New Blog Post: A Cautionary Tale For Labour

After weeks of chaos, political infighting and international humiliation, Liz Truss has finally resigned.

Of course, to use the word ‘finally’ is a bit misleading when describing a Prime Minister who only ruled for 44 days. Yet it seems as though the distant call to resign has been audible for the entirety of the month-and-a-bit of the Truss government.

For most people, and by that I mean both Labour and Conservative supporters, her departure will be viewed with relief. Political point scoring aside, so called Trussenomics, even in the incredibly short time in which they were attempted, caused enormous damage to the UK’s economic and political reputation. The UK now awaits a new Prime Minister and even the most vitriolic anti-tory will be hoping for a more competent and trustworthy pair of hands. If the next general election is not to be for another two years, we could at least hope for some stability until we get there.

That election is looking increasingly like a foregone conclusion. With Labour riding high in the polls, and the Tories having already governed for 12 years, a Labour government in the foreseeable future is now almost inevitable. Most polls are confidently predicting that a Labour victory may be akin to Tony Blair’s triumphant landslide of 1997.

But there is a warning that comes with this comparison. Political commentators will point out that you can’t always trust the polls. That is true, but there is an even bigger danger to Labour on the horizon. Labour in 1997 did not just triumph on the back of a discredited Conservatism. The Tories were discredited; a number of sleaze scandals combined with the economic fallout following the withdrawal from the ERM had left voters reeling. But Labour in 1997 was also a powerful, optimistic and exciting movement. Blair and Brown might be unpopular in 2022, but in 1997 – as was pointed out to them at the time- they were the political equivalent of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They were the political Beatles, promising a new age of progressive, fair and exciting politics. New Labour, New Britain; advancing Britannia into the new millennium, a country which was increasingly optimistic about the future.

The same can’t be said today. Britain has been in quiet decline for some time; first the 2008 financial crisis, a decade of austerity which caused a slump in productivity, leading to the political turmoil of today. Labour’s massive lead in the polls is not reflective of a commonly held, exciting, progressive vision for the future, but is instead a reaction caused by the disillusionment and fury at the last few years of incompetent governance.

This is a serious problem for a party which is about to receive the mantle of power. Blair inspired people to believe in his cause. Whether he was actually successful in delivering his vision for Britain is debatable, but the fact remains that his hope and his party narrative was enough to keep Labour in power for 13 years. Even as the public became fed up with Labour, it was a reluctant disillusionment; Labour lost the 2010 election, but the Conservatives failed to win a majority. It was as though people were still wanting to believe in the New Labour vision, even though it appeared to have failed them.

The fact is, no party – as an entity – really has the moral high ground. Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were appalling Prime Ministers, who surrounded themselves with other appalling politicians. But there are many decent, honest, hard working Conservative MPs too (even if it’s increasingly hard to see them), and they have the capacity to form a formidable political force if ever they manage to cast off the ideologues and the ignorant.

Labour will win the next election. But if they fail to spell out a powerful, optimistic promise for the future, they will end up in exactly the same predicament as the Tories now find themselves. Disgust at the current government will likely be enough to sweep Keir Starmer to power, but it will not be enough to keep him there. Its worth remembering that just over a year ago, it was Labour who were fractious, divided and waging a civil war against each other. The collapse of Tory unity has allowed Labour to cover up their cracks, to some extent, and position themselves as a government-in-waiting. But the divides are still there. Failure to provide a strong sense of mission which both the left and the right of the party can support will cause a collapse in unity at the first hurdle.

Ultimately, we will see what happens. There are big challenges on the horizon. Much work needs to be done to reverse Britain’s current decline. In Scotland, the danger of seccession has never been so powerful, and few of the Westminster heavyweights, with the possible exception of Penny Mourdant, seem sufficiently alert to the threat to the very existence of the United Kingdom. Economically we are slipping. Inequality is becoming starker by the year, and this has very real implications on the economic success of our national economy.

Whether Labour has the capacity to create fundamental change and growth in the UK, or whether they end up being an interim government, is actually neither here nor there. Recognising the big challenges facing Britain today and providing real, honest, long term solutions has never been so important. Whoever wins power at the next election (and in the spirit of transparency, I’ll admit I am hoping it is Labour), what Britain cannot afford is more wasted years on political infighting. Labour or Conservative (or, politics is unpredictable nowadays, perhaps we’ll even see the first ever government of the Monster Raving Looney Party) what is absolutely crucial is that the government pulls itself together, unites behind a vision and provides long term policies for the UK.

Britain is still a great power in the world. We command influence in the UN, the G7, the G20, The Commonwealth of Nations, AUKUS, and of course NATO. We are still a leading economy in the world, and we provide crucial humanitarian international aid to every continent on the planet. We are still a powerhouse of culture, a master weilder of soft power and diplomacy. Britain is not for the knackers yet. But our current trend of decline is increasingly obvious. Labour or Conservative, it is time for the government to get a grip, get a vision and power Britain into the future, with a spirit of progressive optimism. The British people are ready for a fresh new start. Failure to provide it and, as Keir Starmer himself has said, they will “never forgive, never forget.”