One of the deadlines for Labour’s introspection is approaching. “Refounding Labour”, despite the ugly phrase, is at least a coherent attempt at rebuilding the party and making it an efficient campaigning force. With gerrymandering of constituency boundaries, there is no doubt that winning the next general election will be tough for Labour.
While mobilisation is an essential part of any strategy for regaining power, policy and political direction will be the determining factors. The cash-rich Progress think tank has been quick off the mark with a ready-made New Labour narrative. Even in Scotland, the conclusion of the Blairites is that Labour lost because it lost the middle classes. This is a denial of the reality that the Liberal Democrat vote collapsed and the Scottish Nationalists were presenting a credible left-of-centre alternative.
When the electorate went into the polls in places such as Glasgow, numerous voters decided that the SNP would be a better defence than Labour against the Tory-led coalition at Westminster. No one is saying that we can win with the core vote alone, but we can seek to win back those people who have deserted Labour.
Shadow Communities Secretary Caroline Flint recently pursued a familiar Blairite refrain. The reason Labour lost votes was because people were worried about “crime, welfare reform, immigration – each taps into their sense of fairness. Labour believes there’s nothing progressive about leaving people to languish on benefits, allowing communities to be terrorised by anti-social behaviour or allowing illegal migrants to abuse British hospitality”.
There was no mention of the cuts and no mention of the lack of economic growth that threatens the prospects for a better tomorrow. In fact, there was no mention of the economy at all and little more than a superficial analysis of the 2010 general election.
Former Ipsos Mori head Bob Worcester, in a new book called Explaining Cameron’s Coalition, points out that, with regard to the immigration issue, one of Flint’s reasons why Labour failed to connect with people, only 14 per cent of the general public and 18 per cent of those certain to vote named immigration as crucially important. Overwhelmingly, the issue that mattered was the economy. But immigration is an economic issue. For Flint and others to approach it in isolation is a mistake that plays into the hands of those who advocate crude populist solutions that we cannot afford – either morally or economically . It’s not surprising that they are in denial, as New Labour was culpable in its inadequate approach to such economic factors as housing and agency working. It is worth remembering that agreement on agency working was reached at Warwick, but never enacted. Now into this mix comes Blue Labour, with its reactionary attacks on the 1945 welfare state settlement that apparently denied Labour the chance of developing mutual societies and co-operatives. All this goes along with the anti-state perspective pursued so relentlessly by the Con-Dem Government. Will Hutton wants a new centre-left philosophy. He appears to sympathise with Ed Miliband, saying it is not for one man alone to set out a vision for a better capitalism. Yet the Labour leader has said that he wants a new economy and a new capitalism.
Tension and conflict in the coalition may be of more interest than opposition new thinking. But to have any medium to long-term chance of success, Miliband needs to break free of the reactionaries in his Shadow Cabinet and the Parliamentary Labour Party. He can follow the Margaret Thatcher model of opposition and take on his opponents robustly or he can take a more reflective, analytical approach. Either way, the future for Labour should be red and not blue.
