The other day I wrote a post about saying the former days were better than these. They were some musings from time spent at a local mill. It told the story of the old mill, how it came to be built, what made it significant and also spoke about the life of the workers, particularly some of the apprentice children, who worked there. You can read that post here. I only bring it up again because it seems, in the political realm, saying the former days being better than these is all the rage at the minute!

I am writing this on Saturday, a few days after the seismic local election results that cemented our new political era of five-party politics. I only mention the date of writing because, as anybody who follows these things is well aware, everything could have changed by the time you are reading this on Monday morning! What I am about to say may either have already snowballed, petered out or have proven to be nothing more than hot air. I do not claim to be a prophet or an oracle.

What I do know is that Keir Starmer’s apparent answer to the bloody nose his premiership received in the local elections – and I think it is impossible to ignore that it is very much a result about his leadership in particular – is to welcome back into the cabinet Labour big-wigs of yesteryear. Namely, Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman. Clearly Keir is of the view the former days were better than these. But I think there are several problems in suggesting it is so.

First, it is difficult to spin bringing back former big beasts as anything other than backward looking. British politics (for good or ill) is predicated on the Whiggish desire for progress. The Conservative Party were once rebranded as the antidote to the ever onward upward march, insisting that there were things worth conserving rather than jettisoning everything in the name of progress, but they have long abandoned that stance in the face of public demand. All parties are effectively Whiggish because the people always want progress. They always want things to be better than they are or were. Here is not the place to discuss the rights and wrongs of that, it is simply the place to note it and observe that bringing back one-time party bigwigs necessarily undercuts any such progressive impression one might wish to engender.

Second, it is problematic personally for Sir Keir. However you cut it, there were questions being asked about his leadership before the local elections and those questions have greatly intensified since. In fact, the question ahead of the election was whether Labour would be electorally better off under the current leadership or with a new leader. Now, the questions are whether the Labour Party can survive as a party under the current leadership. It is difficult to underscore how significant this is when we are discussing one of the only two parties to hold government in this country over the last 100 years. Starmer’s answer to this problem is to bring back Gordon Brown. Without passing any comment on the relative merits of Gordon Brown’s premiership, seeking the help of one of the only UK Prime Ministers who never won an election and was so deeply unpopular in the Labour heartlands (Gillian Duffy, anyone?) that he took Labour out of government for nearly 15 years seems an odd choice at best.

Third, the problem isn’t really limited to Keir Starmer. Many of those who are of the view his premiership is the fundamental problem are currently pushing Ed Miliband as their particular answer. Of course, Ed Miliband has been here before. He was favoured amongst the Labour Party members over his brother, David, following Gordon Brown’s resignation. David Miliband was the MPs favourite but Ed won the leadership contest, laying bare the chasm that had (at the time) opened up between the parliamentary party and the wider membership. That was underscored when the legacy Miliband left was the OMOV system of electing a party leader, along with the £3 registered supporters, that saw the party vastly increase in number and subsequently elect Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership. Once again, without passing comment on the relative merits of the Miliband-era, suffice to say his name being mooted seems an odd call under the circumstances.¹

Ed Miliband isn’t the only backward looking candidate being mooted. Though he was never Prime Minister, Andy Burnham’s name is picking up steam. Burnham was, however, a government minister and has previously attempted to win the party leadership. This isn’t to say he would necessarily make a poor leader – most recognise he has done a good job as Mayor of Manchester – but it is to say he his hardly the forward-looking candidate. Indeed, he isn’t even elected to parliament yet and with the current situation facing the Labour Party, this is not a given even in an apparently safe seat.

Fourth, and this is really the fundamental issue, the electorate want change. Whether under Keir Starmer or a new leader, if Labour want to survive they need to make an offer to the electorate that will meaningfully change things for them. What most people want is a better set of circumstances than they currently have. Labour need to cut through the noise, avoid media talking points that distract from what most people want, and make a pitch to the electorate of the concrete things they will do.

Thus far, Labour’s policy-making has been incoherent at best. Stating goals and ends on the one hand and then undercutting them with the other. Say what you want about the 2010-2020 Cameron governments, whether you liked them or not, there was clarity about what they stood for and they set about doing what they intended. Labour’s major problem is that they keep saying they want to do certain things, encourage things, stand for things but then consistently seem to undercut their stated aims and desires at almost every turn. It is partly what has led to so many U-turns. It is deeply frustrating to the electorate who, in the end, simply vote for others in the hope of meaningful change.

Interestingly, one of the few policies that has been mooted in the attempt to provide change is a more definite pitch to re-join the EU. That suggestion shows why Labour currently face the travails they do. They do not understand the electorate and are caught up in a Westminster feedback loop of centrist politicians and journalists, detached from the concerns of swathes of the population, failing to meaningfully understand (or even feign to want to understand) them. They are failing to learn the lessons of the past.

When the parties that refused to leave the EU got hammered at the ballot box, it led inexorably to the Johnson-era Conservative leadership. Boris arrogantly assumed the “red wall” would remain Conservative due to his promise to ‘get Brexit done’. He failed to realise the working class hadn’t shifted allegiance, they just went with the one person saying he would do what they voted for as opposed to the rest who said they wouldn’t! Ironically, if Labour had campaigned to leave the EU – as they were historically primed to do – we would of had a very different referendum, with meaningful alternative choices and could have ended up with an altogether different and better relationship with Europe. There is always scope to seek that better relationship with the EU now – not many are pleased with where things have landed – but a pitch of full membership again would likely be punished at the ballot box again, at least not without a second overruling referendum that voted us back in. Even the policies being mooted suggest the former days were better than these and yet the electoral fortunes of the party in those former days do not tell the story that it is so.

1. I understood far more when Miliband was suggesting he would prefer to be Chancellor, an idea that side-stepped some of these issues ↩︎