The Wit and Wisdom of... Joe Ashton

Here's unemployment going up and up and up, here's Mrs Thatcher increasing the rents, increasing the prescription charges, cutting the money to local councils, cutting student grants, doing horrendous things to the National Health Service...

And here's the Labour party, for six months, obsessed with who is going to be deputy leader.

People were looking at us and saying 'this lot aren't fit to run the country.'

Joe Ashton, Labour MP, on the deputy leadership battle between Denis Healey and Tony Benn in 1981, speaking in 1995 on BBC 2 documentary Labour in the Wilderness

Sorry Jeremy, You're Doing The Whole Job Wrong...

When a political party is in crisis, it is often asked 'what is the point of this party?,' or 'what does this party stand for?'

I've heard this a lot in the last few weeks about the Labour party. Riven with internal dissent, and buffeted by external events, Labour is in serious trouble. It's a fair question.

It also has a remarkably simple answer. Because Labour writes all these things down. The Labour Party Rule Book is the place to look, and it clearly says that Labour's purpose:

shall be to organise and maintain in Parliament and in the country a political Labour party.

The Party shall bring together members and supporters who share its values to develop policies, make communities stronger through collective action and support, and promote the election of Labour Party representatives at all levels of the democratic process.  

Note what comes first in that statement. In 1900, the nascent Labour Representation Committee was faced with a choice: were the interests of working people best advanced by operating within or without the parliamentary system? The LRC chose within: the ballot box over the banner, elections over revolutions.

This should be understood by all those who claim to have Labour's best interests at heart. The road to improving the lives of "those who can't speak up for themselves," as John Smith once said, lies in the maintenance of the Labour party in Parliament and in local government. Anything that threatens to neuter that political force is an obstacle on the road to progress.

What is more, this also matters to anyone who wants to see a left-wing government in the UK. Labour is in a unique position in British politics. It is the only left of centre political entity currently capable of assuming national power. When it fails to assume office, the cause and interests of the left are not advanced. When it does win elections, and takes power, the interests of the left are advanced, however slowly and imperfectly. This gives a heavy burden to the Labour party. Without it, there is no dawn for the left, at least not for many years to come. Therefore, it has to strive for office, be it local, regional and national, at every opportunity. The lives of millions depend on it.

At present, Labour is in crisis because of the leader. Jeremy Corbyn was only elected last year, but already many have grave doubts. His MPs have passed an overwhelming motion of no-confidence in him, the NEC has fallen out with him, there is even talk of legal action within the party. Ugly accusations of intimidation, rape, racism, Anti-Semitism and death threats swirl around. There is talk of de-selecting those MPs who do not follow the line laid down by the leadership. All in all, it is an atmosphere of crisis and chaos.

There are a myriad of explanations of the origins and aims of the Corbyn phenomenon. I don't intend to go into them here, as I'm not entirely sure what I think about all of these ideas.

But what I do know is that Corbyn has failed to fulfill his responsibilities as the leader of the Labour Party. The Labour Party Rule Book says that:

The Leader shall, as a member of the NEC, uphold and enforce the constitution, rules and standing orders of the Party and ensure the maintenance and development of an effective political Labour Party in parliament and in the country.  

In the year since Corbyn became leader, Labour has effectively ceased to operate as the Official Opposition. They are trailing the Tories in the opinion polls. Sluggish local election results show that the party is not heading back to power any time soon. The party is riven with internal dissent, much of which has been expressed in abhorrent language and attitudes. There is no way that what is going on can be described as "the maintenance and development of an effective political Labour Party in parliament and in the country."

Under these circumstances, the survival of Labour as a parliamentary force is in grave doubt. The current party leadership has to assume its share of the blame for this appalling state of affairs.

The strange thing is, Labour is reasonably united on policy. Corbyn has introduced no radical departures from the platform on which Ed Miliband stood last May. For all the cries of 'Blairite' to try and smear Corbyn's opponents, there are not many die-hard Blairites left, and certainly not much of his policy agenda remains. If there is an election in the autumn of spring, the shape of the manifesto isn't hard to guess. Whoever the leader was, they would be espousing many of the same ideas.

So it is not on policy grounds that I believe that Jeremy Corbyn should go. The job of the Labour leader is to lead Labour to a parliamentary victory, so it can use the powers of the state to advance the interests of the left, in helping those people who need it the most. Corbyn has shown himself unwilling or unable to do this via the ballot box.  For the sake of everyone who believes in left wing ideas, Labour needs to find someone who is willing and able.

P.S. After I had written this, Corbyn declared over the weekend that he sees himself as the leader of a social movement. I actually think he'd be really good at that. If he has indeed chosen to pursue that path, that is fine. But it is not compatible with being the leader of a political party where the job description commits you to fighting and winning Parliamentary elections. The choice before Labour is even starker than ever.

David Cameron's Political Weathering

I was at a BBQ when David Cameron became Prime Minister. I was a student, in the second year of a history degree. The bbq was proving hard to light, as the weather was a bit dodgy. So I missed Brown going. I missed the moment he realises the game was up, and stunned the political world by cwlling it a day. I missed the scramble to get David Cameron to Buckingham Palace in time to prevent a long gap between leaders.

But I was home in time to watch him arrive in Downing Street. What struck me was the choreography of it all. The Labour years had begun in the blazing sunshine of May 1997. Now it was ending in the late spring twilight of May 2010. Rather than the certainty of a booming economy and colossal landslide, Cameron was taking office amid an economic crisis, against the backdrop of a hung parliament. It seemed a perfct metaphor for the trajectory of Labour's time in office. Brave New Dawn to confusing sunset.

I suppose I should thank Cameron. He has been a part of my politicisation. I first became fairly interested in politics just before he ran to be Tory leader in 2005. He was Leader of the Opposition through my later teenage years, when I was struggling to decide what on Earth I believed in. And he was Prime Minister as my views crystallised and hardened, as I saw the country he was trying to create, and decided on the whole that it was not the one I wanted to live in. 

And now he is gone. Sunk by a referendum he did not want, he has been ejected from office barely a year after winning a majority in the Commons. Just as he got the hang of governing, he has had to give it all away.

Today it was cloudy on my way home. Cloudy with some short, sharp showers. So as David Cameron resigns and heads into the sunset, I think that's a reasonably good metaphor for his term as Prime Minister. 

He became Prime Minister in the gloom of the Great Recession, and leaves office with the storm of the EU referendum aftermath on the horizon.

The Size of Jeremy Corbyn's Mandate

I think it's safe to say that the Labour party are in a fairly terrible place at the moment. The referendum to leave the EU detonated a bomb in the internal equilibrium of the party, and chaos has reigned since, as the left-wing leadership are pitched into a battle with the more centrist MPs. There's talk of legal challenges, splits and defections. And it wasn't helped that a couple of days this week were dominated by the face of their fallen hero, Tony Blair, as his place in history was confirmed by the Chilcot Report.

It's pretty clear that things cannot go on as they are. The Official Opposition has a constitutional duty to hold the government to account. That is simply not happening at the moment. Instead they are busy drawing battle lines in a civil war.

One of the favourite arguments of Corbyn's supporters is that he has a Mandate. What's more, it's an Overwhelming Mandate. Sometimes it's even an Unprecedented, or Historic, Mandate. No other Labour leader was elected with such support as him, the theory runs. Therefore, his detractors in the PLP should shut up, or find somewhere else to go.

I'm going to sidestep the argument about who has more legitimacy, the party leader elected by the membership, or the MPs elected by the voters. That's for another day.

What does interest me though is that claim, that Corbyn has a greater mandate than any other Labour leader. Does he?

Labour has only allowed non-MPs a say in who becomes the leader since the early 1980s, so the sample size is limited. It's also complicated by the fact that for a while they experimented with some ludicrously complicated ways of choosing the leader. But, for comparison, here are the winners since 1983:

1983- Neil Kinnock- 71.3%
1988- Neil Kinnock- 88.6%
1992- John Smith- 91.0%
1994- Tony Blair- 57.0%
2007- Gordon Brown- Unopposed
2010- Ed Miliband- 50.65%
2015- Jeremy Corbyn- 59.5%

Yes, Corbyn did well. He won with more support than Miliband, Brown (who admittedly was never put to the test) or Blair. But his level of support pales into insignificance when set against the landslides that Kinnock and Smith enjoyed. Kinnock's 1988 vote is even more impressive, given it came off the back of a left-wing challenge in the aftermath of a crushing defeat at the hands of Mrs Thatcher. The average support for a leader in a contested election is 69.7%. Corbyn is some way short of that. His mandate is clear, but it isn't unprecedented.

The standard response to this is that this is the first election where ordinary members were given full say. Up until 2015, Labour used an electoral college, which weighted the votes of MPs/MEPs, members, and affiliates (unions and socialist societies) against each other to varying degrees. Corbyn's support is presented as being somehow purer, or better, than that enjoyed by any other Labour leader.

It is almost impossible to untangle how different rules would have affected previous contests. But I've had a go. I've presumed that only party members were given votes in each of these contests. They are the only consistent element in all those elections. I know this is far from a perfect solution, but it does enable us to partially test Corbyn's support. I've ignored the other sections, so had to multiply the figures by three (Labour's electoral college was in three parts.) Here is my very rough guide to what would have happened had the election of Labour leader been left solely in the hands of the membership:

1983- Kinnock- 82.36%
1988- Kinnock- 72.38%
1992- Smith- 87.9%
1994- Blair- 58.2%
2007- Brown- Uncontested
2010- David Miliband- 54.39% on the 4th round
2015- Corbyn- 49.59%

This method is riddled with inconsistencies. There is no way to compare the trade union members who voted in a separate section prior to 2015. Neither is it possible to account for the registered supporters, who in 2015 paid their £3 to vote and ended up backing Corbyn by 83.76%; they have no direct predecessors. But using party membership alone, the one constant, Corbyn doesn't come out looking great. The only person he outpolls is Ed Miliband, who would have lost on the final round to his brother David.

It also doesn't insulate him from criticism or challenge. Kinnock was challenged from the left in 1988, despite his overwhelming win in 1983 (Labour win, that is...). He was challenged because his leadership had failed to win the national election in 1987. If Corbyn's detractors think he is also failing, then they are right to trigger a fresh leadership election. It isn't a case of 'win it once and keep it for life.' Otherwise Neil Kinnock and John Major would still be at the top of the pyramid.

No matter which way you look at it, the man with the largest Labour mandate is not Corbyn. It is John Smith, who tragically was never given the chance to put it into action.

This doesn't solve any of Labour's problems. But it should make those interested in Labour's current crisis stop and think.

Jeremy Corbyn does have a mandate from the party members. But it isn't the historic one that people claim he has, and it doesn't justify his perpetual occupancy of the leadership. There are valid reasons he should still be leader. But the size of his mandate isn't one of them.