cDIREoCTIONmFOR THE pass DEMOCRATIC LEFT
CARDS ON THE TABLE
by Michael Prior August 2010 6 6 6
Tr hink e b m u N N PIECES 6 6
Tr hink e b m u N PIECES
by Michael Prior
CARDS ON THE TABLE
The small increase in turnout seems mainly
to have been previously Labour voters responding, perhaps a little wearily, certainly
“hesitantly, to the old call to Keep the Tories Out which had become the drum“ beat of most Labour-inclined commentators in the weeks before the election. This was almost certainly the reason for the dreadful results of all the left alternatives to Labour.
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Cards on the table independents and various ‘protest’ This unexpected result, a ‘normal’ election candidates, flat-lining for the nationalists but one which has turned British politics in and electoral catastrophe for small parties a totally new direction has provided the he author is someone who left the of the left. In other words, business as Labour Party and the wider left with the Labour Party in despair fifteen or so usual with the, historically, not uncommon difficult problem of how to respond to t years ago and has never for a final result of the arrow of the two-party coalition politics. The immediate, knee-jerk moment regretted it. Now a member of wheel-of-fortune coming to rest in that response has largely been what might be the Green Party, he will never, ever, vote sector marked No Overall Majority. This termed the pit-bull strategy; to attack Labour again so long as it is led by men rather normal situation has, however, been ferociously on all fronts hoping to split the who refuse to accept that lies and deceit over-shadowed and largely ignored by alliance between the two governing led Britain into an illegal and immoral war. one, rather startling, political innovation. parties so that it will collapse and force a (Being led by a woman is, of course, even Instead of following the standard practice new election. There is apparent sense in less likely). He will also feel a grim of several small and no-majority this strategy for the Labour Party in that if satisfaction when such as David Miliband governments in the past ─ to stagger on such an election returned a Labour and Jack Straw are hung out to dry for for a while and then call another election majority, a possibility which gains credibility lying to Parliament about British ─ the Conservatives, rather cleverly, and if it were to be held in the midst of savage involvement in torture and illegal the Liberal Democrats, possibly cleverly, public expenditure cuts, then business-as- rendition; grim because it will do little for agreed a formal, negotiated coalition, a usual could be resumed with the bonus those who suffered the sanctioned shift in governance which may turn out to that the growing challenge from the third- torture. Nor is he on his own. As the be a critical watershed in British politics. party might be effectively extinguished. Dixie Chicks put it, we’re not ready to Or may not. make nice. However, there are two obvious risks This rather unexpected normality of the attached to the pit-bull approach. First, a I start like this to make clear that the May election was what stopped a bad forced election could just provide the British left is not, as some Compass election for Labour turning into a rout. Tories with a parliamentary majority and initiatives seem to suggest, an inchoate The small increase in turnout seems the mandate to proceed with their public- mass just waiting for the right trigger to mainly to have been previously Labour sector cuts. Second, and in my view much crystallise into a progressive alliance ready voters responding, perhaps a little wearily, the most likely, the assault on the coalition to unite behind Labour. Rather it is certainly hesitantly, to the old call to Keep could fail and it would carry on with fractured body of people, riven with the Tories Out which had become the increasing confidence for a full five-year considerable bitterness and distrust and drumbeat of most Labour-inclined span. Clearly, a great deal depends upon wary of any kind of effort to drive it into commentators in the weeks the proposed referendum on a new a convenient corral however enticingly before the “This coalition existed through voting system. The labelled as the home of a rainbow, golden, election. This was to the 1970s when, it can be Alternative Vote is greenleft or somesuch colourful coalition. almost certainly argued, it actually reached its far from And that’s just the members of the the reason for the apogee with just about every proportional but it Labour Party. And yet, as a long-term dreadful results of left group in Britain, including will undoubtedly member of that left, it is painfully obvious all the left the Communists and most favour the that some kind of alliance is just what we alternatives to Trotskyist bands as well as LibDems, probably have to come to terms with. Labour. In the case Labour factions, in various awarding them of my own Green informal coalitions fighting another forty or so The most striking feature of the May Party this was each other for control, direct or seats something election was just how ordinary it was. In disguised by the indirect, of the Labour Party.” which, like it or not, months before voting most observers, somewhat fluky would be ‘fairer’. It including myself, predicted that it would be victory of Caroline Lucas in Brighton, fluky would also be a system which would a ‘wild’ election with an even lower because this is pretty much the only seat effectively cement coalition politics into turnout than 2005 and with some kind of in the country which is effectively a four- British governance. Just how far Labour revenge being wreaked on the major way marginal where the winner needs will succeed in weaselling its way out of its parties, in particular Labour, after the only 31% of the vote. In nearly all other manifesto commitment to an AV system expenses scandal. The electorate, it was constituencies, the Green Party suffered remains to be seen. If it succeeds in commonly felt, had become disillusioned serious declines in actual votes with the successfully opposing its implementation in with system. What actually happened was deposit-saving level reached in only two 2015 (not to mention the entirely fair a small, though important, increase in places outside Brighton. removal of its current 8% or so poll turnout, resounding defeat for advantage because of slanted electoral
compass PAGE 2 www.compassonline.org.uk Cards on the table
boundaries) then the coalition could Labour can extricate itself from this question “Why did Hardie refuse an collapse and Labour might return. On the morass remains to be seen but it clearly a alliance with the Liberals?” other hand, opposing what many might problem for the formation of a centre-left http://www.davidmiliband.net/2010/07/09/k see not only as reneging a manifesto bloc that its major potential component eir-hardie-lecture-2010/ To which, of promise but also a move towards a fairer has a recent history of sitting rather to the course, the answer is he didn’t as, after voting system could result in electoral right of centre. being elected in West Ham with the suicide. Liberals not standing a candidate, he The second and, in its way, more moved to sharing his dual-member seat in The risks associated with the pit-bull important problem is the incapacity of Merthyr Tydfil with a Liberal and helping approach are not just short-term. Outside Labour, both leadership and many to negotiate the Lib/Lab pact in 1903 the left commentariat which shrieks “split” members, to understand the concept of which led both a Liberal landslide and the every time some disagreement within the political alliances. There are good historical election of 29 MPs under the name of the coalition is aired, there is a feeling (and it reasons for this block which are difficult Labour Representation Committee. Hardie can only be a feeling) that the electorate even to summarise here. (Those worked as part of various Liberal/Labour is beginning to feel rather comfortable interested in greater detail might refer to alliances throughout his parliamentary with coalition politics in which differing an essay of mine in Left Out: Policies for a career. It is possible that Miliband’s mistake views are openly expressed and Left Opposition Today which can be found stems from a poor education. More likely compromises are agreed. Unless some at it stems from the ingrained habit of countervailing left-leaning alternative is www.lwbooks.co.uk/ebooks/ebooks.html rejecting alliance as part of any Labour found there is the distinct possibility, or http://hegemonics.co.uk Essentially they strategy and refusing to see that it is indeed probability given the bias of AV come down to the fact that in its origin actually something present even in its voting, that Britain will be governed by a and throughout much of its history, Labour formation. centre-right coalition for many years. The was itself a coalition bringing together C word has been much used on the left in rather disparate groups into one rambling More towards the left, just after Gordon recent months but has been given organisation, perpetually at odds with each Brown’s coronation as Labour leader, Jon remarkably little concrete clothing, often other and united only by the need to Trickett M.P. wrote in 2007 for Compass reducing to the dismal slogan of the present a single electoral face. about the task facing Labour: Labour Representation Committee – We need to learn to multi task again; support the coalition against cuts and join This coalition existed through to the simultaneously reconnecting with all parts the Labour Party. So what are the 1970s when, it can be argued, it actually of the coalition into a new historic block. obstacles to forming at least the embryo reached its apogee with just about every This is the task which Gordon Brown of such a coalition? There seems to me to left group in Britain, including the must address if he is to win. The first be three rather separate issues here. Communists and most Trotskyist bands as hundred days were devoted to well as Labour factions, in various informal emphasising the change of PM and also to The first is the obvious problem that the coalitions fighting each other for control, establishing an impression of competence policy direction of the New Labour direct or indirect, of the Labour Party. It and strength. These are necessary governments, to which all four of the male fell apart in 1981 with the defection of the attributes of governance but as the polls candidates for the Labour leadership are Social Democrats and afterwards with the now show they do not amount to a tied, contained much that overlaps, often reorganisation of Labour as a centralised strategy for reconnecting with Labour’s quite specifically, with current Coalition body suppressing both internal missing millions. The stakes are high but policies. It would be too much of an factionalism and external links and the prize is a great one. Brown has the intrusion into personal grief for most drastically limiting the democratic opportunity to create a coalition, win a Compass members to labour the point, involvement of its members. Yet despite fourth term and in the process change but the fact is that the Coalition is proving this change, the mindset of Labour, both Britain into the social democratic country quite adroit at pointing out just how much leadership and members, across left and which is waiting to be born. of what they are doing is little more than right, remains one which retains the idea www.compassonline.org.uk/news/item.asp? an extension of Labour policy. A VAT rise? that Labour remains the coalition of the n=940 Would not Darling have done just this left and cannot contain the concept of next January? Apparently so according to political alliance outside itself. Two The coalition to which Trickett refers is Mandelson. Academy schools? Was it not a vignettes to illustrate this, one from the one which he believes formed in 1997 declared ambition of Labour to hasten right and one nearer the left. when “New Labour created a huge their formation? Public expenditure cuts? coalition, or historic bloc, of social classes, Was it not Brown’s declared policy to In his Kier Hardie lecture in July this year, ethnicities, progressives and public sector slash the scale of deficit financing? Just how David Miliband asked the rhetorical workers”. Trickett’s problem, leaving aside compass Cards on the table www.compassonline.org.uk PAGE 3
the curious bundle of social categories he the broad-democratic alliance. My coalition is not just desirable, it is a deploys, is that he fails to see any favourite recipe for these is that they fundamental necessity. And, make no difference between the Gramscian would include “workers in factories, mistake, it has to be done with the concept of an historic bloc and the offices, professions, working farmers, immediate backdrop of a coalition which political formation which seeks to producers and consumers, owner- is in the process of itself organising a represent that bloc. He automatically sees occupiers and tenants, housewives, young centre-right bloc which may prove only Labour as the legitimate political people, students, pensioners, workers in surprisingly resilient. Cameron’s Big Society vehicle for representing the somewhat the peace movement and those active in and Broken Britain pitches can be easily amorphous social bloc with which he is the defence of democracy”, that is pretty mocked. However, he is reaching into an concerned. In a sense, Trickett is a true much everybody including some under insight about a current social malaise in child of the 1970s and it is fully in line multiple hats. Trickett’s version (which I Britain which is has a wide resonance and with the politics of that period that he suspect owes a lot to this 1970s quasi- not just on the right. (See for example, a was part of the group of Compass M.P.s Gramscian theory) is much the same kind Compass Thinkpiece on Feel-Bad Britain that resisted any introduction of electoral of thing, a kind of hopeful shopping-list to which I contributed some three years reform in the Compass agenda. Ironically, similar to the notes sent up the chimney ago this was the one policy which could have to Father Christmas every December. This http://clients.squareeye.com/uploads/comp won a victory for Labour in May had it is our third problem. The Gramscian ass/documents/CTP26FeelbadBritainPerma been deployed in 2007. concept of an historic bloc is a grouping in2.pdf of social forces which, together, can form a There is no sign that the Labour political alliance, conservative or All in all, the British left is between the leadership has learnt any lessons from this. progressive. It is, in other words, a political rock and the hard place with the rock We know, after all, the direction which calculation which shifts throughout a being the need to respond actively and David Miliband wants to take the Labour nation’s history. constructively to the attacks upon the Party having set it out last year in a public sector and the hard place being the Tribune article The task of the British left today is to lack of any effective political agency with www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2009/08/07/h envisage just what a progressive social which to do this. The role of the Labour ow-the-next-decade-can-belong-to-labour bloc looks like today. Clearly this is a much Party with its seemingly unstoppable move more complex task than either naming towards centralised control and its grip, He wants to shift Labour into being a any immediate party coalition or simply albeit highly regional, on left electoral party with supporters rather than listing a comprehensive social map of results is clearly a central problem. But so members; a vast mailing list of potential British society. It involves understanding too is the unremitting ‘workerism’ of parts donors and election workers with the US just where nationalism in Scotland and of the left, which still cannot see past the Democrats and the Greek Pasok as his Wales fits into such a progressive bloc; the largely emasculated trade-unions as model. There is little sign that any of the future role of organised labour in its vehicles for political change, and the quasi- other leadership contenders would demur different forms; how social activists, anarchism of parts of the activist left. In from this whatever vague noises they particularly those concerned about other words, to reach the destination of a make about party democracy to reel in climate change, can be induced to work left coalition it would be best not to start the membership vote. Under the business- with political structures rather than, as at from here. But at least to state the as-usual scenario, such a reorganisation present, largely outside them; the role of problem and outline the destination is a might make sound sense in finally putting the large number of NGOs with radical start, a point from which the British left the idea of Labour as a coalition to rest agendas, for example those which can move. Compass could play an and finally converting Labour into a kind participated in the G20 Put People First important role in this given its sometimes of political brand rather than a party. marches. And these are just the simpler uneasy stance promoting both a more issues. pluralist left politics and also a However, it has little relevance to the commitment to supporting Labour. In a problem of creating a new political Simple naming such a wide groups sense this paradoxical position coalition to counter that of the suggests the difficulty of the task. The left encapsulates the problems of the left. Conservative and Liberal Democrats. has become splintered across such a wide Perhaps it could start by coming clean It was, I think, the British Communist Party range of groups, some organised into about this dilemma. which first thought up the concept of single issue campaigns, some with an broad social alliances which would, in agenda which goes beyond any simple Cards on the table, remember. effect, replace the working class as the classification as ‘left’, that it is impossible for leading national progressive force with, any single agency, let alone one party, to first, the anti-monopoly alliance and then organise them. A rather complex kind of Michael Prior
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