WHEN we finally get out of this mess – the economic one, obviously – Labour is going to have to tell voters what it stands for. That isn’t going to be easy for the party because it involves unpalatable things: acknowledging the mistakes that were made under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and not adopting easy, populist solutions. Last month, the Government faced what will no doubt be the first of many demands to go for crowd-pleasing initiatives when there was a wave of unofficial strikes, inspired by the Prime Minister’s dreadful slogan “British jobs for British workers”. On this occasion, ministers resisted temptation, but the issue is bound to come up again as unemployment rises.
They faced another test this month, when an entirely synthetic fuss over a short film about Islam led to a demand to refuse entry to a Dutch MP, Geert Wilders. The film is easily available on the internet and there are far more subversive images of Islam currently on show at the Saatchi Gallery in London, including Ramin Haerizadeh’s startling Men of Allah series of photographs and Shadi Ghadirian’s faceless women in chadors.
But Home Secetary Jacqui Smith had the inevitable reactionary spasm and banned Wilders, doing incalculable damage to Labour’s already battered reputation as a party committed to free expression and fundamental liberties.
These episodes are instructive, because they demonstrate two problems about the Labour Party in its present incarnation. Its “new” Labour inheritance means it’s committed to an open labour market, but it doesn’t argue the case well and risks alienating voters who regard the free movement of workers as nothing more than a licence for multi-nationals to do exactly what they like.
A good friend of mine has lived and worked in London for years and her children were born here, although she is originally from Luxembourg. Two weeks ago, she was in despair, fearing that the hostility towards Italian and Portuguese construction workers could soon spread to people like her. No doubt the two million British people who live and work elsewhere in Europe also felt an unwelcome jolt of insecurity, because they could just as easily become targets of xenophobia – “Italian jobs for Italian workers” – as the world economy teeters on the brink of depression.
Labour isn’t good at making this case and the minister who is keenest to do it, Peter Mandelson, is stuck with a reputation for enjoying yachts and the company of the mega-rich. It’s an example of how the party needs to find a new language which connects with voters, many of whom don’t belong to the almost exclusively male unskilled or semi-skilled industrial working class.
Brown’s small-minded refusal to make Harriet Harman Deputy Prime Minister is a symptom of the leadership’s failure to update its thinking; it’s hard to believe that she’s less qualified for the job than John Prescott. Some of the party’s most interesting ideas have come from her office, including demands for pay transparency which would transform the lives of women workers.
Of course it would help if ministers talked more boldly about Britain’s place in Europe, emphasising the social, economic and political benefits of being in the European Union, but it’s hard to see that happening while Brown is leader.
It’s a missed opportunity in another sense because the Tories are still handicapped by their Euroscepticism and the issue would do them enormous damage if the ideological conflict between David Cameron and Ken Clarke was forced into the open.
Labour also needs to seize back the initiative from the Tories on human rights, where it has completely lost the plot and made itself something of a laughing stock. That means ditching a security apparatus many people in the party feel profoundly ashamed of: national identity cards, ever-longer periods of detention without trial and a willingness to work with an American administration which resorted to torture.
One of the lessons of Barack Obama’s victory is that people who live in democracies don’t like this stuff in the end, which is why the most authoritarian American presidency for decades ended in ignominy. The new administration in the White House is an opportunity for Labour, even though it’s doubtful whether it will do Brown much good; the leaders the centre-left needs in these difficult times are confident, empathetic, self-mocking when necessary. Above all, they need to articulate a set of principles and explain how they can be adhered to in a century menaced by economic instability, climate change and terrorism.
That’s the discussion that needs to start as Brown and Alistair Darling struggle with the economy. One day the banks will stop collapsing and start lending, so Labour has to think beyond the current crisis and explain why it’s a better, bolder and more decent party than the Tories.
