In the wake of the worst election results ever, the question for the Labour Party is what future there is for a left of centre party in 21st century Britain.
We had a similar identity crisis in the 1980s, out of which emerged New Labour. But this time there are some bigger structural as well as policy problems.
In the 1980s many of us found a safe harbour from Thatcher’s Britain in the trade unions and local government. We forged alliances and policies that have endured through the period of Labour Government.
Now we have lost much of the trade union base that rooted our policies in working people’s lives, and also provided something of a civil service for the labour movement.
This week we have lost a great swathe of our local government base, which in the past gave us a chance to experiment with public service innovation and management, and most of our representation in Europe which during the ‘80s gave us a backdoor route to socialism in the UK.
What remains is our Government, and the big parliamentary majority, but now undermined by the expenses scandal and torn over the future of the Prime Minister.
In this situation, to try to distinguish between the policies and the person is a false dichotomy. Our problem in the Labour Party is all about leadership. We need to show the public our direction of travel, and that has to be set out collectively by the Cabinet and most clearly by the Prime Minister, the party leader.
Labour has not always been a broad church. During our previous dark days of the Foot leadership, our focus was on skilled manual workers in manufacturing industry, a shrinking section of the population that would never deliver electoral success. Spotting that and changing it was what new Labour was all about, and the decade of labour Government was the result.
Now we are at a similar, but more serious crossroads. Devastation at the polls this week could herald equally serious defeat at the General Election. Do we in those circumstances allow ourselves to be shrunk into the deepest recesses of our comfort zone?
A decade of Labour Government has seen huge changes in the electorate: more economic power for women, higher living standards for most, more access to higher education, less deference, demands for real-time democracy not the fusty traditions of Westminster – all the hallmarks of a revolution of rising economic and democratic expectations.
Our comfort zone will be far too small to ever see the prospects of Labour returning to Government, and far too disconnected from the broad mass of the British electorate to provide a base for reinventing our Party.
That is why the issue is about leadership now, creating the political lead that can reconnect with the broad mass of the electorate, rebuilding the broad alliance that brought us into power and providing the policies that will make sure Labour remains the vehicle by which the British people see they can best achieve their aspirations.
