Why the Labour party needs outriders
—If it was true that during the welfare reform and work bill Harriet Harman was ‘acting as her own outrider’ and deliberately making bold statements to try and take Labour’s policy on welfare closer to where the public are, then it is yet another sign of weakness in our nation’s left-leaning organisations.
No leader, even an acting one, should feel this is necessary. Ed Miliband’s leadership team would often bemoan that Miliband felt he had to be his own intellectual and political outrider. Aides felt that there was a lack of radical policy suggestions made by supporters outside the inner circle, and those same supporters would counter that a lack of definition of Miliband’s project meant they did not know if they were outriding, or just irrelevantly driving around in the dark.
There are two key types of outriders that strong party leaders can use to shape and push political debate. There are policy outriders, who normally take a position outside the party or public mainstream in order to generate debate, and organisational outriders, whose entire existence seems to be to shift the ‘centre-ground’ in whichever ideological direction fits their aims.
The Blair-Brown years were notable in their policy outriders, as thinktank researchers and backbenchers were teed up to propose new thinking on a raft of areas, from Middle East diplomacy to disabled toilets. Reports, statements and worthy speeches would usually be followed by a ministerial announcement and sometimes a pile of cash to implement whatever the leadership felt was needed. If an outrider statement was greeted with howls of derision by the public, then the outrider was quietly hung out to dry by government spin doctors.
Organisational outriders need to be media-savvy, fast-reacting and are usually very expensive to run – therefore it naturally runs that the left are pretty awful at them. The best examples are found on the right with organisations like the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which sits outside the Conservative party and produces ‘research’ that supports its core aim of shifting public discourse in a low-tax, small-state direction.
The Conservatives only need meet the TaxPayers’ Alliance halfway to achieve their aims – ‘I don’t agree with everything the TaxPayers’ Alliance says, but …’ The mere presence of the debate tips the centre ever rightwards. There are even signs they are getting more adept at using policy outriders with recent claims ministers were ‘relaxed’ about charging for missed NHS appointments a recent example.
The majority of organisations on the left who could naturally counterbalance the TaxPayers’ Alliance are unfortunately often too quick to reach for reactionary calls of ‘betrayal’ whenever demands are not met. That, coupled with the current lack of a strong centrally expressed mission from the leadership, have contributed to a left ecosystem populated with disgruntled pressure groups and well-meaning thinktanks producing good but often ignored work.
Many hopes on the left were pinned on new clicktivist groupings like 38 Degrees and Change.org tilting the debate in a different direction. However – and this is not a criticism – their strength is their issue-based, user-led nature, and this does not lend itself to having a core ideological mission able to nimbly exploit media opportunities.
It is not all doom and gloom. There are many brilliant organisations and personalities on the left that do this work, but a new leadership will have to quickly define and explain its core mission for their potential to play this role in the movement to be fully realised. Then, and only then, will Labour leaders stop being their own outriders.
———————————
Olly Parker is a councillor in the London borough of Islington
. Labour has a large membership . That membership ,if not too self obsessed {it probably is}communicates with the public at large . The communications goes both ways . That is the source of new ideas for the Labour Party . That is the source that the Labour Party should be nurturing . That is what can make Labour unbeatable .
The real problem is that the Labour party and many of its Members of Parliament are so obsessed with their own importance that they have not wanted to listen to anyone .
Pressure groups may have declined ,simply because the Labour Leadership have consistantly ignored them and so their members see little point in belonging .
The natural reaction to being continually ignored is direct action ,such as demonstrations . Cruel Suppression of these was not questioned by the Labour Party ,and so many people joined other partys searching for a glint of hope . Now they see that hope in Jeremy Corbyn .
Even if some of Milliband and Corbyn’s stronger policy positions brought successes they would not necessarily win over the non – committed . Public perceptions are not necessarily formed rational arguments. The role of the media with its metaphors and images, as well as the role of ‘outrider’ groups, referred to here, play such an important part in the formation of general perceptions of winners/losers. Prominent Labour figures have indulged themselves in ridiculing Left opponents to seek short term and personal benefits. The much replayed Kinnock and Healey’s Labour Party conference speeches abusing Left opponents, may or may not have been valid positions to adopt, but they have done immense damage to perceptions of Labour and brought few if any advantages to them. The Tories rarely if ever ridicule their own ‘general/loose’ supporters in this way.
Just look at how Harman, Bradshaw and others have used valuable media communication to ‘exaggerate’ (probably relatively minor and almost irrelevant) voting irregularities of fraudulent or marginally committed ‘supporters’. Just look at how the ‘lacklustre 3’ have adopted ‘handbag economics’ to fill public perceptions about a projected lack of Corbyn credibility when there are serious economists who know ‘People’s Quantitative Easing’ is just an alternative use of bank bailout money. Kendall and Burnham have never studied economics, so they could perhaps be forgiven but Cooper (with her PPE) knows the inventions she cowardly speaks. Modernisers do their Party and cause serious damage. Corbyn and Tory approaches usually forsake the cheap indulgent.