Labour’s broad church

By Owen Jones / @owenjones84

I feel for Luke Bozier, I really do. He’s going through the sort of trauma Labour lefties of all stripes will recognise: a distressing sense that the Party you thought you knew has abruptly disappeared. His recent LabourList post, coupled with a glance through his Twitter feed, reveal a man going through much soul-searching about whether he can retain his Party card in good faith.

Luke joined Labour four years ago – unlucky timing for an arch-Blairite, because that was on the eve of Tony Blair’s departure. From my understanding of Luke’s political background, it was Blair’s brand of New Labourism that brought him into the party’s ranks in the first place.

Without getting out the world’s smallest violin, I want to explain my own allegiance to the Labour Party. I joined aged 15 partly because it was in my blood: my ancestors were among its earliest supporters; my grandmother was a Labour councillor; and my parents met canvassing for the Party in Brixton in 1968. But above all I inherited my family’s analysis of the Party which is that – however imperfect, however limited it may sometimes be – it is the only shot at political representation that working people have. That is, after all, what it was set up for – and it is a purpose institutionalised by its link with the country’s biggest democratic movement, the trade unions.

It’s this analysis that saw lefties like me through all the betrayals and disappointments of the New Labour era: whether it be the marketisation of our public services; the failure to undo all the damage inflicted on working-class communities by Thatcher; the scandal of inequality remaining at historic levels; and, of course, the small matter of illegally invading Iraq in alliance with Bush’s neo-cons.

Luke doesn’t seem to share the analysis of Labour as a wider movement. For him, the party and its leadership are more or less synonymous. When the leadership does not exactly correspond to his particular brand of uber-Blairism, he feels lost – even though there is a moderate social democrat in in charge who, before New Labour’s ‘Year Zero’, would have been traditionally described as a ‘Labour right-winger’.

Let’s just take on his specific gripes. To begin with – like much of the right-wing press – Luke is appalled at Miliband referring to the suffragettes’ movement, the US civil rights’ movement and the anti-apartheid movement in his speech at the TUC rally. What the Labour leader was trying to do was put one of the biggest demonstrations in British history in the context of a broad tradition of peaceful protest. (Where he went wrong, actually, was suggesting these were all peaceful struggles, because they weren’t – but anyway).

Is this tasteless? Of course not. We are currently ruled by a government with no mandate for policies it is pursuing with Maoist zeal, as Vince Cable put it. It is implementing the biggest cuts since the 1920s, which will result in hundreds of thousands losing their jobs; planning welfare changes that will end up booting thousands of poor people out of their homes (which even Boris Johnson hyperbolically referred to as “Kosovo-style” cleansing); slashing services that our communities depend on; and launching an-all out assault on the NHS, which the electorate didn’t hear about until Cameron was safely ensconced in Number 10.

It is a programme so outrageous that half a million people took to the streets in what may be Britain’s biggest ever demonstration against a government’s domestic policies, and less than a year after the Tories – who lost the general election – cobbled a coalition together. It is a just struggle, and comparisons with other just struggles – even if they were up against bigger injustices – are totally valid.

In his attempt to mock Miliband’s comparisons, Luke sneers: “There is a universe of difference between library closures and not allowing women to vote.” Yes, well, if it was just library closures we were up against, perhaps he would have point: but tragically, the biggest programme of cuts for many decades will have far, far greater consequences than that – as he full well knows.

He should note that, despite the media furore over his speech (shock! horror! Ed Miliband associated with the biggest representative organisations in the country!), Labour’s YouGov lead went from 3 points to 8 points.

Luke claims “Labour currently stands for one thing: halting the cuts to the public sector.” For a Labour lefty like myself, this is startling news. The Labour leadership remains committed to a programme of cuts greater than any in nearly a century – though yes, significantly less than the current government, and over a longer period. I would like to shift that position, but it remains far closer to Luke Bozier’s stance than it does to mine.

He also makes the striking error of portraying cuts as an issue that only affects the public sector. Firstly, all of us will face the consequences of services that will either deteriorate or be slashed altogether. But, secondly, these cuts are going to hammer the private sector, too. Those frothing-at-the-mouth lefties at PricewaterhouseCoopers have predicted hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs will vanish. When communities were hit by the collapse of manufacturing in the 80s, local consumer demand collapsed, destroying many small private businesses – and we can expect the same to happen again.

But he’s also wrong that cuts are Ed Miliband’s main theme, when we all know it’s the so-called “squeezed middle”. Now, I could go on about my issues with this, and I’d prefer to talk about “working people”, but his aim is obviously to focus on the almost unprecedented decline in living standards that is about to hit us. Does he really think that is tactically disastrous?

I appreciate he’s upset about Ed Miliband declaring the passing of ‘New Labour’, but he should accept that this is only going to be mourned by fully signed up Blairites like himself. The country has moved on. It is easy to forget that Labour under Blair only won the 2005 election by the skin of its teeth (35.2% versus 32.4% for the Tories – the smallest share of any majority party ever); and, with New Labour architect Peter Mandelson more powerful than ever, our Party was smashed last May. Over 80% of the voters we lost between 1997 and 2010 went AWOL under Blair.

Luke can claim that “we have become the party of the public sector”, but in reality we are enjoying our highest ever consistent poll ratings (between 40-45%) since the earlier period of the 1997-2010 Labour governments – and that was against an entirely incompetent, fratricidal Conservative Party.

Luke feels like he’s in “a bad dream”. If I wanted the Party to enthusiastically campaign for cuts to Corporation Tax; felt that the finances were in a mess because the public sector was too big, rather than because of a collapse in tax revenues caused by the financial crisis; or celebrated David Cameron’s planned mass privatisation of the public sector, I’d probably feel the same.

Labour is a broad church: it is a coalition of social democrats and socialists. It includes the likes of right-wingers like Luke Akehurst, and left-wingers like myself. But the Blairites I know certainly do not share most of Luke Bozier’s assertions; some take comfort that he is just being contrary. I’m not so sure.

Luke may end up deciding that the broad church is just too narrow for a truly pure devotee of Blair. If so, I wish him the best of luck, wherever his political journey takes him. As for the rest of us – well, we’ve got a Labour Party to get elected.