This is the first piece in a discussion about the relationship between the left and the Labour Party. Writing shortly after the Labour leadership election, William Farrell dissects the weakness of the Labour left, and considers alternative routes to the rejuvenation of radical politics in Britain. Responses to the article will follow in the coming days.

As the recent leadership contest showed, the Labour Party barely has a left-wing worth the name. We can ignore the post-election ‘Red Ed’ scaremongering of course, which is now receding in any case. It is becoming increasingly clear that Ed Miliband merely holds standard social democratic opinions, the kind leaders of centre-left parties are supposed to have. Roy Hattersley, scourge of the Bennites and Militant, backs him on this basis.  What of the left then? There are two socialist traditions in the party. The oldest, who became known as the ‘soft-left’ in the 1980s, conceives of socialism primarily as a form of ethical commitment and practice. It usually received little support from the unions, was committed to Parliamentarianism: its heroes are Aneurin Bevan and Michael Foot. The younger tradition - the ‘hard-left’ – emerged in the 1970s and developed a Marxian analysis of the state and capital. It backed the shop-stewards movement, and got behind Tony Benn in the early 1980s.

The ‘hard-left’ is now so disorganised it couldn’t even decide on a candidate for the leadership election, optimistically allowing two to stand right at the beginning. John McDonnell, with reservations, stood aside for Diane Abbott who then had to suffer the patronising sight of being lent nominations by David Miliband and Jack Straw. If the leadership contest had been run as one member one vote then she would have a come a respectable third place.  However, thanks to an electoral college biased towards MPs and MEPs she had to leave in the first round. The ‘soft-left’ despite cheerleading in the Guardian and New Statesman was no better: it had no representative in the race at all.

The left’s greatest effect now is not as an organised group, but as a bogeyman of the right used to scare party members (‘Do you want us to be unelectable again’). Such a situation would have seemed extraordinary to previous generations of left-wingers. Of course, the left never dominated the party in any period. As Tony Benn accurately summarised ‘The Labour Party has never been a socialist party; it’s just always had socialists in it.’

However, the left was always a sizeable force both among MPs and in the party outside Westminster. It had acknowledged leaders to rally around and committed bodies of support at local level: the coalfields of South Wales and Yorkshire, London and Liverpool. In George Lansbury and Michael Foot it provided two of the party’s leaders. Cultivating the arts of platform rhetoric and literary polemic, it produced a long line of skilled speakers and journalists. The Party’s only contributions to publishing – the Daily Herald and Tribune - were both brainchilds of the left.

Indeed despite New Labour sermons about destructiveness of the ‘hard-left’, individual Labour left politicians have a commendable record. Aneurin Bevan was single-handedly responsible for the NHS, the Party’s most popular achievement. Benn, Barbara Castle and Michael Foot were all effective ministers. In two different eras, Ken Livingstone skilfully combined populism and innovative policies. The ‘loony left’ schemes of the GLC are now mainstream ideas in local government. ‘Fair’s Fare’ and the congestion charge were practical solutions to longstanding problems of London’s expensive public transport and gridlocked roads.

How does the current left compare to its predecessors in terms of leadership, communications, size and bases of support, and policy? In terms of leadership there is some cause for optimism, but little on any of the other criteria.

Leadership

In terms of media presence and personality Abbott was the best choice of leadership candidate. She also had the advantage of not being another white, male policy wonk. Unlike the others she actually looks comfortable talking to ordinary people and never has to strain for awkward ‘jokes’, as both the Milibands do so badly. However, Abbott is not going to become any kind of future leader of the left – that role will be John McDonnell’s. He has the campaigning experience, is respected by those outside the party and is certain to resume his role as the leading left MP from now on (admittedly from quite a small pool of candidates). Such a role would be directed through the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) the organisation founded by McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn to link socialists in Parliament, the wider party and unions.

Communications

The Socialist Campaign Group’s website has not been updated since 2008. Tribune, although still valiantly going, now seems mainly to provide insider gossip. Compass does better here, having a decent website and getting spokespeople in the media, in an already crowded market of think tanks and pressure groups. Even so, the left gets little airtime on television or discussion in the press. British political journalism, which concentrates mainly on personal manoeuvrings and image management, prefers serious criticism of government policy to come from academic or industry experts. More generally, the Labour left has also suffered from the declining influence of political parties within popular culture. The days of the left Book Club or Jimmy Reid appearing on Parkinson are long gone. The extra-parliamentary left, closer to the radical spirit of 1968 rather than the formal reforms of 1945, has fared better. Those wanting to discuss The Shock Doctrine or oppose airport expansion head there, rather than their local Labour Party branch.

Support

The left is now dangerously weak within the Parliamentary Party. The ‘hard-left’ faction, the Campaign Group of MPs, is small (about 14 members) and disunited. Abbott, who is a Campaign member, won only seven first preference votes from MPs (including her own) - all fellow comrades. The remaining Campaign members mainly voted for Ed Miliband; although Dennis Skinner, cussed to the last, cast only one vote: for David.  This division follows previous patterns. In the 2007 leadership election five Campaign members did not vote for McDonnell, their own candidate. One of these, as viewers of The Week will recall, was Abbott herself who sang the praises of Gordon Brown as a saviour of ‘real’ Labour.

The situation for the ‘soft-left’ is similar. In the 2007 deputy leadership election Cruddas’ lowest levels of support were amongst individual MPs.  This time the ‘left-winger’ voted for David Miliband, putting Ed Miliband as third choice. Aware of his lack of support among MPs, Cruddas has declined to stand for the shadow cabinet and said, “I don’t think the action is going to be in the parliamentary Labour party and I don’t think it’s going to be in the House of Commons ... the future for Labour is going to be out on the streets.”

In the rest of the party and its affiliates the situation is better – the mood is tacking to the left and the Blairites are being sidelined. In the leadership election, the most right-wing candidate lost and has Left frontline politics altogether. Other Blairites may well follow suit. As voting figures showed, Union members are now decisively to the left of the party – both Abbott and Ed Miliband received their biggest levels of support from affiliated members.

In further succour for the left, Ken Livingstone was elected to the NEC, as was Christine Shawcross from the LRC. ‘Lord’ Prescott failed to become party treasurer, losing to a Unite official, Diana Holland. At a local level the inner cities, especially London, are a focal point of the left. Livingstone overwhelmingly beat Oona King to be Labour’s candidate for London Mayor. Most Labour Representation Committee affiliated constitutencies and branches are in the capital and the North West.  Overall, it is possible to envisage a future where, with members and voters returning to the party thanks to an unpopular Con-Dem government, and with Compass, the LRC and the unions keeping the pressure on the leadership, the left could return to a more solid position.

The problem is converting this support into any kind of representation among MPs or in policy. The entire structure of the party as designed by Tony Blair gives maximum power to the leadership, and allows parliamentarians an easy ride. Labour is now the only party which does not have a one-member, one-vote election system for leader. Its electoral college is heavily weighted in favour of MPs and against party members and even more so against union members. Selection of those MPs is notoriously open to manipulation by the centre, not helped by a somewhat dormant membership.

The Party Conference has for years been a stage managed affair, with ridiculous fringe events sponsored by private companies seeking government contracts. It is considered a great achievement that this year ‘CLPs again have the right to submit motions to conference and delegates to vote on them’. The idea that members could take a leading role in shaping policy is unthinkable. So too is the idea that members should be campaigners rather than just canvassers. The praise heard for Citizens UK by senior party figures is telling – activism is good as long as it’s moderated by ‘faith groups’ and takes place outside the party.

Policy

Perhaps the most frustrating thing since the financial crisis has been both the lack of anger and lack of new ideas within the party. Cruddas’ emphasis on ‘values’ seems particularly unsuited to current needs. During the election campaign, Abbott made noises about the unequal nature of proposed spending cuts, but had no strategy for defeating them or detailed alternative economic policies. The crisis is crying out for some dogged, populist MPs to lead a campaign against deficit slashing, bankers’ bonuses and the ‘wisdom’ of financial markets. But none has come.

Real criticism has come from academic economists and commentators but has found little purchase on the Labour benches in parliament. Whilst the party was in government any critique of economic policy was necessarily muted. This was partly because Labour was ‘managing’ the crisis – party loyalty forbade any serious disagreements. But also, dissenters from the New Labour project had never really questioned its macro-economic policy. They couldn’t have a ‘we told you so’ moment even if they’d wanted one. Only Ed Balls, once he had the freedom of opposition, has mounted a serious assault on immediate deficit reduction as a strategy. Complaints about ‘Tory cuts’ from Labour backbenchers are not the same thing. They have to insist that this crisis is the fault of the financial sector and they must spell out alternative economic policies. They should highlight the anti-democratic position of elected politicians being forced to make public spending cuts more savage than 1979-83 ‘because the bond markets demand it’.

On issues like inequality, the situation is a little better. Ed Miliband has acknowledged the arguments of The Spirit Level and Labour run Islington Council has set up a Fairness Commission to be chaired by Richard Wilkinson himself.  However, it would be good for some of the harder arguments about the persistence of inequality from Danny Dorling, or the proposals for redistribution and democracy of the Real Utopias series, to be picked up. As it stands, most of the practical demands of the Left come from the unions e.g. the CWU’s call for the Post Office to become the ‘People’s Bank’. These are all to the good, but as a coherent programme it is rather fragmented, reflecting its sectional origins. The gaps that the left has to plug are filled with defensive pegs – defend council housing, comprehensive education etc. Of course this is out of necessity, but there must be space for more proactive proposals.

Does this matter?

For many socialist and greens outside the party such a situation won’t be surprising – it’s an inevitable consequence of being in a party whose sole focus is winning Westminster elections. Indeed, some would argue that the very idea of a party ‘representing’ people is bankrupt. These are long running arguments going right back to Labour’s founding. Over the years there have been some famous dissections of the Labour Party’s failings from Ralph Miliband and others. Susan Watkins recently warned[1] that any consolidation of the party’s Left would be ‘yielding nothing for the longer run except another parliamentary seat to count towards the reigning Labour politics – and renewal of the illusion that, one day, the party will be made afresh.’

These analyses are rightly famous, but they have never supplied a working alternative. All attempts to create another left party or movement have failed. Much of the left is uninterested in following the model of, say, the Dutch Socialist Party, as outlined by Steve McGiffen on NLP.  It longs instead for the heroic gesture or a great confrontation; it doesn’t want to build slowly up or deal with the everyday. Furthermore, the British left hasn’t run a successful mass campaign since the anti-Poll Tax movement. Single issue causes such as CND or Stop the War also failed to create the ‘new movements’ some hoped for. Why then should ‘anti-cuts’ be different?

Of course, a lack of Parliamentary support won’t make or break such a fight: the anti-Poll Tax campaign, for instance, had no official Labour Party backing. It would, however, be a great mistake to give up on political representation – having socialist politicians in parliament and councils, holding minsters to account, scrutinising legislation, and challenging the political common sense is a good thing. Political power still lies at Westminster and in local government. It is not about to fall into the streets any time soon. This is why any hope of an ‘autonomist’ strategy in Britain is a fantasy – whatever readers of John Holloway or Antonio Negri might think. Antecedent traditions (like syndicalism) were always weak in this country. It would require an outbreak of popular insurgency, not just a strike wave, to actually rest power away from the state and capital in the way they envisage.

Could a Die Linke or Dutch Socialist Party emerge then? There are existing alternatives like Respect or Plaid Cymru, with the Green Party now looking like the most serious contender. None of these, however, have any connections with the trade unions and all appeal to rather discreet electoral bases. A serious mass party or movement will only get going with major changes in democracy, from top to bottom – PR at Westminster, further devolution within UK, restoration of powers to local councils, more co-operatives of workers and consumers etc. Unless the left can be in position where it holds power, at any level of society, and can show that it can stop regressive measures and implement better ones, it won’t become an effective political force.

The constraints on the left in and out of the Labour Party are similar: the centralised and un-representative nature of political power. On this issue, whatever other differences people may have, surely common cause can be found. These are simple structural problems, but are going to take years to solve. They also mirror our economic problems – the bias towards the City and lack of control of people’s work and consumption. Perhaps we need a crisis of democracy to go with our economic one?

Notes

1. Susan Watkins, ‘Blue Labour?’, New Left Review 63, May June 2010

William Farrell is a member of the Labour Party and is researching a History PhD at Birkbeck