IPPR warns the left must reinvent itself, not ape populists or the Third Way

Progressive parties must reinvent themselves or face electoral defeat to populists, a new landmark report warns.

The report by the Institute for Public Policy Research said that centre-left parties should avoid aping the populist right or re-hashing ‘Third Way’ politics.

The think tank’s warning is likely to be seen as a thinly veiled critique of some of Labour’s recent efforts to combat Reform by using language and policies traditionally associated with the right, and of those calling for it to move further rightwards.

The report out today warns that imitating your opponents “only boosts their competitors’ brand and heightens the division they flourish on”.

Dr Parth Patel, associate director at IPPR, said: “Progressives are losing ground not only in the battle of votes but the battle of ideas against the populist radical right. They are stealing the left’s claim as the go-to people to change society. Progressive parties are seen as defenders of the status quo instead of vehicles of change.

READ MORE: ‘Welfare reform is not a betrayal of Labour values – it’s their fulfilment’

“The problem is that the progressive engine of ideas seem to have run out of steam. When leaders don’t appear to have new ideas, they reach back for old ones, or imitate their opponents. That will not work at a moment of great change and challenge.”

The report calls on progressive parties to find a “new set of defining and guiding ideas” or risk “finding themselves defending a status quo that people have lost confidence in”.

“The longer we leave the populist radical right to meet the moment unchallenged, the more they will define the ground and set it in their favour.

“It is time to take the fight to them. A world beset by insecurity and uncertainty has given them an opening, but the context does not necessarily favour them. Demands for democratic control and greater state intervention in markets have historically energised the left. They can again.

“That will require political guile, resolve and even ruthlessness. But it also hinges upon serious, new thinking about the ideas that define and guide progressive governments as they navigate a changed world.”

Former foreign secretary David Miliband, also a former IPPR staffer, writes in a foreword:  “The policy and political environment both at home and abroad is in dramatic flux. The danger for all parties, but perhaps especially centre-left parties facing right wing populism, is obvious: they are perceived to be defending the status quo even as voters say it is failing. This exacerbates a challenge that any government faces: the pressures of government squeeze the time and space for thinking, brainstorming debate.

“The questions being asked in the IPPR report open up discussion in a way that should help those with the power to shape the country’s future. Get it right and you get a virtuous circle of social, political and economic renewal, in which security and opportunity reinforce each other.

“That is what happened after Labour was elected in 1945 and 1997, and what is needed again. The policies of those periods are time-bound; no one is suggesting those policies should be regurgitated. But the lessons in how new ideas can power new politics are important.”

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