‘Blairite’ and ‘Brownite’ tags labelled “irrelevant”, as calls come for Labour to unite to win

Labels like ‘Blairite’ and ‘Brownite’ have been dismissed as “irrelevant”, as calls come in from senior Labour figures for the party to work together towards electoral victory.

Speaking at a Progress event on ‘The Future of the Centre-left’ tonight, Shadow Cabinet minister Jon Ashworth condemned the “small differences” that have caused divisions within Labour, and said that any continuation of internal battles will only lead to defeat.

Ashworth, who supported Yvette Cooper in the leadership election, is joined by Rachel Reeves, who backed Andy Burnham, and Alison McGovern, who backed Liz Kendall at this evening’s event in Westminster. The panel is the latest in a series by Progress that has seen them hold 19 events across 17 cities in an attempt to reach out to Labour members across the party’s broad politics church.

In tonight’s speech, former Brown adviser Ashworth said that the route to victory did not lie with Labour becoming a “New Labour tribute band”, but also criticised those who dismiss those ideas as “Red Tory”, saying: “Frankly there was nothing Red Tory about the last Labour government or the last Labour opposition.”

And he sent out a rallying cry to large swathes of the party that it was time to settle old differences and work together:

“The condition of our country is now so critical and the challenges facing our party are so vast that the vanity of small differences which for too long dominated debate – Blairite or Brownite, or which Miliband brother you liked – must now be forgotten,” he said. “In fact I would go further and say the labels of the past are now irrelevant. So let’s call time on terms like Blairite, Brownite, and so on.”

Richard Angell, the Director of Progress, echoed Ashworth’s comments and said that in future he wanted to make sure that the group served as “a home of honest debate for all wings of the Labour Party, intellectually curious about the future of centre left ideas and outside SW1 talking to members and supporters.”

He said: “No one has a monopoly on good ideas in the Labour Party. Party members outside the ‘Westminster bubble’ are keen to heal historic divides and get Labour focused on the future -this is my clear reading from Progress’ grassroots listening tour.

“The roadshow – in 17 cities, with 19 events, 46 speakers, 650 attendees and lots of new members – was a huge success. But there should be no more business as usual. From Aberdeen to Plymouth, members are keen on seeing a Labour government soon, proud of the record but totally uninterested in a tribute band to the past.”

Progress chair Alison McGovern, who also spoke tonight, said that the party needs to rediscover “the art of winning arguments” and argued that “clever ideas are no substitute for persuading people”.

She added that “the pursuit of power is not a betrayal of our values, but the truest expression of them”.