Kinnock: Labour must show that its socialism can “work in practice”

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Neil Kinnock

Neil Kinnock has criticised “ideological flights of fancy”, and said that Labour needs to show that socialism can “work in practice” before it can be successful.

The former leader has said that winning parties have to be “professional” as well as having a “sense of belief”, and launched a strong attack on “career politicians”.

“You can enchant people by ideological flights of fancy, but that’s not going to help them at all,” Lord Kinnock told BBC programme Conversations this week. He said that he remained firmly convinced that socialism is “the way to emancipate the world”, and spoke about how Nye Bevan’s based the NHS on a working model in his Tredegar hometown. “That showed that socialism had to work in practice, or it was a decoration and being a socialist was nothing better than a hobby.”

He said that under his leadership Labour increasingly became “very professional, but we also had vigour, and we had a sense of belief”, in comments that will be seen as an implicit criticism of Jeremy Corbyn. Kinnock has recently repeatedly called on Corbyn to stand down. The Labour peer recently told a meeting of the parliamentary party (PLP) that “it is vital, essential, irreplaceable, that the leader of this party has substantial – at least substantial, if not majority – support from those who go to the country and seek election to become lawmakers”, following a vote of no confidence from MPs.

In the television interview, Kinnock also laid into the idea of “career politicians”.

“Some of the biggest dolts that I’ve ever met, some of the most useless articles that I’ve ever met are people who’ve thought of a career in politics,” he said.

“It’s not a career, it’s the fact that if you want to change the world and you’ve got the sense to organise for that, if you’re very, very, very lucky other people will put their trust in you and give you their vote but never think of it as a career.”

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