Security and system change

“The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect”

Clause IV, Labour Party Rule Book

That the welfare system doesn’t work is not a controversial thing to say. Claimants will tell you that the system is broken and politicians of all stripes will tell you that we are paying too much for what is being delivered. But any attempt to reform the system almost immediately becomes mired in controversy as it becomes instantly framed either as ‘cuts’ or as ‘payments for scroungers’.

That the UK’s defences need a great deal of reform is a more contested statement – though, given the litany of failures of MOD procurement, it shouldn’t be.

At PMQs yesterday, Andy Burnham said “national security shouldn’t come at the expense of social security” causing a flurry of activity from the Tories accusing Labour of being ‘soft’ on both welfare and defence.

Whatever Labour did in either area, this will always be the default accusation from the right and their supportive media. Meanwhile they will also report the symptoms of systemic failures as the fault of the government while never supporting or reporting the wider problems.

For the left there is sometimes a sense that simply throwing more money at the welfare system is all that is needed to improve the lives of those supposed to be helped by the state’s safety net. Any discussion of how that money should be managed wisely is dismissed as right wing cruelty. For the right, any conversation about defence spending ends at talking about spending a percent of GDP – with any discussion of what that should be spent on and how that spending should be managed wisely dismissed as left wing.

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All of which is an easy framing for those whose job is to report on – and illuminate – our day-to-day politics. Pattern recognition is a basic human trait and a way we learn to understand the world from birth. So it is very hard to elevate discussions about reform to any system in ways that talk about disrupting those patterns.

But, going back to his comments about ending 40 years of neoliberalism to yesterday’s remarks, it seems that this is exactly the kind of disruptor that Burnham is trying to be.

It seems to be the case that while we all agree that the system is broken, arguments tend to revert to how to fix the framework we are used to. Andy Burnham is saying that this simply isn’t ambitious enough. That when we encounter state failure – be that in social security or in the nation’s defences – we cannot simply tinker at the edges of the system but instead reform the fundamentals.

This is the quiet and unspoken biggest shift from what was offered by Keir Starmer who came in saying that he would “fix the fundamentals” which meant mending the system as it existed. Burnham is saying that the system itself must be changed.

If I am right about this then two important questions will need to be answered positively by Labour and, in particular, by the ten year plan we are expecting from Burnham later this year.

The first is what this system change will look like in practice and what that will mean for the day-to-day lives of voters. What is the vision of how the state will support, enable and encourage citizens to live their best lives as we approach the middle of the 21st century?

The second is how this long term vision will be achieved. The plan has to be just that – a plan. While vision is essential (as Starmer learned to his cost) it is not enough to have vision alone. To turn a vision from a dream to a reality, it has to be accompanied by a plan to deliver it.

Will it work? That of course is the biggest question. Many people – right, left or centrist – will find such radical change unnerving. That is why change is so hard and has all too often been avoided. Change is scary.

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But in a world where so few feel they are able to live a good comfortable secure and safe life, it does feel like we need to do more than make changes at the margins. In a world where populists who offer to bring the whole system down, changing that system so it does work for the many, not the few, will be an essential antidote to their poison and promises.

Will Labour achieve all of our ambitions – perhaps not. But setting the bar as high as possible means that we will be pushed to get far further than we would if we fully achieved smaller targets. That is a very difficult argument to make in a political environment that is judged breathlessly minute by minute and thus finds raising our eyes to the horizon so hard.

There will need to be many signposts and achievements laid out along the way and many of these will feel more like the small day-to-day politics we are used to. But if these can be deployed strategically alongside wholesale system change then Labour can demonstrate our values and ambitions and align these changes to a bigger vision.

I started this piece with the words of Clause IV of the Labour Party’s constitution which sets out what we all believe in and the ambition to build a country where we all realise our true potential and where power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many. Burnham’s diagnosis is that this is not possible without changing the fundamental conditions that militate against it.

So we should stop ameliorating the symptoms of a system that stymies our values and instead build one that enables them. Whether that be in defence or welfare changing what doesn’t work will be the essential work of the Labour government. 

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