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William Wallace writes… The future of the left

by Ian Shires on 26 August, 2015

 A Labour Party leadership ballot paper is displayed on August 19, 2015 in London, England. Labour Party members are due to vote in the Party leadership contest with results announced on the 12 September. Left-wing candidate Jeremy Corbyn widely expected to win.We’re entering another phase of the ‘future of the left’ debate, whether or not Jeremy Corbyn emerges as Labour’s next leader. So it’s worth remembering previous cycles of this debate, what they revolved around, and how Liberals and Social Democrats responded to them. There are some lessons to learn, and warnings about what to avoid.

Richard Rose’s book, Must Labour Lose?, after the third consecutive Conservative victory, in 1959, set out the issues that Labour struggled with in the early 1960s: a gradual decline in working-class solidarity, a younger generation with aspirations to join the middle class, trade unions torn between anti-capitalist activists and the natural conservatism of many of their members, and a leadership divided between socialist intellectuals, trade unionists, and Fabian reformers. As a new student in 1959-60 I was amazed by the plots and conspiracies which preoccupied the different factions of the university Labour Club, and found the Liberal Club far more constructive – as did many others. The first Liberal ‘revival’ surged to its peak in 1962-3, with policy proposals bubbling and party membership briefly above 300,000. Labour limped back into power in the 1964 election, more because of the exhaustion of the Conservative government and the scandals that surrounded it than because of any positive appeal. Jo Grimond, who had spoken warmly about ‘the realignment of the left’, made friendly gestures to Harold Wilson about parliamentary support when Labour’s hold on power looked shaky, in early 1965; when Labour’s opinion polls improved that summer, Wilson repudiated any cooperation with the Liberals, and went on to win a decisive majority at a second election in 1966, demonstrating that in the UK’s constitutional system Labour was the only credible alternative government to the Conservatives.

A longer cycle of uncertainty began with Labour’s failure to win a clear majority in two successive elections in 1974, with internal divisions between left and right breaking out again after the 1975 European referendum. When Labour’s control of the Commons became shaky, in 1977, David Steel offered a ‘Lib-Lab Pact’, with weekly meetings between Labour ministers and Liberal MPs – resisted by the many Labour ministers who despised the Liberals, and achieving little beyond allowing Labour to stagger on to the end of the Parliament, lose to the Conservatives, and split. Negotiations between the Social Democrats and Liberals were not easy – there were many, like David Owen, who continued to despise the Liberals as they negotiated with us. The surge of patriotic fervour which followed the Falklands war overtook the wave of support for this alliance; but the electoral system might still have hobbled us even if we had maintained the temporary lead over Labour we held before the Falklands conflict erupted.

In 1995-7 the Liberal Democrats were better prepared, and the Labour leadership after four election defeats more willing to negotiate seriously. The Cook-McLennan talks set out an agenda for constitutional reform, with parallel discussions on how to manage a full coalition. But the popular surge to sweep the Conservatives out carried Labour to an impressive majority (as well as bringing in the largest number of Liberal Democrat MPs for several generations), the Jenkins proposals for voting reform were sidelined, and the goodwill between many Liberal Democrats and Labour gradually evaporated as Tony Blair enjoyed prime ministerial executive power. Liberal Democrats who were fighting authoritarian (and sometimes corrupt) Labour authorities, across the north of England, in London and in central Scotland, breathed a sigh of relief.

In 2015 we start from a weaker position than 20 years ago, facing a Labour ‘movement’ much of which has reverted to tribal hatred of us as crypto-Tories, after the 2010-15 coalition. The uncomfortable coalition which Labour itself has always represented, between the self-interested unions that provide so much of the party funds, the London-based professionals who dominate its parliamentary party, the working classes whom the party claims to represent but which no longer provide a solid base of voters, and Socialist intellectuals of varying tendencies, looks shakier than ever. Underneath the influx of new members and supporters, many local parties remain authoritarian, even corrupt. The Guardian, which looked on the idea of wider cooperation warmly in previous cycles, has deteriorated into a house-journal for internal Labour disputes. The electoral system remains against us. What held Labour together in the run-up to the 2015 election was the hope that they might win a parliamentary majority on 35% of the vote – which explains why Labour leaders have been so lukewarm about any changes in the current Westminster system. And this time we are not alone: the Greens have captured some of those who are looking for an alternative to Conservatism.

Conservatives have held power in Britain for most of the past century because Labour, as the dominant political alternative, has managed to win over a sufficiently broad cross-section of the electorate only in 1945 and 1997. But its access to union funding, and its entrenched position in our winner-takes-all voting system, block other parties from offering a more credible alternative government. It’s not impossible that another group of professional politicians will decide to jump ship, in the hope that we will provide them with a stepping stone back to power; but cynical voters, and suspicious Liberal Democrats, will doubt that the ‘Alliance’ can be successfully repeated. By 2020 it’s likely that many voters will be looking to support whatever candidate is most likely to get rid of the Conservatives, as in 1997. We need to pitch our appeal for a liberal left distinct from whatever package Labour develops, and rebuild local bases which we can capture on another anti-Conservative swing. And we should not kid ourselves that many within the current Labour Party will welcome our efforts.

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