Forty years ago there were powerful elements within Labour determined
to tilt the party in a clear hard-left direction. Anyone under 45 years of age
probably does not have much of a memory of what took place. Even as Harold
Wilson was Prime Minister—but with only a majority of three—the Labour party
was increasingly being taken over by left-wing militants with a strong agenda that
included opposition to continued membership of the Common Market (as it was
called in those days), against nuclear weapons and for unilateral disarmament etc.
Tony Benn was the de facto leader of the left, at the time, and his influence
was growing. Michael Foot, a great radical politician, was more of an old
fashion Liberal and did not have Benn’s cutting edge.
In March 1976 Wilson resigned unexpectedly and, of course, the
right-wing press immediately ran stories that some potential scandals around
him were about to be revealed—such as an affair with his long standing
political secretary—and that MI5 had a dossier on him regarding connections
with the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Everyone was taken aback since Harold was
someone who was a master of his craft and loved being Prime Minister—and he was
indeed very good at it! However, it later emerged that the actual reason for
his standing down was because he was suffering the early stages of Alzheimer’s
disease and that he had decided to finish before the symptoms started to reveal
themselves more publicly. It must have been a very difficult time for Harold
because he was noted for his memory and great attention to detail, fact and
figures.
So Jim Callaghan took over, but he had a difficult period as Prime
Minister—as did his Chancellor Denis Healey—from the left-wing Labour MPs and grass
roots at party conferences. In fact, debates became quite acrimonious at times with
the two struggling to hold back the leftward march. By March 1977, in order to
remain in government, Callaghan had to rely initially on David Steel and the
Liberals through the Lib/Lab pact which ended in September 1978. His remaining
months in office, up to the general election of March 1979, relied on the support
of the three Plaid MPs. During this period, Mrs Thatcher had displaced Heath as
leader of the Tory party and the Labour Government was imposing pay restraint
which subsequently led to the so called ‘winter of discontent’.
There were widespread strikes by public sector workers in the
winter of 1978/9—the largest stoppage of labour since the 1926 General Strike—which
was over the Government’s imposition of a 5% ceiling to public sector wage
increases. (Note the seemingly endless pay freeze of the current decade...)
With such unrest, an inevitable election defeat in March 1979 ensued. It is
worth recording that all the opinion poll evidence at the time showed that if
Callaghan had gone to the country in the autumn of 1978 he might very well have
won, but he was at heart a cautious man. Indeed, there might never have been a
Prime Minister called Margaret Thatcher! So as is taking place now, the old grass
roots of the party were on the march with the hard-left becoming ever stronger
and Tony Benn in the ascendancy.
I have chronicled before how the Social Democratic Party (SDP) came
about and how over two dozen Labour MPs left the Labour party and followed Roy
Jenkins to create the SDP in 1981. Just before then, in November 1980, Foot defeated
Healey to become Labour’s leader winning by a very small margin—51.9% to 48.1%.
By the way, it was hinted many times that some MPs who went on to form the SDP
voted for Foot instead of Healey! There is no need to explain why they took
that tactical decision when their natural home would have been with Denis
Healey...
In November 1981, Tony Benn challenged Denis Healey for the deputy
leadership of the party despite every attempt being made to urge him not to
stand—as the SDP had only been formed a few months previously. Benn came within
a whisker of winning with the margin being 50.4% to 49.6%. It has also been
chronicled that Neil Kinnock had been instrumental in persuading some 30 or so soft-left
MPs not to back Benn. Given the closeness of the race, these MPs tipped the
balance in stopping Benn. One can only contemplate what would have happened to
Labour with a Foot/Benn leadership and many gave Kinnock credit, at the time, for
saving the party from possible oblivion. But I have no doubt that Neil had a
wider agenda in sight—he saw an opportunity on the horizon because Foot was
always going to be a one election candidate. Therefore, stopping Benn was
crucial for him.
One pertinent point in relation to the 1981 Labour/SDP split which
partly explains why there is increasing talk about whether Labour might split
again. There were many Labour MPs—more than the two dozen or so who eventually
left the party to form the SDP—extremely unhappy with the leftward march of the
party and the policies it was espousing. When I was an MP the hard core
‘Jenkinsites’ as they were called numbered at least 60 MPs and there was
another but smaller group of MPs who were followers of Tony Crosland. So there
were some 100 MPs who were moderates in the Labour Party at the time, but only
some two dozen of them moved to the SDP. I could name at least four Welsh MPs
who pondered long and hard on whether they were going to join the SDP in
addition to the three that did. Therefore, in reality, what happened in 1981 has
remained until this day unfinished business.
Labour lost the 1983 and 1987 elections badly with the SDP/Liberal
Alliance almost pipping them for second place in the popular vote. Kinnock
inevitably became leader and, like a political chameleon, turned himself from
being what I termed back then ‘the original
militant’ of the 70s into a middle of the road Labour leader—gone was his opposition
to the Common Market, the House of Lords, nuclear weapons, multi-lateral
disarmament etc. But whatever one’s view is of his magical transformation and whether
it was a genuine conversion or just expeditious to fend off the advance of the
SDP and Mrs Thatcher, he did prove to be a good leader despite losing two
elections! Neil’s problem was the same as Ed Miliband’s—both were never perceived
to be Prime Ministerial material by the majority of the electorate. However, in
fairness, he did pave the way for the Tony Blair/Gordon Brown era, although
John Smith who died prematurely would have been as good a leader as Blair.
Grassroots Labour members were so desperate to be in power once again
that the left and their allies retreated into their shell. Blair eventually became
dominant and together with Brown they governed like an SDP Mark 2—although, of
course, titled ‘New Labour’. I have no doubt whatsoever that throughout the
period 1997–2010 the real beating heart of Labour remained unhappy but felt
helpless to argue against the man who was now delivering them power and
electoral success. Consequently, the left-wing accepted that they had to go along
with this ‘winning formula’ and were willing to bide their time, waiting for
their opportunity—as it always presents eventually in politics. Indeed, this
came in the guise of the Iraq war and the machinations of Brown to remove Blair
from office. Also, quite unexpectedly, two years before the general election of
2010 the financial crash occurred. Like Callaghan before him in 1978, Gordon Brown
delayed calling the general election for some months when an earlier election—with
the opinion polls in a somewhat more favourable position—might have been won.
Brown, like Callaghan, was a cautious individual by nature and both ultimately paid
the price.
Ed Miliband’s election as leader was mired in controversy as a
result of his unexpected victory over his brother David. All the attention was
on the differences between the two brothers when it should really have been on
the struggle for the Labour Party—David the ‘New Labour’ Blairite and Ed, at
heart, still the traditional ‘old Labour’ politician and in position only by
the grace of the Union barons.
What everyone missed all along was that the Labour left had not
gone away, they were merely biding their time. In fact they are in a better
position now within the party than the period before the 1980s. It is indeed
ironic that the man at the centre of the current leadership campaign is none
other than Jeremy Corbyn. Who is he? Oh, back in the late 1970s/early 80s he
was with the Militants, becoming the MP for Islington North in 1983. It isn’t only
the ‘Lord that moves in mysterious ways’ but seemingly politics does too!
Observing the leadership election from a distance, it has to be
said that none of the contenders begin to match up to the charisma and
personalities of Wilson, Callaghan, Blair and Brown let alone the defeated
Foot, Benn, Kinnock and the Miliband brothers. This is the first problem for the
Labour Party—none of the four candidates look Prime Ministerial material. Labour’s current weaknesses should worry party
strategists. It has had the effect in Parliament of Cameron and Osborne behaving
as if they have won a 100-seat majority.
The two most experienced
candidates are not making much of an impact nor are they discussing real policy
issues. Andy Burnham looks far too much like a career politician, ducking and
weaving—seemingly expressing opinions that suit the circumstances of the time. Yvette
Cooper has a personal dilemma in talking about the Brown and Miliband era and conveying
her true opinions. The fact that her husband Ed Balls was a prominent figure
under the two leaders seemingly makes it awkward for her. In my opinion, it’s best
that she ignores all that and starts behaving openly as her own person, telling
Ed outright ‘look this is my election and this is how I view matters’. So as things stand, the two experienced contenders
are not making much of an impact, look too much like ‘same old same old’ and
lamentably failing to motivate the Labour membership. They are giving no
indication as to how they would change policies and where they truly stand on
issues that matter to people today. Instead it’s safety first—being careful not
to slip up—so as not to give the other candidate an advantage or accidently offend
their core vote. What they actually think about, for
example, proportional representation, the governance
of the UK, EVEL, Welfare reform, HS2 and replacing Trident is not clear...
So we are left
with the two candidates who, at least, are endeavouring to talk about what they
believe in. Liz Kendall, often referred to as a ‘Blairite’, seems
to use little of the rhetoric that brought Labour to power nearly 20 years ago
now. She has much of the political style and policy platforms that made Labour
electable in 1997, but I doubt whether the Labour membership is in the mood to
listen to that anymore. Moreover, as someone said the other day, when Blair was
campaigning to become Prime Minister he offered a vision of a Britain in which ‘your child in distress is my child, your
parent ill and in pain is my parent, your friend unemployed and helpless is my
friend, your neighbour, my neighbour.’ Liz Kendall needs to pick up on that
sort of message because so much of real politics and the responsibilities of
public office is about hope, care and understanding.
Jeremy Corbyn has been making most of the running during the
campaign and is receiving the majority of the media’s attention. It is ironic that
Corbyn owes his presence on the ballot paper to the generous help given him by
Andy Burnham’s supporters to achieve the necessary number of MP nominations to
allow him to stand for the leadership. His nomination, it was argued, would ensure
a wider choice for the Labour membership between the differing wings of the
party—left/soft left/centre-right. Maybe my description is a crude one, but it
is not too far off reality.
The fact that
he has made an impact is in no doubt. Corbyn’s supporters argue that he is the
only one offering an alternative, the one who is against austerity and, more
tellingly, that he is ‘the only true Labour candidate’. Hitherto most opinion polls and social media
comment etc certainly bear all that out. In fact, I have seen surveys that show
Corbyn is more in tune with public opinion on some ten major areas of policy
including the renationalisation of the railways and the welfare cuts agenda
than the other three candidates. His two potential weak points concern his role
in Militant at the end of the 1970s/early 80s and his unclear remarks as to how
he would vote in the forthcoming referendum on the European Union. Along with
quite a few of the left of the Labour Party, he probably still remains broadly
an anti-European Union political figure.
Furthermore YouGov
and Guardian polls have revealed interesting
results that are quite favourable to Corbyn. Unsurprisingly, they have resulted
in quite frenzied and, at times, highly personal press and party comments in a
manner that suggests the end of the Labour party is nigh! Even Blair has been
pushed into entering the fray whilst others on the soft-left are urging Lord
Kinnock to make the anti-Corbyn case as well. So Corbyn is having quite an
unexpected impact on the leadership election. The polls referred to are included
as links at the end of this article.
Whichever gloss is put on Labour’s present weak and ineffective state
of play the evidence of decline is real. Recently, a report from the
Labour-leaning Smith Institute concluded that if the decline was to continue
then Labour’s prospects of competing as a party of government will steadily
diminish (see link below). Throughout its history there is a belief within the
party that it will always bounce back. Even in 1910 Keir Hardie concluded that
‘the Labour party had ceased to count’ but in 1924, Labour formed its first
government. Then after the formation of the SDP and the poor election results
of 1983 there were other purveyors of doom and gloom, but yet there existed optimism
over the future. This was based upon relief in the fact that the election
result had not been worse and that the SDP had failed to finish Labour off. There was also relief that the vast majority
of moderate Labour MPs had stayed within the fold. Again, after the 1992
election there were predictions of Labour’s demise but within five years, in
1997, it won one of its largest ever electoral victories and the coalition of
differing strands within the party were holding together.
So what will be the fall-out
following the 2015 general election defeat? Will the 35 year coalition and compromise
that is the modern Labour Party hold? Some will argue that maybe, just maybe, that
the left-wing have had enough and they now want the real Labour Party back
after all this time. The very real prospect of Corbyn
becoming the next leader poses a profound moment of
choice for the Labour party, signalling that the period of compromise politics
years is coming to an end. Maybe the left are not going to buy into any more
arrangements and dumbing down of policies just to build alliances within the
party in order to win an election and form a government in 2020.
Furthermore, the way the party is behaving
and performing over recent times will inevitably lead people to increasingly ask
‘what indeed is the point of Labour?’ So questions as to Labour’s future are
surfacing again and these arguments are becoming personal—are we indeed on the
verge of another re-alignment in the centre ground of UK politics? In a year or
so time, will it be a case of 1981 revisited? Indeed, as I conclude this blog,
two articles have appeared this morning that lend credence to my question.