‘Ignore the noise – the soft left is alive and well in Open Labour and beyond’

Open Labour is currently looking at how Labour transitions from opposition to government. While currently likely, we’re not treating it as a certainty. We see a rocky road to Downing Street, despite strong polling. The Tories and their media outriders will ratchet up their desperate attacks as the general election approaches.

They’re currently targeting Angela Rayner. She’ll be a key campaigner in the election campaign and so effective they want to drive her off the campaign trail. When it isn’t Angela, it will be someone else. The Mail group previously flailed at and missed Keir Starmer. The Mail smearing Labour politicians is nothing new. Just ask Tony Blair or Ed Miliband.

But whilst the Tories are in what my generation would describe as their ‘flop era’, we should not start cracking out the champagne. Nothing is promised, and cockiness is a slippery slope to sloppiness.

Complacency also often leads some to feel they have a license for more internal warfare. People start to get lax about being snarky in public and snide in private. Why not if a Labour landslide is written in the stars? The ‘why not’ is that voters don’t like divided parties. And the Tory media likes nothing better than a Labour split story.

I raised an eyebrow at a LabourList piece not long ago which declared an intention to maintain “social democratic majorities and control” at all levels of the Labour Party and effectively keep out democratic socialists (and, in fact, social democrats who do not subscribe to this particular approach). Seizing and trying to maintain control of all levers of the party machine is a self-absorbed and often destructive path.

Open Labour is trying to show that it is possible to stand up for and organise around a set of values without needlessly attacking and denigrating others in your own party.

Complacency breeds divisive factionalism

Sometimes Open Labour is accused of not being ‘ruthless’ enough because we don’t want to choose a path of toxic or control-obsessed factionalism. But political ‘ruthlessness’ should never mean ‘heaven knows, anything goes’.

It is such behaviour that thrives alongside complacency about winning. The Thick of It is not a best practice manual. The characters are to be laughed and cringed at, not treated as role models. Those who don’t realise that will make the path to victory more difficult and not survive the transition to government. Or at least, not for long.

Our vision for a better political culture is part of what draws people to us. We don’t dismiss what can be learned from the past or the knowledge of our Labour movement elders.

Some mistakenly believe that the ‘soft left’ has suffered the same fate as Momentum. Yet, Open Labour has backed our biggest ever cohort of parliamentary candidates for the upcoming general election and our engagement with senior politicians is strong and growing.

We have multiple supporters within the shadow cabinet and the frontbench, devolved parliaments and assemblies, as well as among mayors and council leaders.

We are standing candidates for the members, councillors and youth sections on the party’s national executive committee. Many of our members just swept to victory in the recent Young Labour and Labour Students elections.

We have had a steep uphill climb since our founding in 2015. Unlike our counterparts to the left and right, we have never benefitted from favoured treatment by a Labour Party leadership or been propelled by big bucks backers, scores of leadership campaign data or a team of paid staff.

Many policies from Open Labour’s 2022 position paper are now at the forefront of Labour’s programme, like publicly-owned energy and extensive housing and planning reform.

Open Labour’s growing influence

Our growing influence is thanks to nine years of hard work by volunteers, word of mouth and small, grassroots donations. We’re set to hire our first member of staff later this year, which will enable us to boost our output, support the work of volunteers and allow us to organise more effectively.

Open Labour believes in a people-first economy, champions radical devolution, common ownership of basic services and the ambitious industrial strategy needed to drive economic growth across the UK.

We want to do more on looming crises such as higher education reform (we support free education), empowering local government (getting revenue-raising powers out of Whitehall and into communities), overhauling the apprenticeship levy and addressing the green skills gap to achieve net zero.

We are sympathetic to the incredibly difficult economic situation being left by the Tories – along with the many poisoned chalices currently being poured.

Generating the confidence needed to inspire significant private sector investment in key areas requires very clear policy signals about long-term direction of travel underpinned by significant public investment. And it needs to be unmarred by confidence-shaking signals of retreat.

To express ourselves constructively is to help steer Labour on the right course. Take, for example, Open Labour’s wish to end the hostile environment and take a more humane approach to asylum. We argue that even a small step such as lifting the ban on asylum seekers’ right to work whilst their claims are processed would help prevent vulnerable people from living in destitution, as well as support Labour’s growth mission and save the taxpayer a few million pounds to be able to spend elsewhere.

We also warn against writing Labour’s fiscal rules into a legal straitjacket, with the caveat that they can only be changed if there is an economic crisis. So, if in future you need the flexibility to waive one of your rules, do you want every journalist asking you if this means your government is declaring an economic crisis?

After 14 years in opposition, the transition to government cannot come soon enough. Looking to the prospect of government, Open Labour wants to enter a new phase of coalition-building with like-minded organisations, striving to become a bigger hub for policy and campaign-building.

We are Labour Party members because we want a Labour government. We are Open Labour members because we want our party to deliver realistic yet radical policies which will enable people to live freer, happier lives.

That means building a genuine consensus around key issues. Our ‘soft left’ roots mean that we can draw on a broad range of perspectives to help find the solutions to tomorrow’s problems.

Open Labour is the home of democratic socialists in the Labour Party. And our door is open to those who support our vision.

Read more of our coverage of the 2024 local elections here.

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