The Lie of New Labour: Taking voters for granted

Unity.

In my previous article on the ongoing Labour coup, I touched on a number of different aspects — the absence of a perfect or even preferable leader, the incompetence of the execution of the manoeuvre, and the importance of media profile to the portrayal of Jeremy Corbyn — that related to the reasons cited for the coup.

Yet with Angela Eagle announcing her leadership bid on Sunday (albeit after announcing on Saturday that the formal announcement would be on Monday, this a week after the suggestion that she was preparing to run, employing the same brilliant organisation skills that this coup has used to such effect thus far), ‘unity’ has become the buzzword that’s being used against those supporting Corbyn. It’s odd that unity should be ‘used’ at all, given the co-operative connotations of the word, yet in this case, it’s come to mean one thing only — we want your votes, just not your opinions.

I had come to terms with the fact that the mutineers were prepared to lose ‘the hard left’, as the media has erroneously and pejoratively termed those supporting Corbyn and/or anyone with remotely left-leaning ideology, in order to ‘return to the centre-ground of British politics’, to quote Councillor John Ferrett from Portsmouth, one of the most hostile critics of Corbyn I’ve found. Yet in fact they’re not prepared to lose those Labour members and/or voters at all. In fact, it’s quite the opposite — they’re actively trying to keep them while pulling the rug out from under their feet.

Because in the context of the Labour Party, that’s what unity means. Keep voting for the original idea of Labour, even as the reality becomes far detached from that idea, taking policy to wherever they feel public opinion lies. Neil Kinnock’s ludicrous call-to-arms, that was miraculously, shock-horror, leaked from a supposedly private PLP meeting reinforced this, with one particular line in his speech: “We are a democratic socialist party”.

It’s the same falsehood that Blair added when he rejigged Clause IV in 1995. The original wording of Sidney Webb set out the particulars of what the party stood for — common ownership, full democracy and equality. But Blair’s New Labour wording simply said ‘The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party’, stating it as a fact. The evidence quite clearly points to the contrary. One can argue about the what Blair did right and wrong during his premiership (well-trodden ground, and another debate entirely, one that is reignited now by Chilcot), but what is indisputable is that socialist he was not. He said as much himself, describing his Labour Party as ‘left of centre’. This is not to say that being centre-left is necessarily wrong — it’s not what I logically regard as best for the country or people’s welfare, but in a pluralist society disagreement does not qualify censorship, and I’m in no position to apply said censorship in any case. But what is wrong is that he made this declaration in spite of the fact that 6 years previously, and indeed to this day factoring in the Kinnock speech, the New Labour faction of the party persist in labelling themselves as ‘democratic socialist’.

It doesn’t take much to work out who this is aimed at. It’s not the swing voters, the ‘centre-ground’ who, we are told relentlessly, despise socialism to such an extent to make a socialist leader un-electable. Nor is it the ostensibly right-wing nationalists who have been used a political football labelled ‘working class’ to kick at anything remotely left-leaning, as if xenophobic skinheads truly represent the underprivileged of the UK.

No, it appeals to the partisan Labour voters of old, who depend on that lie as much as the party itself does. A few pseudo-socialist policies here and there like the National Minimum Wage, which had a nice left-wing ring to the name and concept, while legitimising the exploitation of the working class workforce by making the wage level so ridiculously low, keep calling yourself ‘democratic socialist’, keep singing The Red Flag at the party conference, and you retain enough of the voters clinging to the idea of a left-wing Labour Party.

Which brings us back to the problem of today. With Angela Eagle announcing her leadership bid , there’s the focus on ‘unity’, the same focus, as it happens, that Hillary Clinton pressed for after defeating Bernie Sanders. That’s why we see daily articles telling us how evil Corbyn and John McDonnell are, yet are simultaneously told by Eagle et al. that Corbyn is a ‘decent man’. Well, which is it? The reality is somewhere in the middle — the vilification of him is based on misrepresentations, smears and lies, while if he was a completely decent man I don’t think he’d have toughed it out as a backbencher at odds with party leadership for so long. But the importance of this contradiction is the focus on Corbyn himself. ‘This is why he should go, but those of you who support him should totally stay.’ If Corbyn is such a decent man, then why do all the mutineers keep taking little digs at him, while if he’s so evil that he’s actually ‘friends with Hamas’ and a vicious anti-Semite (both of which are claims which rely on deliberately contorting facts to an agenda), then surely you’re doing the good people of the country a disservice by continuing to praise him?

It’s the great irony of populism. It detaches itself from principle to gain power by any means, yet still tries to cling onto those who actually care about the principle as much as the power.

This of course, is where a chorus of voices argue that to label all the mutineers as ‘Blairite’ is inaccurate and insulting etc. And that’s true. There is a spectrum between ‘Blairism’ — nominally centre-left but arguably more centre-right, and democratic socialism, with plenty of positions in between. Undoubtedly, it is an unfair generalisation to claim that all the mutineers fall more towards the right wing side of the divide, and indeed there are some with similar ideology to Corbyn who still want him gone.

But here’s the thing. They can argue it’s all about Corbyn the man, not his policies or political positions, and you know what, they might even believe themselves, that they’re doing it for ‘the good of the Labour family’. But there are certainly some of the ‘Blue Tory’ faction within this coup, and if the idea is a return to centrism, that most definitely means bringing in Blairite notions.

And let’s not overlook Angela Eagle’s voting record. She can talk of unity, but when she’s voted in favour of the Tory Welfare Reform Act last year, voted in favour of the bombing of Syria, voted in favour of Iraq, voted against Chilcot, I don’t see her taking left-leaning ideology into account. Yes, she has also supported positive votes on many occasions, but there is a clear failure to oppose Blairism when it has power and support. Thus it’s not a stretch to imagine said positions playing a part in her leadership.

But we’re expected to vote for her. We can’t let the Tories into power, and of course Corbyn is totally un-electable, right? It’s true that another Tory government winning a potential snap election would be terrible, but it’s certainly not either or. Where is the proof that Corbyn is un-electable? Supporters point to his victories in every election he’s taken part in so far. Critics point to polls suggesting his problems. Neither can necessarily be trusted, but in the absence of evidence, the issue doesn’t default to failure. Yet Labour are so scared of losing that they’ve forgotten what they’re trying to win for, the values they supposedly want to embody in government.

It’s a similar situation on the other side of the spectrum with Andrea Leadsom. Her positions on almost everything are detestable -not least the cruel assertion that she knows better than Theresa May because she has children and May cannot conceive — but where ideology is concerned, she aligns quite strongly with traditional, right-wing Conservatism (big C intended). Yet establishment Tories are lining up to vilify her. May herself isn’t much better, but that’s the point — for her, as the more prominent candidate, the right wing vote is taken largely for granted, with the assumption that post-referendum, voters will peel off of UKIP (they in turn may morph into a new Arron Banks-funded outfit, but for now they’re there for the taking). They want Leadsom supporters to vote for them, but will do little to cater to those to the far-right of the Conservatives; they don’t want those lefties at Labour in power right?

In human terms, much of the blame for this scared centrism falls on Blair and populism, but really there’s one thing to blame — First-Past-The-Post. By turning politics into a simple winner takes all contest, with no valuable consolation prize, principle falls by the wayside. Voters from either side of the spectrum are blackmailed into voting for essentially similar candidates, afraid of the bogeyman of the other side.

One could dismiss this as a conspiracy theory, point to the ideological differences between Labour and Tory, now and previously, yet there are as many similarities as differences. Indeed, just this week, ‘informal talks’ were reported to have taken place between Labour and Tory MPs and officials concerning the formation of a new centrist party. If you’re getting SDP deja vu, then don’t — it obviously won’t happen. But the mere existence of such talks, the fact any consideration at all was given to the idea, speaks volumes on the real degree of the divide.

The final nail in the coffin may be on the way, with Corbyn supposedly facing a fight to be on the election ballot for his own leadership contest. Does he need to gather 51 signatures of MPs and MEPs, or is he automatically on the ballot as the challenged incumbent? The outcome of that debate will define Labour’s future, but perhaps more importantly, if he is excluded, and a snap election is called, then it will present the clearest indication of whether the left-wing vote can be taken for granted. If Eagle was to hypothetically win a general election with support from the left-wing that she has defied, it will mean populism still works. If she was to lose, then it might be signal that the bogeyman of right-wing control doesn’t have the same impact as it once did.

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