/>Some questions for “Next Generation Labour”
Next Generation Labour launched today, founded by several former Compass Youth Committee members. I can’t speak for the rest of the Young Fabian Executive, but to my mind there is plenty of space on the left for a plurality of ideas, perspectives, and youth organisations.* To that extent, the launch should be welcomed.
But reading their founding statement, I was left with some questions which I think Next Generation Labour’s founders should take seriously.
The founding statement says:
“…for so many of our generation, Labour became a party of the establishment. It failed to ensure growth was shared fairly enough – whilst the very wealthiest got ever richer; it raised tuition fees, pursued war, attacked civil liberties and let immigration be demonised.
To win, Labour must be willing to articulate a modern left politics and reconnect with the coalition of supporters it lost and the vast majority opposed to the Tories’ reactionary agenda.”
I’m not sure I fully agree.
If the electorate were really concerned about the ‘problems’ of Labour in government – rich getting richer, rises in tuition fees, a government pursuing war, letting immigration be demonised – then why did the Tories win a majority of the votes, and the chance to form a Coalition government who have gone on to do exactly those things?
Will Labour win the next general election solely by appealing to those opposed to the Tories? This seems unlikely to me – any general election victory will have to be built on winning over some people who supported the Conservatives at the last election. Surely these form part of the “coalition of supporters [Labour] lost”, too?
Moreover, are there enough people opposed to the Conservatives who will vote for a change in government at the next election? How might Coalition politics affect that?
Isn’t being seen as the establishment inevitable if you become a party of government? Aren’t constraints the inevitable trade-off in return for the ability to effect change as a governing party?
Is this founding statement therefore just an opposition’s charter?
My main concern is that the genuine desire on the left to “articulate a modern left politics” – shared by more than just “Next Generation Labour”, incidentally – could be the exact opposite of “reconnecting with the coalition of supporters [Labour] lost”.
Yes, Labour needs principles on which to hang any policies it puts forward at the next election (and in the intervening period). But those principles need to recognise the cold electoral facts the party faces.
Hoping that principle alone carries Ed Miliband through the door at Number 10 in four years time is wishful thinking. Establishing a new vision for the left on ground unappealing the broader electorate will likely only result in failure, however noble that vision is to the left.
It’s probably a dangerous game to quote Tony Blair, but seeing as he is the only Labour leader to have won a general election in the last 30 years, I’ll take my chances. Blair once said: “Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile.”
That, in essence, sums up the challenge Next Generation Labour – and the rest of us – face in the coming months and years: balancing our core beliefs and principles against the shifting sands of public opinion.
Alex Baker is Secretary of the Young Fabians.
*Our own Caroline Alabi is part of the founding group of Next Generation Labour.
