British Labour, its leader and its future

It’s very tempting to draw a quick symmetrical portrait of the four British Labour leadership contenders. From a right of centre position one would consider Jeremy Corbyn as a threat because he is on the “far left”. If one where to be a left of centre person, the candidate to rule out would be Liz Kendall as she is clearly on the right of all candidates and seems adamant to prove that. This would leave Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham on the cusp of a latter day centrism, sustained by the notion that somehow they are the most experienced in terms of their ministerial roles in past Blair-Brown governments.

However this would betray a false sense of relativism, which seems to have gripped the way we look at political alignments almost everywhere. By this I mean that we seem to relate one position with another by adopting the idea of “left” and “right” in terms of how political positions are related at micro levels, forgetting that what is often regarded as the “left” could well be very conservative if not reactionary in another context or time in history—depending, of course, on how the “other side” sees it.

The point I am making here is that British Labour is at a juncture in history—which was partly accelerated by Blair—where political discourse has become relativized and where real issues of democracy, social justice and other strong principles that distinguished Labour’s political programmes from others, are now hard to come by.

While the Tories are not exactly exchanging their right-wing policies with a more liberal approach that could be seen as left of centre, the British Labour party has become too close to a centre-ground that makes it indistinguishable from the Tories. This is making it difficult for voters to understand why they should vote Labour. Clearly political discourse is being pushed into an area where what matters is “how to handle the economy” without questioning its postulates and what kind of economy it represents. This creates a managerial context where certain economic values are taken as absolutes.

In the past, like them or loathe them, Labour leaders insisted on the redistribution of wealth, and even when those on the Left would have said that this was undoable in a capitalist system, the policies adopted by the Labour Party revealed a strong belief in the possibility of equality and social justice.

Also, British Labour stood for a certain blend of social democratic policies, heralding a kind of Fabian gradualism that it always sought to present as its own take on Democratic Socialism—thereby distinguishing itself from European social-democratic reformism. This never came without contradictions, especially when Labour governments also represented the Imperial interests of Great Britain. However, even then, British Labour represented an approach which was identifiable from any other political approach within and beyond the British and European left.

Though some still argue that this internal contrast is still what makes British Labour today, I think that now we are at a further stage where the prevalent logic is that the system is what it is and cannot be changed or even tweaked. Blairites argue that this is the only way to win elections in Britain. However, there are those who would argue otherwise and in this respect they make an argument for a “return” to the founding Democratic Socialist principles of the Labour Party.

This is where Corbyn’s candidature is making waves and often seen as polarizing Labour supporters on the lines of what is falsely assumed to be “old” and “new” Labour.  However I would argue that to say that this is the same dualism that always characterized Labour is to fall back on the same false symmetry by which many continue to conceal a much deeper problem within the Labour movement in Britain today.

At this stage in time there are two major fault lines which are not being properly discussed and which could open wide and seriously undermine the future of the British Labour Party.

The first one is Labour’s generational problem where the young, who may well be rooting for Corbyn, do not really appreciate or understand the troubling past through which Labour, in the days before and after Michael Foot, became unelectable. This is further aggravated by how the baby boomer generation in Labour are now mounting their anti-Corbyn campaign while desperately trying to find a way of legitimizing the managerial discourse which, in effect, made Labour indistinguishable from the Tories.

The second fault line is national, and has to do with the very future of the United Kingdom. In the last general elections Labour actually increased its vote but lost dismally, especially in Scotland (where the Labour movement was founded). If it wants to be back as a British party the Scottish issue is crucial to Labour. Whoever is Leader must face the fact that Labour cannot afford to remain fractured in Scotland and under constant siege in England. Some would still argue that Wales is still healthy for Labour, but again that is a relative point.

The irony is that while some argue that Labour lost in England because it appeared to move to the Left under Miliband’s direction, in Scotland it has been suffering from a steady hemorrhage of votes because it was and is regarded as being on the Right and no different from the Tories. (Blair is not exactly loved here in Scotland even though he was the PM who oversaw devolution in Scotland and Wales).

To that effect a new Labour leader is not only facing the challenge to distinguish the Labour Party from the Conservative Party and win the votes it lost to the Greens, the SNP and UKIP. A new Labour leader is also facing the challenge to keep Britain together, or at best to remain relevant to the whole of Britain if the UK survives the EU referendum. (Do bear in mind that the SNP are arguing that if English voters decide to leave the EU while the Scots do not, that would be a circumstance for another referendum for Scottish Independence). 

So before one simply looks at this leadership as a case of left/right relativism with Corbyn adding spice to what would have otherwise been as a rather bland contest between candidates who broadly agree on the managerial agenda, one needs to look at what is happening elsewhere in the UK — particularly in Scotland, where the Nationalists are perceived as the democratic socialists of today, and in England and Wales where the perception is as mixed as it comes.

Last but not least, let us not forget that now Westminster is not simply dominated by two large parties with some small parties thrown in for luck. Rather, thanks to first past the post, Westminster now represents a disproportioned picture, where seats do not actually correspond with the voting patterns of a British electorate that is far more diverse than ever before. The millions of votes gained by Greens and UKIP (which did not translate into seats) and the strong presence of an SNP opposition (which was inflated by first past the post) cannot be ignored, less so by a future Labour leader.