During the 80s and 90s I wrote a lot of articles on the issues and debates within Labour during its years in the wilderness. Clearing out some old stuff I came across three of them written in 1983, 1987 and this one in 1993. Each attracted controversy - I was variously denounced as disloyal, defeatist, treacherous and a wide-eyed maverick.

Whatever! Judge for yourself.

Re-reading them many years on it struck me that, for those who have never experienced either opposition or the political battles that take place in opposition, they might make interesting reading.  I’ve not changed anything, but have added a few up-to date footnotes to explain stuff that time may have obscured.  

 

From the 1979 election politics to the left of center in the UK were in a state of flux. In both 1983 and 1987 General Elections Labour narrowly escaped falling to third place in the popular vote. After the Party’s fourth consecutive defeat in 1992 the question ‘will Labour ever govern again?’ was a recurring topic of debate.

It wasn’t long before that question was answered, however, an opportunity to change the terms of debate in British politics continued to exist throughout the 1990s. The emergence of New Labour made that opportunity clearer and more achievable, unfortunately, however, it proved too big a shift and too difficult a vision.

That time has gone, but the ideas in this article remain relevant. Labour may yet come to regret its inability to grasp the chance to truly transform the nature of Government in the UK when it had the chance.

 

It is also worth mentioning that this article was edited for length by taking out an interesting anecdotal chunk (I forget what, exactly) at the beginning - as a result it starts rather suddenly…

 

Living with the Liberal Democrats: Why Socialists Need Coalition Politics

Though Labour outperformed its vote in 1992[i], assertions that Labour can never again win an election with a ‘working majority’ are insupportable ahistorical nonsense. What is neither nonsense nor treachery is understanding that the psephological and cultural trends continue to run against Labour, making even a one-off victory ever more difficult to achieve.

Labour may well be capable of forming governments, or even, as it did by default in 1974, of ‘winning’ elections without the co-operation of other forces. However, if Labour is to succeed in changing society in any real way we must construct a post-Thatcherite settlement. As Labour has proved unable to win substantial support within the most important, fastest growing parts of Britain it is hard to see how the Party can do so on its own.

Labour cannot any longer pretend to represent all things to all non-Conservatives. Support for the Liberals has persisted in the range of 18 per cent to 28 per cent for twenty years. It is increasingly incredible (as well as utterly counterproductive) to dismiss a fifth of the voters as irrelevant. Labour’s project must now be to construct a new coalition capable of providing an alternative to the Conservatives as a serious party of government and of building a new political settlement. If that settlement is to include electoral reform, as it must, then we have to understand that this probably means coalition government. Socialists should embrace the opportunities that coalition politics offers and Labour must now seek to build bridges with our potential allies. The issue for socialists is now how best to influence society from within a pluralistic social framework. It would be a wonderful world if Labour could select its potential allies from a short-list. But it isn’t a wonderful world. Life with the Liberals is something which, sooner or later, Labour will have to get used to.

This seems obvious, yet it is still official heresy. One of the reasons is the national starting point which is still conditioned by the hallucinogenic effect of ‘the parliamentary majority’. More than the other parties, Labour was comfortable with the old certainties. A world of two competing ideologies suited our self-perception as the sole alternative to Conservatism in Britain. Virtually every shade of red within Labour’s painfully broad spectrum conceived of a country run exclusively by socialists and easily came to terms with a Thatcherism in which socialists were excluded from any form of power or influence. The open admiration of Margaret Thatcher’s methods from the old left was best summed up by Denis Skinner’s oft repeated rant: “we need a Labour Government which will be as partisan for the working class as she is for the upper class.” Thatcherite tactics were therefore acceptable, the parliamentary majority was everything, and for many it still is.

But the uncomfortable fact is that Labour cannot recover under the current electoral system in the bulk of south-east England. A critical factor which tips the balance against Labour’s restoration as the anti-Conservative coalition is the regional nature of the Party’s support. Through huge tracts of Tory heartland there are often few local members, local representatives, or voters. Unfortunately for Labour, the south-east of England is the engine room of British politics - there may be more marginals in the English midlands and the north-west, but the trends which tip those marginals are set firmly in the south-east. What makes the situation irretrievable is that the electorate, by and large, know this all too well. There are lots of people who would vote Labour if they felt that Labour had a chance but they know Labour doesn’t have a chance. So, what should be done?

The Christchurch Popular Front

We need to take into account our experience ‘on the ground’, in the localities. One version of ‘rebuilding from the base’ and succeeding in the South has been put forward by Southampton MP and Christchurch ‘minder’, John Denham[ii]. He offers nothing startlingly new: Labour can only defeat its rivals with effective pavement politics and community based campaigning. As one who has practiced the art with few equals John’s position is doubtless sincerely held and is the correct approach for local parties to follow. Indeed, Labour’s success in Reading is built on community-based campaigning and effective networking among the electorate which has established Labour as the natural party for one-time Liberal voters to support. However, as a regional political strategy his idea of a pavement-based revival falls apart. Labour doesn’t have the membership, the networks, the legitimacy to make a success of this strategy outside the urban areas and a few exceptional islets of local strength. Joining the Labour Party where Labour has no representation is something that the kind of people who can make community-based campaigning a success just don’t do. People who want to make a contribution to their local community, who want to make a difference, who want (God forbid) actually to help people, will not usually join a vehicle that is patently incapable of enabling them to do so. People who become involved with Labour in such areas either migrate from elsewhere or join because they are nationally motivated, because they are ‘against’ something, or, sadly, because they enjoy being outsiders. The image of the village hall, parish council, residents’ association, non- political charity jumble sale does not sit easily with Labour’s self-image as the peoples’ party - perhaps it should, but it doesn’t. Expecting a Labour revival in the south to be based solely upon this sort of community networking is stretching credulity to the limit.

One Step Beyond

What happened in several of the traditionally Tory southern counties of England in the 1993 county council elections was in part a reflection of frustration with Labour’s lack of strategy for the south of England, in part a reaction to the 1992 defeat, but also a response to the undoubted wish of the Labour electorate to see the Conservatives removed from power by whatever means necessary.

During the campaign the media spotlight focused on Berkshire in general and Reading in particular. The facts of what took place are straightforward enough and are a matter of public record[iii]. Essentially, following the County Council Group’s decision to ignore Labour’s absurd local government rules and in order to deprive the Conservatives of their 103-year hold on Berkshire, Labour in Reading decided not to stand in two divisions where the Liberals lost narrowly in 1989. Those two seats had then given the Tories control of the County.

Reading’s decision was never intended to be a decision with a national focus and, had it not been for Walworth Road’s knee-jerk rule book bashing, it need not have been. A little diplomacy goes a long way with normally loyal Labour members, but the reaction of members in Reading to being ordered about by the people who had just lost us our fourth general election on the trot was, ‘it’s our Party too - so mind your own business’ (or Anglo-Saxon terms to that effect). Diplomacy is a word that the Kinnock years had blotted out of the Walworth Road vocabulary. It is usually a good principle to keep local elections local. This was the obvious, dismissive route for Labour, but the initial over reaction built ‘pacts’ into the only story running about May’s elections. While I have some sympathy for those who claim this was and is a pain to deal with, I can’t help but think they have made a rod for their own backs. Every time Labour tries to impose an indefensible line or an incredible set of rules on local parties it creates a potential public relations monster. Local democracy is, and should be, about local circumstances. I don’t find it at all a problem that there are 57 different varieties of local coalition, administration, or controlled chaos in town and county halls where Labour has influence.

Though Reading’s spat with Walworth Road was and is a distraction, it is worth a passing reference. Perhaps it’s foolish to expect better from Walworth Road, but in all the months of pointless exchanges it never occurred to anyone to ask Labour members in Reading why they were doing what they were doing and what they thought they would achieve. The decision was driven by two key motives. First, Labour needed a tactical focus. By making clear through the local media exactly what Labour’s targets were the message of how to vote tactically was communicated very effectively to previously confused anti-Conservative voters. Equally, the message that Labour was hungry for power and was prepared to do what was necessary was a powerful motivating factor for the Labour electorate. The result was Labour sweeping all its targets, including four in Bracknell where Labour had been dead and where the Tories were very well organised. Those who talk of rebuilding Labour in the south should check the facts before they criticise Reading’s approach.

Second, there was a long-term imperative to exclude the Conservatives from power Berkshire’s Tories had, within the Local Government Review, stated their intention to put forward a model of local government which was not only anti-democratic and which embodied everything against which Labour had been working locally and nationally for many years but which also would have excluded Labour from any prospect of power at any level within the county. Their vision was Thatcherite in the extreme and in many respects even too way out for the Tory right, but it was being taken seriously by some and could well have been used as a ‘model’. It was and is one of the reasons for the establishment of a Labour-Liberal coalition.

It’s power Jim, but not as we know it

The Liberals did rather better than we could have expected in Berkshire. The Newbury by-election gave them three seats that they could not otherwise have gained and the climate of Newbury undoubtedly changed the pattern of those elections nationally. They ended up the largest party in Berkshire with Labour second and the Tories third. Labour enhanced its position in the coalition, though, now with a joint leadership of the Council. After a lengthy search for a ‘form of words’, Walworth Road bowed to the inevitable and gave in to Berkshire’s position of de factocoalition politics. Condoning the position of Labour Groups taking committee chairs without an overall majority, David Blunkett described the position of Labour in these authorities as ‘not power as we know it’.[iv] As someone who grew up amid the power politics of Andy Cunningham and the late (some would add great) T. Dan Smith, I think I know what he means, but it is the only power that Labour in Berkshire, Hampshire or East Sussex has ever known. In the context of Labour’s project to be seen and accepted as a party of government we cannot shrink from any opportunity to take power and use it. There is a value judgement in David’s comment that goes to the heart of the matter. It is that big Labour majorities are always better than coalitions. If your vision of socialism is based on telling people what’s good for them then that contention holds water. If not then there is a certain merit in arguing your politics, persuading people who won’t automatically agree with you that you might have a point. In opposition you can win the argument as often as you like and it doesn’t matter. In coalition if you win the argument you have a better than even chance of getting what you want.

Labour’s establishment are appalled by the idea that we hold joint meetings with members of the Liberal Party. They must have long since given up any confidence in their case: it you don’t meet with the Liberals how on earth do you persuade them of anything. There is just as much horror at the idea that coalitions might just be good things, that co-operation between politicians of different parties is an idea worth promoting positively. The conventional wisdom of forming minority governments and administrations is fatally flawed (though it depends just how much of a minority you are in). The idea that a Labour run council based on 30 per cent or so of the local vote is as crazy as it is anti-democratic. Collaborative government is not just something which comes out of necessity. It can and should be part of Labour administrations with or without an overall majority. Collaborative styles include public forums which give a voice to and draw from the experiences of local groups beyond party boundaries, which enable a realistic involvement of minority communities in the government of their town or city, and which empower people regarding the key questions directly affecting them. Labour is too narrow an organisation to govern and any level entirely from within itself: we do not reflect the totality of society - which is not necessarily a bad thing if you believe that society needs to change.

The Liberals bring to the party a strange cocktail. In some ways they are a party even more uncomfortable in power than Labour. Working closely with them it is easy to see how they fail to resolve what are essentially questions of tactics and elevate them into point of principle. ‘Doing a Maastricht’ is all about maintaining the purity of your position regardless of consequence. It is, in a way, ultra-leftist and is undoubtedly irresponsible. But life in the Liberals is usually about dreaming up clever sounding policies; it is rarely about implementation. That’s why it was so easy for Ashdown to out-left Labour in so many areas during the 1992 election. The Liberals can get away with putting forward radical sounding ideas which people can ‘approve of’ in the sure and certain knowledge that they won’t have to live with them. Luxuriating on the fringes of political life has cultivated an almost unearthly aura around some Liberal activists. Very much the same aura I have experienced at Labour Party GCs, particularly in London. And then some of them are pretty right wing, sexist, racist, middle-aged males - a bit like some of the Labour Party or trades union gatherings I’ve been forced to sit through. But perhaps the most irritating thing is that many rank and file Liberals see themselves as almost non-political while at the same time being ultra-partisan. Of course we all know that every single Labour Party branch meeting reverberates with in-depth political discussion and ideological cut and thrust. I think not! In fact, for just about every damning comment I hear thrown at the Liberals there is an equivalent that can be thrown at Labour.

What I see when I look at the Liberals - sorry, Liberal Democrats - is for the most part a mirror image of Labour. (It is worth underlining that I am making an observation about Liberals in the south, which is where it matters; though in the north of England it is different and wouldn’t it just be typical if it were those Liberal attitudes that Labour’s out-of-touch hierarchy allowed to determine our strategy?). The differences are now largely cultural. For example, most Liberals have no concept of trade union culture and those who do generally don’t see eye-to-eye with it. It means that conclusions are often reached in isolation, consideration is not given to the likely effect in a particular sector of society. Watching the Liberals attempt to understand working people should confirm to those who doubt that the union link (in whatever form) is of lasting value to Labour. The other really obvious difference is their almost complete lack of discipline coupled with a ruthless parochialism. Even those Liberals who fit more or less into Labour’s social and political mould would be defecting at the first sign of a whip. In this regard it is interesting to observe the frustration of the former Social Democrats with the old Liberals. I regularly overhear conversations between veteran SDs which go roughly: ‘The trouble with Liberals is that they’ve got no ideology, no sense of discipline.’

Liberals also have a different approach to equality and a different concept of fairness, less a question of redress and more of charity than that of Labour. Though they consider themselves motivated by individual rights in the abstract they seem to fail to connect to some fairly obvious examples of social injustice. At their root is the lack of any really critical analysis of the market and why inequality arises within capitalist society. This statement may seem blindingly obvious to the point of being mildly crass, but the point is that working with people who do not share your worldview is an experience which forces you to question and re-examine the basis of your thinking, which forces you to decide what is special about Labour, what exactly it is that you are bringing to the party.

Morbid Symptoms and New Partnerships

The extraordinary reaction to the current Liberal surge ignores the historical significance of Liberal revivals as a morbid symptom of a dying political order. The Liberals fill a vacuum when no alternative has yet arisen: in the early 1960s when the Conservatives reached the end of their credibility; in the early 1970s as the post-war consensus disintegrated and in the early 1980s as the anti-Tory coalition that was Labour fell apart. In each case something new came along to replace what had died: Wilson’s Labour Party, Thatcherism, Kinnock’s re-assertion of the Labour Party. The current Liberal revival sees the Conservatives running out of road, but with little yet on offer to replace them. That alternative vision must embody concepts which Thatcherism excluded - openness, pluralism, consent and empowerment.

On Labour’s road back from the dead, the realisation that there is a need to build bridges with potential coalition partners is just another step which we must take. It is one certain to prove as painful as many we have taken so far. Despite the electoral arrangements which helped to trigger this debate, pacts or stand down deals on a national basis probably don’t form part of the picture in the short term, though they should not be ruled out. The Newbury and Christchurch by-elections don’t prove much, but they do illustrate just how impossible it is for Labour to hold its vote when there is an obvious and easy alternative protest vote likely to beat the Conservatives. If the tactical vote is sufficiently obvious there is little need for Labour to withdraw candidates.[v] The way ahead does involve the acknowledgement of common ground where common ground exists rather than seeking to manufacture differences. The building of cross- and multi-party forums, which will represent a wider spectrum of society than the Conservatives can hope to, are part of that road. It should involve the continued building of alliances at the base and allowing local circumstances, not outmoded rules to determine local action. It means spelling out an understanding that a Conservative defeat of any sort will result in stable long-term government in which co-operation is automatically part of the agenda. Most of all, it means grasping finally that a change to the electoral system is a necessary part of any democratic agenda for Britain.

New political cultures are not built overnight - and this is what we are talking about. To start we need some straight talking: it does not imply defeatism, merely realism; it does not imply writing off large areas of the country merely acknowledging a twenty year trend; it does not involve writing off our own vote - it is merely serving our voters’ ambition to have their party in government. This sort of straight talking is required, not in the last week of an election campaign when it is bound to be disastrous and signal weakness, but in the years and months beforehand.[vi] In spelling out an agenda for collaborative government, Labour forces a repositioning of the Liberals as a more explicitly anti-Conservative force and may, in many respects, neutralise them as an anti-Labour force. These are the steps of re-engaging in political debate which can not only lead to a healthier political culture, but can force Labour to rediscover its soul, to re-enthuse its own electorate and to learn again how to capture the radical yet responsible edge so essential to a socialist party.

---

 [i]See MORI’s survey on the 1992 election commissioned by the GMB.

[ii]J.Y. Denham, Tribune, 30 July 1993.

[iii] S. Baxter, ‘Berkshire’s Liberal Tendency’, New Statesman and Society, 30 April 1993. R. Crampton, ‘Middle England on the March’, The Times Magazine, 1 May 1993. M. Linton, The Guardian, 27 April 1993.

[iv]D. Blunkett, Speech to LCC ‘Modernising Britain’ Conference, Sheffield June 1993.

[v]D. Marquand, ‘Nice People These Liberals’, Fabian Review, June 1993.

[vi]Ironically, Roy Hattersley speaking in ‘Kinnock- The Inside Story’, ITV August 1993, sums up the problem in the last days of the 1992 campaign well. ‘We gave the impression that we might have supported PR.’