The Vision Thing.Qxp

FABIAN SOCIETY Freethinking THE VISION THING Why Labour can’t win without a progressive manifesto by Sunder Katwala About the author Sunder Katwala is General Secretary of the Fabian Society, and took up the post in October 2003. Sunder joined the Fabian staff from The Observer where he was a leader writer and internet editor, as well as editor of The Observer's 2001 election guide. He was previously founding Research Director of The Foreign Policy Centre (1999 – 2001), where he wrote research reports including Reinventing the Commonwealth (1999) and Democratising Global Sport (2000) and was Commissioning Editor for Politics and Economics at Macmillan (1995 to 1999). Sunder is a regular contributor to broadcast and print media on British and international politics. His research interests include citizenship and British identity, the European Union, foreign policy and globalisation, and the future of Labour and progressive politics more generally. 01 FABIAN SOCIETY Freethinking The Fabian Society is Britain’s leading left of centre think tank and political society, committed to creating the political ideas and policy debates which can shape the future of progressive politics. With over 300 Fabian MPs, MEPs, Peers, MSPs and AMs, the Society plays an unparalleled role in linking the ability to influence policy debates at the highest level with vigorous grassroots debate among our growing membership of over 7000 people, 70 local branches meeting regularly throughout Britain and a vibrant Young Fabian section organising its own activities. Fabian publications, events and ideas therefore reach and influence a wider audience than those of any comparable think tank. The Society is unique among think tanks in being a thriving, democratically-constituted membership organisation, affiliated to the Labour Party but organisationally and editorially independent. For over 120 years Fabians have been central to every important renewal and revision of left of centre thinking. The Fabian commitment to open and participatory debate is as important today as ever before as we explore the ideas, politics and policies which will define the next generation of progressive politics in Britain, Europe and around the world. Find out more at www.fabians.org.uk Fabian Society 11 Dartmouth Street London SW1H 9BN 020 7227 4900 [email protected] This pamphlet, like all publications of the Fabian Society, represents not the collective views of Society but only the views of the author. The responsibility of the Society is limited to approving its publications as worthy of the Labour movement. The publication may not be reproduced without express permission of the Fabian Society. 02 Freethinking The Vision Thing 1. Introduction November 2007 Very few people will remember exactly where they were on 1 November 2007, the day that no General Election took place in Britain. The political fallout of the non-election has been endlessly picked over. But however we got here, Gordon Brown recognises that he must fight the next election not on a ‘bounce’ or a claim to managerial competence atwala but on a progressive manifesto for change. The Prime Minister can powerfully rebut the charge that his Sunder K government has no clear idea about what it wishes to do with power. To do that, he must paint a clearer public picture of the Britain which his government strives to create by ‘going public’ with his vision of a fairer and more equal society. The main debates inside the Government and Labour Party are not primarily about what ‘the vision thing’ is – there is a broad mainstream consensus about what Labour stands for. The crucial, unanswered question is about political strategy: can Labour publicly articulate its social democratic mission in a way which can sustain the broad The Vision Thing electoral coalition which it needs? The case for caution has won out whenever this has been debated during New Labour’s first decade. Three election victories have vindicated the argument that the ‘vision thing’ is a risk Labour can not afford. After all, isn’t social democracy by stealth better than no social democracy at all? ‘Stick to a winning formula’, Brown will be told. Winning the swing votes in those ‘super- marginal’ constituencies demands a ‘safety first’ campaign focused on -07 leadership, competence, national security and understanding individual aspiration. But politicians should beware refighting past battles. ‘Safety first’ would be the electoral gamble for Labour next time. Ensuring that the ‘vision thing’ underpins a distinctively progressive manifesto and a value-based campaign is now a matter of strategic political necessity for Gordon Brown, not just centre-left desire. Firstly, Labour won’t win if it fights the next election campaign from the 1997 playbook. In the past, running on the economy, strength of leadership, and, above all, not being the Conservatives have been enough. Those arguments alone will not mobilise the votes that Labour needs next time. And attempts made to keep the swing voters will be .uk/publications/freethinking/katwala-vision-thing in vain if Labour has not also paid sufficient attention to the other risks of fracture in its electoral coalition. Labour needs to get its working- class vote out and reconnect with disillusioned liberal opinion too. Secondly, Brown must deliver on his own promise of ‘change’ to see http://fabians.org 033 Freethinking off Conservative calls of ‘time for a change’. He knows that it will be fatal for the Government to be seen as simply administering the new status quo, especially as he has raised expectations. That means that ministers must find the confidence to do more than defend the record and existing policies. They must set out a distinctive critique, from November 2007 within power, of what remains wrong with Britain and an argument of how and why Britain today needs to change further. Thirdly, the next election will decide not just who governs but where the new centre ground of British politics ends up. The Conservatives believe that their inheritance tax triumph shows that they are not just atwala back in the game, but winning the argument. Labour retreated, having failed to make the fairness argument on inherited wealth over the Sunder K decade. But is the message really that ‘tax cuts work’? George Osborne and David Cameron won a significant tactical victory only by making a more significant concession in the wider war. To the bemusement of their own party, the Tory leadership will go into the election accepting Labour’s spending plans, proposing that 45% of GDP is taken in tax, “The next election will and pledging a tax increase to match every tax cut. decide not just who governs but where the new centre ground This is the central paradox of British politics. Even after a decade in ends up.” power Labour fears this is an essentially conservative country, where the centre-left are interlopers in power, while it is the Tory leadership The Vision Thing which knows that the reality is that of a social democratic Britain, to which they must persuade their party to adapt. This is because both parties remain haunted by their most recent election defeats. The Conservatives do not want to lose again on ‘investment versus cuts’ as in 2001 and 2005, yet the shadow of 1992 still haunts Labour. Yet a fourth Labour victory would be a ‘realigning’ election, shifting the centre-ground of British politics onto definably social democratic territory, setting the terms for a deeper inquest about what -07 modernising the centre-right would demand. All of this demands that Brown puts forward a distinctively Labour case. Labour will win only by making a positive argument to the country about why it deserves a fresh mandate to govern. In part, this is because of a necessary tension between the demands of being a national leader and a party leader. Prime Ministers must represent the whole country, particularly at times of crisis. Addressing his first Labour conference as Prime Minister, Brown chose, perhaps naturally, to appeal above politics, across party, to a unity of national purpose. It was a strikingly different speech from those he had made in previous years as Chancellor, in which he put the Labour vision for Britain more clearly. Most observers saw this as a natural progression: .uk/publications/freethinking/katwala-vision-thing Brown was used to talking to a party audience; he now needed to step up and address the country. But such a sharp distinction between the two roles is flawed, when Brown’s political project depends on putting that Labour case to the national audience. http://fabians.org 044 Freethinking All politicians will want to appeal widely for support, but Brown can not achieve the ‘progressive consensus’ he seeks if he is only prepared to say things with which nobody could disagree. Such a catch-all consensus will lack progressive content. There is no value in division for its own sake, but if the goal is to build broad-based support for November 2007 progressive principles and policies, then that means making distinctive arguments which can shift public arguments, and the boundaries of debates between parties. Achieving this will, at times, require a willingness to divide, as well as to unite. The Government must regain the ability to make the political weather. atwala The Prime Minister has the ‘bully pulpit’ of the nation – he can seek to start the national debates which he believes the country needs. But he Sunder K has yet to put his core argument powerfully to the public. Gordon Brown’s positive public reception on taking office this summer was built on strengths of leadership, competence and authenticity. Yet political vision and values form such a large part of the authentic Gordon Brown.

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