Without our values, Labour will get lost

By Darrell Goodliffe

Purgatory, for Catholics, is the place where those souls that have died in a state of grace undergo a limited amount of suffering to purify them of relatively minor sins. In popular theory, it’s also known, in the last season of Lost, as the “parallel universe where the plane never crashed”. I can think of no better metaphor for Labour’s current position, as Phil Woolas reminded us yesterday, than this; we are in a transitory state. We will be something (hopefully better) in the future yet still bear all the hallmarks of being what we were, and we are yet to come to terms with that.

I honestly think some comrades have yet to accept we are in opposition. Like the football fan who has seen his team denied because of a dodgy penalty we blame forces beyond our control (the Liberal Democrats, mainly) not the fact that even without the penalty we were for the other 90 minutes simply not good enough to win. An influx of new members has created the false impression that we lost only by a whisker. The leadership election – while a little cathartic – has begun, but most certainly has not not ended, the process of change.

Of course, this is not true of all, but even the leadership, though it may not be consciously aware of it, thinks in this way: as demonstrated by the appointment of Woolas in the first place and to a lesser degree also by the appointment of Alan Johnson as shadow chancellor.

Internally, the revolution proceeds quietly; evidenced only by a glut of job adverts as the clique who held power are replaced by the new rulers. Nonetheless, the ‘New Generation’ still remains at its core the Old Guard in new clothing and there is a certain timidity in changing that; something that may cause no problems for now but will soon jar with new realities and lead to friction.

Policy-wise I would expect the policy review to last the full-term because the above conservatism acts as a break on change. For example, on tuition fees we simply no longer have a policy because the stated policy of the leader, a graduate tax, is opposed by senior figures in the shadow cabinet, not least the shadow chancellor. Therefore, expect us to be little more than the ‘party of no’ for a long time. This will be OK for the early stages of the new government but will soon lead to wider fractures within the party if the tension is not resolved and, while it will not damage us in the polls for now, eventually we will play a price for a failure to develop coherent alternatives.

Our state of grace is given us by the voters because they rejected us and its only proper we have a decent span of time to change ourselves. However, that will not last indefinitely. Suffering will be part of this too, Woolas showed that; what he did was unacceptable but it does tell us about the wider problems, for example of how Labour abandoned principled defence of immigration in favour of chasing Gillian Duffy.

The ejection of Woolas is only the beginning; more problems lie ahead not least after next May when comrades will be fighting on different sides in the AV Referendum (repayment for our failure to boldly take forward constitutional reform when we had the chance) and will even follow success in the local government elections. Success here could become a pyrrhic victory as Labour councillors become trapped between the expectations of their electorate and the fiscal turning of the screw by central government and our state of grace will come to an early beginning of its end.

Climbing out of Labour’s political purgatory will not be easy, but if it is to be achieved we must take one lesson from our defeat: our values matter and if we lose them as the locus of our political action and policies, we will get lost easily.