Willie Thompson writes:

Back in the days soon after the 1997 election, when our eyes had seen the glory of the coming of the Blair, I wrote that the Labour Party had the opportunity of dismissing the Tories from power for evermore, provided that the new government acted energetically on behalf of ordinary citizens rather than the financial sharks and vultures that had flourished under the regime of Thatcher and Major – but at the same time I doubted if we would see any major initiatives other than devolution and the minimum wage. What was not expected, even in our worst nightmares, was that New Labour would out-Tory the Tories and make Edward Heath look like a leftie and Harold Macmillan like a raving Bolshevik.

Fast forward to early 2010, and we find the New Left Review editorial declaring that in view of the government’s record and character we shouldn't spill any tears over Labour losing the forthcoming election, and several years previous to that Andy Pearmain was arguing that ‘Labour Must Die!’ I thought at the time that such views was a bit excessive though I could appreciate and understand them – the record was appalling and the Labour leaders a bunch of lying scoundrels, total strangers to the truth, with a war criminal in charge until 2007 and then succeeded by the only minister who had been in a position to stop him but who had failed to do so and was continuing all the essentials of Blair’s policies.

It was a question of how you judged matters when you thought about the alternative, but in the event the 2010 outcome for a few days did not look too bad – the Tories had failed to  gain an overall majority, and Caroline Lucas had won a seat in Brighton. Perhaps the Lib Dems would support a Labour government while vetoing its more nefarious endeavours. Before 1997 I had even suggested that it  might not be a bad idea if Blair teamed up with the Lib Dems, as that could possibly  shift Labour a fraction to the left.

Treachery

It hadn’t occurred to anyone following the 2010 result that the Lib Dems would commit the treachery of joining in a formal coalition with the Tories who most evidently, when their coalition partners had exhausted their usefulness, would then throw them away like a used condom – as they had done twice in the past to the Lib Dems’ predecessors in the Liberal Party; and yet the calamity came to pass. The Tories got what they wanted and the Lib Dems destroyed themselves in the process. If they’d had any sense the latter would never have entered the coalition in the first place, but might have had some chance of amending their error by immediately breaking it up once they failed to get proportional representation. However the bauble attractions of government office proved too tempting. So far as Labour was concerned, despite losing the election its parliamentary party was in quite a strong oppositional position and soon presented with an endless succession of political open goals, all of which it contrived to miss. 

Now this forthcoming election is supposed to be a multi-party one in a manner that has never previously been seen in British politics, but Cameron is right at least in his statement that there are only two possible prime ministers in the offing, either himself or Miliband. So can Labour recover some of its lost ground and its credibility? On the face of things there should be no problem and Labour several kilometres ahead in the polls. The Tory administration (which it has been, forget about coalitions) between 2010 and 2015 has not only acted as Robin Hood in reverse, but systematically gone about destroying the country’s social infrastructure – and it’s material one in addition.

A dirty trick

Nevertheless the signs are not hopeful. It is revealing that Miliband immediately jumped on a manifestly bogus accusation that Nicola Sturgeon had wished for a Tory victory, without paying  any attention to her vehement denial. The lack of principle here almost equals anything that New Labour might have attempted. It shouldn’t be forgotten that in Scotland the SNP are the majority party, and the reason for them being in that position is the abysmal failure of the Blair/Brown governments during the Labour period in office. As Caesar is supposed to have said when surveying the corpses of his defeated opponents, hoc voluerunt (they asked for it).

It was not the fact that Labour opposed Scottish independence – there were meaningful arguments against separation as well as ones in favour, and if the Labour Party had campaigned independently for a No vote it would have been a position that could be respected even if not accepted. The spectacle, though, of the Labour Party acting in collusion with the hated Tories and treacherous Lib Dems was repellent beyond description and very likely does a lot to account for the enormous leap in SNP membership that has taken place since the referendum.

What could be done?

If the Labour leadership had any sense they would take that as a very significant signal and, instead of banging on about the demerits of the SNP, begin to seriously ask themselves why they have been replaced in the affections of the Scottish electorate. Ed Miliband would do well to remember the injunction of his admirable father Ralph in his masterpiece volume Parliamentary Socialism, that serious politics is not polite conversations between gentlepersons but civil war by other means. Miliband senior demonstrated irrefutably with chapter and verse the truth of the statement by the Tory leader Balfour after his overwhelming electoral defeat in 1906, that whichever party was in office the Tories would continue to rule the country, and that in the words of the Red Flag anthem,  ‘to cringe beneath the rich man’s frown’ has been indeed the default posture of the Labour Party throughout the century-plus of  its existence.

In present circumstances it’s not as though an imagined Labour government with, at best, a very narrow majority or in informal collaboration with the progressive nationalist parties and Greens could immediately set about implementing a Bennite agenda. As things stand, the socially conservative English culture would not accept it and the US would never tolerate it. Nevertheless, Miliband and his cabinet could consider the Scottish experience. In 1955 the Tories won an absolute majority of votes in Scotland. Look at them now: popular outlooks can be changed, for all the toxic tabloids can do. The Labour leaders could then work to reinvigorate their party on the ground as a campaigning organisation, take lessons from the SNP administration in Scotland and begin trying to copy it. Electorates seeing an honest and socially progressive government committed to the common good, can be persuaded to line up behind it.

Is there any possibility that this could happen? About as likely as Sunderland, where I live, winning the English Premiership in the next football season. The most probable outcome is that Labour will have to be replaced, most likely by the Green Party, though evidently that will be a very challenging undertaking.