Choosing a Leader for Labour - 23/07/2015
The leadership race is always a pretty nasty time for any political party, especially Labour. The last battle saw two brothers pitted against each other with relatively different offers for the country should they be elected. A nasty series of back stabbings sorted that one out but, as we know, turned out to be a fruitless and pointless destruction of a brotherly relationship (I still always wonder what Christmas would be like at the Miliband family home). Now we are back again, this time with debates that present a far more historically significant destruction than that of the Miliband family quibbling.
The vote on the welfare bill simply typified the internal strife that has opened up fundamental questions that must be answered before the Labour Party moves forward. What is this political party for? An election winning machine? An ideological alternative to the Conservatives? A left-wing workers party? Is there any point in winning an election if it is laid on the foundations of a centre-right campaign? Surely you could save some stress and hassle by simply letting the Conservatives continue to do as they are if the latter is correct.
Things have changed considerably since the days of the 1980s and the argument that by looking back to the left the Labour Party is condemning itself to oblivion is surely not really the point. The Labour Party is supposed to provide the left-wing, or at the very least the centre-left, option within British politics. If it ceases to do this, why does it exist? The prospect of walking in the shadow of the current Conservative policies is surely more damaging to the party because, let’s face it, the Conservatives simply ‘do politics’ better than Labour and will continue to do so with Cameron machine at the helm. Therefore, by adopting this centre/centre-right approach the party is effectively condemning itself to a comfortable second place. Maybe, just maybe, the party will then win a surprise election due to a personality or a particularly powerful campaign but, again if this is won on the support of the moderate-right, the representative system will demand that those moderate-right policies are maintained thereby defeating the point of a Labour government in the first place.
The Labour Party needs to make a choice. Is it out to win elections at any cost? Or to represent those voices that it was created to do so. Not the workers, not the middle classes, not even the voters, but the people demanding social provision, increased equality and a desire for a truly limitless social mobility. Being part of the ‘left’ has become a dark place to be in British politics, but that doesn’t mean that Labour should abandon it, but do very much the opposite and attempt to revive it.
The leadership race is always a pretty nasty time for any political party, especially Labour. The last battle saw two brothers pitted against each other with relatively different offers for the country should they be elected. A nasty series of back stabbings sorted that one out but, as we know, turned out to be a fruitless and pointless destruction of a brotherly relationship (I still always wonder what Christmas would be like at the Miliband family home). Now we are back again, this time with debates that present a far more historically significant destruction than that of the Miliband family quibbling.
The vote on the welfare bill simply typified the internal strife that has opened up fundamental questions that must be answered before the Labour Party moves forward. What is this political party for? An election winning machine? An ideological alternative to the Conservatives? A left-wing workers party? Is there any point in winning an election if it is laid on the foundations of a centre-right campaign? Surely you could save some stress and hassle by simply letting the Conservatives continue to do as they are if the latter is correct.
Things have changed considerably since the days of the 1980s and the argument that by looking back to the left the Labour Party is condemning itself to oblivion is surely not really the point. The Labour Party is supposed to provide the left-wing, or at the very least the centre-left, option within British politics. If it ceases to do this, why does it exist? The prospect of walking in the shadow of the current Conservative policies is surely more damaging to the party because, let’s face it, the Conservatives simply ‘do politics’ better than Labour and will continue to do so with Cameron machine at the helm. Therefore, by adopting this centre/centre-right approach the party is effectively condemning itself to a comfortable second place. Maybe, just maybe, the party will then win a surprise election due to a personality or a particularly powerful campaign but, again if this is won on the support of the moderate-right, the representative system will demand that those moderate-right policies are maintained thereby defeating the point of a Labour government in the first place.
The Labour Party needs to make a choice. Is it out to win elections at any cost? Or to represent those voices that it was created to do so. Not the workers, not the middle classes, not even the voters, but the people demanding social provision, increased equality and a desire for a truly limitless social mobility. Being part of the ‘left’ has become a dark place to be in British politics, but that doesn’t mean that Labour should abandon it, but do very much the opposite and attempt to revive it.