Why David Cameron and Nick Clegg are getting the new politics wrong and how Labour can get it right

The Labour movement column

By Anthony Painter / @anthonypainter

For the first time in modern history, the UK is in a position to learn democratic lessons from Afghanistan. Instability and insecurity are the greatest of political challenges. And yet, painstakingly, US and allied forces and civilian administrators have been attempting a grand experiment in democratic engagement as a counter-strike. The weapon of choice? Trust.

So whereas the 2001 Bonn agreement left Afghanistan with a Northern Alliance-dominated top-down, centralised political system, now village councils elected by their peers are springing up like poppies in a field. The nation’s constitution is being rebalanced to reflect its pervasive tribal localism. All of this is designed to build trust where before there was little. Small children now willingly help soldiers identify where improvised explosive devices have been planted – that’s what happens when you have trust.

Well, that’s all very well and good to see but what possible relevance can that have to David Cameron and Nick Clegg? It’s very simple. The way that they have gone about putting their coalition agreement together, and offering it to the nation on a take or take it basis, replicates all the mistakes of the early occupation of Afghanistan.

Whatever the virtues of the coalition agreement – and there is, to be fair, much to commend it – it is a deal cobbled together by political elites and offered as a ‘back us or else’ final say. It is top down, anti-democratic and, far from the new politics in action, it is the approach of an arrogant and disconnected political class who, to add insult to injury, just happen to be a bunch of largely public school, well-heeled males who all went to Oxbridge. There’s nothing wrong with being male and pale and wealthy and well-educated. But when almost everyone in a cabinet or negotiating team is, then it becomes outrageous.

Let’s be clear, this is not an argument against pluralism or against coalition government. As I said, there is much to commend cross-party cooperation. What the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats did in this instance is to engage in a cosy, trust-building exercise between themselves at the expense of building trust between the coalition and the people. They constantly talk about the number of votes they received as if they are chips to be gambled at the negotiating poker table. The voters who tactically voted in Nick Clegg’s colleagues to stop the Tories are conveniently ignored. Chips are chips wherever they come from and they will be played.

And the poker metaphors continue to pop up here and there. Here is Nick Clegg on Saturday:

“The truth is this: there was no other responsible way to play the hand dealt to the political parties by the British people at the election.”

We are back to the politics of ‘there is no alternative.’ It doesn’t sound very new does it?

So on Wednesday, the new coalition cabinet members rushed to their ministerial cars and turned their backs on the nation. No-one has voted for this deal, whatever early ephemeral support it may receive. In fact, had it been presented as a pre-election option millions more would have voted against it. A real new politics would put it to some form of popular vote or at least some form of deliberation. The coalition would seek this degree of democratic legitimacy if they were seeking a genuinely new political settlement – one between the government and the people; not one between different cabals of a gilded political elite. This is not King John’s England.

All this presents the Labour Party with an enormous political opportunity. If it can be honest about why it was rejected on May 6th then renewal could come rather quicker than has historically been the case.

There will be siren voices. Some will beckon the party towards the rocks of the soft left. That will accelerate the worrying lurch of the party towards becoming, in England, an urban and northern party. Then there are the voices rather more associated with the right of the party – though not exclusively so – who point to the rejection of the party’s immigration and welfare policies. That may be, but – presented with a party under a new leader with the same basic policies but even tougher rhetoric on immigration and welfare – a lot of people may conclude that a moderate liberal conservative government would be a better option.

13,000 new members have joined the party in the last few days and it is already eating into the Liberal Democrat support base. Retaining this unexpected new interest in Labour will require a party that it is an authentically new politics. Just as in Afghanistan, a painstaking process of democratic re-engagement will have to be developed.

And the leadership election itself offers an opportunity for a candidate to demonstrate how they can re-tilt politics in favour of popular influence, deliberation and engagement.

In the deputy leadership election of 2007, only 10% or so of the millions of eligible trade unionists are believed to have voted. The test for the leadership candidates – and it would be outrageous if 13 years after all-women shortlists there was not a female candidate – is who can create a new politics of engagement. If you like, who can create a real ‘movement for change’? The candidate who can engage millions of trade unionists – not just trade union leaders and officialdom – in this leadership election will show that they have what it takes to craft a new politics and they will deserve to win.

And that is the route back for Labour: to become a party of a renewed people’s politics. That is the way to show up this elitist coalition for what it is. As for the fate of the coalition, it may well find one or two political IEDs start to explode unexpectedly as it has failed to lay down deep roots of trust. It will be mainly Liberal Democrat forces that face danger.

It is thousands of members this week – notwithstanding North Korean style votes at special party conferences; next year it will be 100s of Councillors; and then, in 2015, it will be their MPs. But only if Labour gets it right and becomes the authentic new politics; a real movement for change.

Anthony Painter blogs at AnthonyPainter.co.uk.