Britain - Right or Left
8th May 2008
Posted in: Domestic Politics
Written by: James Grieves
Obviously most of the British left is still reeling from the Tory thrashing of us just about everywhere in the latest election. It is worth considering though, what exactly this result means, rather than accepting the rather predictable right-wing blog response that it shows a swing to the right of Britain. Certainly it shows that our local government is going to be of that nature, but I would suggest that the views of the British are not all that different lately, simply the conditions in which they voted.
To believe the right this would represent people turning upon leftism and its tendency to tax. I suspect that this is the sort of crude consideration given by people who consider Marxism to be something that once happened in Russia. The horror caused by Brown’s tax upon the poor was that this was the group the socialist and social democratic perspective consider the one meant to be aided by taxation. This was only exacerbated by Brown’s promise to swamp them with aid to compensate, begging the question of why it was worth bothering taking their money in the first place, especially in order to mildly aid the moderately affluent.
Thus the problem was more one caused by Labour than the left. I have little doubt that this crisis resulted in many voters for Labour by conviction, if not habit, simply remaining home. Although there unquestionably was a surge in voters willing to back the Tories owing to Cameron’s resurgence arguing that the left has collapsed is rather imprecise: they are still there, they simply didn’t show up.
So what can be done? I am not going to say that Blairism is dead or New Labour over. Simply that this has served as Brown’s Iraq. It has made it clear to the left that he is no longer one that they would tolerate were he not of their own party. He seems to lack the charm that Blair used to extricate himself from such situations but even for Tony this was wearing thin. What is required is some new form of central leftism, but attempting to “Send out a message” about weed and lock people away for six weeks without the police even asking you to let them seems to be an effort at the same old out-flank.
This will not work. Now that the voters have a Conservative Party that is not openly foul they will vote for Conservative policies by voting for it. Those further to the right of Conservatives will vote for the BNP. Labour requires a new position to evade being crushed and at present seems to be suffering from this compression in blindness.
I do not think that the “left” took a thrashing on 1st May - Labour did. And I do not think Labour is “left”.
And again, I do not think the BNP is “right”.
I do not think that the “left” took a thrashing on 1st May - Labour did. And I do not think Labour is “left”.
The Left List, Respect and the Greens, however, are. Only the latter made any progress worth speaking of and that was far more modest than they had hoped, most notably only managing to hold their London seats instead of increasnig. The first gained a single council seat and the LL seems to have been a stillborn despite the very best efforts of the SWP.
Meanwhile the Tories advances and although the far-right BNP managed to make not gains as great as they had hoped for they still improved their position.
And again, I do not think the BNP is “right”.
Well, they are.