Ideas into Action: Building the Open Left Open Labour position paper 2017-18 Ideas into Action: Building the Open Left This document outlines an initial set of political positions for Open Labour, building on our launch statement. It provides a mandate to our newly renamed National Committee (NC) to carry out a programme of action, to make public arguments on behalf of the organisation, and to adopt campaigns within the Labour Party which meet our strategic and policy priorities. The document was proposed by our interim Management Committee to our Founding C onference in March 2017 , which was attended by 230 people. It was adopted with t he inclusion of a range of amendments. Those seeking further information about the contents of the document can get in touch with us at [email protected] . The document also marks the end of the steering phase of Open Labour’s development. As a statement of intent it is entitled ‘ Ideas into Action: B uilding the Open Left’ . This reflects our intention as an organisation not to resign to a polarised Labour Party where debate is curtailed and closed down , but to respon d with ideas and action for something better. We will renew the realist strand of the Labour left as the ‘open left’, define and argue for this as a valid and independent tradition of thought and action, and campaign and organise to carry its objectives into being. The newly elect ion National Committee would like to record our thanks to the Management Committee members who brought Open Labour through its first months. Interim Management Committee 2015 -17 Tom Miller and Bev Craig (Co -chairs), Rose Grayston (Secretary), Alex Sobel (Treasurer), Jade Azim (Editor), Tom Williams (Membership), Ann Black, George Lindars-Hammond, Yue Ting Cheng, Andy Howell, Kaveh Azarhoosh, JoAnne Rust, David Hamblin, Craig Dawson. Our extended thanks to : Steve Yemm, Charlotte Nichols, Sara T’Rula, Alby Earley, Emma Burnell, Andy Flanagan, Jo Ingold, Matt Donoghue , James Stafford, Renewal Journal, NEON, Compass, Tribune group of MPs, Labour Together, Peter Hain, Kate Green MP, Lou Haigh MP, Ed Miliband MP, Lisa Nandy MP, Clive Lewis MP, Jon Trickett MP, Tom Watson MP, Jim McMahon MP, Chi Onwurah MP. Open Labour launched in November 2015 Early on we established a steering with an open letter to the Guardian. The committee, a website and a mailing list. aim was to bring together the so called We have since run a series of regional ‘soft left’ of the Labour Party. meetings on Labour’s policies and political strategy in Sheffield, Manchester, This part of our party represents a large Birmingham and Liverpool. We are number of members and supporters but planning further regional meetings in has been poorly organised for some years. Cardiff, Bath and London for the year Its thinking draws on an older tradition on ahead. These will feed into a wider process the Labour left, rooted in the heritage of outline in our aims for the year. Bevanism – a socialist tradition which is rooted in the labour movement, adaptable This year also saw our first Labour Party and serious about power. Conference event in Liverpool. Featuring Clive Lewis, Lou Haigh, Ed Miliband, Kate We seek to bring organisation and Green, Chi Onwurah and Jim McMahon, discipline to this political tradition. In this event developed Open Labour’s launching Open Labour we are also relationships with MPs and members. seeking to overcome reliance on the past, and to recast the soft left in a forward Much of this year has been about getting looking way around the ethos of openness off the ground – putting basic systems in – ‘the open left’. place and bringing together the core support of the open left with around 1500 We have launched as a grassroots based supporters identified. Alongside this, we movement outside Westminster to have provided a rallying point for those challenge reliance on the workings of the who feel alienated by the intolerance and Westminster bubble and the politics of inflexibility which has emerged in too celebrity. much of our party. Open Labour will also challenge the The accompanying statement of aims for traditional left of the party to become less the year ahead aims to build on this by orthodox and unyielding, more focussed turning ideas into action and building our on how the world and society is changing, organising power. It sets a path for us to and to make an understanding of power develop policy to take into party debate. It and trust building key to its creed. We outlines a plan for making our voice must act on the urgent need to win over, clearer in party debates, finding our allies, not simply shout over, those who disagree and most importantly, building on the with us. ground. This process needs to be adequately funded, and it must be Our immediate priority has been to begin member led. a debate on what the Labour left can look like if it becomes more flexible, pluralist, Our party and the democratic left across and focussed on alliance building. the western world is in crisis. We need energy and ideas to shape an optimistic future. Action is the antidote to despair. Political position 2017-18 This stagnation process has predictably become cemented as a ‘new normal’ in It is crucial that the Labour Party offers a public debate. Labour must take on the credible and popular alternative to challenge of forging a compelling and austerity cuts and neoliberalism. These credible alternative, capable of shifting trends have represented the biggest mainstream opinion. transfer of wealth and power from poor and middle-income households to the rich Economic liberalism: a broken bargain elite in living memory. Increasingly citizens feel like the bargain they have been offered by politicians for The private sector’s own dynamism is decades is being broken. Increasing failing. Productivity is falling wealth. Dignified jobs. Stability. The internationally, but especially in Britain chance to get on in life. These things are where the course Theresa May has laid out no longer delivered by Britain’s political will further concentrate wealth and consensus. opportunity in the South while neglecting every other part of our country. Changing this depends on gaining trust to govern, but unlike when the process of Wealthy and powerful interests are now globalisation was in an earlier stage, building a kind of ‘tollbooth politics’ built Labour cannot avoid challenging the terms on rents, private debt, financial complexity of debate. A new consensus is therefore and at times corrupt practices – we end up required from the left around key shared paying for nothing. values and principles. These include: The spoils of this tollbooth go to the • Equality and human dignity gatekeepers of the new stagnant • Solidarity and community economy, not to those creating value. • Autonomy and liberation • Respect for the environment Social mobility and equal chances, values with huge support across the country, are Each of these ideas can form the basis of being set back to the Victorian age. These greater consensus on the left – but they are problems which a Tory Brexit will lock can also win people over who are not yet in, especially if the economy is not supporters of the left or Labour. Our reshaped and rebalanced. policies and campaigns must be framed in a way which is trusted and persuasive. A social alliance for Labour • Ruthlessly professionalise Labour’s The party must retain the trust of core parliamentary and press voters whilst regaining previously Labour operations, from the leadership support. In short, it must become trusted down. Train and develop our by workers from a range of social membership. backgrounds to be the centre of a new social alliance, spanning traditional • Speak in a language that people supporters in areas of industry and ex understand using arguments which industry, upwardly mobile workers in the are well tested and have broad South East and progressive voters in large support or persuasive appeal. cities and university towns. Make sure our ideas are clear and honest in how they seek to bring Getting the basics right change. Building an alliance of support is no mean feat, but it is the only way forward and • Indentify and avoid marginal Labour must get in shape to deliver it. positions in favour of what we can win and also need to win. We therefore call on the Labour Party to Concentrate on changing adopt some broad operating principles of consensus on the most important its own. We believe that without these, no areas of economic and social left leadership can be successful. debate. • Work out which voters are the people we want to add to our existing support, and which areas of public opinion we need to respond to. Have a political strategy. No tactic can be successful without being part of one. • Give greater voice to those ‘left behind’ in modern Britain, whether “The language of white British coastal workers, coalfield communities, those trapped in the “gig” economy or priorities is the EU immigrants paying tax here. religion of • Operate as a ‘plural party’, creating a culture of respectful and tolerant socialism” debate. Nye Bevan • Organise at community level with far greater involvement from trade unions and cooperatives. Ideas into action Our priorities for Labour For working people, against hard Brexit The Labour Party is instinctively open and internationalist, and so is Open Labour. The public narrowly voted to leave the European Union following a campaign in which many ‘out’ proponents states that strong trade and economic ties with the EU would remain in place. In both ways, this is obviously not a mandate for hard Brexit – Labour must make this a political question.