Sorry Sunny, if Labour is the largest party we simply have to go it alone

As we approach 2015 and the end of the current cosy coalition, Nick Clegg has seen fit to tout himself and his party around the potential future occupants of number 10, to attempt to, desperately, cling to power for another term. The sight of a Liberal Democrat who stood for election on a left of centre platform then having renounced all his promises in the rose garden, now seeking a possible deal with Labour is enough to make my blood boil. It is not yet clear whether Clegg himself will keep his seat with a huge electorate of angry students in his constituency.

Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite in an interview on Tuesday’s Newsnight  said that people are looking for something different. They are looking for ‘people who have the courage of their convictions’.  He then told Jeremy Paxman that he would like Labour to win outright but; ‘if Ed Miliband ends up as the largest party he should have the courage to govern as a minority government’.

LabourList yesterday carried a piece from Sunny Hundal – the 2010 Lib Dem voter – who eloquently argued a coalition with the Lib Dem’s shouldn’t be ruled out. What Mr Hundal perhaps fails to understand is that in areas like mine, that position simply wouldn’t be stomached, either by voters or activists. In the event of a hung parliament with Labour the largest party, we simply have to go it alone.

In a speech last night at Cambridge Len talked of democracy withering as people feel powerless.  As Chair of the Trade Union group in the Commons I share that view.

A democratic deficit has emerged.  The green benches in the Commons are increasingly populated by the elite and the political careerists.  A minority of MPs have a working class background. In a representative democracy we are in danger of no longer reflecting the people we represent.

In addressing the Cambridge students Len asked,

“Where is the hope that your views are taken seriously, that you can influence things around you, from the workplace to the government. 

“We have lost the sense of power in recent times.  The only recognised power in our system today is the power of the purse.”

The citizens of our country are not uninterested in politics. However, we are in danger of seeing governments determined by those who choose not to engage in the democratic process rather than those who do. People want to make their voices heard on the big issues from the Iraq War, to the betrayal on tuition fees, and thedismantling of the National Health Service. But what hope have we of changing the minds of already apathetic voters who think we’re all the same if we’re willing to consider coalition with those who have enabled a true blue Tory agenda since 2010?

This is why as Len Mcluskey told the Cambridge students  he has to suppress a shudder down his spine when he hears talk of a Lib-Lab  government after the next general election:

“Clegg’s pitch – whoever you vote for, you get me. He’ll ally himself with whoever is to hand to keep the country bogged down in the same failed consensus.”

It really is not true to say the parties are all the same. Labour has pledged to bin the hated bedroom tax and is committed to repealing the Health and Social Care Act.  Sadly we’ve long since stopped talking about repealing anti trade union laws, but a consequence of neutering trade unions we have seen real wages falling for most people in work. For 45 consecutive months wages have declined in value.

Trade Union values of standing together and a belief in collective bargaining, are what led me to politics in the first place. I share with Len a passionate that Trade Union Freedoms are critical in any civilised democracy.

It is no coincidence that, the Tory government of the 80’s, having targeted political trade unionism and having wounded the strongest and most vociferous union of the day, the National Union of Mineworkers that over the last thirty years inequality between the rich and poor has risen to obscene levels. The richest 1% in Britain now has as much wealth as 60% of the population. It is similarly no coincidence that the government and their allies in the media continue to agitate against the Unions, painting Len McCluskey as some kind of national threat, simply for representing ordinary people.

Len’s speech was wide ranging, laying out the problems, we as a country face, economically and democratically. As General Secretary of Britain’s biggest union he is well placed to understand these issues.

The neo-liberal economic system is bust.  We’ve got to move on from a climate where risk is socialised and reward is privatised.  Where gross inequality exists and where the so-called Thatcher revolution of a share owning, and home owning democracy has shown itself to be a chimera with spivs, speculators and greedy landlords prospering in a deregulated market place.

We need to hear diverse voices instead of the usual orthodox elite. McCluskey’s solutions of putting together the demand for homes, with unemployed building workers and masses of unused building materials is not rocket science.

The trade union movement is our guard from exploitation. Cambridge students don’t exist in isolation from the rest of us.  We all have to play our part in providing hope to those that don’t have the same opportunities. Wise words indeed as Len concluding his speech by emphatically stating to those present:

“Don’t be content to leave the world as you found it.”