The
Labour Party has always been a coalition of diverse views, even if the range
within which those views diverge has changed over times. Whilst it’s true that many of the
intellectuals involved in its founding had a strong commitment to building a
very different type of society based on socialism, others were more interested
in simply providing representation to a class which was not represented by the
existing parliamentary parties: not for nothing was one of the early precursors
called the Labour Representation Committee.
The theoretical underpinning ranged from Marxists to Social Democrats,
and even if – with the benefit of hindsight – the tensions were always present,
they haven’t always been so obvious. And
in the Blair years, it even looked as though one of the various factions had
finally won the internal debate. It was –
as she famously claimed
at the time – Margaret Thatcher’s greatest achievement.
Even
during the worst of the Blair years, however, it was still the case that most
Labour members and their parliamentary representatives had, as some sort of
core belief, the idea that they could and should make the lives or ordinary
people (they had long since given up on calling them ‘workers’) a little bit
better than they would be under the rule of a party dedicated (according to
their tribal view of history and politics) to protecting the interests of the elite
(they had also given up on calling them capitalists). ‘Let’s spend a bit more on the NHS’ is a long
way from demanding ‘socialism now’, but it was still about putting forward an alternative
of sorts, even if it wasn’t as alternative as it could be.
Earlier
today, one of Labour’s Shadow Ministers, Barry Gardiner, opposed
the holding of any sort of confirmatory vote on any deal on which parliament
can agree, on the basis that it makes Labour look like a Remain party. Whilst it was a Remain party going into the
referendum, it is now a party of leave, according to him, because the party “has accepted the result of the referendum”. In his view, a party which set out to lead
people to a better future, to argue for what was in people’s best interests, is
now a party which seeks only to follow public opinion – even if to do so is to
damage the interests of those they claim to be representing. It is almost the complete opposite of their
starting point.
There
are, of course, those in the Labour Party who genuinely believe that Brexit is
in the best interests of those ‘ordinary people’. They are a minority, and I think they’re
wrong, but it is an entirely honest and honourable position to argue. But arguing that the result must be respected
and implemented because it was what people voted for, even when it is clear people
have been persuaded to vote against their own interests and those of people
around them, is a very long way from the principles of the party’s founders.
It
turns out that the Marxists remain stronger than many had thought within the
modern Labour Party after all. I mean Groucho
rather than Karl, of course, “Those are
my principles, and if you don't like them...well I have others”.
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