When Tony Blair finally names the day for Britain to go to the polls, much more will be at stake than whether or not Labour achieves an historic third term, vital though this is. Instead, the country will have an opportunity to speak about how it sees its identity and the future of its democracy.
This general election will be different from both 1997 and 2001 and not simply for the reasons everybody supposes. Of course, Labour will have to defend its record of incumbency much more vigorously than it was forced to in 2001; memories of the Tories’ record in government are beginning to fade (although Labour should not fear rekindling them); and while Iraq may not dominate the election, the campaign is being fought against the background of this very difficult and divisive issue.
Perhaps just as importantly, however, the campaign is being waged on a somewhat different terrain from recent elections and with the spectre of another low turnout (and the pernicious consequence that will follow) hanging over it.
Take first the issues that, according to Mori’s most recent surveys, are top of the public’s concerns. Unlike in the last three elections, the condition of our public services is no longer by far and away considered by voters to be the most important facing Britain today. This year, the NHS vies with defence, foreign affairs and international terrorism; crime and law and order; race relations and immigration; and, of course, the economy for top billing. Put another way, Labour’s strongest suits – the NHS and education – have dropped in saliency from 63 per cent and 54 per cent respectively in 1997 to 58 per cent and 44 per cent in 2001 and now, at the start of 2005, to 34 per cent and 10 per cent.
In the light of this, it is not difficult to see why barely a day goes by without Michael Howard promising to ‘get the immigration system under control’ and ‘restore respect and discipline in society’ by employing more police.
Labour faces a choice on how it decides to respond to these concerns. They can, of course, be managed tactically. The party can seek simply to neutralise difficult issues by promising to be as tough, if not tougher, than the Tories. Certainly, at the level of rhetoric we can make it such that voters believe that on these issues there is no difference between the two main parties. This will take these topics off of the table and change the conversation back to those – like health, education and the economy – that many on the left intrinsically feel more comfortable talking about.
This, however, runs the risk of ceding the big picture to the right and its vision of the world. After all, questions surrounding foreign policy, terrorism, crime and immigration go to the heart of Britain’s identity, its place in the world and its sense of itself. The Tories’ talk of rising crime and disorder, diseased immigrants flooding into the country and overloading our public services, and an over-mighty Brussels’ inexorable attempts to wrest power from the British people, actually reveals a worldview shaped by an innate pessimism, insecurity and sense of decline. Problems are not confronted by the search for solutions, but for scapegoats. Fear and blame are the animating principles of the right – both at home and abroad – and parties like Ukip, with their obsessions about Europe, immigration and political correctness, are simply slightly comical caricatures of the Conservative party.
The challenge for progressives is to persuade the British people to adopt an altogether different mindset, which looks to the future with confidence and optimism and replaces fear with hope. This, however, cannot be achieved simply by tactical manoeuvring whenever the Tories introduce the question of immigration or crime into the election campaign. Labour’s response, instead, needs to be one that directly engages with the arguments made and seeks to paint a different picture of the country’s future.
Labour’s record in government provides a solid foundation on which to do this. The government has done much to prove that progressive politics can achieve solutions to seemingly intractable problems, as the attempts to erase the progressive deficit Labour inherited in 1997 go to show. We have demonstrated that, with investment and reform, public services can be improved; that economic growth does not need to be built on the back of poverty pay; that it is possible, with devolution to Scotland, Wales and London, to begin shaping a new constitutional settlement for the United Kingdom; and that, with a commitment to urban regeneration, Britain’s cities can be transformed.
Labour needs to bring the same ‘can do’ confidence to the rather more thorny questions that, the polls now indicate, are high on the list of the voters’ concerns. Rather than searching for tactical victories over the right, we should seek a strategic settlement of Britain’s identity based upon a renewed sense of national self-confidence. This should encompass the recognition that Britain should play an important role in an interdependent world, leading on issues from Kyoto to international debt relief. It should argue that the gains to Britain from competing in the global economy far outweigh the pain. And it should also recognise that immigration and Britain’s membership of the European Union are vital to the country’s future prosperity, as well as adding greatly to the vitality and strength of our society.
Such a case, made forcefully and unrepentantly, can be made to appeal to the British people’s sense of optimism and confidence, rather than stoking prejudices based on fear and pessimism. ‘Fortress Britain’ – fearfully shutting itself off from the world – is an admission of defeat at the hands of the forces shaping the 21st century and is unworthy of our country.
Not only is the question of Britain’s identity at stake in the election: so too is the future of our democracy. If turnout slips again below the dismal 59 per cent of 2001, we can expect to see future elections begin to demonstrate the hallmarks of the kind of low-turnout politics seen in the United States. As well as being bad for democracy per se, this kind of politics is inherently conservative and self-propagating. As fewer and fewer people turn out to vote, politicians and strategists turn their attention increasingly to those who do: they go hunting where the ducks are, as one conservative American politician succinctly put it.
Such voters are normally disproportionately the better-off, well-organised, highly motivated, interest-group activists. The consequence is that more of the kinds of people who have failed to vote in the previous election begin to feel alienated from the political conversation. By contrast, the narrow and sectional concerns of those who do vote gain added salience.
We can, in fact, already see the contours of low-turnout politics beginning to take shape over the British political landscape. When turnout in the European parliament elections last year fell to 38 per cent, it was the socially conservative, parochial and narrow-minded Ukip which managed to pull off a surprisingly strong third-place finish. For too long, indeed, the vocal but highly motivated Europhobe minority have been allowed to warp the debate about Britain’s role in the European Union.
Look, too, at the grotesque manner in which the Tories are promising to cut the council tax of pensioners, whether needy or not, simply because all parties know they are likely to turn out in far larger numbers than the electorate as a whole. The Tories’ largesse, of course, will come at the expense of, among others, the young – who will see programmes like the New Deal eliminated – and those pensioners and low-paid workers who really do need extra help paying their council tax.
How does Labour counter this threat? One option is for progressives to seek a consensus with people on what they would like their communities to be like. Voting thus becomes an element – albeit a crucial one – in the process by which communities commit to building the good society.
So the challenge ahead is clear. Let us make this a victory not simply for a government that, we believe, is entirely worthy of re-election, but let’s also make it a triumph for our values and for an optimistic, confident and inclusive politics.