Principles and pragmatism

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One of the big claims – perhaps the only big claim – for the difference between Sir Starmer and what went before is the idea that policy is based not on any sense of ideology or principle, but on pragmatism. As Sir Starmer himself put it, “I don’t have any ideology at all. There’s no such thing as Starmerism and there never will be.” Instead, each and every decision is to be taken by considering only one thing – ‘what works?’.

It leaves undefined the question about what do we mean by ‘works’? The only sensible interpretation of the phrase is that it means that any decision will achieve what it sets out to achieve; there is an objective and that objective is fulfilled. He hasn’t always – or maybe ever – been entirely clear in setting out in plain language what the objective is, but over the last week or so, the debate over cuts such as the winter fuel allowance or the two-child cap have revealed what that objective is. Such policies are not to be judged as to whether they reduce pensioner poverty or child poverty; those are not the objectives. The only factors to be considered are  a) how much does the policy cost, and b) how many votes does it deliver for Labour. There’s a brutal honesty about the underlying calculation: the only objective of government policy is to ensure that the current government remains in office after the next election.

Knowing that the only factor that they are even thinking about is how many votes it will deliver helps to explain what their definition of ‘pragmatism’ really embodies. It almost even makes sense of some of their decisions. Whether the calculation is being done correctly or not is another question. Mathematical and psephological competence cannot be assumed, and maybe any given policy will win fewer, or maybe more, votes than the government thinks. But all those who thought that turfing out the Tories would bring a kinder, more principled approach, or a genuine interest in reducing poverty are being shown very starkly that the question is not whether we live in a fairer society nor whether we reduce child poverty, but whether either of those things will deliver more votes to Labour. And since we know that the least advantaged in society, those most likely to be suffering the greatest pain, are also those least likely to vote, Labour’s willingness to ignore them becomes a lot easier to understand. There was a time when Labour believed in social solidarity and doing the right thing for all citizens. It’s a concept which is totally alien to Sir Starmer’s party.

Open the box - or merely take the money?

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There are, of course, some MPs whose actions are based, at all times, on a clear set of principles to which they adhere. Then there is another group, probably larger, who set out to do that, but find it difficult at times. Sometimes principles can clash, and sometimes the pressure of the whips can be just too great. Then there are Tories. That’s not to argue that all Tories are completely free of any sense of principle (although some clearly are – see, for example, Johnson, B.). It’s more that they either adopt a flexible (they would probably prefer the word pragmatic, but that’s just euphemism) approach to principles, or else follow the Marxian (Groucho) approach of having alternative sets of principles for different situations and occasions.

This tendency was on display yesterday, as parliament discussed the Illegal Migration Bill, when the likes of Theresa May and IDS (which really should stand for Irritable Duncan Syndrome, but disappointingly does not) took their principled stand on modern slavery out of the box where it is normally kept, gave it a good polish, and showed it to anyone who was interested (spoiler: not a large number) in the Chamber of the House of Commons. The government was very wrong, they put on record in Hansard so as to be able to refer to their own wise words when it's time to write their memoirs, not to exclude victims of modern slavery from the planned more-or-less automatic flights to central Africa. However, by the time it came to a vote on the issue they had carefully packed up the principle and put it back in its usual box whilst they sat on their hands and allowed the legislation to pass. It turns out that the principle they had so proudly been showing around the Commons was trumped by the Marxian alternative principle of not embarrassing a Tory government, using a vague form of words about further discussions and consultations to try and paper over the huge gulf between what they said and what they then proceeded to do. Still, I understand that it’s a very nice box, sufficiently solid and robust to betray no indication of its content until those rare moments when it is temporarily opened.

At least they didn't get it backdated

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These days, it is (rightly) considered politically incorrect to refer to the nationality of the hapless trade union negotiator who, when he returned from arduous discussions with the employer, told his members, “There’s good news and there’s bad news. The bad news is that I didn’t get us a pay rise; in fact I’ve agreed a pay cut. But the good news is that I got it backdated.” Whatever his nationality, he would clearly have felt fully at home as a rebel MP in the English Conservative Party.

Earlier this week, those brave enough to rebel against the authoritarian nationalists who have taken over their party set out to reverse a wholly unnecessary and mean-spirited cut to overseas aid, a cut which owes more to the fact that it is electorally popular with the section of the electorate whose support the government seeks to retain than to any financial considerations. They ended up not only failing to overturn it, but setting the cut in concrete for the foreseeable future. When it came to the vote, they discovered that many of those who they thought were going to take a principled stand alongside them turned out to be innumerate as well as unprincipled and allowed themselves to be bought off by a promise that the cut was only ‘temporary’, and that the aid would be restored when the government’s budget on day-to-day spending returned to surplus.

Budget surpluses are a regular feature of government spending forecasts, invariably just a few years away, but they are conspicuous only by their absence in the historical records of out-turn. According to this report from the House of Commons Library, “Since 1970/71, the government has had a surplus (spent less than it received in revenues) in only six years. The last budget surplus was in 2000/01.” The prospect of a revenue surplus in the foreseeable future is negligible, which means that the ‘temporary’ cut has now become an indefinite one. If there is any good news at all here, I suppose it is that the rebels proved themselves even more hapless than that trade union negotiator: at least they didn’t manage to get the aid cuts backdated.

Ceding the arguments

Tweet The Labour Party has succeeded in getting itself into another fine mess over the budget proposals to cut welfare payments to the poorest in society.  Plenty of people are struggling to understand how the party’s acting leader could ever have put the party in a position of saying, in essence, that there is very little in the budget which they would bother to oppose, but it seems to me that it’s a consequence of a number of chickens coming home to roost.

Three things, in particular, strike me about the situation.

Firstly, it exposes the obvious, but generally denied, fact that the Labour Party is no longer a party which espouses a set of ideals and aims to build a society based around them; it is in fact a group of people who seek to win elections in order to gain political power for themselves.  It isn’t about progressive ideals, whatever the founding principles (and some deluded members) of the party might say, it’s about one particular bunch of ‘professional’ politicians gaining power, and being prepared to say and do whatever they think will achieve that aim. 

It’s a point which some of those in Wales spouting on about ‘progressive alliances’ would do well to remember.  The differences of opinion which the statement by the party’s leader have exposed are not, in most cases, differences about what is right; they’re more a case of disagreement about the best way of achieving that narrower objective of winning power (or, even more narrowly in some cases, winning the party leadership).

Secondly, the later retraction by the acting leader who said that the final policy will be decided by the new leader exposes how undemocratic the Labour Party has become.  The members can choose a leader, but that is the limit of their influence on policy.  Detailed policy will be decided at the whim of whoever they elect.  And whilst there’s enough experience within the party for them to know that what people will say in a leadership election can turn out to be a very poor guide to what they’ll say afterwards, I’m sure that for many members of that party, wishful thinking will continue to triumph over hard experience.

And the third thing is perhaps the most important of all - and not just for Labour.  Any party which allows the limits of political debate to be set by its opponents will eventually end up sounding like little more than a poor copy of those opponents.  The statement on not opposing welfare cuts may be one of the crassest examples, but it’s far from being the only one.  Think immigration for instance.  On issue after issue, Labour has allowed the Tories and their media friends to move the Overton window in one direction, and has meekly accepted the result, when any seriously ‘progressive’ movement would be trying to move it in the opposite direction.

For the UK, the result is that the poorest and the dispossessed find themselves unrepresented, and those opposing Government policies find themselves represented in parliament by an opposition which seems disinclined to oppose.  And in Wales, the potential alternative opposition still seems to regard it as inevitable that the UK’s unopposing opposition will remain the leading political force with which they can, at best, hope to form some sort of post-election alliance in the Assembly.  In the real world, it looks increasingly likely that the main beneficiaries will be the Tories – and UKIP.

It isn’t a pretty prospect.