The jury has been out a long time. Now the verdict on the Labour leadership contest is beginning to roll in and the party is preparing for a close finish at the most portentous point in its history since the death of John Smith sixteen years ago. It has been a long campaign, derided by some as tedious, uneventful and pointless, views Tribune strongly rejects. The party has not torn itself apart, nor looked inwards. Rather, the party has shown an internal resilience through its candidates who, in hustings up and down the country, addressed many of the issues which concern voters – in factories, offices, shops, schools, hospitals, homes and job centres – in a way which appeared lost to the last government in which all but one served. As the debates became franker and more open about the rights and wrongs of 13 years in office so did the candidates seek to point to a fresh start, the future not the past.
Diane Abbott achieved a resonance with audiences, not least on Trident, which sadly will be lost on many members of the Parliamentary Labour Party, not least because so few of them attended. Andy Burnham, under difficult personal circumstances, found a powerful voice in attempting to re-invent himself as a red-in-tooth and claw Labour man rather than the Blairite outrider he was in government.
Ed Balls made the most significant intervention on the defining issue of this contest, the party’s future and the economic health of the country, when he set out the case for an economic alternative which puts investment not cuts at its heart. It was the speech of a future Labour Chancellor. More in this line would have been welcome from Ed Miliband who, as the main challenger to brother David, has been forced to finely tune his economic utterances to the cautious side of the dial. David has made no apologies for New Labour while accepting that the old authoritarian ways of the party machine cannot return. And he won the curious and still unexplained support of MP Jon Cruddas.
However jarringly the intervention of Tony Blair’s memoir focuses attention in vivid technicolour on the battles between the Blairites and the Brownites, this contest is not, and should not be, or be characterised as a continuation of the war. It is not about a final settlement of old scores or setting the future in a template from the past, whether Blairite, Brownite or even Bennite. It is about which of the contenders is best able and best equipped to represent what Labour stands for and to carry those policies into government for the betterment of country and its people. That equation should be the self-evident and single factor in making a choice.
But Labour goes nowhere if it does not both learn from its mistakes and rediscover its principled roots. Recognising the failures of New Labour is not to discount the achievements of those 13 years. But they have been overshadowed by New Labour’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, subservience to the City, timidity with the banks, an almost casual disdain for civil liberties and a disconnection with the very people Labour came into being to represent. It was the electorate which drew a line under New Labour.
Mr Blair’s suggestion that the last election defeat was due to the government ceasing to be New Labour is a denial of an electorate which has wearied of what New Labour is seen to stand for. Peter Mandelson’s warning that ditching New Labour would result in an electoral cul-de-sac – an undisguised attack on Ed Miliband – was itself a leap into one.
And that is where David Miliband and his senior party supporters, from Mandelson to Alan Milburn and Charles Clarke, have placed him – as the continuity New Labour candidate, the one most clearly identified with the failed policies of the Blair era and who blithely beseeched the party to “move on” from criticism of the decision to join in the invasion of Iraq.
David’s supporters claim he has the toughness necessary to do the job, whereas Ed Miliband is unproven, or even “soft” on special interest groups (such as the Labour Party?) Yet it was David who dithered when told that by challenging Gordon Brown he could save the party from defeat at the polls while Ed’s difficult decision to reach for his brother’s crown shows a determination of purpose that should dissuade doubters.
While office mired the elder in allegations of Britain’s involvement in torture, it brought for Ed as climate change minister a reputation for fresh ideas and an ability to listen which he brought to his dealings with party members.
Ed Miliband has the passion, the clear vision, the strength and the personality to lead Labour and the country in a new direction. If the party decides Blair is right and it is not New Labour enough, it will elect David Miliband. If it recognises that the country wants something different will will elect Ed Miliband.
