The UK General
Election result suggests that the Labour party needs to make one crucial
decision during the so called `period of reflection`. Do they want to win a
General Election again or are they content to remain in opposition
indefinitely? Regardless of personalities or leaders or pressure groups this is
the moment they have to decide. Political parties do have to make this kind of
decision and it’s wrong too for them to cling doggedly onto `traditional`
values when the world has changed so much. Surely politicians are there to
carry out the will of the people whatever that may be? They may guide,
persuade, cajole, even lecture us but as yesterday proved the people will have their own way. The
Conservatives in general- and Boris Johnson in particular- now seem to
understand this. Its time Labour did too- or else they won’t be in government
any time soon.
Whatever the
rights or wrongs of its content the Conservative message cut through the
campaign – in a similar way to the Brexit message back in the referendum-
whereas Labour’s did not. They may whinge about biased media and so on but I
saw as much Labour stuff as Conservative stuff across multiple media and the
latter was clearer and more direct. Labour’s agenda was awkward to summarise
and once you got into the detail fiscally unlikely. Of course the `Get Brexit
done` slogan is meaningless because once we actually leave that is only the
start of things but it worked because it seemed like they were looking forward.
Labour seemed as if they were looking back.
There were
certainly important issues that swayed some Labour voters to turn- Brexit of
course, also Labour’s alleged anti
Semitism, and for some Corbyn’s leadership style- and there was the impact of
the Brexit party – but there was also the fact that their keynote policies
scared people more than Brexit. After a policy drought that seemed to stretch
back to Ed Miliband’s leadership, Labour suddenly over compensated and flooded
their manifesto with about three Parliament’s worth of policies. These were
just too radical, too backward looking and unaffordable in the terms they put
it. The idea that just the richest 5% would pay for them was a fantasy. Middle
earners would all pay a lot more tax to fund and maintain all those
re-nationalisations and people knew it. Older people too recalled how the late
1970s proved the economic damage a Labour government could do was worse than
any austerity and they saw a return to Trade Union dominated politics- strikes
and huge pay rises only for those who could hold the country to ransom. Nobody
wants to go back to that; Socialism doesn’t work these days as an election gambit.
All of this – plus the unresolved anti-semitism claims which caused my MP to
quit the party- were the reasons why during the campaign I hesitated about
voting Labour. Many others clearly not just hesitated but actually voted
elsewhere.
I have no idea
what Labour could put in a manifesto that would capture the country’s head and
heart the way they did in 1997 and at present neither do they. They now likely
have a full five years to find out, extract what works from a Labour point of
view and package it in a way that will grab our attention. They also need to
find a way to win back some of those Scottish seats without which the
mathematics makes it difficult for them to win any General Election. By the
time of the next election we’ll know how Brexit really played out and after
about fifteen years in government the Conservatives will have no-one else to
blame and nowhere to hide. It should be a natural environment for a Labour
victory – but only if they really want it.
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