If Ed wants to be PM, he’ll keep Byrne where he is

As August draws to a close speculation surrounding Ed Miliband’s reshuffle is reaching fever pitch – or at least it is in some parts of the blogosphere and a couple of half empty corridors in Westminster. And once again the noisier elements on the far left are gunning for familiar targets. Top of the list? Liam Byrne.

The self-appointed protectors of Labour’s soul have decided they want him out. Never mind what the public might think, or the members who don’t happen to write their own blog, or the widespread support for Byrne in the PLP for that matter. For this brave band of keyboard warriors he has been at the business end of one tough decision too many and he has got to go.

The Birmingham Hodge Hill MP has consistently irritated many Labour activists, columnists and trade union leaders with his seemingly ambiguous response to the government’s welfare reforms. Instead of outright condemnation of the benefit cap or universal credit, he has chosen to infuriate many on the left by responding with nuance and thoughtful analysis. He was the first Labour politician I heard making the obvious but bafflingly controversial point that we are called the Labour Party because we’re supposed to be about work: “the clue’s in the name,” he told Labour conference in 2011 in what was the stand out Shadow Cabinet speech of the week.

Byrne is one of the most political of our front benchers, which makes him more suited to the Work and Pensions portfolio than anyone else in the Commons. He understands the need to develop a coherent and even aggressive response to what the coalition is doing. Yet he recognises, as far too few others do, that such a response cannot simply be opposition for its own sake. He recognises that much of what Iain Duncan Smith is doing is for the wrong reasons, while at the same time accepting that reform of social security – radical reform far beyond what Labour attempted in government – is now no longer an option but an imperative.

His experience representing a poverty-stricken West Midlands constituency, and his professional life before he won the hard-fought Hodge Hill by-election in 2004, have helped form his approach to welfare. That approach combines a deep, fundamental commitment to making sure help is there for those who need it and who have no other recourse, with a bleak acceptance that benefit dependency has, over the generations, robbed individuals of their dignity and communities of a vital human resource.

The accusation thrown at Byrne by his detractors is that his approach betrays a lack of commitment to, and understanding of, the Labour movement. It’s the kind of lazy, intellectually barren argument used to silence anyone who wants to construct an economically literate foundation for the party’s next election effort.

James Kirkup of the Telegraph this week made an important observation about Byrne with regard to the speculation that Ed Miliband will move or even sack him in the reshuffle:

“Labour folk might note that CCHQ has champagne on ice for the day Ed Miliband ditches a welfare spokesman who has at least flirted with the idea of curbing welfare spending.”

This is, of course, spot-on. Consistent opinion polls placing Labour behind the Tories on which party voters trust more on the economy is only part of the story; the people who will decide whether Ed or Dave becomes Prime Minister in 2015 want welfare reform. They want to see cuts to the social security budget and they’ve lost patience with anyone they perceive as choosing to milk the benefits system instead of paying their fair share. That perception is often wrong, and Byrne knows that. He has no ambition to punish benefit claimants by separating them into the deserving and non-deserving poor. But he knows that in the long term employment, not benefits, is the best way out of poverty.

Many on the Left of our party want a different approach to the Work and Pensions brief. They want someone who will hint at increasing, not decreasing the welfare bill, who will defend the right of claimants to turn down paid employment without any hint of sanctions, and who will unequivocally oppose every one of IDS’s reforms.

But that’s also what the Conservative Party wants. Ed should bear that in mind before he sends packing the one person in his team who has the credibility to fight and win the welfare reform argument on Labour’s terms.