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”
DRbilderburg
America wants us in The city of London want us in. Corporate UK wants us in Cameron will have some problems but as usual the right wing press will come to his rescue The EU might grant the UK some concessions, and Cameron will call it a victory, whatever we will stay in You must know Cameron is nothing more than a talking head The real power stands behind him
As for the party breaking up, why not form coalitions with say Plaid in Wales NHS Action Greens SNP .offer them a seat in a future Labour cabinet, and give them input in a future Labour Government. Form an anti Tory coalition before the 2020 election. Stand candidates down if necessary, fight dirty. Plus there would be so many moving targets the right wing media would struggle with a situation they have never faced A Multi pronged coalition of hate
After the way Miliband was treated it’s time we came out fighting, fk the daily mail and Murdoch They want a fight then give them one ,bullies are cowards at heart
Toque
In fairness to Cameron English nationalism built up because of asymmetric democracy/devolution and Labour’s refusal to do anything about it. It’s been coming for a long time and the Tories have been pushing EVEL since 1999 (it’s been in their manifesto since 2001). They were only prevented from implementing it last time because, although they had an English majority, they didn’t have a UK majority. In other words the people of England have voted for EVEL twice now.
English nationalism shouldn’t be so easy to whip up. That it is tells you that there is something very wrong with the constitution.
Leon Wolfeson
There’s no reason for other EU states to give concessions, though, not least because Cameron’s already alienated them, and his party is not part of the major bloc’s in the EU Parliament, even.
And why would those parties want to commit suicide like the LibDems?
Also, if you use those sort of fear-based tactics, you lose a good chunk of the left again, which reacts badly to them. No – we need voting reform and a left wing party.
(And virtually everyone outside the Tories and Labour wants voting reform, so…)
Ivan_Denisovich
The Labour and Conservative parties continue to fiddle with electoral boundaries whilst politics in the UK not so much burns, but gently smoulders. They do so because they know that a fairer electoral system would end the two party state that benefits them.. They do so despite falling memberships, reduced legitimacy and the obviously increasing disenchantment of the electorate.
Reforming the electoral system by introducing PR would re-invigorate politics in the UK. It would give a voice to those who currently feel disenfranchised and reduce the tendency towards extremism that is historically associated with political or economic frustration. The Left as a whole needs to find the courage to tackle electoral reform and to embrace more inclusive politics. It needs a leadership prepared to campaign positively and trust the electorate to support its policies. A leadership with the vision to end the dreadful negative campaigning we witnessed over the last few weeks and the courage to surrender Labour’s share of the death grip the two main parties have on power courtesy of FPTP and tactical voting.
I didn’t vote for anything last week. I voted against what I thought to be the greater of two evils. I am probably far from alone and that is not healthy.
Leon Wolfeson
EVIL is hardly the answer, though, when there’s answers which are not anti-union like federalism.