‘It is a good idea to listen to what they are saying and to try and analyse and understand it.’ These were the words of Tony Blair, reflecting on the results of the US elections. As our thoughts turn to elections closer to home, what then can we as British progressives learn from those elections?
At first glance, an election in which gun control, partial birth abortion and stem cell research were judged critical policy differences between the parties might seem of little relevance to British party politics. Yet if generals are prone to fight the last war, so too are politicians prone to fight the last campaign. So it is vital that on the left we learn the right lessons about the US elections – lessons that strengthen rather than weaken the progressive character of British national and political life.
For even if the issues are outwardly different, some of the electoral challenges will resonate here. Certainly, given the enviable rise in voter turnout, there are organisational lessons about ‘getting out the vote’ that every British party will now be trying to learn. But Bush’s success reflected something deeper than good organisation. Instead, at a much more fundamental level, the scale of the Republican’s success holds important insights for Labour about how a party of power can not only solidify but strengthen its hold on the common sense of its times.
It confirms how, since Barry Goldwater’s candidacy in 1964, both in and out of office, the right in America has been building a uniquely powerful political movement. It has its own thinktanks, its own sources of money, its own grassroots organisations, and its own radio stations and TV channels. And, just as crucially, it has put in place a unifying ideology that brings together an otherwise diverse coalition including evangelical Christians, gun owners, blue-collar workers and corporate business.
The strength of this coalition was such that it was able to define the terms of political engagement on which the election was fought. Neither Kerry nor Gore were able to assemble a sufficiently broad progressive consensus to combat it. Indeed, as Robert Reich, a former Clinton cabinet member, admits about that era, ‘We failed because we failed to build a political movement behind us… Clinton is a gifted politician who accomplished something no Democrat since Roosevelt had done: he got re-elected. But his effect on the party was to blur what Democrats stand for. He neither started nor sustained a political movement.’
In contrast, the right in America has understood that the purpose of politics is not simply to inhabit the centre ground. The point is to shift it, consciously and irrevocably, towards your vision of a good society. Their victory suggests that building your strength in office demands not simply following public opinion but fashioning a new ‘common sense’. George Bush and the Republicans sought and secured their second-term mandate in a very different way from the ‘triangulation’ strategy that secured re-election for Clinton in 1996. With the strength of their movement behind him, Bush’s aim was to shift public sentiment, rather than his party’s position.
Most of all, the movement’s strength allowed him to reflect the American people’s concern about their personal and national security and to suggest that he alone was speaking up for America and their values.
The lesson, then, of both the Clinton era and the Bush election victory is that to achieve lasting success, the left must seek to build among the British public support for its own progressive outlook. Fostering such a consensus will not only help our electoral chances, but also embed a progressive ‘common sense’ about the country’s future direction. And so in future elections the British people will see that you have a view not just of how your economy and social policy can progress but also of the direction of your country and the values that underlie it.
The potential for Labour to do just that has always been evident in the best instincts of the British population. Labour’s own internal polling shows we are today a nation whose innate character is progressive and socially democratic, with concerns that speak to fairness, duty, liberty and equality. It is upon this that we can and must build a political culture shaped not just in political parties but also in all the wider progressive institutions, associations and pressure groups of civil society. This requires us not to just work on the policies of progressive politics, but also the politics as we reach out through our activities in our CLPs, in government and in the wider community to show how our agenda for the future reflects our shared concerns.
So, too, building such a consensus would reap rewards well beyond the ballot box for progressives: it could underpin support not just for our political activities but also for our policies. For the longer term, this would mean the opportunity to consciously and purposefully build a progressive future for this country. To ensure that it is progressive values and challenges that define the terms of engagement of British politics – not just for this election but the years to come.
That progressive consensus would see people themselves coming to demand more from politics than the Britain that is and sharing a desire for the Britain that can be. And, as the American result reminds us, whether progressives win this battle to define the common sense of the age remains the key to whether we will continue to win the battle for votes.