I am not a great fan of Rafael Behr on the Guardian: his writing rarely works for me. But this, published this morning, does neatly summarise a problem:
Labour is marooned between a discredited past and an unimagined future. Many of the obstacles to recovery predate the current leader. The difficulty in articulating a clear response to Brexit, for example, stems from the absence of common instincts on the best approach to immigration, free trade, markets, and on protecting people from the economic vagaries of globalisation without retreating into bitter rejection of the modern world.
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Spot on!
“A discredited past”?? An entirely unjustifiably discredited past, I might say,given the economic, social and political achievements of the Blair/Brown years (on which see Kitty Sue Jones as follows
https://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/labours-achievements-lest-we-forget/)
Labour simply threw away its best cards in 2010, by refusing to rebut the (now abundantly self-evident) Tory lies on thd economy, and to vigorously defend Labour’s record, and the two Ed’s are the villains of the piece here. Stupidity of epic proportions, all driven by a desire to “face the future, and not dwell on the past”.
The two Ed’s forgot the old adage – so well demonstrated by present Tory dominance of the narrative – that he who controls the past controls the present, and he who controls the present controls the future.
The first step in developing those “common instincts” is to undertake a vigorous defence of the last Labour Government’s undoubted achievements, and in so doing, Labour may discover those “common instincts” that Behr alleges it lacks, mining such treasure troves as “In trust for the future” and “Every child matters”.
The thing about the last Labour government was its sheer lack of ambition in reforming the economy and reversing the trend towards overconcentration of wealth and power. Think what huge reforms you could have got through with a 179 majority. And yet with a majority of merely 12 the Tories seek to gradually dismantle the welfare state.
Thomas, you make an excellent point. While the Blair government did rectify some of the appalling levels of underinvestment in the nation’s infrastructure, it did so mainly via SPV/PPP/PFI, the long-term results of which we are still living with. As yuou rightly point out, with such a massive majority he could have undertaken a radical overhaul of the country’s socio-economic programme. So, while he put more icing on the cake, the basic cake remained the same!
Personally I hold him (and Brown) responsible for the dangerous mess we’re in today. It’s not been often in the past 100 years that such a window of political opportunity has arisen in our form of democracy (Thatchr had 144 in 1983). To squander it, as the Blair governement did, suggests a level of ignorance & incompetence that beggars belief – especially after the wholesale destruction of the public sector by Thatcher. The Iraq crime was shocking enough but it has detracted from criticism of his domestic record.
As with any critique of political failure in whatever area, so much hinges on the government having economic competancy and the political will to apply it. Pre-1971, Roosevelt grasped the opportunity offered by Keynsian economics to mitigate the worst effects of the crisis with the New Deal 1933-38. Blair had such an opportunity in 1997 but, regrettably for future generations, neither he nor Brown understood how a modern fiat monetary systems functions. The Tory Party must have heaved the longest sigh of relief in history! Hence, we’re stuck in this destructive economic rut out of which there seems to be no escape.
Having read, marked and learned much of the wisdom expressed on this blog during the past year, I have now reached the conclusion that it’s time to abandon any hope that the Labour Party can mount an effective opposition to the ideologically corrupt neo-liberal incumbents. I urge all progressives to focus their energy on creating radical new initatives, such as the Green Party has proposed for the past 4 decades. Yes, it will mean at least another term of top-down Tory deceit and destruction, but I can see no othr altrnative. Marx thought Capitalism would be overturned buy the workers. He was wrong. The Neo-liberals will self-destruct, anaethetised to the social hurt they cause by their own silopsisitic greed.
While their comments are directed towards their domestic audience, I recommend watching this recent (5th December) discussion between 2 veteran campaigners for social justice – Noam Chomsky & Harry Belafonte – who eloquently articulate the dangers confronting us all and suggest it’s time for grass-roots action – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFwE9Itzzes. Get the pitchforks out in 2017!
The thesis of my new book is capitalism will kill itself
We need to work on that idea, I agree
Thomas, I ENTIRELY agree with you. Indeed, in a piece I wrote for my local Christian Socialist Movement Group here in Norwich on my observations on the 2015 General Election, I referred to the “Three Villains of the Piece” (actually should have been the “Three and a Half Villains of the Piece” – as my “three were 1) Blair 2) Gordon Brown, and 3) the Two Ed’s, with Balls being “the Half”).
I won’t go into the details of 2) and 3) above, but my reason for placing Blair as Number 1 was his pusillanimous response to the Jenkins’ Report on Electoral Reform, implementation of which would have ENTIRELY changed the outcomes of the last 3 Elections.
It is a scandal that Labour was able to “win” a 60 seat majority on a mere 21% of the total electorate – no wonder the Tories were incensed, and vowed to change things so it could never happen again, or at least, not for Labour, though they’re quite happy to be dismantling the Welfare State on 24% of the total electorate, where a mere 900 votes is reckoned to have given them their majority (see http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/general-election-results-just-900-5682492#ICID=sharebar_twitterhttp://)
Think, then, what Jenkins’s AV+ would have given us – 500 MP’s where the winner in each constituency would have had to get 50+ of all recorded options, and 125 additional MP’s, allocated on the basis of the total proportion of votes cast.
Sure, that would have resulted in a number of UKIP MP’s last time round – but they did, after achieve 12.9% share of the votes, (which was third in terms of votes), while the Greens polled 3.8% – giving them, respectively 16 and 4 or 5 Additional Member seats, over and above any won by direct election.
Even better, I would have tweaked Jenkins to have 250 TWO-member constituencies, each with an All-Male and All-Female list, so that gender parity could have been achieved, at least with the 500 directly elected MP’s, and something like that could have been achieved, by having Male and Female lists for the AMS seats.
But Blair bottled it, listened to his Party dinosaurs on this as on SO much else (eg the Lords, and a written Constitution), and created the conditions for the current Tory constitutional stitch-up, aiming to create a de facto “One Party State”, while preserving the de jure appearance of a multi=party democracy.
As to AllanW’s point about “fighting the old battles all over again”, I’m sorry but you really DON’T seem to have taken on board the force of the adage I eventually quoted correctly – that “He who controls the present, controls the past; and he who controls the past, controls the future.
Brutally, if SOME Party doesn’t take on the task of refuting the “shamanistic ” nonsense of the last 40 years of neo-liberalism, and expose to FULL public view the COMPLETE and UTTER failure of EVERY neo-liberal claim to greater economic effectiveness, then the “sheeple” will continue to be lead up the garden path to their appointed destiny at the knacker’s yard.
A very good list Andrew. As I have long argued the domestic performance of the 1997-2010 Labour government was good; I would certainly give them 7/10. I struggle to give the current Tory government even 0/10. I have been a long term believer in bipolar marking schemes and a score of -8/10 would be closer to the mark.
Like many I was incensed with the Iraq invasion; my main worry was the aftermath and the naive assumption that invasion would make the world a safer place. I have never been less pleased that my prediction underestimated just how bad it would be. Blair totally overestimated his leverage over the Americans and was treated as a poodle by Bush Chaney and Rumsfeld. Blair totally ignored his European colleagues, particularly the French to a cost which was eventually fatal on his reputation.
I’m not sure if Blair will ever be loved, but the loathing by certain factions within the Labour party is vastly damaging. The Tory’s are able to celibate Margaret Thatcher.
In the words of a Leonard Cohen song “The rich have their channels in the bedrooms of the poor”; There will be a large fraction of the media which will demonize the achievements of the Labour government. It does Labour a disservice that it has so many in the party who see the glass half empty.
Andrew;
“The first step in developing those “common instincts” is to undertake a vigorous defence of the last Labour Government’s undoubted achievements ..”
Forgive me for mentioning it but if this had been the vigorous platform upon which the last General Election was fought the result may have been different but it wasn’t. It was the same political miscalculation of positioning that Shillary made (‘We’re slightly less nasty than our opponent). If you attempt to re-fight that battle now after the river of time has moved on, (Brexit, refugee crisis, Trump, Aleppo et al) your party may make itself even more of an irrelevance than it already is as people will conclude you find it difficult to accept the reality you are faced with now. Is this your intention?
Surely it’s possible to articulate a hopeful, positive message for the future rather than harp on about the past in which you lost so badly? For your sake it had better be and fast. As Thomas says, many in the electorate who have already abandoned their traditional party loyalty won’t be won back by further examples of political calculations that seem distant from current reality and seek to look backwards rather than cope with the problems of today.
I think that’s only part of the problem, and if the prescription that comes from it is “more Blair”, then not one likely to have much traction.
The problems with Ed and Ed were threefold.
First, yes,a failure to defend Labour’s record, in mistaken view that they should not defend something the voters had rejected. There were things to defend.
Secondly, a failure to critique Labour’s record. There were things to criticise and they should have done so. That they didn’t was partly down to party unity. To have done so would have shown a willingness to learn, and a turning of the page.
Thirdly, they failed to offer anything very much in its place. In the end their analysis and their programme seemed little more than a diluted version of what the Tories were offering.
Too early in the morning to be fully coherent – unlike Richard, who is adept at early morning blogging.
The old adage is, of course: “He who controls the present, controls the past; and he who controls the past, controls the future.”
Far sharper than my flabby original.
Andrew Dickie is entirely correct to highlight the impressive achievements of Labour in office as they are easily forgotten in our current mood of despair. Kitty Jones’ list should be celebrated at every opportunity by Labour politicians BUT there were errors in the Blair-Brown years, the greatest being the embrace of the neoliberal model of economics initiated by Thatcher who praised Blair a her biggest achievement in politics. Mandelson being extremely relaxed about how much the rich earned being a key indicator. The literature is now substantial concerning the demise of neoliberal capitalism and the inability of this model to work for democratic ends. The inability, reluctance or ignorance of tackling the neoliberalism paradigm is the root cause of the problems with Labour. Indeed ideas such as P.F.I. and the introduction of outsourcing in the areas of Health and Education are well established neoliberal strategies and have led to the undermining of the commons. Labour is therefore split. It has had many achievements in the recent past, particularly in education, the reduction in child poverty and in the field of human rights. But these achievements are overwhelmed by the inability of Labour to tackle the inexorable rise of the rich elites in our society and until we regain some democratic control of the economy our problems will only increase. Labour will succeed when and if it soul embraces this reality. Until then its message will be meandering, incoherent and a failure.
Corbyn is an opposition parliamentarian, and in many ways a good one. His tireless opposition to the wars conducted by new labour is worthy of a lot of respect. If only the government had listened to him…
However, he clearly is not a mainstream leader. He can’t articulate a combined vision for where society should be going and how we are going to get there. He can’t get people on board who aren’t already listening. He most certainly can’t convince people that he can protect them.
I don’t blame him entirely for this. He only stood because the offering of the labour party in the first leadership election was a choice between:
i) Yvette Cooper – More of the failed same. Pro war, pro austerity.
ii) Liz Kendall – More of the failed same but much more Tory and distinctly unlikeable.
iii) Andy Burnham – More of the failed same. More likeable but still not very inspiring.
People want a genuine radical alternative to the failed same old approach of New Labour and the increasing radicalisation of the right. New Labour were not offering anything to fill this void.
Corbyn only stood to try and give a voice to those who want something new, radical and positive to fill this void and provide hope.
He is caretaker candidate for the political void. The void which needs to be filled with a radical, bold, brave alternative.
Unfortunately, he is not an actual leader that can deliver on that, he is merely keeping the seat warm. Meanwhile the void is being filled by the far right.
If Labour is to avoid electoral irrelevance, they need to find a new labour with Corbyn’s endorsement that can bridge the political void and deliver a credible vision that provides hope, pronto.
Simple….
Neo-liberalism the economic model accepted by the Blair administration is the discredited past, even the Tories are in true Chameleon fashion paying lip service to it’s death. Ed Miliband was hamstrung by a lack of Charisma, a hostile press and a disunited party, these things have not changed much. Jeremy has a form of charisma but the disunity is greater. I cannot see how after such a bitter internal fight lasting 4 months, Labour is expected to regain it’s credibility in 3 just because the parliamentary party have supposedly been well behaved for a short period of time. Well behaved by what standards, there is still sniping and open hostility from parts, still continuous open criticism from MPs and supposedly centre-left media. Jeremy is secure despite flaws, maybe instead of continual open criticism, the party and supporters should rally around offer privately to help advise and encourage.
Ed Miliband (and Balls, of course) were certainly hamstrung by those things you mention, but they decided to deal with this by unloading both barrels into their own feet by failing to address the Tory lies about overspending by the previous Labour government and how it had crashed the economy.
I was actually doorstepped by our local Labour candidate in 2010 and had a quick chat with him mentioning how aghast and baffled I was with this sad state of affairs. As I recall, he agreed with me entirely though he was clearly none the wiser as to why the leadership policy was so ridiculously inept. It’s almost as if the two Eds wanted to lose!
Thatcher apparently said that New Labour was a greatest creation. I believe her to be correct and for once, sagacious.
Even now, I see people slagging off Corbyn for daring to take us left (or at least intending to). Those who criticise going Left do not realise how too far to the Right the country has been pulled. I have to laugh when I hear of ‘Centrists’ being mentioned as the only viable option for the Left.
They also ignore the real problems in Labour at the moment – a perceived lack of leadership and even worse ( because believe you me, leadership is over-rated) a lack of co-operation amongst Labour MPs who seem willing to sacrifice the needs of their constituents over internal party politics.
The Centre of what may I ask? Of a predominantly Right wing polity? Yet more ‘Right leaning Leftist? It hasn’t worked.
All I want is duality – a dialectic – a constant discussion between Right and Left and good people in Parliament to manage this. Why is it that we always seem to settle for the ONE answer and not realise that there are MANY answers to how to sort out our problems.
The problem is the Left is so wedded to an out of date world view
Until that is updated there is a real problem
I hope I’m not just clutching at straws, but Keir Starmer’s Bloomberg speech (http://labourlist.org/2016/12/this-is-the-battle-of-our-times-labour-will-fight-against-a-hard-brexit-keir-starmer/) yesterday sounded promising. In particular, I welcome these points:
– Labour has to oppose in real-time, it can’t be postponed to 2020
– both a free market in migration and a repressive obsession with driving down the volume of immigration are damaging, and neither addresses voters’ underlying and reasonable concerns; the debate has to be shifted from crude numbers to how migration’s impacts are managed (including the regional imbalances)
– Labour must shift focus from an abstract question (“Leave or Remain?”) that divides people irreconcilably, to concrete questions about what precisely to do; Starmer’s 5 tests help to put this on a more objective, less emotive basis
If one effect is to help people grasp that Article 50 is (by design) a lobster trap, not an exit route to the sunlit uplands, that’s just as well.
I will take a read
Thanks
Its interesting how you only hear what you want to hear. I remember both Ed and Corbyn saying that its the impact of immigration needs to be dealt with – i.e.investment in housing, NHS, schools, and enforcing minimum wages and stopping agencies that only employ foreigners.
Is Starmer suggesting anything else? Not quite sure why everyone seems to think he’s the new wonder boy, I’ve not been over impressed when he has been interviewed.
I am not bowled over either
Andy Burnham was on Newsnight tonight expressing the view that Labour cannot win in its traditional heartlands with the leadership’s present attitude to immigration. They should be grateful that Brexit will sort this out for them if they’d just keep quiet and stop pressing the button that we must have access to the single market and that will require free movement of labour. It’s not going to happen. Len McCluskey knows this and must be equally frustrated with Jeremy’s team, where he agrees with all his other policies. It’s just a fact that employers will exploit an endless pool of cheap labour, which is sucking the dynamism out of our economy. If they’re lucky the General Election will indeed be after Brexit is a fait accompli. I believe that a referendum should only have been held to back a decision to Leave – it was ridiculous to ask people to vote for the status quo. I voted Leave for more reasons than ending free movement of labour but it was certainly one of them.
As usual, apologies for the unacceptably high number of typos. Brain working faster than fingers. It would be great if you could incorporate a spell-check function for sloppy posters like me – and you too on occasions!
I am annoyed that my iPad in particular is useless in this respect
And WordPress is not much better
Richard,
I cannot see the Labour party surviving at the current rate. Post Brexit it is being pulled too far in polar opposite directions. It would be fascinating now to see a by-election in either a metropolitan previously thought safe Labour seat which voted remain or a previously thought safe Labour seat in one of its northern former working class heartlands which voted leave. How can Labour cope when UKIP or the Lib Dems roll up and throw all their ammo at a seat in an election that will very much be are you pro or anti Brexit. Labour through a combination of incompetence, bewilderment and hopelessness is sitting firmly on the Brexit fence post referendum when all the voters seem to have firmly picked a side.
My prediction: Labour would not win such a by-election.
Wait until Brexit is bedded down, with all the troubles it’s going to cause the tories. By then UKIP will be an irrelevance.
Rick
What you seem to be suggesting is that Labour needs to have a hard either/or position like the Orange bookers or UKIP. Punchy sound bite stuff, but hardly nuanced for a longer term view.
There are many people that think The Soft Brexit is the best option, that can realistically be achieved, Labour therefore has taken this position. by doing so it’s a short term rock and a hard place, but if soft Brexit is achieved, then Labour can build, probably on a less partisan form of politics than inners and outers.
As pointed out earlier the Brexit vote had a good deal to do with a rejection of the status quo/neo liberal orthodoxy, a new paradigm needs to be constructed by Labour replacing, and not just rejecting Neoo Liberalism.
Some very good blogs guys. Thanks Richard
Paul,
The concept of soft Brexit is completely undefined. It can mean anything to anyone but the great danger for Labour is that it actually means nothing to everyone. When people are so split as being for or against Brexit to go with a stance of being half and half is of little appeal to anyone. If Labour are going to go for soft Brexit then at some point they need to stick their head above the parapet and say what that actually is. The problem is that is as soon as they do that they will get shot at from both sides for being either too soft (UKIP) or too hard (Lib Dems).
Labour’s soft Brexit stance fits the analogy of placing your ice cream stall in the middle of the beach so as to appeal best to all of the sunbathers. The problem Labour face is that the majority of sunbathers have set their sunloungers on extreme ends of the beach and are not willing to walk all the way to the centre to buy an ice cream particularly when the Lib Dems or Ukip have their ice cream stalls up at the extreme ends.
I understand why a soft Brexit may play out as the best way forward in policy discussions etc for a party that has seen its supporters so split on the issue. However in the real world and the voting booth I just cannot see it working. At some point Labour has to decide which side of the fence they are on and at that point they may be ripped in two.
Ed M was on the right track at the last election and was moving Labour a little leftwards. But he left it far too late and wasnt bold enough. Playing it safe was the wrong way to go, while the failure to robustly defend Labour’s record in Govt was plain stupid.
Our current position is teetering on the edge of irrelevance.
Behr’s article is one of the best I’ve read about Corbyn’s leadership and just where we currently find ourselves. He hits several nails squarely on the head for me. Labour’s problems are many and some are seriously challenging, but having a vacuum at the head of the party is helping no one.
That Corbyn is precisely the wrong person to be leader at this critical juncture for party and country is nothing short of a tragedy.
So much of the vacuum of leadership in the party is down to the selection policy under Blair where the left were largely excluded from becoming MPs. I even read one story where someone was selected for a shortlist to become a PPC when he started to canvas for support he was told that people had already voted,so now there is a dearth of talent in the PLP, filled by a lot of place men, this may take a few elections to properly work itself out.
I will credit Brown and Balls for one thing; keeping us out of the Euro, which has been a Europe wide disaster
If that’s all you think they did of worth you had your eyes closed for a long time
No but my time is limited and I did want to provide some positive comment
It has been suggested by many people that Labour needs a charismatic leader, ersonally I don’t think we do. Clement Attlee was nat particularly charismatic, but he got a job done. This is an interesting read from 2010 ans 2014:
http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2010/08/labour-party-attlee-government
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/john-prescott-clement-attlee-not-3952691
I would suggest that Corbyn, although not to everyone’s tast is more from Attlee’s mold than others credit. I have heard a lot of the cult of personality, but these same people say he has no personality. They need to make up their mind.
Who is it that has decided that Corbyn is unable to do the job in hand? That particular narrative is a construct of the media and the right who see him as very dangerous simply because he does have a vision, and it is the polar opposite to what they want. This also includes PLP members. His ‘vision’ may not be a perfect one that suits all, but it is there, and people want someone who is ethical adn not shiny. When we have heroic leaders is when we are most disappointed, and it is they who are followed in cult like fashion which often leads to disaster – hence Trump.
Sometimes we need a quiet mouse to show the way.
Respectfully, no we don’t
The Tories had to learn that with IDS
And now Labour is repeating the mistake
Suggesting there is any similarity between Attlee and JC is to completely misunderstand ‘Citizen Clem’ and to elevate JC to a level beyond his competence (IMHO). There are legion articles about how Attlee achieved what he did and this official one is as good as any – https://history.blog.gov.uk/2014/03/11/clement-attlee-enigmatic-out-of-time-and-formidable. He was certainly no mouse. He was very decisive, a good leader and chooser of men, and he certainly knew how to get things done. John Freeman, the diplomat, broadcaster and last surving member of his government, remembered him as “a master of the Whitehall machine, who knew all about paperwork, parliament and, above all, about timing”. Ironic that someone who was the butt of so many Churchiilian witty put-downs (“A modest man, who has much to be modest about”) should now be recognised as an even greater Prime Minister than Churchill himself. They were, of course, very different times with none of the intrusive, trashy mass media we know today. ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man’. With regards to the Labour Party we’re still patiently waiting.