On Tuesday, Ed Miliband caused a political earthquake when he upset his brother to claim the UK Labour leadership.
Immediately, the right-wing press found their soundbyte – “Red Ed”.
In his keynote to conference, Ed Miliband immediately rubbished that suggestion. It’s a bit of an insult to call him a “Red” when Labour spent many years trying to boot Communists like Militant Tendency out of the party – let alone the fact that “Red Ken” has been given another shot at becoming Labour’s mayor of London (and even that tag is a bit of a joke these days).
Ed should be called a conventional social democrat, who believes in equality and collectivism and using the power of the state to change society, as opposed to the strong strains of liberalism, neoliberalism and individualism that often ran through New Labour.
The press were obviously trying to label him before he had a chance to define himself. They were also angry about how their preferred candidate, David Miliband, had not won. The howls of outrage grew even bigger when Ed Miliband won via the union vote. What these people failed to understand was that the “union vote” is actually a vote of members of affiliated societies. The union vote isn’t some stack of union secretaries, it’s a vote of ordinary union members – teachers, nurses, cleaners, public servants, manufacturing workers. They also include members of small think tanks like the Fabians and compass, who did break for Ed Miliband as well. The fact Ed Miliband won this section wasn’t an accident. He went after their votes and talked about issues that they cared about. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Perhaps there’s a bigger point to make, though. The attacks on Ed Miliband before he has even spent a week in the job show that many in the media think that “New Labour” is the only credible or electable version of Labour. Anything else is illegitimate or “red”. Perhaps more of a worry – many in “the new Labour establishment” feel exactly the same way.
EdM was absolutely spot on when he called them an “establishment”. To this day, none of that establishment have any idea just how bad some of their policies were to the country and to Labour’s credibility. ”. To me this was brought to life when David Miliband was spotted whispering to Harriet Harman about why she clapped Ed’s condemnation on Iraq. When Ed Miliband told conference that Iraq was wrong, conference gave a half-hearted applause, almost like they were in shock.
When he talked about how Unions fight for justice, and how labour market flexibility was not always the answer, and that marketisation of public services had gone too far, and that the gap between rich and poor was too wide, again the New Labour establishment was shaken up. Part of the New Labour brand was to not worry about these things – but as Ed said in an earlier speech a few weeks ago – “New Labour got stuck in it’s own dogma”.
In Australia we wouldn’t view such opinions as out of place or unfashionable in the ALP. In fact, they would be mainstream even in sections of the NSW right faction. Ed Miliband’s comment that the Iraq War was wrong because it undermined international institutions was precisely the opinion of the ALP in 2003 and it remains so today. Yet in British Labour it remains controversial, because Blair spent an enormous amount of his (and Labour’s) political capital in selling it. To call that decision wrong took an enormous amount of bravery to but Ed was absolutely right to do it.
Ed’s task is to remove the “New” from Labour, and then make “Labour” credible. This will not be easy. It was a task that proved too big for Neil Kinnock. It will be resisted by the political and media establishment.
Part of the problem he has is a problem of Labour’s own making. By branding itself “New Labour” in 1996, the Labour party did two things.
First – the term “New” was an appropriate way of showing people that Labour had changed from the era of strikes, militant tendency and Clause IV. In 1996, it was useful way of wrapping up the changes Labour had made in one brand that was easy for people to understand.
On the other hand, “New Labour” implied that everything about Labour before 1996 was “old” or “bad, or at least “unelectable”. When Ed Miliband criticizes New Labour, it will make it easy for people to say he wants to take Labour backwards.
This is a big problem, but one that he simply must overcome.
The only way he can do it is to outline specifically what he liked about New Labour, what he’s going to chuck in the bin, and then rebuild the vision by adding some things of his own.
In his speech yesterday, he went a surprisingly long way to doing that.
He picked the things that New Labour got right, and outlined most of their first term agenda – the minimum wage, peace in northern Ireland, saving the NHS, fixing public services through increased expenditure, its record on equality for women and gay people, and it’s (then) solid foreign policy agenda, and balancing all this with a stable economy.
Then he trashed the things they got wrong. Flexible Labour markets, tuition fees, trashing civil liberties, housing, immigration, marketisation in public services, banking deregulation and the Iraq War.
Ed Miliband basically argued that Labour was at its best when it implemented things that you’d expect a Labour government to do – and it stuffed up when it strayed too far from its core values. Then they wasted an opportunity during the Brown era to move on and reform the economy.
He also added some of his own vision on top. A graduate tax to replace tuition fees, taxes on the banks, a living wage, changes to basic labour market changes to stop the undercutting of wages, green investments, a defense of unions, and a foreign policy based on values, not alliances.
The press will obviously focus on his deficit reduction plan as being the first hurdle for his leadership. Luckily, some of the work has already been done for him via Alistair Darling’s plan. A good first step would be to stick to that plan as a base, oppose cuts that are likely to harm the poor or sacrifice economic growth, outline tax increases for the rich, and then start hammering the airwaves on what the rest of his policy vision should be.
Ed Miliband above all things is at his best when he speaks with passion and conviction. The speech he gave on Tuesday could not have been delivered by David Miliband. There’s no way he could have repudiated sections of the New Labour policy program with any credibility. It’s not just the policy vision, it’s also the sense of humility, passion, honesty and sympathy, yet delivered with a sturdy and calm backbone. Labour has made a courageous decision to elect him, but I believe they made the right one. He is a clean break – some might say a premature break.
Many in the New Labour establishment will feel a sense of entitlement that has now been taken away from them too early, and they won’t appreciate the critique. But in the long term, the Labour party will be better off for electing him. There would have been little point continuing with a model under David Miliband that had been rejected by the electorate, only to see it rejected again. Even if this experiment ultimately fails, Labour will be better off for doing something different, and it will be better off by having an honest conversation about past failures.
Given the fall of a number of social-democratic governments in Europe, the defeat of NZ Labour, the recent near-death experience of the ALP, and the difficulties president Obama is facing, part of Ed Miliband’s task must be greater. Now that he has begun to dismantle New Labour, he must rebuild what a credible social democracy in the 21st century should look like. He has already told the New Statesman that this is what he wants to do.
The Con-Dem coalition should not underestimate the importance of this. Nor should it be underestimated. Labour has seen a huge amount of members join since the general election – 35,000 in just 4 months. Yesterday Eddie Izzard announced that 2,000 more had joined in the 2 days since Ed Miliband became the leader.
If these people are involved as party members in the party’s organization and the future direction of the party, that will be a huge advantage for Labour. Not only will it create a massive organisational movement that can turn out at election time, it can also help shape the vision. If Labour wants to get back to power quickly, having a growing and vibrant organization will be a huge advantage on the ground.
Figures like Bob Hawke, Bill Clinton, Gerhard Schroeder, Neil Kinnock, Tony Blair, Paul Keating, Helen Clark and David Lange defined social democracy in their own time. Social democratic parties during the 80's and 90's warmly embraced the third way as an alternative to both Thatcherism and socialism – even if that meant compromising traditional beliefs about public services, unions, the role of the state, and equality.
That era of social democracy seems to be ending, with Conservatives on the march through almost every western country with a vision of cuts to the state. The third way vision of Blair has, for the most part, reached the end of its shelf life. It was always going to reach a point where someone drew a line and said "this isn't working" or "this isn't labour". Now that Ed Miliband has done that, a new era must now begin. Obama showed part of the way forward through collective organising, but he has now become stuck in a quagmire in government. From opposition, that vision can be renewed and made fresh again, and the sooner this is done the better it will be, and the sooner Labour will come back to government.
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