How Labour can learn from the Hannan-Powell row to articulate a proud case

By Robert Brown

The latest in the Hannan saga is his praise of Enoch Powell. Now, I am disgusted that such a high profile figure in our political history can have such vile views on race and immigration. But we cannot write off Powell’s failings as purely race related. And we must find lessons from what was said to articulate our own proud case.

Hannan praises Powell as:

“somebody who understood the importance of national democracy, as somebody who understood why you need to live in an independent country and what that meant, as well as being a free marketeer and a small market conservative”.

All of those things, in the way Hannan means them, are wrong. We must make the case against Powell’s politics, and not just his perceived racism.

Firstly, Hannan said Enoch Powell “understood the importance of national democracy”. My idea of national democracy is not a House of Lords that, in Powell’s time, was still dominated by hereditary peers. Powell was resolutely against any reform of the Lords. So we need to better make our case for democracy, to show where we have improved it and we must ensure we keep pushing forward. Powell made it clear he wanted one House to have power, one House to make decisions and one House to have democratic authority. We can debate the balance of power within our system for a long time, but the point is that Enoch Powell did not promote the system of checks and balances that currently exists in the US, a system Mr Hannan seems to envy. So we must defend Labour’s record and, in the year before the election, push for further reforms to show we are still the force of change.

Next, the belief that Powell promoted an “independent country”. Hannan is clearly referring to Powell’s opposition to Britain joining the EEC, a debate we have had in British politics for many years. We as Labour have been rightly been asked to make the case for a social Europe; in light of the recent financial uncertainties we learn that working with other nations is essential to saving a globalised economy – and this can only be ensured if nations have real economic bonds. But it is more than this: we also know that Europe-wide financial regulation, minimum tax rates and other social advances can only be made from within the EU.

The same can be said for Powell’s belief in the small market. So, to counter Hannanism, we must continue to believe and continue to make the case for intervention. We must ensure that everyone hears that real help is required during tough economic times, that by creating automatic stabilisers we can secure the long term future for the economy and by bringing forward capital investment we do not just create jobs to save a generation, but we also benefit from the resulting infrastructure.

These are basic arguments, and we must make them effectively. They constitute the key dividing line between us and Dan Hannan, who represents a much larger section of Conservative opinion than Cameron accepts.

I do not believe Hannan is a racist, but I do believe he is wrong about the key issues in British politics, because his fundamental agreement with Enoch Powell on democracy, Europe and most importantly the economy were wrong.

If we become too focussed on issues that are not immediately relevant, we will fail to win the key debates that the general election will be fought on. It’s time to fight back with the good fight.