Standing up for what we believe in

By Ian Robathan

Just over two months on, and everything we said has come true and then some. Whilst we guessed they might attack the NHS at its margins, no one guessed the kind of major reform that would occur; if you look back you’ll see we pointed to what could happen, with the influence of the private health lobby. They said we were scaremongering. Read this from Liberal Conspiracy and it is clear we actually underplayed it.

Also let’s remind us of what Cameron said on November 2nd 2009:

“It’s true, with the Conservatives there will be no more of the tiresome, meddlesome, top-down re-structures that have dominated the last decade of the NHS…So yes, I’m proud to say the Conservatives will stop these pointless, retrogressive re-organisations and closures.”

Now let’s face facts. Labour, too, would have had to cut spending and we don’t know quite what might have been cut or reorganised had we won. But you’d hope that the attack we are seeing on education and the NHS wouldn’t have happened. However, this is the dichotomy of Labour right now – as it was Labour who begain these reforms. We opened up the doors of privatisation through academies and the use of private companies within the NHS. All the Tories did was take this further – but it was the natural extension of our plans. That makes it hard to attack them, and the Tories have an easy counter attack.

So what should we do then?

I want the new leader in September to state publicly that any changes that are made by the Tories will be reversed in the first years of a new Labour government. I want the leader to state that this reversal will come at no cost to the taxpayer and private companies will not benefit. I want the new leader to be angry and motivated to say to our party that the way forward for Labour is not to attract right-leaning votes but to attract the votes of people who care about society and not just their own selfish needs.

Some people on the right will agree with David Miliband when he said on Twitter:

“And thanks to Barbara for reminding us that we won three elections by building a coalition not retreating to our base.”

That is not what I am advocating. What I want the party to look at is those people in the middle who care about society and want to vote for a liberal centre-left party. The academy policy, whilst well meaning, was the privatisation of our schools. That is not centre-left politics, it is right-wing politics and we should never again be lured into that trap.

We are facing an assault on the country the likes of which even Thatcher never dared. It is being rushed through before the coalition falls apart, as it must – or at least as the Lib Dem side of it is bound to. It is intended to change the course of the country forever in two years. These changes are supposed to be about saving money but are really all about dogma, and the massive transference of money, people and power to the private sector.

Labour’s new leader has to be clear in his or her message, has to be strong and be very proud of what we stand for. As it says on the back of our membership cards:

“By the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.”