Ideas for electability: Full citizenship

By Richard Speight

Like it or not, the Tories and their Lib Dem partners now set the political agenda and will for the next four and a half years. With the power of the crown in parliament in their hands, the cuts will be forced through – no matter the economic and social damage caused. Theirs is the choice of battleground and they hold the high ground – in parliamentary if not moral terms. It is for the Labour movement to negotiate the terrain and find the strategy to out-flank them. The central policy of that strategy should be one of “Full Citizenship”.

Labour set the agenda for over a decade from 1997 and, after three election defeats, the Tories realised that fighting on solely their own safe territory – the Euro, taxation, immigration – wasn’t enough to bring them back to power. Cameron had fight on Labour’s territory; he modernised the Conservative brand, spoke favourably of the NHS and largely rid his party of its xenophobes and homophobes. We had, in essence, re-defined the centre ground of British politics and effectively forced the ever adaptable Tories to change in response.

So when Cameron nails his colours to the mast of “the Big Society” as his only antidote to the social disintegration resulting from the cuts, we must recognise that this is the ground on which we have to fight if we are to win. Cameron has spoken of citizenship not being a transaction – “you’re part of something bigger than you, and it matters what you think and feel and do“, he says. We know; as socialists we live this ever day though our work, through our trades unions, through our volunteering, through our campaigning. Vince Cable tells us that “the principle of responsible ownership should apply across the business world“. We know that too. The “Big Society” is indeed is favourable ground, for the Labour movement knows all about the associations, co-operatives, mutuals, charities and social enterprises that are so fashionable in Notting Hill these days. We built them. We work in them. We support them. We are them. And the history of the development of citizenship in Britain – the civil, political, social and economic rights we enjoy – is the proud history of our movement.

But we have not always built on this history. Back in 1995, Will Hutton wrote tellingly in The State We’re In of the failings of the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism and called for the adoption of a more consensual, stakeholder economy more akin to Westphalia than Wall Street. Yet in 13 years of Labour government no moves were made towards introducing the key elements of a consensual industrial policy and Britain remains, alongside, 9 other EU member states (including the industrial giants of Malta, Cyprus, Latvia and Lithuania), without worker representation on the boards of its companies and corporations. We missed the opportunity to shift the centre ground on economic policy, and we have all suffered dearly as a consequence. A policy of “Full Citizenship” would have to include new economic and industrial rights and responsibilities for workers in the public, private and third sectors. For “Full Citizenship” also has a vital role to play in public service reform. Local councils working in partnership with enlightened trade unionists and local citizens can make real savings and real improvements in public services can be made without the pain, like when Newcastle City Council purchased a new IT system, for example. As a Labour movement as well as a Labour Party, we need to offer this kind of participatory alternative to the “Suffolk model” of public service reform based on the notion that those actually using and providing services generally know how best to improve them.

Adopting a policy of “Full Citizenship” will mean being clear that the rights and obligations of citizenship are multi-layered and have multiple sources, from the street we live in to the world we share. We should make the case for global financial institutions and explore with an open mind the idea of global representative institutions to put citizens’ interests at the heart of global policy making on climate change and trade.

A policy of “Full Citizenship” would also mean being more radical than ever when it comes to political and constitutional reform. When Nick Clegg says AV, Labour should say STV (and force him to explain why not). When the coalition spouts localism, Labour should argue for more local democracy, including local income and property taxation. We should support citizens’ initiatives. We should campaign actively and whole heartedly for an elected second chamber. We should champion further autonomy for Scotland and Wales. And, yes, we should put forward the case for a written constitution to enshrine the rights and responsibilities of “Full Citizenship” in a document, drawn up by a citizens convention, and put them beyond the reach of any government. Citizens should be the ultimate sovereign, not the crown in parliament. Otherwise “Full Citizenship” will become this generation’s “stakeholder society”; an election slogan easily abandoned at the first meeting of a newly incumbent cabinet.

“Full Citizenship”, as a central and guiding policy for Labour will, nevertheless, involve choosing our battles wisely and remembering that personal responsibility is the partner of social responsibility. If prison numbers are to be cut, we should support community rehabilitation and champion restorative justice. If welfare is to be reformed, we should see that moves to make the transition from out-of-work benefits into paid employment easier are introduced fairly. And if tuition fees are to be increased to fund our Universities, we should fight to stop the variable element on the grounds that the equal value of an equivalent qualification is the kind of equality that is central to “Full Citizenship”.

But let’s also be clear where we draw the line. Widespread active involvement in your local and national community is an enduring feature of British life and undoubtedly a social good. It is a fundamental element of “Full Citizenship”. But the good that comes from the Public Realm relies on the independence and expertise of fairly paid, properly trained and fully committed workers. Volunteers cannot and should not be expected to take the place of redundant workers. Indeed, I have personally heard stories of groups of new volunteers walking out when it became clear that their paid mentors were, in effect, training them as their replacements. So yes, there is a real alternative to public sector cuts, a real path to public service reform, a real path to economic recovery. It is built on a patriotic and radical pedigree that runs from Thomas Paine to Billy Bragg. There is a real alternative to the fakery of the “Big Society”, and it is “Full Citizenship”.