Owen Jones' Blog Post

Despite being a bit late to the affair, I thought I would use this blog to note down a few of my thoughts corresponding to Owen Jones' recent Medium post on the Labour Leadership contest. The crux of his post is an identification of the various practical challenges which Labour will likely face if Corbyn continues as leader, while in a more indirect fashion Jones also gives air to the moral implications involved with continuing on our current path - notably in uplaying the importance of winning. Owen pre-empted many of my own thoughts regarding this matter, and in a very succinct manner at that, which I suppose is why he's a bestselling writer and I'm not, but nonetheless I thought I'd add to Owen's concerns by voicing my own thoughts on Corbyn's situation, as well as by explaining my reasons for supporting Smith. Now, I'm wary of responding in a manner which makes me appear as though I'm trying to appropriate Jones' 'left-wing' persona in order to provide leverage for my own views, and I also appreciate that Jones himself hasn't endorsed Smith, so I hope that it doesn't come across as though I am. For what it's worth, like Owen Jones, I consider myself as belonging to Labour's left. As a teenager I was an unaffiliated left-winger, only deciding within my own mind to support Labour after listening to an MP3 copy of a Tony Benn interview online when I was about 17. Since then, under Miliband's leadership in the year before the 2015 election, I was consistently on the left of the party, particularly regarding economic issues, and I also wholeheartedly opposed the accusation that our 2015 manifesto was too 'left-wing' after our defeat. In what has, admittedly, been a short time as a member, I have also joined Welsh Labour Grassroots, and myself supported Jeremy Corbyn in last year's leadership election. So without wishing to self-indulge too much, it is via this route that I've ended up supporting Smith.

Moving onwards to the substance of Owen Jones' piece, in my view, and as I've alluded to above, Jones very clearly and rationally elucidates many of the real concerns held by many members from all sides of the party regarding the current leadership. This has, rather inevitably, led to a few (although as Owen Jones has stated, the scale on which this occurs is often expediently exaggerated) accusations that he is not really left-wing. This is clearly a reductionist point, for there are self-evident differences between arguments as to what Labour ought to do if it were to be guaranteed power, and arguments concerning whether it is morally right to make certain concessions in order to win a general election. Regarding the former point, I would suggest that there probably isn't a huge difference between the views of Owen Jones, Corbyn, and many Owen Smith supporters when it comes issues such as austerity - the real political differences, no matter to what extent they exist, are likely to lie in the latter arguments over the morality of gaining power. In my view, very few party members honestly believe that gaining power isn't a moral imperative, there is of course likely to be a small minority unwilling to engage with any policy positions contrary to their own particular views, but I think it is indeed right to describe this group as a minority.

For example, as much as many laud Corbyn for his plain speaking and his honesty, I doubt, and rightly so, that there are many in his camp who genuinely want to place a commitment to abolishing the monarchy in the 2020 (or possibly sooner) manifesto. Why? Because if republicanism was unpopular enough to lose us an election, it would prevent gains in other, more morally significant areas of policy such as housing, investment, and welfare. So, we can quite conclusively establish from this that Owen is right to ask questions about our electoral prospects, and that we ought not be content with reducing the argument to picking whether you are 'left' or 'right' and sticking to that choice, but rather debate what Labour ought to sacrifice in order to pursue power, what should be seen as red lines, and what ought to be done if Labour ever ends up in a situation in which defeat not only looks likely, but near certain and catastrophic in magnitude.

If such discussions are necessary, we should really therefore be asking whether evidence suggest that we could ever possibly win going forward, or even in fact come close to winning, with Corbyn remaining in charge. I would argue that the evidence suggests we can not. Many disagree, in fact, while few think that we are doing well,the most common response I've seen to Jones' artcile has gone along the lines of:

"politics has changed, Owen Smith's strategy is also doomed, to win we need a social movement, and only Corbyn can build that".

It is, in my view, fair to say that Labour needs to make a greater effort to reconnect with its working class areas, which are rapidly becoming removed from Labour politics, if it is to guarantee its future relevance. In previous decades, the presence of traditional industrial jobs and their associated unions led quite naturally to high community solidarity and support for the Labour party, this is clearly no longer the case. We may need to change the manner in which we operate, and invest a lot of effort into grassroots initiatives if we are to ensure that our 'safe seats' remain safe, Owen Jones himself, for example, has in the past floated ideas such as Labour run food banks. Such steps would in of themselves require a radical overhall of the party structure, and we would collectively have to assess the risk/reward balance of developing such a strategy before committing to it, seeing as it is possible of course that we could never muster the resources to attempt such a strategy without sacrificing our core electoral machine. But even if we could guarantee the successful building of a 'social movement', I can't see how it could be built in a manner which would provide Labour with any sort of electoral boost within the short term, or even in the medium term for that matter. A general election may be only months away, how are we realistically going to transform the language of community activism into effective action within such a short time frame? Besides, even if we were to totally outdo ourselves in developing a 'social movement', is there any reason to believe that such a movement could ever fully overcome the tide of presidentialisation rapidly engulfing British politics? Put frankly, most people in Britain (certainly not most 'floating voters') do not decide how they'll vote based upon manifestos, they vote based upon who they believe will be the best Prime Minister, and which leadership team they see as having the best common-sense solutions to Britain's problems. As someone who supported him last summer, I of course believe that most of Corbyn's ideas are 'common-sense' in nature, and I still believe that a policy platform similar to his own has the potential to be protrayed as such, but public opinion certainly doesn't imply that Corbyn is widely viewed as worthy to govern. Corbyn is currently miles behind May on personal ratings across nearly every demographic, and this is quite clearly one of, if not the most important reason, that we are doing so badly in the polls. Arguments over whether this is a result of Corbyn's own failures, or due to PLP dissent, is nothing more than academic, going forward the most salient point to consider is one Jones himself raises, which is whether Corbyn will ever be able to shake off the public's poor first impression of him, no matter how well he performs from here on in.

Ed Miliband faced a similar problem, during the short campaign, many members credited Miliband with having conducted a decent-ish operation (Ed Stone aside, of course), and many hoped that his stronger than average performance would help erode earlier public criticisms of him being 'weird', 'soft', and/or a 'backstabber', following his triumph over his brother in the 2010 leadership contes. But this didn't happen. In fact, as the dust settled following our defeat, it became all too clear that these early concerns had never gone away. So by all means say that Corbyn's strategy and campaign last summer were better than those of the other candidates, and by all means say that Corbyn would be in a better position now if certain members of the PLP hadn't fed the media narrative that he was dangerous and idelogical, but these points don't change the fact of the matter, we are on our way to a massive defeat unless perceptions change quickly, and for all the benefits a large membership brings, I can't see any Tory voters in marginal seats seeing past the fact that Corbyn doesn't even have the support of 172 of his own MPs.

Most members probably don't find the idea controversial that there are indeed risks involved with continuing down our current path, but they might go on to ask why this serves as its own independent reason to support Smith, as opposed to a mere reason to suggest that things aren't going well for Corbyn. Firstly, as Jones points out, we might lose so heavily in a snap election that the left is once again marginalised within politics, and/or the Labour party could split, either formally or informally, which could ruin the hopes of achieving a left-leaning Governent in Britain for decades. If the moral aims of the left ought to come first, this possibility has at least got to be considered. But secondly, amongst the bitter nature of this contest, with the unsightly coup leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of many supporters, I feel that the extent to which Smith's campaign has adopted so much of what was good about Corbyn's platform in terms of positivity, promoting investment, and tackling inequality, has been underappreciated.

If I were asked to sum up why I supported Corbyn last time around, I would say something along the lines of:

• There were, and still are, very real negative social effects of bashing welfare claimants out of political expediency, similarly to how many in Labour are uncomfortable with immigrant-bashing, One million people are using food banks, this is a scourge on our society, as a result we ought to properly oppose policies such as benefit sanctions, along with proposing to meaningfully reform the way in which the welfare system operates, our welfare policy ought not to be limitied to opposing the bedroom tax (Although I appreciate that welfare shouldn't be at the heart of our political agenda due to its narrow appeal).
• And in addition, in my view the cuts regime implemented by the Tories was so harmful to ordinary households (potentially on a larger scale than Brexit in the short term), and our 2015 strategy so poorly messaged and 'halfway-house' in nature, that Labour ought to have adopted a positive pro-investment strategy going forward so as not to repeat Miliband's mistakes.

It's worth noting that I may have felt differently about these issues if I believed that neither of the above concerns could have ever been adequately addressed without necessitating electoral defeat, but I didn't feel that this was the case, and I still don't. I don't feel that we live in some dystopian society in which people are happy about 1 million people using food banks, even if, sadly, this issue isn't enough in itself to dictate electoral results. And I also don't think that Labour wins off the back of negative messages, and the lack of positive strategy on behalf of Labour prior to 2015, and on behalf of the three ABC candidates when Corbyn initially triumphed, was frustrating, particularly with the stakes so high and so many people suffering at the hands of the Tories. However, the political landscape is now very different. Their actions will no doubt be different to their words, but the Tories' rhetorical abandonment of austerity is significant, it will make pro-investment and pro-growth arguments easier to make without facing media hostility, in particular by reducing the derision of those lamenting Labour's unwillingess to 'balance the books'. This seems to be playing out already, Owen Smith for example has already committed to a similar pro-investment approach to that advocated by Corbyn. And while he has yet to talk about welfare in his campaign, his work as Shadow DWP Minister under Corbyn gives me hope that his approach to benefits will be equally as sensible. As far as I'm concerned, Corbyn's camp have achieved what they initially set out to do this time last year, shift the terms of Labour's debate to one characterised by positivity as opposed to reserved prudishness, and a recognition of the sheer moral and practical misgivings of many Tory policies. We are now moving towards a philosophy sensibly described by Lisa Nandy in her interview with Owen Jones as 'meeting the public on their terms, but seeking to lead public debate rather than follow it'. Of course, I'd have loved for this to have happened consistently over the last nine months under Corbyn, we wouldn't have to be having this internal fight for a start, but numerous factors mean that we simply haven't led debate in this time, and more worryingly, we potentially won't be able to lead debate going forward in the face party disunity and public distrust. Smith evidently doesn't have all the answers, no candidate is ever perfect, but that doesn't mean that he isn't the best option for Labour in our current circumstances. I don't see the purpose in playing up a platform of 'shifting debate' when it is perfectly clear that our current mess in parliament ensures our inability to do so.

In supporting Smith, however, I do understand the concerns of those who fear that a vote for Smith is nothing more than the first push back towards ruthless 'triangulation', or towards the approach favoured by Labour's right, which in my view despite being (often patronisingly) explained as 'pragmatic', is in reality a manifestation of core moral and political disagreements. It goes without saying too that I have concerns that certain PLP figures, who notably advocated a coup against Miliband as well as Corbyn, will soon get the knives out against Smith if he wins, hoping that the left will be too disenchanted following Corbyn's loss to allow their behaviour to go unnoticed. But this is precisely why I hope that the membership, instead of focusing on personalities, continues to contribute to party debate and hold in check the line that Labour can't win without adopting an explicitly 'centrist' approach (For what it's worth I don't think it's really adequate to analyse politics purely in terms of left and right - see Chris Dillow's post for example).

Others are worried about the nature in which this contest has come about, wondering why the Party is going into civil war over the face of Labour's marketing operation whilst ignoring the reality that for the last 10 years very few people have been interested in the Labour product. It is indeed true that Labour faces numerous existential problems, and that this goes beyond personality. For a start we need to decide how we will address immigration, whether we ought to oppose freedom of movement in particular, but also whether we ought to agree with the idea that immigration places strain upon local communities, but in a manner which is contingent upon arguments against Government underfunding and inadequate employment regulation, or whether we adopt a fully cosmopolitant approach. We need to address how we reconcile our liberal urban base with our frequently more authoritarian (for want of a better word) working class areas, how we equate 'economic responsibility' with delivering the substantial infrastructure investment which, in hindsight, if delivered under the last Labour Government might have put a halt to the growing regional inequality which undoubtedly contributed to the recent leave vote. In this situation the image of two bald men fighting over a comb might seem like an appropriate summary of this election.

But again, as far as I see it, the presence of one set of problems isn't a reason to avoid others. Labour has undoubtedly, like many other social democratic parties, failed to adapt to a post-2008 world, yet there is an awful lot that could still happen in the next year. The Tories could rip themselves apart even more violently over single market membership than over EU membership more generally, whilst there could also be a substantial recession as a result of our vote to leave Europe, particularly if we leave the single market. In this situation, if we are to at least have the potential to capitalise on future oppurtunities, we need a leader with a degree of credibility with the public, and Corbyn doesn't have that. Strategy is of course important, and it's wrong to view a leadership change as a panacea, but it's also clear that, whether we view it as rational or not, that having a leader the public believe to appear as a 'Prime Minister' is an essential part of winning an election, and I fear that if we decide to take a gap year from political relevance in order to do some soul searching, we will simply make it even more difficult to find effective answers to these long term questions. Labour will not progress if every policy announcement, every response to Tory Brexit negotiations, and every reaction to economic news will be caveated with some variation of "but X from the PLP says that Jeremy is doing a shit job in arguing our case". It wouldn't necessarily be Jeremy's fault, but it would still be a disaster.


So while it may not be an inspiring response to Owen Jones' post, in my view if the Labour left's political aims and objectives are deemed to be the most significant purpose of our campaigning, as opposed to pushing transient personalities, we need to be willing to recognise when certain avenues become untenable, even if we wish that they weren't. We have to be willing to play a long game, to think about how we will sell these ideas to the public effectively, and in the mean time continue to engage in rational debate over party policy and strategy, as well as ensure that internal selections remain open. For in my view if there has been one positive regarding Labour's future in the last two years it has been the quality of the 2015 intake, and the hope that this gives regarding the prospect of the left succeeding in the future. I don't want to be overly cynical, as noted above I do believe that there are positive reasons to support Owen Smith, and that he genuinely is a figure of Labour's soft left, as opposed to an oppurtunistic charlatan, but even if you are of the view that Smith is nothing more than a compromise figure, better than Miliband or Burnham but still not ideal, it's worth asking whether in the long run a tactical withdrawal could be preferable to a catastrophic defeat.