Politics is complicated and that’s OK

There’s a mean-spirited joke about Burnham that does the rounds in SW1 about a Blairite, Brownite and Corbynite going into a bar and the person serving saying “what’ll it be Andy?”

Ironically, like Burnham himself, it is not a joke that has ever truly belonged to one faction of the Labour Party. I first heard it under Corbyn from a supporter of the then leader. I’ve heard it since from supporters and opponents of Keir Starmer alike – from the hard left to those on the Labour right.

I hate that joke. Not because it is rude about Andy – who is a big boy who can look after himself – but for what it says about the culture that finds it funny. A culture that insists you define yourself by a rigid factionalism at the start of your career and insists that to grow or change – or simply be loyal to the elected leader of the Party –  is to be inauthentic, to be laughable.  

The truth is that every Labour politician is more complicated than this. Because – as I have said many times – politicians are human and humans are complex and often contradictory beings. 

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For example, I was first introduced to Wes Streeting when he was still a councillor by a pretty left wing member of his local Labour Party who rated his talent and thoughtfulness. A long way away from the hyper-factional Labour right robot that Wes is painted as. In fact, it was Wes himself that was making an argument for listening to – and working with – all wings of the Party – back in January. 

Being a part of a faction is a very human part of politics. Finding your people and sticking with them is not a poor quality in politics either. If you find a group who best represent your views then it is absolutely understandable that you would want to work internally to increase the likelihood that the people and policies you support prevail.  The problem comes when in doing so, you prioritise beating your internal opponents (with whom – as Streeting said – you might not always agree but with whom you “do have lots of ideological roots in common”) over winning and delivering nationally.

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We like simple labels because they help us make sense of complex situations – breaking them down into simple and digestible chunks. But all too often the truth just is more complicated than this. This is one of the reasons I like our Labour Tribes tool so much. Because it does help us sort MPs into different and easy to understand groups. But equally it makes it visibly clear that each MP has their own different profile and network of connections. Both simple and complicated – a perfect encapsulation of Labour politics.

I had a number of conversations about the current state of Labour over the weekend with thoughtful people whose responses to the current situation were all different – but not that different. They all expressed concern about the disruption of a potential leadership – even those who saw such a change as essential. Their views were complicated – not black and white.

The people I spoke to included someone who had previously volunteered on Andy Burnham’s 2015 leadership campaign, a Labour peer and a party full of people who had all voted for different options in Chingford earlier this month. All of them expressed their desire for Labour to be doing better than they are currently and the need for something to change. All of them expressed their nervousness at Labour descending into chaos and becoming like the Tories chopping and changing leaders. Some thought Andy was the answer to what ails Labour, some Wes, some thought it was madness to get rid of Keir. All (including the non-Labour voters at the party) wanted Labour not just to do better but to succeed – for the good of the country for the non-Labour voters, for the electoral success of the Party (and the good of the country) for the Labour loyalists. 

The decisions ahead of Labour members are not easy and we cannot pretend that they don’t – or won’t – exist.

But at the moment we have a simple mission ahead of us which is to support Andy defeating Reform in the Makerfield by-election. There should be no doubt that this is the goal however conflicted anyone feels about a potential leadership contest. Sometimes politics – however complex – is about taking one step at a time. And this step is vital for all of us. 

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