The Party of European Socialists is struggling. Across Europe the news has been bleak. Less than 10 years ago socialists were in government in 13 of the then 15 EU member states. Now there are seven socialist prime ministers out of 27. The liberals have more commissioners than they do, and the 2009 Euro elections were a sorry affair for socialists in most countries. Optimists say that they are still the second biggest party in the European parliament, but that is scant consolation for this change in political fortunes.
In the UK we have been shielded from this continental tectonic shift of political realities, by the success of the New Labour narrative and three historic wins at the polls. But here too we need to define our ‘unique selling point’, if we are to maintain our relevance to the electorate.
This stark political truth was mainly absent from the floor of the 8th Congress of the Party of European Socialists, which closed in Prague on 8th December. Brown, Zapatero, Socrates and Papandreu, four socialist prime ministers and leaders, stayed at home as did many of the other big hitters. A procession of speakers exhorted us to greater victories, presumably unaware of the predicament we are in. It was left to some of the braver and younger party leaders to name the elephant in the room.
Helle Thorning Smidt, the stylish Danish party leader gave us ‘Seven Ways to Lose Your Voter’, her cover version of the Simon and Garfunkel hit ‘50 Ways to Lose Your Lover’. It was Denis McShane, in sparkling form, who dared to venture that the king had no clothes and that without coherent, consistent and relevant new policies and messages, delegates would be in the same place again in five years time.
In a small room, at an ungodly hour, at a breakfast discussion organised by Policy Network and the Dutch Wiardi Beckman think tank, 20 independent minds met to share and chart a way out. The trade union industrial battalions of yesteryear are no longer; some of well off voters are attracted by the ‘guilt free’ greens; whilst others feel that social democrats no longer look after them and turn to the populist right. Yet Lula in Brazil, the other Latin American left prime ministers, Obama in the US all indicate that it can be done.
Glenis Willmott, Labour’s leader in Europe, points out the lack of working class delegates at the Congress or in the House of Commons. Claude Moraes surveys the 1500 strong delegates and participants and wonders where have all the European BAME delegates gone?
Some delegations were delighted that the Congress agreed that for the 2014 Euro elections we would have a common socialist candidate for president of the commission. My ambitions would be more modest: more representative delegates, more exchange of ideas and information and a little less grandstanding. My Italian friend the MP, Lapo Pistilli of the Partito Democratico, commented ‘we come together and we all say we have mal di pancia (stomach ache), and feel immediately better because everyone else has mal di pancia. The trick, surely, is to find out how to stop having mal di pancia’.