Daily Times

The nightmare scenario for the Labour party has come true! The general election of the 12th of December has handed Boris Johnson’s Conservative party a sizeable majority! Seat after seat in Labour’s traditional heartlands of the north and midlands fell to the Tories. In the biggest moment of the night, the Conservative candidate overhauled the Labour majority in Blyth Valley to win by a slim margin of 712 votes. Astonishing to say the least! Because this constituency, a former mining community, had never been under Tory rule. This trend continued throughout the night, leaving the so-called Labour ‘Red Wall’ in tatters! Labour party chairman Ian Lavery retained his seat in Wansbeck albeit with a majority slashed from 10,435 to 814 only! “This isn’t about Jeremy Corbyn – this is about Brexit”, he said. If that is the case, then why are there already so many calls from within the Labour party for Jeremy Corbyn to resign immediately? Granted that Brexit was at the forefront of this election but if the Labour party leadership thinks that this was the only reason for their abysmal performance then they are deluding themselves! Consider.

There wasn’t much divergence in headline policies between Labour and Conservatives. Both thought that austerity is at an end, exceptionally low interest rates call for more borrowing, more spending and investment in the UK will reap future rewards and NHS and public sector entities should be funded even better. Even though Boris Johnson’s Brexit stance – rightly or wrongly – was very clear, Jeremy Corbyn also said that he will honour the people’s ‘final choice’. Though, he did muddy the waters by not committing to either deliver Brexit or cancel it completely!

One can already hear the excuses lining up – Brexit, tactical voting, disproportionate media. Truth be told, this election result was a stinging indictment of the leftist doctrine and those who practice it poorly! Or put it another way, it confirms that it is nearly impossible to win a UK election from the extreme left. The Labour leadership for at-least the last three elections has been heavily leftist in nature. So much so that Ed Miliband, Labour leader between 2010 and 2015, used to be called ‘Red Ed’. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor since 2015 when Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader, was once famously taunted by George Osborne for carrying a personalised copy of Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book. The remark was in jest but made a serious point about the leftist doctrine of the contemporary Labour party. To recap, previous op-eds have defined doctrine as authoritative beliefs and principles that stem from the experience of the person or persons at the top of the tree. In this current period Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.

As doctrines are personal, Tony Blair had another thing going for him which Jeremy Corbyn didn’t; electability!

Labour manifestos for the last three elections all focused on aggressive ideals that are leftist in nature and can almost be tagged as socialist in spirit! These include increasing taxes for existing payees rather than widening the tax net, reversing cuts in corporation tax, nationalising a majority of privately-owned entities as a vehicle for job creation, re-instituting and enhancing inheritance tax, bringing in line (read: increase) capital gains and dividend tax, adding a windfall tax on oil and gas companies as part of an initiative to bring the corporate players to heel and working towards income redistribution and absolute social equality as an end state.

The argument here is not whether these tendencies are correct or incorrect but more so whether these can support an election win? Labour’s performance in the last three elections would say otherwise! While populism may suggest that the leftist doctrine is very profound and relevant – and in some way it maybe – the art of winning elections is to grab the centre ground! The corollary for Labour? Even if it can’t be the centrist party, just left-off centre may still give it the election!

Tony Blair did that successfully and won three consecutive general elections! Under Blair’s leadership, the Labour party coined the phrase ‘New Labour’ to distance itself from previous Labour politics and the party’s traditional leftist doctrine of socialism. It was New Labour that developed and subscribed to the Third Way – an alternate platform to capitalism and socialism. It emphasised social justice instead of social equality, equality of opportunity over equality of income and outcome, utilisation of market economics to gain public-private partnerships rather than nationalisation of assets, sensible taxation – personal and corporate – as opposed to stifling taxation and a social safety net that encouraged work not benefits. The New Labour’s left-off centre doctrine was developed to make the party progressive and attract voters from across the political spectrum. Florence Faucher-King and Patrick Le Galés, authors of The New Labour Experiment: Change and Reform Under Blair and Brown, suggest that New Labour’s leadership was convinced of the need to accept globalized capitalism and join forces with the middle classes who were often hostile to the unions. And that New Labour offered a middle way (read: centre ground) between the neoliberal market economics and the ethical reformism of post-1945 Labour. While Tony Blair maybe a divisive figure today, he is credited with winning three general elections! And was Prime Minister thrice! Why? Because he too realised that winning an election from the left is nearly impossible!

As doctrines are personal, Tony Blair had another thing going for him which Jeremy Corbyn didn’t; electability! Blair was charismatic, charming, dynamic and credible. Polly Toynbee, writing in the Guardian, says this of Corbyn – “devoid of agility, charisma and credibility, Corbyn has led Labour into the abyss”. Nothing could be further from the truth! It seems that it will be quite sometime before a truly leftist doctrine can win an election in the UK!

The writer is Director Programmes for an international ICT organization based in the UK