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Can Labour Straighten Out?

carlr
28th June 2011 at 14:39
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In Roald Dahl’s seminal work ’The Twits,’ Mr and Mrs Twit suffer the most terrible fate, that of the ’shrinks.’ This was, of course, a result of their heads being glued to the floor, by a rebellion of exotic birds and monkeys. Contrary to the concerns represented in the media following the scale of last year’s defeat, the real danger for the party is not a shift to the hard, Maoist/Stalinist/Trotskyist left. It is the political equivalent of the shrinks that truly threatens. The real danger for the party is that the interior is so atrophied and hollow after such a long period of head-standing and abjugation, that faced with a clever, opportunist Conservative leadership, the party will simply shrivel and shrink from direct, full criticism of Tory policy.

The party risks a kind of internal disintegration into a set of detached nodes, composed of individuals or grouplets. Some of these are the pom-pom cheerleaders of glossy party membership magazines. Others have their own obscure set of grievances. Some have a desire to be heard beyond the limited system of consultation which seems set to emerge from the seemingly pre-meditated outcome of the Refounding Labour process. Yet whilst just-about-civil debate has emerged over the last year in the Party, this debate is barely reflected in the almost-invisible Shadow Cabinet. Ed Miliband’s leadership team, which now appears to be dominated by right-wingers, fully reflects Miliband’s previous career doctrine of sail-trimming and his overall ethos of inoffensiveness to those in positions of power.

Then we would need to ask ourselves, what would motivate us, as Labour activists, to donate, campaign and agitate for a slightly softer option? Are we asking the voters to go for ’real’ conservatism, which will simply preserve more of the current pitiful condition of social support, and the increasingly authoritarian policing strategies of the British state? By opting for saying cuts are ’too fast, too hard’ Labour is committed to a policy of declinism – regardless of whether the money was always spent wisely under the last government.

The Labour Party has innoculated itself so comprehensively to ideas and advice from the left, it apparently cannot change its operating model to democratically consider a range of different practical policy alternatives. Contained within the set of ideas being labelled as ’Blue Labour’ there is some advice for situating and promoting as-yet-unknown policies within local or regional social movements – and even this is too much for some people.

Admittedly, Blue Labour is a flawed effort. Whilst it may have opened an important socio-cultural dialogue, it often lacks any sense of consistency. Its main advocate, Maurice Glasman, offers an extremely idiosyncratic interpretation of ethical socialism, whereby some of the details: offering a hearing to the English Defence League, or advocating hunting, seem disgusting to many. He seemingly underplays any chance of reviving active trade unionism in wider society. His criticisms of the post-1945 model of social ownership seem somewhat bizarre in the context of 2011, where the British people do not own or control their own energy generation, water distribution, railways or an effective manufacturing, construction and infrastructure capability.

Despite its more appealing aspects, Blue Labour may turn out to be unproductive after all. Crucially, Glasman fails in his historical interpretation of the post-war settlement. The state ownership of energy generation was crucial to the siege economy that emerged during the war. Following this, Attlee’s government correctly identified the core elements to the economy which need to be run in a way which reflects the long-term public interest: the materials which really comprise our economy - oil, gas, coal and water.

Which tradition does Blue Labour really refer to? Is it the Labour tradition of Jones, Shinwell and Bevan, which was reflected and enacted in 1945 to 1951? Or is it the lofty utopianism of Labour in the 1920s under Ramsay MacDonald, with its limited set of achievements? We should remember that the great ethical socialist George Lansbury was successful despite MacDonald’s attempt to marginalise him in the Royal Parks Department. Lansbury’s lido was a beacon in an otherwise dark landscape.

Finally, readers may be aware that the world economy is looking increasingly fragile. Whilst Marxists may have been predicting the implosion of capitalism for a very long time, it would be a mistake to assume that the current financial system is sustainable on either an environmental or an economic basis. Maybe the most crucial question now, is does Labour have the guts and the instincts to produce a Plan B, for a post-crash environment? If the worst comes to the worst, Labour should be able to offer the British people a credible set of strategies based on intelligent use of indigenous resources, to ensure that, in the event of crisis, we are not to be plunged into a post-modern, consumer-friendly version of destitution and drudgery. We will know within the next year if the party has the heart to refresh its traditions without prejudice or reference to the forces of reaction. Maybe it can even begin to acknowledge that the doomed manifesto of 1983 contained a set of predictions, on housing, on financial services, on the domination of multinational capitalism, that have, like many wilderness visions, finally come true.