To build, or not to build, that is the question. Or that was the focus of Sir Keir Starmer’s questioning, at least, during PMQs on Wednesday afternoon, as the Labour leader clashed with Rishi Sunak ahead of the local elections today.
“His councillors simply don’t want to build the houses local people need”, Starmer said, stating that the prime minister should “stop blaming everyone else and just build some houses instead”.
Housing is fast emerging as a key political fault line in British politics, signalled by Sir Keir amping up his anti-NIMBYism in recent days. Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, the Labour leader vowed to “take on the NIMBYs” (or Not-in-my-back-yarders who oppose new development) adding “We need to get the [central housing] target back, to show strength and build out of the damage the PM has inflicted on the country”.
Sir Keir also told the Observer newspaper over the weekend that he wants Labour “to be the party of home ownership”, promising to make “tough decisions” and be “bold”.
Following a consistent trend with the Labour leader’s political strategy, the new emphasis on house building is — in part — designed to exploit perceived Conservative vulnerability.
In November, No 10 vowed to make good on the Conservative party’s 2019 manifesto promise with the proposal to build 300,000 homes a year in England as part of the government’s flagship levelling up bill. But the prime minister, faced with a revolt of more than 100 MPs led by former Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers, was accosted with a hostile amendment which would have stripped the legislation of any mandatory, centrally-set housing targets. Sunak duly gave way in an episode that summed up for many the PM’s weak grip on his parliamentary party.
Of course, Sunak’s control over his MPs has improved markedly since November. But while the prime minister’s “unite or die” message may have whipped the Conservative party into shape, Villiers’ NIMBYism remains a defining creed in the government’s approach to housebuilding.
Replying to Sir Keir’s housing assault at PMQs on Wednesday, Sunak affirmed: “I promised to put local people in control of new housing and I’m proud that that’s what I’ve delivered within six weeks of becoming prime minister. Now he [Starmer] wants to impose top-down housing targets, he wants to concrete over the greenbelt and ride roughshod over local communities”.
It was a reply that leaves the housing issue wide open for Labour — and Sir Keir intends to take advantage. In fact, the government’s ambition of 300,000 new homes a year for England, writ in the 2019 manifesto, has now been adopted by Labour in a move plainly intended to highlight the Conservative party’s construction shortcomings.
As for Sunak’s housing policy, the government is reportedly attempting to resurrect the Cameron-era Help to Buy scheme. The Conservatives have for years declared they would transform “generation rent” into “generation buy”, but the reversion to a policy that is almost a decade old will delight few.
Nor will a recent move from housing secretary Michael Gove, who personally intervened to block a new development in Kent because it was too “generic”. The intervention marked the first time the housing secretary has blocked a decision based on the aesthetics of the development and arguably sums up the Conservative party’s approach to housing in recent months.
Of course, this was the same Michael Gove who, at the launch event of centre-right think tank Onward’s “Future of Conservatism” project in February, told attendees: “we must do more to bring us closer to a sustainable housing settlement where young people — including those currently without capital — grow up in houses and neighbourhoods that are safe, decent and beautiful, and where it is a realistic hope to own their home”.
Gove’s commentary here — development veto notwithstanding — shows how important homeownership is generally considered in right-of-centre circles. So what does the Conservatives’ ascendant NIMBYism say about the party’s present intellectual trajectory?
Housing is often cited as an existential issue for the Conservative party. Back in November, this was the key argument of former cabinet minister Simon Clarke, who fronted an ill-fated counter-rebellion amid Theresa Villiers’ 100-strong NIMBY backlash.
Taking to Twitter at the time, Clarke explained: “If you want to see what the future of the Conservatives is when we don’t build homes, look at London. Our collapsing vote in the capital is at least in part because you can’t make the case for popular Conservatism if you can’t afford to buy, or even rent”.
He finished: “This isn’t rocket science — it’s economics and politics 101”.
And responding to Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer’s housing exchange at PMQs, Clarke warned in a leaked WhatsApp message: “We cannot become the party of nimbyism. It will be hugely damaging to the country and our electoral fortunes”. In a string of messages seen by The Times, several other Conservative MPs raised concerns about Sunak’s messaging here.
Clarke’s argument is essentially that in an era of mass democracy, the security, sustainability and social benefits homeownership creates can help inspire Conservative values across society. In this view, it is the home, as a harbinger of moral virtue and high citizenship, where a newly-bourgeoisified individual learns to be a conservative. When Margaret Thatcher said “The facts of life are Conservative” — this is what she meant.
NIMBYism, therefore, arguably gnaws at the branch on which the foundation of modern Conservatism is built.
Simon Clarke has heightened his YIMBY activism in recent months as the parliamentary patron of the new Next Gen Tories pressure group — an organisation which calls on the Conservatives to tackle the root causes of the generational divide by building thousands of new homes. The group’s own research suggests the UK economy could stand to reap £17.7 billion in GDP growth for every 100,000 new homes.
Speaking at the Next Gen Tories’ parliamentary launch event at the beginning of March, Clarke lamented the “sad reality that the siren calls of NIMBYism”, adding: “I recognise as well as anybody there is a constituency in our politics, there is a constituency in our party, which is opposed to the very things which we know are vital for economic prosperity and social opportunity. We need to overcome that”.
The unofficial YIMBY entente extends further into the world of centre-right think tanks including the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS). In a column for The Times at the height of Villiers’ housing rebellion, CPS director Robert Colville decried NIMBYism for “spitting in the face of a generation — not to mention removing any prospect of its members ever becoming homeowners and voting Tory”. Then there are the millennial, small-c conservative commentators and journalists such as The Express’ Christian Calgie and GB News’ Tom Harwood, who take to Twitter daily to extol YIMBYism’s forsaken virtues.
For such voices, the political punishment involved in Rishi Sunak’s pursuit of NIMBYism is obvious. Equally, in his own bid to seize the YIMBY mantle, Sir Keir Starmer eyes a significant electoral windfall.
Although housing does not feature in Labour’s five “missions”, Sir Keir Starmer has recently taken to emphasising the link between planning reform and economic growth. A good and loyal Trussite, housebuilding now forms a core part of Sir Keir’s view of growth as a panacea to Britain’s modern ills.
Moreover, a YIMBY housing pitch will hone Starmer’s pitch to young voters. Following his U-turn on abolishing tuition and new hardline stance on drugs policy, Sir Keir is under pressure to firm up his offering to this group. And with Rishi Sunak appearing to vacate the homeownership battleground, this is an area on which Labour thinks it can fight and win at the next election.
