After the first not-debate of the 2015 UK election campaign, the Labour Party is probably feeling like it has had the best of the opening exchanges. But not everything smells of roses just yet.
During the not-debate Labour's leader, Ed Miliband, showed himself to be at least credible. Now the party has staked out its territory on the NHS by committing to restricting private company profits taken from NHS contracts and to the repeal of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (Wintour, 2015{1}).
During the not-debate Labour's leader, Ed Miliband, showed himself to be at least credible. Now the party has staked out its territory on the NHS by committing to restricting private company profits taken from NHS contracts and to the repeal of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (Wintour, 2015{1}).
Furthermore, the Conservatives were forced to be defensive over leaks purporting to be their proposed welfare cuts for the next parliament (Wintour, 2015{2}) - which would involve the end of industrial injuries benefit (for £1bn), restrictions on child benefit (for £1bn), taxes on disability benefits (for £1.5bn), and reducing eligibility for carer's allowance (with 40% to lose out for £1bn).
The coverage of the leak largely overshadowed David Cameron's own announcement - accompanied by insults aimed at Labour, describing them as ''hypocritical holier-than-thou, hopeless, sneering socialists" (The Guardian, 2015) - to expand the NHS to a full-time 24/7 service (BBC, 2015{1}). He was hardly helped by a British Medical Association warning that an expansion of services would require extra funding (BBC, 2015{2}).
This will all have been precisely the start Labour will have wanted. Labour looking credible on the NHS, and the Tories looking nasty with their cuts agenda.
And yet. While everything may look rosy for Labour and progressives, there is a negative undertone bubbling away just beneath the surface.
And yet. While everything may look rosy for Labour and progressives, there is a negative undertone bubbling away just beneath the surface.
Nowhere is that negativity shown best than in the debate on immigration. The latest outrage has come courtesy of the Labour Party itself. Diane Abbott, Labour MP, has expressed her anger at the party's merchandising of a 'Controls on Immigration' mug. The party is using it to promote one of its key election commitments, itself a platitude to cover themselves with voters for whom immigration is a concern (Perraudin, 2015).
The Labour Party's attitude on the matter of immigration shouldn't really be a surprise at this point. Their language during the European elections, at the possibility of a UKIP threat to its working class base, made clear their turn towards appeasement of anti-immigration rhetoric (Watt & Wintour, 2014; Cooper, 2014).
In many ways, Labour and the Conservatives have become mirrors of one another. Both have tried to court the voters of Britain's broad Centre-ground, and in doing so forsook some of their native territory - and they have both underestimated the level of resistance that they would face from their old, alienated, supporters who would refuse to move with them.
When the Conservatives couldn't keep their house in order while trying to modernise and claim centre voters it spawned an ugly offshoot. Those Right-wing voices have since been allowed to dictate the terms of the debate, and to tie together, in people's minds, their agendas with the insecurities people fear. The sad thing is that the solutions to insecurities of work, or to the lack of homes, are not to be reached by the Right's favoured response of shutting themselves in. There are far more open and progressive solutions.
When the Conservatives couldn't keep their house in order while trying to modernise and claim centre voters it spawned an ugly offshoot. Those Right-wing voices have since been allowed to dictate the terms of the debate, and to tie together, in people's minds, their agendas with the insecurities people fear. The sad thing is that the solutions to insecurities of work, or to the lack of homes, are not to be reached by the Right's favoured response of shutting themselves in. There are far more open and progressive solutions.
A strong minimum wage and a citizen's income. House building and social housing. More money made available to the less well-off to create their own start-ups. More support and funding for workers to take over their workplaces as co-operatives when big companies pull the plug and reek havoc in communities. The publicly funded public healthcare system supported by health professionals and service users alike.
There is also support for these ideas. Labour, and the Greens and Lib Dems, are all on board with a rising minimum wage, with house building and with co-operatives. The three main parties of the left and centre are all half way there. All that tends to stand in the way is a commitment to an effective public sector, around which there might be an equitable redistribution of income for health & welfare, and for housing and public investment like co-operatives - whether centralised at Westminster or decentralised to regions and localities.
And yet. Once again Labour has found itself against a wall of public opinion and has not found a voice with which to cut through the propaganda. Instead, feeling weak and set upon, it has paid lip service.
Labour's health proposals are part of a similar theme. They have offered a check on privatisation which, by definition, precludes an end to PFIs (Private Finance Initiatives) in the NHS - which expanded first of all under Labour's stewardship (Dathan, 2015). While it would certainly raise more funds for the NHS, it is still only an attempt at making capitalism work for socialism - or at least democratic socialism - rather than a means of addressing or responding to the fundamental mistrust of private business becoming involved with public services.
Labour's attitude to healthcare and immigration are problems with a common root. On healthcare they have their same old idea - of using private investment to raise public funds - and are just looking for a new way to sell it to people redressed in new packaging. On immigration the party has a fairly positive core - one focussed on a minimum wage increase and working conditions - which it has now encased within a language and policies of anti-immigration scapegoating.
In each case, Labour has come to its own position but has not tried to win the debate over the fundamental ideas underlying them. They have merely looked for how they might sell the idea. That has produced the inconsistent result where the party has resisted public pressure to end NHS privatisation, and yet has caved to it on immigration.
In each case, Labour has come to its own position but has not tried to win the debate over the fundamental ideas underlying them. They have merely looked for how they might sell the idea. That has produced the inconsistent result where the party has resisted public pressure to end NHS privatisation, and yet has caved to it on immigration.
Labour's mix of aloof policy-making and aggressive populism alienates them from the people they should be debating with, trying to convince them of the benefits of progressive alternatives. While the political Right scraps for dominance, Labour needs to wake up to the fact that the Left doesn't have to play the game the same way.
There is so much hunger on the Left for more engagement and less half measures. There is so much room for more co-operation, more optimism and more positivity. Diane Abbott speaking out against Labour's immigration policy is a positive constructive step. People are crying out for a radically positive vision and Labour, as the biggest party on the Left, have the responsibility to facilitate it.
References
Patrick Wintour's 'Ed Miliband vows Labour would cap profits of private health companies'; in The Guardian; 27 March 2015{1}.
Patrick Wintour's 'Potential Conservative welfare cuts revealed in leaked emails'; in The Guardian; 27 March 2015{2}.
'David Cameron makes personal attack on Ed Miliband and 'sneering socialists'' in The Guardian; 28 March 2015.
'Election 2015: Cameron promises 'seven-day NHS' by 2020'; on the BBC; 28 March 2015{1}.
'British Medical Association warns on 'seven-day NHS''; on the BBC; 28 March 2015{2}.
Frances Perraudin's 'Diane Abbott: Labour's 'controls on immigration' mugs are shameful'; in The Guardian; 29 March 2015.
Nicholas Watt & Patrick Wintour's 'Labour divided over threat posed by Ukip'; in The Guardian; 27 May 2014.
Yvette Cooper's 'Let's not pretend that people aren't worried about immigration'; in The Guardian; 28 May 2014.
Matt Dathan's 'Ed Miliband pledges 5% profit cap on private NHS providers but whose record is he trying to undo?'; in The Independent; 27 March 2015.
Chuka Umunna's 'An £8 minimum wage'; from the Labour Party; 21 December 2014.
Rowena Mason's 'Green party to call for £10 minimum wage for all by 2020' in The Guardian; 4 September 2014.
Patrick Wintour & Nicholas Watt's 'Liberal Democrats push for minimum wage increase'; in The Guardian; 13 September 2013.
Anthony Murray's 'Labour promises a future of ‘co-operative entrepreneurship’ in the UK'; in Co-operative News; 6 February 2015.
'Workers' Rights & Employment'; from the Green Party.
'Liberal Democrats to support community banks'; from the Liberal Democrats; 8 October 2014.
'Nick Clegg plans more employee ownership'; on the BBC; 16 January 2012.
'Manifesto watch: Where parties stand on key issues'; on the BBC; 15 February 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment