By Elliott West
“The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism … The argument is about power … because only by the possession of power can you get the priorities correct”.
Aneurin Bevin
Introduction
The Labour Party has been on a rollercoaster journey of victories and defeats since it was first born out of the trade union movement in 1900. The highs of Attlee, Wilson and Blair and the lows of Foot and Corbyn. Yet after 13 years of Conservative governments, the party is on the verge of election success with a general election expected in the next year. After Labour has spent several years rebuilding its credibility and proving it had the right to hold the keys to power again, the party sits on a political verge with a sizable majority a strong possibility.
The Labour Party is currently riding high in the opinion polls with a 44.1% lead over the Conservative Party who are trailing at 26.6%. The party has won several key by-elections including its most recent win in Scotland in Rutherglen and Hamilton where it snatched the seat from the SNP with over a 20% swing. A place where Labour used to hold over 40 seats but was practically wiped out by the SNP and now holds just 2 seats. It also narrowly lost the seat of Uxbridge, vacated by the disgraced former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, won by the Conservatives on an anti-ULEZ platform.
The Mystery
Indeed, any opposition party need not flesh out their alternative policies until they produce an election manifesto. The Labour Party has chosen to remain vague in the lead-up to the next election with just a matter of policies, preferring to attack and oppose a dying government that is running out of petrol and privately admitting that it is on course to lose with many of the party’s MPs preferring to stand down at the next election before they are pushed out. Labour attacks but produces little in return for the electorate to ponder over. The jury is out and with so many floating and undecided voters, they still have a political mountain to climb before the electoral ballot papers fall in their favour.
Labour needs to learn from its recent and distant past. It can’t be seen to lean too far from the centre ground because if it does, it will be put into the disaster books that the now Independent MP, Jeremy Corbyn and Michael Foot have been put into, producing suicide note manifestos with massive defeats, opening the door for Johnson and Thatcher to prevail. The party can no longer borrow heavily to implement its policies. It has to be bold but at the same time prudent in the early days of office. Otherwise, it will just dig itself an early grave. Even the greatest Labour leaders eventually fell out of grace and Tony Blair remains stained to this day with his choice to join Bush in invading Iraq.
Labour has pledged to bring a decade of national renewal but it knows that it will be able to achieve very little until it has seen the state of the economic books that the Tories have left them. Borrowing from the Covid pandemic, and helping Ukraine fight Russia have all taken a massive toll with inflation still high and the cost of living crisis still a prevalent force. Many people are still struggling to pay their bills and food banks are still the only option for a growing percentage of the population. It’s a political mess that can’t be swept under the carpets of Westminster and will have to be tackled rather than talked about.
Starmer
I have to admit that as a long-time Labour member and voter, I haven’t been greatly enthused by the man called Sir Keir Rodney Starmer. The former Director of Public Prosecutions lacks the charisma of John Smith and is more corporate than Socialist. I would accuse him of flip-flopping as the Tories do but his pragmatic style often gets in his way for someone who I am sure is a brilliant politician at heart. Yes, he has done well at healing the wound of the anti-semitism that lingered in the party and has picked several members of the shadow cabinet that I admire, Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper being two of them. Business leaders are starting to warm to his policies but trade unions are still sceptical of him. He was aloof with the recent wave of strikes and failed to dip his toe into the pool of industrial strife.
I feel he was a reason why Scottish Labour won the recent by-election. Starmer rolled up his sleeves and went to Scotland to campaign and in the end, it paid off. Yet there is a still massive red wall in the North that he will have to break down if he is to win the election. He can’t be seen to be a Westminster politician, he has to be a national one and understand the problems of the working class that the party was built on. This has to be adopted by not only him but the whole of the party. Otherwise, Labour will forever be seen as champagne Socialists.
His first chance comes with his speech at the annual Labour Party Conference where he has to to put flesh on the bones of his vision for the future. One year is a short time in politics and Starmer knows that he can’t rely on opinion polls to win. Neil Kinnock learned that the hard way when he lost to John Major in 1992. Key policies in economics, home and foreign affairs have to be fleshed out and we must hear how he is going to get us out of this Tory mess. It’s all very uniting on the conference floor but he has to convince a sizeable chunk of the electorate to vote for him.
The Challenge
The Labour Party can’t be seen to be complacent. When it has problems, it has to nip them in the bud and can’t for one second be seen as disunited. Starmer has to do what Blair and Wilson brilliantly did by keeping both wings of the party together because only united parties win elections. Spin and slickness must be ironed out of the agenda and the party has to engage. All eyes will be on Labour in the next year and the media will pounce on any mistakes to discredit them. The party has a political minefield ahead of them and has to dodge the many slings and arrows fired at them. The key is to remain clear and not vague. Avoid the political trap of not answering a question and acting like the government is waiting at all times.
This will in no way be an easy task but it will be made easier by the mess that Sunak’s government is currently in. It is like the Conservatives have sprung a leak and will sink sooner rather than later. They lack vision, and drive and are constantly on risk management watch. Scandal and U-turns dog the party and their party is led by a leader whom neither the members nor the electorate were given the chance to vote for. No wonder Rishi doesn’t want to call an election and is happy to ride it out until the last calendar date available. He won’t be coming to the ballot box in a rush and will deny Labour the chance to prevail as long as possible.
