Grassroots « Labour Uncut

Tristram Hunt is losing teachers’ votes

26/11/2014, 02:32:25 PM

by Daniel Charleston-Downes

In a recent Labour List poll, Tristram Hunt was voted the least popular shadow cabinet member. Other than himself and Ed Balls, all other shadow cabinet members were gifted a positive rating. Dr Hunt’s rating was the only one in negative double figures.

David Cameron moved Michael Gove out of the Education portfolio to protect the Tories approaching an election year. Since then, Nicky Morgan has done all that she can to placate teachers on the verge of further strikes by asking Ofsted to release clear expectations on workload. The Tories have also shifted education debate on to the only thing that they can win on, fear of Islamic extremism.

Teachers are unlikely to flock to the Conservatives at the general election, but parents might. Parents should be angry that their children have been used by Gove as guinea pigs in untested curriculum experiments and have had their futures pulled from under them by shifting goal posts. They should be concerned that 10 years of movement towards an education of inclusion is being abandoned for tighter definitions of special needs and rigorous and inflexible examinations.

But they aren’t because there is silence from the opposition. From a parental perspective, Hunt is nowhere. He has made one statement about curriculum changes, that being that the AS Levels alterations are ‘confusing’. Other than that he has attempted to position himself next to the Conservatives on family values in schools and battling extremism. Both territories that Labour are not perceived as strong on with undecided voters and that the Labour grassroots will feel uncomfortable with.

And when it comes to teachers, Labour really are in trouble. Strike action has been gaining less and less traction with NUT and NASWUT members who are increasingly concerned that unions are losing parents and alienating staff from school leaders. An appetite for further strikes has been lost by the utter contempt displayed by the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition and the deafening silence from anyone on the Labour front benches.

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Blue Labour could help Labour get back in the game

24/11/2014, 10:17:01 PM

by Michael Merrick

Throughout the country, beyond particular urban strongholds, Labour is in a perilous position. The natural advantages so long enjoyed in certain areas have made it presumptuous, whilst electoral security has rendered safe constituencies the fiefdoms of (often incoming) architects and guardians of the progressive, liberal- left project. As such, Labour has become sluggish, but also detached – in all too many places it has failed to hold its voice at the heart of the communities from which it originally sprung.

This presents a problem in the face of the new political realities before us. Put simply, Labour is in no position to fight UKIP in its heartlands. Or even to speak with authenticity to that social and cultural angst from which UKIP is siphoning support. Our initial reaction, to disregard UKIP as a Tory problem, has left us vulnerable as the roots of revolt have crept into lands once occupied by the left – we did not conceive that we might need to build an alternative offer of our own.

Alas, the penny has dropped, and the response has been typical of a party that does not accept the legitimacy of that which it seeks to combat – when we listen, it has been the job of those who are part of the problem to provide diagnosis and solution; when we speak, it has been in tones of that which is being rejected.

Thus Labour has too easily condemned itself as part of the problem it is claiming to solve. Worse, it often does not have the resources or the rootedness to even imagine that there exists a legitimate alternative. For all our talk of reconnecting with the disaffected, one cannot help but wonder how many in the formal organisation of our party have the capacity to recognise the extent of this cultural deficit – the once rich chorus of the Labour tradition has long turned to a shrill, castigating shriek. At root this is a culture clash, and there has been little sign that those with their hands on the levers are willing to budge.

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Labour cannot allow itself to be pulled into UKIP-centric politics

21/11/2014, 06:51:46 PM

by Daniel Charelston-Downes

It doesn’t feel like there are a lot of positives to take from Rochester and Strood. UKIP claimed the seat and the Tories will feel a majority of just 2,920 is small enough for them to reclaim in the General Election. It will be Labour with just 16.8%, a fall of over 10 points on the 2010 election, that will feel they have lost the most out of a seat that they used to hold.

The UKIP victory in Rochester and Strood is a success that belongs to the media. The press has ensured that UKIP, Farage and Reckless have been pushed to the front of the public consciousness and have kept them there. After the ‘People Powered’ hustings on Tuesday it was clear that many were impressed by the eloquence and ability of the Labour candidate Naushabah Khan and that they were thoroughly underwhelmed by the real-life, live version of the UKIP demagogue Mark Reckless.

The question of how to win seats like Rochester and Strood has to focus on how Labour can both win the attention of the media and steer the debate. On the final days of the by-election the papers, internet and radio were all awash with the he-said, she-said snappings between UKIP and the Tories over who had the most reactionary supporters. You had to look very hard indeed to find anything on Naushabah’s policies and statements on the NHS in light of a local failing hospital or indeed her own views on immigration.

To win, Labour has to be part of a movement that engages in a real debate with UKIP. There is a great deal of petulance, particularly in the form of social media, surrounding criticism of Farage and his party. To brand Farage a Fascist or to say that all UKIP supporters are bigoted nutters misses the most integral issue of the Rochester and Strood by-election, and it was not immigration.

There is definitely a fear of immigration in Rochester and Strood, although the actual immigrant population is relatively low. High unemployment rates, particularly in Strood, and an erosion of British working class culture has led to mass disenfranchisement on a huge scale. Every time that Farage or Reckless say ‘let’s kick that lot out of Westminster, it’s time for real change’ with a pint in one hand and a fag in the other it does look to those marginalised by politics like real change. Crucially this means that when mainstream parties attack UKIP for being bigots or nutters it simply pushes people deeper into their arms.

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Breathe in, breathe out

11/11/2014, 02:03:24 PM

by Mike Amesbury

Unity, discipline, being on message (with a coherent message), self-belief and a vision of hope are essential ingredients of a winning campaign. Over the last week a small and cowardly bunch of Labour MPs seem to be suffering from a collective dose of amnesia.

Take your minds back to the wilderness years of 18 years of opposition, the self-indulgent politics of many in our ranks and our disastrous elections campaigns of the 1980s and early 90s. These were characterised by regular mishaps, media briefings and counter briefings; with shadow ministers contradicting each other and untimely sniping about our own leadership.

Not only were we letting ourselves down, more importantly we let our supporters, potential supporters and nation suffer the consequences of Thatcherism. Please, please, wake up and smell the coffee and don’t do this again.

I, for one, am pretty determined to cheer on every Tory and Lib Dem defeat throughout the night of the 7^th May 2015 and the early hours of the 8^th. I don’t want to mark the day after my 46^th birthday with pictures of this Prime Minister Cameron all over media, I don’t want another four years of him unleashing further hell on our nation.

For all its faults, (and there were quite a few) the Blair years were known for professional and disciplined campaigns – 1997, 2001, and 2005 (give or take the odd punch from John Prescott).

The harsh lessons of the wilderness years became engrained in the DNA of the Labour party. The electorate does not like disunity. A common joke amongst officials (of which I was one) and front benchers were references to Peter Mandelson instructing us to “breathe in and breathe out”.

Call me old fashioned if you will, but I have always been keen on winning elections in order to implement a Labour manifesto. We won an unprecedented three successive Labour victories, built a record amount of new schools and hospitals, introduced the minimum wage and implemented measures such as tax credits while reducing child poverty. This discipline combined with staying on a Labour message is needed now more than ever.

A Labour message that talks about, saving the NHS, building a million new homes, increasing the minimum wage, scrapping the bedroom tax, freezing energy bills and creating a responsible and fair economy for all. These are the only briefings that I want to hear as an activist.

Start breathing it in and out over the coming months, in the media, at public meetings and on the doorstep. Let us fight to be the country we should be, one that is prosperous and fair for all, one that offers my young son better opportunities than I had. For this we need a Labour prime minister making that victory speech on the 8^thMay 2015.

Mike Amesbury is a Manchester City Councillor, a National Policy Forum Rep and former Labour North West Regional Official

Posted in Grassroots | 6 Comments »

Labour can lead on immigration by reforming the asylum system

26/10/2014, 10:05:28 AM

by Jack Tunmore

Ed Miliband’s speech in Rochester and Strood this week provided some welcome clarity on Labour’s immigration policy. It is certainly encouraging that he chose to focus on specific and achievable measures that directly affect millions of people: stopping the exploitation of workers and the undercutting of wages will be both progressive and effective, as will closing loopholes that allow agencies to hire only from abroad. A crackdown on illegal immigration as part of his Immigration Reform Bill will no doubt be popular – but Miliband was also at pains to stress that both he and by-election candidate Naushabah Khan were the children of immigrants and were proud of the contribution they and many like them had made.

These clear and concrete policies contrast well with Cameron’s increasingly alarming drift towards Brexit. They are also particularly timely as the whole political spectrum expresses incredulity that the Prime Minister had supposedly just discovered the UK had been landed with a £1.7 billion EU surcharge – Civitas damningly concluded that “this is all a problem of David Cameron’s making”.

Labour now has an opportunity to inject some nuance and decency into the immigration debate. An important start would be a wholesale reappraisal of our asylum system.

That is not to say that the asylum system will be a major election issue; or that such an appraisal would not be difficult. A report from the Migration Observatory published in July noted that attitudes towards immigration are more negative in the UK than they are in the US and much of Europe, with asylum seekers being held in much lower regard than students or high-skilled migrants. Reform of our asylum system is however a chance for Labour to show that we can lead rather than just follow the immigration debate. A balance of compassion and pragmatism is required.

It would be hugely positive, for example, for Labour to lead strongly on the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration John Vine’s report published last week which examined how asylum claims made on the grounds of sexual orientation are handled by the Home Office. To summarise: they are handled disgracefully, with “intrusive” interviews that sometimes even question the validity of same-sex relationships. Such questioning has no place in our society and Labour should be saying so loud and clear.

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The rise of UKIP is a symptom of Westminster’s failure. Now is the time for our great cities to halt the country’s political decline

24/10/2014, 04:30:27 PM

by Ben Garratt

Immigration has become an electoral and symbolic issue, not because Brits are less tolerant of foreigners, but because immigration highlights the growing gulf in experience between Westminster politicians and communities across the country. Trying to out-UKIP UKIP is therefore not the answer.

YouGov’s poll for the Sunday Times earlier this month found that, when people are asked which political leader they trust most on immigration, 26% said “none of them” and a further 13% said “don’t know”. Nigel Farage was considered twice as trust worthy as Labour, but even he could only equal “none of them.” But this challenge does not end at immigration. 40% of respondents said they don’t trust any of the party leaders, on anything at all. As Peter Kellner wrote in June, voters are simply unwilling to believe what the political classes tell us.

How can we understand and halt this decline? When a parent tells you what to do, it might be frustrating but often there will be a niggling feeling that they know what they are talking about. When a successful boss tells you to do something seemingly inexplicable, you instinctively know they have a point. Why? Because of shared experience. They have been there. But, it seems that when a government minister speaks, there is little trust. Why? Because of a lack of shared experience.

From the EU to skills, the environment, immigration and the economy, what national politicians are saying seems less and less grounded in anything socially or economically tangible to our everyday lives, and it is not in Ed Miliband’s or David Cameron’s gift to fix this. This isn’t a failure of speech writers, charisma or the traditional skills of the Westminster class, but a result of the collapse of social, cultural and economic structures which used to connect us to each other and connect our politicians to us. It is a lack of shared experience.

This gap is growing, which is a major problem for our democracy and for getting anything done. Only by reconnecting communities and political leadership can we tackle challenge and, to do this, we need our city regions and communities to take the lead. In a world where traditional class definitions mean less and less, our cities and regions – built on businesses, communities, politicians and more – are the closest spaces of decision-making to our everyday lives. By working together in our regions, we can therefore build on our shared experiences, shifting the debate on immigration, and numerous other intangible long-term issues, away from homogenous headline numbers, and towards credible solutions built on aspiration and investment.

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Three key lessons for the Left from the Scottish referendum

19/10/2014, 11:20:15 AM

by Ranjit Sidhu

It has been just over a month since the Scottish referendum, but it could have an eon ago. With the Heywood by-election now concentrating political minds of the Left, it would be a missed opportunity if Labour, in particular, did not learn from what was an astonishing 15% rise in a matter of months for the Yes campaign in the Scottish referendum.

From the good natured debate on every high street to children asking you to do a referendum based questionnaire on the train, it was the kind of invigorating and surprising political debate I thought had left the UK years ago.

And it’s resonance is still being felt. Last weekend, as was de-rigueur pre-referendum, on the local high street was a SNP table with a picture of Gordon Brown in a dunce cap and a queue preparing to sign up to them. So it was no surprise to me that the SNP has recruited 75,00 new members since the referendum. They may have lost the referendum, but they have picked themselves up and refocused in an instant.

Labour’s reaction has been somewhat the opposite: in denial would be the best phrase to use, but also something else, something that came across whilst the referendum was in full swing: a lethargy. As if the referendum was an unwanted insurrection that was put down, but whose soldiers, who had no real appetite for the fight, were happy to escape straight after back to familiar lands.

If lessons are not learnt the fear is not only will Labour be 20 Scottish MPs lighter come May, putting into prospective how Labour has got itself in such a tizzy about losing a possible 5 seats to Ukip, but have also missed the opportunity to learn some important lessons that could have reset Labour politics to a more positive paradigm.

So here are three interlinked, basic and positive lessons Labour can learn:

The vision thing can still be a positive social agenda

The genius of the Yes campaign was how they were able to tie in the minds of the voters the independence of Scotland with that of a new vision of society for Scotland. When ask what were the two or three most important issues for voting yes many did , indeed, mention disaffection with Westminster politics, but also NHS, public welfare and spending and better jobs were also high up.

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Clacton is a warning: unless Labour gives hope to all of Britain, the politics of fear will grow unchecked

10/10/2014, 12:30:57 PM

by Ranjit Sidhu

Although Mr Carswell in victory this morning stated that UKIP must be “for all Britain and all Britons: first and second generation as much as every other,“ those who actually voted for Mr Carswell made it very clear their vote was not just a general protest vote; they voted UKIP because it had the “best policies on the particular issues they care about” and foremost amongst those was immigration.

“I like their policies of getting rid of all our immigrants. They’re coming over here and we’re keeping them,” says one

Mr Denham a supporter of the Mr Carswell and UKIP mentioned he moved to Clacton to get “out of the East End”, stating:

“There are lots of people like me here who moved to Clacton for that reason. I wouldn’t want to suggest we should eradicate everyone with brown skin, but this is our country.”

That the UKIP policy on migration control is centred around the “white” East European immigration shows that the UKIP rise is opening up a dormant, ugly wound in British society which many of us had hoped was ancient history.

“We’ve voted Labour before, then swayed towards the Tories, but immigration is becoming a problem in Clacton,” says Mr Slogget

In the 2011 census of the 85,359 who are residents of the Clacton constituency 97.4% (83,176) were white with 95.4% white and British (81,272), with 30 from Pakistani heritage and 35 from an Arabic background.

The almost total homogenous nature of Clacton is even clearer when looking at the country of birth of the Clacton residents, with 95.7% born in the UK and 93.9% in England itself. With 589, or 0.7 of one percent coming from the recently joined EU countries surely UKIP’s warning of unfettered immigration from these countries would seem like the least relevant policy for these residents?

So what is going on?

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The Fabians are wrong. Labour’s policy on immigration must be about principle, not just doorstep tactics

05/10/2014, 04:58:57 PM

by Ranjit Sidhu

The Fabian society recently released Revolt on the Left, a document that professionally and exhaustively went through the reason why UKIP was a threat to Labour and what the practical responses should be.

That the Fabian Society, home once to the thinkers that shaped modern society, would create a document on “saleable doorstep policy” to reassure voters that Labour, like UKIP, would be hard on immigration and immigrants getting housing, instead of ideologically battling with the frankly racist lies that UKIP pedal to demonise a disenfranchised groups in society, is a sad bellwether of how Labour has changed: Labour’s very soul, it’s very DNA, since the nineteenth century was to stand up for these demonised and voiceless groups.

The facts on immigration show clearly that it has an overall positive effect on our economy. However, we know it is the perception of immigration being out of control that needs to be combated and that by its nature is a battle of ideas. As the Fabian report so clearly illustrates it is a battle Labour seems prepared to lose when faced with the anti-immigrant populism that currently pervades our country.

That immigration is an issue of perception was again proven in the recent EU elections, where UKIP gains were highest where immigration was low and lowest in areas of high immigration. This further proved the point made by an Migration Observation study when it asked if people thought the UK had a “very big problem” with immigration and whether they thought their own community had a “very big problem” with immigration. Over five times as many people (38 per cent to 7 per cent) thought the UK generally had a problem but not their own community. By accepting the narrative of UKIP, our country loses Labour as the bulwark against the politics of fear – the bogyman of immigration is allowed to grow unchallenged.

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