The Labour party and the shifting centre ground of politics in the UK
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Version 0 of 1. In reading the views of those defeated Labour candidates (‘We lost touch with the country’: beaten candidates round on Labour’s campaign, 28 July), what struck me was yet further confirmation that the British public (and the English public in particular) seem to be in an ugly mood at present, happy to blame their ills on those less fortunate than themselves. Inequality, precarity and social division are the causes of our new callousness, helped by the rightwing press, but the real point is that Labour has only two choices in response: either continue to cringe before the prejudices of the public or try to change their minds by arguing for a distinct, simple and compelling alternative. But constructing such a narrative is only possible if you know what your values are and what you stand for in the first place. And that’s why the Tories won the election and why Jeremy Corbyn is currently winning the Labour leadership race.Bill KerryWest Wickham, Kent • Martin Kettle (Labour can come back from the brink – but it seems to lack the will to do so, 24 July) suggests that the only way for Labour to compete successfully against the Tories is to take a position on the centre ground. Apart from the difficulty that the centre might become too crowded with political aspirants, it is worth considering that a progressive leftwing party, aiming to support and rebuild the hopes of the lowest third of the economic pyramid, would do well to keep out of the centre ground. Perhaps the middle-class, middle-income position rightly belongs to the Liberals – although it has never done them much good. There is a place for a party of the left, and that party ought to be Labour. It might take them time to rebuild a winning position, but it will be worth taking the time. The drift of political opinion in the UK is exactly that – a constant drift. Most voters consist of a mixture of attitudes which characterise both right and left. This does not mean that they are occupying the centre ground – they simply pass through from time to time.Michael BowersTalgarth, Breconshire • Martin Kettle is right: Britain did once have a two-party system, and our electoral system does give advantage to the more unified centre-right. But there is an alternative to Labour having to compete in the centre, and that is for the Greens, Liberal Democrats and Labour to create an alliance on the left. There is more that parties on the left have in common than warrants them taking votes from each other, and it is only a clear articulation of their shared values which can now present a real challenge to a fast approaching 2020 political hegemony.Frank NewhoferOxford • What is missing from Rafael Behr’s argument (Labour needs to imagine that good people vote Tory, 22 July) is the acknowledgment that in 1945 many good people opted to quit the Tories and vote Labour. It was my first election as a boy back from prep school, and my parents’ house being the Labour party committee room, I remember well the campaign and the passionate debates that followed the election. The party’s local candidate, a recently retired colonel, espoused the same political idealism as Jeremy Corbyn. What Attlee offered was a clear socialist programme: radical change not pragmatic reformism. In 1945 there was a public sense among all classes that – as now – too many of those with their hands on the levers of power were acting against the interests of the society as a whole, and that that had to change. The party’s programme was a direct appeal to those who traditionally did not vote Labour, but who were prepared to change allegiance and make social justice the reason for casting their vote. There is currently similar widespread public understanding that the corporate sector and the super-rich, with the connivance of government, are deliberately avoiding paying a proportionate share of taxes – the lifeblood of a just society. In that light, a similar direct appeal for radical change would succeed today. It is not only 18- to 30-year-olds who vote for ideals; there is among others a substantial Christian constituency that, given the choice, would put social justice before quietism as it did in 1945.Maurice VassieDeighton, North Yorkshire • If recent history is anything to go by, then Jeremy Corbyn has every chance of being elected prime minister (Why smart Tories should not be smug about Corbyn, 27 July). The way his candidacy has shaken up politics-as-usual and galvanised grassroots support among the young and others is strikingly similar to the 2008 campaign that sent a then unknown American congressman called Barack Obama to the White House for two terms. With five more years of Tory cuts and austerity still to come, I would say that Corbyn’s chances are very good indeed.Bruce PaleyCastle Morris, Pembrokeshire |