Claude Moraes’ election diary describes what has become a referendum on the three main parties
THE 2009 European elections may go down as the toughest Labour has ever fought, but making the case for progressive European Union policies that improve people’s lives and beating the British National Party is as important as ever.
The London list of Labour candidates have been working hard for months with Ken Clark, the party’s regional director, to prepare the ground for the short campaign which culminates next Thursday after three bruising weeks.
The short campaign began in the traditional way for me, with four street stalls in Islington North and canvassing on council estates in Poplar and Canning Town, followed by a Labour Party public event for EU and Commonwealth voters in Hammersmith’s Irish Centre. At this point, the expenses scandal is just beginning to register, but doesn’t deter Labour activists and the local Labour MPs and councillors who are out campaigning all year round.
My first all-party hustings is held at the London School of Economics. In fact, it’s not exactly “all party”. While the Liberal Democrats and Greens show up, the Conservatives are conspicuous by their absence. The invitation was to the transnational political groups and the Tories have already left the centre right European People’s Party. They will try to form a new political group in the European Parliament with a rag-bag of unpleasant right-wing partners, including the Polish Law and Justice Party and the Czech Republic’s ODS.
It is precisely the kind of issue which could have been debated in public. It marks out the Tories as isolationist and capable of forming an alliance with extremists in Europe while preaching socially liberal positions at home. Conservative MEPs consistently vote against basic anti-discrimination laws in the European Parliament. It would be good to let our supporters know this and we try while canvassing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Soho.
The white noise of the expenses scandal is fully audible by the time we campaign with Redbridge Labour members in the main shopping centre in early May. However, hours later in Newham, there is no sign even now of how dominant it will become and how hard it will be to campaign on our policies, as activists and councillors join Newham Mayor Robin Wales to fly our flag proudly – outside a school that now gives every pupil free school meals – in the shopping precinct and mosque where we get a warm response.
In Bexleyheath and Crayford, there is an unmistakeable shift of gear. I get a reminder of how I used to feel canvassing as a British Asian teenager in Scotland in the 1970s when, on the doorstep, a bus driver very casually tells me he has to drive people like me around London, but on June 4 he can vote BNP and get rid of the illegals. UKIP has lost the plot, he adds.
Later in the campaign, UKIP’s demise turns into a rapid recovery reverse when Norman Tebbit makes a mealy-mouthed plea for Tories not to vote for “the main parties”. He rapidly follows up by saying he didn’t mean the BNP. But the dog whistle has been blown. With lurid billboards everywhere, UKIP creeps back. This is despite losing senior members to prison and police charges for corruption. The irony of UKIP featuring Winston Churchill in its posters, one of the architects of a more united Europe, is pointed out by Glenis Willmott, Labour’s leader in Europe.
For every unpleasant incident in our campaigning across London, there are still committed Labour voters – angry but aware of how the expenses furore is designed to create a bad and possibly extreme result across our region. How would it be if London – bigger in population than some EU countries and probably Europe’s most diverse area –- elected a British fascist to Strasbourg? This is the breakthrough path followed by some of Europe’s most odious – and successful – far-right parties.
I had the chance to make this case to a packed room of committed Barking Labour activists with Margaret Hodge and David Miliband. These party members are on the frontline against the BNP. The next day they turn out in huge numbers to campaign in Barking and Dagenham – white and black together.
Labour’s London regional staff and our candidates are working flat out – from Camden to Lambeth and Southwark, Eltham to Greenwich, Enfield and Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets and Hackney.
Canvassing in Haringey reveals the odious BNP leaflet already in every door. Most of the photographs used in this propaganda are actually library pictures of American construction workers and pensioners, as the Daily Mail points out. The leaflet also features a spitfire which was actually part of a Polish squadron.
London’s black and minority ethnic communities come out in force with MP Virendra Sharma in Ealing. Everyone understands the danger of a low turnout and that every vote counts in this election.
At the time of writing, I’m scheduled to speak at a conference on “Social Europe”. It’s a rare chance to make the progressive case for Europe. There is a left and right in the European Parliament. We on the left are for temporary agency workers’ rights, the package to address climate change, ground-breaking consumer protection laws, anti-discrimination legislation and a fair trade relationship with developing nations. The dividing lines are clear.
The result of the European elections is difficult to predict in this uniquely difficult time, even though Labour has previously fought tough mid-term elections in 1999 and 2004.
My complaint in this campaign is that there is little in the way of an informed national conversation about Europe. The national conversation is loud, but we are having to contend with a snapshot referendum on the main political parties rather than a debate about the EU. This could let in the BNP.
Along with my Labour colleagues in London and across the country, I am proud of our achievements in Europe. The task is to stay focussed, get our vote out and crush the right and, in particular, BNP. It’s a cause worth fighting for.
Claude Moraes is number one on the London Labour list for the European elections
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