The alarm has gone off in the Labor Party. The party leader feels and talks about the pain of the election defeat. The party members cry crisis. After 99 years as the country’s largest – sometimes sovereign – party, it is time for self-examination and evaluation in Ap. When Støre took office on the national board, he gave recognition to the crisis designation, but contented himself with calling it a “serious situation”. It makes the pun bigger than it should be. The party leadership seems manically concerned with avoiding calling it a crisis. At the same time, it is very permissible for others to call it that. What does it take for there to be a crisis? So it is not enough that Ap does dramatically poorly two years into a government term – the government is the most unpopular after two years of all governments in the 2000s. Is it not enough that Labor is smaller than the Conservative Party for the first time since 1924? Is it not enough that voters leave the left in unusually large numbers while there is an Ap-led government? Isn’t it enough that Labor loses control in the country’s most populous municipalities? Doesn’t it hold that Ap has been less than Høyre on the average of parliamentary polls every month since November 2021? Ap has regressed from the previous equal election from the general election in 2009 to 2013 to 2017 to 2021. Also from the local council elections in 2015, to 2019 and now in 2023. Still not enough to be called a crisis? It could get worse, it’s not better either. On the other hand: By calling it a crisis, the follow-up question will be what will it take for it to end? A turnout? Government power? Number of mayors? Number of negative press reports? A political change of course? That someone leaves? That is perhaps why the leadership themselves do not want to call it a crisis, but they obviously understand that it must be allowed for others in the party to call it that. Anyway: It is more interesting what Ap does to solve the situation, than exactly what they call it. Jonas Gahr Støre ran an intense election campaign for Ap, here from a school visit in Tromsø. Photo: Lars Nehru Sand / news Sjelegransking Støre’s national government speech gives a slightly different seriousness to previous speeches in the same genre he has given. In addition to explaining the defeat with a time of crisis (external factor), people’s private finances (external factor), the competency cases (self-inflicted crisis case), he also came up with two rather self-recognizing explanatory factors. Two factors that oblige him and the party run deep and potentially require a lot of change in both policy, rhetoric and organisation: The election was lost in the long term. The election was lost because Ap did not have the best answers to the most important questions for potential Ap voters. Under Støre’s leadership with the Ap-national meeting’s program decision, the Labor Party has thus not been able to understand the times we live in, give answers people believe in and talk about it in a convincing way, to paraphrase a well-known Youngstorget word of wisdom. The fact that Ap has lost its footing over a long period of time is also a bigger fact than party members admit. The self-esteem may not be calibrated, but when Støre emphasizes the long-term, he also says that this is about more than this election campaign. Then the solutions cannot be short-term either. There is no way in which soul-searching process the party leadership is setting up, we are to believe them ourselves. Everything must be included. By November, the party must stop, learn and become a better version of itself. Nothing less. It’s the economy … Støre speaks warmly and hopefully about the fact that the price increase is on the way down and the interest rate peak will soon be reached. Ordinary people have a worse personal financial situation than a year ago, said Støre and pointed to surveys. That is correct, but it is wrong if anyone were to think that Ap can only play along the interest rate path and wait for support to rise when interest rates fall. Voters’ uncertainty makes it worse for Ap, but the problem is bigger than that. The danger is that the evaluation process does not have sufficient legitimacy and that it becomes to a large extent an exhibition of fads in the stable for grassroots representatives and sour ex-mayors. Many want Ap to cooperate with the left, others believe Ap is too close to the Center Party. Too much district politics or too little city politics. Too much environmental policy or too little. For uniform management. Too little overall team spirit between the government apparatus and the rest of the party. It can be difficult to sort and rank solutions. Støre is concerned that the process should be educational and that the dividend should be forward-looking. Work soon began on the new party program and the long parliamentary election campaign. Regardless of how and for how long Ap evaluates the election defeat: The voters must feel represented by a party with clearly defined ambitions for society, trust and credibility of the front figures and a united team that looks more outward than inward. This is the only way Ap can reverse the trend. Støre at the Storting on election night when it was clear that Labor did not become the country’s largest party. That’s what the party will be in two and four years, Støre promised the national board meeting today. Photo: Cicilie S. Andersen / Cicilie S. Andersen news
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Everything must be included – Speech
