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.
37 Responses to “As long as Labour believes it can take working class voters for granted, nothing will change”
Stan
Points 4 & 5 built under the financially crippling PFI schemes.
Mark Anthony France
I agree with everything you say Stan and I want to have your babies 🙂
Conrad
Good luck with this, as for election deals with Labour and Liberals which seems to be a focus of debate below, this has been the case for most of their history, and within FPTP it makes a lot of sense, they do the same thing for most council positions in local areas, but it makes sense no? If your in a position where two parties are looking for votes that are tangled up with each other, and competition puts you at risk of large loss of manpower with only potential gains I know i would accommodate, politicians put up a pantomime show of partisanship but there is a lot of technical work that has to be done at the end of the day.
As for the problem of FPTP, the fact is its broken, but its broken in the sense that it doesn’t give the same kind of power to one party if there are numerous parties in play, because while from the 50’s too the early 90’s political parties attempted to win the national elections with broadcasts and radio announcements and all that, but nowadays small parties tend to target select boroughs and build up a fortress territory where they have credibility on the ground, i mean the average ward only has like 20 campaigners for Labour or Conservative, and they are trying to win everywhere, so if you got 40 Green Campaigners in Brighton, or 50 LD campaigners in Colchester you can generally win from boots on the ground, that’s how the Brighton council and MP went Green last election, if Left Unity want to build themselves up they should focus on those Urban areas where there are large concentrations of generally left minded citizens and build up from there.
Obviously its imperfect, but perhaps if this happens more then FPTP will have to change because the main parties won’t be able to survive, maybe then we will get a more representative system that will allow these parties to gain a voice in parliament without the same amount of effort.
Stan
Extreme left wingers? You sound just like a typical Daily Mail reader now. You know all these millions that are depending on Labour getting back in? Don’t you think by ignoring these millions is the reason why Labour lost the election in 2010 in the first place? Not only did they ignore those people whilst in government but they’re ignoring them now. The Labour leadership is too wrapped up in their efforts not to upset the Daily Mail, the chattering middle classes and the Murdoch press they’re ignoring the very people you claim are relying on a Labour victory at the next General Election.
blarg1987
I did not say New Labour did nothing good, what I am saying is that it was to close to the right,.
Some of the things it did such as points 4 – 5 could have been done through goverment borrowing and pay back the debt which would mean we would control the hospitals, instead New Labour decide to go down the PFI road which is costing us all a hell of a lot more which was also Conservative policy.
New Labour also carried on the expansion of marketising the NHS Owen Jones pointed it out and added that the recentcoalition Goverment policy for the NHS has just been built on what New Labour started which the New Labiur MP reluctantly agreed.
If New Labour had instead not carried on some previous Conservativepolicies it would gain more support long term.