Against the background of the Peter Kellner’s analysis presented to Progress conference on Saturday, all thoughts were geared towards how Labour can win a majority in 2015 – and what might happen were such a result to prove out of reach, with Labour MPs John Denham and John Spellar, Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes and Telegraph columnist Mary Riddell debating whether pluralism on the left is dead in their breakout session.
Hughes said that, despite his local difficulties street-fighting Labour in Southwark, he did not view them as a ‘foe’, that nationally, after the next election, they may ‘need to be working together … positively, radically, constructively’. Plurality was not dead, Labour and the Lib Dems having proved they can govern in sync in Scotland and Wales, and more recently shown they could cooperate in parliament, as they did over Leveson. The Lib Dem membership, he added, was primarily centre-left, and would ‘want to go for a deal with Labour’ in 2015, rather than the Tories, if given a choice.
Spellar, giving the ‘Labour-centric’ view, spoke about pluralism within the party, of the work needed ‘to ensure the sensible wing remains in charge’, and hit out at the Lib Dems, asking ‘if they’re so progressive, why are there so many Tory-Liberal local councils?’, and warning that, under Nick Clegg, ‘they would not necessarily coalition with us’ in 2015 anyway.
Denham, whose Southampton Itchen seat is one of the few Labour that holds in the south, spoke of ‘progressive pluralism’, bemoaning the fact a ‘tribal, sectarian approach makes progressive change harder’, adding: ‘I am here for my country first, not party.’ We need to ‘engage with UKIP voters’, and, alluding to the fall in the Labour vote since 1997, ‘understand some of those five million who left are UKIP’.
Riddell, meanwhile, said Ed Miliband was ‘a pluralist by instinct’, and if not, ‘would have had to become one’, as, ‘post Blair-Brown, he has commanded considerable unity’, with his Labour coalition having ‘more in common than the Tory-Lib Dem’ one. ‘While fighting for a majority,’ she said, ‘Labour should be prepared for coalition’ – more so than in 2010, where Gordon Brown’s ‘personal relationships [with Clegg]’ were not as good as Miliband’s are now. On UKIP, Riddell added, ‘the bubble will continue up to the Euro elections, but no one’s sure how it will play’ thereafter. ‘The centre ground is up for grabs,’ Riddell concluded, ‘it used to be so crowded you couldn’t pitch a tent there.’
Indeed, for all the talk of coalitions and plurality, it could be rendered moot by a grab for that vacant centre, with the Tories – UKIP, Europe and immigration-obsessed – drifting ever rightwards, and the Lib Dems still flatlining well below their 2010 peak. Miliband has indeed achieved remarkable post-defeat stability, ‘a party where former Bennite Lions and New Labour lambs can work together for the good of all,’ as Progress noted a few months ago, but victory is not yet guaranteed; he’s got two years to seal the deal.
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Shamik Das is former editor of Left Foot Forward He tweets @ShamikDas
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