In the fallout of
Labour’s worst election defeat in a generation there is much speculation about
which previous election defeat it most resembles.
Superficially, the pre-election idiocy of Miliband’s
concrete block appeared to have a similar effect to Neil Kinnock’s triumphalist
speech at the Sheffield Rally on the eve of the 1992 general election. There were other parallels with 1992 as well. Most notably, in the run up to that election
the opinion polls were predicting a Labour win.
However, the exit poll taken on the day suggested that the result would
be much tighter. Initially, the pundits
thought a minority Labour government would be the outcome. However, as the night wore on and the results
came in, a Tory minority government looked more likely. And when the dust settled and the last votes
were counted, we ended up with a Tory government with very narrow majority similar
to today.
But these parallels are too superficial, and serve to
obscure deeper seated problems for Labour.
Indeed, just five years on in 1997 Labour secured a spectacular majority
– something that is highly unlikely to be repeated in 2020. This has caused some commentators to wonder
if Labour’s predicament today might be similar to that facing Michael Foot
following the spectacular defeat in 1983.
Labour went into that election a divided force. The left – championed by Tony Benn – were pulling
in one direction while the old guard of the right – championed by the likes of
Denis Healy – wanted to go the opposite way.
The manifesto that was finally cobbled together, and on which the
hapless Foot went into the election came to be termed “the longest suicide note
in history”. It was so out of touch with
popular opinion that it gave the Thatcher government (basking in their triumph
over Argentina in the Falklands War) an even bigger majority than they had won in
their landslide 1979 victory. Indeed, it
ushered in a further fourteen years of Tory government.
It is my view that neither of these examples fully reflects
the crisis that the Labour Party currently faces. It is not just that they seem unable to find
a credible leader – Miliband was no worse than any other leadership
pretender. Nor is it just that Labour is
a divided force with the so-called “Blairites” on one side and an old-left on
the other – although there is also a truth to this. Both the divide in the ranks and the
inability to choose a credible leader are actually the symptoms of a much
deeper existential crisis that can be summed up in the simple question, “what
is Labour for?”
The fact that none of the Labour leadership contenders can
offer a coherent narrative of the issues facing the country they claim to want
to lead, still less a credible alternative to the Tory austerity programme,
beyond a stream of buzz words such as “aspiration” and “hard-working families”
illustrates the bankruptcy of a once great party. The fact that the nearest they can get to a
genuine political debate is an argument about whether they need to go back to 1997 or 1945 is evidence that
they are now a spent force. This, for
me, suggests an entirely different election parallel – and, indeed a different
party… 1922.
1922 marks the real beginning of an independent Labour Party
as a force in British politics. Indeed,
just two years later the Labour Party formed its first (minority)
government. However, it is not this Labour
Party’s fortunes that are a parallel for the Labour Party of today. Rather, the parallel is with the Liberal Party of 1922. For 1922 was the year that the Tories finally
rebelled against the Liberal-Tory coalition that was first formed in 1915 to
prosecute the First World War. The
result of the ensuing general election was a Tory victory and the end of the Liberal
Party as a party of government (with the brief exception of some posts outside
the war cabinet 1940-45) prior to its recent brief period as a junior coalition
party.
To understand the parallels between Labour today and the
Liberals then, we need to go back to their respective election victories in
1906 and 1997. In both 1906 and 1997,
the Tory Party was tired and internally divided – in 1906 over the Empire, in
1997 over Europe. In the face of these
failing Tory governments, opposition parties were swept into power on radical
programmes. Indeed, many Liberals in
1906 even referred to their party as “New Liberals” in the same way as Labour
supporters referred to “New Labour” in 1997.
The 1906 Liberal Government was one of the most radical reforming
administrations that Britain has ever seen – perhaps second only to the Labour
Government of 1945-51. It introduced a
raft of social reforms including the first state pensions. It also broke the power of the House of
Lords, removing their ability to prevent the Commons from introducing legislation. After 1911, the Lords would become a
secondary chamber – revising, but ultimately having to pass government
legislation. It is easy to dismiss the
New Labour government as being anything but radical given its decline
throughout the 2000s. However, it is
worth remembering that New Labour introduced sweeping reforms. They introduced the Human Rights Act. They created the devolved governments in
Scotland, Wales, London and Northern Ireland.
They introduced the minimum wage.
And they finally rid the House of Lords of its hereditary peers.
Then came WAR! The Liberals effectively blundered their way
into an Eastern European conflict that offered no benefit and many serious
problems to an already over-stretched British Empire. Although not allied to Russia and France – and
thus unable to steer their policy – senior Liberals including Asquith and
Churchill were only too happy to enter the war against Germany. Others – most notably Lloyd George – needed some
pretext on which to go to war. New
Labour’s war was a much more cynical and calculated affair that involved far
more deceit than had the First World War. The Iraq war was about the USA’s addiction to
oil. The aim, quite simply, was to
install a pro-western regime that would continue to provide the USA with oil. This was deceitfully dressed up as a war
against a dictator who had been party to the attack on the World Trade Centre in
September 2001, and who had developed weapons of mass destruction that could
target London within 45 minutes. At
least the Lloyd-George Liberals of August 1914 could point to the reality of
the German invasion of Belgium as a pretext for war.
The First World War split the Liberals just as the invasion
of Iraq was to split Labour. As Kenneth O. Morgan reflects:
“There was a big argument over
conscription in the winter of 1915-1916. Here was a fundamental issue for
Liberals. How wholeheartedly were they committed to fighting the war? The Home
Secretary, a Liberal, John Simon, resigned. Asquith seemed dilatory, unable to
make up his mind. Lloyd George was working with the Conservatives. In the end,
military conscription was introduced for all males between 18 and 45 years of
age but it was a hugely divisive factor within the Liberal Party. It embodied
the key principle between, if you like, total war on the one hand and civil
liberties on the other hand, rather the kind of argument we have had in Britain
latterly which exercised us in the House of Lords about counter terrorism
legislation. How do you strike the balance between security and freedom? And
during this period, a group of Liberals drew up a list of perhaps a hundred
backbencher Liberals who said if there was a crisis, a showdown, they would
support Lloyd George as Prime Minister and not Asquith.”
One of the key reasons for the Labour defeat and the LibDem
gains in 2010 were the large number of Labour voters who chose to vote LibDem
in the belief that a Labour-LibDem coalition government would be less
authoritarian and warmongering than a Labour majority government – although, as
it turned out, such tactical voting in a First Past The Post system can have
results diametrically opposite to those desired. However, it is the post war years that should
be most worrying for today’s Labour Party.
In 1915, the Liberals had been forced into coalition with the
Tories. And when the war ended, the
coalition continued at the expense of Liberal Party unity. Internally divided, the Liberals faced a
challenge from the left from an emerging minority party… Labour.
Similarly, today an internally divided Labour Party finds
itself outflanked on the social democratic left by the Scottish National Party,
the English Green Party and Plaid Cymru in Wales. At the same time, it finds itself outflanked
on the populist right by UKIP. And while
none of these smaller parties look set to form a government any time soon, as with
Labour in relation to the Liberals in the 1920s, they can secure enough votes
and seats to keep Labour out of office.
By 1922 it was far from clear what the Liberal Party was
for. This is not to take anything away
from the reforms they brought about. It
is simply to state that they no longer spoke for any sizable constituency in
the UK that was not more effectively represented elsewhere. In 2015, Labour faces a similar problem. It can still present itself as the party that
introduced devolution, the minimum wage and the NHS. But these are all fading into history. And outweighing these historic relics is a
party internally divided and unable to define its purpose, let alone appeal to
any sizeable proportion of the electorate.
What Labour experienced in May 1915 was the end of the
Blairite coalition of interests that secured electoral success in 1997. Labour can no longer articulate the political
interests of its core working class support without alienating a whole swathe
of middle England. On the other hand,
where it has attempted to appeal to middle England it simply served to drive
its core voters into the arms of the Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru and UKIP.
Labour may well be reduced to obscurity within the next
decade. Nor is it inconceivable that
they will be replaced by a social democratic alliance (Greens and Nationalists)
on the left or a populist UKIP on the right as the second party in UK
politics. If they are to avoid this,
Labour will need to do much more than elect a new leader or engage in internal navel-gazing. Only by reaching out to the whole plethora of
campaigning groups, trades unions, and single issue groups can Labour hope to weld
together a new coalition of interests that can deliver a future Labour
government.
Of one thing we can be sure, if the next Labour leader
serves up more of the same, then – like the Liberals before them – Labour will
be a long way along the road to oblivion.
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