In a week which has seen Labour re-take the Wakefield seat at a by-election and the Conservatives trounced in Tiverton and Honiton it is timely to look at both the facts on the ground (as against media hysteria and spin) as to what this might mean, if anything, to the Labour Party.
The turnout in Wakefield was 39.1%; whereas in Tiverton and Honiton it was 52.3%. As Sir John Curtice (National Centre for Social Research) says: ‘many Conservative voters stayed at home and there is no great enthusiasm for Labour. In a General Election turnout would be likely to exceed 60% in Wakefield and over 70% in Tiverton and Honiton.
Let us look at the sloppiness of current media thinking and presentation. There is the conflation of the EU and Europe. The distinction needs to be made and remembered unless you are a convinced Bonapartist such as Macron. From this conflation a number of errors and misinformation flows. David Gauke in the New Statesman this week asserts: “the best solution to the UK’s woes is to rejoin…the EU”. Neither the “woes” nor the analysis are presented. It is an extraordinary fact free assertion. I do not wish this article to dwell on Brexit but suffice to say the evidence is all the other way. Trade may be down but significantly this is in part due to the removal of the Rotterdam effect where trans-shipments from Felixstowe and Southampton were counted as exports but now are no longer and in any event while imports from the EU are down exports to the EU are "...at the highest level since records began." (ONS). Facts are very important unless you wish to regress to animal instincts alone: "Over the last six years...UK GDP has expanded at an accumulated rate of 6.8% - France 6.2%, Germany 5.5% and Italy 2.1%. (IMF and Liam Halligan, Independent Economist sometime with Financial Times and The Economist).
I could go on but Labour has to realise that the EU is not a religion! This is of particular relevance to Hilary Benn, Emily Thornberry, David Lammay, Chris Bryant and their ilk!
Of much more importance is Labour's policies or lack thereof. It has to be much more than Keir Starmer saying he is not Boris Johnson!. Such policies need to be rooted in securing a fundamental shift in power so that democracy is seen to work better - hence a re-run of the Brexit debate can only be a disaster for Labour.
So on a first matter of substance Labour has to think carefully about what binds people and the nation together. This may be difficult for old style Labourites in that it means accepting the Liberal notion of property rights but in an updated way. I believe a significant rallying point would be the progressive abolition of residential leaseholds - not the 'half- hearted' attempt by the present government but to develop the sense of place, identity and freedom that property ownership gives. This has to be properly thought through. Thus in a programme not exceeding 10 years from day 1 no new residential property Leases would be permitted. The trigger for change would be on the sale of a property - a sale would only be legal if it transferred the Freehold interest without restriction. Voluntary transfers could take place but the formula for the determination of Freehold cost would be limited - say a maximum of ten times the current leasehold rent. Insofar as Apartments are concerned the move in the same time-scale would be to create common-holds.
Such a policy would only be part of the programme. It would be vital to raise the level of Social Housing provision to at least 300k units per annum for the 10 year period. These units would be built to exacting quality standards which would be legally binding on Developers/Builders. Additionally Developers/Builders would be subject to ongoing Independent audit to advise government as to whether excess profits were being made. Thus many more people would feel they had a real stake in society. Worth thinking about.
Just some observations to end with!
Boris Johnson says he would want to go to a third term? The "dumb heads" in the media take this at face value. He is, of course, taking the mickey out of his own profession
"Levelling Up" is a joke - increasing the Living Wage is crumbs from the Master's table while the Conservatives allow and encourage exorbitant salaries elsewhere (Bankers and the City of London).
We have been told for 40 years that "trickle down" would work - the evidence says otherwise!
I leave you with the most wonderful observation from George Orwell.
"...The ugly fact is that most middle-class Socialists, while theoretically pining for a class-less society, cling like glue to their miserable fragments of social prestige....The Coles, Webbs, Stracheys, etc., are not exactly proletarian writers...Sometimes I look at a Socialist — the intellectual, tract-writing type of Socialist, with his pullover, his fuzzy hair, and his Marxian quotation — and wonder what the devil his motive really is. It is often difficult to believe that it is a love of anybody, especially of the working class, from whom he is of all people the furthest removed. The underlying motive of many Socialists, I believe, is simply a hypertrophied sense of order. The present state of affairs offends them not because it causes misery, still less because it makes freedom impossible, but because it is untidy; what they desire, basically, is to reduce the world to something resembling a chessboard. Take the plays of a lifelong Socialist like Shaw. How much understanding or even awareness of working-class life do they display? ... You get the same thing in a more mealy-mouthed form in Mrs Sidney Webb's autobiography, which gives, unconsciously, a most revealing picture of the high-minded Socialist slum-visitor. The truth is that, to many people calling themselves Socialists, revolution does not mean a movement of the masses with which they hope to associate themselves; it means a set of reforms which 'we', the clever ones, are going to impose upon 'them', the Lower Orders…"
see p162 Penguin Modern Classics 1986 edition re-printed 2001
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