New Labour is now well and truly wrecked, on the rocks, and with no prospect of recovery. The Tories have a menacing lead in the opinion polls and the Lib Dems are beginning to rise from the depths with a prospect of more vigorous leadership after the Clegg/Huhne contest is over. Advances by the nationalists in Wales and Scotland threaten further damage, especially if they position themselves slightly to the left of New Labour – not difficult it has to be said.
The only way back for the party is to abandon the wreckage of New Labour and distance Labour from the disastrous policies of recent years. The party must adopt radically different policies to win back the mass support of those millions of former and potential Labour supporters who have become so disillusioned that they either vote against Labour or don't vote at all.
Blair resigned when it became obvious he was so unpopular he would never win another general election. When he went there was a palpable sense of relief across the Labour movement and the electorate with an immediate surge in Labour's popularity. There was real hope that Labour's direction might change, and in the first few days there were hints that Brown might make significant changes.
Hints about council housing being revived, the abandonment of mega-casinos and proposals for constitutional change looked positive, but Brown countered this by appointing ministers from outside the party, and from the right not the left, most notably former CBI Director General Digby Jones who has adamantly refused to join the Labour Party, whilst accepting a peerage and ministerial job. The supposed government of all the talents included no one from the centre – left, let alone the left of the party. There were indeed disturbing undertones of a move towards a government of national unity, and a unity of the right, not of the left.
However, the debacle of the on/off general election so damaged the new leadership that New Labour was put firmly on the back foot, such that the Tories now clearly believe they do not need the New Labour right wing to sustain a Tory–led coalition at the next election. If they did not win outright, they would do a deal with the LibDems, which Clegg and Huhne would jump at given the prospect of Cabinet posts.
The truth, however, is that working people and the majority of voters do not want right–wing government. They want a real Labour government and have done so since before 1997.
There was an innocent expectation of a genuine Labour government after 1997, which was not shared by many on the left. However, even the left has been astonished by how far to the right New Labour travelled, and managed to drag the Parliamentary Labour Party with them before finally crashing in the polls with backbiting and recrimination between the rival New Labour camps.
The only way out of this mire is for the party and the wider labour movement to insist upon new policies, identified with the left but which were simply mainstream under previous Labour governments. This would be immensely popular, bring a surge in Labour's fortunes and victory at the next election. Socialist Campaign Group News has set out alternatives across the whole range of policies so a new agenda is easy to define.
First, Labour must do the right thing by our eleven million pensioners. Immediately raising the basic state pension to the minimum pension guarantee level, eliminating means testing and restoring the earnings–link would be massively popular. The Tories have already refused to do this, so clear water would open up between them and Labour.
Next, Labour should provide additional support for families with children. Child poverty is still disgracefully higher than other western European countries. It can only be overcome by providing additional child support. Replacing all means tested credits with a much larger non–means tested child benefit payment and additional help for childcare is the way forward. This would be socially just and cut child poverty dramatically, and would also guarantee the support of millions of families for Labour, leaving the Tories mired in miserly means testing.
Third would be to abandon all further privatisation and start bringing back in–house those components of the public services which have been privatised.
Bringing the railways back into an integrated, publicly owned industry is long overdue and has secured majority support, even amongst Tory voters. Plans to bring the water industry back into public ownership would also be sensible and popular.
Putting the Trade Union Freedom Bill into law and legislating to protect temporary and agency workers would again be very popular and bring trade unionists flooding back to the polls to vote Labour. Re–establishing council housing and council house building for those families on enormous waiting lists would also bring back lost Labour voters.
Changes would have to be made on taxation. It is essential to make the tax system more progressive and ensure that the rich pay their fair share of income tax to help pay for additional social expenditure.
If pensioners, families with children, the less well off, working people and all those with incomes of less than £60,000 per year are better off as a result of Labour policies, and the Tories fall into the trap of publicly opposing all such policies, then Labour would surely win the next election and retain power for the foreseeable future. Voters would know there is a real choice and the hegemony of the right wing in all the parliamentary parties would finally have been broken.
Kelvin Hopkins MP
