Why we should all be Labour tribalists

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0cm;
mso-para-margin-right:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0cm;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

By Kieron Merrett / @kieronam

That word ‘tribal’ really sticks to the Labour Party. Labour activists are “tribal.” Our leader is “tribal.” If you hate Thatcher and what she stood for, you’re “tribal.”

In some part, this is journalistic force of habit. Even when Ed Miliband addresses a march attended by thousands of non-Labour members – many of whom even tried to boo him off the stage – there is still some lazy columnist who uses the T-word. Much as you can always expect one of them to bring back that annoying ‘-gate‘ meme for every political scandal. It’s just easy.

That aside, there is a school of thought that contends that Labour’s tribalism is bad, or outdated. The alternative, we are told, is ‘pluralism.’ We’re in an age of “pluralist politics.” The left needs a “plural coalition” to oppose the cuts. Labour must become “more pluralist.” It’s far trendier.

So this week, Peter Hain and Ed Miliband suggested opening up Labour leadership elections to non-party members. The leader has also previously suggested the public should have a say in candidate selections and internal policymaking. The message is clear: in this new age of pluralism, Labour can no longer be tribal.

It is true that organisations with links to diverse political movements, like Compass, have recently been the most successful at creating new policy ideas. In the post-New Labour policy vacuum, Miliband arguably took on a number of Compass policies before his election (although officially speaking he currently has no policies at all).

It’s also true that Labour Party membership has fallen dramatically, from over 400,000 in 1997 to just 150,000 at the start of 2010. Hain is right to say this is a “weak base” for the party to get really involved in local communities. Membership is now rising again, but we clearly need a step change.

So Hain believes there is a role for non-member ‘supporters’ of the party in bringing about that change. There is an obvious parallel with the model Barack Obama’s campaign used in 2008. But we should bear in mind the limitations of that model. For one thing, after Obama’s election, his network of non-member activists largely disappeared. He was not left with an organised movement able to campaign on different policies and issues – because, needless to say, you need committed party members for that.

For another, with no need to rely on members for support, the party’s policies and messages can be defined purely by cynical ‘triangulation.’ Hence Obama’s vague, almost apolitical slogans, appealing to Democrats and Republicans alike. (What kind of political message would unite Labour and Tory supporters behind a single candidate? If there is one, it probably focuses on the word “change.”) And as one person wrote some time ago on this website, “There is no sense in which Obama is beholden to those in his campaign. There is no way that those in the campaign are now able to insist that he honour this or that pledge.”

The alternative to this is the tribal approach. Being a party member should mean something again; rather than removing the remaining incentives for people to join up, we should be giving party members a bigger voice. The more democratic and accountable the party, the more likely activists are to be committed and united, even if they sometimes disagree or get a policy they don’t like. (Let’s face it, we are always going to squabble a bit.)

We also need to organise – recruiting members and making them more active. The party is keen on pointing out that our election results were better where we were more organised. To step up our efforts on this, we have to find new ways for the leadership to communicate with the members, and then campaign on the issues that members feed back to them.

The Trade Union link is important too. Along with the party membership, the unions are Labour’s anchor in the politics of ordinary working people, stopping us from being merely a party of positioning. So rather than just lamenting “the limited reach into workplaces which our affiliated trade unions now offer Labour,” Hain’s consultation should instead be asking how Labour and the unions can help each other to expand and engage our memberships, and how we can beef up TULO to make the link work in every single CLP.

Winning elections does mean reaching out beyond the party membership, and it is a good idea to ask non-members to join in our campaigns. But none of that is an argument for dismantling the concept of party membership itself. I want to see a politics based around committed activists, and around strong Labour values rather than triangulation.

If that’s what you want to see, then you’re probably a Labour tribalist like me.