I admit I do not know Marco Fante, who comments regularly on this blog. But what I do know is that he provides regular sound commentary. One comment that he made on Friday was, I thought particularly pertinent. Responding to my commentary on the local election results he began by quoting, as I did:
“Overall though, we seem to be seeing an entrenchment of the status quo: a divided Britain in which big cities vote Labour and everywhere else votes Conservative,” said Carr-West.”
And then he added this analysis, which I think it worth sharing as it tackles an issue far too rarely discussed, which is how to take a left of centre policy into rural constituencies:
So Labour needs to woo areas outside of the big cities. So how do they do that? The discrepancy between their vote share and the number of HoC seats (or councils) they control has become more than conspicuous. Blairism isn't the answer. It was once a solution (?) to FPTP problems but it was on offer for the entire period between Brown and Corbyn and failed to succeed. It is (thankfully) passe and in any case it would sacrifice the new support emerging in the cities.
This question is one where we need to stop whingeing and come up with real ideas — new ones.
OK so, I will start by suggesting that Labour follow through on its acceptance of the Customs Union by crafting an agricultural policy that is too good for rural areas to resist. Technically, agriculture represents a small proportion of GDP and employment but the multiplier that flows from that into manufacturing and retail is big and it is psychologically central to regional identity in many places.
With Brexit an old system goes and the historic chance is there for a better one to replace it. There is a competing mix of considerations there for example see:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/20/frictionless-eu-trade-is-vital-post-brexit-for-uk-farming-to-survive
https://www.ft.com/content/e33d5f12-f462-11e7-8715-e94187b3017e
Politically, the opportunity here is to offer something helpful that Gove and the Tories with their burden of “free market” ideology will find hard to match. ‘Populism' and good policy need not be at odds. Not always.
Flowing from the agricultural idea, a strong, good (and much needed) competition policy that openly favours small business (good competition policy usually does) is essential and arguably even more important. There is real conflict between the big corporate oligipolies (especially retail oligopolies) and small business even if it is understated in the UK media. The big UK retailers and wholesalers have effectively become a monopsony or oligopsony (if you don't know, look it up) that crushes their less powerful suppliers. They also squeeze smaller competitors in the market place through abuse of market power. To that end there is an entire constituency that is unrepresented and begging for help.
Politically, This is not just about the small business-people, it is about their dependents and the regional areas that identify more closely with small business.
Moreover, this idea is really important for 4 reasons:
It is right and fair in principle.
It is pro-democratic (loosening the concentration of market power) and pro-consumer as well as being pro-small business.
It is essential to the effectivenes of Keynesian/MMT stimulus policy. In the absence of strong competition policy, economic stimulus (rising demand) will be largely captured in the form of price increases by rent-seekers with monopoly power.
It will open up a whole new constituency of both new and existing voters and broaden the party's appeal — while the Tories being more captive to vested interests will find this hard to match (in the short term at least).
If these ideas alone were adopted, astutely pitched to the relevant constituents, ironed out and polished up over the next 2 years they would not only address important issues, they could re-shape the party's restricted identity and position it well for the long-term. They might also be enough to turn a majority of votes into a majority of seats.
That has to be worth some wider discussion.
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I have no problem with these ideas except that they make the common error of assuming that ‘rural’ equals ‘agricultural’. In my small village in West Worcestershire, only seven perecent of employed people work in agriculture, with much larger groups in manufacturing (16%), wholesale, retail and motor repair (16%) and real estatre (13%). The main issues that concern people here are probably the decline of rural services (closures of shops, pubs and post offices in villages as well as bank closures in market towns), poor public transport, the lack of truly affordable housing, and the threat that rural communities will lose their character because of uncontrolled building of ‘luxury executive’ homes for irban commuters.
Marco addressed that issue
Great idea Marco, I really like it.
I especially like your insight that the Tories are potentially hindered by their own idealogy and the interests of their big corporate backers. Where Blairism tried to emulate and effectively out-neoliberal the neoliberals in a direct test of strength I think this idea finds the weakness in the Tory machine that allows us to turn their strength and weight against them.
All I’d add is that the principle of competition policy to undermine monopolists should be applied across the board in all industries.
Thanks.
Labour certainly need to develop a new agriculture/food policy – they have been told that by everyone over the past year, as Gove develops his. So far, we have seen very little from the Labour agriculture team, other than a commitment to achieve 85% self sufficiency and some rather vague promises to reduce the power of the supermarket oligopoly. Meanwhile Gove is pushing forward with some radical ideas, against the vested interests of the National Farmers Union (and the Supermarkets are surprisingly quiet). Gove’s ideas are not all about letting market forces hold sway – and he’s pushing back against colleagues like Liam Fox who would be happy to relax all import controls, and flood the country with cheap low quality food from abroad. Echoes of the old Tory/Liberal debate on the price of bread are bouncing off walls everywhere. A new Tariff Reform League, anyone?
I have some concerns about an agriculture policy which is “too good to resist”. We have had that in the past – from 1947 to 1973 under British agriculture policy, then a further 20 years of more of the same, under the Common Agricultural Policy. The flow of Government funding to farmers, in terms of capital funding, revenue and price support, led to the wholesale transformation of the British landscape. This transformation rid it of much of its social fabric, rural employment, history and nature. It also led to massive increases in land price, with consequent concentration of land ownership in fewer and fewer hands as farm sizes increased, and labour was replaced by capital.
So what would a left wing agriculture policy look like – what would its aims be and how would they be achieved? This is
not explained in the post. Nor is the fact that agriculture and food policy cannot be sensibly dealt with separately, or indeed agriculture and the environment, given that 85% of the UK is farmland.
Further, as we understand more about the relationship between the food we eat and human health, it makes less sense to separate out food policy from health policy. So, in reality what Labour needs to do is lay out its stall on how it would approach agriculture, food, the environment and health in an integrated manner.
Miles,
You raise some interesting points and it is good to hear from someone who knows more about this than I do.
It is disappointing to hear that Labour is so slow off the mark but good to know that they have combined the idea of agricultural and competition policy. What they need now is for someone there to join the dots between that and extending their constituency (winning more seats and getting into power).
I note your comments about Gove and have also noticed (see links above) that he has floated ideas about rewarding farmers for conservation which is interesting and not to be ignored. One thing for sure he is not entirely stupid. He has seen how Liam Fox quickly got himself buried in “chlorinated chicken” memes and decided not to go down the same path. That said I would imagine that there are limits to the extent that the Tories will eschew their ideology or abandon their closer vested interests although I don’t quite know what that those limits are.
I am not sure that an agricultural policy that is ‘too good to resist’ is one that need repeat the mistakes of the past although the main challenge probably lies in making sure that area doesn’t become a pork-barrelling contest between the two major parties.
You are right in saying that the post “does not explain what a left-wing agriculture policy would look like”. That is because the post (my comment originally) was already too long and because I don’t yet know enough about agriculture policy. As for competition policy it should probably take its cues from the best of contemporary ideas as well as the long legacy that dates back to the US Anti-Trust laws of the early 20th century. Currently the Competition Act 1998 is tied up in concerns about specific abuses of market power and its consistency with EU regulation. Brexit brings an opportunity.
https://www.slaughterandmay.com/media/1515647/an-overview-of-the-uk-competition-rules.pdf (p.3)
Neo-liberal “competition” policy is generally blind to the accumulation of mergers so beloved of merchant banks and generally holds that market power is OK is long as you don’t do X, Y or Z. A good left-wing policy would have it that a concentration of market power is wrong in itself and that “trade liberalisation” (competition from imports ) is a false substitute.
Just finally, I think that your point about integrating agriculture, food, the environment and health is a very good one. It turns a policy into an extended manifesto. Throw competition and trade into that (as they may well have to) and Labour could have the progressive vision for a post-Brexit future.
Its possible.
thanks Marco. I think Labour has struggled with an agriculture/food policy for a very long time. It was Attlee’s Government who made the contract with the farmers in 1947 which laid the ground for the type of support I outlined in my first comment, with the noble sentiment of supporting the domestic production of affordable nutritious food. That was a long time ago though, and I suspect it was a relief for them not to have to think about it too much during the time when decisions were made in Brussels. This might help explain why Labour has been so slow out of the blocks in developing its own policy – aside from the fact that they aren’t in power so don’t have to do it. That may change, and quite soon.
For the last 70 years though, the real power lay with the Farming Unions, especially the National Farmers Union of England and Wales. They ensured their productionist vision of agriculture was delivered, by which ever party. Though farmers are by their nature conservative, the NFU also supported protectionism, for their own members. So this really puts them at odds with neoliberals like Gove. It’s been one of the more amusing aspects of the last 12 months, watching Gove realise that – far from his predecessor Owen Paterson’s view that the enemy was the “green blob” of the environmental sector, Gove’s real enemy were the protectionists of the NFU. Being the consumate politician he is, he has been careful to appear friendly to the farming unions while speaking to them. But elsewhere he has talked of taking on the vested interests – and unambiguously pointing to the NFU as the biggest vested interest in this political sphere.
The consultation on the future of agriculture policy (in England) finishes today and now Defra has the difficult job of wading through the many thousands of responses they have received. Whether they come up with anything other than what they originally proposed is moot. But while Labour fail to provide an alternative vision for agriculture (food and health) they are going to have a much easier time fending off criticism from civil society.
Miles, This all interesting stuff.
Needless to say we agree on the need for a benign integrated policy. Going on what you’ve said above though, the more cynical realpolitik side of me sees an obvious opportunity for Labour drive a wedge between the NFU and the Tories. Labour should be able to see that. Farmers generally have never liked neo-liberalism on the whole and a lot of their reasons for that are quite good.
I wish they would go for it
I agree. So far it’s been a huge missed opportunity.
I was at one of the “Health and Harmony” agriculture consultation events with Gove a couple of weeks ago. He made a very interesting remark in his opening speech – he went back to his speech last summer, in which he described the “unfrozen moment” of opportunity for the environment that Brexit had created. He explained he had borrowed this phrase from his “good friend” Maurice (Lord) Glasman, he of Blue Labour. Blue Labour is reaching out to rural communities, including (difficult to believe but true) the Countryside Alliance.
So there is some very interesting thinking and discussion going on within the wider Labour movement, but this stuff isn’t really what gets Corbyn(istas) out of bed.