Countering the coalition: United they fall

The “Countering the coalition” column

By Hadleigh Roberts

In parts one and two of Countering the coalition, I outlined how the current political terrain has changed and argued that the coalition will hold together for the duration of the parliament. Now I will explain how Labour can take advantage of the situation and discuss the role of leadership.

Given my previous points, Labour should not waste time trying to break up the coalition from the outside as MPs and activists have been trying to do. The conditions for a surviving partnership are in place and so by trying to exacerbate and exaggerate their differences we foster only a sense of solidarity between the Liberals and the Tories, which gives the appearance of a government united against the barbarians banging at the gates.

However, it is more desirable that the coalition remains intact until the next election. On our side, the main argument for not removing Brown as leader was a time limit. Should the coalition break down in as early as a year or two, then our new leader will not have the time to make a name for himself. (Note that I say ‘his’ for grammatical over political purposes.) Nor will he have the time to set a clear, distinct policy agenda; that is to say, if I can borrow the phrase, to show us his vision for Britain. From what I have seen of the very uninspiring contest so far, time is definitely something that they need.

The massive financial constraint in which the party finds itself dwarfs the time argument. Labour could not even hope to match the combined power of the Lib Dems and the Tories even in the best of times. In any case, it leads us to the question of how the parties will function together.

Normally in coalitions, there are no by-elections on a national level because a coalition is usually the result of Proportional Representation, which typically operates on a party list system. One out, everybody else moves up a space. They are even less frequent in France as each candidate has a running mate that has the democratic mandate to take over if necessary. It therefore makes more sense to use a local example of a by-election that was caused by the cancellation of a result rather than a resignation or death (hence, why the running mate was unable to take over). Last summer, I was a by-election campaign manager for the Socialist candidate in the sixth district of Nice. The council is UMP (conservative) run and so the Socialists and Greens form the opposition group in coalition; usual practice is to have a discussion and then field one candidate. (Note how dependent the entire political system is on closed-door negotiations between party representatives.) Despite this, the Greens were overconfident after their good result in the EU Parliament elections and decided to go it alone. They broke the agreement, stole momentum from the Socialist candidate and ended up with a measly 7% anyway.

The spotlight here focuses on the practical implications of running a coalition, but if the Liberals and the Tories can work out a makeshift manifesto, a queen’s speech and a budget, it is safe to say they will work something out. Logic would suggest that the government would field a Liberal candidate where they are in the best placed to win and a Tory where the Tories are in second place. The difficulties lie in Liberal/Tory marginals in the South, since they cannot criticise their honourable friend’s record with negative campaigning, nor can they campaign positively on the same program. I am not going to give them any clues on this one, though.

What Labour needs to do is push the debate to focus on the future (as I set out in part one), which means that we shall have to drop “Back to the 80s” as a campaign theme because it is pointless to fight non-ideology with ideology. Tony Blair wisely sustained the ghost of Thatcher while she still haunted the Tory party, and even though I was born in 1989 and never knew Thatcher, I can safely say of David Cameron that he’s no Thatcher. The Hague-wig strategy was effective in 2001, but nine years later, it no longer works.

Leadership is now a major current in British politics, the presidentialisation of which is one of Thatcher’s many legacies. A pattern has emerged whereby years of strong and unbending leadership precede a period of chaos and division; an obvious parallel to draw is the Thatcher-Major Blair-Brown axis. Each one appears to be the antidote to the other, until their leadership strengths become weaknesses. Thatcher was isolated because of her unwillingness to accept dissent, so Major seemed like a sensible return to cabinet government. Blair ruled from the sofa, and Brown’s premiership is epitomised around the word ‘leadership’ more than any other.

This has implications for our own leadership contest. All the candidates so far have been parroting conciliatory words like “open,” “debate,” “progressive,” “listening,” when the political cycle in fact demands another conviction politician from our side.

It is time Labour finally laid the Thatcher threat to rest, not least because a whole generation of voters did not experience the 80s. Nevertheless, we can evoke the ghost of John Major, whose government’s divisions may have trodden the path the coalition will follow. Without contradicting myself on Major, it was best for Labour that he was sufficiently weak as a leader, but it was still vital that he remained in Number 10. If the coalition is sinking, we want to keep the rats firmly on board the ship.

You can read Hadleigh Roberts’ blog here at hadleighroberts.co.uk