More Methodism than Marxism: how Labour can learn from its Christian traditions to win

By Mathew Hulbert

Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s inimitable former Press Secretary, famously once said that ‘we don’t do God.’ But I believe, to win the next election, Labour must find a way to return to its Christain Socialist roots.

Now I’m certainly not suggesting or advocating that Labour follow the seemingly zealous model of a certain George W.Bush.

But what people sometimes forget is that Jesus was a radical, a revolutionary – who believed in helping the poor and in shunning the orthodox establishment of the time.

Labour, in turn, needs to remember its youthful, radical, revolutionary zeal. It need to shun the vested interests and those who want to wield influence – and remember why it is we have a Labour Party.

A famous quote about Labour is that it ‘owes more to Methodism than Marxism.’

I like that quote.

Of course everyone is different but I can say that Christianity has consistently inspired me over the years, has instilled in me a sense of justice and injustice and the desire to stand for a world that is freer, fairer and greener.

One of the reasons I have become increasingly disillusioned with Labour is that it appeared to forget these first principles. The list of crimes is a long one; the the horrific invasion of Iraq and the attack on our civil liberties are but two. To me, (and please pardon the expression) New Labour signed some kind of pact with the Devil to achieve power and was forced to sing to his tune, of vested interests, of the establishment, of the rich.

In truth, however, Labour has a fairly good record on fairness, equality, and the redistribution of wealth (though far from as good as it could and should have been) but because – especially in the early years – the party hierarchy was so scared of offending a number of right-wing newspapers and big business, it did little to promote or advertise this good work.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair recently gave a very interesting interview to Rev. Nicky Gumbel, founder of the Alpha course at Holy Trinity Church, Brompton.

In it, Mr Blair said of the Bible: “Every time I read it I get something new from it.”

He also says, in reference to the Parable of the Sower:

“This is the absolute heart of it; that you are given certain abilities and it is an obligation, it’s a duty, to use those; they are God-given and you should use those to the best of your ability.”

And talking about the Millennium Goals he said:

“I think there are two reasons about caring about Africa. One is obviously that millions of people die avoidably, which should summon a certain amount of will to act. The second is that I genuinely believe that in the world we live in today, which is inter-connected and interdependent, that if you leave parts of Africa to go bad they will go very bad and, actually, the problems come back on us, so I think there are reasons of self-interest, as well as reasons of moral imperative.”

Whilst Mr Blair without doubt has questions to answer about the invasion of Iraq, he is surely right in the quotes I’ve just outlined.

So, what can we learn from all of this?

Well I believe Labour needs to remember that, like Jesus, whilst it’s here to serve everyone it’s primary constituency has to be the nation’s and the world’s poorest people; it’s about giving them a hand-up.

If it does that Labour might just still having a chance of remaining in power come the next general election.

But it must do these things because it believes in them. Not for pure party political electoral advantage.