The Labour Party Leadership Contest

The dust is starting to settle following May 7th's resounding general election defeat, and as such the Labour Party leadership contest seems to be gaining a higher degree of clarity. Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham is attempting to adopt a catch-all strategy in relation to Miliband's previous leadership by indicating that he seeks to carry on representing each and every section of British society, rather than just concentrating on the appeasement of small groups. This - due to to the timing of its release was an evident response to calls from neo-Blairites/neo-modernisers* (*delete where appropriate) for Labour to rediscover its ability to win over "aspirational" voters, which in the context of criticising Miliband presumably includes anyone who earns over £150,000, owns a mansion and doesn’t use the NHS/state school system/flood defences etc. Burnham appears to have successfully won the support from the Labour left, most likely as he's the only candidate who hasn't to some degree repudiated the sensibilities behind making political issues out of 0-hour contracts and low pay. However as far as long term left wing positioning goes Burnham isn’t particularly held as the candidate to make progress, more as the candidate to try and hold on to as many of the very minimal gains made under Miliband as possible.

Standing diametrically opposed to Burnham is Liz Kendall, or at least to the extent to which diametric opposition is possible in the context of what's ostensibly acceptable for the Labour Party to talk about in public. Kendall supports "modernising" the party in order to make it more electable, which is clearly in line with comments made by the likes of Mandelson immediately post-election. Kendall has also made it clear that Labour need to get more in line with the Conservatives in relation to public spending, sadly doing so by expediently capitalising on the half truth of past "Labour profligacy" which served the Conservatives so well in the electon campaign. Kendall also appears reticent to cut tuition fees and has publicly backed the free school programme, these positions were they to be enacted would almost certainly place Labour to the right of the Lib-Dems, particularly if they elect Tim Farron as their next leader.

Placed in between the two candidates is Yvette Cooper, who as far as I can tell has opted to play the motherhood and apple pie role of arguing that Labour needs to be "pro-business" without clarifying whether her "pro-business" approach would implicitly necessitate the abandonment of policies and positions designed to alleviate the struggles of society's most vunerable, both in and out of work. While this is a position I couldn't find myself aligning with, in order to save time while writing this post I will instead opt to focus more on Kendall's campaign and the arguments by those of the "moderniser" persuasion in relation to the party's future.

Since the election two weeks ago a considerable amount of column inches on left wing media has been taken up by individuals arguing for an approach more remniscent of the Blair years. However the thing I find strange about this approach, particularly when it's defined by those most closely linked to Blairism as a philosophy such as Mandelson and Kendall, is that it tends to be entirely disjointed from the realities of Blair's 1997 campaign. The first Blair government introduced the minimum wage, sought to eradicate pensioner/child poverty, introduced the Human Rights Act and brought into being a windfall tax on the privatised utilities. Whilst accepting that the political landscape is currently different due to a weak post-recession economy, the 2015 manifesto launched under supposedly "red Ed" was far more cautious than Blair's 1997 manifesto. 1 million people are currently using foodbanks, a sizeable proportion of whom are children. Yet in the wake of the election Miliband's mildly anti-poverty policy package, which aimed to "reduce" foodbank use (not even eliminate it) was written off as damaging to the aspirations of a large chunk of the British population. This is despite the fact that central to the "third way" ideology promoted by Blair is the concept of providing an equal start for all, something which is extremely unlikely to be the case for those children whose parents can't afford to feed them adequately. As Ian Lavery has said, This isn't 1997, and the "moderniser" approach towards tuition fees, poverty and working conditions is entirely different from anything enacted by the Labour government in 1997. As far as winning future elections goes we will be in untested waters whichever way the party moves, as such it’s probably sensible to think about what’s right and what we can convincingly argue for rather than reverting back into some sort of 1997 safety mode. The public are growing increasingly tired of platitudinous politics, as exemplified by the rise of minor parties and falling voter turnouts. If the Labour Party decides to pursue a morally disingenuous strategy in the pursuit of "electability" it will only be ensuring its own long term decline.

There's are also other risks of pursuing such an amoral strategy. During the lead up to the election I often found the use of “they’re all the same” by certain minor parties rather cynical, as in my opinion it knowingly overstated the power of the right within the party, painting internal Labour politics as a lost cause not worth engaging with for anyone of a leftish persuasion as well as glossing over what were still large and often life changing spending differences between us and the Conservatives. Although that's not to say that there wasn't a lot of room to do more and inspire hope more than we ultimately managed to. However with the background of our declining heartlands confronted with the dual threat of a UKIP surge and the often shockingly neglected rates of uninspired and unrepresented non-voters, I’m rather concerned about the possibility of a right wing victory in this leadership contest for the health of the party. I will wait to fully judge the next Labour leader based upon policies, but so far I’ve rather worryingly got the impression that there could be a genuine possibility in the event of a Kendall victory of adopting the rhetorical stance of the Conservatives but with the scant consolation of an added emphasis on education spending. For the millions of people suffering due to archaic welfare policies, and for those who would like to see inequality become a central political issue for the 21^st century this shouldn't be allowed to happen.