Roy Hattersley and the Death of Labour

Roy Hattersley is dead. Not a British political great, Hattersley was though a postwar big beast. In this age of political 'pygmies', to paraphrase another under-appreciated Labour heavy-hitter Dick Crossman, Roy Hattersley stands out as an important member of the Party's once great headmasterly tradition. Like his supposed political opponent Michael Foot, but from a more modest class hue, Hattersley was both a political intellectual and party infighter, equal parts literary and tactically calculating; a Labour romantic steeped in both tradition and ideas.

As only a former deputy party leader in opposition, and only a middling cabinet member, Hattersley will not be as much remembered as his eventual close colleague, and leader, Neil Kinnock, who never held a ministerial job. However Hattersley was a major figure in the Labour Party's postwar journey from corporatist Labourism to a rooted social democracy that stood several notches to the left of Corbynite infantilism let alone the human face of neoliberalism embodied by Blair and Starmer. Hattersley was old school because, like enemy Tony Benn and ally Peter Shore, he could articulate both original thought and practical policies.

As an opposition MP Hattersley memorably contributed to in-depth BBC radio and TV broadcasts in the early 1980s, offering high-level insights on political philosophy and ideology in an era that eschewed dumbed-down audience appeasement. In the 1987 General Election Hattersley told a live TV audience of his desire for an ideological fight between his liberal socialism and free market inequality. He hadn't needed to join the Social Democratic Party of Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams and David Owen because he deeply embodied that part of Labour's historic tradition. He also wasn't so politically misguided.

At a time when the best hope for the survival of a party with 108 years of mass political experience behind it is another likeable and smart northerner but one bereft of ideas, Roy Hattersley's death signposts a political transition. His was a democratic class politics rooted in both philosophy and interests. It has been succeeded by a coercive class politics pitting Labour's former working class white bedrock against its former bourgeois liberal allies. A very sad day indeed. 

Careful what you wish for: Brexit will feed popular anger, UK breakup and Labour irrelevance

This morning’s news confirmed the dread I felt going to bed last light. The Brexiteers have won. Just as disturbing are the domestic party political consequences. People who campaigned for the UK to Remain in the EU feared a Leave vote would parachute a more right wing Tory into No 10, in addition to unravelling employment protection legislation for British workers, and reducing living standards for all. 

Two of these three elements are already happening, although Boris and Gove may have to wait until October to see which of them claims the prize. A run on the pound, if sustained, will not only push up prices but put off badly needed foreign investors whose wealth we need to finance the growing deficit in trade and services. When it is freed from the “shackles” of the EU, an even more rightward Conservative Government will also be free to reduce British workers’ rights at work.

The new UK leadership will be under enormous pressure to confirm that a Leave vote will produce a major change in the one issue that sadly dominated the campaign: European immigration. Goodwill among remaining EU member states will be necessary for the UK to retain access to the European Single Market. It will be very hard to generate, whatever the claimed influence of domestic car makers over German chancellor, Angela Merkel. Why make secession from the EU seem relatively painless when you are desperately trying to keep the union together amidst bail outs and migration crises and the possibility of other member states, or at least their emboldened far right parties, seeking a similar vote? If the UK is not allowed to stay in the European Single Market then the common standards that the EU enforces – the right to holidays, and maternity and paternity pay, even for temporary workers – can be swept away by the new Tory administration.

Perhaps a change at the top of British politics in the context of UK negotiations with the EU over the terms of its exit will create a public clamour among a newly empowered British electorate for a UK General Election in the Autumn. After all, can the angry British public continue to say “What’s the point in voting, they’re all the same?” However, even a divided Tory Party would trash a Labour Party that firmly, and conservatively, sided with the status quo – remaining in the EU – especially one that may still be led by Jeremy Corbyn. The man who told white working class Labour voters angry about deindustrialisation and public spending cuts that unlimited migration was a good thing sounded even more out of touch with Labour’s traditional values than the Blair acolytes he so roundly trounced in last year’s leadership election.

The last time the Labour Party faced a working class revolt over immigration it used the pragmatism of office to swiftly reduce it, specifically targeting Commonwealth immigration in hurried legislation issued in the wake of the mass appeal nationalism of Enoch Powell. Blair in government was disinterested in the contemporary version of these concerns, which is less about colour but is partly about culture and religion. Being a believer in neo-liberal economics he didn’t consider using the option of a five year delay to mass Polish immigration.

Middle class metropolitan liberals like to shop around in the multicultural store. Britain for them is about values, imperfect and contradictory as they may be, not culture or identity. Mr Brown famously said of a voter who was the epitome of traditional Labour support that she was “some bigoted old woman.” The EU referendum debate did not mention culture, the “c” word that still doesn’t get mentioned in polite political company, yet it was there all the time, just below the surface, and Remain had nothing to say about it. In fact the Remain campaign’s leading figures had precious little to say about immigration at all, other than it was simply a “good thing”, until the final stages when a few relatively centrist Labour figures mused unconvincingly about trying to restrict it from the rest of Europe.

We do need migrants, skilled and unskilled, but we also need to properly train our own workforce, enforce a genuine Living wage, clamp down on illegal migrants, and punish hard those who sidestep our workers in favour of cheaper workers, wherever they come from. (The UK would actually have had the EU on its side if it got tough with UK-based companies who import cheaper European labour in preference to indigenous workers). We also need to keep out multi-millionaires who add nothing to our economy than increased property prices, and the plethora of servants that travel here (from outside the EU) to ease their indolence.

Labour is now officially a sideshow. Following Brexit and Scotland’s almost inevitable second stab at an independence vote at a time more or less of the SNP’s choosing, it will struggle to ever get into office again. The EU referendum result will now take second place to a three month Tory leadership campaign in which 150,000 party members will choose the British Prime Minister. Parliament is plainly not sovereign. The last two British PMs to resign in office were at least replaced in a vote of their party’s MPs. Cameron says the will of the British people cannot be ignored, but he has this morning used the powers vested in him by the royal sovereign to put exit negotiations on ice until his party’s latest little local difficulty is resolved.

The British people exercised their version of sovereignty in yesterday’s “advisory” referendum. They will (eventually) get their way. I do not think they will like the outcome. Overall migration will not go down that much, unemployment will rise - chiefly because of the decline in our EU-related trade and investment, rights for those in work will be weakened, tax revenues will fall and public services will very definitely be cut. British, or rather English, politics will be a debate conducted pretty far to the right, and the disaffection among those dispossessed by the impersonal economic forces unleashed by successive governments since the 1980s will grow. Perhaps into this void a reasonable sounding English nationalist will emerge. Nigel? Maybe this is genuinely what a majority of (English) voters would wish for.

Careful what you wish for: Brexit will feed popular anger, UK breakup and Labour irrelevance

This morning’s news confirmed the dread I felt going to bed last light. The Brexiteers have won. Just as disturbing are the domestic party political consequences. People who campaigned for the UK to Remain in the EU feared a Leave vote would parachute a more right wing Tory into No 10, in addition to unravelling employment protection legislation for British workers, and reducing living standards for all. 

Two of these three elements are already happening, although Boris and Gove may have to wait until October to see which of them claims the prize. A run on the pound, if sustained, will not only push up prices but put off badly needed foreign investors whose wealth we need to finance the growing deficit in trade and services. When it is freed from the “shackles” of the EU, an even more rightward Conservative Government will also be free to reduce British workers’ rights at work.

The new UK leadership will be under enormous pressure to confirm that a Leave vote will produce a major change in the one issue that sadly dominated the campaign: European immigration. Goodwill among remaining EU member states will be necessary for the UK to retain access to the European Single Market. It will be very hard to generate, whatever the claimed influence of domestic car makers over German chancellor, Angela Merkel. Why make secession from the EU seem relatively painless when you are desperately trying to keep the union together amidst bail outs and migration crises and the possibility of other member states, or at least their emboldened far right parties, seeking a similar vote? If the UK is not allowed to stay in the European Single Market then the common standards that the EU enforces – the right to holidays, and maternity and paternity pay, even for temporary workers – can be swept away by the new Tory administration.

Perhaps a change at the top of British politics in the context of UK negotiations with the EU over the terms of its exit will create a public clamour among a newly empowered British electorate for a UK General Election in the Autumn. After all, can the angry British public continue to say “What’s the point in voting, they’re all the same?” However, even a divided Tory Party would trash a Labour Party that firmly, and conservatively, sided with the status quo – remaining in the EU – especially one that may still be led by Jeremy Corbyn. The man who told working class Labour voters angry about deindustrialisation and welfare cuts that unlimited migration was a good thing sounded even more out of touch with Labour’s traditional values than the Blair acolytes he so roundly trounced in last year’s leadership election.

The last time the Labour Party faced a working class revolt over immigration it used the pragmatism of office to swiftly reduce it, specifically targeting Commonwealth immigration in hurried legislation issued in the wake of the mass appeal nationalism of Enoch Powell. Blair in government was disinterested in the contemporary version of these concerns, which is less about colour but is partly about culture and religion. Being a believer in neo-liberal economics he didn’t consider using the option of a five year delay to mass Polish immigration.

Middle class metropolitan liberals like to shop around in the multicultural store. Britain for them is about values, imperfect and contradictory as they may be, not culture or identity. Mr Brown famously said of a voter who was the epitome of traditional Labour support that she was “some bigoted old woman.” The EU referendum debate did not mention culture, the “c” word that still doesn’t get mentioned in polite political company, yet it was there all the time, just below the surface, and Remain had nothing to say about it. In fact the Remain campaign’s leading figures had precious little to say about immigration at all, other than it was simply a “good thing”, until the final stages when a few relatively centrist Labour figures mused unconvincingly about trying to restrict it from the rest of Europe.

We do need migrants, skilled and unskilled, but we also need to properly train our own workforce, enforce a genuine Living wage, clamp down on illegal immigrants, and punish hard those who sidestep our workers in favour of cheaper workers, wherever they come from. (The UK would actually have had the EU on its side if it got tough with UK-based companies who import cheaper European labour in preference to indigenous workers). We also need to keep out multi-millionaires who add nothing to our economy than increased property prices, and the plethora of servants that travel here (from outside the EU) to ease their indolence.

Labour is now officially a sideshow. Following Brexit and Scotland’s almost inevitable second stab at an independence vote at a time more or less of the SNP’s choosing, it will struggle to ever get into office again. The EU referendum result will now take second place to a three month Tory leadership campaign in which 150,000 party members will choose the British Prime Minister. Parliament is plainly not sovereign. The last two British PMs to resign in office were at least replaced in a vote of their party’s MPs. Cameron says the will of the British people cannot be ignored, but he has this morning used the powers vested in him by the royal sovereign to put exit negotiations on ice until his party’s latest little local difficulty is resolved.

The British people exercised their version of sovereignty in yesterday’s “advisory” referendum. They will (eventually) get their way. I do not think they will like the outcome. Overall migration will not go down that much, unemployment will rise - chiefly because of the decline in our EU-related trade and investment, rights for those in work will be weakened, tax revenues will fall and public services will very definitely be cut. British, or rather English, politics will be a debate conducted pretty far to the right, and the disaffection among those dispossessed by the impersonal economic forces unleashed by successive governments since the 1980s will grow. Perhaps into this void a reasonable sounding English nationalist will emerge. Nigel? Maybe this is genuinely what a majority of (English) voters would wish for.

The Conservatives are the natural party of government

Labour has never been the “natural party of government” in this country. Harold Wilson’s claim was based on only one resounding election success under his leadership. Tony Blair, like him or loathe him, was perhaps a natural prime minister, the only Labour leader who was able to reach out beyond Labour’s comfort zones and into the socio-economic parts of Britain without which you cannot command a sustainable majority. Even in the face of his Iraq horror show, Blair led his party to its third comfortable election success.

Scotland is now pro-nationalist, and even perhaps willing to vote for independence in a year or two’s time. It has long been another country in political terms too. While it was revolting over the poll tax, England considered the mild radicalism of a Welsh Labour leader and, shyly, voted for John Major’s Conservative Party. Yesterday the Tories got a majority after hurting poorer “hard working” families for five years while those not in need of in-work welfare benefits feared that the Labour Party would somehow jeopardise the flimsy certainties of what, statistically at least, is an economic recovery.

The NHS is the exception to the rule, the last surviving nationalised industry and one that, broadly speaking, is popular. Labour may have won the 1945 election because its promise to introduce socialised medicine was the most believable, but after only six years in office it was out for another 13. Labour’s two election victories in 1974 were barely deserving of the name. The Labour government that lost office in 1979 had essentially been a minority one for most of its rule.

Now Labour has to consider whether a more authentically social justice and home rule message in Scotland and Wales will remotely help it in England (where Westminster elections, after all, are decided). To paraphrase Neil Kinnock, if you think that that is right, then go into the semi-detached homes of people struggling to pay their mortgage in the south of England and “tell it there, tell it there.”

The United Kingdom is under threat, and the very self-serving economic reasons why we joined the Common Market are increasingly being seen in England as not being upheld by the EU today. What will Labour do next? A lurch to the left will this time definitely consign it to the dustbin of history. There will be no electoral reform to save it, while Labour has lost Scotland (and its parliamentary support) whether it becomes an independent sovereign country or not. To be elected and then to govern in England will be impossible for Labour without being able to both appeal to aspiration and not somehow abandoning its so-called electoral base. In the 2015 election Labour absurdly pandered to that base without offering anything more than half-hearted apologies for past errors and an unconvincing line on deficit and debt reduction. The outcome was its third worst General Election result since 1935.

The recession was a fork in the road. In this election Labour tried to plough down the middle by refusing to say it had overspent in the last government whilst claiming it would reduce the deficit faster, but somehow more fairly, in the next. Electing a new leader who mouths the same (and, ironically, non-inclusive) platitudes about hard working families will not cut it, in England or Scotland. Something major needs to be tried. Reaching out to everybody, right across the Union, is an even taller order right now. Perhaps more honesty would help. If Scotland hasn’t already left the building by the time of the next Westminster election, tell voters that you will work with the SNP precisely to save the Union, that we should stay in the EU for the sake of jobs and, yes, for the sake of political stability across Europe, and that ever-expanding health and welfare budgets are not the answer. Otherwise, just carry on regardless.