Inside the public affairs war room: advising clients through UK political chaos
In the last ten years, the UK has had six Prime Ministers, three general elections, Brexit, a pandemic, and recently, after two years of relative calm, a cabinet in open revolt. Rather than stabilising, dramatic uncertainty seems to be increasing, with the traditional two-party system well and truly creaking at the seams, and numerous thinkpieces questioning whether the UK is now ‘ungovernable’.
What does this mean for the public affairs sector, and how are public affairs professionals advising their teams, whether in-house or in agencies?
Ultimately, public affairs strategies which focus on intelligence-led and integrated counsel, rather than pure relationships, will thrive.
Near-constant rapid briefings of who is who
It has been a particularly unstable past few weeks, but the reality is that the new normal is for a political crisis to seemingly drop every month.
For public affairs teams, this means a near-constant rapid deep dive into, for example, a new minister; their previous parliamentary contributions, their stated positions, their factional home, and analysing what this means for ongoing policy areas. This now also, frankly, requires a wider assessment of how likely it is they will remain in post for long.
In times of chaos, this will be through by-the-minute monitoring including of media, and integrated teams who have a wider communications and PR element will be of particular value here. This will also involve, of course, sifting through parliamentary monitoring services and rapidly flagging these developments internally. What happens next is key, and that is the internal triaging of what is genuinely important to a client’s strategy, and what is simply news. Indeed, not every development requires an urgent briefing.
And for engagement, intelligence-led counsel matters more than ever before. If an MP changes party - who are they? Who are their allies? What ‘wing’ or ‘faction’ of their prior party were they part of? This all matters.
This is because beyond the frequent “we welcome you in your new position as Secretary of State” letters public affairs professionals are likely writing, they are also fielding numerous questions from internal teams and clients on what the near-constant tumultuous government changes mean for corporate strategies. Talks of a new Party leader, and a new Cabinet, is sparking serious doubt from clients on whether long-standing, hard-earned policy workstreams will survive.
But remember: civil service officials will remain in post, and institutional memory can survive a reshuffle. The headlines will focus on who is in and who is out, but public affairs professionals should understand and explain the nuances of policymaking. So it’s important not to panic with assumptions that all prior hard work will be ripped up. The immediate job is reassurance and getting ahead of the questions by providing briefings before they’re even asked.
That is the case even as a leadership contest looms. All eyes are currently on the Makerfield by-election, which could prove decisive for Andy Burnham, one of the few politicians with a net positive favourability rating in polling, and his chances of even getting a seat in Parliament from which to mount a challenge.
For now, we advise carrying on with ongoing work and advocacy, rather than pivoting, with the Government and its legislative programme remaining in place for now, but remain hot on the pulse for any further changes.
The view from inside the Westminster bubble
Parliamentary procedure can be esoteric and the world of policymaking is opaque.
Agencies may be finding themselves constantly explaining procedures based on precedent and party rules to client contacts in non-PA roles; even in-house, trying to explain to non-PA teams why something is particularly significant may be occurring more and more. Setting out the context is vital.
Outside the Westminster bubble, not everyone has the time to track all the minutiae of the political machine, and they don’t need to. This has always been the case, but political chaos has a habit of unearthing sometimes long-buried constitutional quirks. A pre-election sensitivity period isn’t one of these, but given the amount of recent snap elections, public affairs teams will find themselves explaining what these are and how engagement can be impacted. However, not everything needs to be communicated - all organisations need to know is, how does this impact me?
More specific and recent, we can look at the local elections as an example. For clients or organisations who only require engaging on a UK parliament level, they may usually overlook them. But this time was particularly significant. Labour lost 1,498 English councillors, near the 1,500 threshold we had told clients in advance would signal serious trouble ahead. What was notable about these results was that a significant amount went to challenger parties on both the right and left. As a result, clients needed to know that this would likely trigger another phase of political crisis, including a potential party leadership contest, and the timelines this would involve.
What works for public affairs going forward
The best public affairs professionals are those able to proactively react, rapidly pivot, but NOT to blindly chase access, which may be a natural instinct with a revolving door of stakeholders. Public affairs and decent policymaking should never be about black book contacts. That is true especially now.
Simply knowing a minister is inherently fragile. What holds up under political volatility are clear, well-constructed arguments, consistently articulated to a broad array of stakeholders, which build long-term credibility for your organisation.
Furthermore, political developments are no longer a steady background noise to people’s lives, but rather media storms in the making. Organisations that can effectively link up their PR and public affairs teams to respond to such events will be in a much better position going forward.
The political ground will keep shifting. It isn’t worth wasting time waiting for stability. Instead, plan now about how to build messaging that works regardless of who is holding the brief.