What Labour is for (and what it is not for)

By Emma Burnell / @scarletstand

After scenes of confusion and idiocy from a small but loud minority of marchers last weekend there has been a great deal of controversy over what the Labour Party should and shouldn’t be doing in relation to the anti-cuts movement. There has been on Labour blogs an almost existential howl. If Labour aren’t with the marchers on the barricades, where are they? If they aren’t articulating the anger of the weak what are they for? If they don’t exist to bring down the government, what are they for?

I understand the emotions driving these calls. The cuts are starting to be felt. Redundancy notices are going out and the ripples are being felt everywhere. People are scared and they are looking for champions.

The easy thing to do would to be for Labour to seek this easy popularity, to stand up and call for the government to go. But however easy, however tempting, it isn’t the right thing for the Labour Party to do. Don’t get me wrong, as individuals, Labour Party members and politicians and should be out there on the marches. I’ll even go so far as to say that Eds Miliband & Balls should both address the big March for the Alternative that is being formally organised and run by the TUC. But they can’t and shouldn’t address every march that is springing up. Partly because a lot of them are being organically driven and organised by people Labour should be raising up – not speaking to from platforms and party because a few of them are being organised by a rabble of numpties up for a ruck. Partly they shouldn’t address every march because they will not have a new message each Saturday and will dilute the power of thier message through repetition (as the marches themselves may well do). But mostly, because being the head of a protest movement is not what the Labour Party is for. And the second we start to believe it is, we self-defeatingly condemn this country to another term of Tory government.

We may not like it much, but Labour lost the last election democratically. I don’t subscribe to the lazy commentators view that the public voted for either a hung parliament or this coalition (neither were on the ballot) but this government was formed democratically and there will not be a revolution. Anyone equating the horrible monetarist policies of this government with the hideous political and economic oppression suffered in countries like Egypt and Tunisia have lost their sense of perspective. Yes, this government’s policies are going to have terrible consequences, with the poor at the sharp end. But when we say sharp end in the UK we still mean it metaphorically. When we dislike a government as much as we dislike this one we have a chance to oust them in 4-5 years as an election is called.

Of course we must be the parliamentary voice of the weak and dispossessed. Part of being credible in opposition will be in trying to curb the excesses of the evils this government is bringing about. We must be the voice of the people who elected us even when not in government. But as important as this is, it is more important that Labour are there to offer an electable alternative. It is the party’s job – first and foremost – to provide an alternative different enough to undo the harm the government is doing, radical enough to engage our supporters and electable enough to appeal to a majority of voters. That has to be our unbending focus. Becuase if we get swept up in the romance of opposition, these vital tasks will not be fulfilled. We will look like a great opposition, not a great alternative. And if we don’t make ourselves electable again, we will not only be unable to support those being crushed by the Tories now, but will franchise the Tories crushing another generation. And another, and another. Until that tough lesson is learned.

I think Labour’s leadership get this. I hope Labour’s membership get this. I hope it doesn’t take us another 18 years to understand what the Labour Party must be and cannot be.