What does the left want?

The only thing everyone on the left seems able to agree on is that things aren’t going well for Labour. A year into the Covid-19 pandemic and the government has presided over a crashed economy and the highest death rate in the world, but still the Tories are ahead in the polls.

Everyone has their hot take on this. Is Labour not patriotic enough? Is Labour not socialist enough? Is Labour too focused on winning back the Red Wall? These questions are missing the bigger point: what is the change that we want to see?

It’s worth discussing this bigger question. I want to expand it beyond asking “what does the Labour Party want?” to asking, “what does the left want to achieve as a movement?” Or “what are we fighting for?”

What are we fighting for?

By asking this question, I want to involve more people than just those on the left of the Labour Party. The answer should include the Greens, the more left-wing members of the SNP or people who don't associate themselves with any political party, but do consider themselves part of the broader cultural and political movement sometimes called The Left.

One thing we all want is the defeat of our common enemy: The Tories. It may look like the Tories are destined to be in power forever, riding the wave of Boomer resentment of modernity, but it’s certainly possible to get Labour into power. In 2007 Labour looked unbeatable, but three years later they were in opposition. Labour can get into power and use the enormous power of the British state to make people’s lives a little bit better.

If this is our goal, then we have to start thinking tactically. What will cause the voters we need to move over from Tory to Labour? The answer to this might require some compromising over Labour being seen as patriotic. Patriotism is something I find distasteful, but might be needed to get Labour into power.

Labour in power

If the plan is to get Labour into power and then to use the power of the state to sand off the worst edges of capitalism, then we need to have a discussion about whether Keir Starmer can do this and whether Labour’s current strategy will work.

Undoing the damage of a decade of austerity would make a real difference in the lives of many homeless people, people with insecure work and people who are struggling to put food on the table. Labour can stop a lot of poor people suffering by ending austerity, and stop a lot of migrants suffering by ending the hostile environment.

To get Labour into power in 2024 will require Labour winning back the voters who switched from Labour to Tory in 2019. Voters who want Labour to be more patriotic and are opposed to identity politics. This fact is inescapable.

The left and patriotism

I don’t like patriotism and the steam roller effect it has on political debate where everything associated with patriotism is good and everything not associated with it is bad. However 75% of British voters consider themselves to be very or slightly patriotic, so patriotism needs to be reckoned with. [### link]

Labour (and the left more broadly) needs to either find a way to convince some of that 75% that we’re patriotic or convince these people that actually they don’t care about patriotism. It’s one or the other. Saying “yuck, patriotism” and hoping it goes away won’t help.

We need a plan if we’re going to convince 75% of the public that patriotism is toxic and it isn’t something we should expect from politicians. If we can’t do this then, as someone who is comfortable in my middle-class existence, it would be callous of me to say to poor people they must continue suffering under austerity because I don’t want Labour to embrace patriotism.

A bigger change to society

Does the left want to achieve a bigger change than this? Do we want to end capitalism and build a radically different society? Do we want to create a national or international identity that doesn’t rely on a patriotic, nostalgic version of Britain?

There’s lots of energy around making a big change. Every talk or meeting I attend has representatives from groups fighting neo-liberal capitalism or systemic racism in one way or another. However, the impact has been low. Capitalism remains entrenched. The racist systems that underpin society remain unchanged. The power of the banks and the right-wing media isn’t going to end any time soon.

If we want to achieve a bigger change then we need a strategy. Our strategy can’t be: wait until the climate and all the wars created by capitalism are so bad that even Daily Mail readers wake up and realise what’s going on. Too many people will be dead by that point.

The left’s identity crisis

All over the world, left wing parties don’t know what they stand for in the wake of the 2008 financial crash. The Third Way between left and right has been discredited. Does the left now stand for ending capitalism and stopping the constant cycle of crises it produces? Does the left seek an accommodation with capitalism, where taxes can be used to finance government programs to protect against its worst excesses?

We’re no closer to the answer 13 years on from the financial crash and one year into capitalism’s latest crisis.

Lessons from the last five years

For the last five or so years the left’s plan has been to put a good person in charge of the state. The Corbyn project didn’t provide a solution to the left’s identity crisis or a template for left-wing change elsewhere. Neither has Joe Biden’s victory in the US.

I’m sure that Jeremy Corbyn would have been a good Prime Minister and made sure that the Covid-19 crisis didn’t fall most heavily on the poor and marginalised. However, the fact that the left didn’t have a plan beyond “make Corbyn Prime Minister” has left us adrift now that he has gone.

A better idea of what we want

The left taking over the Labour Party to get what we wanted didn’t work. If we have learned anything in the last five or six years is that we can’t fight everyone from the soft left to the far-right all at the same time and win. We need a better idea of what we want and a plan to get it.

A clear answer to what the left wants will inform our strategy. Are we being big and ambitious or small and realistic? Anything can be achieved if we know what we’re aiming for.

Labour Party picture taken by Andrew Skudder and used under creative commons.