by Jonathan Todd
I am a liberal social democrat in a country full of liberal social democrats with no liberal social democrats to vote for. I briefly hoped that this would not be so after the general election. That Labour would turn away from the defeated soft leftism of Ed Miliband. Not to an arid New Labour that leaves even ardent Blairites cold. But to something more vibrant, contemporary yet classic, what I call liberal Labour, in tune with the increasingly liberal, broadly socially conscious UK that Jeremy Cliffe’s work for Policy Network charts.
There is no love for Conservatives in this country. They won the general election in spite of themselves. But they still won it. There is no route to Labour recovery that does not confront that. Yet paradoxical claims persist, which the Miliband years should have tested to destruction, including that Labour can win with the votes of non-voters.
The Conservative victory came in the country that we are, not the country that we might want it to be. We wish that non-voters voted and all voted – contrary to the experience from Australia’s compulsory voting system – Labour. But that’s not the country we live in.
The disjuncture between the portrait painted of the UK at Labour’s spring rally and the actual UK shocked me. If Labour elects Corbyn, we will have chosen to keep believing what the rally wanted us to believe and not the hard truths that defeat ought to have had us confront.
The spring rally wasn’t Corbyn’s rally. The pretence that it peddled wasn’t his. It was Miliband’s. From whom the silence deafens, as Corbyn rallies proliferate, based on a similarly sharp break between the UK lived outside the rallies and the UK believed at the rallies.
Corbyn threatens to become the leadership bullet that Labour ducked with Tony Benn, one of Miliband’s early employers. During the Glasgow Hillhead by-election of 1982, Roy Jenkins recalls, in his autobiography, Benn having some noticeable meetings. “His appearances in the constituency at once exciting those present and alienating those not.” Based on the chilly reception for Corbyn witnessed in Newsnight’s focus group of ex-Labour voters, we must worry that Corbyn is another divisive presence.
Yvette Cooper – or even, in a less whole hearted fashion, Andy Burnham, but sadly not, Liz Kendall – might play Denis Healey to Corbyn’s Benn. But this race has no Jenkins. Firmly rooted in the political centre, while capable of arousing passionate support.
The Jenkins autobiography makes the extraordinary claim that his, “meeting drawing power as one of the Gang of Four was about four times what it had been as a highly controversial and politically exposed Chancellor of the Exchequer twelve years before. Packed audiences in medium-sized halls became a guaranteed feature of life in the early SDP.”
Only Terrible Simplifiers now have such capacity to draw crowds. While a year ago, I encouraged Labour to overcome the simplifications of Nigel Farage and Alex Salmond, we would peddle our own simplifications under Corbyn. In the extreme economic circumstances of Greece, the simplifiers of Syriza hold and misuse power. Most contexts are not so extreme, keeping the simplifiers away from power. But, as Donald Trump to the right and Bernie Sanders to the left attest in the US, and many others do in other political systems, our times are growing more susceptible to simplifiers, as Moisés Naim anticipated a few years ago in his book on the changing character of power.
There is, as Simon Schama put it in the FT over the weekend, “an inspiration gap. As long as liberal politics is seen as nothing more than a contest for a fine-tuned status quo, it will continue to be shaken by ‘surprises’.” When Corbyn magnifies the simplifications that Miliband sought to trade on, which Miliband has subsequently failed to renounce, and when inspiration is lacking across the globe from centre left politicians, we should perhaps be less surprised than we have been by Corbyn.
We should, however, be consoled by Jenkins. He suffered no inspiration gap, while selling a liberal social democracy for his times. In the UK beyond the rallies of Miliband and Corbyn, there is a large gap in the political market for an updated liberal social democracy. Social democratic in being conscious of the opportunities and limitations of both government and market interventions. Liberal in seeking to pragmatically deploy whichever best empowers individuals, families and communities to be, in their own terms, all that they can be.
Reviewing Paul Mason’s new book on “postcapitalism”, the economist Diane Coyle assesses his concluding policy recommendations: “After the rhetoric and the grand theorising of the earlier parts of the book, you close by asking: is that it?” Mason contributes to the renewed energy around the far left that sustains Corbyn. But neither Mason nor Corbyn are truly radical.
Liberal social democracy contains the seeds of a more radical policy programme, as well as a more electable politics, given the latent support for such a politics that Cliffe identifies. Labour awaits a Jenkins to unlock this policy and politics. Irrespective of what happens on 12 September that is our task. Either to provide ballast to a Healey-esque leader or the possibility of a brighter future beyond a Benn-esque one.
Jonathan Todd is deputy editor of Labour Uncut
Tags: Jonathan Todd, Labour leadership contest, liberal social democrat, roy jenkins, SDP
If you want to vote for Liberal Social Democrats, why not vote for The Liberal Democrats ?Thats what Roy Jenkins did, after all. Why keep trying to force Labour into a mould it can never fit ?
A lot of words in which the writer says what exactly? I’m a Liberal Democrat who doesn’t want Corbyn or any of the other contenders to win the leadership because they don’t reflect my views? I can criticise others for offering simple solutions while offering nothing constructive of my own? I think Roy Jenkins was a top bloke? This website has really started to scrape the barrel, both for articles and editors, it seems.
A fine article although I think we need a Healey more so than a Jenkins. But what they both had was fight. We are going to lose the leadership election not because of policies but because of the risk aversion and plain boredom of the two serious Right/Centre candidates. Leaving us with Worzel Gummidge as leader. A Hugh Gaitskell wouldn’t be bad either. Fight and fight again.
“There is no love for Conservatives in this country. They won the general election in spite of themselves”
And I assume – by omission – Mr Todd thinks there is love for Labour?
Time for a reality check. Apart from Party supporters and activists, few few people in the UK “love” politicians. I suspect most of us think they are a necessary evil.. All we ask is honesty, and a degree of competence. And not lying too often. And not treating the electorate as if we are fools.
I ask Mr Todd to look at the Leadership election for the Labour Leadership.
Now no-one in their right mind could call the organisation “competent” . A shambles from the “open to everyone to vote ” being modified to “not if you are anti Labour”, to the 100,000 ballot papers still not distributed to voters..etc. It is not unreasonable to assume if you cannot run an ineternal election, you clearly are incompetent to govern.
Honesty? One candidate – Burnham – has contradicted himself in public a number of times. Obviously either a liar or a buffoon.
Honesty? Like offering 10,000 refugees places when Labour complain (rightly) about housing shortages?
And so on.
And you think you are loved? Think of Ed Miliband – another useless Leader to go beside the one you are likely to elect. Who can “Love” a Party run by an apologist for terrorists?
Basically Labour is not “loved” but “laughed at”..
I am sympathetic to liberal social democracy but I would prefer another Crosland. Of course, Jenkins and Crosland were often in the same cabinet as Benn, so hopefully liberal social democrats will try to work constructively with Corbyn. This would be in contrast to the way that Benn often undermined Michael Foot.
“Only Terrible Simplifiers now have such capacity to draw crowds”.
You say “now”, trying to draw a distinction between the enthusiasm for the SDP then, and the enthusiasm for Farage and Cornyn. There is no distinction. The SDP project was itself a terrible simplification. The message was “Vote for us and you can have what you like about Labour without the Trade Unions and CND and inside the Common Market”. That was about it really as far as most voters were concerned. They were cruelly misled by a man who knew the chance of success was microscopic, but liked being “in the fray”. He opted out of the difficult task of renewing Labour and helped the Tory Party stay in power.
If you learn anything from the SDP catastrophe and Jenkins’ role in it you should learn that you should stay and fight your corner in the Labour party.
@Bob Crossley. You make a fair point about the simplyfications of The SDP but you underestimate just how close The Alliance came to pushing Labour into 3rd place. If Argentina hadnt invaded The Falklands or Benn had defeated Healey, events might have turned out very differently.
In any case there are more than 2 choices for Labour Moderates – its not simply a choice between stay & fight or form a breakaway Party. They could also stay & not fight or they could join The Liberal Democrats.
Roy Jenkins initiated a very liberal series of social reforms as Home Secy from 65-67, which the country needed desperately but some senior Labour figures fought shy of. There was timidity at the top plus the influence – always malign in the Labour party – of statist puritanism.
Returning as HS in 74 he was faced with IRA terrorism on the mainland which necessitated the Prevention of Terrorism Act and took precedence over further liberal reforms. Had Jim made him Foreign Secy rather than Tony C the SDP could have been avoided.
So ideally we are looking for a moderate with senior cabinet experience currently out of parliament in a high profile job overseas.
It’s on the tip of my tongue…
Woy Jenkins? Tony Benn’s response to Jenkins at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiBqJraaXcI#t=47m16s is spot-on.
We are going to lose the leadership election
despite Frankie Boyle’s biting satire in his Guardian article last week, that is actually impossible. The Labour leadership will be won by a member of the Labour Party.
Anosrep, Tony Benn talked of class traitory yet he was upper class and he nearly destroyed the labour party,yes Jenkins did become a labour minister thanks to labour victories,of which Jenkins played a larger part on getting labour elected than Benn