Since its formation a century ago, the Labour party has been a coalition of interests and an amalgam of ideas. From a trade union movement which saw itself as the representation of organised Labour to socialist societies like the Fabians who represented more middle-class intellectual radicals, these different interests felt very differently about what the priorities of the party in government should be.
Among these conflicts between ideas and interests there have been three very different central battlefields – the economy, Britain’s place in the world and the relationship between the state and private life and behaviour. On the first two of these the competing groups lined up on what we can conventionally see as a recognisable left-right paradigm – the left wanting more economic intervention and a less Atlanticist foreign policy, the right wanting a more mixed economy and a greater world role.
On the third of these issues the divisions between ideas and interests and the division in the party were much less clear-cut. Many of the left favoured a progressive social policy, which was libertarian on issues such as immigration, capital punishment, abortion, the age of consent, homosexuality, civil partnership and human rights in general. Many of the right were cautious about these issues fearing that they would not play well with the ‘small c conservative’ electoral base in Labour heartlands. But there were equal numbers of leftwingers who did not trust these issues and rightwingers who embraced them.
In part, the difficulty of predicting where an individual would come down on one of these issues in the many internecine periods of conflict that characterised party life in the 1950s and 1980s said as much about the analytical and political weakness of the labels left and right as it did about the way in which these issues cut across the ideological divides in the party.
In the first burst of debate in these areas, in the middle and late 1950s, in response to the Wolfenden report on homosexuality and the famous censorship trial of D H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, the defining left and right terminology did not work as a way of predicting where people would stand.
The merger necessary for the formation of the Labour Representation Committee became partially evident again. The liberal tradition, represented by Roy Jenkins, made common cause with the emerging new left that was to form the basis of anti-Vietnam War radicalism in the late 1960s. These two elements in the party agreed about virtually no other substantial area of policy. The older left and the older right, especially among the trade union leadership, felt suspicious of the reform agenda that Jenkins was outlining and which became synonymous with his period as home secretary in the Wilson government.
The reason for this unease was twofold. On the one hand there was a fear that many of these reforms and many of the liberal positions which underpinned them, on issues like race for example, would be deeply unpopular in Labour’s heartlands. On issues such as capital punishment and changing the law on homosexuality, a large section of Labour voters were against reform. The opposition was also about political priorities. For many on the left, these issues were soft liberal ones which detracted from the hard politics of nationalising more industries.
The libertarian agenda which was debated in the 1970s and 1980s produced similar kinds of difficulties for the party. In these years it was the new left that had captured power in certain key cities, most importantly Liverpool and the GLC in London, that was pushing for reforms in social policy, for liberalisation and for a sustained approach for, what was disparagingly called ‘lifestyle’ politics. The natural allies for this agenda, the liberal wing, were in the process of deserting the party and forming the SDP. But over the years since Jenkins’ period as home secretary, the liberals had also begun to see these issues as potential vote losers. It was one thing to reform laws on divorce, homosexuality and abortion, it was quite another to bring in civil partnerships, push multiculturalism aggressively and fund diversity from general taxation. Moreover the ‘lifestyle agenda’ of the left-leaning councils were successfully caricatured and ridiculed by the Conservative press as being ‘loony left’ policies which were more concerned with political correctness than good policymaking.
The ironies concerning the debate on libertarian issues through the 1980s abound. Many things that were lumped together as the ‘loony left’ agenda had little to do with social liberalisation and a great deal to do with delivering grants to core interest groups among activists – a traditional pastime of local government. Moreover, the new right which had taken over the Conservative party under Margaret Thatcher had their own bizarre set of positions on these areas. When the ‘loony left’ pushed a drug reform agenda with legalisation of cannabis for example, it was opposed by new right politicians who were dedicated anti-statists, believing in the sanctity of choice and individualism.
Neil Kinnock worked tirelessly through the decade to bring Labour’s set of policies back towards the centre on the core issues of membership of the EU, unilateral nuclear disarmament and nationalisation. He actually had to work less hard on issues of social liberalisation because gradually one by one the issues that had once seemed the realm of the ‘loony left’ became part of the mainstream. The socially authoritarian right still campaigned hard against many of the old ‘GLC’ items, but issues such as civil partnership became generally accepted.
The instrument that allowed for this shift was in part the translation of these issues into the language of human rights. The Social Justice Commission, run by David Miliband for Kinnock’s successor John Smith, set the foundations for the social liberalisation of the Blair years. Most importantly the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights created the benchmark against which government policy and future reform could be measured. Before the war on terror, Blair had found a middle path between the libertarian and human rights advocates and the social conservativism that still dominated sections of the party. This compromise did not survive the aftermath of 9/11 which has seen a retreat from the promotion of human rights norms in the name of security.
Historically the Labour party has run rather ahead of its electorate on issues of social liberalism but it has never looked particularly comfortable doing so. Only during Jenkins’ period as home secretary and in the early Blair years did the party lead with confidence on these issues. At both times the leadership were actually implementing the ideas of others. For Jenkins much of the legislation was passed as private members’ bills introduced by Liberals such as David Steel and based on recommendations of policy commissions. For Blair, the agenda was largely fixed during Smith’s leadership.
In both cases, after an initial surge on the issue there was a retreat. In the Wilson era it was a retreat to the economic absurdities of the alternative economic strategy with its planning and state intervention. Social liberalism was presented, and to an extent seen, as part of a permissive era that had passed; the revolution was on the barricades of industrial action and through the control of industry. In the Blair era, a profound disillusionment with the human rights agenda of social liberals seemed to overtake government after 9/11. To an extent we are still living through the consequences of that retreat.