Win, lose or draw, Labour has a lot of questions to address about its future, says Neal Lawson
Here is the conundrum: why is Labour doing as well as it is in the opinion polls and why are the Tories doing so badly? Let’s unpack that a bit. Labour is making a dog’s dinner of government. Brownism turned out to be little different from Blairism and, despite an early upturn in the polls straight after Gordon Brown became Prime Minister has trailed Cameronism ever since.
There is only lurch after lurch in strategy between core supporters and the middle classes, as if the two were not affected by the same free-market forces. Tactical ineptness compounds the lack of narrative. Botched coup after botched coup does little but weaken Brown further and strengthen the hand of Blairites who want to cut more and quicker. Exactly what the offer for moving forward is remains a mystery.
All this should be a recipe for a Tory avalanche akin to the one Tony Blair got in 1997. But no one expects that. Not only are the Tories up against an unpopular Government and an unpopular Prime Minister, they have more money than sense to throw at the electorate (especially in the marginal constituency), a rediscovered will to win and a reasonably media-friendly leader compared to his predecessors. And yet all they can do is hover around the 40 per cent mark and never ever seal the deal. It is probably too late now to do so.
What this tells us is that, despite everything, the game is not up. A significant and surprising number of the British people – despite Labour’s best efforts to prove otherwise – almost innately (and it would have to be because of the lack of clarity in Labour’s message) understand what harm the Tories would do to the economy and the damage they would cause to public services. Somehow they probably understand that Government intervention kept the lights on and the cash machine spewing out their spending money. They probably look at George Osborne and wonder – quite rightly – what he would have done.
It could all be very different if Labour was prepared to tap into the anger over the bankers’ excesses and use the crash to talk, not just about economic recovery, but social and environmental recovery and offer what people crave: the idea of hope that something different and better is possible. So the result still might not mean an electoral wipeout. If – and these are all big ifs – the economy picks up noticeably, if David Cameron trips up and Brown wises up to the possibility of a post-crash agenda, then the worse possible result may not be the actual result.
However, win, lose or draw, it’s clear that Labour cannot go on as it has. In any post-election scenario, one more heave of Blairism or Brownism (in the guise of a new leader in all but name), a tweak to tax credits here or a twist of personalisation in social care there, will simply fall far short of the fundamental renewal the Labour Party needs.
The policy detail of that renewal can wait. But one point needs to be understood now. The renewal which matters more than anything is not just the transformation of Labour, but the return of a labour movement. What the past 12 years have shown us, whether “new” Labour ever had any better intentions than the reality demonstrated, is that you cannot build a better world on the basis of a small elite.
Vanguards rarely have a lasting progressive influence for two reasons. First, because they soon lose touch with reality and, second, because transformative hopes depend on an army in the country that wants to make them happen – an army that can stand up to Rupert Murdoch, the Daily Mail, the CBI and the rest of the corporate world. Look at President Barack Obama: flagging in the polls and losing his way because the alliance who won him the election never became a movement for sustained power in office.
No one expected a revolution and we will all make our own judgment of the good bits of this Government versus the bad. But the least we should have expected and worked for is the building of organisations, institutions and a public culture that made the future of social democracy stronger than its past.
The reality has been different. Sweden wasn’t built in one or two terms, but over decades. We can and must be patient, but we should demand and see to it that Labour becomes a movement once again – through vibrant trade unions, strong local government, a public service ethos, a belief in professionalism and the mechanisms to intervene in the economy to protect people from market fundamentalism. That we haven’t done this is our failure.
Cameron – if he wins – is unlikely to have the skills, the unity or the public money to build a lasting project. So, win, lose or draw, the onus is on us is to start building a movement for social democracy and all that entails in terms of a belief in equality, sustainability and radical democracy.
There is no evidence that Brown wanted a left in the party or a progressive alliance outside of it, but perhaps sometimes, as he is pressurised by Blairites in the party and the forces of conservatism outside, he wonders what could have been.
Neal Lawson is chair of Compass and the author of All Consuming, published by Penguin
