The last few weeks have been a political and emotional roller-coaster for me. I went from being sure the United Kingdom would vote to Remain, to being convinced we were about to Leave. Then I was struck down by grief, anger, and sadness when a brilliant Labour member of parliament was brutally and senselessly murdered in her constituency. A trying and testing period of political introspection culminating in tragedy and heartache.
One positive to come from this referendum is that it has made me review and question my fundamental values and politics for the first time in a long time. Lots of things have been going through my head so I decided to write them down in the hope they might be vaguely coherent. I want to speak about why I think it’s right for the UK to remain in the European Union and why no progressively minded people should vote Leave, before going on to talk about the monumental challenges the referendum, the changing face of UK politics, and the rapidly evolving labour market, pose to my beloved Labour party, before finishing with a few ideas about how we might respond to these challenges.
For me, and I suspect many reading this, the case for the UK to remain in the EU is a no-brainer. From the Bank of England to the IMF, from every independent study to almost all renowned economists, the consensus is clear – the UK economy is stronger as a result of our membership of the EU. Our continent, ravaged by war for centuries, has had peace and prosperity for 70 years. And it speaks to the heart of what we want our country to be, to what can genuinely make us ‘Great’ – outward-looking, tolerant, internationalist.
As something of a pragmatist, my politics start with the idea of striving to ensure living standards for most people improve over time; working at all costs to avoid hundreds of thousands of young men and women dying in wars; and fighting against intolerance – racism, homophobia, and sexism – wherever it rears its ugly, often powerful head, in the name of equality. By all of these measures, it makes complete sense for the UK to remain in the EU.
I have heard some persuasive arguments from the more noble Brexiteers, on subjects such as ending crony capitalism, how the EU treats some of its members (like Greece) and other parts of the world (like African farmers) and the lack of democratic accountability. These arguments have made me think and consider my position.
But I have no faith whatsoever that the consequences of the UK leaving the EU will include a kinder, fairer capitalism, liberation for African farmers, or a new age of democratic engagement. I have repeatedly asked the people making these arguments if they are happy and confident in their chances of achieving their aims via a campaign that has derived all its energy through the vilification of foreigners. How on earth can you think there will be a fair, progressive direction of travel if Leave wins, given the nature of the campaign and the values and behaviour of their political leaders? I haven’t heard a remotely convincing answer.
It is true that the leaders of Leave have deliberately encouraged and stoked racism and bigotry. They have, with razor focus, targeted desperate and angry voters. Reinforcing and convincing them that their woes have been caused by immigration. Their campaign has been deceitful, shameful, and highly dangerous. For me this should be enough reason to vote for the UK to remain in the EU. The decision to stand against racism and bigotry, and to play a part in ensuring they don’t win, should not be a hard one.
I now believe, as well as hope, that we will win tomorrow. The final polls confirmed what I had felt during the second half of the previous week, that the mood had slightly changed. As I spoke to voters and handed out leaflets at train stations in east London, fellow Remainers seemed bolder, more readily and proudly adorning themselves with ‘I’M IN’ stickers. There was a tangible feeling that people were at last ready to stand up and be counted. To publicly proclaim they were proud to be on the side of a more open, tolerant, and loving politics. I desperately hope my instinct proves to be right.
But even if we do vote to remain, in fact especially if we do, I worry deeply for the future of my party, the Labour party. A large number of white working-class voters are going to vote Leave. These people have traditionally voted Labour. How are they going to feel about ‘their’ party denying them the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ‘take their country back’? Something akin to what happened in Scotland with the Scottish National party feels almost inevitable.
For me the question this campaign has bought into focus is: how do you make globalisation work for everyone?
The Tory answer is essentially sink or swim. Let the market rip, force people to make hard choices for themselves and encourage them to ‘get on their bikes’. I’d argue strongly this was an abject failure in the 1980s and 1990s. Post-industrial communities were not able to rise from the ashes, as traditional industry perished with no thought for what would follow it.
When you go to the ‘Labour heartlands’, the signs are ominous. John Harris in the Guardian has been documenting it for years and it struck me when I first started regularly knocking on doors for Labour in 2009. Older generations voted Labour en masse and with a passion, for a reason. The postwar Labour government delivered tangible and transformational changes for working-class people. We created the NHS. We built council houses in their hundreds of thousands. We fought for and enshrined worker’s rights.
The last Labour government rescued the NHS from destitution and built thousands of Sure Start centres to support and nurture the most vulnerable families. These and many more were policies cut from the same Labour values and were designed to empower the same people. But whether we didn’t shout about them as loud as we should have, they didn’t go far enough, or because of spiralling inequality happening at the same time, they just didn’t have the same effect. The parents who benefitted from Sure Start centres don’t know their children got world-class early years education because of decisions made and money spent by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
And here we are today. Millions of people don’t end up feeling mad as hell for no reason. White working-class Britain is angry and overwhelmingly blames its problems on immigration. Successive governments, Labour and Tory, have failed to make globalisation work for everyone, and the bad news is it’s about to get harder. As the world gets even smaller, blue- and white-collar jobs begin to get swallowed up by robots and the tax base shrinks. Building a fair, prosperous society where everyone can play a part is going to become more challenging than ever before.
So what do we need to do in the face of these challenges? Here are a few ideas.
First, we need a complete policy rethink. We need to bring together the biggest brains available, from politics to academia, from business to the trade unions, to start seriously grappling with these new, unique challenges. What can government do to create the jobs of the future? How do we respond to automation without crippling our global competitiveness? How do we make sure the tax base remains capable of funding public services? How do we make sure Uber, Google, Amazon and others, who are making huge profits from their UK businesses, pay their fair share?
We desperately need more strong working-class voices in the Labour party. Working-class people with sharp minds and progressive values, who want to get involved with Labour should be fast-tracked, mentored, and given the chance to stand in ‘working class-only shortlists’. I am sure we can come up with a catchier title!
We need to be humble enough to commission and learn from detailed studies of successful policymaking from across the world. Who runs the best public services most efficiently? How can we learn from them? How do you secure better outcomes for disadvantaged young people? It doesn’t matter if it’s public or private, what counts is what works.
Looking around centre-left parties across Europe and in the United States, it’s clear nobody has all the answers, but it cannot and must not be beyond our collective wit to start developing them. If we don’t, we risk becoming an irrelevance, leaving the field open to the centre-right, populist right, and far left, none of whom have the solutions, ability, or instinct, to create a fairer society.
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Graham Gilby tweets @graham_gilby
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One thing the party should never do. And that is to continue seeking to discount the wishes of the UK electorate and expect an outside organisation to bring in socialism by proxy.
And how exactly are you going to define who is ‘working class’?
Has it not occurred to you that many or even most of the of the young people with ‘sharp minds and progressive values’ have got themselves a good education and are working in ‘middle class’ jobs — like politics.
In other words become state sponsored parasites
I’ve been having similar thoughts.
One tentative response might be to consider how the state could support life-long learning, rather than just applaud the principle of it.
I fear the answer that is proposed might be a big, eye-catching (and expensive) initiative, which may not deliver what is needed.
To their credit, I don’t think the public will be impressed by a big eye-catching scheme. Rather, they’ll want to be convinced that we’re pragmatic, and highly focused on value for money, so we can achieve the maximum from the limited resources available in cash-strapped times.
How the centre-left reassure the public on that, I’m not sure.
But it might help, if the initiative weren’t just from one party, but were thinkers from different traditions coming together for this shared purpose. “More unites us” is more than just a slogan.
Yes, I’d like to see a progressive alliance at the next general election. My MP wrote to us recently reminding us that more unites us on the left that divides us. None of us want the status quo. I think the globalisation question is key though. I’ve often wondered what the UKs pitch to business looks like. I fear the Tory’s are selling us as deregulated cheap labour. So we have zero hours contracts and unskilled jobs no one can live on.
My two pence (Before it gets cut by austerity)
We need to invest in some of the skills for the future and start bringing in quality work that people can live on.
What happened to all that talk of turning the Olympic park into a European Tech zone to rival Silicon Valley? Assuming we still get a favourable trading relationship we should look to do it in the North.
I also think we have neglected the commonwealth which is bigger than the Eurozone? Is it?
Australia has now gone to the Pacific trading zone, the Caribbean to the Americas etc. We could look at what the UK could do to re-energise the commonwealth as a trading block with the U.K. at its heart. Maybe Anglia and the Midlands airports could be looked at to support travel to the commonwealth.
We have a large degree educated African community in the UK, perhaps we could look at more trade there.
Whatever we do, we should not sell the UK as a deregulated place where global businesses can do whatever they like to us. We need a new skill sets that will be in deman in the decades to come.
This misses the point, it is’t the best brains’ opinions we need, it is the voice of working class people, specially those who our middle class Oxbridge leaders thought had nowhere else to go. Well, they were wrong around 3 million working class voters found UKIP unfortunately. Those are the people we need to get back, the problem is how?
Oblivion hopefully You deserve no less ,You’re a party lacking an identity Corbyn has sacrificed his so called principles on the cross of neoliberalism
Roger below says it all .You don’t understand the people you are supposed to represent, and your MPS don’t possess the basic social skills to engage with them Their are millions of people out there that have nobody to support them, at least UKIP tries to engage with them You lot hate them
The best thing Labour could do is split up The neoliberal wing PROGRESS should unite with the libdems or what’s left of them and call yourselves New Progress Liberals Too much to hope for
When TTIP gets through IT WILL, as well you know. I’ll make a prediction Corbyn and is motley gang of metropolitan trendies will organize a rally to oppose it WITH A NOT ME GUV NOT ON MY WATCH BS LOL when The truth is you lot are as guilty as hell Labour the party that sold the NHS to the banksters and the worlds oligarcy
You are an absolute disgrace