A Labour of love

One of my favourite songs by a band I am willing to bet none of you have ever heard of is Common Rotation’s How to Lose. The first verse says: 

“I don’t know how to lose
no, you can’t make me choose
we all heard what you said I’d be better off dead but
then you’ll have to bury me.”

Well, much as some of our opponents would like to claim we are, Labour is not dead. Wounded yes, and we should all be honest about the extent and causes of those injuries. But no one is burying us just yet.

It was this song (as well as the obvious earworm of the Red Flag) that the lovely piece from Rosie Parry we published over the weekend left me singing. In the piece Rosie describes continued membership of Labour as “the greatest act of love”.

Speaking to current and former Labour councillors, there is a lot of pain out there. We hear it in all the conversations we have. That pain can feel overwhelming but we cannot let it overwhelm us.

READ MORE: ‘Cowards flinch! A rallying cry’

We are Labour members because we believe that Labour has the best values, policies and approach to government at all levels. We might feel frustrated when too many voters are unconvinced of that. We must look at how we make a better case for those values and policies. We must find ways – every hour of every day – that demonstrate that case. But losing does not change what we believe or why we believe it.

Labour exists to get our representatives elected at all levels of government. Our constitution says that we exist to bring together members and supporters who share our values to promote the election of Labour Party representatives at all levels of the democratic process.

There are always arguments about how much Labour should ‘compromise’ with the electorate and how much we should offer a ‘purity’ of vision. These arguments have happened since before the Labour Party was formed and they will continue long into the future. They will happen on LabourList because we are the only place that can honestly and effectively platform debates that take place across the whole party. It is right to think about what the practical and political application of those values is.

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In a world of multi-party politics – where some voters might feel that our values overlap with those of some other parties in certain areas – we need to make that case through the promotion of those values and our party as the vehicle for those values in pragmatic practice. We should also – as Diarmaid Ward has laid out – scrutinise those who might claim them but fail to actually serve the interests of the communities we care about. When they fail we should say so loudly – not flinch from doing so.

However, there will also be times when we will need to work with others in coalitions with those who may share some but not all of our values. Labour people are working out how to do this in Town Halls up and down the country. That takes a different kind of work and a different kind of politics. 

But as we do so, we should not and must not resile from the reasons we belong to different parties even as we find ways to work together. Be in no doubt that, come election time, those we work alongside in non-election periods will fight us tooth and nail on the doorsteps. We need to be ready to do the same even as we work together to ensure that Labour can play a role in delivering for communities.

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We are Labour members because we believe Labour is the best vehicle for the values we hold dear in our hearts and deliver for the communities we care about. The political landscape may change around us. But that is as true today as it was the day the Party was established. It is how we apply those values to this changed setting that counts. It is how we apply them differently that makes us Labour. 

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