They Won’t Like it, but Labour Need the Wilderness Years
If, like me, you have a tendency to skip through headlines and then read the interesting articles, David Miliband’s latest remarks might have seemed a bit defeatist. The idea that Labour may spend “years out of power” (although to be fair, it’s was hardly ever going to be just “months”) seems an incredibly pessimistic prediction for a leadership hustings, but as ever, the quote itself is slightly different.
We could be out of power for a long time, history tells us we will. I want to buck that trend.
Dizzy’s angle on this is an interesting one. He argues that Labour haven’t yet learned the lessons of the Conservative time in opposition – nobody is the “natural party of government”.
The leadership contest has been a civil one, and much more civil than was expected. Most people, myself included, predicted a bloodbath between Brown and Blair factions – in particular the Balls and Miliband (David) camps, but nothing like this has emerged so far.
As much as this protects Labour from negative press and prevents a political implosion, it doesn’t provide a debate. I can’t seem to find much real discussion in media coverage of the contest as to why Labour are now in opposition. The Newsnight hustings did give some insight, with Diane Abbott commenting that the idea that immigration somehow lost Labour the election “takes us nowhere”.
This is almost certainly true – the problem with the famous "bigotgate” incident wasn’t what was said or the issue – it was the attitude that had been taken to a member of the public.
Amongst Diane Abbott’s remarks in the Newsnight hustings one in particular stands out:
[It is] quite tragic that we have conceded the civil liberties agenda to the Tories
Labour need to focus on why they conceded that agenda. Personally, I believe it was a habit of control – Labour genuinely believed that the popular opinion was wrong on issues such as ID cards, and the arguments in favour of controlling measures regularly (if not almost always) outweighed the value of preserving freedoms in the face of terrorism.
Both Miliband brothers, now considered the leading candidates, have said they believe the state became too centralised, so perhaps they are on the verge of thinking that control and the approach to the public were part of the reasons behind Labour’s defeat. I suspect however, it will take the party much longer to recognise this, especially so soon after the end of a period in government.
Rejecting the past attitudes of a party is not an easy thing to do from within – if it is rushed, then there will be those who argue their voice hasn’t been heard, and if there is any lesson from the last government, it is of the damage those voices can do.
One thing that will be interesting is the extent to which Abbott uses her lack of cabinet experience as a shield – "Don't blame me, I wasn't there". Moreover, will the other candidates be able to tread the fine line between "I'm proud of what we did" and "We got this wrong"…?
The New Labour focus on control was interesting and, given the promise of the early years of the Blair Premiership, unexpected. There was a full, ideological agenda, but over their three terms in power this was completely lost to the grindstone of pragmatism.
Labour does need to reject it's past attitudes, but also rediscover its older ideals, those which came before the age of terrorism legislation and ID cards. The Economist claims this week that Labour needs a leader who understands the Tory agenda of community based politics, a set of ideals, if not easily understandable, at least easy to see.
Labour needs its own “Big Society”, we can only hope that it will be based firmly in a Liberal ideology and doesn't pander to tabloid fears.
Sorry about the problems people have been having posting comments. I've just signed-in with OpenID successfully so things should be fixed now. Having said that, I couldn't logout until I cleared all cookies from Chrome, so I'm afraid there may still be a few glitches.
Firstly interesting topic and well written
Of course the title of your piece is correct that Labour need some time away from governing to be able to figure out what the future of their party is. This future will come from analysing the party's past. This is not just the previous government but all of the different ideas that have represented strands in Labour thinking. This is exactly what David Cameron did in his re-branding of the Conservative Party following his election as leader in 2005. He drew on the party's history of one-nation Conservatism and the principles behind Disraelian government to draw out different tendencies than those that had dominated the party since Mrs Thatcher's leadership.
The history of the Labour party is, if anything, a more fruitful source of inspiration. If Henz is correct, and I happen to think he probably is, and Labour's best chance of success is to ape the 'Big Society' then the party's long history of mutualism and its close ties to the co-operative movement should clearly be the first calling point. The Labour Party's history richness comes from the fact that it is littered with abandoned and failed visions of utopia – much more so than the Tories or Liberals because of the nature of British Socialism. Within this leadership election we have seen some attempt to reach into its history and retrieve new ideas. Andy Burnham's discussion of a national care service has used language that has sought to link it to post 1945 welfare state which is still seen by almost the entire Labour movement as the party's greatest governmental achievement. Ed Balls is, by contrast, the anti-history candidate who seems unhappy to talk about any event before 1997. This may however be an attempt for people to forget his role in the destructive battles that clearly dominated that government by attempting to tie himself to the mast of Blair. Oh and also history isn't the vote taken in March 2003 that sent our troops to Iraq and on that subject all the candidates should be ashamed of themselves except Diane Abbott who at least saw it for the illegal disgrace that it was then and isn't having to wriggle out of it now. Although I do have some grudging respect for Ed Balls for standing by his belief in the rightness of the war even now. Its the kind of respect that I have for people who vote for UKIP and are proud of the fact – that is to say i am disgusted with what you are doing but honesty has to be worth something.
Despite Balls's desire to believe that history started in 1997 – or possibly at Granita – it is his debate with Diane Abbott on the subject of immigration that have revealed one of historical splits in the Labour party. In attempting to represent poorer people in society it attempts to represent immigrants and the people most directly affected by immigration. This can be an impossible square to circle, particularly if you show Ed Balls's political weakness in arguing that people are worried about something therefore we must do something reactionary and retrograde. In fact, and this leads me on to my next comment on the post, the job of politicians must be to shape the minds of the electorate as well as just do what people want this week.