Salman Shaheen, a member of Left Unity's national co-ordinating group, replies to Left Foot Forward editor James Bloodworth, who wrote a piece for the Guardian yesterday in which he argued that the left should stick with the Labour Party.
Salman Shaheen, a member of Left Unity’s national co-ordinating group, replies to Left Foot Forward editor James Bloodworth, who wrote a piece for the Guardian yesterday in which he argued that the left should stick with the Labour Party.
Long before I’d ever been on an anti-war march or read any Marx, the first spark of left-wing thought emerged in my brain as I was growing up listening to The Levellers.
It was this Brighton-based folk-punk outfit that provided the voice of a generation opposed to repressive Tory rule, sticking two fingers up to the state and fighting back against the injustices of the Criminal Justice Act.
Backstage and starstruck at a Levellers gig few years ago, I caught up with lead singer Mark Chadwick to find out if he still held firm to all those ardently sung beliefs that had first inspired me. It wasn’t much surprise to hear that even this archetypal old anarchist would vote for anyone just to keep the Tories out.
After all, his was a generation that had lived through the dark ages of the Thatcher years, whose way of life in free parties and protests had come under assault from a Conservative government with diametrically opposed values and a monopoly of violence to enforce them.
Equally, against the climate of austerity, I can understand why James Bloodworth wrote in Comment is Free yesterday that the most urgent task of the left is kicking the Tories out in 2015.
But while I agree that this vicious bunch of out-of-touch toffs waging all out class war on Britain’s most vulnerable people should never be allowed near a red briefcase again, I do not think stopping the Tories should come at any expense. Not if that expense is the left adopting Tory policies.
As I’ve previously argued, New Labour has done far more to entrench a Thatcherite consensus in this country than John Major ever could. By transforming Labour from a party that represented working class people into a party that represented free-market interests, Tony Blair ensured there could be no opposition to the neoliberal policies that spectacularly wrecked the global economy and plunged those Labour was founded to speak up for deeper into poverty.
When Ed Miliband won the Labour leadership with the support of the trade unions, there was a glimmer of hope that we could see the return of a genuine Labour party that could provide genuine opposition to Tory policies. Not only would this be good for the poorest sections of British society, it would be good for democracy. Voters need a choice.
But Miliband abstained on workfare, he committed himself to Tory spending plans, he turned his back on the unions and, most damning of all, he utterly failed to make the argument that it was bankrupt neoliberal economics that ravaged Britain’s economy not welfare spending or state intervention.
Returning Miliband’s party to office in 2015 will, then, only enshrine an austerity consensus.
Would I prefer to see a Labour government rather than a Conservative one? Would it be ever so slightly nicer, ever so slightly kinder, its policies wrapped up in ever so slightly more understanding language than that of the Etonian class warriors? Of course.
But kicking the Tories out will seem a Pyrrhic victory for the left when the Labour government they campaigned for implements its own cuts.
As long as Labour believes that it can take left-wing and working class votes for granted, irrespective of how far to the right it lurches, nothing will change.
This is why I support the new Left Unity movement.
Far from kicking the injustices of the 21st century into the long grass as James argues, it is tackling them head on, because it recognises that the most urgent task of the left is not stopping the Tory party, but stopping Tory policies. To do that we must reinvigorate the left, within and without Labour, not leave it languishing stultified in the middle of the road where it will be run down and crushed.
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37 Responses to “As long as Labour believes it can take working class voters for granted, nothing will change”
henrytinsley
Unlike most of Europe, we don’t have PR. if Left Unity succeeds, it will just peel off votes from Labour and help the Tories. A bit like UKIP in reverse really.
bllarg1987
Labour itself has done a few good things, however between 97- and the last election many things the party did do where a continuation of the previous conservative administration PFI, continued privatisation of goveremtn departments and assets.
The only real big difference was that Labour spent more money and put in more measures to help the less well off, however in doing so it played to the tune of those with interests instead of challagneing them hence part of the reason why we were so heavily affected by the financial crisis.
Salman Shaheen
As I’ve said, this is the only way Labour will pay any attention to its left flank.
cynicalhighlander
And Blair, Brown, Darling, Straw the list is an awful long one.
cynicalhighlander
And Blair, Brown, Darling, Straw the list is an awful long one.