In Defence of Parliamentary Democracy

3rd August, 2016

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 – By Sarah Atkin –

In Defence of Parliamentary Democracy

It would be ironic if, more than a century after its formation, the Labour Party was to succeed in the ultimate U-turn and end up as it began: a movement of protest.

From Keir Hardie onwards, Labour’s mission has always been to provide a voice for the voiceless, be a force for progress, improve lives, take our country forward and change our world. Idealistic, absolutely, but also deeply pragmatic. Keir Hardie was a pragmatic idealist. He worked to achieve a broad-based and inclusive political movement, but very early on concluded that the then ILP (Independent Labour Party) must learn to win elections. It is through elected representatives that change was/is achievable. From the pioneering early Labour Councillors at the turn of the 20th century through to our reforming national governments, we seek power to change things and it is through electoral politics that we have succeeded.

I was not born into Labour. I chose it. I joined the Labour Party in the mid 1980’s because Neil Kinnock looked to be somebody who could provide much needed opposition to an all-powerful Margaret Thatcher in parliament and second, I wanted to be part of making Labour electable again.

Working in London’s creative industries I saw a changing world and knew Labour needed to change with it. In the 1980s I collected money for striking miners’ families. I was one of the first to join Charter 88 and campaign for constitutional reform (before it was fashionable). I always did my ‘bit’ as a Labour member during elections and spent many evenings on the phone fundraising for the party. Over the decades I’ve given much to the party and to the cause of progressive politics.

Nothing heroic. No ‘gong’ expected. Just the everyday contributions many thousands like me have quietly made down the years. To now be corralled under the label ‘red Tory’ does rather stick in the gut.

The road to government was long and tortuous but during the Kinnock years there was always forward movement. Progress. Hope. To therefore lose the 1992 election was utterly gut-wrenching.

I suppose that confirmed to me, beyond doubt, that the Establishment never wants Labour to be in power. Patently, to advance our agenda Labour always has to be smarter, stronger and altogether better at the ‘business’ of politics than the competition. Nothing is inevitable in politics. You create your luck. Attlee knew this. Wilson knew it. And so did Blair.

Think on this. My first vote was in 1979. Up until 1997 my entire adult life had been spent under Tory governments. To see Blair and the New Labour project ‘wipe the floor’ politically and make Labour electorally unassailable was exhilarating. Oh, and we did do some great things too.

That was then. This is now.

I did not vote for Jeremy Corbyn but did understand, after what had been, to my mind a post-Blair vacuum of intellectual and organisational ‘drift’ why a ‘change’ candidate won. Even my partner (a non-aligned former advertising ‘guru’) said I was daft not to see that Corbyn was the best chance of putting us back on the map (which he now concedes he got wrong.)

Nobody knows how any individual will perform as Leader. It’s generally more ‘gut’ than science.

Despite his history, there was a way for Jeremy Corbyn to unite the party around a common narrative for progressive, radically and relevant change – relevant as in resonating with the lives, aspirations and anxieties of the majority. The primary focus of his energies, though, needed to be parliament.

It is in parliament that a Leader of the Opposition has to be at his/her best. It is in parliament that the majority of the electorate see national politics at work and it is in parliament that Jeremy Corbyn has failed to make an impact.

Labour has fallen short in its vital democratic job of holding the government to account – disastrously exposed, in my opinion over Europe and Brexit. Was there anything in politics more important than Europe this past year?

80% of MPs have lost faith in Jeremy Corbyn. If you do not have the support of MPs in parliament then you cannot do your job as leader. The MPs represent all Labour voters across the UK. This has to be pre-eminent. Yes, of course Labour members matter as well but MPs do not work at the behest of party members, supporters or trade union affiliates. They work for the people who put them there – the voters.

We live in a parliamentary democracy. Electoral representation is the best way to advance the causes we believe in. The alternative is the politics of protest or, more worryingly, the muscular ‘street politics’ of intimidation and intolerance that’s been meted out to (mainly female) Labour MPs. The antithesis of democratic engagement. This isn’t ‘political passion’ got out of hand. It’s thuggery. Jeremy Corbyn may well condemn it but prior to his leadership this didn’t happen.

I would ask the many thousands who, in good faith supported Jeremy Corbyn a year ago, is this the ‘kinder, gentler politics’ you envisaged? Is the ‘Corbyn project’ advancing the cause of progressive, centre-left politics in Britain? At this moment when our country grapples with the Brexit fall-out and the years of upheaval, uncertainty and challenge this will present, are Jeremy Corbyn and his team up to the job of providing disciplined, coherent, unified, strategic and credible parliamentary opposition to this newly installed right wing Tory government?

I don’t think so.

There is no point denying that we are a long way from power but somebody else has to be given an opportunity to try and turn the tide for Labour. This time I can say I am voting for change.

By Sarah Atkin

Sarah Atkin is a Labour member living in Scotland and she writes in a personal capacity. She was a volunteer organiser for Better Together in the Highlands; a Highlands and Islands Regional List candidate in the 2016 Scottish Elections and an EU ‘Remainer’.

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It will take an age to recover from this victory for the exit fantasists

24th June, 2016

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 – By Philip Collins – [Cross posted from The Times]

It will take an age to recover from this victory for the exit fantasists

It is one of those phrases which goes straight into the memory as soon as you read it. The landslide for the Liberal government in 1906 was, wrote George Dangerfield, “a victory from which the Liberal party would never recover”. Boris Johnson, foolishly, has set himself a task in which he does not believe. He will assuredly become prime minister in due course and has ensured that his time in office will be dominated by an issue that he has pretended to care about in order to appeal to the fixated ideological obsessives in his party.

For all the pious invocation of “democracy” by the campaign to leave the European Union it is worth noting that, not much more than a year ago, this country had a general election. It entered a clear verdict. The Conservative Party, led by David Cameron, won an overall majority of 12 seats. The question of Europe was not a big issue. Yet, an unlucky 13 months later, the Conservative Party has decided, collectively, that its own internal squabbling is important enough to override that decision. The arrogance of these people.

If we are all permitted some pious preaching about democracy then I, as someone who did not vote for Mr Cameron’s government, regard that as a democratic outrage. No, Mr and Ms Exit-fantasist the country did not vote for an excessively ambitious clown in Downing Street. No, it did not vote for Nigel Farage to be anywhere near power. Before you lecture the rest of us on taking back control and getting our country back you might like to regard the democratic settlement of May 2015 as something more than an inconvenience to be swept away.

My, but politics is brutal. Mr Cameron has been destroyed by his friends. His career is over and, with his usual dignity and his voice cracking, he resigned in Downing Street. He has been humiliated by a party which, astonishingly, has never regarded him as a proper Conservative. The irony of it. A collection of utopian dreamers, blathering on about romantic nationalism and freeing Britain from the bonds of servitude, have humiliated and slaughtered their prime minister, and his chancellor, for not being real conservatives.

David Cameron, who announced his resignation this morning, has been destroyed by his friends [Times Newspapers Ltd]

I thought from the beginning that the referendum was a colossal error on the prime minister’s part and so it has proved. I always believed that it was avoidable and that, with every concession to Eurosceptics who cannot take yes for an answer, he simply encouraged the march of madness in his party. Mr Cameron was never as adept a politician as his friends believed. He was lucky to get away with his Scottish gamble. He rolled the dice again and this time was handed the pearl revolver. He deserved better than this. Mr Cameron led a party I could not vote for but he was a good prime minister at a difficult time for Britain and he should be given thanks for being a good ambassador for the country.

Not that his enemies on his own side really care about that. They knew the referendum was a plebiscite on his leadership and they wanted him out. The view of the rest of the nation on the identity of the prime minister they regard as a decision to be made in their own closed rooms. It is not just the sheer arrogance of it. It is the absence of coherence. It will not be long before we discover that power migrated to a band who are even more divided than the fledgling, fractious government that has just been deposed. Even in the jubilant scenes of the Leave victory two competing ideas of the immediate future could be glimpsed, neither of them especially appealing.

The first is the Daniel Hannan world in which Britain, a serf-nation under the European yoke, gains control of its economy and sweeps away the burdens of regulation and tax. The second is the vision, if that is the right word for so murky a prospect, of Nigel Farage, who wants to turn off the clocks. Mr Farage has only one issue, which is immigration. He wants fewer foreigners and nothing more. It is not coincidental that Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front in France, welcomed the result.

I have bad news for the Hannans and Goves and Johnsons of this world. This is not your victory. You are free riders on the back of Mr Farage. You have smuggled through your sixth-form reading list politics on the back of Mr Farage’s stoking up of immigration fears. I hope you are proud of yourself and I hope, though I do not expect, that you are ready for what is coming. You have made a promise, whether you realise it or not, to bring down immigration. Even if you find, as you will, that employers rebel because they need the labour, you have promised. You have condemned yourself to leading a government for whom the number of foreigners in the country is the primary issue.

You will then find, of course, that when the white working class says “immigration” it means something more than the presence of Polish plumbers and Romanian fruit pickers. It means that life is hard, that employment prospects are bleak and that work is either unavailable or of really low quality. It is beyond laughable that the exit fantasists have the first idea what to do about this. Frankly most of them have never shown the slightest concern about that before. Well, it’s their problem now.

They are going to find that everything is their problem now. So then exit fantasist, it is time to make good on your histrionic promise of liberty. Everything that happens is on your watch. All the tribulations and vicissitudes of the economy are yours. The pound fell to its lowest point since 1985 and the Bank of England is poised to intervene. Standard and Poor’s have said that the UK will lose its fine credit rating. The stock market was down 8.5 per cent in early trading. This is not just a downgrade in the value of assets. It is a leading indicator of the financial turmoil to come. If there is a recession, it is your recession. If inflation goes up and interest rates follow with an attendant spate of repossessions, it’s all yours. Well done.

And for what, exit fantasist? For what? The notion that Britain was not free until the early hours of this morning is the single most childish claim I have ever heard in British politics. I have heard grown people, who ought to know better, talk of serfdom and calling June 23rd “independence day”. This is thinking that is profoundly unconservative, placing an abstract idea above the concrete facts of life. When the sun came up this morning — a new dawn was it not? — it meant nothing to pretend that we have passed from servitude into liberty. It is the emptiest campaign slogan, the self-satisfied bluster of a fluent intellectual dwarf. It is a victory but a victory from which it is going to take an age to recover.

By Philip Collins

Cross-posted by Blair Supporter

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Career Politicians Playing Board Games

10th June 2016

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–By Keith Nieland-

Career Politicians Playing Board Games

There has been something bugging me for weeks about the EU referendum debate. Suddenly, the other night, I realised what it was. The blinding insight came during a BBC TV news interview with Tim Roache, leader of the GMB trade union. I had never heard of, or from, Mr Roache previously but I was mightily impressed. He did not speak for long but he did not have to. He spoke with passion and conviction about the EU referendum and the impact of a Leave vote on his members. Above all he spoke from experience and knowledge of his subject. He knows his members, he knows their jobs could be at risk from a Leave vote and, most importantly, he knew what that would mean for their livelihoods, families and the communities in which they live. He knew what Leave would mean for his members’ sense of well being and economic security. He knew what Leave would mean for their mental and physical health.

The difference between Mr Roache and so many other participants in the EU debate is that he is not debating from a position of personal ideology (or group ideology come to that). He knows his stuff because he works with the potential impact of Leave on a daily basis. He knows how his members’ jobs fit into the wider European trade set up. He knows, because his members tell him, what the potential impact would be should the UK leave the EU and their jobs put at risk. He also knows, despite how they might spin it, nobody on the Leave side can say to Mr. Roache, and more importantly, his members, “don’t worry fellows, your jobs are safe come what may”. For him this is not a debate about the semantics of sovereignty or a romantic longing for the supposed halcyon days of the 1950s but a debate about the life chances of his members and their families.

As Mr Roache’s voice almost began to crack with emotion as he worried about people not voting because they see the Referendum as some private dispute in the Conservative Party, I could not help but compare his performance with the leading contributors we see on our TV scenes on an almost daily basis.

Compared to Mr Roache the outcome of the referendum will have little effect on the life chances of Gove, Johnson, Duncan Smith, Farage – and Corbyn come to that – beyond a bit of ego damage if the vote does not go their way. Most of the leading politicians on both sides are so secure financially they can withstand the impact of the outcome. For them life will go on pretty much as normal. The fights within the Tory Party can continue but no MPs will be plunged into unemployment and the accompanying economic insecurity. Even for Corbyn the stakes are not that high. He could continue as MP for Islington North until he is 120 if he wishes, and then retire on a rather grand House of Commons pension.

For me most of the EU referendum debate, or at least the part involving politicians, has descended to the quality of a rather poor board game with little at stake for the participants in the life prospect and family security sense. This might account for some of the twaddle being peddled mainly from the Leave side. Does anybody really believe a Brexit will be quickly followed by a reduction in VAT on domestic fuel or a massive increase in NHS funding? These are hard-line right wing Tories who are opposed to socialised medicine, remember. The “butter would not melt in my mouth” Tories appear to have forgotten it was them who taxed domestic fuel in the first place.

If ever there was a time for politicians to bury the hatchet and stand together in the national interest this is it. To his credit Cameron has done this (it might be out of self interest but at least he has done it). On the other hand Corbyn has refused to stand and give a common message with Cameron. Instead he gives speeches which sound as if he is backing both sides. He focuses on workers’ rights but they have to have jobs in the first place before they can enjoy rights and it is that he and Cameron should have in common. He clearly dislikes Tories and capitalism but you can comfortably take those positions when you have a job for life.

The big news last week that was drowned out by the political game-playing was the warning from Air Bus and Siemens that they may have to consider whether to maintain production in the UK and the warning from banks that UK banking jobs could be lost to mainland Europe. Why? Because to bank with the EU you must be based in one of its member countries.

I listened to Boris this morning waxing lyrically about the supposed democratic deficit of EU institutions. Fixing that by leaving the EU will be of great comfort to Mr. Roache’s members, J P Morgan’s staff and the skilled workers of Air Bus and Siemens as their jobs disappear over the Channel. (I doubt Boris has a plan for fixing the massive amount of non-democratic patronage enjoyed by the PM by the way).

So it is time for the EU referendum debate to get real. We need fewer politicians who have other agendas and more captains of industry, trade union leaders and economists on our screens. Let’s see Chief Executives on the TV news outlining that their share holders will expect Boards to receive risk reports on a Brexit and the key factors they will be taking into account. This is not scare mongering – it is sound business planning. We need to see union leaders and managers standing together in the interests of members and staff.

I am old enough to have voted in 1975. At that time we were one of the poorest countries in western Europe and now we are one of the wealthiest. This is because of the European Union, not despite it.

I propose a nightly Mr Roache reality check on the evening news.

By Keith Nieland

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You will reap what EU sow

22nd February, 2016

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You will reap what EU sow

Looking out of my window I can see some of the crocuses beginning to flower. I’ve never grown crocuses before. I have a habit of killing plants, either through too much attention or too little. It’s so difficult to get the balance right, not least because the symptoms of both look very similar. But flowering they are. What we get out of life is so much about what we put in. Our relationships, families, communities, towns and cities, our country… and beyond.

So, the 23rd of June then.

First things first, I think the referendum was a daft idea. Daft to have so much hinging on how people may feel on one day after a concerted campaign from some rather aggressive voices in the media. This isn’t the X-Factor at its peak; we don’t just get another series next year. Referenda should be ladders. The EU Referendum is a giant snake. Back to square one.

I’m no fan of David Cameron. Aside from our difference in political leanings, I’ve always believed him to be a man of little conviction, easily swayed and apt to pursue the path of least resistance. But credit where it’s due; he’s exceeded my expectations in terms of actually being able to get out there and make the case. I’ve always been pro-EU anyway, so these negotiations were never going to bear any relation to my vote, but his efforts have clearly demonstrated that, with the EU, there are reforms to be made and it takes character and determination to get out there and dig the soil over. Like it or not this contrasts directly with those that have simply sat back and heckled while there was constructive work to be done.

It was somewhat disingenuous for those, on both the In and Out sides of the campaign, to be so coy about their views before Cameron returned from his negotiations. “Oh I’ll see what he achieves and make my mind up then” was the kind of phrase we heard often. But they knew. This is part of politics though, part of diplomacy. Sure, it may be seen as unhelpful to undermine your leader at such an important time, but it was so much of a phoney war it was laughable. Have an opinion, but don’t pretend you “listened carefully to the agreement.” At at no point would a “good” deal for Cameron have been heralded by anybody in the Out campaign as anything other than a failure. Similar for the Ins.

A lot of people seem to buy into this idea that somehow we don’t have any say in Europe and our own Government has no power. Yet European Parliament election turnouts have been around the 35% mark for the last two elections, which is about 30% lower than those for a General Election. So, if people think the European Parliament has all that power why don’t they exercise their right to have a say in who represents them? Do they actually believe that the European Parliament isn’t related to the EU or that somehow their vote is just a watering can in the ocean?

Nigel Farage, the man not so much with a chip but an entire chip shop on his shoulders, is a prime example. If he thinks that the EU is where all the power is, why is his European Parliament voting record average at best? Surely, as a member of that Parliament, according to his continued judgement, he is part of the all-powerful organisation that we need to get out of. Does he not like that power? Sure, the European Parliament isn’t the European Court, isn’t the European Commission, but does our influence become any greater by backing away?

Again, big decisions. This isn’t the answer to general dissatisfaction. Maybe if I vote “no” I won’t wake up bald in the morning… any more.

I think, what we’re really lacking at the moment is a positive vision of the future. For me, the future is about people coming together. Now, that may sound like some airy-fairy, been-watching-too-much-Star-Trek idea. But it’s a logical (Star Trek again) development of where we are now. Families to communities, to villages, to towns, to cities, to counties, to countries, to groups of countries. What is actually wrong with that?

There are over 7 billion people living in the world right now and very little that happens has an isolated effect. From the Middle East to the Far East to America, when something happens it has an effect on our lives. It’s simply unavoidable. We have passed the point where we can duck our heads in to the sand and hope everyone else will go away. Now, that doesn’t mean we have to deal with all the world’s problems on a daily basis, but it does mean that we have to accept that we have a part to play in the world. It’s our choice of whether that’s a positive part, or a negative part. There’s no “dipping your toe in to see if it’s safe”.

Most borders are artificial. We have the advantage/disadvantage of having our borders defined by water. That gives us a distorted view of our importance. The borders of the countries inside mainland Europe looked considerably different 100 years ago. The sea has clearly protected us in the past when it was a considerable boundary, but in the modern world it has become little more than something to hide behind: “We’re British and British is best.” Everyone’s brought up to think their country is best. Ironically that’s something we all have in common.

The main argument for borders right now is down to its being related to migration. Migration for economic benefit, for a better life, or simply for one’s life. What are the real issues here? Jobs, housing, schooling, integration. These aren’t really difficult problems to overcome. It’s shocking how some otherwise compassionate people are horrified by the thought of refugees living in terrible conditions but are staunchly opposed to the idea of actually doing something to help. Jobs are based on supply, which is based on demand, which is based on people. Most of these problems are ones we have to deal with every day anyway, with population growth.

Surely, the key to a prosperous future is to help everyone up to the same level, ensure everybody has the same chances? Yeah, maybe that sounds like pure idealism, pure fantasy, but you know what? That way people can stay where they want to stay; we can move, they can come here. Isn’t that something worth fighting for? That, by the way, is something that can only be achieved by working with other countries.

I like that people can come here and bring something of their culture to share, and I like that we can do the same. I like that people can stay where they want to stay and not be forced out by a destabilised government, civil war, a shortage of food or resources, or economic collapse. The only issue of borders then becomes the ability to ensure that there’s adequate provision for those that want to stay in an area. And that is not difficult, provided you are willing.

Seeing the Out arguments at the moment, I can imagine how people must have felt in the 10th Century as the Kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex and so forth gave way to the greater Kingdom of England. Oh, how they must have longed for the return of their old borders. Would that Ipsos-Mori had a time machine for a little post-Hastings polling: “Do you consider yourself Northumbrian or English?” Let alone British, European, those were the days that “English” was a dirty word.

Yes, expect people to have loyalty to their family, their community, their city, their country, but the differences we have with others are wholly outweighed by the similarities. We are better together because we are basically the same. You want any influence over that, you need to be part of it. It is as simple as that. You don’t approach the future, particularly a future where more and more people are working together in larger and larger groups by backing away from everyone else and expecting that somehow others will look at you and assume you must be something special. Would you? They won’t either.

I hope that in June people will vote to stay in. Maybe the rest of my plants will have flowered by then. They’ll look so much better together.

By ProGentoo

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