I know the Prime Minister has warned us against triumphalism but let’s ignore him for a moment. We, the members, did great! We held on to seats no hack gave us a snowball’s chance in hell of holding. Through sheer hard work and organisation we even increased our majority in many. We did what no Labour Party members have done – delivered a full second term. We’re so great we should all be given seats in the Lords, which most of us could nobly decline because we advocate a fully elected second chamber.
OK, that’s triumphalism over. Now let’s look at the reality behind all that hard graft. There were far fewer members involved than in 1997, most of them middle-aged or elderly, predominantly white and, with the sterling exception of a few pockets of activity from Young Labour and Labour Students, the young were conspicuous by their absence. Am I generalising? A little, but not much. I visited over forty constituencies before the election and the story was pretty much the same everywhere.
If those who were absent from the fray are a cause for concern, the attitude of those present is equally worrying. Among the most loyal there was a polite disappointment with our government’s achievements, among many of the rest a sullen resentment towards those at the top of our party.
So how did it come to this? I believe that the radical vision of opposition was replaced after 1997 by the old stitch-and-fix politics of the 1970s. Our membership was no longer to be empowered, instead it was to be controlled and managed. Internal elections and selections were rigged and a new kind of loyalty was demanded from the faithful – a supine docility reminiscent of the opium den.
But I am not pessimistic about the future. The new General Secretary will have the opportunity to inject fresh ideas and impetus into the debate about the party’s future. And though the title ‘Party Chairman’ is an unfortunate one, Charles Clarke will provide a much needed link between party and government. Some in the party see his appointment as another example of control from the centre. I don’t. Charles has a long and distinguished record as a champion of party openness.
But if we are to have a truly reinvigorated party, we can’t just leave it to senior politicians and administrators, however good. The impetus must come from us. For too long we have tolerated intolerable party practices and thereby colluded with them. We did so to deliver a second term. But it was a poisoned chalice, as we find ourselves in a party shorn of belief in itself and disconnected from the party leadership.
There is no coherent strategy for the future of our party, or if there was one it’s being developed in a small room into which we haven’t been invited. So let’s start doing the job for ourselves. What is a twenty-first century party? What do our members want from one? What should its relationship be with a Labour government? How can we attract the young? What should our role be in policy-making? What should our role be in our communities? There is a century of socialism to be won. It’ll only happen if we make it happen.