Different answers, same sense of ambition

By Jim Murphy MP / @jimmurphymp

The Labour Party’s most immediate electoral task is to get ready for elections in May. The longer term task is to turn victories in May into a platform for rejuvenation and a longer-term reconnection with the voters we have lost. Last year we learned afresh how to lose an election; this year weve got to show that we know how to win again.

There is very little good about opposition. I already know that the very worst day in government is immeasurably better than the very best day in opposition. One of the few chances opposition provides is to think afresh about our place in the world and how we again make real the promise of joining the change-makers.

The world around us is changing dramatically and rapidly. The task for us is to decide how we want to position ourselves and – ultimately – our country in future.

There is a huge power shift underway. It is shifting between states and regions from West to East, to non-state actors and to new ungoverned territories, whether virtual worlds like cyberspace or international markets. There is great demographic change. The world will be at 9.2 billion people in 2050, 1.2 billion of which will be in the developed world. A key challenge for us is how to spread power, wealth and opportunity to the growing number without such blessings as well as manage the spectre of resource crunch. There will be major scientific developments, which pose risk and opportunity, and climate change will test collective international will.

The other great shift is to personal political power. We have seen in Egypt the rise of people demanding to enjoy the rights we take for granted. Authoritarianism and suppression of information have clashed with communication technology and a young population yearning for freedom.

Totalitarian politics and economic insecurity have clashed with the lure of free markets and rising aspiration. The clear danger is of a security vacuum in which extremism can flourish, but the real opportunity is whether the historic scenes we have seen can be translated in to lasting change there and in the wider region. The questions now are “What next for Egypt and where next for an Egyptian style popular uprising?”

One of the questions commentators are asking themselves is how did the Egpyptian regime last so long? We should also be asking why did the West befriend a regime that had so few friends at home?

This is an intimidating, transformative landscape, and the lesson for defence is that we must adapt now to future threats, adapting our outlook and policies so we can shape trends not respond to them. To do this we need to ask ourselves hard questions. What role do we have in encouraging international allies to pursue domestic reforms? Which capabilities do we consider to be sovereign and are there limits to multilateralism? How do we understand interventionism post Iraq and Afghanistan? How can we strengthen conflict prevention and what does that mean for traditional military hardware? Asking these questions is easy. Answering them is tough, but it will root our defence posture in the future.

The task is the same for the domestic agenda. Yes economic growth and the pace and scale of deficit reduction are the vital issues of the day. There are other big questions we need to challenge ourselves with. How do we define community when it is often determined by interests and values as it is locality? How can government promote both individual responsibility and social reciprocity? Which public sector reforms do we favour and are distinctively ours in an age of spending constraint? How can a necessary embrace of globalisation be extended to benefit those it has helped marginalise? How can Labour celebrate patriotism as a progressive social force? Are our concepts of childhood and adulthood, and the state’s response, realistic and adequate? We should be at the centre of the discussion about big issues.

There is a danger that as we look at the world undistorted by the lens of ministerial power it can become sepia-tinged. It is tempting to resurrect old arguments, but these are rarely the solutions for the world as we find it or as people view it today. We should never be in the business of making the past real. To be a party of the future we need to confront these issues, but do so by opening up, listening and speaking to others, not just with those whose causes and plights we more easily relate to. We must ask ourselves how often we protest for the issues that matter to others not just ourselves. Our aim should not be to speak for the people, but to speak with the voice of the people.

In 1994 young people came in to the party, changed it and helped bring a Labour government of enormous success. I’m not interested in new Labour nostalgia but I do want to learn from our success and define a mainstream politics as challenging as new Labour at its very best. But new Labour is older than many people at this Young Labour conference and we have to start that process of renewal all over again.

The answers will not be the same but our sense of ambition should be.

This article forms part of a speech Jim Murphy will give to the Young Labour conference in Glasgow today.