Ed needs critical loyalists

By Daniel Blaney

The best analysis written since the election of Ed Miliband on the internal dynamics of the Labour Party, with a particular inevitable focus on the Labour left, is a piece in the January 2011 edition of Red Pepper by Alex Nunns.

Red Pepper has been an invaluable part of the left press since it was founded in 1994 – the year Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party. Libertarian, green and irreverent, it has shown honest scepticism at the prospects of the Labour Party recovering from the worst aspects of New Labour’s capitulation to (or infatuation with?) the political right.

Many of us disagreed with Red Pepper’s editorial line over the years. We soldiered on in the Labour Party for the 13 years of Blair’s leadership, even when the Iraq war failed to unseat him and comrades were deserting the party in droves. Had David Miliband been elected Labour Leader in 2010, it would have cemented the view of many that New Labour was a permanent part of the political landscape, inevitably damaging the labour movement when it needed confidence and unity against the new Tory-led coalition.

Ed Miliband’s election changes everything – something Gordon Brown’s three year interregnum failed to do. Brown’s coronation weakened him: he didn’t defeat a Blairite candidate, nor did he really answer (and perhaps re-assure) his critics on the left.

In contrast Ed Miliband has the authority of defeating four rivals. He responded to naked Blairism from David Miliband on issues like income tax, while being pressured from the left on issues such as nuclear disarmament and immigration by the fantastic candidacy of Diane Abbott. As Red Pepper notes:

“once in the job [Ed Miliband] could easily have tacked right again. Instead, in his first conference speech as leader he overturned New Labour’s first article of faith that markets are sacrosanct, rebuked the Blair-Brown dependence on the City, reintroduced equality as a concept, renounced the Iraq war, criticised Israel and denounced the authoritarian approach to civil liberties”.

Where now for the left? Red Pepper ponders this brilliantly over three pages, but devotes only a passing mention to Compass. In the darkest days of New Labour, in the aftermath of the Iraq war and then the most untimely death of Robin Cook, many of us looked to Compass to fill an obvious vacuum in the internal dynamic caused by a hollowing out of the party, its structures and its discourse. Ed Miliband spoke regularly to a Compass audience and despite the confines of the front bench, he quietly and confidently signalled where he saw politics beyond New Labour.

Ed Miliband needs his critical loyalists, defending his leadership as well as reminding him of the passion and determination of his left flank. But Compass is almost abandoning ship at this vital time – its executive no longer wants a Labour Party orientation and is seeking approval to not only align with but actually incorporate within itself those hostile to Labour in the Lib Dems and other parties. It would devalue everything Compass does well and undermine the political space Compass wants Ed Miliband’s Labour Party to occupy. At the Extraordinary General Meeting of Compass I will be voting No.