Labour needs to demonstrate that it is a party worth returning to

By Daniel Blaney

It is easy to dismiss schemes such as Vote Match. A familiar response from people inclined to vote for another candidate is that they find their policy preferences match with the platform of Diane Abbott, the candidate some people are most keen to dismiss – most generously as an irrelevance but at worse as some dangerous possibility.

The strongest argument against initiatives like Vote Match is that policy preferences alone are not the only thing to consider when electing a leader. For example, you are choosing a leader who will show good judgement. Fair comment. But Diane Abbott showed good judgement that New Labour failed to. Only Diane Abbott publicly and keenly advocated Ken Livingstone as the best person to be Labour candidate for London Mayor in 2000, then suggested Frank Dobson would not have a hope if Ken ran as an independent, and advised the party machine not to seek to overturn the wishes of the London membership. She then argued for Ken’s re-admittance at the earliest possibility.

Before the 1997 election Diane Abbott warned that widespread concern over pension policy, most clearly articulated by Barbara Castle, would come back to haunt the government if Labour failed to raise the basic state pension. In the year Labour increased the pension by only 75p, it lost hundreds of Council seats as a result.

As a member of the national executive committee, Diane Abbott warned against internal party reform that undermined party democracy and made ordinary members feel impotent. Not only did Labour lose thousands of members as a result, the government failed to listen to its members on issues from manufacturing and housing to foreign policy, and lost voters too.

It was Diane Abbott who stated in 1996 – warning about the policy direction of the party – that ‘you can win an election appealing to middle England, but in government you have to deliver for your people’. It is something Ed Miliband rightly appeared to learn 14 years later.

None of this, however, changes the fact that policy is the most important issue when considering who should be leader. A policy platform projects a direction for the party. The party isn’t just electing a personality, it is electing a political direction. By electing Tony Blair in 1994, Labour party members determined the course of British politics for the next fifteen years.

In 2010, Labour needs to demonstrate to its disillusioned left-liberal and socialist base that it is a party worth returning to, because it will scrap Trident, renationalise the railways, prioritise social housing, advocate the multicultural society and never again hand over the civil liberties agenda to the Tories. The candidate who represents the course the Labour Party should take over the next ten years is Diane Abbott and that’s why I’m voting for her.