The UK Labour Party’s new leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has the responsibility of returning the party to power whenever the next general elections is called. This is a Herculean task.
A fighter knocked out cold, and only later slowly regained consciousness, would forever be wary of exposing their chin to take a clean punch. That fighter, filled with self-doubt, is the UK Labour Party Sir Starmer has inherited. And has to challenge a Boris Johnson-led Conservative government that triumphed convincingly in the last bout of winter elections with an 80-seat parliamentary majority.
Many have said that had the UK Labour Party membership elected a wrong leader this past Saturday (and by wrong they mean Rebecca Long-Bailey), it would’ve been tantamount to reading out the great party’s obituary. And that Sir Starmer’s emergence as the new leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition party, thus leader of a government-in-waiting, marks the end of “far left” Corbynism. But is this true? Or better put: Does the UK Labour Party have to change its anti-austerity and big government policies in order to win power at the next elections?
A million social-housing to be built to eradicate homelessness and rough-sleeping, or that a swifter transition to a renewable energy powered economy by by 2030 to fight climate change — Green Industrial Revolution as Corbyn’s team termed it — seem to be common sense policies of countries comparative to the UK in the EU. In other words, far from being "far left", Corbynism seems to be the new “centre” of European and UK politics.
A fighter knocked out cold, and only later slowly regained consciousness, would forever be wary of exposing their chin to take a clean punch. That fighter, filled with self-doubt, is the UK Labour Party Sir Starmer has inherited. And has to challenge a Boris Johnson-led Conservative government that triumphed convincingly in the last bout of winter elections with an 80-seat parliamentary majority.
Many have said that had the UK Labour Party membership elected a wrong leader this past Saturday (and by wrong they mean Rebecca Long-Bailey), it would’ve been tantamount to reading out the great party’s obituary. And that Sir Starmer’s emergence as the new leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition party, thus leader of a government-in-waiting, marks the end of “far left” Corbynism. But is this true? Or better put: Does the UK Labour Party have to change its anti-austerity and big government policies in order to win power at the next elections?
A million social-housing to be built to eradicate homelessness and rough-sleeping, or that a swifter transition to a renewable energy powered economy by by 2030 to fight climate change — Green Industrial Revolution as Corbyn’s team termed it — seem to be common sense policies of countries comparative to the UK in the EU. In other words, far from being "far left", Corbynism seems to be the new “centre” of European and UK politics.
But, for sure, there’s no greater verdict in politics than election results. UK Labour Party under Corbyn suffered its greatest defeat in living memory of the many. The public like what we like, rightly or wrongly. And we arrive at that choice with a sense of judgement we share in common. It’s why manufacturers budget billions annually for advertising campaigns, knowing that the associations we make with their product (how the product makes us feel) matters just as much — if not more — as the utility of that product in compelling us to make that decision to part with our cash to buy it.
The mass of the public’s perception of the outgoing Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, spread by word of mouth, was that he’s “unpatriotic”, not “prime ministerial” and, most damning of all, “anti-Semitic”. It didn’t matter that he had an array of policies to reposition the UK for the twenty-first century. Whether it was putting patients before profits in the NHS, re-inflating the economy by increasing the minimum wage to £10/hour, or overall huge infrastructure spending across the four nations of the kingdom. And with coronavirus (COVID-19) now forcing the majority of us to work from home, the idea that the government should ensure hi-speed internet in all UK households as utility, no longer appears like “broadband communism”.
So, in my view, the task before Sir Starmer isn’t to think up new socioeconomic policies different from the party’s thrust since 2015 under Ed Miliband, but to make the UK Labour Party once again appealing to the majority of the UK voting public. That mission would involve rebuilding solidarity between former mining towns and leafy communities; intelligently squaring the circle of aligning interests of the working-class, the middle-class and the upper-class, not pitting these groups one against another as it appeared to be under Corbyn.
The UK “left” will have to unite behind Sir Starmer to tell this compelling story and keep Labour values of solidarity and justice alive in the public’s mind. The COVID-19 pandemic, as is said in political circles, is a crisis that mustn’t be allowed to go to waste. Boris Johnson’s Conservative government’s “whatever it takes” stimulus package in response to the crisis has already made the Tories unrecognisable to “small government” conservatives.
The Labour Party must now use this overwhelming public mood to push-back those hostile pre-Covid conservative narratives, reminding the public of the benefits of multicultural Britain. And why re-distributive policies that protect dignity of working-class beneficiaries will forever trump philanthropic aid of their betters in form of food-banks and scholarships to public schools or grammar schools.
Left-leaning media publications like The Guardian, Novara Media, The Tribune and think-tanks like Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS) have a job to do too. It’s only those who paid little or no attention to heavy-lifting done by the “Intellectual Dark Web”, and anonymously-funded Rightwing think-tanks, who still think Brexit or the 80-seat Conservative majority happened overnight. I wrote about the IWD last year, of how through blogs, YouTube channels and then large hall gatherings, this group of convincing orators chipped away at progressive consensus around the welfare state, immigration to Britain and the EU membership with vague terms like “legitimate concerns”, “virtue-signalling” and “identity politics”.
Sir Starmer has set the right tone for his opposition leadership. He’ll support the UK Government to overcome this current coronavirus crisis, and simultaneously point out the government’s mistakes along the way. He terms this “constructive criticism”. I’m sure the UK public will warm to that tone at such a time as this, and will gradually feel they can trust him with the top job. His test of seeing Jewish members who had left the UK Labour Party return to its fold as prove that anti-Semitism has been ridden out of the party is also a perfect one.
There’ll be difficult times ahead for Sir Starmer before the next general elections, especially when it comes to Brexit. But, so far, going by his measured approach to the issue when he was Shadow Brexit Minister, and the goals he’s now set for himself as Party Leader, Sir Starmer seems up to that task.
And to end on a personal note. Despite donating to the UK Labour Party for the first time during Corbyn’s leadership because of his policy thrust, I never felt compelled to join the party whenever that invite arrived in my inbox after each donation. Somehow, under this new leadership now I feel I do. Perhaps again it’s just that sense of judgement we the public share in common, and for which one cannot easily offer up an explanation.
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