A Message to the Labour Party: Transcend your Divisions!

A message for the Labour Party and its supporters in the context of rumours of a 2016 general election and the sudden meltdown of your Shadow Cabinet:

First, the reasons why a quick election might be a realistic possibility. A new Brexit Prime Minister will be acutely aware of the progress of the election expenses scandal and the vulnerability of the government to overthrow. The easiest way for him or her to nullify the scandal is to hold another election in the hope of increasing the Tory majority so the government can survive the forced removal of up to 30 MPs. That Prime Minister will also be very aware that the more time passes, the more the lies of the Brexit campaign will be exposed, and there is a strong likelihood of a significant shift in public opinion away from Brexit. The worst case scenario for the new Prime Minister would be a collapse of the government coming at the same time as a shift in public opinion on Europe, all happening before the two year EU-leaving period is over. In such a context, Labour, the Liberals and the SNP could all promise a new referendum, and Brexit could be reversed.

A Brexit-orientated Cabinet will want to avoid this scenario at all costs, so it is the Labour Party’s duty to plan for the possibility of an election towards the end of the year. It may or may not happen (partly depending on how the election expenses scandal pans out), but you must be ready just in case.

Now, what is happening in your own Party, and with your voters?

Polls today show a 29% defection of Labour voters to UKIP. Labour is in a really difficult position. To recover this heartland vote, you need a traditional Labour message about public sector investment in post-industrial areas, and you need to add something tough about immigration, while all the time insisting that this does not mean existing immigrants are unwelcome.

But to win over Middle England, you need a message focused on support for private industry to create jobs in a post-EU economy.

Unfortunately, you need to win over both types of constituency to stand a chance of forming a Labour-SNP partnership government at a snap election (don’t even think of doing it without the SNP — Labour is still a long way from recovery in Scotland). This makes a sufficiently simple and persuasive message almost impossible to deliver, and in any case the Parliamentary Labour Party looks hell bent on forcing a choice between these messages.

The Shadow Cabinet started its meltdown today, with people splitting across these two messages. As I have seen before at times like this, the two existing positions inside the Party are becoming entrenched. Given that the choice of either one of them on its own will not deliver a general election victory, and neither will a messy attempt to sell two messages at once, Labour now has to realise that it’s on a losing path, whichever ‘side’ of the debate wins. This is a hard message for Labour to swallow because, in times of crisis, the Party tends to go for a binary opposition between two positions and then forces its members to choose sides. This time, such a strategy will be suicidal.

What is needed instead is a leap of the imagination to transcend both poles of this argument. Here is a question to ask: what kind of policy can actually benefit the least wealthy two-thirds of the population, whether they live in the post-industrial heartlands or the relatively prosperous South East? The answer has to represent investment in, and social security for, those communities who have been left behind by the Tories AND it has to be a stimulus to private sector innovation — especially the formulation of new small businesses with growth potential that can meet the challenge of the new world trading environment.

I can see one such policy option, and you may see others. I would go for a Basic Income. If everybody received an income to cover their basic needs, and this replaced all existing welfare benefits (other than those associated with additional costs, such as meeting the special needs of people with disabilities), it would represent a significant redistribution of wealth from the rich and very well paid to the much larger majority of the population. Thus, it would represent an investment in the spending power of people in ‘left behind’ areas, while removing welfare dependency because every penny earned would be on top of the basic income. In all geographical areas, it would provide sufficient security for people to risk setting up new businesses to renew the economy. This way, we begin to address the needs of both constituencies: our heartlands and the new voters we need to win over.

A Basic Income could be made financially neutral for the average worker. The low paid would be better off, and the costs of this could be covered by taxation on the top third of income earners — especially the wealthy. This would be a way to ensure those who benefit most from the operation of market forces give back to the society that facilitates their industries and enables them to enjoy such privileges.

The Finnish Government has already done a lot of work on designing alternative models of Basic Income and examining their strengths and weaknesses. Go take a look at what they are doing.

Above all, whether it’s a Basic Income or some other solution, this is not a time for retrenchment into old positions and policies. It is certainly not a time for a resurgence of the Old versus New Labour divide: both are doomed in terms of electoral strategy.

It is a time for an imaginative leap forward, not just to unite the Labour Party, but to meet the common needs and address the different perspectives of the large majority of our population. Only then can the Left have a chance of reconciling its heartlands with Middle England and thereby wrest back power from the Tories.