Ayling
Labour leader Chris Hipkins could campaign on a strategy of simply not being the current Government, but he risks encountering problems similar to those of his British counterpart Sir Keir Starmer, Jonathan Ayling writes. Photo / Anna Heath
Today’s Budget is a reminder that elections have consequences.
The coalition Government is enacting the platform it put before voters. New Zealanders may approve or disapprove, but those choices can at least be measured against the mandate it sought.
The Labour Party is pursuing a different path. The public is more likely to vote out the Government than to vote in the Opposition, especially when the public mood is negative. Recent polling shows a majority of New Zealanders believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, while fewer than a third say it is heading in the right direction. Labour’s best chance of returning to lead the next Government, therefore, is to make itself small and allow dissatisfaction with the coalition to do most of the work.
But what looks tactically clever now may become strategically costly later. There is a difference between a strategy that helps a party win an election and one that prepares it to govern. The experience of the British Labour Party offers this warning.
In 2024, Sir Keir Starmer did not need to inspire Britain to win. After 14 years of the Conservative Government, voters were exhausted. Labour’s task was not to generate national enthusiasm, or even debate, but to appear stable, moderate and less chaotic than the people it sought to replace.
It worked. But the lesson from Britain is that a party can win without persuading the country what, exactly, it has been elected to do. This creates harder problems once it assumes office and has to answer for the expectations voters now place upon it.
The unpopularity of one government does not automatically create a mandate for another. A mandate must be built through argument, persuasion, trade-offs and honesty about what governing will require.
Once in office, governments have choices to make. They have to choose what to fund, what to cut, who to disappoint and which compromises to defend. If those choices have not been argued for before the election, they look arbitrary after it. That is the danger for Labour here.
Oppositions usually try to look like a government-in-waiting. They release policy, invite scrutiny and try to win the debate. They seek to persuade the country they are not merely the alternative to the people currently in charge, but a credible government with a mandate of their own.
But here, Labour has chosen a different path. The less it says, the less there is for the Government to attack. Again, there is tactical logic here. Campaigns are often decided by “the vibe”. Leader Chris Hipkins is not entirely wrong in thinking many voters are not waiting breathlessly for the technical details of Labour’s policies.
But partial truths can still become political traps.
Labour may make itself more vulnerable by releasing a serious policy platform. But that is also the point of democratic politics, and arguably it would benefit both the party and the public. Since being elected less than two years ago, Starmer has, at points, polled among the least popular Prime Ministers in modern British history. Better to have managed expectations by communicating what he would specifically seek to achieve in power, rather than simply being “not the Conservatives”. Labour achieved “not being the Conservatives”, but it turns out the public wanted more. Starmer is now fighting for his political survival.
This issue goes beyond campaign tactics. Elections are not merely instruments for removing unpopular leaders. They are how citizens authorise a direction for the country. When oppositions avoid clarity, voters are invited to make a negative choice rather than a governing one. They can reject what they have, but they are left to guess what they are getting.
That may be enough to win. It is not enough to ensure trust and legitimacy. Refusing to articulate the policies and vision of the government it wants to be is a cynical use of voters’ frustration, and ultimately an insult to the very people who are supposed to be in charge. The risk is not simply that Labour has no ideas. It is that Labour avoids putting those ideas to the test while implying voters either do not care what policies are implemented, or cannot be trusted to judge them. That is antithetical to self-government.
With declining trust in institutions, treating voters as obstacles to be managed rather than citizens to be persuaded can only further weaken our representative democracy.
Today, the Government uses the power of the Treasury benches to enact its vision. If, in November, New Zealanders vote the coalition out, that will tell us the Government lost the public’s confidence. But it will not tell us the change voters wanted or whether they actually support Labour’s fiscal approach, priorities or plans.
Labour should not want to stumble into power on the back of the coalition’s supposed unpopularity alone. It should want to show it has learned from its last time in office and to prove that its ambitions are matched by seriousness, discipline and a credible account of how change would be paid for and delivered.
A party seeking power should expose its programme to scrutiny before it receives the authority to implement it. If Labour cannot defend its ideas in Opposition, why should voters trust it to enact them in the next Government? Silence may be an effective way to avoid losing an election. It is a poor way to win legitimacy.
Catch up on the debates that dominated the week by signing up to our Opinion newsletter – a weekly round-up of our best commentary.