Although my trust in BBC news has probably been irreparably damaged, I can just about turn it back on ….. briefly. And although a large portion of my reservoir of hope slowly drained away over the last week, I don’t feel all is lost. Whilst it’s true the defeat was immense, there are some significant aspects to the result which should be emphasised as the flickering of a hopeful light at the end of the current dark tunnel.
Whilst many centrist commentators and those on the right of the Labour party try to portray the result as a rejection, not just of Corbyn, but also his reorientation of the party back to the left, I don’t think the vote share figures really bear this out. The 32% vote share achieved by Labour was still larger than that of the 2010 and 2015 elections when their policy was much more oriented to the centre. The Lib Dems and Change UK, the main centrist parties hardly romped home. In addition, it’s worth noting the Tory vote only increased by 1.2%, a seismic democratic shift it was not.
Building on the success of the 2017 election in attracting the younger generation, this election confirmed that Labour, and particularly this reoriented Labour party, is the party of Millennials, gaining more than twice the vote share than Tories from 18-34 year olds, and five times that of the Lib Dems. To put this surge of support into context, the 2010 election saw the three main parties gain roughly an equal third of this demographic. As such it is evident, Millennials are clearly not crying out for a return to centrism.
Additionally, we should take heart that in order to win the election the Tories had to ditch, well, traditional Tory policies, and disown the last decade of their own rule. It was the strength and popularity of Corbyn’s left-wing anti-austerity message which pushed the Tories to adopt, at least rhetorically, a fiscally expansionist position, and therefore they did not win the argument on the strength of their political ideas and philosophy, on the contrary, they won by denying them. Will they be able to convincingly maintain this charlatanism over the next five years, especially in the wake of a no deal Brexit at the end of 2020 which will probably compound global capital’s concern over the size of UK debt levels, unlikely.
Of course casting its shitty spell upon the whole body politic since 2016 has been Brexit. Yet this election showed more than ever it was far more a problem for Labour than the Tories: Whilst two thirds of remainers stayed loyal to the Conservative party, only one half of Labour leavers stayed loyal. But what then really lit the candles on the Tory victory cake was that one in three of those Labour leavers then went on to vote Tory, whereas less than one in ten Tory remainers voted Labour. In my opinion a large measure of blame for this goes to Joe Swinson, whose principle target throughout the campaign was not the Tory leader who was imminently about to gain power and deliver a hard right-wing Brexit, but the leader of the party whose policy was closest to hers, and therefore represented the easiest source of votes, come what may. Her strategy was nothing more than a reckless attempt to make her party relevant again, and the Tory victory cake has her fingerprints all over it.
All this was combined with an unprecedented smear campaign, the likes of which an authoritarian regime would be proud of. This was then further compounded by the unrelenting attacks by many of those centrists who bundled into the Tory attacking scrum, yet who now seek to absolve themselves of any responsibility for their role in delivering this hard right government. Instead they seek to capitalise on the result by claiming that the electorate rejected not just the leader, but Labour’s renewal of its socialist values.
I don’t really see any evidence of this. Third way Blairism was a time limited response to the shifting sands of liberalism. It was premised to a large degree on a neoliberal model of the economy which relied on trickle-down economics, yet perhaps unsurprisingly very little trickled down during New Labour’s centrist tenure; the income share of the bottom 50% of the population pretty much flatlined during this period, whilst the top 1 & 10% continued to grow. In fact many of the shortcomings of New Labour were a result of its centrist attempt to straddle the fence on critical issues, and therefore appease the establishment and vested interests so as to not awaken the type of wrath recently dished out to Corbyn. From embracing Thatcher’s enthusiasm for a deregulated financial sector, to having a contradictory position on delivering meaningful action on climate change, whilst it may be true that their anodyne centrism was passive enough to reassure the establishment that their vested interests were safe, and yes they were therefore able to win power, the multitude issues which they had to ignore to gain that power are still with us and are yet more severe. A return to a timid centrism that attempts to appease those who benefit from the perpetuation of these issues is clearly no longer viable. The voters in Blyth Valley didn’t desert Labour because they longed for the return of a centrist neoliberalism; the unemployment rate in Blyth Valley increased by almost 2% during New Labour’s tenure, nor I doubt are they pining much for the likes of the Labour centrist Andrew Adonis who insulted the leave voting majority there by saying that Labour did not even want their vote. That many centrists are in effect claiming this is what the election result shows leads me to suspect they are still not concerned about the working class voter in the North, but rather are using the result for their own political ends, otherwise they just must be completely out of touch with where we are.
Ultimately I think it’s important to remember that centrism does not represent the majority opinion, (that is on the left), but it is rather the threshold of compromise beyond which the powerful will not concede without direct challenge. Yet challenged they must be if we are to tackle the multitude crises from which they profit.
Nonetheless, criticising those seeking a return to centrism should not divert from acknowledging the mistakes that have accompanied Corbyn’s tenure. Principle of which was ignoring the polling in respect of his personal appeal, or the lack there of. Whilst we might like to kid ourselves into believing the electorate could see past all the mudslinging and personal attacks, it was naïve to ignore the fact that contemporary politics is very much a personality as well as a policy contest. We need a new leader who is much more dynamic and media savvy, and who ultimately has a lot less historical baggage upon which the establishment can pin their targets.
Secondly, and more difficult, is building a bridge between the varying demographic constituencies Labour needs to appeal to to win. In particular the more traditional blue collar workers, and a somewhat more educated metropolitan demographic, what Thomas Picketty calls the Brahmin Left. Whilst the latter are more culturally progressive, expecting the party to place an emphasis on issues such as upholding international law and human rights, the former are much less concerned with these, being more nationally oriented and expecting the party to focus more on bread and butter issues such as employment and income. It was this divide on which Labour’s Brexit virus fed. And paradoxical as it turned out, Labour leave voters who found themselves caught up in the mother of all constitutional battles over the relative influence of varying global actors on national sovereignty, I imagine at heart voted for Brexit with the belief that in so doing they would enable future (Labour) governments to focus on national bread and butter issues. Now that specific battle is over, I do hope attempts will be made to bridge the divide and try to carve out a new way forward in which all of Labour’s constituencies can feel represented.
Four years ago, I like hundreds of thousands of other didn’t really have a political home. We saw all around us multiple crises, and yet all the main parties offered nothing but a range of token measures which failed to tackle the underlying causes of these issues. The main parties had in effect become the PR wing of global capital, telling us the system was unable to offer anything more than a grinding decline lest global capital take flight. Corbyn’s election and the reorientation of the party back to its left-wing roots changed that. At last there was a political party which had the courage to stand up and challenge the failing status quo; calling out the very obvious failures of neoliberalism, and offering a coherent plan for fixing the decades of neglect that our country has endured as a result of this Thatcherite model. Whilst the failure to secure power at this election is of course hugely disappointing, and without fail will lead to even more suffering of the most vulnerable in our society, turning back now to appease the establishment – those who inflict that suffering on the most vulnerable – in the hope that they will find another watered down political party which pretends to address the omni-crises facing our society more acceptable than a Corbyn inspired Labour party really isn’t an option. The time for centrism has passed. Now is the time for a ‘radical’ left-wing Labour party; the 4 million children living in poverty in the fifth richest country on Earth need it, the elderly who are struggling at home without adequate social care need it, the NHS patients and staff need it, the environment, the planet, and consequences of global climate change need it, our education system needs it, the criminal justice system needs it, etc etc etc. Tinkering around the edges isn’t an option anymore. More than ever in the coming wake of more cruel Tory rule the left must not lose heart, and for the sake of us all must fight any attempt to pivot the party back to an anodyne centrism.
From the Outside Looking In 