The 2020 election will be fundamentally different to this one
If he’s true to his word, we won’t face David Cameron – rather an invigorated Johnson, May or Javid. We face a politically gerrymandered boundary review, ‘English Votes for English laws’, radically different public services and a government with a tiny majority that will increasingly abandon parliamentary accountability for the safety of executive fiat.
But two events in this parliament will be the most significant for our country and it’s place in the world for hundreds of years: the risk of leaving the EU; and of a second chance to break up our own 300-year-old union fuelled by Scottish but also English nationalism.
These things could shape the destinies and opportunities of the British people even more fundamentally than five years of Tory consolidation of power or brutalism in our economy.
Another related theme underpinning these events is the increasing ascendancy of selfish and fearful individualism – not just reflected in our increasingly fragmented and unequal society, but also in how we act as a country in the world. We could utterly fail to respond to the challenges of the world by leaving one union and breaking up another.
The rise of nationalist Russia, the chaos in the Middle East, climate change, unmanaged migration and the continued global economic shift to the east could change the prospects and opportunities for future generations of Britons – the list is endless. None are questions that are answered by turning in on ourselves and breaking apart. They are only answered by collective, progressive politics – a politics which believes we achieve more together than we achieve alone.
However much some colleagues on the Labour left might fantasise about a ‘common ground’ commitment to centre-left economic policies, we must not be fooled – the SNP remain committed to one goal only: independence. Their project is clear – and decisive – and is anathema to our own Labour vision.
For all the reasons we fought and won the referendum last year we cannot give up on our union. And equally we must avoid the easy response to the clever but irresponsible Tory (let alone UKIP) stoking up of English nationalism which ends in the conclusion: ‘just let the Scots go’.
Meanwhile leaving the EU – rather than seeking its radical reform – would have devastating consequences for jobs, on prospects for our young people and on our relationships with key partners in an uncertain world. At a time of increasing global instability and rapid economic shifts, we could within five years be a broken, irrelevant and marooned rump on the fringe. With our place in global trade and diplomacy no longer secure, let alone our armed forces slashed and our national confidence critically wounded, the consequences for the British people could not be more serious.
Much of the post-election debate will focus on errors in policy, message and organisation. But any candidate for the Labour leadership who is serious about putting Britain back on a progressive path cannot seek merely to imitate Tony Blair, nor to regurgitate and repackage an economic and political offer which large swathes of the electorate have brutally rejected.
Instead they need to tell us how they would lead and win through two referenda, cope with the aftermath and reverse the worrying individualistic and nationalist shift in attitudes corroding the heart of our country and it’s future prospects.
Our country and our party need strong leadership and a global vision for the imminent and brutal battles of the late 2010s – and the radically changed world of the 2020s – not the 1980s or 1990s. We need a bold leap to the future. And a decisive break with the past.
Stephen Doughty is Labour/Co-op MP for Cardiff South & Penarth. Follow him on Twitter
57 Responses to “Labour leadership: We need a bold leap to the future and a decisive break with the past”
AlanGiles
One thing Labour need to do is to think for themselves and not be influenced by the men of yesteryear – Lord Mandelson, Blair, Johnson, Prescott and even Jacqui Smith! – they need to look to the future not back to the past
Juggzy Malone
I think we can assume that Scotland is gone, from Westminster at least, if not from the Union; the conservatives will remove their right to vote in return for FFA.
What we do need to do is organise a coalition of the left apart from the SNP. The progressive left of the country, actually a majority in terms of population, will always lose under FPTP to a right that is by nature hierarchical and not prone to questioning things so can be united more easily.
There is one thing that could unite the left for one, last, glorious Labour parliament, and that’s a commitment to PR reform. If we commit to implementing that (I favour the list system which Holyrood uses) we should be able to gather everyone behind Labour in the next election, throw the bastards out, and prepare the ground for future parliaments in which Labour will never have a majority but will usually be part of a progressive alliance / coaltion.
Jim Bennett
Stephen Doughty completely misunderstands why Scotland rejected Labour and their pro-austerity colleagues in the Tories and LibDems at the election. The SNP’s clear positions were first and foremost an end to austerity and rejection of Trident. They put forward an economically modest, slightly left of centre programme which would not be out of place in a Labour manifesto of the 80s or 90s.
The SNP were absolutely crystal clear that this election was not about independence and they retain that clarity post-election. Scotland began to reject Blairism in 2007, building on that in 2011 and have entirely solidified it now. They have done so by adopting the mantle of what Scots predominantly see as a “normal” Labour Party. I’m just listening to Blair calling on Scots to reject “reactionary nationalism”: he just doesn’t get it. Scots embraced a mildly left of centre social democracy which rejected his brand of pro-business war mongering government.
I honestly cannot see how a UK Labour Party could win ever again in Scotland. My view is that the politics of England have so significantly diverged from Scotland hat a common agenda between Scottish and English Labour brands simply cannot work. There needs to be a new, independent Labour Party in Scotland, not a “branch office”, which can chart it’s own way. It could act in a way similar to the SDLP in the six counties, a critical ally.
The Scottish rejection of Labour did not happen over night: it began as Blair first rained his bombs down on Iraq. Tuition fees, PFI, lack of regulation of the banks, allying with big business against the poor and finally working hand-in-hand with the Tories in the referendum all sealed Labour’s fate.
The directions of Labour in Scotland and England have to be radically different if Labour is ever to recover in Scotland.
DRbilderburg
We won’t be leaving the EU The City of London Financiers and Corporate UK would not allow it Labour should have been the first party to offer a referendum, it would not have been a gamble
Labour lost Scotland not the other way round. Cameron will give the SNP everything they want short of a referendum to keep them quiet. A win win situation for all concerned
Boundary changes + Scots Nats leaves Labour with an absolute mountain to climb in 2020, for me the party needs to split amicably. Progress go to their wealthy pals in the city
What few Socialists are left, look to represent traditional northern cities with ministers the people can relate to
damon
Well Liz Kendall is the first to line up for the job. I don’t know much about her, but just saw her on the TV and she looks like more of the same. Rather uninspiring. Our need for big leaders who can satisfy the beauty contest that we select these people by, is one of the problems. You almost have to be a fake to succeed.
That ‘RustyRockets’ has a point actually.