Battle for the heart and soul of the party

 

After the first outright election defeat in 23 years, it is no wonder the Labour party family appears a little bewildered and confused.

Of course losing power in 2010, was the crucial turning point for the party machine, the point at which we ceased to govern, and were thrown into opposition. However for a great many, we kidded ourselves that we would be back in power within five years. Seeking consolation in the fact that the tories had failed to gain an outright majority, this on the back of 13 years of Labour rule, a hugely unpopular war and an international financial crisis! We naively felt that after experiencing a short sharp spell of coalition rule, the electorate would come running back.- They didn’t!

On the night of the 7^th May the worst case scenario had been realised- We not only had fallen short of forming a majority, -the tories for the first time in 18 years had a majority government (all be it assisted along the way by SNP and UKIP votes). With the benefit of hindsight we were never going to win 2015, we didn’t speak to where the electorate was, and seemed to only appeal to a core vote- of which the SNP and UKIP ate handsomely into.

After all election defeats even before activists can recover from lost sleep, hangovers and the inevitable feeling of despair- the row begins over why they lost. There are of course as many different diagnoses as activists. Over the next few months the row continues over the same lines, but becomes not about why they lost but how to win.

However what seems particularly acute for the Labour party now, is the sense of confusion. This is most obviously manifest in the leadership debate.

It is not really just a leadership election, but rather a debate about what our party is and where it goes now! It is a real battle for the very heart and soul of the Labour party. Of course the central players in the debate are the leadership candidates, but the election is just the theatre for a clash of ideas and ideals.

The debate focuses on the case made by those with the loudest voices, inevitably coming from either end of the party, where almost all the real political “organising” in our party seems to happen.

There are those on the left (gathering around Corbyn) who argue that the solution to our election defeat is simple- move further to the left. We simply weren’t making the case loud enough, we just needed to be bolder, stronger and middle England would surely flock behind the socialist utopia they were being offered. I once thought that this view was just a product of naivety, and romantic idealism. However over the last month or so it so often seems to have been said by the hard left- “that it isn’t about winning elections, but about principle”. If the Labour party isn’t about winning elections, then I am at a loss to understand what it is about? Sadly those who make this argument seem only to care about the self gratification of believing they belong to a really “radical” party. The truth is there is nothing radical or left wing about languishing in opposition whilst the tories screw over working people, and dismantle the welfare state.

On the right (gathering around Kendal) it is argued the solution is simple, we simply re-run the 1997 election campaign, rummage through the Tories manifesto nick anything we can, win back the centre ground and march to power. Of course this is naïve too, It is not 1997, and the world has somewhat moved on. We are not now simply trying to win votes from the Tories, we also need to win back huge swathes of people who voted UKIP and also claw as much back from the SNP as we can. We also need to accept voting behaviour has changed and is changing for example larger numbers of ethnic minority voters appear to have left the party than ever before. The strategy now has to be somewhat different.

Of course there are really two debates simultaneously going on, overlapping and confused, but not always producing the same answers. The first is about the route back to power, and the second is about what we believe in and stand for, for the fundamentalist’s its easy to convince themselves that the route to power must exactly correspond with us being the party they wish us to be. However I suspect most of our membership is far more pragmatic, expecting to make compromises in order to gain power and actually start rebuilding the country.

The truth is we as a party to significantly broaden our appeal, rather than re-trenching to a narrow base. We have always been a broad church party, but now more than ever we need to think big tent.

Whether we like it or not we need to be in a place where we can win back large numbers of Tories votes, and the solution this time cannot just simply be to move to the right. We need the self employed, small business to think we are on their side; we need to be passionately pro growth, with cleaver policies to develop new industries and create a more diverse economy.

We need to win back UKIP voters, much of this should be natural Labour territory. The solution for our party should never be to swallow the racist tabloid rhetoric. Indeed even if we were inclined this strategy will never work as we can’t out UKIP -UKIP. What we can do is address the very real fears people have about immigration, mostly these seem to focus on Housing and Jobs, and competition for resources. We are the only party that can speak to these fears, and we need bold easily conveyed policies. Addressing the housing crisis, and cracking down on exploitative Labour practices, and creating jobs.  

We have to eat right into the heart of the SNP vote, we need serious gains in Scotland. Continually people in our party seem to dismiss this by saying, “when we have a winning candidate as Labour Leader and the party has a credible programme- the Scottish vote will follow”. This stinks of the same kind of idea’s about the Scottish vote, that allowed the SNP to crush us in the first place! We need to offer a strong bold centre left vision that Scotland can really buy into. We need to speak seriously about building a UK economy that isn’t too London centric.  

We need to think seriously about the huge numbers of the electorate who fail to vote, we need a message for them. We need people to believe not all the political parties are the same, that their vote can make a difference. We need to present a clear distinction between what we and the Tories are offering.

As if the tasks above weren’t daunting enough, We need to be economically credible enough to convince middle England, the Tory tabloid press and big business that a Labour government was not such a huge risk after all.  

The answers lie not at our party’s polarised extremes but, rather in her sensible, socially conscious “centre left” heart. We just need the bravery to discover them.

By Frank Jackson