Labour must wake up to the opportunity for a progressive consensus

By David Chaplin / @ChaplinDavid

Parts of the media have spent this weekend gleefully telling everyone that David Cameron has failed to convince enough people to vote for him and therefore failed to form a viable government. Political commentators have offered their clichéd analysis of the challenges faced by Clegg and Cameron in making any deal workable.

Meanwhile, most Labour activists and politicians have been walking around in a daze. For some of us there have been amazing successes – in North London an amazing set of council elections has seen Labour return to power in Islington, Camden and Enfield and increase their majority in Haringey, Waltham Forest and elsewhere. However, for most it’s been a hugely challenging few days with over 100 Labour losses in seats across the country and two million fewer votes cast for Labour than the Conservatives. There is no doubt that Labour lost this election.

But many Labour people are not waking up to this post-election reality; rather, they are sitting back and enjoying the media circus around Clegg and Cameron thinking it will all fall apart. This is a mistake.

This devastating national result should allow us to reflect on the last thirteen years – including all the positive and radical changes that we have all seen take place as a result of a Labour government – and begin to question if and where we went wrong. As a school governor in a London borough I know there have been massive changes to that school including new music facilities, a new canteen, a new sports hall, improved pay and conditions for staff, a greater chance of students going to university, and more opportunities for apprenticeships with local businesses. I’ve seen with my own eyes how huge financial investment and an ethical commitment from Labour to improve the life changes of those children and young people has transformed the school and the local community.

The change that we’ve seen in our own communities is real, but it’s not eternal. Investment in frontline services yields real results for people and we’ve seen that through schemes like Sure Start and the Future Jobs Fund. We’ve been told for months that tough choices lie ahead on public spending and we all know that cuts to public services are inevitable now; and that they will cost jobs and a great deal more. But the reason Labour people fought so hard in this election was that we knew a Labour government would have valued the livelihoods of our public servants, young people, those out of work, our pensioners and the most vulnerable in society who need an active and reliable state to help them.

If a Clegg-Cameron government emerges from these talks, it will not share Labour’s values and in the next few months we’ll see a truly different side to governing, one that many in our generation will not be used to. We’ll see a government stepping back from the vulnerable, a government that doesn’t think about the needs of everyone in society, we’ll feel frustrated and powerless as these changes happen in front of us and we’ll wish we did more to stop it.

Labour should be actively seeking a progressive coalition with the Liberal Democrats now to stop a Clegg-Cameron pack that would support the Conservative platform for government. We shouldn’t allow these behind the scenes talks to decide the future government. But Labour people should also think now about what kind of leadership our party needs in order to build those bridges to form a progressive consensus around issues like electoral reform, managing the economic recovery, equality, investment in public services and ensuring fairness for all.

Sadly, there will be times when we really will be powerless to shape the political establishment, but this post-election window isn’t one of them. It’s wide open, and a reinvigorated Labour leadership should be doing more to ensure a progressive consensus.