We are Labour and we’re on your side

By Josh Fenton-Glynn / @joshfg

Ed Miliband speaking at the March for the Alternative sent a louder message than any policy review: ‘we are Labour and we’re on your side’.

On Saturday I was proud to be amongst hundreds of thousands of people who marched through London to oppose government cuts. I was also proud to be a member of the only political party whose leader addressed those people’s concerns at the concluding rally. To suggest as some have that those people represented a self interested minority would be to fail to grasp the significance of the biggest march on a domestic political issue of our generation. The right wing of the Labour Party who have criticised Ed’s involvement couldn’t be more wrong; this should be the start of our party stepping up and standing alongside the public to defend the services they value from Sure Start to the coastguard.

When I worked in an MP’s office I remember being told that one letter equates to about twenty people’s feelings – many will be angry and may take their vote elsewhere but writing a letter is hard work and most won’t bother. Going on a demonstration takes a lot more effort than writing a letter, from the 4am start for your coach, to the hours spent trudging the streets of London. That is what makes the fact that 500,000 or more people came out to ‘March for the Alternative’ so staggering – because for each person who marched in London, we can be sure that many more felt similarly but due to family, ill-health or simply other things to do, didn’t make the journey to London.

Recent polls and the massive numbers on the march suggest that the majority of the British public have turned against the government’s cuts – if they were ever for them in the first place. However the press and the more dogmatic in our own party have failed to catch up. Some seem to think that the ‘responsible’ thing for Ed Miliband to do would be to turn up and admonish those who oppose the cuts that are damaging the economy and our society. Some say that any rhetorical flourishes he used are a sign of weakness.

Unions

Much of the criticism of the March on Saturday has centred around the involvement of the TUC, suggesting that unions are a malign minority interest and Ed Miliband should avoid association with them. Even if we put to one side the history and reason for the Labour Party’s existence, these people are still wrong. Whilst only 5% of the population have given money to or been a member of a political party in the past 3 years, trade union membership is at around 7 million. The idea that it isn’t acceptable for a political leader to address the concerns of those seven million voters simply because they are organised is frankly ridiculous. As a party and as a movement I think we need to be less apologetic about taking on the concerns of those in unions and the millions of other workers who are not but have the same concerns about falling wages, poor conditions and the future of their jobs.

Apartheid and Suffragettes

From Luke Bozier to Melanie Phillips, Ed Miliband’s critics are outraged that he put the demonstration in the context of other mass movements such as that against apartheid, the civil rights movement and the suffragettes. Having watched the speech twice (oh yeah, I’m cool), it is quite clear to me that Ed wasn’t trying to suggest the cuts we fight are comparable, but simply that against a back drop of sneering coverage from the press questioning what marching achieves that we live in a society where such action has changed the world. One suspects these comments have been deliberately misconstrued to undermine Miliband for political reasons; irritating from a columnist for the Daily Mail but unacceptable and intellectually dishonest from members of our own party.

I think Ed Miliband’s speech has put the Labour Party – and more importantly the movement against the cuts – in a good place.

At the risk of leaving Phillips and Bozier incandescent with rage, I feel moved to end by quoting one of my political heroes: “first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi.