Who are we?

By Darrell Goodliffe

Whenever a person suffers emotional pain, a loss of some kind, there is inner turmoil. A battle and questions asked about who you are. Eventually, a new balance emerges, you pick yourself up and, having integrated the experience of the loss into your being, you emerge changed. Or indeed, some don’t, but that’s another story. What holds true for people holds true, in essence, for political parties.

So it is with Labour. We suffered a painful loss in 2010. True, we elected a new leader but this was always the beginning of a process, not the end. Now that struggle for re-definition and eventual healing is beginning in earnest. In Blue Labour, GEER and now Next Generation we have component parts of that inner struggle, not to mention the leadership which is another aspect.

Some people worry about this, they preach unity at all costs. They misunderstand the fact that unity is forged through the struggle that eventually brings the balance and harmony they crave. If Labour is to be whole and united again that will come only when the contending fragments unify after first slogging it out.

Who do I think we are? We are not the party who scapegoats the innocent. We don’t blame a disabled man doing his best for the inadequacies of a tired and decrepit social system. Capitalism, the god that never stops failing. We are not the party of individual avarice Luke Boizer and Alex Smith think we should be.

We are a proud, democratic party, in spirit if not always in practice. This means giving a voice to the voiceless, putting them first before all others. It also means we demand the market and the state serve the people and we recognise and reward common endeavour because therein our strength lies. We are the pioneers, not afraid to turn things upside down and never settling for what is; the fighters and the believers.

Once we realise ourselves and our own potential the possibilities are limitless but for that to happen we need a full, frank – and yes sometimes bitter – struggle to ensue.