At last, Margaret Beckett’s report on why Labour lost the last general election has been leaked before it has been published and it tells us absolutely nothing we didn’t already know. It dismisses the idea that Labour under Ed Miliband was “too left wing”, which is a laughable assertion since most people didn’t have the first idea what the country would look like under his leadership, nor what Labour stood for. The real reasons, as anyone who was on the doorstep will already know were:
Failure to shake off the myth that Labour was responsible for the financial crash and failed to build trust on the economy.
Inability to deal with issues of “connection” in particular failure to communicate on benefits and immigration.
Ed Miliband was judged not be as strong a leader as David Cameron.
Fear of the SNP propping up a minority Labour government.
Those of us on the left, or Tory-lite, Blair-lite or right wing as some of us are known, should be glad that at least someone took the trouble to work out why Labour lost so badly. Not only that, I totally agree with Beckett’s verdict in every single aspect. Let me try and explain why.
The myth, repeated ad nauseum by the Tories, as well as the useful idiots of the Liberal Democratic Party, was never sufficiently countered by Labour after it lost in 2010. The notion that, somehow, Labour was responsible for the crash of the American sub-prime market, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the near destruction of the Greek economy. All nonsense, of course, but Labour through Brown and later through Miliband allowed the lie to sit in people’s minds and if you repeat a lie often enough and it is not effectively countered, belief takes hold. And through that, ‘Labour’s mess’ became a fact, even though it wasn’t true. A terrible error or gross dereliction of duty by Labour’s leadership – you choose.
Labour was far too weak on countering the Tory lies about benefits and immigration, especially the suggestion that both are always intrinsically linked. Worse still, Labour had nothing to say on immigration until the election campaign when they adopted a barking mad strategy that would not have looked out of place in a Ukip leaflet. They even sold a mug calling for ‘controls on immigration’. That’s not a policy or an argument: that’s a meaningless slogan.
It goes without saying that Miliband was not regarded as a potential PM by the voters. Cameron is no Churchill but he played the game far better than his Labour opponent. Whether or not Miliband really was weak is immaterial. That is what the public felt and that’s a reason Labour was humiliated.
Finally, the SNP. That certainly resonated with English voters and it played a part in Labour’s defeat. As the polls in Scotland became steadily worse for Labour, a point not lost on Rupert Murdoch and his friend Alex Salmond, and the fears were heavily stoked. It made a difference.
Labour needs to learn these lessons and learn them well since in 2020 you can bet that whilst the issues might change, the doubts of voters may remain. And that is the job of Jeremy Corbyn, to ensure that voters are won over to Labour.
To do that, Corbyn will need to ensure Labour is trusted. Trusted over the economy, trusted with the nation’s defences. We can go over the old pacifism and unilateral disarmament arguments another day, but one thing is for sure. If Corbyn goes to the country promising to scrap our nuclear deterrent and moreover that he could not foresee circumstances under which he might authorise military action, he will need to convince people, especially those swing voters on whom elections usually hang, that his alternative policy, whatever it is, will keep us safe. If he does not do that, Labour is sunk.
Corbyn will need to show more than just his basic honesty and decency. He will need to convince the country that his is a safe pair of hands. God alone knows why so many people regard Cameron’s as a safe pair of hands, but enough of them do and Corbyn must convince a good few people that he can lead from the front and be the man who can deal with a crisis.
The report will probably say a little more than the soundbites I culled from the internet, but in essence the four main reasons shown are what Labour activists know to be true.
A bit late, I know, but Labour should publish the report and hand its findings to the membership. There needs to be a debate on what happened and how last May’s defeat can be avoided in future. Ignoring the findings will not help Labour as it seeks to rebuild from the rubble, if that is indeed what it intends to do.
Andy Burnham said yesterday that “we cannot go on like this” meaning that the Labour Party cannot carry on as it is, divided and almost at war. This is where Corbyn can show his true mettle, to get his colleagues on the hard left to concentrate on the real enemy and not carry on messing about with internal Labour Party matters. We had years of this, back in the 1980s, with Labour navel gazing and Margaret Thatcher’s scorched earth policy dividing the whole country.
Also, if anyone not of the hard left thinks the election of Corbyn’s election is merely a temporary aberration which will be long forgotten by the time of the next general election, then think again. The odds are that Corbyn will still be leader in 2020, for better or for worse; people need to get their heads round it. Reluctantly, I have, but I will not stop advancing a case for the ‘new politics’ to recognise that Labour is a broad church of opinion and there is no point in the party existing if it does not want to win elections. There are far too many people – and I have met them in my local party – who think Labour will lose whoever is leader in 2020, so “we might as well lose with a leader who at least has some principles”; their words, not mine. (I happen to believe that Labour will probably lose whoever is leader in 2020, but it will certainly lose under Corbyn unless he makes the effort to speak to people other than just those who agree with him.)
We know why we lost last May, we’ve known for ages why we lost last May. If we learn the lessons, maybe we won’t be doomed to repeat them. Corbyn has a mandate for his leadership but as an ordinary Labour member, the main thing I want him to do is win and in order to do that he needs to embrace the whole party and indeed the electorate.
There. That’s as conciliatory as I can get at the moment. I’ll get a bit more conciliatory when McDonnell and Livingstone curb their excesses and Abbott shuts up altogether. Put Stop The War and CND to one side and build bridges with MPs and get out there with the people. Give us some hope for 2020. If you want to do more than just change the Labour Party, get out there and prove it. 2025 may be too late to save anything because everything will be gone.
