The Absurdity and Necessity of Open Labour

The Labour Party has arrived. We have reached the stage of factionalism and meta-factionalism where the idea of anti-factionalism has itself become a faction.

The subtext is that Open Labour is a vessel for the soft labour, an entity so vague and wavering that it really couldn't maintain a real faction of its own without the ulterior motive of seeking some kind of party unity. The soft left are the cuddly tribe within Labour, the kind of people who've probably been on a Stop the War march in their time, but would writhe with discomfort upon hearing Liz Kendall called a zionist bitch.

Avoiding any further comment on the irony of setting up a faction to neutralise the disease of factionalism, Open Labour is exactly the kind of forum Labour needs. A space for debating ideology, wedged between the ideologues. However the chance should not be squandered. The soft left has long been as fluffy and pathetic ideologically as its name might evince.

It’s been pointed out by commentators on the left and the right of the party — usually trying to gain a leg up on the opposition — that Labour wins when it is the party of the future. Which makes it more the shame we are currently costuming up for an early 80s battle reenactment.

But this criticism is not reserved for the left of the party, if Corbyn is the heir of Benn, then Ummuna and Kendall are the new Owen and Williams. New Labour was certainly an updated brand, a new social democratic compromise for the revitalised world of capital, but the material basis of this compromise was thrown into jeopardy the day the financial system came crashing down, making this grand plan as obsolete as the left’s obsession with Chavista style public ownership.

It will be all well and good for Open Labour to muse casually about unity behind Corbyn, share book reviews of Postcapitalism, and mull over tantalising ideas like basic income, but if no coherent formula for social justice through governance emerges from this talk then it will have been an excercise in futility.

The soft left are social democrats with an emphasis on the social, they may talk of system change but what they want is a friendlier capitalism. This isn’t a hard sell, but to get the deal done you have to prove you can do it. If there’s one thing you can’t do now in British politics anymore, its getting the voter to buy a free meal. The plan cannot be piecemeal, but coherent, it must clearly delineate what the costs are and how they will be funded. The social democratic left can win the day again in the United Kingdom, but it can’t just show the destination, it needs a roadmap, not to mention the petrol money.