As the Labour party embarks on its path back to power following a second general election defeat, it has to do so by embarking on a pro-business and pro-aspiration agenda. Labour should embrace the achievements of its most electorally successful leader ever, Tony Blair, and build upon New Labour by creating a progressive party which is able to defeat the Tories in 2020.
The Labour party will have a new leader in place by September, and will need to rebuild a party that is fit for the modern age and is able to offer a better way for working and middle England. It is possible to be pro-business and pro-wealth, while at the same time fighting poverty, cutting the need for food banks and offering hope and aspiration to the millions of people across the UK who want to do better for themselves and for their families.
What matters is that the Labour party risks becoming irrelevant if it does not move to the centre-ground where the electoral fight is. If the new leader shifts the Labour party back to its natural comfort zone on the left, then Britain will not have a Labour prime minister in Downing Street in 2020 – it is as simple as that.
There are millions of people – including children – in poverty across the United Kingdom, over one million people have used food banks for the last five years, and there are millions more people on housing waiting lists.
Labour needs to build on the successes of New Labour by working with not against businesses for a national living wage which will lift working people out of poverty. The national minimum wage is something the Labour party should be proud of, but the difference between a minimum and living wage is often the ability to eat a hot meal, put food on the table and heat your home. Labour needs to offer hope and aspiration to the many. With the Liberal Democrats now in meltdown, with a mere eight members of parliament, Labour has a great opportunity to win over those social democratic voters who are searching for a new home, before they are won over by the Conservative party’s claims of being ‘the party for working people.’
Labour has a choice – embrace our roots within the Labour movement and work with the trade unions and businesses to improve the lives of everyone, and become an electorally successful centre-left democratic party which is able to abolish poverty; is able to embark on a national house building programme’ and is able to offer people a hand up not a hand out as Blair once said; or shift to the left and become an electoral irrelevance and allow the Conservatives to remain in Number 10 for years to come. I know which I prefer.
———————————
Tom Scholes-Fogg is co-editor of the book What next for Labour?
———————————
I am afraid this reads thus: Power is all. Elect someone who will adopt corporate friendly sound bite politics and you mugs in the unions and membership stump up the money and get out there delivering leaflets and knock on doors but bite your lip when it comes to what you believe in. You may get a few crumbs from the table of power.
Where Labour is today, directionless with little vision, is as a direct result of New Labour, not despite it. Remember that this is not 1995. A few sharp elbowed well connected careerists may be ready to hijack the Labour Party once more, but there are other places to go in Plaid, SNP and Greens. What will the New Labourites inherit if they take power once more? A husk?
As always, the Labour Party reverts to its stock position…the shining purity of opposition as opposed to the awkward compromises of power. We must never go back to the wretched disaster of three consecutive election victories. God, no.
Let us be honest, in 1997, people were fed up to the back teeth with the corrupt Tories and we had a manifesto still with the imprint of John Smith, containing much that would apparently be considered left wing, such as devolution for Scotland, regional government for England and Wales, the setting up of Surestart, proportional representation etc. yes, we were fortunate to have an enigmatic young leader, but a potted flower with a red rosette would have achieved a stonking Labour victory.
The sharp elbowed careerists have led Labour to the position we have today, controlled by the executive, hollowed out and soulless. Just what does Labour now actually stand for and realistically how many supporters are going to stick around if the party becomes more Tory lite than today?
I have to tell you that the Greens are looking ever more attractive, if they can capitalise on their election experience and galvanise their youthful membership (80000 and climbing!!) they will not only take most of the dissolutioned Labour activists, but also be backed by several million voters no longer given a binary Labour v Conservative choice.
I think this is a good point – Labour presented a clear alternative to a demonstrably incompetent set of Conservatives. Now that there’s no Lib Dem scapegoats in governments, the Conservatives have no-one to hide behind.
The line of attack needs to be set now and hammered home for the next five years. It’s about showing that the current bunch are incompetent.
But to say that returning to the centre ground and New Labour will win, is rather missing the point. In ’97, Labour had strong Scottish and northern presence. Now, Scotland has almost wiped out Labour presence and the northern seats are being contested by UKIP. It’s not simply a case of relying on the core vote to turn up and focusing on convincing some of the Home Counties. It’s about embracing the party grassroots and building an effective opposition.
The reverse is the case, Labour should start the battle by
fighting for ordinary people, creating wealth by creating jobs that reward hard
working people, Pro-business that care for the wealth of their workers.
Tory didn’t win the last election because they have credible
plan, but they won because big businesses, the media and extremism campaigned
that create fair, manipulation of electoral system by BBC, YouGov and News
paper working for Conservative and Big-Businesses.
Conservative Government are surprised they won the election.
They are confused of what to do of the legitimacy they have to deliver. Labour
Party should seize moments; work with other progressive in the parliament to
voice out what they predicted of what Tory is going to do, fight to protect
ordinary people that are vulnerable.
Labour will BOUNCE-BACK in the middle of this Parliament
period if only they can elect the Leader that stand on firm on the Labour value,
determined to go on with the work ED Miliband had started (PEOPLE LOVE ED) what
he stand for but the media and Big business hate him. People love Tony Blair
because he understands what is wrong with Britain and people are crying for
change. The team around him work together to let the message out in unison.
We need a leader ready to take on Tory plan to destroy NHS,
RUIN EDUCTION by creating two tear system of education (one for the rich and
one for the poor).
Most points in this discussion I agree with. I believe we need to go back to the begining and evaluate how we campaign. Some of our campaigning methods that were dictated to us by The Labour Party high command simpily did not work–they were politicaly intrusive and not people friendly. Our campaigning methods from now on should be about people–talking to people and finding out what their priorities are. The last two years have been all about getting votes but we did not have the correct policies to offer people. We presented ourselves as a party desperate to get votes but without any substance. In accordance with the points made above we do need to go back to the drawing board and develop policies that appeal to wider spectrum of people. That is what I will be looking for in future leader before I cast my vote in the leadership election.
Labour can certainly appeal to both business and a progressive social agenda: New Labour proved that 1997 onwards. Politics is about getting into power to do this – as LIberanos says ‘the awkward compromise of power’!
The problem isn’t this match of policies, it’s the presentation. I disliked Blair, but recognise he’s the Labour leader who brought in the minimum wage Labour pledged in 1900. THIS TIME, we (and union activists!!) must elect not an ideologymate, but a convincing Prime Ministerial candidate.
Then can we start our uphill battle against not only the Murdoch press, but the tide of ignorance washing over our Facebook/Youtube generation, growing up in cliques rather than society, flickering thru videos rather than following rational arguments. The young are progressively more excluded from governmental favour, and the less they vote, the more the spiral goes down. I tell them to vote Labour for their jobs, their mortgages, their children. Let’s think of ways of doing this.
It’s no longer a simple dialogue of left and right. This years manifesto promised some good meaty stuff, left-wing some would call it, of abolishing non-doms and enforcement of the minimum wage. But at the same time we promised that we would reduce the deficit. Were we left-wing or right wing in 2015? I didn’t know and nor did the voters.
Our next Leader has to be far cleverer than ex-PM Blair. If you work on the supposition that we are not going to make significant in-roads in Scotland by 2020 then we have to win in England and Wales. So we need a Leader who can keep the Party united, attract centrist Tory voters (like Blair did) but, the real difficulty is getting back UKIP voters who Blair/Brown/Miliband drove away from us.
Without that coalition of voters support we cannot get a majority in 2020. So a bland debate about left/right/centre is irrelevant. It’s what set of policies will win us back the 5 million votes we have lost since Tony Blair won in 1997. To repeat that victory is much harder now than 18 years ago.