What next for Labour’s left?

There’s a scene in one of my favourite films, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where Sundance turns to Butch and says “We tried going straight, what next?”. For some strange reason the current state of the LabourParty has me thinking something similar. We tried the parliamentary road to socialism, what next?

In every generation there is what seems to be a defining moment. For the British left the miners strike (1984-85) was one such moment. Perhaps the poll tax riots were another. The Corbyn leadership was, undoubtedly, another.

Now, I have no idea who will win the leadership contest (I’ve tried Jonathan Ashworth but he hasn’t been told either!) But what I do know is that most CLP’s, including my own did not enthusiastically endorse Rebecca Long-Bailey or Richard Burgon for Deputy. Indeed, RLB got a reasonably impressive 164 nominations. Impressive until we consider that Keir Starmer (the man with the “suit and the hair”) got 374. Lisa Nandy got an unimpressive 72, but today we spare a thought for poor Emily Thornbury who was just 2 short of the required 33. (I’m kidding I still think Emily was a very poor candidate and I am none the wiser as to why she stood other than some sense of entitlement).

But the leadership nominations do not tell the whole story. They also have to be taken alongside the Deputy Leader nominations. In these there was only one winner and that was Angela Rayner, who describes herself as an ‘everyday socialist’ (no, I’ve no idea what it means, either) who secured 364 nominations. Although the other four candidates all secured the 33 nominations required to be on the ballot, their support among the CLPs was fairly low.

Dream ticket or left nightmare?

There is a story to be told here. Let’s see if we can unpack the figures a little. Of constituency parties backing Keir Starmer the majority (238) also backed Angela Rayner as Deputy. In some ways this makes perfect sense. Unlike Keir, Rayner remained loyal to Jeremy Corbyn throughout his leadership. She appeared on many platforms alongside him during the General Election. And, it would be churlish not to admit that she has done a very good job as Shadow Education Secretary. 

However, unlike her flat mate and good friend Rebecca, she never joined the Campaign Group of MPs. She describes herself as “soft left” a description which I personally find as useful as describing yourself as a marshmallow. These terms soft and hard left make us sound more like boiled eggs than political activists. But, what this has allowed her to do is present herself as a unity candidate. Somebody who can appeal to both sides of the party. This, of course, at a time when the right in their usual fatuous manner deny that they have actually split the party and make no apologies for their strategy of uniting the party by expelling those they disagree with.

So that pairing of Starmer and Rayner appeals to many constituency activists who consider themselves as left-wing but secretly loathe the way in which “their” party has been hijacked by swarms of members who not only don’t turn up for meetings, but don’t enjoy a good coffee morning the way they should either. We, by which I mean the post-2016 intake of Corbyn supporters, are treated politely enough if we do show up to meetings but for those who had been used to running a small party, were disruptive of life as normal. Often, of course, our history of left activism meant that we were better informed than these long standing members who just wanted to deal with local issues and not get sidetracked by Palestine etc., which to be honest rarely comes up on the doorstep at local elections.

Starmer-Rayner is a centrist pairing that will, mainly because of the deals Starmer has done to get on the ballot in the first place, be pulled to the right. But, should they win, I cannot believe that they will pull too far rightward immediately. What I would expect (and here I issue my standard “I don’t have a crystal ball” warning) is that the Shadow Cabinet would see the return of what my own MP described as “the best talent” by which she means the likes of Syria-bombing enthusiast Hilary Benn, welfare cut-supporting Yvette Cooper etc. Lisa Nandy would no doubt have a home as Shadow Minister for Having A Northern Accent, whilst Rebecca Long-Bailey might be offered a relatively minor role as Shadow Environment Secretary, if she is not frozen out altogether (a scenario which would lead to some frosty interactions in the Rayner-Long-Bailey flatshare, no doubt).

Over time the most left-leaning members of that Shadow cabinet would be marginalised as the right, who be under no illusions regard Starmer as their man, tighten their grip on all sections of the party. We can gauge the drift to the right by glancing briefly at the Deputy Leader nominations. Right-wing leaning CLPs would have chosen Ian Murray as Deputy in the same way left-wing CLPs will have chosen Richard Burgon. 59 CLP’s nominated Murray as Deputy. Not a single one of those CLPs nominated RLB as leader. The majority of the Murray supporting CLPs (51) see him as Deputy to Starmer. I repeat in case people are missing this point. Whatever public pronouncements Keir Starmer makes, and however left he may sound now, he owes a debt to the right with whom according to local activists, he always sides.

Richard Burgon who is undoubtedly the most left-wing MP standing was a popular choice only with CLPs that had RLB for leader. 66 CLPs went for a Long-Bailey-Burgon partnership. Whilst only 10 CLPs who nominated Starmer also nominated Burgon. Richard Burgon, along with Dawn Butler, was prepared to stare down the Board of Deputies and their anti-democratic, and possibly illegal, pledges. He has been an excellent Shadow Justice Minister, and is unwavering in his support for Jeremy Corbyn. He is also Secretary of the Campaign Group, a healthier group now than it was in 2015. In my opinion, over the last couple of years his public persona has improved and he no longer sounds as if he is a barrister in a court room whenever he speaks.

In truth, the Deputy Leadership contest is between Angela Rayner, Richard Burgon and Dawn Butler. Neither Ian Murray nor Rosena Alin-Khan have the profile of these three, all of whom have benefited from holding Shadow Cabinet posts under Jeremy Corbyn. All have been loyal enough not to have alienated the vast majority of members who remain from what we might call the Corbyn era (is three years long enough to qualify for an era?)

Even if Starmer was to emerge as leader (and that is the ‘what next’ scenario), Richard Burgon as Deputy would mean that we maintain a strong, uncompromising  socialist voice at the top of the party. With the backing of the other 32 members of the Campaign Group, and perhaps with decent personal relationships with at least some Shadow Cabinet members, he could even be in a position to hold a beacon for the kind of politics many of us joined to support. On his own, he cannot stop a drift to the right which is starting to feel somewhat inevitable, but he will continue to be a strong left voice in the Shadow Cabinet.

Whist the rightward shift in the party is by no means a done deal things are looking ominous. The left’s dominance in key positions is coming under attack at every level of the party. It is not just leader and deputy that is up for grabs but also NEC positions with left favourite Jo Bird having been removed from the list now reinstated following what looks to have been a vexatious complaint. Labour First (the right wing of the party who worked so hard to ensure a Tory victory in December) have swept the board in the selections for candidates for the London Assembly. This is not a good sign for the left and is seen by some as a predictor of the results of other elections to be announced on April 4^th. Though it should be pointed out that these results are constituency level and only a small fraction of the electorate.

Clearly, I would prefer Rebecca Long-Bailey to win the leadership contest. Like many on the left I remain concerned at her tendency to compromise on issues which we see as principles not just policies. I also worry that she is, at times, a little naïve and too trusting of a hostile media. To be fair, if Keir Starmer wins (and I do think it is a two-horse race, so I’ve probably just handed victory to Lisa Nandy) he will find the tsunami of hostile media something he will struggle to contain.

As members, and particularly as members who see the Labour Party as a place for promoting socialist ideals, there is a real dilemma facing us. Many of us had been outside the Party until the Corbyn era because, frankly, we could see little advantage of being inside. Some toyed with, or joined, other left-wing parties (there is one for every occasion) or had engaged in community politics, or contented ourselves with fighting trade union battles. Many, I suspect, did little more than rant at the TV (dirty work but somebody has got to do it). But Corbyn galvanised us, and in return we discovered a new home, new comrades and new ways of engaging. Do we walk away from that home at the first sign of trouble? Do we put ourselves outside of mainstream parliamentary politics by joining a fringe group with no influence? Do we find other ways of ‘doing politics’?

This is not resigning from the party!

I keep reading people who claim to be left-wing publicly declaring that they are resigning their membership. Of course, what they mean is cancel their direct debit, but I guess we all like to feel that we are important. By the way, tearing up your membership card means you have a mess to dispose of, but in terms of leaving the party it is entirely symbolic. Others are publicly (in private discussion groups) speculating about a mass resignation and the setting up of an alternate party of the left. As far as I know not a single sitting MP has so far supported such a move. Others are talking about leaving the party and concentrating on community/trade union politics. Not to dampen anybody’s enthusiasm for such moves but none of them are likely to produce the outcome people want, if that outcome is a left-wing government.

If a largish number of people on the left of the political spectrum (and we really need to discuss what that means, but that’s for another post) leave the Labour Party, what would the consequences be for the party? The fact is that none of those suggesting leaving command the support of more than a few hundred people. Even Momentum, the largest grouping on the left these days, could probably count their activist base in a couple of thousand. In truth, most people on the left, organised or not, are not about to leave the party to set up an electorally insignificant new party.

Which leaves us with a choice. Stay and continue to put up resistance, no matter how token, to the rightward shift. Or, leave and watch the Labour Party repeat the mistakes of the past, but without any means of trying to remedy those mistakes. I realise that some people will argue that staying will have the same outcome as the second option here and they may well be right, but whether you think that all three leadership candidates are the same (they are not) or that a Starmer (or more unlikely) a Nandy win would leave us marginalised, until the direction of the party is set in stone it does not seem to me that voluntary exile is, yet, the correct choice.

That said, there is an elephant in the room, and it needs to be addressed. The left has made massive mistakes in the past three years. And, we are now paying the price for those errors. When Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership it was a shock, not just to the right, but to the left who supported him. Let’s be honest we are like Cardiff City football fans, we expect to lose, we are conditioned to defeat, we don’t have victory in our DNA. For that matter, for all their bluster, nor do the right. It is only their insufferable arrogance and middle class confidence that convinces them (and us) otherwise. The Labour Party has historically lost far more elections than it has won. Pockets of success can’t hide this. They are the Everton FC of politics, if you like (apologies to those with no interest in football, but just google them).

Corbyn’s victory did three things simultaneously. It surprised his supporters, it shocked his detractors in the Party (particularly in the PLP), and it came without any adequate preparation which was a necessary condition of prolonging the project. That is not in anyway a criticism of Corbyn, who in all honesty never expected to win either. It’s also no criticism of Momentum’s thousands of recruits but enthusiasm alone was never going to be enough to carry an entire movement. Particularly in the face of the hostility faced by that movement on all sides. Just ask Napoleon about taking on Russia. Okay, you can’t ask him, but the problem of fighting a war on too many fronts is that you tend to lose.

My own take on this as I’ve probably said before is that the left who had dreamed of taking control of the party for years were ill prepared when it actually happened. Indeed, we had a leader and a majority on the NEC, but the party bureaucracy was essentially unchanged. We retreated to our politics-as-usual mode of fighting the right for control of CLPs, of the NEC and of conference delegates. And, for a couple of years it seemed we were all-conquering. Meanwhile, the right plotted and schemed to bring this to an end. The General Election in 2017 was supposed to be their chance as Corbyn had shown himself to have a harder exterior than they had anticipated when he faced down the coup and the second leadership challenge.

As literally thousands of new recruits flooded into the party the existing left, used to numbering themselves in single digits in most constituencies, were overwhelmed. All they could offer was more meetings, endless canvassing and little else. The problem was that most of the new members were imbued with bags of enthusiasm but in many cases no prior political activity and no deeper understanding of politics than a desire to “get the Tories out” and to have a “socialist” government without necessarily being able to define exactly what they meant by socialism. Again, this is not criticism and I am sure there were constituencies where new members were nurtured, that new recruits to a diminishing movement have been found and that events like The World Transformed have educated and widened the experience of many.

Going forward whatever is left of the left inside the party has to work as a party within a party. Not by having a shadow structure or organisation, but by organising to push for policies that can transform, or at least reform, society. We need to ensure that nobody on the left or potentially on the left feels isolated or marginalised. We need to come outside the warm cocoon of our cliques and be open to new members. Even more than open we have to positively nurture new members. That means doing more than sending them an invite to meetings which may appear alien and even irrelevant, but by contacting them and giving them a “friend” to attend with.

And, those meetings. We are probably going to find it difficult to change the nature of official party meetings. Let’s be honest you have to be a certain type of person to ‘enjoy’ a branch meeting, but meetings organised by the left don’t have to replicate those structures. To be fair, the most enjoyable meetings I have attended since my return to the Labour Party have been the local Momentum meetings, which tend to have a political focus rather than be obsessed with organisational matters. Though even these can spend inordinate amounts of time obsessing over the many positions which are available for the committee-minded.

If we are to regain the ascendancy in the party the left activist base has to develop strong links with the Campaign Group of MPs. Not, as they might think, because as MPs they have unique insight into socialist politics, but because as a minority group in Parliament they need to extend their influence beyond parliament where they can have little impact. Knowledge is always a two-way process but developing theory and strategy should be too. In the Corbyn era too many decisions have been taken by MPs with little recourse to the members, and too many members are passively waiting to be told what they should do, rather than working with others to develop collective responses.

Whoever wins the leadership, the past three months have exposed real weaknesses on the left. They have also revealed our collective strengths. From utter despair on December 13^thto a renewed energy and refusal to be bullied out of a party we feel is ours as much as anybody’s. Grassroots organisations working for greater democracy in the party, such as Labour Left Alliance, have continued to grow and organise and much of their organisation is done online in a bottom-up way in which comrades are free to disagree with one another but debate is conducted to arrive at collective understanding not to score political points off opponents. Well, in the main.

In another of my favourite films a group of slaves fight the tyranny of those who assume their superiority and declare that they would prefer to die fighting than live on their knees. Although, they are beaten, by the very act of rebellion they give inspiration to others. When asked to give up their leader the remaining warriors stand, as one, to defend him. You perhaps recognise the film, the visual cue gives it away. So it is time for every person on the left in the Labour Party to stand up, even as our leaders are being, metaphorically, crucified and declare “I am Spartacus. I am Corbyn. I am socialism.” It starts by voting for Rebecca Long-Bailey as Leader and Richard Burgon as Deputy. And, Jo Bird for the NEC. And, only after we know the outcome of those contests can we really decide “what next?”


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