Opportunist oppositionalism?

By Darrell Goodliffe

According to whispers emanating from the Westminster village Charles Kennedy, along with possibly four or five others is ready to cross the floor and defect to Labour. I am a little weary of this because this rumour has been going ever since the coalition government started. Kennedy is obviously unhappy but its still a big step from that to actually defecting. What will probably be key is whether he has any hope of changing things or feels the party is truly a lost cause.

One of the things that interested me about the story was this passage:

“Kennedy is known to be privately supportive of Ed Miliband, who he sees as a progressive alternative to his older brother David.”

I am guessing this is the same Ed Miliband who recently ruled out working with a Nick Clegg-led Liberal Democrat party. I find this interesting because it totally refutes the idea that by vigorously attacking the Liberal Democrats we are alienating them. James Graham, co-founder the left-leaning Social Liberal Forum, thinks they are:

“My fears that Labour would end up getting trapped into a mindset of “what’s bad for the coalition is good for us” have proven to be well founded, and it is an infection which has spread across the board, even among some relatively sensible types”

Now, that is true of any opposition party to some degree; it should be apparent that what is good for an opposition is bad for those they oppose. However, James unconsciously touches on the reason for some of the virulence; he condemns Labour’s ‘la-la-land economics’. Personally, my economics are further into what James would no doubt term ‘la-la-land’ .However, that is not the point. It’s not true; there are several indicators that the proposals put forward by Alistair Darling were viable and; as we all know, this is not what was said by the Liberal Democrats before they were offered shiny new ministerial cars.

Left-wingers like James have even joined the Labour cuts chorus. This ‘blame everything on Labour’ strategy is a smokescreen to cover the fact that they have flip-flopped along with Clegg for no obvious reason other than their own advancement and this is especially true of somebody like Vince Cable. This takes us to the root cause of the ‘infection’; it’s essentially the truth and as the recent documentary on the BBC showed Nick Clegg who in particular lived-up to his billing by as a harlot. Given this, an aggressive reaction is not so much an infection as the natural reaction of the body too an infection; a violent rejection and expulsion.

The betrayal charge also no doubt chimes with the influx of new members who, unsurprisingly, feel betrayed. James cites the example of AV; dismissing the boundary argument he ignores the fact that had his leadership been sensible, it was perfectly feasible for them to propose the AV Bill stand on its own. Instead you could argue they backed Labour into a corner where they knew they would oppose. You could say Labour is being cynically opportunist in opposing AV but I wouldn’t happen to agree. As I have said many times a party is not bound by a manifesto it has stood on and lost an election with; indeed, it would be downright bizarre if new directions were not taken.

Is it not amazing to be accused on of opportunism on AV by members of the party led by Nick Clegg, who famously described AV as a ‘miserable little compromise’ (something that should defiantly be on a few ‘No to AV’ posters)? Now, like a second hand car salesman Clegg is busy fixing the milometer to make a clapped out piece of junk seem like the best thing since sliced bread. Labour should not abandon its policy of stridently attacking the Lib Dems. It will not deter principled Lib Dems, because they will feel the betrayal as keenly as it does.