Remoralizing Britain? – Political, Ethical and Theological Perspectives on New Labour
Peter Manley Scott, Christopher R. Baker & Elaine L. Graham (eds)
Continuum
258pp
£24.99

‘without the universality of truth there is the permanent risk of political narcissism.’

Getting beyond the superficial arguments about whether Labour ‘does God’, the authors of this book write with an unusual degree of sympathetic political and theological intelligence, rather than throwing stones from one camp to the other. In a nutshell, it is a collection of essays on the moral claims of New Labour. The recurring motif from the contributors is that there was early promise of radical policy and reform to strengthen the autonomy of civil society, which gave way to increasingly regressive and centralizing tendencies.

Its key point is that clause IV had embedded in it a moral valuation to secure social justice, and that if this ethico-political programme was to be abandoned, it was less clear what was to replace it. This is the ‘remoralization’ of the title of the book, and it provides an incredibly thought-through and fair assessment of the successes and failures of the process.

It explains how in this post-clause IV world, policies are not presented as the outcome of a process of moral reasoning. Instead a ‘values word’ such as ‘community’, ‘equality’ or ‘respect’ is attached to policies and programmes with the effect that they are stabilised by the attachment. The authors point out that this prevents the process of moral reasoning by which moral terms gain their weight, leaving them twistable in various directions based on expediency. Examples are given to show that if the liberal polity is refereeing the conflict between moral values, then they become inevitably thinned.

Another area that concerns the authors is that the constant reference to values may become a substitute for action, leaving us with leaders who argue moral questions yet refuse to apply moral standards to their own decisions, like Pontius Pilate. At times it was like reading an academic version of ‘Things can only get better’ the wonderful book by John O’Farrell. He proudly stated that his Labour leaflets still got delivered on time, 17 years on, even though his salary had rocketed and he now lived in a gentrified zone. He then confessed – ‘I gave the au pair a tenner to do them’. What better image for how idealism can turn to managerialism that won’t inspire anyone.

There is resonance here with a new generation of Christians seeking to flesh out these values not only in politics, but in their lives – intentionally moving into deprived inner city estates to bring regeneration and hope. Will they feel welcomed to the party, or feel the suspicion that many in the past have felt?

Anthony Giddens uses the word ‘reflexivity’ to describe the new managerial culture, summarising thus – ‘social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming information about these very practices, thus constitutively altering their character.’ He says, ‘Reason has lost its foundation, history its direction, and progress its allure.’

In the second part of the book, ‘Justice and Community’, John Atherton points out forcefully that economic indicators cannot be the only identifiers of a nation’s well-being. Jess Steele explores the reality behind community regeneration over the Blair decade, while Mark D. Chapman dissects the vague use of the concept of ‘community’ in New Labour rhetoric.

In Elaine Graham’s section of the book she points out how the secularization thesis has been displaced as the dominant narrative of modernity and challenges the conventional wisdom that liberal democracy requires the maintenance of a neutral, secular public domain with the corresponding privatization of religion. She reports how the intensification of economic and desocializing processes is testing the secular proceduralism of the liberal polity in new ways.

This thesis is, however, pleasingly self-aware of the potential for being misunderstood. There is an acceptance that a modern society requires much administration as a response to its complexity, but makes the point that this inevitably leads to a motivational deficit. The example of climate change is given as an area where motivational deficit is most serious, as it is an area that requires not just legislation, but fresh ways of living from us all.

Recent mass movements such as the Jubilee debt campaign have shown the power of harnessing the motivational ability of Christian groups. Not many commentators flag up that they made up 80% of those that marched in Edinburgh to make poverty history’. At the Christian Socialist Movement (now based at Labour HQ), we are working hard to improve the frayed connections between Labour and the churches. This book will serve as a great resource to that dialogue.

The authors’ final conclusions are both hopeful and challenging. They state that religions will be vital to the renewal of Britain, but that their contribution ‘cannot be instrumentalized to serve the ends of social happiness nor refunctionalized to deliver outcomes established by government policy.’

So the key question now is what will someone writing a similar book in 2020 have to say about the next decade of the Labour party? Barack Obama said during his successful campaign, ‘I don’t think anyone should be required to leave their religious sensibilities at the door.’ This volume shows that if we’re not careful we’ll be left with a coat rack dangerously cracking under the strain, and a party full of people dancing but not sure what they’re celebrating.