What are our ‘values’?

By David Mentiply

Labour blogs have been unseasonably busy over the past couple of days due to the buzz around plans to restructure party funding and its relationship with trade unions. A common strand of argument I keep coming across from opponents of the changes suggests that if the proposals are passed, the very essence of the Labour Party will be at risk. A diminished trade union influence will destroy the soul of the party founded by trade unionists and undermine its core values.

This begs the question: what are our “values”? Are they just a set of abstract words or do they mean something? We are not value-free. So what are we? These are important but often overlooked questions that need to be addressed.

One major problem is that when we talk of Labour values we run the risk of alienating the majority of people in the country who have no affiliation with a political party. We can come across as arrogant, paternalistic and even slightly cultish. Just think how some usually mild-mannered people are irked by the notion that Christian values are somehow superior or any different to the values of atheists, agnostics or those from different faith groups. We cannot afford to offend people by standing on a moral high ground looking down on those who do not share our vision for Britain. We need to win people over and make friends, not enemies.

Somehow, however, I don’t think us, Labour people, will ever stop talking about the uniqueness of our values. British politics is too tribal – Labour versus Tory. “Our” values contrast favourably with “theirs”. At every election, we pitch it as a battle between good and bad, us and them. Gordon Brown was fond of talking up Labour values during the election campaign. Clearly though, these values weren’t enough. They did not chime with the wider public.

That is the problem. We speak too frequently about our values without really enunciating what they mean or questioning whether or not they are relevant to the aspirations of people today. If we ourselves are unsure of our values and what they are in concrete terms, how are others to know what we mean?

I am as guilty as the next Labour activist of trumpeting our “values” without qualifying what I mean. It seems to be the default mode we take when we are on the back foot. In a recent article, I asserted that “our values are constant”. But instead of expanding on what these values are and making them tangible, I listed a number of policy achievements since 1997. Again, this is not the way to win friends. We lost and must take stock of where we went wrong and how we can remedy this.

It may be a long road ahead but I think it will be well worth investing the time to consider what our values mean today. Many of our values may be indefinable, but we must at least try to express them better than we have done over the past few years.