As a Labour activist I have had a spectacularly unsuccessful six months. First, we got whipped at the May general election. The parliamentary candidate I was campaigning for in Battersea – a strong local candidate with a great local party – got battered. Then I threw myself into the Labour leadership contest for the brave and principled Liz Kendall, who got just one in 20 of the votes cast. Meanwhile the leftwing candidate, whom no one would have taken seriously in April, stormed to victory with a first-round knockout in September. What am I doing wrong?
I think the short answer is that the progressive left no longer has a convincing story about what it is for. Many Labour party members think we are a bunch of unprincipled compromisers: ‘Tory-lite’. At best we have lost our moral bearings, and at worst we have sold our souls in the venal pursuit of power. The central argument of the three ‘moderates and modernisers’ in the leadership election was that we need to win power in order to do good. The party was having none of it: they want first and foremost to identify with moral leadership.
Meanwhile, the public do not hear nearly enough positive difference between us and the Tories. Where they do hear a difference – such as on the generosity of welfare benefits – the consequences worry them. Where they do not hear much difference, or they do not think we are credible, they may as well vote for the real thing. Right now the Tories have a clear domestic offer and they all know the script: low spending, low taxes, and grow the economy.
It is always tempting to think that everything has changed, that we are in a different era of politics. This line of thinking might conclude that Labour’s modernising project is dead. I do not think this is right at all. The fundamental insight of the modernisers has always been that, in order to put our principles into practice, we have to reach out to people in the political centre. That is still absolutely right.
From where we are today, we need a 10 per cent national swing to win a majority (see the Fabian research The Mountain to Climb and subsequent analysis). It is totally implausible that this all comes from increasing turnout. The Scots saw turnout rise by seven per cent after the once-in-a-lifetime politicisation of their independence referendum. If we had a similar transformation in England and all the new voters supported Labour, it would still not be enough.
So we have to win back many people who voted Conservative in 2015. This does not mean simply tacking to the right: that is not what being a Labour moderniser should mean. But it does mean crafting a political offer that is more appealing to voters in the centre of politics, including many people who do not identify as Labour supporters.
I think the four building blocks of the progressive political story are fundamentally good ones: a dynamic, innovative and productive economy that creates good jobs, opportunities and wealth across the whole country; public services that are good quality, caring and responsive, and are universally available when people need them; a welfare system that is not so generous as to create terrible incentive problems, but which is humane and supports people to live decent lives; a country that plays its proper role in the world, using its historical and cultural influence for the good, and exercising hard power responsibly when it is necessary and right.
This is a positive vision of Britain. It is a vision that is very different from the pessimistic Tory version, which is about minimising the size and role of the state in order to cut taxes, demonising those who are vulnerable and in need, and diminishing our status on the world stage. It is a vision which is achievable for a country as rich and powerful and creative as ours. It is a vision which on the face of it should work politically, both for the Labour party and for the public. But right now it just does not cut through.
Jeremy Corbyn has a mandate to lead from the members and supporters who voted for him. He has deliberately and explicitly created the space for a debate about what the Labour party believes. Now the progressive wing of the party needs to step up and make its case. And it needs to do it much, much better than it has done in the past six months.
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Richard Brooks is an independent strategy consultant, London Fairness Commissioner, and former adviser to Labour cabinet and shadow cabinet members. He tweets @_richardbrooks_
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I think Mike Smithson’s latest comments on www1.politicalbetting.com about a trade union leader and what the Corbyn clan are about tells us everything. In the end this madness can not go on or many moderates will just go in utter despair and retreat from Labour politics. There is no one on the moderate wing who is a standard bearer against the Corbyn horror show. People will realise but it it will take some much longer than others.
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Excellent article, Mr Brooks, your outline for a modern centre-left is precisely the kind that would appeal to me, and I’m sure a lot of other people; such a shame it has been tossed aside in the leadership election in favour of unpragmatic, dare I say ‘delusional’, attraction to policies that not only make the Labour party unelectable, but also make it incapable of being an effective, meaningful opposition , something the country is crying out for. I rather imagine the next opposition parties will be split between UKIP and the SNP, unless more centrist voices can assert themselves in the Labour party.
Dear Mr Brooks I supported Yvette Cooper but, the simple fact is why the three non-left wing candidates lost is that the Blair wing of the party has become technocratic, risk averse and boring. Blair and Brown were big beasts who had great ideas and could win over an audience. Burnham, Cooper and Kendall just could not do that. The Centre will come back when we produce a candidate who the Party and the country want to follow.