Corbynmania: why it’s time for Labour to roll over and die (and the purge confirms it)

70 years ago, Labour had a slogan: “Let us face the future”. The heir apparent to the leadership of the party is a man who represents that future. The trouble is, that future is now no longer our future; it is the past. No one has made this point better than Jeremy Cliffe in his Bagehot column for the Economist last week, so I won’t bother replicating it. Suffice to say, for those who have already used up their free allowance on the Economist website, that Jeremy Corbyn represents Old Labour while offering pretty much nothing new; a great shame, given the exciting ideas that are out there on the progressive spectrum. Cliffe namechecks Roberto Unger as someone who should be on the top of any reading list for lefty rebels without a cause (beyond Labour nostalgia) — and I’d certainly second that.

In the blue-tinged corner, of course, are Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper, who represent some continuity from the last two decades of New Labour. New Labour, as the less hysterical commentariat point out, wasn’t disastrous for Britain; but it wasn’t very left wing either, so it’s unsurprising that much if not most of the Labour party membership feels pretty short changed at having worked and voted to elect the best Liberal Democrat governments we have ever had, and probably ever will. Blair certainly did more for that cause than Nick Clegg’s shower managed.

Myself, I voted Lib Dem through those years, and took a turn to the left some time in 2011 — and so joined the Greens. I was never a Lib Dem member, but frankly I thought that entering government with the Tories was an understandable move for them in May 2010 — though I would’ve quit the coalition fairly soon, too. But I came to a realisation that we urgently need much greener environmental policies, and a serious push for greater economic equality in the UK — and when it became obvious Ed Miliband wasn’t going to fight for either, well, it obviously had to be the Green Party. Check ‘em out.

New Labour meanwhile — best when it’s boldest — seemed to spend its 5 years on the opposition benches positioning themselves just to the left of the Tories, in order to pick up the ‘pragmatic’ left wing vote. Wherever the Tories go, there go Labour — almost. All they’ve had to offer is not being as bad as the Tories. It’s no wonder that when a prospective leader comes along who has made a career of sticking to the principles Labour was founded on, there’s a swell of support. It makes you wonder why he never tried it before — but maybe we were never so desperate before.

What none of the candidates is doing, though, is facing the future, in the spirit of Labour of 1945. The fact that Labour won that election, and many since, made the UK and the world a better place. There’s no question in my mind about that, and Britain as a whole agrees. The Tories, for all the scaremongering on the left, are not going to undo the NHS, for instance. Their conservatism now extends to conserving the gains made by historic Labour governments. Where they look to dilute them, Labour tends to demur — see for instance the recent welfare bill. Corbyn’s determination to undo Thatcherism is what sets him apart; but he wants to replace the 2010s with the 1970s. That’s not what Britain needs.

What we need is a new radical agenda to let the UK face the future. We need to undo the economic inequalities that have taken root over the last half century in the UK. We’ve re-created a landowning elite which will pass that economic power on to their descendants. We’ve never properly addressed the global economic inequality that less enlightened British governments actively worked to put in place. We also need to tackle head-on the challenges in keeping a planet that can sustain the population it now has. Burning fossil fuels, industrial scale animal agriculture — these things have to stop, at least in the rich world.

It’s not all bad, either. The age of abundance is upon us, and has been for some time. We can afford a minimum wage; we can certainly afford a job guarantee, which is what Corbyn should be suggesting the Bank of England prints money for (see this blog which is very wonkish but says most of what I want to on this (you may well want to skip pars 3 & 4, which would be fine.)) The combination of capitalism and industrialisation has created a world better than the wildest dreams of anyone 150 years ago. At least, potentially better. We can get there.

But not with the Labour party. That party has won its battles. Thanks to Labour, we have a welfare state, a national health service, workers’ rights. It’s right that progressive parties should remain attentive to, and oppose, the dilution of these important gains. But that’s not enough; and the Labour Party isn’t offering anything more.

The shambolic Labour leadership election proves, I think, that the party can no longer claim to be the home for the left-leaning, progressive electorate of the UK. I hesitate to talk of a progressive majority; the last election suggests that at the moment it certainly is not that. Nevertheless, I believe it could be again if progressive politicians presented an inspiring and implementable vision for the future. Few people think the UK, or the world, is as good as it could be. Things could be so much better — but Labour, as a corporation, is now either too timid, or too bereft of ideas, to take us there.

So what next? Should all its right-thinking members quit and join the Greens? Well, yes, that’d be best; but otherwise, they should transform the party into what the Green Party now is (OK, apart for some of the headline-grabbing wackiness that exists within the Green Party, as it does within all parties). At that point, I would join Labour — if they would let me. Don’t get me started on that.

Purges, Greens…

OK, do. This whole purge is another reason the party should roll over and die. The party big-wigs, and commentariat who might have spent too long in and around politics, think the tribalism the party is displaying is perfectly understandable. No! What is this party for? Just to win elections? To obliterate ‘opponents’ like the Greens, NHAction, TUSC? Surely not! If members of those parties, who are members of those parties because they felt alienated by Labour’s shift to the right, want to ‘return to the fold’ — surely they should be able to.

Green colleagues have been agonising over whether they should sign up as Labour supporters to vote for Corbyn. My line is that if, in the event Corbyn wins, and he fights the next election on the platform you imagine he intends to, you would vote Labour — then go ahead. Green Party grandee Darren Johnson has been telling those of us fortunate enough to be his friend on Facebook on an almost daily basis that he doesn’t think any GP member should join Labour, as it’s unfair to both sides; I think that’s certainly true for him who’s been in the GP for like decades, but not necessarily applicable who could say yes to the ‘cricket test’ I suggest.

Of course my ‘cricket test’ only works if Corbyn is a true Labourite. You shouldn’t be able to smuggle in Grant Shapps and then say “well I like him and he’s wearing red, therefore I’m Labour”. But Corbyn has been a Labour MP longer than almost any of the current parliamentary party. Sure, he’s been plenty rebellious; but he’s repeatedly been selected for a safe Labour seat. The local Labour party wins its stonking council majorities in large part by campaigning on his coat tails (take my word for this, I’ve campaigned for the Greens in Islington North). If people want to join Labour to vote Corbyn, really — what kind of disloyalty is that?

If you’ve skipped to the end now without reading the middle you’ll get the impression that I want Corbyn to win the Labour leadership election. I certainly don’t want any of the others to, but I don’t think I want him to either. I want a mainstream progressive party that can face up to the challenges of the present and lead us into a better future. And if Labour can’t be that party, it needs to get out of the way of one that can.