The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party: From Attlee to Corbyn and Brexit 9781529205077

Table of contents :
Front Cover
The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party
Copyright information
Table of contents
List of abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Ideas
What is an idea?
Tiers of ideas
1 The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92
The 1945 Attlee government: liberal ideas
Crosland, revisionism and Bevanism
1970s socialism: the Alternative Economic Strategy
Kinnock and the ‘right’ fightback
2 The Rise of New Labour: Electoral Concerns Trump Ideology
The Smith years
Blair’s leadership
Communitarianism
Stakeholder capitalism
New Labour’s idea in power: the Third Way
3 Bridging the Divide: Ed Miliband and Ideas
Blue Labour
Political aim
Englishness
Small-c conservatism
Masculinity
Nostalgia
Blue Labour’s demise
One Nation
Shifting the paradigm
One Nation: Blue Labour incarnate?
Demise of One Nation
Conclusion
4 Pre-distribution
Theory of pre-distribution
Income inequality
The failure of the New Labour model
Labour’s new thinking
Political appeal
Downfall
Impact: Policy and manifesto
Conclusion
5 Corbynism: The Left’s Resurgence
Anti-austerity
It’s not Corbyn, it’s McDonnell
The failed experiment
The entrepreneurial state
21st century socialism and re-nationalization
Quiet Bennism
The Labour ‘right’ under Corbynism
Corbynism’s battles
Conclusion
6 Corbynism: Brexit and Globalization
Globalization, neoliberalism and economic nationalism
State aid
Trumpism and Corbynism
Brexit
The split
Conclusion
References
Anonymous Interviews
Index
Back Cover

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THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

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T HE B AT T L E O F I D E AS I N T HE L AB O UR PART Y F ROM AT T L E E TO CORBY N AN D B RE X I T D I M I TRI B ATRO U N I

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY From Attlee to Corbyn and Brexit Dimitri Batrouni

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Bristol University Press North America office: 1-​9 Old Park Hill c/​o The University of Chicago Press Bristol 1427 East 60th Street BS2 8BB Chicago, IL 60637, USA UK t: +1 773 702 7700 t: +44 (0)117 954 5940 f: +1 773-​702-​9756 www.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk [email protected] www.press.uchicago.edu © Bristol University Press 2020 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 978-1-5292-0506-0 hardcover ISBN 978-1-5292-0507-7 ePdf ISBN 978-1-5292-0508-4 ePub The right of Dimitri Batrouni to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Bristol University Press. Every reasonable eff ort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material. If, however, anyone knows of an oversight, please contact the publisher. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the author and not of The University of Bristol or Bristol University Press. The University of Bristol and Bristol University Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Bristol University Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design by Blu Inc. Front cover: image Mark Phillips / Alamy Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Bristol University Press uses environmentally responsible print partners

Contents List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements

iv v

Introduction 1 The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–​92 2 The Rise of New Labour: Electoral Concerns Trump Ideology 3 Bridging the Divide: Ed Miliband and Ideas 4 Pre-​distribution 5 Corbynism: The Left’s Resurgence 6 Corbynism: Brexit and Globalization

1 11

63 93 119 151

References Index

175 199

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41

Abbreviations AES AMO BNP EAC EDL EU FCR IFS IMF IPPR JPC NEC NPF PLP R&D SCA SDP TTIP TUC UBI UKIP

Alternative Economic Strategy Alternative Models of Ownership British National Party Economic Advisory Committee English Defence League European Union Fiscal Credibility Rule Institute for Fiscal Studies International Monetary Fund Institute for Public Policy Research Joint Policy Committee National Executive Committee National Policy Forum Parliamentary Labour Party research and development Shadow Communication Agency Social Democratic Party Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Trade Union Congress Universal Basic Income United Kingdom Independence Party

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Acknowledgements I’d like to thank my wife first and foremost for her unwavering support over the last few years. Without her support, I don’t think this book would have been possible. To my parents and my stepfather for their wise counsel and support, particularly John for his endless patience in reading the draft chapters. Also, I’d like to thank Professor Mark Wickham-​Jones for his sage words of advice over the years and Dr Hugh Pemberton for his keen insight and observations.

v

Introduction [T]‌he ideas of economists and political philosophers … are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. (John Maynard Keynes, 1964) Corbynism was the new political thought in town. Its advocates claimed it heralded the end of neoliberalism, the dominant idea that has guided UK policy since its implementation by Margaret Thatcher (see McDonnell, 2018b: x–​xii). While the media and scholars scrambled to explain the rise of Corbyn to the Labour leadership and his surprising electoral performance in the 2017 general election, there has been little investigation into what Corbynism substantively meant. It was commonly assumed that Corbynism represented a throwback to the socialism of the 1970s. It was accused of being, what was defined by New Labour during its ascendancy, ‘Old’ Labour (see Seldon and Hickson, 2004). However, was this true? At times, the commentary and analysis on this seemed lazy, which is understandable given Corbyn’s political record. Corbyn’s opponents frequently referred to Corbyn, and his Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, as Marxists. Suggesting they are classic Marxists is far-​fetched and the accusation has more to do with political posturing than any concrete analysis. Indeed, under the leadership of Corbyn, there was evidence of engagement with new ideas –​or at with least ideas that were seen as radical. The consideration of radical ideas was heightened by the Brexit referendum in 2016, yet this event, let alone the result, threw Corbyn and his allies off course in terms of solidifying their position in the party. It did not, however, drastically alter their thinking. What it did do, though, was bring to the fore the difference over ideas in the left and right of the party; between the different sections of society that vote Labour; and between the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and the leadership. These areas, Corbynism and Brexit, and how they

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were interrelated, are analyzed in the last two chapters of this book. To comprehensively understand the emergence of Corbynism, both Blairism and (Ed) Milibandism are analyzed in the preceding chapters because they are intrinsically linked to the growth of Corbynism. All three eras represent the changing nature and ideas within the party, as they tried to adjust to their political environments. Ideas are central to political discourse in any country across the globe. When people and politicians are discussing an issue, that discussion always takes place within a framework of a certain dominant idea. More often than not, these actors are unaware of this fact. Therefore, ascertaining which ideas are important and how they are influential is critical to having a better understanding of their impact in the political world. While it is impossible to uncover, fully, all the ideas that are influential in certain political debates and contexts, it is possible to determine what ideas are important to a political party with different leaders in charge. This is one way to operationalize the study of ideas. It allows the identification of distinct ideas and the individuals who were propagating them. This political space, however, is not subject to the influence of one idea, but many. It is a contested space. Members of the same political party will advocate different ideas to solve the same problem. This process is a battle. It is not a benign, calm, rational process where the merits of each idea are considered equally. Instead, ideas are often used as discursive weapons in a battle for internal and external political power. Sometimes, these ideas can also represent quite profound ideological and substantive differences within the same party. This is particularly true for the Labour Party over its history and certainly over the era of Corbyn. In short, ‘ideas are … important to the Labour party’ (Hickson et al, 2004: 1). Throughout the Labour Party’s history, there have been battles not only about the ideas the party should be advocating, but also the ones that fundamentally underpin the party. These battles have defined separate factions in the party. The common dichotomy is that this splits the party principally into two sections: the right and left. Even these sections are divided into old and new (see Hickson et al, 2004). Of course, many scholars have noted the vast swathes of members and politicians who do not inhabit or subscribe to either wing of the party, yet it is the left and right of the party where the bulk of new ideas come from, stimulated by a never-​ending competitive internal battle. Often the destructive elements of this battle between old foes gets the focus, providing the drama that sells and makes the news. However, with everything that is destructive, there is also a creative element to it. These two sides have prompted the generation of new ideas that has regenerated the party as times have changed.

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Introduction

This book covers those battles, both the destructive and creative elements, from the 1945 Attlee government to the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. It asks what ideas were dominant at the time and where did they come from. In this endeavour, I interviewed over 40 Labour MPs, Lords, special advisors and key individuals involved in the policy process of the Labour Party. These anonymous interviews were undertaken between 2013 and 2019 and form the bulk of evidence used for the chapters on Milibandism and Corbynism. As this book focuses on the totemic battles over ideas between the left and right, it will focus on headline economic ideas, as the battle between the factions tends to concentrate on such ideas. This includes substantive ideas, like Keynesianism and the Alternative Economic Strategy (AES), as well as what Alastair Campbell (2007: 99) would term as ideas that you could use as ‘a washing line from which to hang all the different parts of economic policy’. Yet, it is this variety of ideas –​their imprecise nature –​which makes the study of ideas in political science contentious. Therefore, it is necessary to briefly outline their importance to political realities and define what is meant by an idea.

Ideas Ideas matter in politics (Berman, 1998; Rueschemeyer, 2006; Kisby, 2012; Matthijs, 2011; Hay, 2002; Hall, 1989, 1993; Blyth, 2003). Their precise impact and how this is measured is highly contentious and is subject to fierce academic debate. One of the academic forums for this debate is policy continuity and change. Ostensibly, this debate circles around three elements:  interests, institutions and ideas, with ideas only really entering the fray as a possible explanatory factor (as explained in Hall’s edited book, The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism across Nations, 1989). The debate on these three elements was summarized in Hall’s (1997: 176) chapter, ‘The role of interests, institutions and ideas in the comparative political economy of the industrialised nations’. Within it he asserted that interests, institutions and ideas are the ‘primordial elements’ of analysis on the political economy. He believed they described the main dividing lines of scholarly debate in explaining policy change and thus should provide the overarching conceptual framework when discussing it. Such is the dominance of this framework that Colin Hay (2004: 204) stated that these three elements are ‘the conventional three-​fold classification of independent variables’. All three classifications have extensive academic literature behind them and each is underpinned by a core theoretical model.

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THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

Although this research is not aiming to understand the political economy covering these periods, Hall’s three-​fold distinction provides the framework in which to enquire how ideas, in general, mattered during them. While Hall’s work contributed many scholarly insights to the debate, its defining contribution was the inclusion of ideas, alongside interests and institutions, in explaining policy change. This work was a major influence on the thinking of such scholars as Sheri Berman and Mark Blyth who adopted Hall’s framework, emphasizing the importance of integrating ideas into their analysis. Some, like Blyth (2003), go much further than Hall in regards to the significance of ideas, arguing that interests and institutions play a secondary role to ideas; they constrain and enable ideas, but ideas are the ultimate instigators of policy change. This rests on his belief that both rational choice theories, as well as institutionalism, are essential for explaining the persistence of the status quo, but fail to adequately explain policy change. This ‘required a search for new causal factors’ which included ideas or, more precisely, new ideas (Blyth, 2003: 696). In short, new ideas seek to usurp old ideas and hence they are the instigators of policy change. Investigating ideas should therefore prove profitable because often they ‘hold the key to unlock political dynamics –​as change in policy is often preceded by changes in the ideas informing the policy’ (Hay 2002:  194). This argument is closely mirrored by Heffernan, with the added weight of a political example. Concerning the rise of Thatcherism, and the ideas that underpinned it, Heffernan (2001: 7) forcefully argued that ideas are more significant in political life than they are often given credit for: they come of age, fall out of fashion, are championed or otherwise dropped. Political change can therefore be mapped out by changing ideas, a change marked by the fall and rise of fashion when ideas determine the direction of state policy and when the dominant discourse is drawn from the political ideas in circulation. Both Heffernan and Hay illuminate the significance of ideas to political reality and hence provide one of the theoretical cornerstones of this book.

What is an idea? Defining an idea is notoriously difficult. Indeed, that is one reason why many political scientists claim that ideas are inferior to interests and

4

Introduction

institutions as explanations of policy change. A complete philosophical analysis of this concept is not possible within the scope of this book, but for present purposes I will take an idea to be an expression of thought that seeks to change and guide the policy or policies of any coordinated group, activities which are often linked to normative values. Given that ideas of this kind have broad implications and ‘range across a spectrum’, it is assumed that an idea could be a specific policy, a programmatic belief or a general philosophy (Berman, 1998: 20). These three tiers denote a level of importance or, more accurately, the scope and breadth of an idea’s influence and practical implementation. This three tier classification follows Schmidt’s (2010:  306) insight that new ideas cover three different aspects of general applicability, ‘policy ideas to programmatic ideas or paradigms to deeper philosophical ideas’. A new idea can be influential on a single policy level, as outlined in Kingdon’s book, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies (2003); a programmatic level as articulated by Berman’s book, The Social Democratic Moment (1998: 21), which holds the middle ground between a single policy and an ideology; or at the level of philosophical ideas ‘that undergird the policies and programs with organizing ideas, values, and principles of knowledge and society’ (Schmidt, 2010: 306).

Tiers of ideas • Philosophical ideas: socialism or capitalism • Programmatic ideas: neoliberalism or Keynesianism • Policy ideas: income tax or tax credits Given political parties are usually a product of some particular philosophical idea, a search for a new idea at this level is not envisaged as being important to a political party. Therefore, my primary focus will fall on the policy and programmatic ideas tiers during my analysis on the battle of ideas in the Labour Party. While analyzing policy changes at the individual policy level can be interesting and important, the search for a programmatic version of an idea is the main aim of this book. A programmatic idea represents what would be termed in the real world as a ‘big idea’. The relation to size is the recognition that a programmatic idea comes with a set of policy tools that aim to have an effect on more than one policy area. If adopted by a political party, it can have a significant impact on the political world, at both the practical and discursive levels. It is important to note that “there is never a purest translation of an idea into a political party’s programme”, so as an idea enters into a political party it will change, dropping

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THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

and adding elements of itself including policies (Diamond, 2014). Therefore, when I  refer to adoption I  do not mean a discreet and unchanged idea, but rather that it has had some policy effect on the party’s policy platform. With this in mind, a political party adopting a ‘big idea’ could be a game changer, with either positive or negative consequences. For all these reasons, the book focuses on programmatic ideas, but it will not be limited to that tier if it becomes apparent the other tiers are more important. Before proceeding, another problem, over and above the definition of an idea, has to be dealt with: the newness of a new idea. This is particularly pertinent to discussions around Corbyn. Carstensen (2013) highlighted the problems and issues with the newness of an idea as part of his criticism of Hall’s work. He believed scholars too readily assumed a clear black and white distinction between an old and a new idea, which is not only a mistake, theoretically speaking, but also not a true reflection of reality. When scholars attempt to pinpoint the newness of an idea the argument runs into what Carstensen (2013: 285) termed the ‘ideational infinite regress’ problem. This problem is explained as ‘there is no end or beginning of an idea, because it is related to a number of other ideational elements (discourses, theories, paradigms, cultures, philosophies) both across units (synchronically) and over time (diachronically)’ (Carstensen, 2013: 285). In plainer terms, it is extremely rare, maybe even impossible, to have a discreet new idea that has an easily identifiable start point. If accurate, Carstensen’s solution was to promote a model of a relational structure to ideas, where ideas are seen as fluid entities acquiring and divesting elements of itself over time; all of which is administered through political agents. Kingdon (2003: 117) observed and described this as ‘ideas confront one another and combine with one another’. Therefore, what was important for Carstensen was the idea’s degree of novelty –​and where the changes in degree reflect the depth of change that has taken place within the idea. Carstensen’s (2013: 289–​92) relational model outlined how to measure this degree of novelty. He explained that within an idea there are primary elements, relations between other ideas and the wider tradition the idea is ensconced within. The primary elements are all the constitutive parts of an idea at a particular point in time. These elements are positioned in a circular structure within an idea, with some in the centre and others on the periphery. A change or switch in this hierarchy was termed as a ‘recast’. The second level revolves around the assertion that an idea is partially defined by its relation (level of difference) to other ideas (see also Carstensen, 2010). The differences between ideas vary because political actors readily cannibalize elements from other

6

Introduction

ideas and incorporate them into a new idea (Freeden, 1996: 68). This change was termed a ‘renewal’. Finally, the last change was categorized as revolutionary. This is when, over a period of time, all the elements of an idea change, because there has been a radical shift in the policy tradition. This is an important debate, because often in the Labour Party there are huge debates about the newness of ideas being advocated by a leadership team. To overcome this issue, I will consider Cartensen’s model to assess and determine an idea’s degree of novelty. Determining the extent of an idea’s novelty and analyzing the battle of ideas within the Labour Party will be done over six chapters. This first chapter is a broad sweep of the historical battle of ideas in the party starting from the Attlee government and finishing on Neil Kinnock’s terms as leader. Given the scale of the time period being covered, Chapter 1 focuses on the totemic ideas during this time and the conflicts between the main factions and protagonists. It will also highlight the salient ideas and their influence. For the Attlee period, there is a focus on the liberal ideas that guided that government and the beginnings of the left. It tracks the left’s thinking into the 1950s with Bevanism and the riposte to it that came with Tony Crosland and revisionism. It analyzes the rise of the left in the early 1970s and its dominance until the early 1980s. It finishes on the leadership of Neil Kinnock over both his terms as leader, which are often seen as the reassertion of the right over the left. The second chapter details the ideas under the leaderships of John Smith and Tony Blair. It chronicles Smith’s short term in relation to new ideas and policy processes that he began to develop. After Smith’s tragic death, this chapter analyzes the rise of Blair and the ideas he engaged with before winning in 1997. It outlines the serious attempts to adopt and adapt the ideas of key thinkers at the time, such as Will Hutton –​ stakeholder capitalism –​and Amitai Etzioni –​communitarianism. It highlights the problem of translation –​how do you turn a big idea into deliverable policies –​and the constant fear in the New Labour camp of the electoral consequences of any association with ‘Old’ Labour. It also investigates the ideas considered while in power, most notably the Third Way. The third chapter notes the intellectual exhaustion of New Labour leading into the 2010 general election and the attempts to renew the party outside the leadership circle. It focuses on Ed Miliband’s leadership and the ideas that he engaged with. In particular, there is an analysis of Blue Labour and One Nation. Blue Labour was the prominent idea during this period and boasted the involvement of key advisors, MPs and academics, notably led by the idea’s progenitor

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THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

Lord Glasman. With the apparent demise of Blue Labour, this chapter tracks the rise of One Nation, which was dubbed Blue Labour 2.0. It raises questions about whether it was an idea at all, but concludes that it was a ‘washing line’ idea as quipped by Campbell (2007). It notes its ultimate failure because of the implausibility of its goal: to simultaneously communicate to the voting public Labour’s vision, while not antagonizing either wing of the party. The fourth chapter concentrates solely on the idea of pre-​ distribution. It warrants this sole focus given the considerable academic scholarship behind it and being a coherent proposal to reform the economic system. In other words, it was a significant attempt to move beyond Keynesianism and neoliberalism. It outlines the theory of pre-​distribution and how it came to Ed Miliband’s attention. It also shows why it failed to resonate beyond the leadership circle and the political attack it was subjected to. However, its influence was clear in the 2015 general election policy pledges, as it attempted to bridge the ideas divide between the right and left of the party. Yet, in the end, pre-​distribution was a critical plinth for the emergence of Corbynism, because it was an idea premised on accepting the austerity framework set out by the then coalition government. The fifth chapter is a detailed investigation of Corbynism. Through many interviews and secondary sources, it reveals the main thinkers and the chief actors who drove it forward. It notes that it was largely defined by what it was not, namely New Labour and neoliberalism, critiquing the previous Labour administration’s accommodation with neoliberalism. However, its advocates deliberately avoided accusations of a lurch back to ‘Old’ Labour and there was an attempt to project a newness to Labour’s thinking; to develop a 21st century socialism. It was also conscious of electoral concerns, something which the right of the party has often accused the left of being unconcerned with. The sixth chapter builds on the conclusions of the fifth chapter around Labour’s renewal, but with a particular focus on Brexit. It chronicles the leadership’s deliberations on Brexit and what it meant for Corbynism and the party’s policy programme. It covers the areas of Brexit, state aid, globalization, the concept of socialism ‘in one country’, the continuing conflict in the PLP and the split of the eight Labour MPs to Change UK, which subsequently died away after the European elections in 2019. It assesses whether the Corbyn project inextricably led to a pro-​Brexit position given its central thrust to reassert the nation state in an increasingly globalized world. In this regard, it makes a comparison between Trump and Corbyn around their economic narrative.

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Introduction

This book does not claim to comprehensively cover every idea that has coursed through the veins of the Labour Party since 1945 to the present day. Instead, it shows, through pertinent examples, how ideas have been fundamental to the battle between the right and left of the party. It also puts forward the development of Corbynism and how Brexit shaped the debate over renewal in the party. It looks to move beyond the superficial or polemical (both for and against) analyses of Corbynism towards providing a more accurate picture of its ideational parts. To understand Corbyn and the Labour Party’s internal conflict, we need to understand the battle for ideas, which started after the party’s inception. To many observers, the internal conflict in the Labour Party in recent years would seem like a relatively new precedence. This is especially true for the latest generation whose political memory is dominated by the Tony Blair era. To more seasoned observers, this battle between the right and left harks back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, where these ideological differences were stark and played out in the public domain. However, the battle of ideas between the right and left in the party have taken place throughout the party’s history, flaring up in different ways and degrees of ferocity, but have always been omnipresent in the party. This book will show how these previous battles over ideas have greatly shaped Corbyn and Corbynism.

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1

The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–​92 This chapter examines the historical battles of ideas in the Labour Party, focusing on the major disputes between 1945 and 1992. Given the scope of the time period, this analysis will briefly cover the totemic battles. It will highlight the background to the disputes, the main protagonists involved and, of course, the ideas utilized in those debates. The breadth of this chapter necessitates a brevity to the number of key battles analyzed and the level of detail provided, but the four key time periods and battles that are covered provide important context to the continuing battle in the party. The four main periods covered are: • • • •

the 1945 Attlee government –​liberal ideas Crosland, revisionism and Bevanism 1970s socialism –​the AES Neil Kinnock and the fightback of the right

All of these periods demonstrate the age-​old battle between what are normally termed the left and right wings of the Labour Party. This battle has covered many policy areas and can focus on quite arcane –​although important –​philosophical definitions of what is ‘socialism’ and what constitutes ‘socialist’ policies. For the most part, this debate will be avoided; however, some discussion on this subject is inevitable. These four periods do not represent all the pivotal moments, but they do give a robust flavour of previous battles and how the debate over ideas has changed, or not, over time. Indeed, they provide a coherent, consequentially ordered timeline of the never-​ending battle of ideas in the party. The first stop is the most vaunted of all Labour governments.

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The 1945 Attlee government: liberal ideas The Labour Party winning the general election in 1945 was mainly due to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. War encouraged the formation of a national government (a government made up of all the parties) which provided vital governmental experience to senior Labour leaders, allowed the Conservatives to be blamed for the outbreak of the war, and instilled into the British public’s mind the principal and benefits of collectivism in pursuit of a common cause; in this case the war effort. Moreover, for the Labour Party, it is also encouraged a process where the ideas of the left and right of the party fused together to form a formidable policy platform. The two principal ideas that underpinned Attlee’s government were William Beveridge’s report (1942), which set out the framework of the welfare state, and Keynesian economics outlined by John Maynard Keynes’ book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, in 1936. These works eventually became the central ideas that informed the policy development process that the party had embarked on 15 years earlier (Foote, 1986: 191). In the early days, this process was dominated by the ideas of guild socialism that had been put forward by figures like G.D.H. Cole, Marxism put forward by Harold Laski and, eventually, the thoughts of liberal thinkers like Keynes about the economic ravages of the 1930s and the abject failure of laissez-​faire capitalism. Emanating largely as a consequence of the great crash in the US in 1929, the 1930s was a period of economic and political tumult, making it a febrile environment for new ideas. These ideas and thinkers competed to explain and outline solutions to the crisis. Douglas Jay (1980: 62), an economist during the 1930s, a special advisor to the Attlee government and eventually a Labour MP, was writing his book, The Socialist Case (1937), in which he argued for the total effective demand management of the economy by the state. This had been outlined by Keynes a year earlier, which was a mixture of Keynesianism and Fabianism (Marquand, 1991:  56). Jay (1980:  63), who became a well-​known figure on the right of the party, claimed he was partly inspired to write the book in order to counter ‘the flood of quasi-​Marxist volumes pouring forth in the 1930s’. This was the right of the party’s response to this flood that had been precipitated by the tumultuous nature of the 1930s, an economic depression, the rumbling consequences of the First World War and the consequences of the Russian revolution. Put simply, Marxism was gaining more credence because capitalism was in crisis (Bor, 2005: 12). Unsurprisingly, therefore, Marx was the patron saint of the left-​wing intelligentsia during most of the 1930s

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The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

(Marquand, 1991: 56).The Labour Party was struggling to respond to these world events and was riven by internal division, exacerbated by the growing pains of a still relatively new party and a fiasco with the ex-​leader, Ramsay McDonald (see Weir, 1938). The new ideas of the left and right were also challenging the previously ascendant thought in the party of gradualism –​the view that the party would eventually win an election through the mere passage of time and the moral bankruptcy of the then system. On the left, the Socialist League, established in 1932, pushed the Marxist agenda heavily in the party with its policy platform outlined in the programme ‘Forward to Socialism’ (see Bor, 2005). While this platform was successfully resisted by the right-​leaning parliamentary leadership, in the end there was a compromise between them, culminating in the 1945 manifesto. It was a combination of Labour’s Immediate Programme (1937), published and driven by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) –​which declared it would bring about ‘measures of socialism’ and contained the key policies of nationalization of the Bank of England, coal and power  –​and Keynesianism. According to Foote (1986:  186), this was to be known as corporate socialism, a mixture of adhering to Keynesian thinking in terms of state intervention into the economy by going beyond regulatory interference through a more direct, quasi-​ Marxist prescription, intervention in the financial plan of the country’s economy. This was a direct fusion between Keynesian liberalism on the right and quasi-​Marxism on the left. The Labour Party’s 1945 manifesto displayed in concrete terms the results of this fusion. Let Us Face the Future (Labour Party, 1945) stated proudly that the party was a socialist party and outlined policies that are now seen as left wing: price controls on essential goods, a sweeping nationalization programme, the creation of the welfare state and, of course, the National Health Service (NHS). The majority of the policy platform was not controversial to both wings of the party. Indeed, the manifesto was warmly welcomed by two central figures of the right and left respectively, Herbert Morrison and Ian Mikardo (see Labour Party, 1945: 91–​3). Yet, as mentioned, this platform was underpinned by the ideas of Beveridge and Keynes, both of whom were Liberals. The Beveridge report was ‘heavily influenced by the New Liberals ‘progressive spirit’’ (Fielding, 2003: 67). It is worth noting that some in the Labour Party, like the MP Emanuel (Manny) Shinwell MP, did not detect any ‘evidence of originality’ in Beveridge’s thinking and instead put it down as an indication ‘of the foresight of the Labour party’ (Shinwell, 1944:162). Nevertheless, Keynes was known for his lack of fondness for the Labour Party and was quoted as saying, ‘the

13

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

Labour party was a party where the mud had ensnared the fish –​where the intellectuals who should lead were dominated by the illiterate trade unionists’ –​and as a result was not the party for Keynes (Foote, 1986: 140). This, of course, was far off the mark, and luckily so for Keynes. This is because a small group of young intellectuals, including Michael Young, Tony Crosland, Roy Jenkins, Evan Durbin, Douglas Jay and Richard Crossman, many of whom would dominant the intellectual landscape of the party for decades, formed an important political grouping that influence the party’s leader and policymakers (Francis, 1995:  222). And many of them were Keynes supporters, injecting and promoting his ideas pre and post war. Additionally, and importantly for Keynes, politicians like Gaitskell, Hugh Dalton and Ernest Bevin also promoted his ideas in the party. Tellingly, these intellectuals, according to Francis and Foote, were broadly centre right of the party, with the notable exception of Crossman. The adoption of Keynes’ thinking seemed to represent a victory for the right, but with the appended idea of quasi-​ Marxism, exemplified through the desire for the direct control of industry, the left ensured the creation of corporate socialism. This was explicitly about a planned economy and formed the prime justification for the nationalization of key industries. From the right’s perspective, as the left was to find out, this was acceptable because in their minds the basis for nationalization was technocratic, not ideological (Morgan, 1984: 99). The private sector had failed the nation and nationalization was the obvious short-​term answer. This compact between the left and right was extremely successful in terms of policy impact. The Attlee government enacted, without any significant internal resistance, the 1945 manifesto nearly in its entirety. This success, however, became a hindrance. During this term ‘Labour had exhausted itself, in ideas as much as energy. It had succeeded only too well in implementing its policies, and was in real danger of becoming a rudderless conservative party’ (Foote, 1986: 206). Herbert Morrison, a notably figure on the right of the party, indicated there was a small-​c conservatism issue in the party and posed challenging questions to the party of, ‘Are we looking forward enough? Are we clearing the cobwebs out of our own thinking and letting the daylight and fresh air in?’ (Morrison, 1948: 130). This exhaustion merited a renewed search for new ideas to drive the next chapter of the Labour Party forward. Morrison took on the responsibility to drive the party forward. He oversaw the party’s policy committee that produced the party’s 1949 statement, Labour Believes in Britain, which went on to form the party’s 1950 general election manifesto,

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The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

Let Us Win Through Together. This manifesto discussed issues such as enterprise and that socialism was not bread alone. Economic security and freedom from the enslaving material bonds of capitalism are not the final goals. They are means to the greater end –​the evolution of a people more kindly, intelligent, free, co-​operative, enterprising and rich in culture. (Labour Party, 1950) In this language, there is a detectable shift away from the more radical left positions. Significantly, by the 1951 manifesto, the policy platform was almost barren. There were hardly any new proposals –​indeed, there were barely any proposals. Marquand (1991: 108) describes both the 1950 and 1951 manifestos as conservative and a ‘ragbag of petty and rather apologetic nationalisations’. These manifestos highlighted how the party was intellectually lost and was coming to terms with the need to generate new ideas, given most of its promises in the 1945 manifesto were already on the statue book (Francis, 1995: 224). This created a conundrum over where the party went in the 1950s, and kickstarted a lengthy ideational debate between many intellectuals in the party, particularly Richard Crossman and Tony Crosland. The 1945–​51 period patches over the disputes between the right and left during the 1930s, a period where the party was riven with different ideas. The eventual compact between the right and left provides a platform and programme for government with the clear position of a welfare state, Keynesian economics and some nationalization. Yet, this position does not settle the battle. This compromise between the left and right soon unravels in the early 1950s, with the left wanting something more radical and the right believing in Morrison’s brand ‘of moderate consolidation’ (Morgan, 1984: 414).

Crosland, revisionism and Bevanism The regeneration, or lack, of ideas and policies at the end of Labour’s time in office going into the 1950s was a defining moment for the party. It marked the period where the party, and both its factions, were bereft of new ideas. Partly as a result of this, the left towards the latter stages of Attlee’s government, and certainly into the early 1950s, mounted sporadic opposition to the Labour government and leadership largely based on foreign policy decisions –​another casus belli for the left through the 1950s (Coates, 1977: 190). Although they initially

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THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

started with foreign policy concerns, the left quickly moved onto the domestic agenda. The lack of new ideas, in relation to the domestic realm, created a space for contestation between the right and left over the future policy direction of the party, which would largely pivot on the nationalization programme and whether to extend it further. On nationalization, the Attlee government had a strong record. It had nationalized the coal industry, electricity, gas, the railways and the Bank of England (Porter, 1995: 93). For some critics on the left, this did not go far enough (Fielding, 2003: 22–​3). These disagreements were first raised in 1950 by Aneurin Bevan in several Cabinet meetings and by the Keep Left –​a group set up in 1947 –​MPs both of whom strongly advocated the continuation of the nationalization programme (Morgan, 1984: 414). In their view, the Labour government in its second term needed to go further to ensure socialism was implemented, because, at the time, Keynesian liberalism was masquerading as socialism (Cole, 1949: 7). So, while the left openly and firstly started to disagree on the foreign policy of the government, they moved on to develop a critique of the domestic policies and was based on a set of distinct ideas underpinning their notion of the socialist project. In the early 1950s and morphing out of the Keep Left group, the Bevanites and Bevanism, named after the enigmatic leader, Aneurin Bevan, became the de facto name of a group of left-​wing Labour MPs who frequently challenged the parliamentary leadership of the party. The Bevanites were explicitly about advancing socialism, mainly in a quasi-​Marxist sense. Bevan (1952: 17) declared that his political training had been informed by Marxism and when it came to the economy, this position was clear, especially on nationalization, outlining that converting industry to public ownership was a pivotal step towards socialism (Bevan, 1952:  102–​3). In domestic terms, this meant a focus on nationalization (Coates, 1977:  191) and in international terms it centred on opposition to American foreign policy. Crossman (1981: 31), a proud left-​wing MP, and a founding member of the left-​ wing pressure group Keep Left, felt that Attlee’s government was too pro-​American, needed greater focus on national economic planning and lamented that the Labour Party was now in ‘opposition without any idea of a constructive Socialist policy’. In a bid to change this, the Keep Left group reaffirmed its commitment to continue after the 1951 general election defeat. At first, the early years of left-​wing activism focused on challenging the parliamentary leadership, Attlee et al, on foreign policy. This was a battle that ostensibly took place over debates around rearmament, Korea and how to deal with the beginnings of the

16

The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

Cold War. The battle, as defined by Crossman (1981), was between the left and right of the party, and, to put it mildly, it became bad-​tempered. Both wings of the party frequently battled with each other in private party meetings in the Commons, and now and then on the floor of the Commons in front of the Conservatives. Crossman (1981: 119) cites a debate in parliament on Korea and rearmament that made it ‘grotesquely obvious’ that were divisions within the Labour Party, with on one side the right wingers like Herbert Morrison, Hugh Gaitskell and Denis Healey and on the other side the Bevanites. The battle was fractious and personal (see Marquand, 1991: 109–​10), but it was never truly substantive in the sense of different competing ideas. This was because neither side had any new ideas, at least certainly not in the early 1950s. For Attlee, there was no need for a battle, explaining in October 1952 at a party meeting that were no serious differences of policy and talk over the left and right split party was wrong. He argued, according to Crossman (1981: 163), that the 1945 manifesto, Let Us Face the Future, was a left-​wing document and that he hoped the party could work together after the general election defeat in 1951, but had not been able to do so specifically because of the Bevanite group. Douglas Jay, by this time a Labour MP, agreed with Attlee about Labour’s inability to work effectively as an opposition and who was to blame. Jay (1980: 220) recounted that, in the early 1950s, Labour’s opposition to the Conservative government was undermined by the Bevanites, but it was never clear to him what the major differences were between the two groups. This reference to no serious disagreement or confusion on what were the ideological and policy differences was partially acknowledged by Crossman noting in December 1952 that on the economic level, at least, there was ‘literally no difference between the left and the right party of the party’ (Crossman, 1981: 185). This was helped by Bevan being curiously adverse to developing new ideas and policies, with Crossman (1981: 99) lamenting that ‘Nye always resents any ideas of seriously thinking out policy’. This was one of a number of references made by Crossman over Bevan’s reluctance to discuss policy detail. Indeed, Marquand (1991: 122) argued that Bevan’s ‘real failure was that he never managed to hammer out a coherent alternative’ to Croslandite revisionism. Even on the right, figures like Crosland (1956: 43) regaled that anyone who had observed the party since its defeat in 1951 would find a party searching for its soul and in a state of deep bewilderment. There seemed to be a collective malaise over the future ideas of the party post the 1951 defeat. It was only as the 1955 general election

17

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

drew closer that the substantive ideological differences between between right and left within Labour became clearer. In contrast to the right, the core propositions of the Bevanites –​the left –​was that they wanted more nationalization, state planning and believed in a neutral foreign policy. As the general election drew closer, Jay (1980: 221) described the Bevanites as extremists and zealots and that they would ‘nationalise almost everything and cut defence spending to 50 per cent or so below wherever it stands at the moment’. He did not end there making personal recriminations against Bevan, believing that Bevan tended to go to the extreme but could never discuss serious policy soberly. This infighting and lack of ideas on both sides produced a Labour Party manifesto, Forward with Labour, for the 1955 general election that was an unedifying and incoherent compromise. It talked about consumers, and their protection, which was a nod to the changing nature of society –​ later to be termed the affluent society–​(see Galbraith, 1985), but continued to promise to re-​nationalize road haulage, steel and to extend it to the chemical and machine tool industry (Labour Party, 1955). This promise to re-​nationalize key industries, particularly the chemical industry, was a personal desire of Bevan (Crossman, 1981: 176). The manifesto promised to re-​introduce price controls on food and other essential goods (Labour Party, 1955). This was all in a new era labelled as the ‘affluent society’. Although the existence of such a society and the electoral answer to it is heavily disputed, there is little disagreement that some of the British public were becoming avid consumers of new commercial products and were becoming more affluent. The turning point in this feud came with the general election defeat in 1955 and Hugh Gaitskell, a prominent right winger, becoming leader. While Bevan largely settled his differences with Gaitskell –​the pair had a longstanding and temperamental personal relationship  –​ leading up to the 1959 general election (Marquand, 1991:  118), resulting in the left losing its talisman, the left was also losing out on the ideas battle. To be more precise, the left continued to struggle to develop new ones, while the right got its act together. While key figures on the left promoted further nationalization as a policy answer to the Labour Party losing general elections in 1951 and 1955, Tony Crosland wrote The Future of Socialism, in 1956 which essentially argued that capitalism had changed and that the Labour Party and its policies had to change with it. The tenets of this would form what would eventually be called revisionism, which attempted to ‘alter Socialism’s profile to take account of new times’ (Black, 2003:  129). Crosland (1956: 42) felt that presenting socialism as collectivist, nationalization,

18

The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

and capitalism, private ownership, as being too simple. It was far more complex than that. Two of his key contributions were his analyses on class and the changing nature of capitalism, which merited the prescription of a desired return to the orthodox Keynesianism of state intervention in the economy to smooth out the trade cycle through regulation, as opposed to physically controlling the levers of the economy directly (Foote, 1986: 216). They were also against further nationalizations. The revisionists questioned the need for a planned economy and feared that there was growing confusion in the Labour Party over means and ends. More directly, they feared nationalization was becoming an end, as opposed to a means achieving an end. Gaitskell (1959: 111–​12), after party’s 1959 general election, explained to the party conference that nationalization had cost them votes and set out the belief that nationalization was not the first principle of socialism and such a view was a ‘misunderstanding about ends and means’. In his view, ‘public ownership is not itself the ultimate objective; it is only a means of achieving the objective’. The accusation was that some in the party, the left, had got confused on this matter. Instead, for the revisionists, the best way to greater equality was through high welfare spending, economic growth and progressive taxation, not nationalization (Marquand, 1991: 214). The revisionists noted the increasing sociological trend of the distinction between the classes becoming more blurred. Spurred on by strong economic growth in the 1950s, people were becoming wealthier than they had ever been. New consumer goods that made age-​old household chores easier were becoming must-​haves. This affluent society meant Labour needed to modernize and ditch its cloth-​cap version of British socialism (Crosland, 1960). Its hitherto pillar of support, the working class, was now rapidly becoming middle class, and its appeal through public ownership based on past economic fears of depression and war were crumbling in new times (Abrams and Rose, 1960: 119). This was a serious issue for the party and goes to the heart of the battle of ideas over economics –​a planned socialist economy or Keynesian style management of a capitalist one. Many on the left felt that the acceptance of the affluent society and the Labour Party bending to it was a capitulation –​it was simply saying it would manage capitalism better than the Conservatives (Crossman, 1960: 2). More than that, they felt it was ‘morally and culturally corrupt’ (Black, 2003: 124). In this endeavour, the right of the party came to the fore, arguing for Labour to be a modern, national party, not one based solely on a certain political class (Foote, 1986:  189). Crosland (1956:  60)

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THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

made his position clear with those forces that resisted revisionism, rebuking them as ‘conservative or indolent-​minded people on the left, finding contemporary scene too puzzling and unable to mould it into the old familiar categories, are inclined to seek refuge in the slogans and ideas of 50 years ago’. After the 1959 general election defeat, the battle between the left and right continued unabated. In two Fabian pamphlets, Crossman and Crosland argued about the future of the party, which typified the battle in the party since the general election defeat in 1951. Crosland (1960: 1–​3) lamented the left for its scepticism about the science of political sociology and the methods it deployed (polling) to understanding what the public wanted and thought. He criticized the party’s image, particularly, and importantly, on nationalization. He felt that ‘without doubt [it was] a liability for all polls show that a majority of the electorate, and indeed even Labour voters, are opposed to further large-​scale nationalisation’ (Crosland, 1960: 9). In fact, Morrison had noted this trend as early as 1950 explaining to Cabinet colleagues that 5 per cent of the middle class vote had swung against Labour in the 1950 general election because of taxation, housing and, crucially, nationalization (Morgan, 1984: 414). Yet, Crosland’s analysis was more nuanced than this. He said what was troubling was not nationalization per se, but that the party was either vague or incoherent on what it would nationalize and had set out different statements in the election manifestos in 1950, 1951, 1955 and 1959. In this regard, Crosland (1960: 15) was scathing, stating ‘such a bizarre performance naturally suggests to the public that the party either suffers from complete mental confusion on the matter, or else wants to nationalize any industry, without much caring which out of doctrinaire attachment to a shibboleth’. Crossman (1960: 7), in response, declared that adopting the revisionist position, especially on nationalization, effectively would mean the party should be disbanded. Instead, Crossman argued that the party should look towards the East, notably the Soviet Union, for a model to emulate. While Crossman (1960: 9) was careful and clear to state the travesties of repression in the bloc were abhorrent, he was avid that in terms of military power, of industrial development, of technological advance, of mass literacy and, eventually, of mass consumption too, the planned Socialist economy, as exemplified in the communist states, is proving its capacity to outpace and overtake the wealthy and comfortable Western economies.

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The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

Crossman (1960:  11) went on to argue that the planned economy, of the quasi-​Marxist type, would control inflation, be more efficient and, through nationalization, control all the big businesses and industries ensuring, permanently, they were utilized for the public interest. He attacked Keynesianism and traditional Marxism in a single hit:  Marxism was wrong to ignore the ability of capitalism to adapt, while Keynesianism helped it to adapt. Indeed, ‘Keynes was consciously and deliberately seeking to save capitalism from its own internal contradictions’ (Marquand, 1991:  62). Yet, according to Crossman, even the Keynesian attempt to save it was doomed to failure, believing, emphatically, ‘that the kind of Keynesian managed capitalism (that the revisionists believed in) which has evolved since the war is intrinsically unable to sustain the competition with the Eastern bloc’ (1960: 26, emphasis added). In the immediate aftermath of the post 1951 general election defeat, the Labour Party struggled to find a new, guiding set of ideas. While both the left and right still battled away on different subjects, notably foreign policy, they were both searching for the new, mainly economic, idea that would guide their path to the future. The right developed its new idea to what it saw as the changing society and demography:  revisionism. The left was always committed to nationalization, seeing it as the central tenet to deliver the socialist society. The communist bloc provided an example of this model in action. This argument would rage into the 1960s, until the brilliant political leadership of Harold Wilson (1963), who managed to walk a tightrope between the two factions typified by his ‘white heat of technology’ speech at the Labour Party conference in Scarborough. His leadership managed to combine modern political campaign techniques that appeased the right, while assuaging the left through the stated need to direct industry towards innovation and science. Unfortunately, however, this balancing act was a fudge.

1970s socialism: the Alternative Economic Strategy In 1970, Labour lost the general election to the Conservative party, led by Edward Heath, which had gained ‘nearly eighty seats and 4.5 per cent of the vote; Labour lost seventy-​six and nearly 5 per cent’ (Rubenstein, 2006: 138). It was a defeat the Labour leadership was not expecting. Although the Wilson government lurched from crisis to crisis, most notably de-​valuing the pound, it had nonetheless inherited a £800 million deficit in payments in 1964 which by 1970 they had turned into a surplus of £600 million (Zeigler, 1993: 316).

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THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

It was, however, the issue over how to deal with the unions and strikes that fundamentally undermined the Wilson government (see Zeigler, 1993: 346). In particular, the government’s white paper, In Place of Strife, caused major disagreement in the party. The inability of the Wilson government to deliver In Place of Strife, demonstrated to the public that the Labour government could not effectively deal with unions. Yet, the incoming Conservative government became dogged by the same economic and industrial woes. In particular, in the winter of 1973–​74, it faced the ‘twin pressures of the oil price rise implemented by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and a miners’ strike’ which lead to ‘power cuts, shop windows [falling] dark by government order, candles [selling] out’ (Pemberton and Black, 2013: 3–​4). The ensuing consequence of rampant inflation was not curtailed by traditional Keynesianism policy responses, effectively undermining the idea (the revisionist idea) that had dominated Labour’s thinking for at least the last two preceding decades. This opened up a political space for new ideas to grow and offer different solutions. This precipitated, in conjunction with a dissatisfaction with Labour’s previous period in office, a re-​evaluation of the party’s policy programme (Wickham-​Jones, 2013a: 125). After the defeat in 1970, Labour’s policymaking process changed: the shadow cabinet lost its role in handling day-​to-​day policies with the National Executive and party staff taken on the responsibility (Bell, 2004: 2). This was hugely significant in terms of the battle of ideas in the party, because the battle became internalized taking place in the party’s various committees. It enabled the NEC to broadly reassess policy and organize it principally through two sub-​committees: Industrial Policy and the Public Sector (Cronin, 2004: 135). However, the former was the committee that took precedence in policymaking (Wickham-​ Jones, 2013a: 126). This leading role for the NEC represented the party handing back policymaking power to the research department based at Labour headquarters. Such a move meant that if the research staff were ‘sufficiently persuasive and able,’ they could succeed in influencing the development of policy (McKenzie, 1963: 570). The principal players and coordinators of the NEC research programme, which included figures such as Terry Pitt (the research secretary), Geoff Bish (his assistant), among many others, oversaw the debates around policy in an environment that was guided by their own political objectives that were sympathetic to the left (Bell, 2004: 133). In particular, Terry Pitt was the chief internal protagonist for the left and, as head of research, he was in a position to supervise and shape the NEC research programme which ‘helped steer the party on its

22

The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

leftward course’ (Hatfield, 1978: 52). Cronin (2004: 135) noted that Hayward (General Secretary in 1972), Pitt and Bish played important roles in setting the agenda for reorienting programme and policy, in recruiting ‘experts’ –​most more or less on the left of the party –​to advise on new directions, in preparing background papers, and in putting into a coherent framework the sometimes inchoate sentiments and preferences articulated in policy debates. The product of this leftward course resulted in the party releasing Labour’s Programme (1973), which outlined what many considered then, and most now, as an avowedly left-​wing agenda. In plain terms, it stated that ‘the principles of democracy and Socialism above consideration of privilege and market economics’ (Labour Party, 1973: 7). Its response to the new challenges was to be a socialist one; it would introduce price controls, a new wave of nationalization, economic planning from the centre and new industrial power  –​ the latter about democratization of the workplace for workers. The government would set up a state holding company, direct the investments and priorities of Britain’s major companies towards the medium and long-​terms goals of the country (Labour Party, 1973: 13–​20). The state would actively direct the role of industry, as opposed to market forces. These collated policies were described as the Alternative Economic Strategy (AES). The left’s dominance stemmed from ideas created and propagated in the NEC’s policy sub-​committees, with Pitt deliberately engineering it so the party’s economic policy ‘drew upon only the ideas of the [Industrial Policy Sub-​committee]’ (Bell 2004:  116). Pitt had extensive influence on the makeup of the above sub-​committee and ensured these committees housed experts including people like Richard Pryke and, critically, the economist Stuart Holland (Cronin 2004:  135–​6). Holland’s ideas dominated Labour thinking during this period to the extent that Wickham-​Jones (2013a: 133) posited that ‘in the marketplace for ideas, he exercised, for a time at any rate, a near monopolistic domination’. This dominance can be seen in Labour’s Programme (1973), particularly with its promotion of the AES. Hatfield (1978) described in great detail the various discussions and arguments surrounding Holland’s ideas in the policy committees as they constructed policies for Labour’s Programme (1973). This in-​depth description highlighted the influence of Holland and the support his ideas received from people like Judith Hart, Ian Mikardo

23

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

MP, Richard Pryke, and other research staff over and above Pitt (Hatfield, 1978: 146). We also learn from Panitch and Leys (1997: 77) of how the slew of papers emanating from these committees, and the ideas contained within them, gained the attention of Tony Benn who was particularly ‘impressed by the arguments in the flood of papers’. Although his involvement is not hugely prominent at this time, his awareness and support of these ideas becomes important in future years. For Panitch and Leys (1997:  66), the inspiration for these new ideas, particularly from Holland, came from Europe; and they were not as new or radical as they were portrayed. They argued that the economic programme was ‘inspired by the practices of countries such as France and Italy which had put less stock in Keynesian macroeconomic fiscal policy … and more in what the Germans called strukturpolitik’. There is plenty of evidence for this. For example, the state holding company policy was drawn directly from the Italian Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (see Holland, 1972). Moreover, Holland (2013: 107) himself highlighted the importance of Europe after describing his own idea as ‘Euro-​Keynesianism in terms of joint demand management and European meso-​level accountability of multinational companies’. Wickham-​Jones (1996: 58) also argued there was an additional ideational inspiration over and above Europe, arguing the AES marked ‘the main theoretical influence [on Holland’s ideas] was not Keynesian economics but Marxist’, although it was not orthodox Marxism. However, at the time, Holland (1975:  12–​41) critiqued both Marxism and Keynesianism while extolling the virtues of his own ideas. After the publication of Labour’s Programme (1973), the majority of the leadership were uneasy, even alarmed, about its proposals (Wickham-​ Jones, 1996: 92; Shaw, 1996: 113). Reportedly, the then leader, Harold Wilson, was ‘totally hostile’ to the programme (Hatfield, 1978: 155). There were probably many factors for the PLP leadership’s opposition to the left’s ideas, but the dominant factor was the perceived electoral consequence of such ideas. There were concerns among shadow cabinet ministers that ‘posing a radical alternative’ –​to Keynesianism –​was ‘rash’ because it would be unwise ‘to trip over ideology and ruin the chances of winning the next General Election’ (Hatfield, 1978: 191). Despite these misgivings, they were initially unable to stop the left’s ideas and policies from dominating the policy agenda through the publication of Labour’s Programme (1973). Its publication and the PLP leadership’s inability to halt it allowed the leadership to fall ‘into the arms of the Trade Union Congress (TUC)’ (Bell, 2004: 252).

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The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

After all, as we learn from Minkin (2014: 16), ‘the unions [had a] clear sense of priorities and their normally right-​wing moderate majority were seen as the natural safe base’. The PLP leadership knew that the unions could help them regain control over policy. Fortuitously, the mechanism for both groups to coordinate this effort had already been set up. In 1972, the PLP and TUC had established the TUC-​Labour Party Liaison Committee, which was primarily aimed at formulating policy responses to the Heath’s government policy programme (Minkin, 2014: 34). This Liaison Committee now played the additional role of reducing the NEC committees’ role, where the left was dominant, over policy (Shaw, 1994: 8). With union power, a measure of control could be established over the process, ‘but union support did not come cheap’ (Cronin, 2004: 144). The unions dominated the process and put their priorities at the heart of Labour’s manifesto in 1974. For Bell, the deal struck with the unions was still problematic, arguing that being forced to deal with the trade unions meant that they foisted on the leadership what he described as unrealistic economic policies (Bell, 2004: 181–​2). Cronin (2004:146) concurred, claiming policy development via the unions resulted in them demanding terms that ‘to a large measure [were] consistent with the thrust of left-​wing proposals for extending public ownership … and for effecting a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth’. Despite the PLP leadership and shadow cabinet’s efforts in redirecting the TUC-​Labour Party Liaison Committee efforts into stemming the left’s proposals, the manifesto still ended up as a product of a Labour Party committed to a far more left-​wing agenda than previously in its history (Pelling and Reid, 1996: 146). This was due to the declining explanatory power of the right’s guiding idea of revisionism. In hindsight, Holland (2013: 107) believed there were several competing economic strategies and, although a version of Croslandite thought (see Crosland, 1956) was among them, Fielding (1995: 39) argued that ‘the inability of Crosland’s revisionism to explain events in the 1970s gave an important boost to thinkers on the left’. This appears to be the case given Holland (1975: 23–​30) robustly critiqued Croslandite revisionism, especially its reliance on Keynesian thought. Holland (1975: 14) argued that Keynesianism was fundamentally undermined ‘from the patent failure of the effort of the 1970–​74 Conservative government to promote a sustained increase in investment supply through primarily Keynesian management of demand’. To remedy the flaws, Holland (1975: 40) outlined his ideas, the thrust of which were contained in Labour’s Programme (1973), which would mean, if the goals outlined within it were pursued,

25

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

a large-​scale redistribution of wealth and wealth tax which inter alia reduced the compensation to personal shareholders from a major extension of public ownership. It would also mean the extension of such ownership beyond the infrastructure of the economy, such as land and ports, or weak, under-​capitalised sectors, such as shipbuilding. The weakness of Croslandite revisionism posed a huge problem for centre right members of the party given this had long been their principal operating idea. Their response, after the party’s defeat in 1970 and the illumination of the flaws in Keynesianism, was to disengage from intellectual renewal and apply what Cronin (2004: 118) described as ‘selective amnesia’ of their failures. Holland (2013: 108–​9) unwittingly alludes to the right’s angst over revisionism and general disengagement, noting how he wrote a chapter for Roy Jenkins’ book What Matters Now (1972), which mentioned the state holding company policy. Indeed, he claims ‘from 1971 through to the summer 1973 there was a consensus across the Labour Party on the case for a new and major state holding company in industry and for planning agreements’ (Holland, 2013: 109). However, and without explaining why, Holland stated that Jenkins, in particular, and the centre right in general denounced these plans after they were officially published. Nevertheless, with a Heath-​led government struggling to govern, Wilson managed to scramble to victory in 1974. The Labour Party’s period in office between 1974 and 1979 illuminated the ongoing battle in the party with the heightened pressure and focus of being in power. The argument between the left and right continued unabated. Revisionism could not offer an explanation or a solution to the crisis of stagflation –​high inflation and rising unemployment (Hay, 2001). Politicians based their economic decisions on the assumption that there was a negative relationship between inflation and unemployment (Philip’s Curve), and ‘they could trade lower unemployment for a bit extra inflation’ (Matthijs, 2011: 108). This turned out to be incorrect; unemployment continued to rise even with heavy government expenditure. Tellingly, Callaghan, in a speech to the Labour Party conference in Blackpool, could not have been more explicit that the Keynesian-​era, the central plank of revisionism, was over: We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession, and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting Government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and that in so far as it ever

26

The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. (Callaghan, 1976) The answer pursued instead was an incomes policy, controlling or capping workers’ wages, and cutting public expenditure (Wickham-​ Jones, 1996). Although union belligerency towards the incomes policy fluctuated in ferocity throughout the 1970s, this policy inevitably meant a degree of hostility between the unions and all governments that pursued it. The unions argued workers had to earn higher wages to cope with the effects high inflation rates had on the cost of living. This set in place a wages and inflationary merry-​go-​round. This, in the end, led to the crisis known as the winter of discontent, where multiple and lengthy strikes led to the crippling of the country after the Labour government tried to impose a 5 per cent pay policy (Shaw, 1994: 7), eventually bringing the Labour government down in 1979. In addition to the winter of discontent, the defeat spun out of period in which the Labour government struggled to deal with the problems of the economy –​notably asking the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan in 1976 (see Harmon, 1997). These issues emanated from the Labour Cabinet clinging to the main tenets of revisionism, despite the growing evidence it was no longer working. It was clear that new ideas were required and the incoming Conservative government had acquired one: neoliberalism –​an idea based on de-​regulation and increased global capital flows (see Hay, 2001). As a result of the incomes policy and cutting public expenditure while in office, the left felt the PLP leadership had failed the party and its membership by not following the policies set out in Labour’s Programme (1973) and continuing to pursue Keynesianism policies. They thought the ‘Wilson and Callaghan governments had been essentially duplicitous, appearing to agree with party policy but repeatedly avoiding implementing the programme while in office’ (Cronin, 2004: 210). Subsequently, their resolve was strengthened as Labour went into opposition post 1979 and they increasingly believed action was required to protect the socialist ideas they espoused (Heffer, 1986:  31). They aimed to bring in internal reforms that would ensure the leadership would not be able to ignore the party’s policy commitments again. This would bring to a head the internecine war going on in the party, setting the scene for a period where the left made a serious bid to take complete control; and between 1979 and 1982, the left was ‘firmly in the saddle’ (Shaw, 1988: 208). Given the NEC

27

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

was still the primary policymaking body in opposition, the ideas of Holland and other left-​wing academics took precedence once again. As Shaw (1994: 1) reported, ‘with the left in control of the policymaking machine, it engaged in supplanting … governing ideas’. In other words, Holland’s ideas resurfaced, supplanting Keynesianism. This control was strengthened by Michael Foot, a prominent and veteran left winger, becoming leader in November 1980 (Smith and Spear, 1992:  5). He was not a dominant and imposing force on the policymaking process and was not a progenitor of new ideas, which was ideal for the left. The intellectual desire to resist the left was not there either. Neuberger, Foot’s advisor, was a supporter of the left, especially of the AES, and would not have wanted to offer any intellectual resistance to the left’s ideas (Wickham-​Jones, 2000: 228). The same was true for Foot (Cronin, 2004: 231). The hitherto bastion of the right, the PLP leadership, was now unwilling to resist the ideational dominance of the left and lacked the organizational ability to do so in any case. Consequently, the parliamentary leadership advocated policies imposed on them by the left controlled by Tony Benn (Fielding, 2003: 126). With the left in a strong position, they pursued their ideas more vigorously and actively closed off the right’s other route for developing policy via the unions. The centre right knew they could no longer rely on trade union support after various arguments during Labour’s term in office which culminated in the huge industrial dispute on incomes policy that led to the winter of discontent. Indeed, the unions also had a split between the left and the right (see Minkin, 2014: 45–​6). This allowed the constituency-​based left to win over trade union support and make the ‘running at Labour conferences between 1977 and 1982’ (Heffernan and Marqusee, 1992: 9). These factors, including the haemorrhaging of prominent figures of the right through the Social Democratic Party (SDP), explains why the left and its ideas had greater influence over policy than in the early 1970s. At this time, relatively few new ideas came from the left. Heffernan (2001: 69–​70) observed the similarities between the ideas in the early 1970s and late to early 1980s which was corroborated by Wickham-​ Jones (2000: 227) who stated that ‘between 1980 and 1983, under Michael Foot’s leadership, Labour’s economic strategy was dominated by the AES. The party’s adherence to such policies dated back to the early 1970s and to the adoption of Labour’s Programme 1973.’ This time, however, an erstwhile ally had grown in stature and influence. In Tony Benn, the left had gained a significant political carrier of its ideas. He was a prominent politician and an effective communicator who could ably advocate and proselytize the virtues of the left’s ideas

28

The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

in the party and outside it –​he was the tribune of the left (Panitch and Leys, 1997: 39). He argued for the adoption of the AES in a paper to his government department in 1975 as a means of dealing with the then Labour government’s financial problems (see Benn, 1989: 621). Although he was in the Labour government and Cabinet, Benn was scathing of both, believing that ‘there [was] a systematic social democratic betrayal of socialist policy and the cabinet has got nothing in common with aspirations of the movement’ (Benn 1989: 263). The Cabinet, he felt, was full of right wingers. Benn concisely described his frustration with how the previous Labour government ignored the left’s ideas set out in the early 1970s at Labour’s party conference in 1980 when he argued: I have seen policies develop in the sub-​committees, come to the executive, go to the unions for consultation, be discussed at Liaison committee, be endorsed; then I have seen them cast aside in secret by those who are not accountable to this movement. (Labour Party, 1980: 148) The clear inference was that the leadership was disregarding party policy and something needed to be done. Compounding all these factors was the persistent ideational problem for the right. Those members who had remained post-​Limehouse declaration and the SDP split were still struggling with a deficit of ideas, especially after the complete collapse of Crosland’s revisionism. According to Heffernan and Marqusee (1992: 9), this was symbolically demonstrated by the ex-​ Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, who ‘pledged his support to the radical economic policy … backed by the left-​wing NEC’ –​the radical economic policy being the AES. Although it could be argued Healey was being a pragmatist and biding his time, it nonetheless pays testament to the weak ideational and organizational position of the right. Without any ideational opposition from the right, the policy field was wide open for the now institutionalized left-​wing ideas to dominate. The policies and ideas that derived from the NEC and the network of sub-​committees (Labour Party, 1982: 2) that were hammered out with the TUC general council (Heffernan and Marqusee, 1992: 26) culminated in the 279-​page Labour’s Programme (1982). It had been put together primarily by staff at Labour headquarters (Cronin, 2004: 231) who had effectively cut out the shadow cabinet from influencing it (Shaw, 1996: 166). This in turn was drawn on in the construction of the 1983 general election manifesto, New Hope for Britain (1983, see

29

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

also Heffernan and Marqusee, 1992: 26; Cronin, 2004: 231; Shaw, 1996: 166), which was later to be described as ‘the longest suicide note in history’ by the Labour MP, Gerald Kaufman (Rubenstein, 2006: 155). Smith and Spear (1992: 6) believed ‘the 1982 programme which formed the basis of the 1983 manifesto could be seen almost as the left’s archetypal platform’ and determined that there was a clear and observable link between the Labour manifestos in both 1974 and 1983. They both made clear that the left rejected Keynesianism and ‘the belief there could be a middle way between socialism and capitalism’ (Smith and Spear, 1992: 21). Faced with this choice, the obvious recourse, from the left’s perspective, was socialism. However, this period also contained the beginning of the end for the left. In a meeting on 27 October 1982, Benn was removed from the chair on the Home Policy committee and was replaced by the right winger John Golding (Shaw, 1996: 167). Furthermore, and critically, at the same meeting a motion sponsored by Denis Healey amounted, in practice, to the reassertion of the Shadow Cabinet’s role as the fount of policy in the party, finally closing the chapter that had begun in 1970 when Holland, Hart … first set out to find a way beyond the limits of Keynesianism and Croslandism. (Panitch and Leys, 1997: 205) Perhaps more significantly in terms of policymaking, the majority of the unions came to the aid of the PLP by stopping the left dominated NEC in its attempts to take control of the Short Money provided by the state to the PLP (Minkin, 2014: 49). This was pivotal, as it enabled the PLP leadership to have independent financial resources. This marked the starting point of the right and PLP leadership taking back control of policymaking and the erstwhile mechanism by which new ideas emerged.

Kinnock and the ‘right’ fightback The 1983 general election result was a resounding defeat for the Labour Party, one of the worst in its history. It only achieved 27.6 per cent of the vote, losing 3  million supporters  –​its lowest since 1918 (Minkin, 2014:  52). The Labour Party was in crisis and was questioning its future existence in light of the rise of the SDP (see Whiteley, 1983). Foot resigned as leader following the defeat and Labour went into a leadership election between Neil Kinnock, Roy

30

The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

Hattersley, Eric Heffer and Peter Shore. Kinnock won impressively, obtaining significant support from all sections of the party including the trade unions, constituency members and affiliated organizations. This scale of support gave Kinnock a strong basis on which to reform the party. Furthermore, the size of Labour’s defeat imbued on Kinnock the critical need to tilt the policymaking process in favour of the PLP leadership and the shadow cabinet in order to acquire greater control over policy (Shaw, 1996: 169). After all, the ideological tone for the 1983 manifesto, set by the NEC sub-​committees and Labour officials, had just been soundly rejected by the electorate. Unlike Foot, there was a determination from the leader’s office and the leader in particular to be involved in the policymaking process. For this to happen, a change to the traditional policymaking process had to take place. The system of NEC sub-​committees administered by party officials was unlikely to yield a significant shift in policies for the left’s ideas were now institutionalized. Instead, Kinnock sought to centralize policy development or, more precisely, he endeavoured to re-​establish the position of the leadership to change policy (Fielding, 2003: 117). In concrete terms, Kinnock started removing control of policymaking from the NEC and annual conference (Panitch and Leys, 1997: 219). Changing the policy process did not happen quickly. Indeed, it can be distinguished by the slow, painful expulsion of the left from key policy positions and the Trotskyite group commonly referred to as the Militant Tendency from the wider party (Minkin, 2014: 37). The combination of these two elements were initial obstacles that resulted in Heffernan and Marqusee (1992:  43) stating that ‘before 1985, he [Kinnock] was a prisoner of the left’. He was unable to assert the authority of the leader’s office over the party or the policymaking process. As a result, according to Jones (1996: 114), Kinnock proceeded cautiously at first, but the underlying aim to tilt internal policy mechanisms in favour of the shadow cabinet and PLP leadership was never far from the agenda. Indeed, the foundations of the leader’s office becoming more powerful in this regard had already been established. Minkin (2014: 53) pointed out that the significance of the Short Money in this endeavour in allowing the frontbench to build an independent capacity in policymaking, especially in the leader’s office with the employment of Dick Clements and Charles Clarke, with Patricia Hewitt as Press Secretary. Charles Clarke, in particular, ‘became the most influential figure in the Leader’s office and his approval of any measure almost invariably implied that of Kinnock himself ’ (Shaw, 1994: 58). This was critical in terms of the PLP’s dominance over policymaking, as ‘in order to cope with … extra [policy] work, the office of leader had 31

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

expanded, so too had the number of Research assistants attached to Shadow Cabinet members’ (Heffer, 1986: 48). Consequently, between 1983 and 1985 ‘a tightening of Labour’s managerial regime occurred’ which allowed Kinnock, post-​1985, to shift power over policymaking when the opportunity arose (Shaw, 1988: 255). With the support of the trade union right, the failure of the miners’ strike in 1984 and the capitulation of some of the rate-​capping defying Labour authorities, the left lost their coherence and became divided by 1985. This allowed Kinnock to confidently, in his leader’s speech at Labour conference in 1985, to take on Militant. A  divided and fragmented left enabled Kinnock, with the support of the centre right and centre left, to secure control of ‘the party’s three power centres –​ the PLP, the NEC and conference’ (Smith and Spear, 1992: 9). The NEC sub-​committee structure was now neutralized. The shadow cabinet was now in charge in terms of policymaking and the leader and his team controlled them. Also, by 1985, Labour headquarters was increasingly staffed by Kinnock’s people (Heffernan, 2001: 203). This was precipitated by Kinnock replacing Jim Mortimer as General Secretary with Larry Whitty (Minkin, 2014:  56; Shaw, 1994:  55). It should not be underestimated how important this was for the policymaking process and new ideas. By replacing personnel at Labour headquarters, Kinnock was changing the culture of the institution that had kept the left’s ideas alive, despite the decline of its prominent advocates. The last bastion of the left was being neutered, cementing the leadership’s control over the policymaking process. By 1986, the PLP leadership was experiencing a new period of ascendancy in policymaking (Minkin, 1991:  397). Eric Heffer (1986), a vocal exponent of the left during this period, noted and lamented the shift in the policymaking power in his 1986 book, Labour’s Future. Heffer described how the policymaking process in the party had traditionally worked, namely party conference and the NEC had ultimate authority over policy direction and development while in opposition. Thus, the bulk of policy details and development emanated from NEC policy committees who worked with ‘prominent members of the Party with specialist knowledge’ (Heffer, 1986: 47). In sum, how it worked in the early 1970s and under the influence of Stuart Holland. Yet, in contrast to the left during the 1970s, Kinnock and the right did not use this dominant position to promote new ideas. Although Kinnock had successfully reoriented the policymaking process by integrating the PLP and ensuring a dominant position for the leader’s office, the ideas that shaped policy were slow to emerge.

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The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

This was partly down to Kinnock having an instinctive reticence towards them. It was also partly down to “not many people [offering] me ideas” (Kinnock, 2014). One of the few exceptions to this was David Blunkett’s proposal on participatory democracy, which he floated in 1986. For Blunkett, ideas were important and he ‘persistently argued that Labour needed an inspirational idea with which to re-​plough the political landscape’ (Hughes and Wintour, 1990: 64). He was convinced that Labour must forge an ideological stronghold akin to Thatcher. In this endeavour, Blunkett set up a committee, with members including Geoffrey Hodgson, then professor of economics at Newcastle Polytechnic, Geoff Bish and Bernard Crick, professor of politics at Sheffield University. They drafted several papers relating to participative democracy and social ownership, but many of them were rejected by Kinnock for various reasons including being too wordy. Yet, according to Jones (1996), the concept of social ownership did gain some traction and culminated in its release as a party policy statement in 1986, Social Ownership. For Jones (1996:  118), social ownership contained two principal strands:  ‘positive freedom and an enabling state’. Its main purpose was to carve out a pathway between traditional state socialism and neoliberalism, which, for Jones (1996: 120), signalled an ‘ideological shift from traditional state socialism to some variant of European Social Democracy’. While not relating to the specific paper on Social Ownership, the insight on the drift towards a more European form of social democracy has been verified by Kinnock’s economic advisor, John Eatwell. He argued that under Kinnock there had been a seismic shift away from traditional socialism towards the European version of democratic socialism, ‘using the dynamics of the market to achieve social ends’ (Eatwell, 1992: 339). Yet, Kinnock was relatively sceptical of new ideas. Therefore, despite social ownership being included in Labour’s 1987 manifesto, Britain Will Win with Labour, it is only one bullet point under the heading ‘New Strength for Industry’. The 1987 manifesto contained very little in relation to new ideas, but it did contain hints of ideational influence from external sources. These hints came from new policies adopted by the party which some have observed as an accommodation of Thatcherism (see Elliot, 1993; Hay, 1994). It is understandable why some believe this to be the case, with the manifesto stating that ‘for council tenants, we will maintain the right to buy’ (Labour Party, 1987). There was also greater emphasis on individual freedom:

33

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

Labour’s objective is to broaden and deepen the liberty of all individuals in our community: to free people from poverty, exploitation and fear; to free them to realise their full potential; to see that everyone has the liberty to enjoy real chances, to make real choices. (Labour Party, 1987) This individualist, freedom agenda was rhetorically close to Thatcherite language, and was included because of the influence of Hattersley, then Deputy Leader of the Party. Although Hattersley did not mean it in Thatcherite terms, it nonetheless indicates that Thatcherism was, to some extent, having an effect on the Labour leadership. Although not determinant or dominant, it is worth bearing in mind that while in opposition the ideas of your opponents, particularly winning ideas, have an impact on the regeneration of ideas. Put simply, Thatcherism weighed heavily into the internal battle of ideas in the party: it defeated the left in 1983 and posed a problem for the right by forcing them to develop a response. As a result of the slow emergence of any new ideas from the right, a comparison of the party’s manifestos in 1983 and 1987 shows that key left policies had either been jettisoned or scaled down, but not substantially changed (Jones, 1996: 119; Smith, 1992: 9). Kinnock’s first term focused on structural reform rather than policy and ideas (Rubenstein, 2006: 159). Yet, despite this, we can infer that Kinnock was slowly shifting the party away from the ideas of the left and was steadily dropping its policies and interventionist strategies (see Shaw, 1994: 41–​52). Kinnock was in the midst of asserting his dominance and was unsympathetic to new ideas. This is something Kinnock openly admits, stating that “my scepticism is based on the issue of practicality. My view of ideas, in politics certainly, is that many are interesting, but what matters is can they be put to work by a democratic government” (Kinnock, 2014). His inclusion of democracy suggests that electability was a critical factor in his acceptance or rejection of new ideas. Between 1987 and 1992, the priority between policy and structure shifted slightly. Despite a more professional campaign at the 1987 general election which Gould (1998: 80) described as an ‘extraordinary success’ because it had ‘saved Labour’, Labour lost again. Labour’s ‘share of the vote rose a mere 3.2 per cent to 30.8 per cent and it added 20 seats to reach a total of 229 –​its second worst result since 1945’ (Shaw 1994: 79). The Conservatives won a 102-​seat majority with 42.3 per cent of the vote (Hughes and Wintour, 1990: 36). With Driver and Martell (1998:  119) characterizing Kinnock’s first period of policy

34

The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

changes as ‘tentative and piecemeal’, the PLP leadership decided that the defeat showed a more urgent need to change policy (Smith and Spear, 1992: 11). Given that in the previous period the PLP leadership had laid the structural foundations whereby they could direct and influence the policymaking process, they now had the means to change policy. There was no intention of re-​engaging with a labyrinth of policy sub-​committees under NEC control. Therefore, after the defeat, Kinnock was advised and became determined to review policy and ‘won permission from the 1987 conference to re-​think the entire range of policies in a process known as the Policy Review’ (Hayter, 2005: 192). There was a genuine desire to fundamentally re-​formulate policies but, as it will be made clear, a muted attempt to engage in ideational renewal. As a result of the reforms to the policymaking process, it was unclear how a review of policy should be structured. After much deliberation, Kinnock accepted the pathway set out by Tom Sawyer, the Deputy General Secretary of NUPE, in his paper An Approach to Policy Making (Westlake, 2001: 424). It was the clearest proposal he had received and was a new approach, according to Hayter (2005: 192), that involved the shadow cabinet and PLP as partners with the NEC. Later in the process, Sawyer additionally proposed that the party should engage with ordinary members of the public through the mechanism, ‘Labour Listens’. This, as well as the review itself, was designed to show an openness to new ideas and reform. Heffernan (2001: 79), however, poured scorn on the seemingly open nature of the review. His scepticism stemmed from the belief that in reality policy was already pre-​determined by what he described as the ‘Inner Core Elite’, which by now had been firmly established as the dominant policy force. This is something Kinnock strongly disputes stating forthrightly: ‘[I]‌t’s a fable; it was untrue because it suited critics to say that I locked myself in a bunker, surrounded myself with very bright people and was only prepared to listen to them. Clinically that’s not true, historically it’s not true, physically it’s not true, intellectually it’s not true, but the propaganda at the time meant it suited some people to say that.’ (Kinnock, 2014) Yet, Heffernan’s analysis was supported by an examination of how the policy process operated, with Minkin (1991: 466) noting that the groups effectively operated under loose control from the leader’s office.

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THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

The new policy process, therefore, enabled the leadership, in particular, to assert some degree of influence over the policies developed. In October 1989, despite the conclusions of the Policy Review, key members of the ‘Inner Core Elite’ were arguing that they wanted ‘to generate appeal by creating a sense of a modern, forward-​looking party with policies to match; Labour should be open to new, radical ideas, thinking creatively and side-​stepping the constraints of traditional left-​wing ideology’ (Gould, 1998: 98). Wickham-​Jones (2000: 241) implicitly substantiated this argument after he noted that despite the Policy Review being officially completed in the summer of 1989, significant shifts on economic strategy happened afterwards. He described how big policy positions, in this case the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), were taken by shadow cabinet members in conjunction with Kinnock and his advisor John Eatwell. This was exemplified, according to Heffernan (2001: 79), by policy documents such as Looking to the Future and Opportunity Britain. The continuation to develop policy after the Policy Review emanated from the fact that its conclusions disappointed Kinnock because they were not modernizing enough. Nevertheless, the conclusion of the Policy Review resulted in policies that were described by Hay (1994: 701) as a ‘symbolic return to consensus politics’ based on the ‘Thatcherite settlement’. While this was partly questioned by Wickham-​Jones (1995: 698), there is little doubt that the intention was at least to signal to the public that a huge re-​think of Labour policies was under way and that new positions were being taken. In reality, however, it is a mistake to assume there were a concrete set of ideas behind the Policy Review considering ‘Kinnock was always sceptical about the merit of devising a democratic socialist ‘big idea’’ (Hughes and Wintour, 1990: 64). Kinnock (2014) was open about this scepticism, stating that he “was never convinced that there was a truly capital B, capital I, Big Idea that could be convincing for a sufficient breadth of people to get us elected”. For Kinnock, the primary motivator was to win; to beat the Conservatives ‘he had no more complex or subtle strategy in mind’ (Hughes and Wintour, 1990: 47). Westlake (2001: 426) confirmed this with a quote from Kay Andrews (Special Advisor to Kinnock) that the ‘essential task of the policy review groups is to select a few key policies which will, because they are appealing, sensible and plausible, help us win the next election’. The Thatcherite settlement had set the terms of the debate and electoral concerns were the overriding objective. Attention focused on a set of policies that could be electorally successful, rather than overarching big ideas. This analysis was supported by Kinnock himself, arguing:

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The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

‘[T]‌he kind of people who made that criticism tended to be new left people, capital N, capital L, who dealt almost exclusively in political ideas, which is fine as long as they stuck to New Left Review or Marxism Today. A lot what they would say or seek was attractive. As an individual there was no disagreement at all, but when you thought about what they were proposing to put into practice and seeing it would never get more than 25 per cent support in the polls, and even if we had 15 or 20 years to try and explain the alternatives we would never get enough people to understand the value of many of their suggestions, let alone vote for it.’ (Kinnock, 2014) Kinnock perceptively recognized that ‘big ideas’ required a considerable amount of time to ingrain in the public’s consciousness; they are not quick electoral fixes. Kinnock’s reference to the practical, vote-​winning weaknesses of big ideas pays testament to the importance he placed on pragmatism. The symbolic and practical representative of Kinnock’s overriding electoral concerns and the growing influence of an informal network of advisors was the Shadow Communication Agency (SCA). As a direct consequence of Kinnock’s restructuring of Labour HQ, Peter Mandelson was brought in to be the party’s new communications director in 1985 and facilitated the establishment of the SCA, which was led by Philip Gould and Deborah Mattinson. Its purpose was to advise on new political campaigning and marketing strategies. According to Gould (1998: 59), their desire was to have a modern communication strategy based on ‘the idea of symbolic policies’ or viewing policies as products (Shaw, 1994: 60). The agency itself was outside the party’s official structure and it reported directly to the leader. This set-​up ‘irked some on the NEC’ because the SCA, and Mandelson in particular, acted in a covert and semi-​independent way, free from NEC accountability (Minkin, 2014: 57). Post 1987, it became the main conduit by which electoral concerns and pressures were relayed to Kinnock and his team. These electoral concerns had a discernible impact on the Policy Review as the ‘party’s communication strategy could no longer be detached from its policy prospectus’ (Hughes and Wintour, 1990: 42). This was corroborated by Gould (1998: 89), who described how the SCA was intrinsically involved at all stages of the policy process. This control over policymaking and electoral victory were synonymous in the PLP leadership’s view. It was also a means for Kinnock to control the left, who he viewed as the purveyors of the big ideas.

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THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

The argument that electoral concerns dominated this period, while thinking about new ideas diminished in importance is disputed. Smith and Spear (1992: 17) believed the rationale for the causes and the necessity of the Policy Review were: (1) electoral failure, (2) the crisis of social democracy and (3) the failure of the left, all of which were of course intertwined. At the heart of this, for Smith and Spear, were Labour’s ideological failings, stating that ‘the Policy Review was more a response to the ideological failings of the Labour Party than the ideological strength of the Conservatives’ and that the failure of revisionism had meant the right of the party was ‘ideologically bankrupt’ (Smith and Spear, 1992: 17–​18). In conjunction with the demise of the left, this bankruptcy created an ideational vacuum within the party. The Policy Review, therefore, was essentially the resurgence of revisionist thought that was taking new ideas seriously. There is some evidence for this as midway through Kinnock’s Policy Review, the interim report, Statement of Democratic Socialist Aims and Values (1988), was published and was seen as ‘the ideological basis for the re-​examination of Labour policies’ (Jones, 1996: 122). It was an attempt to fashion an ideational path that the right of the party could follow post-​Crosland. The document was mainly written by Roy Hattersley, the Deputy Leader of the Party, who many consider to be a pivotal figure for the rebirth of revisionism in the Labour Party (Diamond, 2004: 192). He was given this accreditation largely because he had written Choose Freedom:  the Future for Democratic Socialism (1987)  –​the inspiration for Statement of Democratic Socialist Aims and Values (1988). Hattersley had felt compelled to engage in thinking about new ideas because of the perceived ideological vacuum within the party. This resulted in Choose Freedom which was essentially an argument that freedom and socialism were intertwined, drawing heavily on the concepts of philosopher John Rawls (Hughes and Wintour, 1990:  68). While Driver and Martell (1998: 16) claimed Hattersley drew inspiration from New Liberals such as Leonard Hobhouse and T.H. Green, his idea was fundamentally premised on the belief that freedom was ‘closely related to purchasing power’ (Hattersley, 1987: 135). The more money a person had, the more choices it gave them and thus more freedom to express themselves. Thus, if redistributive policies were followed, poorer people could achieve greater freedom. It was the flipping of the libertarian argument that argued redistribution curbed freedom. Choose Freedom was important, because Aims and Values was a condensation of it. According to Westlake (2001: 431–​2), Aims and Values had two objectives: to propose that socialists ‘believed in individual liberty and

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The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945–92

personal prosperity’; and to refute accusations that Labour had dropped its essential values. Ultimately, however, Aims and Values ‘had little impact on the more detailed work of the Policy Review groups’ (Cronin, 2004:  327). Nonetheless, a watered-​down version of Aims and Values (1988) was partly synthesized into the final policy statement, Meet the Challenge, Make the Change (1989), which moved the party’s programme towards the centre ground, airing a tone of fiscal responsibility and moderation and linking socialism with social justice and freedom (Cronin, 2004: 295). However, while Meet the Challenge, Make the Change ‘was a clever title, it was ultimately a fudge. It hinted at change, but didn’t shout about it’ (Gould, 1998: 97). Although change was understated, there was a noticeable measure of ideational change which had been led by Hattersley. The right of the party was starting to articulate and engage in new ideas. While the extent of this engagement is highly contested, there is a strong argument that the idea of Thatcherism had been influential in the resurgence of new ideational thought. John Eatwell (1992:  336) argued that Labour’s economic agenda shifted for several reasons, two of which noted the ideational influence of Thatcherism: • changes in the accepted parameters of economic debate, for example, the widespread hostility which the Conservatives have managed to instil towards public borrowing; • and finally, the acceptance and/​or absorption of Conservative ideas. While Hattersley wrote a ‘statement of philosophical principles’ (Cronin, 2004: 294) to reinvigorate revisionism and return to familiar ideological ground (see Smith, 1994), the whole Policy Review, from the outset, was, in reality Labour coming to terms with Thatcherism (Westlake, 2001:  426). Despite Kinnock’s remonstrations to the contrary, Heffernan’s (2001) analysis that an ‘Inner Core Elite’ was dominating the policy process during this period was largely accurate. Unlike Heffernan’s negative stance, I  am not suggesting Kinnock’s strategy was unwise. There were both advantages and disadvantages to it, but it sets the scene for the entrance of New Labour as Kinnock had successfully curbed the influence and ideas of the left.

39

2

The Rise of New Labour: Electoral Concerns Trump Ideology Before analyzing Tony Blair’s period in opposition, John Smith’s short tenure as leader of the opposition, before his untimely death, merits a brief discussion because it highlights an alternative route that could have been taken instead of New Labour. There were limited battles over ideas in the Smith and Blair eras for many reasons: Kinnock had painstakingly disempowered the left, the party was becoming increasingly disenchanted by continued electoral losses and, fundamentally, the left had nothing new to say. Their ideas had been defeated. There was one battle, however, that was relentlessly waged: the fight against the spectre and perception of ‘Old’ Labour, and its ideas, influencing New Labour. In effect, New Labour shadow-​ boxed the left, despite its defeat, throughout its period in opposition because of concerns over its electoral ramifications. New Labour reinforced the right’s institutional dominance, ensuring dissent was curtailed at every opportunity. Moreover, they had new ideas which provided wind for their sails. New Labour’s institutional power, especially in policymaking, is documented below because it highlights how any battle was prevented from ever starting. New Labour were keen to stress their policy position was between New Right thinking (Thatcherism) and ‘Old’ Labour. In this endeavour, they searched for new ideas that emphasized that position.

The Smith years Defeat in the 1992 general election was devastating. Although under Kinnock’s two periods as opposition leader Labour had effectively

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seen off the SDP threat and increased Labour’s share of the vote from 27.6 per cent in 1983 to 34.4 per cent in 1992, it was not enough (Minkin, 2014: 82). The Conservatives won 336 seats, while ‘Labour had 271 seats, an improvement of 42’ (Rubenstein, 2006: 169). After the result, Kinnock immediately resigned and triggered a leadership election. The victor was John Smith, previous Shadow Chancellor of the party. Significantly, his victory did not signal a radical change on the policy or ideas front. McSmith (1994: 312) described Smith’s stance, especially on policy, as ‘masterly inactive’, stating that ‘at the moment of his [Smith’s] death, there were vast acreages of ambiguity where Labour Party policy might have been’. Seyd and Whiteley (2002: 6) reported this was because of the dominance of the ‘one last heave’ school of thought, based on the logic that the policies were essentially in place, so there was little need for active engagement with new ideas and policies. Rubenstein (2006: 171) concurred with this analysis, albeit from a more practical standpoint, asserting that ‘with institutional reform effected and the party riding high in the opinion polls, Smith was in no hurry to introduce further policy reforms’. This strategy was, as we shall discover, in stark contrast to what the modernizers like Blair would argue in 1994. The main policymaking process under Smith was the Joint Policy Committee (JPC), which was a liaison between the NEC and the shadow cabinet and was responsible for overseeing all policy documents (Minkin, 2014: 109). Smith chaired the JPC, putting him at the heart of the policymaking process. This, as well as Kinnock’s reforms, led Peter Shore MP to state that ‘no previous Leader has enjoyed such personal and institutionalised control over party policy’ (Rubenstein, 2006: 171). Yet, despite being in such a powerful position in terms of policymaking, Smith operated in a more collegiate way than Kinnock. We learn from Panitch and Leys (1997: 225) that under Smith the centralizing process that was the hallmark of the Kinnock era was halted and there was a re-​opening up of the policy debate. In contrast to the policymaking strategy of Kinnock, this was a strategy of inclusion and keeping all the various factions on board (Minkin, 2014: 84). It is unclear whether Smith was repudiating Kinnock’s tactics directly or that thanks to Kinnock’s battles with the left and subsequent reforms Smith felt more institutional secure to allow more debate. The battle of ideas that marked out the previous decade were over, now was the time for cooperation and agreement. Or, at the very least, forced peace between the factions. While perhaps not explicitly stated by him, Smith was more open to new ideas and to a greater variety of sources where they emanated

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The Rise of New Labour

from. In line with this, Smith initiated the National Policy Forum (NPF) in agreement with the NEC in 1992 (Minkin, 2014: 110). As an example of Smith’s cooperative and more open nature, the beginnings of the NPF was about formalizing a new arena for the membership to engage and debate new ideas and policies. Although the structure has changed slightly from its original incarnation, the NPF still remained a core aspect of the formal policymaking structure of the party for well over two decades. Its creation demonstrated Smith’s decentralizing tendencies, as it required delegating and handing some control back to the NEC. Operating in contrast to Kinnock, who attempted to emulate the Thatcherite model of being a strong leader, the NEC and NPF were given greater say in the policy process. This new stance seemed to work, with Minkin (2014: 110) reporting that ‘such was the cooperative atmosphere and the level of general support for the policies as they emerged under Smith that there was little problem in the NEC accepting the policies that the NPF had agreed’. The attempt to re-​engage and re-​enthuse the party’s membership into the policy process was welcomed by them and gave Smith a tremendous amount of goodwill. The easing of the leadership’s control over the policy process by encouraging greater roles for the party membership and the NEC was not the only significant move by Smith on the policymaking process. While simultaneously reinvigorating the internal mechanisms for policymaking, Smith also sought an external element. Smith created a Commission on Social Justice, chaired by Sir Gordon Borrie QC. It was designated with the task of updating and modifying the welfare state in a bid to make it fit for the 1990s. This is noteworthy for mainly three reasons: • it was effectively contracting out policy development to external actors in an area critical to the Labour Party –​for example, it allowed Liberal Democrats to have representatives on the commission (McSmith, 1994: 330); • the seeds of the new social welfare policy taken by the New Labour government could be traced back to this report (Powell, 2000: 43); and • the language around investors, levellers and deregulators bears striking resemblance, and therefore is the precursor, to what we will see as the Third Way (see Social Justice Commission, 1994: 94–​6). Setting up such a commission once again demonstrated Smith’s disinclination to dictate policy outcomes. It displayed a genuine openness to listen or garner new ideas from outside the party’s

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apparatus. This holds true for Cronin (2004: 38) who reported that Smith would deliberately ‘bring together key players outside the framework of the NEC, its sub-​committees and conference’ because ‘the essence of Smith’s approach had been to delegate and under his leadership critical rethinking was effectively contracted out of the party itself ’. The ability and desire to contract out policy formulation in such an open way was a development that was in stark contrast to both the traditional policymaking process and the ‘Inner Core Elite’ model of policymaking. It also demonstrates a shrewd political decision: a means to bypass the internal battle of ideas. By contracting out the thinking on controversial topics, Smith avoided re-​igniting the left/​r ight battle. His tenure was marked by the opening up of the policymaking process, both internally and externally. It was also, if you were cynically minded, a masterstroke in keeping each faction happy. However, there was a downside to this approach: there was a relative paucity of policy innovation compared to previous periods. New ‘big’ ideas were largely non-​existent. It seems clear that this period marked the temporary end of the ideas battle but a continuance of the electoral focus. Although Kinnock resolutely tried to focus on winning elections, the battles he had to face down to achieve this hindered this focus. Smith did not have to deal with similar antagonisms.

Blair’s leadership Smith died, unexpectedly, of a heart attack on 12 May 1994, plunging the party into a leadership election that no one had anticipated. Blair and Brown were the early favourites but, infamously, in a private meeting at the Granita restaurant in Islington, Brown agreed not to stand against Blair. This was hugely significant for many reasons, but the critical one is that stopped any serious dissent or critique of the Blair premiership until the latter stages of his second term. In terms of ideas, this was also important given Blair (2011: 67) noted that if Brown had run against him Brown would have pitched to the left, although Blair is keen to state that he still would have beaten him. In what terms this left position would have been articulated is largely speculation, but the coherence of New Labour’s modernizing message and electoral strategy could, and probably would, have been undermined. We have learnt, with hindsight, that their respective styles of policymaking while in government were also different. Brown (2017: 198–​9) informs us in his account of the first few days of him entering No 10 Downing Street that he

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The Rise of New Labour

… was determined [to] send out a clear message as to what kind of prime minister I would be. I would immediately rescind the ten-​year old Order of Council that had given Tony’s political advisors … the power to give civil servants instructions, restoring the constitutional practice that only elected ministers were entitled to do so … I was sending a clear signal that sofa government was over. Nevertheless, in the aftermath of Smith’s death, Blair, with the agreement with Brown to step aside, had a clear run at the leadership and the ideological space to articulate his vision. In the end, Blair faced John Prescott and Margaret Beckett in the leadership race, with Blair emerging victorious with the support of 68 per cent of the members, 61 per cent of MPs and Members of the European Parliament, and 58 per cent of affiliated members (Minkin, 2014: 112). Blair’s margin of victory was emphatic. On top of the institutional reforms already undertaken by Kinnock, this margin of victory further strengthened Blair’s position as leader giving him extensive room to manoeuvre on all matters, including on policy. Blair, therefore, immediately set about what he described as further modernization of the Labour Party, which he thought was vital for a Labour victory at the next general election (Shaw, 1994; Jones, 1996; Fielding, 2003; Gould, 1998). Although New Labour apparatchik Peter Mandelson (2002:  2) acknowledged that the modernization process had been started by Kinnock and was continued by Smith, he described their tenures as ‘essentially … engaged in a ground-​clearing operation’ for the eventual advent of Blair and New Labour. This operation included the refashioning of the policymaking process in order to set forth a policy agenda far removed from what New Labour described as ‘Old’ Labour ideas. This was part of Blair’s modernization theme, painting the pre-​Blair period as ‘Old’ Labour. This was emphasized three months into Blair leadership tenure when he gave his first leader’s speech unveiling the new slogan, ‘New Labour, New Britain’ and questioning Clause IV in Labour’s constitution (Driver and Martell, 2006: 13). Questioning Clause IV was totemic, as it set out the Labour Party’s aims and values. Blair wanted to particularly challenge the common ownership of the means of production aspect of the Clause, believing it was out of date and wedded the party to nationalization. By changing the Clause IV, Blair was signaling to the public he was modernizing the party and demonstrating the strength of his leadership. Although Blair was bequeathed the JPC and NPF by Smith, Blair opted for the

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THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

Thatcher model of a strong leader when it came to policymaking. In Blair’s view, a ‘modern party needed effective ways of decision-​making and that was realised best in a singular powerful leader with room for boldness and risk-​taking’ (Minkin, 2014: 118). He determined to operate the Kinnock style of policymaking, the ‘Inner Core Elite’ model. From now on, the leader and his team would become the focal points of policymaking. We learn from Minkin (2014: 119) that Blair was unimpressed and impatient with the restrictions the procedures of Labour’s internal democracy could place on him, as it went against his style of leadership and hindered him from being creative in policy formulation. This impatience with Labour’s internal democracy was borne out by Mandelson and Liddle (1996: 221) who, after describing the traditional model of policymaking, stated that ‘it is not a satisfactory way to make policy, and it was in this way that many of the unrealistic positions adopted by the party in the 1970s and 1980s were put into Labour’s programme’. In other words, it allowed the left’s ideas to flourish. Thus, the traditional actors of the internal, formal policymaking process would be circumvented. The unions, in particular, despite being a critical element in restoring the policymaking power and resources to the PLP, would be broadly excluded from the decisions on policymaking (see Minkin, 2014: 276–​88). In its place, the leader and his team would take precedence on policymaking matters, drawing on policy details and ideas from actors outside the formal structure of the party. Drawing inspiration from sources external to the party was a deliberate strategy. However, unlike Smith’s tenure where policy was contracted out in a more open way, Blair’s policymaking style was more covert in the sense that he, or a member of his team, would directly engage with policy actors and organizations outside the party. This engagement, initially at least, was not public and did not go through any official party channel. It was informal. This meant that a new idea, if it intended to influence Labour policy, had to influence Blair personally, or the people close to him. As Minkin (2014: 117) noted that in practical terms the direction, strategy and main policies of ‘New Labour’ were ostensibly created by five people: Blair, Brown, Mandelson, Alistair Campbell and Philip Gould. Panitch and Leys (1997: 239) supported this by asserting that any changes in policy were driven forward only by Blair and his closest colleagues, citing Peter Mandelson as particularly close to Blair and who ‘came to play an exceptionally powerful role in policymaking’. In terms of ideas, Blair (2011: 73) stated that he tended to come up with the ‘idea’, while

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The Rise of New Labour

Brown, in particular, attempted to translate it into practical politics. Either way, it is clear, or at least with a large amount of certainty, that Blair, and a small group of individuals around him, were more significant than any formal policymaking structures in the party. This was true both in and out of power. Mandelson’s role cannot be underestimated. He viewed the main responsibilities and actions of officials in the party should be closely attuned to the preferences of the leader, as opposed to any democratic hierarchies in the party structure (Minkin, 2014:  62). Mandelson had learnt and grown accustomed to this system under the Kinnock era, and while Mandelson was not prominent in the upper echelons of the party under Smith, under Blair that changed. On his return, Mandelson restored the old Kinnock regime of policymaking, which was in contrast to Smith’s more convivial and cooperative style. This reinstalled regime meant that ‘young staffers from the leader’s office were once more omnipresent’ and control was once again of paramount concern with ‘policy documents handed to members of the NEC at the door [which] had to be signed for and returned at end of the meeting’ (Panitch and Leys, 1997: 227). This displays what the formal and internal procedures started to become: a rubber stamp for policy positions already taken. Internal and formal policymaking procedures were formalities to overcome, rather than alternative sources of ideas, views or policymaking power. This signified a policymaking independence for the leadership team away from the party. This was epitomized by the final version of the Road to the Manifesto document, New Labour, New Life for Britain, which Blair had largely written himself (Minkin, 2014: 277). Yet, in contradiction to this, Blair continued with the NPF, Smiths’ mechanism for the membership and other stakeholders to have an ability to influence policy (Cronin 2004: 390). Mandelson (2002: 20–​1) claimed this continuation meant that the party’s ‘internal procedures have been democratised and power now rests with the ordinary members who share New Labour’s values and outlook’. However, Panitch and Leys (1997: 235) provide a sceptical view of this position. They argued that in effect the NPF was just a legitimation device for the PLP leadership, because ‘in practice policy would be set by the leadership, discussed (privately) in the Policy Forum, and presented to Conference in such a way that open disagreement would be minimised’. This was substantiated by Minkin (2014: 303) who believed Blair saw the NPF as a one-​way process where the leadership would educate the members on the leadership’s thinking. Although written in a less hostile tone, Cronin (2004: 390) noted that although there would an

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THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

effort to elicit membership opinion, the actual work would be done by experts working with the leadership. In practice, therefore, policy would not be determined or heavily influenced by the NPF. The NPF was effectively a way the leadership could control and actively discourage any new ideas or any major dissent from the New Labour by downgrading conference as a policymaking body. Panitch and Leys’ (1997:  242–​3) analysis of policymaking under Blair explains, in some detail, the new policymaking process being implemented; it was a process ostensibly premised on gathering new ideas and policies from outside the party, especially from think tanks. This was the continuation of Smiths’ operation of contracting out major policy thinking. Mandelson and Liddle (1996: 222) corroborated this by stating that a ‘big difference in policy-​making is that the shadow cabinet consults extensively with outside interests in the development of policy –​often helped by commissions established by sympathetic think tanks’. The reason for this was due to Blair believing the country had entered a post-​ideological era (Fielding, 2003: 58). This was something Minkin (2014: 123) alluded to with his observation that there was a strong sense of anti-​tribalism, with warm welcomes for ex-​SDP members, such as now Lord Adonis, and centrist Tories. This welcome extended to the new ideas they brought in, even to ideas that would be considered as Thatcherite. There was no sense of guilt, according to Minkin, because it was commensurate with Blair’s view of the irrelevance of ideology. Mandelson (2002:  21) plainly asserted this was the case, stating that New Labour dumped ideological baggage in order to focus and offer new solutions unencumbered by dogma. While Freeden (2002:42) believed this to be a ‘colossal act of self-​deception’, it is more likely that such an explicit rejection of ideology could been seen as an electoral move to firmly dissociate New Labour from what had come to be seen as the ideological-​driven fervour of ‘Old’ Labour. Labour was no longer beholden to the past. Although an electoral calculation played a role in the use of think tanks, Ball and Exley (2010:  166) argued, while sketching out the extensive networks of interrelations between key New Labour figures and think tanks, that the use of think tanks represented an attempt to ‘fill a vacuum of ideas created by the depletion or displacement of older policy orthodoxies  –​both neo-​liberal and welfarist’. In such an environment, they developed useful ideas and formed pools of what Panitch and Leys (1997:  242) termed as ‘average intellectual Labour’. Yet, one of the most important advantages of utilizing think tanks was that it enabled the leader and his team to bypass the

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The Rise of New Labour

formal policymaking structures of the party for ideational and policy generation –​akin to Smith’s tactic in setting up the Commission on Social Justice. In contradiction to Mandelson’s and Liddle’s (1996) earlier assertion that the shadow cabinet was the primary conduit to and from think tanks, Minkin (2014: 119) argued that while Blair mainly operated through the formalities of the shadow cabinet he primarily operated through an ‘informal personal decision-​making and small group policy-​style’. As a consequence, think tanks became a bespoke policy service that was facilitated through like-​minded individuals that had a direct connection to the ‘Inner Core Elite’. This was the distinct feature of influential think tanks at the time: their direct, sometimes personal, connection to the leadership of the party. In short, this was an institutional framework that helped Blair dominate the policy agenda. This does not mean there were no disputes or that the left accepted Blair’s policies uncritically. It simply means that in the circumstances of the 1990s (electoral defeats), this institutional structure allowed Blair and Brown to dominate discussions over policy and new ideas, circumventing any influence from the left. Cronin (2004: 392) described the think tanks used as being in the camp of New Labour and that they ‘closely echoed … the party’s modernising leaders’. Panitch and Leys (1997) cited four think tanks that had particular influence: the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), Charter 88, Demos and Nexus. The IPPR was a clear example of a think tank that ‘had close ties to … New Labour more specifically’ and closely reflected the modernizing zeal of the Blair leadership (Cronin, 2004: 392). Initially through Patricia Hewitt, the IPPR was regularly used by Kinnock and funded the Borrie Commission set up by Smith (Panitch and Leys, 1997: 243). It was woven into the fabric of PLP leadership under Kinnock which continued under Blair’s term in opposition. At Demos, Geoff Mulgan, a co-​founder, was a former advisor to Gordon Brown and ‘formed part of a small group of intellectuals with good access to Blair’ and their explicit task was to draw ‘on ideas from outside the political mainstream’ (Panitch and Leys, 1997: 243). Cronin (2004: 393) corroborated this by stating that Demos’ objective was to think big thoughts and to feel unencumbered by old boundaries and political taboos. Demos appealed to and reflected Blair’s anti-​ideology mantra. Nexus is also worth briefly elaborating on. Its creation was as a result of a meeting between Blair and ‘some eighty intellectual sympathisers’, and was an attempt to network and pool circa 1,000 individuals for the purpose of sharing expertise and ideas (Panitch and Leys, 1997: 244; Cronin, 2004: 392). For Panitch

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THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

and Leys (1997: 245), Nexus summed up New Labour’s rejection of the traditional NEC sub-​committee structure which had relied on a select group of left-​leaning academics to develop policy from within the party. This is emblematic of how the policymaking process was now dominated by the ‘Inner Core Elite’ who engaged directly with actors outside the formal policymaking structures. Although it is clear that the policies themselves would be changed and that the sources of these policies would come from external agencies, what ideas, if any, would shape the direction of future policies? As we have learnt, no credence would be given to the boundaries set by ideology. These boundaries stood in the way of modernizing the policies of the party. After all, modernization was important, because as Blair (2010: 84) saw it: there were three types of Labour: old-​fashioned Labour, which could never win; modernised Labour, which could win and keep winning, which was my ambition from the outset; and plain Labour, which could win once, but essentially as a reaction to an unpopular Conservative government. In other words, electoral success was important, but continued electoral success was paramount. Yet, what did this modernization and electoral target mean in concrete terms? Mandelson (2002: 21–​8) attempted to sketch it out. In practice, it was different in terms of the private sector, incentives such as bonuses, a repudiation of public ownership, distinct and not in hock with the trade unions, tough on public expenditure, a rejection of statist and centralization solutions, and pro-​European. To many, this was not only an acceptance of Thatcherism, but a capitulation to it and a decisive move away from social democracy: ‘Put crudely, in terms of a spatial model of ideological comparison, Blair stands far closer to Margaret Thatcher than he does to Tony Crosland’ (Heffernan, 2001: 131). In fact, after being asked what her greatest achievement was at a private Conservative event, Thatcher replied, ‘Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds’ (Burns, 2008). This observation is not without merit, certainly on economic policy. Blair’s famous Mais lecture in 1995 set out the lessons learnt by New Labour from Labour’s past, namely ‘the control of inflation through a tough macroeconomic policy framework is even more important than the Tories have said’ (Blair, 1996). This focus on inflation was of course at the heart of Thatcherism. Notably, Blair refers to Nigel Lawson’s, then Thatcher’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mais

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The Rise of New Labour

lecture in 1984. Blair explicitly stated that for Labour to achieve its aims ‘controlling inflation is an essential prerequisite of sustainable economic growth’ (Blair, 1996). Within the same speech, Blair emphasized New Labour’s fiscal prudence by committing to follow the ‘golden rule’ of public finance: only borrow for investment, not public consumption. However, new ideas not associated with Thatcherism were important to Blair. The plan was to move beyond Thatcherism, if not only for electoral reasons. Thatcherism had reached the end of its ability to keep winning and thus ‘in order to keep winning, we needed to create a core of ideas, attitudes and policy that was solid, sustainable and strong’ (Blair 2010: 85). This core of ideas would be driven almost exclusively by Blair, and, in this regard, there was a genuine passion for certain new ideas. His close New Labour ally, Philip Gould (1998:  231), unequivocally asserted that: Tony Blair was obsessed with winning the battle of ideas. He believed New Labour would be nothing, could be nothing, without ideas at its heart. If a political party is not founded on ideas which have the power to dominate the political agenda, it is unlikely to win a convincing or sustainable electoral victory. Ideas matter in politics. According to Patrick Diamond (2014), former advisor to Mandelson, “Blair was interested in ideas, but this interest was spurred on for a political reason: to show the modernisation of the Labour Party was real”. If new ideas were central to the modernization agenda, it is logical to presume that how those ideas were perceived by the public would be a critical factor for their success or failure. Blair’s sincere interest in certain new ideas, but with a ruthless focus on electoral considerations, can be backed up with an examination of two ideas that were seen as prominent during the Blair years in opposition: communitarianism and stakeholder capitalism.

Communitarianism Richards and Blunkett (2011: 180) and Mandelson (2002: 19) noted the impact the idea of communitarianism had on New Labour’s thinking in opposition, with Mandelson arguing that the distinctive emphasis of New Labour was on the concept of community which was a robust and powerful idea. Richards and Blunkett (2011) reported that the influence of the idea could be detected in speeches from significant New Labour figures from the mid-​1990s. With Blair’s prominent

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position in control of the policymaking process, this was understandable given communitarianism and community was ‘Blair’s grounding idea, his core political insight’ (Gould, 1998:  233). This was, at least at the beginning, the idea that would simultaneously distinguish New Labour’s post-​Thatcherite credentials and simultaneously critique old school social democracy (Driver and Martell, 1998: 28–​9). How, then, did Blair become aware of the idea? A brief analysis unveils two mutually reinforcing avenues. The first is a personal friendship Blair had in his Oxford days with the Australian Anglican, Peter Thomson. Both of them had been influenced by the Scottish philosopher, John MacMurray, ‘whose philosophy centred on a blend of socialism and Christianity and who promoted the concept of community as a way of living’ (Mandelson, 2002: 32). This account is substantiated by Gould (1998) and Richards (1996: 10) who described how Blair was strongly influenced by Thomson, with Gould recalling how Blair told him that Thomson was a person that most influenced him and Richards reporting that his ‘journey is worth plotting, because it reveals a lot … about where Tony Blair found some of his most informative ideas’. Thomson was interested in John MacMurray’s ideas and he focused on the concept of community (Gould, 1998: 233). The second avenue was the modern incarnation of communitarian thought espoused by Amitai Etzioni (1995). Although sceptical of the influence of Etzioni’s idea on Blair, Hale (2006) argued that if Etzioni’s language and ideas were picked up by Blair, then it was through the think tank Demos. More precisely, a meeting between the two men was facilitated through Geoff Mulgan, who headed the think tank. For Hale (2006: 32) and Cronin (2004: 393), Mulgan was the vital link between Etzioni and Blair and should be credited with introducing communitarianism to British audiences. For a time, the idea of community seemed to offer great promise, but ultimately it was not taken up. Indeed, Richards and Blunkett (2011: 181) reported that, when New Labour came to power, they quietly dropped communitarian ideas. Hale supports this claim in her analysis of communitarianism and New Labour. After comparing the policies advocated by communitarianism and New Labour’s actual policy positions, Hale found little evidence of communitarian thought being put into practice. Diamond (2014) suggested that communitarianism lost its traction before entering power “because in the end working out the detail and working out what it meant in terms of policy substance was … difficult”. He offered this rhetorical question as a demonstration of the difficulty they faced: “How does a Government deliver a strong family?” The practical difficulty of

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The Rise of New Labour

turning a ‘big idea’ into smaller, deliverable policies was a potent problem for communitarianism. Diamond referred to this as the translation problem. In contrast to this, Bevir (2005: 72) argued that to properly understand New Labour you have to explore its debt to communitarianism. He believed the emphasis communitarianism placed on individual choices in relation to collective responsibility resulted in policies such as welfare-​to-​work programmes and measures to support families. Families were at the heart of any attack on poverty because families were the best anti-​poverty programme available (Bevir, 2005: 74–​5). Themes such as responsibility, family and work, replete throughout New Labour rhetoric, are consistent with communitarian thinking. On a broader scale, Bevir (2005: 75) also argued that communitarianism was used to position itself between the statism of ‘Old’ Labour and the individualism of the New Right. We also know that positioning New Labour between the New Right and ‘Old’ Labour was a top priority. Thus, communitarianism was politically appealing. Yet, Richards and Blunkett’s (2011) highlighted one of the key reasons why communitarianism failed to be taken up. New Labour’s inner circle abandoned the idea because of concerns over communication: it was hard to explain it to the public. This communication issue was expanded on by Cronin (2004) who noted that the idea was malleable and could be interpreted by people in a variety of ways. These were attributes that made it initially successful. However, those attributes eventually proved its downfall, because as time passed the vagueness of the concept reduced its ability to inspire and to develop coherent policies that could be delivered (Cronin, 2004: 395). The communicative aspect of the idea was simultaneously its strength and weakness. Put differently, it sounded nice at the beginning, but this pleasant appearance hid the huge flaw that there was little to it in concrete terms. The overriding lesson is that there has to be substance to an idea, otherwise it is unlikely to have any notable longevity.

Stakeholder capitalism The second broad idea, regarding policymaking, that Blair adopted in opposition was stakeholder capitalism. In 1995, Will Hutton published the bestselling book, The State We’re In, with Cronin (2004: 395) reporting that ‘Blair was strongly influenced by Hutton’s’ analysis. Its primary insight was that an economy functioned better when everyone had a stake in it; it was a blueprint to reform the political and economic institutions and practices to make policy

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more inclusive. Although Hutton recommended several things in his book such as the democratization of civil society and a written constitution, his main analysis and policy recommendations related to economic issues. He argued that the ‘financial system … needs to be comprehensively republicanised’ through ‘broadening areas of stake-​holding in companies and institutions’ (Hutton, 1995: 298). By making sure people have a stake in how, for example, a company is run will mean that there will be more emphasis on making long-​term investments, rather than short-​term money-​making practices. This could mean, in practice, that customers and trade unions would be represented on company boards. Heffernan (2001: 22) reported that ‘for many, stake-​holding offered Labour the big idea it needed’. During a series of speeches in the Far East in 1996, it appeared it would be the big idea Labour would adopt. Specifically, Blair (1996:  293–​5) gave a speech in Singapore where he started to articulate the idea in more concrete terms, arguing that ‘the economics of the centre left today should be geared to the creation of the stakeholder economy which involves all our people’ and that ‘it should not be either old style dirigisme nor rampant laissez-​faire’. Once again, Blair was positioning between ‘Old’ Labour and the New Right. In an interview with Sir David Frost after the speech, as reported by The Independent, Blair stated that the stakeholder economy was an ‘umbrella concept’ which had a ‘multitude of more specific policy initiatives’ sitting underneath (Davies, 1996). Blair expressed the view that it was intended to convey to the electorate that Labour had a ‘big idea’ (Davies, 1996). Alastair Campbell (2007: 98–​9), Blair’s former communications chief, made a note that the press were calling it the big idea and that the day before the speech he felt they had a ‘very good speech’ on the stakeholder economy and it was a good economic pitch. Gould (1998) reported that he and David Miliband, a policy advisor to Blair at the time, were attempting to articulate and form a one nation economic model. Blair felt strongly that they were on to something with the stakeholder idea and that it perfectly worked in tandem with the One Nation (Campbell, 2007:  99). This is interesting, because One Nation, as a theme, surfaces again under the Third Way banner and in the post-​New Labour era under Ed Miliband (see Chapter 3). Notwithstanding this, stakeholder capitalism included discussions around the work of ‘Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam’s work in social capital and civic society’ (Gould, 1998: 254). Miliband, like Mulgan for communitarianism, played the bridging role between Blair and stakeholder capitalism. Diamond explained that “Will Hutton was not particularly close to Tony Blair” and in fact the idea was picked

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by people in Blair’s office. When David Miliband was working for the policy unit one of the things he was very good at was picking up strands of thinking taking place not just in the UK, but internationally and feeding those back into Blair (Diamond, 2014). Yet, this ‘big idea’ never took hold and was dropped even before Labour entered government in 1997. Why? Significantly, in hindsight, at no point in the Singapore speech did Blair mention or appear to subscribe to Hutton’s version of a stakeholder economy. Hutton’s articulation of the idea of a stakeholder society varied from Blair’s. While Hutton pressed the case for reforming the structure of the economy in a radical sense, for Blair stakeholder capitalism and society would be about government staying out of the way and individuals empowering themselves (Cronin, 2004: 396). In particular, Hutton’s vision was an economic model based on the German model, where trade unions and customers were placed on the boards of major companies. This made Blair, and his close advisors, especially Derek Scott, uncomfortable, as it implied private enterprise had a responsibility to trade unions and consumers. This contained echoes of previous corporatist schemes that was synonymous with ‘Old’ Labour (Cronin, 2004: 397). This was confirmed by Diamond (2014) who reported that one of the reasons for its abandonment ‘was that there was a fear that stakeholderism would be used as a cover to increase the power of the trade unions. And although now that might not seem such a big deal, in the run up to 1997 Blair and other modernisers were obsessed with this notion that they need to be seen as a party not dominated by the trade unions.’ Further, and despite Blair’s attempts to remould it in an individualist light, key advisors and colleagues worried about the political implications of the stakeholder idea. Indeed, this worry is justifiable given the context that the Conservative attack line at the time was that New Labour was ‘Old’ Labour reincarnate. Tellingly, Gordon Brown, as we learn from Alastair Campbell (2007: 99–​100), feared this, explaining to Blair they had not thought through the consequences of the speech. Campbell bemoans the fact that speech had gone down well and the idea was making headlines, but ‘Gordon Brown was already moving against the stakeholder economy’ and that ‘it was pretty clear that [he] did not believe in the basic stakeholder economy message at all’. We know that, eventually, Brown successfully made Blair worry about the idea, because it was dropped before the 1997 general election on

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the basis that the idea could easily be associated with ‘Old’ Labour and be seen as too radical (Heffernan 2001: 22). In Blair’s mind, it was not a risk worth taking, as this ‘big idea’ had the potential to jeopardize the New Labour project, which had painstakingly tried to disassociate itself from ‘Old’ Labour and the unions. This led Heffernan (2001: 23) to conclude that ‘stake-​holding as an idea got no further than the starting block’. Perhaps this was deliberate? In opposition, Blair was purposely vague on what the party now proposed, as the electoral strategy was based on obscuring New Labour’s differences from Thatcherism (Fielding, 2003: 78). This line of thinking leads to the natural conclusion that there was no serious commitment to any new ideas per se, but rather they were flirted with or more cynically used as a smokescreen for electoral purposes. This means, and demonstrates, the importance of the communicative aspect of an idea. If a commitment to an idea is based on electoral concerns, then what the idea is, at the very least, perceived to communicate, in this case an association with ‘Old’ Labour and corporatism, then it is finished. This is especially true when we observe a policymaking process whereby once an idea loses support from Blair and his inner circle it proceeded no further. The whole process conveys that New Labour was continual battling with the spectre of ‘Old’ Labour, even though at this point they controlled all aspects of policymaking and any remnants of ‘Old’ Labour were not in a position to seriously challenge New Labour. Overall, there are three significant insights into Blair’s tenure as leader of the opposition. The first is that Blair centralized policymaking akin to Kinnock. He operated the ‘Inner Core Elite’ model of policymaking because, in his view, the party needed strong leadership. The consequence for any new idea or policy was that it either had to be developed or supported by Blair or a member of his team. Fielding (2003: 116) described this transformation as: [W]‌here once power was dispersed between members, trade unions and the Westminster leadership, it now only resides in the leader’s hands. In effect, ‘New’ Labour is run by a handful of professionals based in London who owe loyalty to Blair rather than the party. As a result, he essentially created around him a policy community with direct, personal links to a broader policy network outside the party (see Marsh and Rhodes, 1992: 13). And this is the second important insight. Both communitarianism and stakeholder capitalism came from this network (Mulgan and Peter Thomson for communitarianism; Philip

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Gould and David Miliband for stakeholder capitalism). Although, in the case of communitarianism, the concept had been established in Blair’s mind for decades, thinkers like Etzioni allowed Blair and his team to attempt to put it into political practice. Blair’s team were vital for drawing his attention to the ideas of Etzioni and Hutton. Notably, these connections bypassed all formal policymaking procedures, and this was testament to the growing prominence of the informal network of policy advisors. Thus, there was a rapid increase in the use of think tanks and other policy vehicles to derive new ideas. Another rationale for this increased use of think tanks was to create electorally savvy policies underpinned by the ‘big idea’. This policymaking structure was started by Kinnock but reached its apogee under Blair. Third, and lastly, New Labour never really stopped battling the ideas of the left. It continually worried about and considered all new policies and ideas through the lens of: could this be seen or portrayed as ‘Old’ Labour? It was a simple calculation: ‘Face people with a choice between traditional left and traditional right and there is a traditional outcome: the left loses’ (Blair, 2011: xxi). This calculation ensured that New Labour was shadow boxing fallen foes to safeguard electoral victory.

New Labour’s idea in power: the Third Way As established, in opposition New Labour was keen, even meticulous, about being seen as different to Labour governments in the past. An association with ‘Old’ Labour was seen as electorally toxic. According to Driver and Martell (2006:  16), there was another motive to developing ‘New Labour’ which was to distance itself from the New Right: Thatcherism. While there is an extensive amount of literature outlining how New Labour was an accommodation to Thatcherism (see Heffernan, 2001), any move in terms of accommodation or distancing was done with electoral concerns in mind. As we have read, New Labour in opposition had attempted to provide itself a wider theoretical framework based on the ideas of communitarianism and stakeholding (Cronin, 2004: 425), both of which had been dropped for practical electoral reasons. Yet, the embers of their intellectual thrust were never truly extinguished. New Labour still wanted a big idea that not only could win one election, but a series of them. During these debates and deliberations over big ideas in opposition, it is possible to detect the beginnings of what would be later termed the ‘Third Way’. One of the first stirrings of the Third Way were broadly discussed in the book Beyond the Left and Right, written by Anthony Giddens (1994), commonly seen as the father of the modern

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incarnation of the Third Way (Driver and Martell, 2006: 47). Blair (1994: 4) also hinted at the development of the Third Way in a Fabian Society leaflet arguing that the left needed to move beyond ‘the battle between the public and private sector and see the two as working in partnership’. Giddens’ book, published in 1994, highlighted the inability of the Old Left and New Right to answer the changes the world and the country were experiencing through globalization. Yet, the Third Way only entered the mainstream lexicon of British politics after the publication of Giddens’ (1998) The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, a year after New Labour’s ascendancy to power. Here, Giddens reasserted the view that the ideas of the Old Left and New Right were defunct. On this, Blair (2011: 97) was in total agreement, believing that they were in the death throes of 20th century politics and the left and right, while still present, needed to be updated, amended or dropped entirely. In terms of the Old Left this included both socialism, as articulated by Marx, and social democracy broadly based on Keynesian demand management (Giddens, 1998: 3–​11). The fall of Communist Russia had ended socialism, as commonly conceived, and Keynesian demand management had proven unable to deal with stagflation in the 1970s. So, if ‘Old’ Labour and the New Right were dead, what would replace them? For Giddens, there needed to be a new version of social democracy that opted to take the path between the Old Left and New Right (Driver and Martell, 2006). The Third Way was the answer. Indeed, it was ‘Labour’s most sustained, and in some respects its most effective effort to spell out its philosophy’ (Cronin, 2004: 425). If this was the case, what, more precisely, was the Third Way? According to Giddens (1998: 27–​64), the Third Way aimed to deal with five dilemmas: globalization; individualism; the inadequacies of the left and right; extolling the benefits of political agency; and ecological problems. More specifically, the aim of the Third Way was ‘to help citizens pilot their way through the major revolutions of our time: globalisation, transformations in personal life and our relationship to nature’ (Giddens, 1998: 64). It would take a positive angle to globalization, harnessing the innovative power of the market, but not to be blind to the destructive powers of the market in relation to both society and culture. When it came to the state, the Third Way was about reform, as opposed to the hitherto dichotomy of expanding or shrinking the state unnecessarily. The mantra was ‘investment and reform together –​emphasizing rhetorically the big difference in the public services between New Labour and ‘Old’ Labour (investment without reform) and New Labour and the Thatcherite Tories (reform

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without investment)’ (Blair, 2011:  212). In more practical terms, this would be a ‘democratic state’, as Giddens (1998: 77) termed it, focusing on devolution, renewal of the public sphere –​transparency, administrative efficiency, mechanisms of direct democracy and government as a risk manager. The latter point is fundamental. It effectively argued New Labour would manage the state and ride the global forces that it faced. By relegating the state from a powerful force to enact change to the status of an actor among many, it further imbued the position that politics was no longer the powerful force to create change (see Freeden, 2002: 42). Managing the risks would be pursued through the ‘social investment state’ that advocated a mixed economy (see Midgley, 2001). Put in its simplest terms, ‘the Third Way was an attempt to imbue free-​market capitalism with a social conscience’ (Hollingshead, 2005). This would be the mantra of New Labour in its first term. In September 1998, Blair went to the Labour Party conference in Blackpool where he outlined what Alastair Campbell (2007:  326) claimed in his diaries as ‘the best exposition of the Third Way he had’ witnessed so far. Blair painted the context that the combo of globalization and capitalism had created profound change, and would continue to do so on a permanent basis. Faced with this prospect, Blair (1998) felt there were three options: resist change –​futile; let it happen –​laissez-​faire –​each person for themselves, each country for itself; or, the third way, we manage change, together. No surprises that he favoured the last option and by adopting it the country could ‘face the challenge together and if the spirit of the nation is willing, it can make the body of the nation strong. One nation, one community …’ (Blair, 1998). In other words, there was nothing to fear. Indeed, the country should embrace globalization, because in this new era the Third Way was their way of trying to reconnect people to political idealism in an age where people did not trust political ideology (Blair, 1998). Blair had moved from a position of being post-​ideological while in opposition, to pro-​ideological that could be trusted once he was in government. In April 1999, there was a round table discussion in Washington on the Third Way, with adage of ‘Progressive Governance for the 21st Century’. This meeting included US President Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schroder (the German Chancellor) and the Dutch and Italian prime ministers. Of course, the ethos of the Third Way was inspired by the New Democrat thinking under President Clinton and his remarks during that conference are enlightening in many ways. For Clinton (1999), the Third Way ‘meant we had to prove we

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could manage the economy in an intelligent way and then deal with the whole question of social justice’ and could answer the questions of:  ‘how to deal with the fact that we had phenomenal economic growth but increasing inequality’ and ‘how can we strike the right balance, a better balance between work and family?’ He then stated that the ultimate test of the idea, if it amounted to ‘a hill of beans’, was to see if it affected people’s lives in a positive manner, especially on the three questions above. Pertinently, at the beginning of the round table, Clinton acknowledged that the Dutch had been enacting Third Way policies for ‘years and years’, but did not know it. Put differently, they did not attach the Third Way label to it. This seems to indicate that the Third Way was, deep-​down, a label attached to an electoral offer, premised fundamentally on sound economic management that would nullify Conservative attacks, on both sides of the Atlantic, to the charge that the traditional left response to every issue was to spend more. It also allowed New Labour, in particular, to appear to not abandon the objective of promoting social justice. This would be, in theory, New Labour’s ideological stamp on the party. To truly differentiate it from ‘Old’ Labour and Thatcherism (see Driver and Martell, 2006: 36–​50). However, others, like Fielding (2003: 81) and Powell (2000: 57) argued that the Third Way was indeed always partially used as a means of developing a ‘catch-​all doctrine’ or pick and mix strategy that would resonate with all, or at least the majority, the different interests that formed New Labour’s electoral coalition. This attempt to be all things to all people throws doubt and raises questions about the Third Way as a distinctive and truly transformative idea. This would explain, at least partially, that post-​2001, the Third Way slowly disappeared from the lexicon of British politics. Indeed, in Labour’s 2001 general election manifesto, there is not a single mention of the Third Way. Interestingly, in the same year, Giddens (2001) released an edited book entitled, The Global Third Way Debate, with contributions from serious and reputable thinkers, maybe in the hope to reignite the dying flame. Blair also tried a reboot in 2001, writing an article for Prospect magazine (see Blair, 2001). In reality, it is more a document focused on the electoral offer; on policy pledges that will appeal to the public. In the second term, senior New Labour figures stopped using the term almost entirely. Although New Labour’s strategy was working with unmitigated electorally success in 2001, the longer New Labour stayed in power, the more the opposition grew internally (members and supporters of the party). The Third Way was dismissed as a surrender to neoliberalism, even though it was an attempt for Labour to kept its ideals without continuing its historical legacy of

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electoral failure (Toynbee and Walker, 2004: 269). Some of the warning signs were there at the beginning of the Third Way, with Campbell (2007: 284) noting during a briefing session on welfare reform that as soon as the terms New Labour and Third Way were cited in the first sentence John Prescott rolled his eyes. It belies a lack of buy-​in to the idea from senior members of the New Labour leadership team and, because it was Prescott, Labour’s grassroots. Yet, this move seemed to go against Blair’s fervent belief in it as an idea. In Blair’s (2011: xxi) book, he unequivocally asserted that he was ‘an ardent advocate of third-​way politics’ and this remains the case because, in effect, ‘Old’ Labour continued refusal to distinguish between values as principles and those values that can be applied in the practical world. With the abandonment of the Third Way, or any other attempts to develop a catch-​all big idea, the New Labour project became dominated by the saga of Blair and Brown and the supposed ‘deal’ struck at the Granita restaurant. With the two intellectual heavyweights of New Labour consumed by running the government and battling each other, renewal, and the ideas that could drive it, were forgotten. Moreover, the continual fear of the rise of the left, ostensibly through the party machinery, spurred New Labour to keep a tight control over the party throughout its terms in office, determined to minimize dissent and in so doing preventing any alternative views or new ideas from developing. As a result, New Labour, in government, slowly became technocratic managers of the state. This became an issue when the New Labour economic model, premised on light-​touch regulation and a dependence on the city for tax revenues, came to a crashing halt during the financial crisis in 2008. While Brown responded, preventing a depression, with a combination of old Keynesian policy tools (which Third Way advocates claimed was outdated) and new innovations such as quantitative easing, the damage to the New Labour brand and Brown, with his claim that he had put an end to boom and bust, was fatal. This is not to mention the impact the Iraq war had on the New Labour brand, and Blair personally, post 2003. Here, as with the Attlee and Wilson governments, the left found an opportunity to undermine a Labour government through critiquing foreign policy decisions. Foreign policy failures open the door for the left to gain traction within the party, which then allows them to move into the domestic agenda. Overall, Blair (1994: 6) advocated, early on in his leadership, that the Labour Party should ‘regain the intellectual self-​confidence to take on and win the battle of ideas’. This was a reference to both the weaknesses in Thatcherism, as he saw it, and the left’s ‘Old’ Labour

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ideas. He surrounded himself with people who felt the same way and actively sought new ideas. It was a means to winning over voters and demonstrating the party’s new, modern identity. In this endeavour, Blair and his advisors engaged heavily with think tanks and played around with various ideas, including communitarianism, stakeholding and the Third Way. Ideas were, for a time, at the heart of the Blair project. Ultimately, however, none of the new ideas were satisfactory and Blair became less interested in new ideas in his last years of office. The Brown premiership did not have enough time to develop any new ideas separate from Blair and was dominated by the financial crisis in 2008. The institutional frameworks they put into place ensured there was not that much of a struggle over ideas within the party. This strategy worked in the medium term, as Labour did well electorally, but it failed over the long-term as New Labour was unable to leave a legacy of a new dominant idea that would reshape British politics and the Labour Party.

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3

Bridging the Divide: Ed Miliband and Ideas The economic downturn in 2008, which many equated to the depression of the 1930s, would harm any political party’s electoral prospects. As Goes (2016: 19) stated, ‘for those few social democratic parties that were in power when the crisis hit Europe, the impact was devastating’. Gordon Brown, the then prime minister, became deeply unpopular during the crisis, with polling at one point indicating that ‘only 17% per cent of people [approved] of the Brown’s government’s record, while 70 per cent disapprov[ed]’ (Grice, 2008). While the polls remained consistently dire, no challenger to Brown’s leadership emerged, meaning ‘Labour found itself stuck in the proverbial slow motion car crash as it slid to one of its worst showings at a general election since the Second World War’ (Bale, 2015: 3). The scale of the actual loss in the 2010 general election cannot be overstated. Quinn (2011: 403) claimed the party received ‘its second-​lowest share of the vote since 1918’, despite an electoral system that both Bale and Quinn described as having a pro-​Labour bias. Thanks to the electoral system, therefore, the number of seats Labour attained did not reflect the depths of its unpopularity. It masked the scale of the loss. Yet, the Conservatives still failed to acquire a majority. This instigated a period of political uncertainty as both the Conservative and Labour parties sought to obtain a parliamentary majority, ostensibly through a deal with the Liberal Democrats. After negotiations that took place over several days, the Liberal Democrats entered a coalition with the Conservative party (see Laws, 2010). Labour’s longest period in office had finally ended and the UK had its first coalition government in peace time since the 1930s. The coalition immediately embarked on an austerity programme that it claimed to be unavoidable. This was a strong and potent argument because at the time ‘there were no social

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democratic parties in government or in opposition with plausible ideas and policy responses that offered an alternative to austerity’ (Goes, 2016: 20). In this environment, there was a growing sense among some thinkers involved in the Labour Party, and in other parties, that an alternative could be developed and in doing so there was an opportunity to shift, quite fundamentally, the course of politics and government, particularly away from the New Labour brand. Beech and Hickson (2014: 76–​7) described the new environment, or what they termed the strategic context, and claimed it consisted of four key elements:  (1) an electoral defeat; (2)  the creation of the coalition government; (3)  the banking and financial crash; and (4) what they described as the new ‘climate of ideas’. While the first three elements should not be surprising, the fourth element warrants further elaboration. This ‘climate of ideas’, claimed Beech and Hickson (2014:  77), was created through the engagement of other political parties in new ideas, particularly around the theme of localism. They argued that the Liberal Democrats had engaged with this theme with the publication of the Orange Book, Reclaiming Liberalism (Marshall and Laws, 2004), while the Conservatives had several localism ideas put forward from people like David Willets MP, Phillip Blond and Policy Exchange’s Jesse Norman, now MP for Hereford and Herefordshire. This intellectual renewal and engagement on the right, which included Red Toryism and notably Thaler and Sunstein’s (2009) behavioural economics book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, created and cemented a ‘climate of ideas’, which eventually settled on localism and decentralization as its key themes (Beech and Hickson, 2014). Although engaging with localism and devolution of power ‘was normal for opposition parties’, claimed a head of a think tank, there was also a sense that the financial crisis heralded the end of the dominant idea, neoliberalism. In this climate, the Labour Party, under a new leader, would have to engage in intellectual renewal. Following Brown’s resignation, the Labour Party went into a leadership battle that ostensibly came down to the two Miliband brothers, Ed and David. In a hard-​fought battle, Ed Miliband triumphed over David, who was seen as the continuation candidate for New Labour. Ed’s victory marked a shift to the left in the party, as he openly disassociated himself from the New Labour brand. In terms of ideas, however, there was close alignment between him and his brother. New ideas were actively sought by Ed Miliband and his close advisors. They wanted an idea that would address inequality; that would provide an umbrella by which a political narrative and policies could logically unfurl from; that would be an electoral asset. The early

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Miliband years were punctured with different ideas being unveiled and then dropped. Indeed, it is best to view this as a process rather than a series of distinct periods distinguished by a particular idea. In reality, ideas during this period were not solid, but instead were fluid, with aspects of each merging into each other. Blue Labour and One Nation are a prime example of this process in action. This fluidity, however, was the result of the battle between the left and right that had been reignited by the demise of New Labour, something Ed Miliband had tried to quell.

Blue Labour Blue Labour was founded on the basis that ‘Labour needs to address the crisis of its political philosophy and to recover its historic sense of purpose’ (Glasman et al, 2011: 11). Created and led by the academic Maurice Glasman, Blue Labour became one of the most prominent schools of thought in the Labour Party post-​2010. It was the first ‘coherent and legitimate description of a distinctive ideational position’ after the Labour Party’s hefty general election defeat in 2010 (Jobson, 2014: 102). It partly acquired this prominence, as reported by Beech and Hickson (2014: 75), through the milieu of ideational debates which surrounded the Labour Party at the time via its ability to grab headlines. This ability to garner significant media attention was ostensibly down to its explicit mix of conservatism, with a small c, and socialism, as encapsulated by its name: Blue Labour. Through its explicit acceptance of small-​c conservative values and policies it courted controversy. This primarily stemmed from Blue Labour’s focus on flag, faith, masculinity and a rejection of the state. A focus on these topics led to a fierce backlash from the left and criticism from modernists claiming it was too backward looking. In addition, Glasman mired himself in controversy through comments he made on immigration (see Riddell, 2011), promoting engagement with the English Defence League (EDL; see Philpot, 2011) and what appeared to be an attack on Ed Miliband’s leadership (see Glasman, 2012). The cumulative effect of these criticisms and mistakes led some commentators to pronounce Blue Labour as dead by mid-2011 (see Hodges, 2011). After being out of power for the past 13 years, the Conservative party in 2010 sensed a political opportunity not only to seize power, but also fundamentally to undermine the notion of ‘big government’ in Britain. This opportunity would germinate new ideas for the Conservative party in the final years and months of New Labour,

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particularly the idea of Red Toryism. Red Toryism was the creation of Philip Blond in 2009 when he was the director of the Progressive Conservatism Project with the think tank Demos. In an essay for Prospect magazine, Philip Blond (2009) argued that, as a result of the financial crisis, ‘New Labour is intellectually dead’ and that we are witnessing the ‘disintegration of the idea of the market state [which] obsoletes the political consensus of the last 30 years’. Red Toryism was both critical of the market, state monopolies and advocated the ‘re-​localisation of the economy’ and the empowering of citizens through ‘re-​capitalisation of the poor’ and the Conservatives distancing themselves from their association with corporate giants (Derbyshire, 2009). The relevance of Red Toryism and the close association between Philip Blond, David Cameron and the eventual creation of the ‘Big Society’ (see Norman, 2010) was that it was similar to both the rise and thought of Blue Labour. As a close aide of Miliband’s remarked, Blue Labour “was a direct flip of [Red Toryism]”. In early January 2009, Glasman concluded that Blond was colonizing a heritage that belonged to Labour through his promotion of mutual, cooperative and communitarian thought (Davis, 2011:42). This colonization spurred Glasman into action (see Davis, 2011: 48–​55), devising an attempt to recapture this territory by developing Blue Labour. Thus, Davis (2011: 42–​3) reported that ‘the ‘Blue Labour’ name was in part a visceral reaction to the Red Tory brand’. Although Glasman conceived of Blue Labour in January 2009, it only started to gather momentum when Glasman first met Ed Miliband in the autumn of 2009 (Davis, 2011:  77). Over time, the relationship between Glasman and Ed Miliband strengthened, culminating in Glasman becoming influential on the 2010 general election manifesto, which Ed Miliband was in charge of writing (Davis, 2011:  78). Glasman was a shrewd networker and was also busily making contact and working with the Blairite faction of the party, in particular David Miliband. Glasman’s connection to David Miliband allowed him to collaborate with members of David Miliband’s camp who had been thinking along similar lines to Blue Labour about Labour’s future. According to Jonathan Rutherford, then the Professor of Cultural Studies at Middlesex University and who was involved in David Miliband’s leadership campaign, it was David Miliband who was initially drawn to Glasman’s work, rather than Ed Miliband. He stated: ‘David is interesting in all of this. He picked up on Maurice first, he was interested first. It was the Blairites who were

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first interested in Maurice. We had meetings with David and James Purnell –​we had about six meetings thinking about what the new and blue might be  –​this is before 2010.’ (Rutherford, 2015) Rutherford’s reference to David Miliband’s interest in Blue Labour was substantiated by the Keir Hardie lecture the latter gave during the leadership election campaign in 2010 where he argued that: Distinctive labour values are built on relationships, in practices that strengthen an ethical life. Practices like solidarity, where we actively share our fate with other people. Reciprocity, which combines equality and freedom. Mutuality, where we share the benefits and burdens of association. These are the forms of the Labour movement, the mutual societies, the co-​operatives and the unions. (Miliband, 2010a) These are some of the ideas that Blair toyed with and dropped –​of course –​at the time that David Miliband was a policy advisor to him. Marc Stears (2015), then the Professor of Political Theory at University College Oxford, later an advisor to Ed Miliband, also acknowledged David Miliband’s interest after he explained that Blue Labour started a year before the general election, when people like “Jon Cruddas and James Purnell began encouraging people like Maurice to think quite boldly about what Labour Party might look like after [defeat]”. Rutherford (2015) explained how he worked for David Miliband’s campaign and was explicitly tasked to think big, intellectual ideas and to put them all together into a coherent narrative. Glasman provided that narrative, explained Stears (2015): ‘[T]‌here were some shared areas everyone was concerned about:  decentralisation, democratisation, community organising, wages, immigration, they were a bundle of issues that people thought are going to matter and we need to re-​think those areas and Maurice captured a lot that under the banner of Blue Labour.’ After the leadership battle, Glasman found himself part of an integral and significant group of people that surrounded Ed Miliband, many of whom were Blue Labour advocates. This included crucial people like Marc Stears, who was also a close personal friend to Ed Miliband.

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The formation of this Blue Labour network stemmed from a series of seminars held in Oxford that resulted in the ebook, Labour’s Future (2010), which had enabled some crucial networking (Rutherford met Glasman for the first time) and led to Stears organizing a series of Oxford seminars ‘to continue the dialogue’ (Finlayson, 2011). This dialogue spawned another eBook, The Labour Tradition and the Politics of Paradox, Blue Labour’s ‘movement bible’ (Finlayson, 2011). Its publication unveiled the intellectual basis and purpose of Blue Labour.

Political aim Blue Labour had a practical political element to it and this was central to the initial potency of it as an idea. Blue Labour recognized and started on the premise that the party had lost 3 million voters by the time of the 2010 general election, scores of members were bitter and the party had lost ‘its traditional values and identity’ (Rutherford, 2011a: 88) This loss of values and identity was critical to Blue Labour thinkers as it provided an answer as to why Labour had lost its hegemony over the working class in England, believing this ‘hegemony was about community, work, country and a sense of honour. It was also about men’ (Rutherford, 2011a: 88). Englishness and men are themes I will return to. In April 2011, Glasman wrote a piece for The Observer entitled, ‘my Blue Labour vision can defeat the coalition’. While it was written partly in response to criticisms Blue Labour had received (see the Nostalgia section), Glasman once again emphasized Blue Labour’s ability to win elections by speaking to the small-​c conservative values of the working class. He asserted that ‘it was a real targeting of the C1 and C2, who had been lost to Labour –​those skilled workers and unskilled workers in the private sector, who believe in hard work, who are patriotic, but very open to Labour who think there is something unfair about a country being owned and governed by the rich, but they are not progressive, they have a conservative disposition.’ (Glasman, 2015) This “romanticised view of the working class” was shared by Ed Miliband, explained a close aide. Many of the other significant insights of Blue Labour were tethered to this political targeting. This is critical to understand as this political purpose explains why Blue Labour, and its advocates, delved into themes that others in the Labour Party

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found uncomfortable. It also forms part of the explanation of why Ed Miliband was drawn to it, with one of his senior advisors stating that ‘it had good politics to it’.

Englishness For Blue Labour, Englishness and England were important. Rutherford (2015) argued that “in England, there is a conservative disposition” and that “Labour has to think about what small-​c conservatism is –​it isn’t about the 50s, it’s not racist, it’s not sexist, but it is conservative and there is a conservative disposition to socialism”. This was a theme Cruddas continually raised throughout this period. As early as July 2010, Cruddas (2010) wrote an article for The New Statesman advocating the creation of an English Labour Party on the rationale that Labour had lost substantial ground to the Conservatives in England and that now it needed ‘to build a specifically English strategy to win back the support of the working class, the middle classes and those in the south-​east’. Rutherford (2015) explained that the entire English discussion stemmed from Cruddas’ fight against the British National Party (BNP) in his constituency, where the BNP had won a significant number of seats on the local council. Both Cruddas and Rutherford were forced to confront and discover why so many working class voters were turning to the BNP. As a result, Rutherford (2011a: 88–​95) wrote and argued in Blue Labour’s eBook that the cultural loss felt among many English communities had flowed from the loss of a familiar pattern of life which brought meaning to these communities and stability in their lives. Cruddas (2011a: 142), in the same publication, argued on similar lines talking about ‘an English common life’ and that Labour needed ‘to recover the … importance of the specifically English struggles of working people –​a politics of English virtue’. Rutherford’s insight and description proceeded to outline the consequences this loss yielded, which were ‘kindness, reciprocity and generosity is undermined and overshadowed by a victim culture of sentimental nostalgia, intolerance and hatred’ (Rutherford, 2011a: 92). The clear political inference and therefore appeal of adopting Blue Labour was to reconnect with these voters and to avoid the populist politics of blame. More precisely, this reconnection and political appeal was entirely about English voters, not only the working class but also the middle classes who additionally felt a sense of cultural loss, despite their material gain through globalized market forces.

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Small-​c conservatism Concern with English identity and addressing the suggested cultural loss felt among English communities was almost entirely wrapped up with Blue Labour’s focus on patriotism and small-​c conservative values. It was the antithesis to liberalism and therefore unambiguously rejected New Labour’s welcoming of globalization and the turbulence it caused. Cruddas (2015) asserted, “Since early Blair, the only thing of interest … [the only] philosophy has pushed back against this Clintonised-​model of globalisation and economic liberalism –​Blue Labour is the only one that has.” Rutherford also railed against the destabilizing effects that globalization and economic liberalism has had on communities, arguing it is not only the Blairites that believe in constant change. He argued “the Blairites and the ultra-​lefties all share this idea of an open society in a way, constant change, a mad modernity” (Rutherford, 2015). It seems bizarre to associate the left with a desire for more globalization and economic liberalism given their candid opposition to the EU, but Rutherford, in this instance, expressly means the issue of immigration –​perhaps explicitly economically-​led immigration. Glasman (2011b) argued that understanding and recapturing the ‘democratic resistance to the domination of capital through the pursuit of the common good … is essential in defeating the liberal-​led Coalition’. Glasman’s allusion to the liberal-​led coalition was based on his belief that there was nothing conservative about the coalition. Its agenda, in his view, was firmly based on a liberal, laissez-​faire set of principles. An exemplar of this, which Glasman cites, was the coalition government’s early attempts to privatize public forests, something which natural Conservative voters, as well as other voters, fought against. With this in mind, the political focus of Blue Labour had centred on its apparent emphasis on conservative socialism, which is made up of tradition, patriotism, community values and nostalgia (see Jobson, 2014). Graeme Cooke (2011: 134) summed up the political principles of Blue Labour thinkers –​Glasman, Stears and Rutherford –​ as wanting to ‘resuscitate the labour movement’s concern for family, faith, flag, a sense of place, the dignity of work and the value of ordinary life and common institutions that make us human’. One shadow minister argued that the “really interesting theme at the heart of Blue Labour was patriotism, identity and how patriotism and identity can be real galvanising forces for good”. Blue Labour seriously considered patriotism, and other small-​c conservative values, and how the British left should approach it. It was, as one senior Labour backbench MP

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described it, “the realisation that the language my constituents talk was not the same as the language that people in the Labour Party spoke”. Part of this language was patriotism, which was a key plinth of Blue Labour thought. Glasman believed, historically, that the Labour movement itself was deeply patriotic and not revolutionary. He emphasized his belief that the majority of the working class have not been, and never were, Marxist revolutionaries. He continued, stating “that’s part of the small-​c conservatism that there is much to love in the country but it is quiet” (Glasman 2015). Glasman was careful to describe this patriotism in English terms. Interestingly, a Welsh Labour MP believed that because of Glasman the Labour Party was more comfortable talking about English patriotism than perhaps it was a few years ago. This was evident with Cruddas (2011a: 142) writing that ‘we need an English socialism that resists relentless commodification, values the land, believes in family life, takes pride in the country and its traditions: a conservative socialism’. These concerns about movement, tradition, family, faith and flag were said with the full realization that this would appeal to many English working and middle class voters, especially men.

Masculinity Men took a central role in Blue Labour’s analysis. In particular, it focused on what it deemed as the working class males’ struggle to adapt to globalization. Rutherford (2011a: 88) was the leading voice on this matter, arguing that ‘Labour has been a deeply patriarchal movement [but it] is dying out’ because the rise of the market economy and the deindustrialization of Britain had broken down a once patriarchal social order. This breakdown had been spurred on, among other things, by the increasing independence of women in the economy. Although Rutherford (2011a: 100–​1) acknowledged that this transition had not been easy for women, he believed men had been disproportionately disorientated by these societal changes citing evidence such as ‘men’s incomes have stagnated, the old ‘family wage’ has disappeared, and for increasing numbers the traditional role of family breadwinner and head of household is unattainable’ (Rutherford, 2011a: 101). This analysis suggested that this left many working men feeling superfluous and out of place in the modern world. Both Glasman and Rutherford argued that this was not about demonizing the progress made on women’s rights and issues, but to “deal with … quite a strong crisis in the identity of a man in England. Where do men fit in the new world?” (Glasman, 2015).

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The discussion around issues of masculinity became one of Blue Labour’s central features, often involving considerable controversy. Some MPs welcomed the discussion, while others were more cautious. Although a shadow cabinet minister thought from the outset that Blue Labour was ill-​defined, he did believe there were a number of pertinent strands to it, one of which was ‘around men [and the] sense of emasculation, especially amongst working class communities, has driven other social problems’. The controversy, perhaps, was unavoidable. A senior advisor to Miliband thought that Blue Labour focused on “a sense of blue collar white men had been neglected because of migration, because of Europe, because of multiculturalism, so in a way a lot of the liberal left totems were the enemies of Blue Labour”. Moreover, as one female Labour MP explained, the feminists were “still a very strong streak” in the party and “they were the biggest group of people that were all pursuing the same agenda”. Jobson (2014: 112) highlighted how left-​wing feminists had constructed the most cogent anti-​nostalgic discourse against Blue Labour. He cited a Mail on Sunday article by Glen Owen which quoted Helen Goodman MP, a key ally of Harriet Harman, saying ‘if Glasman thinks we will all greet this with an ironic post-​feminist smile, he is wrong … He seems to be harking back to a Janet and John Fifties era. It is noticeable that Blue Labour seems to be an entirely male clique’ (Owen, 2011). Taking Goodman’s latter point first, she was entirely accurate in saying that Blue Labour was predominantly a male clique. There was a noticeable lack of female participants among its advocates. This did not go unnoticed by a member of shadow cabinet, ‘the problem with Blue Labour is that it got captured, rather like John Major and Back to Basics, in a 1950s paradigm. It was developed by men, for men’. Interestingly, there were very few high-​profile women in Ed Miliband’s inner circle (see Hodges, 2014). Anna Yearley, Ed Miliband’s political secretary, and later on Lucy Powell MP, who became vice chair of the general election campaign, were notable exceptions. Goodman questioned both Glasman’s and Rutherford’s positions on women’s role in modern society. She noted how Glasman ‘characterises as female all the aspects of New Labour he dislikes, whereas all the characteristics he applauds he draws as male’ (Goodman, 2011: 557). She also took exception to the Rutherford passage, cited earlier, about the demise of the patriarchal order, prompting her to raise questions like, ‘Does he want to exclude women from the paid workforce?’ ‘Or is it sexual independence that is problematic?’ (Goodman, 2011: 558). She vehemently believed that Blue Labour was questioning women’s independence. This view was supported by others within the PLP.

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A senior Corbyn supporting MP argued, “It seemed to me, that some of them at least, thought communities were things which existed in the 1950s. When I was growing up in a working class community, it was very backward looking. It was extremely … male, it was very chauvinist, it wasn’t forward looking.” An observation that ostensibly summarized the criticisms of Blue Labour. Another MP close to Miliband believed Goodman’s analysis was “probably right [and] that is a fair criticism”. These quoted concerns were totemic in the sense that they indicated a broad sympathy among the PLP with Goodman’s arguments. There was a mixed response to these criticisms from the principal advocates of Blue Labour. Cruddas (2015) thought the response was “a bit of mis-​reading of the text” and that the charge of sexism was unfair, while Glasman (2015) held the view that this criticism highlighted how “even talking about men was considered sexist”. Rutherford’s (2015) response was a more robust amalgam of Glasman’s and Cruddas’ points, stating: ‘Labour party feminism is pretty outdated. Women in their 50s who fought a real bitter struggle within the party apparatus [focused] on numbers. It was about getting women in certain positions on boards. And they really didn’t like this broaching masculinity as an issue. It was not anti-​feminist.’ Rutherford’s response to the criticisms was a reiteration that men’s traditional roles had been displaced and this had consequences; an argument which was encapsulated in a Total Politics article entitled, ‘Putting patrimony first’ (Rutherford, 2011b). Later in the same year, Rutherford argued in an interview that when women gain more independence and assert themselves it creates a crisis in the social and symbolic order. Some men react against women’s greater freedoms, other men welcome it, but the point is the system in which the gendered meanings of who and what men and women are is destabilized. (Finlayson, 2011) This destabilization, not only instigated by feminism, but also by immigration and the dominance of the cosmopolitan elite, had led men to feel dispossessed. This had political consequences, as Rutherford explained, ‘the purpose of raising the issue of men is that Labour needs to find a way of engaging with them in a dialogue and so begin

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to retrieve a swathe of the population who…are tipping towards a nationalist right politics’ (Finlayson, 2011). It is pertinent to emphasize this observation was made before the extraordinary rise of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). Polling data on UKIP appears to add weight to Rutherford’s argument. An Ashcroft poll in December 2012 showed UKIP’s biggest support came mainly from elderly men and UKIP voters generally had a ‘deeper unease simply with the way life has changed in modern Britain’ (Ashcroft, 2012: 33). In these respects, Rutherford’s analysis was accurate and unveiled a problem for Labour. A close aide to Miliband recognized this articulating the view that “Blue Labour were anti-​metropolitan, anti-​globalisation and [focused] on the working man, not just meaning humans but man in particular. In the era of UKIP on the rise, it had a resonance to it”. Yet, Goodman’s criticisms and questioning of this analysis was potent because of the logical solution:  a restoration of stability would require a return to the familiarity of a previous age. Re-​tracing and re-​discovering Labour’s roots to solve modern problems and raising the issue of masculinity in the hope of restoring patrimony in some form conjured a strong sense that Blue Labour was nostalgic.

Nostalgia Focusing on these issues led to ‘more acid criticism concerned [by] its nostalgia and possible political irrelevance’ (Gaffney and Lahel, 2013: 332). Philpot (2011: 15), in his introduction to the Purple Book, described Blue Labour as ‘all too often appear[ing] fundamentally backward-​looking’. Sage (2012:  376), while citing three other objections to Blue Labour’s analysis, argued that its political argument was delivered in an elusive style and that its ‘romanticising of an era of patriarchy and male work … [made] it appear dangerously nostalgic’. This nostalgic theme was elaborated on by Jobson (2014: 103), who argued that nostalgia was at the heart of the rise of Blue Labour. This resulted in the perception that Blue Labour wanted a return to the 1950s. This is something Stears vehemently disagreed with, believing that people who had seriously engaged with Blue Labour would realize that it ‘is not about the past, let alone about bringing it back’ and it ‘isn’t a backwards-​looking idea’ (Stears, 2011a). Glasman (2015) explained that this perception and criticism “took us by surprise”, but believed it emanated from a strong modernist utopian streak which runs through the party and disregards the importance of tradition, family and place. These modernists, as defined by Glasman, did not engage in the debate and that “even any discussion of history

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was considered nostalgic” (Glasman, 2015). Once again, as with the debate around men, Glasman points to elements within the Labour Party who were reticent about even discussing some of these issues. Blue Labour, in his view, were engaging in and confronting taboos in the party and was now facing factions within the party who were uncomfortable with it. At the time, Glasman (2011b) responded to the claims that Blue Labour was nostalgic and yearned for a return to a bygone era by firmly arguing that Blue Labour ‘should not be understood to denote insularity, fear of change and a rear-​guard action in defence of the white working class’. Rather, he argued, it was returning Labour to its radical tradition of building associational relationships from the ground up. It was not a politics of nostalgia, but rather, in his view, learning a lesson from the past and applying it to the future. However, even on this point, Glasman faced criticism for his claimed misreading of history. Lawrence (2013), for example, questioned the validity of his historical analysis of Labour’s past. He disputed the claim that there was an electoral advantage to this, arguing that an analysis of this period showed that a movement built through grassroots campaigns and mutuals ‘didn’t even work in its heyday’ (Lawrence, 2013: 8–​9). Consequently, Lawrence (2013: 6) believed that Blue Labour’s ‘politics lay [on] a foundation myth’ which posited ‘that Labour was born out of mutualist organisations developed by working people to tame capitalism in the nineteenth century’. A well-​placed interviewee (the head of a think tank) also questioned the validity of delving into Labour’s past for renewal purposes, arguing: ‘I never ever thought that the Labour Party could renew itself from its own traditions intellectually. It’s never done that in its history … it has never governed or renewed itself from within its own resources, it has always had to reach out to wider intellectual resources’. In particular, he believed Labour heavily relied on liberal intellectuals including Beveridge and Keynes, as detailed in Chapter 1. Despite the remonstrations of Stears and Glasman, it is understandable how Blue Labour could be placed within a prism of nostalgia. It was fed via Blue Labour’s search for inspiration from the past and adopted the language, as argued by Lawrence (2013) that appeared to romanticize it. I say ‘appeared’, because the perception of what Blue Labour was mattered more than its substance (see Lawton et al, 2014). How it was communicated and what it communicated ensured that it faced critics

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within and outside the party. The ‘Blue’ label ensured criticism. It led an MP close to Miliband to say it was a “most unfortunate name”, because they understood that it would not get a fair hearing. Blue Labour was commonly perceived to be backward looking, a perception that was fixed. Its advocates had to frequently rebuke assumptions that it was nostalgic, which had the connotation that it was a non-​ progressive idea. With the benefit of hindsight, however, and while this rebuke was accurate, this nostalgic element, as well as other insights on globalization, the EU and immigration articulated by Glasman, Blue Labour was ahead of its time (see Chapter 6).

Blue Labour’s demise The emphasis on small-​c conservatism, somewhat predictably, drew criticism from the left. Individuals like Billy Bragg (2011) argued that Labour was already ‘too Blue’ and cautioned against Blue Labour’s ‘appeals to flag, faith and family’. In addition, the articulation of conservative socialism was something ‘liberal or progressive social democrats would struggle with’ (Beech and Hickson, 2014: 78). The insinuation was that Blue Labour was at worst dangerously flirting with right-​wing ideology and at best pandering to it to win votes (see Rooksby, 2011). In policy terms, this would refer to areas such as taking a tougher stance on immigration something which Glasman himself seemed to articulate in a Telegraph article suggesting ‘Britain should not be an outpost of the UN’, that a line should be drawn on immigration and even raising the spectre of renegotiating the free movement of labour across the EU (Riddell, 2011). This prompted the reporter who interviewed him to label him ‘Labour’s anti-​immigration guru’. The controversial nature of these comments seemed to signal the end for Blue Labour. According to Hodges (2011), in a comment piece entitled, ‘Exclusive: the end of Blue Labour’, fellow Blue Labour supporters, including close allies like Rutherford and Cruddas, had told Glasman they ‘no longer wish to be associated with the project’. They had, allegedly, repeatedly urged Glasman to tone down his appearances in the media, as they feared these appearances came with political danger. Stears (2011b) also recognized Glasman’s comments meant that Blue Labour appeared to have imploded, as did members of the PLP, especially those critical members who felt it justified and cemented their view of Blue Labour. A senior Corbyn supporting MP stated:

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‘That was damaging for them and I think it caused massive internal problems for them. It’s part of that backward looking, I would like a white community almost, like a working class community from the 50s or something. It was claustrophobic, it was horrible, they hated gays, they hated blacks, working class communities were not a golden era, women were treated disgracefully.’ Association with such a perception fundamentally undermined Blue Labour. Although Cruddas (2015) confirmed that Glasman “blew it”, he felt that “Glasman carried far too heavy a load in that he was the only one out there doing anything interesting. The thing is you needed 20 Glasmans, not one”. Cruddas clearly felt that the pressure on Glasman was significant, given he was the sole public representative of Blue Labour and Labour’s renewal more widely. In short, his comment indicated that there was a paucity of debate and ideas around the party during this time. This sole role for Glasman meant the media and other actors focused on him, reducing the significance of Blue Labour thought to the comments of one individual. Blue Labour and Glasman were synonymous. That is why Glasman’s comments on immigration proved so toxic for the Blue Labour label. Glasman (2015), in a similar vein to his protestations of the inability to discuss masculinity or the past, believed a discussion about immigration was off limits. In a frustrated tone he stated that they were unable “to talk about the changes that had gone on; that the levels of immigration were unprecedented”. This was the re-​emergence of Glasman’s belief that the left was incapable of discussing certain topics, especially the topics Blue Labour was focusing on. When pressed on the reaction of his comments on immigration, he expressed the belief that “it was an explosion from the left” and that his “real thing was to say we need to talk about this and we also need to be able to act on this, if we wish; the uncritical acceptance of multiculturalism was part of the problem” (Glasman, 2015). This interpretation had support among the PLP. A  senior backbench MP lamented how “the party only began to move when the polls told them they had to. And the problem there was … that it did not believe it could say anything progressive about immigration other than it’s a good thing”. In contrast, another Labour MP close to Miliband suggested Glasman’s immigration comments, and other matters raised by Blue Labour, were “naïve” and explained that “one of the difficulties, really, where you have someone who is basically an academic and he’s now an actor in contemporary politics

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and not really fully prepared for it”. A  close aide to Miliband also bluntly observed, “he’s not a politician”. Indeed, Glasman was not a politician and therefore approached the subjects of Blue Labour from an academic perspective, where open debate was common practice. Glasman soon realized this and his misgivings over certain factions’ activities within the PLP were not entirely misguided or naïve. Factionalism seemed to be an undercurrent in relation to the arguments surrounding Blue Labour. When I interviewed Rutherford and questioned him on the criticisms regarding his reference to masculinity, he expressed the view that people were making it up half the time and “that it was orchestrated”. By whom? “Not quite sure. It was certainly because Ed was interested in Blue Labour, definitely an attempt to discredit it” (Rutherford, 2015). Initially, I ascribed this to venting frustration at the criticisms he had received, until another interview I undertook a couple of months later. A now senior Corbyn supporting MP informed me, midway through raising a question relating to Goodman’s criticism and article, “Yeah, I  asked her to write it”. This MP explained their reservations about Blue Labour, many of which are cited in this chapter. This person described a time that they had exchanged heated words with Glasman in Ed Miliband’s house regarding issues surrounding patriarchy and Blue Labour’s backward-​looking tone. Pertinently, they also expressed their concern that “Blue Labour also seemed to be a right-​wing formation –​ David Milibandism”. As we know, this interpretation was correct to the extent that it was the Blairites who initially took interest in Blue Labour, particularly David Miliband. This concern seemed to encourage antipathy towards Blue Labour from a section of the party and inspired a critique of Blue Labour’s argument in a coordinated way. Although this effort did not fundamentally undermine Blue Labour, it was successful in setting the framework for debating Blue Labour which focused on its perceived weaknesses, as opposed to its perceived strengths or insights. It fomented an atmosphere around Blue Labour which added to the potency of the fallout after Glasman’s comments on immigration. Yet, the ‘leader of the Labour Party calmly insisted its core ideas remained undamaged’ after Glasman’s indiscreet remarks (Davis, 2011: 3). Why was this the case? Wintour (2011) stated that many of Blue Labour’s ‘thinkers have long admired [Ed] Miliband and are his close personal friends’, in particular Stears and Wood. This is not to mention the continuing presence of Rutherford and Cruddas. Thus, many of the key players of Blue Labour still formed part of Ed Miliband’s inner circle of advisors, with the exception of Glasman.

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This would become important for the continuing presence of Blue Labour in the wake of Hodges’ article. Even Hodges (2011), while declaring the demise of Blue Labour, quoted a Blue Labour source that stated ‘their view is the Blue Labour brand is now too contaminated to continue with the project in its present form’. This sentence implicitly hinted at the label being dead but not its core thought and policies. As Davis (2012) argued, Blue Labour was ‘still the rising philosophy of Ed Miliband’s party. The players, the relationships and the policies are having an effect. The name might not be there, but the influence is.’ The intriguing aspect of Hodges’ quote from a Blue Labour source was ‘in its present form’. It necessitates the question, what new form would Blue Labour take? For Gaffney and Lahel (2013: 335), Cruddas ‘took Blue Labour discourse and folded it into his Policy Review while expanding the doctrinal remit to include much more decisively contemporary culture in preparation for the elaboration of ‘ “One Nation” ’. Blue Labour would disappear, but its thoughts and policies would morph into One Nation.

One Nation On 2 October 2012, Ed Miliband delivered a speech without notes that was 65 minutes long at the Labour Party conference in Manchester. It was a speech that won many plaudits from completely opposite ends of the political spectrum, with both Stephen Glover (2012), a columnist for The Daily Mail, and Len McCluskey (2012), the General Secretary of Unite, describing the speech as a ‘tour de force’. The speech did not only receive plaudits for Ed Miliband’s delivery, it also received praise for invoking the idea of One Nation, especially from the British newspaper political commentariat. Steve Richards (2012), columnist for The Independent, believed the speech was ‘one of the cleverest and most significant party conference speeches’ and signalled ‘the political moment when New Labour gave way to One Nation Labour’, while Polly Toynbee (2012), a columnist for The Guardian, called One Nation Labour ‘a stroke of genius’. Patrick Wintour (2012), political editor of The Guardian, thought the speech was particularly impressive because ‘it could yet be seen as the moment when Miliband transformed himself from a weak opposition leader to a credible potential prime minister’. Even a year later, D’Ancona (2013) argued, in a comment piece for the Evening Standard, that ‘Miliband struck gold with his One Labour theme’. Significantly, Toynbee and Richards believed the speech was a seminal moment for the Labour Party, because they interpreted it as an attempt to move beyond the ideas of the past. Toynbee (2012)

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summarized this move as the Labour Party now being ‘not Old Labour, not New Labour, but One Nation Labour’. It seemed One Nation was the big idea Ed Miliband desired and needed. One Nation, according to Miliband, was a vision of Britain. A vision of a Britain where patriotism, loyalty, dedication to the common cause courses through the veins of all and nobody feels left out. It was a vision of Britain coming together to overcome the challenges we face. Disraeli called it ‘One Nation’ … That is my vision of Britain. (Miliband, 2012a) According to Riddell (2012), the One Nation message was ‘shorthand for the Conservative land grab counselled by Marc Stears and Jon Cruddas’. This was supported by Riddell’s Telegraph colleagues Rosa Prince and James Kirkup (2012) who noted it was ‘a bold move to steal the Conservatives’ clothes.’ As a shadow cabinet minister explicitly confirmed this while laying claim for suggesting the use of One Nation: ‘The inspiration was very simple really … if our broad message is Britain succeeds only when everyone succeeds. A few at the top doing well, an elite milking it, and the rest of us getting crumbs from the table is the Tory vision. What is a way in which you articulate that in a catchy phrase and bluntly steal their clothes –​One Nation.’ Yet, it was more ambitious than that, according to Jacobs (2013: 315), in the sense that Ed Miliband resurrected the idea of ‘One Nation’ as an attempt to revive ‘the party’s ideology and electoral fortunes’. Jacobs’ tacit reference to the party’s ideology was about the party’s need to reinvigorate its ideational thinking midway through Miliband’s term as leader. While also capturing some political territory from the Conservatives, it was more about ‘explicitly moving on from both old and new Labour’ (Richards, 2012). In a speech at the Fabian Society’s New Year conference in early January 2013, Ed Miliband (2013a) stated that’s what One Nation Labour is about. It learns the lesson of New Labour’s successes, seeking to reach out to parts of Britain that old Labour ignored. It learns the lessons of what it didn’t do well enough, of where New Labour left people behind.

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This progression away from New Labour and ‘Old’ Labour to One Nation Labour appeared to be more than a rebranding exercise. A year later, Ed Miliband argued that One Nation was more than a slogan. In his preface to the book, One Nation –​Power, Hope and Community, he stated as his opening sentence that ‘One Nation is a British idea rooted deep in our history and language. It is not a Conservative idea or a Labour idea, but a British idea’ (Miliband, 2013b: 7). Wood (2013: 317), a close advisor to Miliband, concurred, explaining that not only was One Nation an idea but it was also “a patriotic, progressive idea”. This seemed to be the moment when the party was adopting a ‘big idea’ to move away from the past and unite the right and left in the party.

Shifting the paradigm Wood, Cruddas and Rutherford all believed that because of the financial crash in 2008 Labour was in a political space where the economic and political paradigm could be shifted. For them, One Nation was potentially a means by which to achieve that shift. They were not alone in their belief that there was an opportunity to shift the paradigm. There was a substantial number of Labour MPs who concurred with the “feeling that we shouldn’t go back to business as usual because once-​revered institutions had very public failings: especially the press, the banks and Westminster. This is a time of ideas, I’m absolutely sure of that”, remarked a North East Labour MP. Several others agreed that something serious was afoot: “There has never been a time when it has been more important, I think, to have a sea change. We have seen it before in 1945, yes we did in 1979, and we saw it, to a certain extent, in 1997,” asserted a seasoned Labour MP. Along similar lines fellow interviewees stated:  “Yes, we absolutely do [have an opportunity] there is a feeling of change is needed,” explained a Midlands MP, and “I do [agree], I think the banking crisis was the Armageddon for the neo-​liberal politics of post-​Thatcher, post-​Reagan,” said a veteran Labour MP. However, despite the recognition of the opportunity of a potential paradigm shift, not a single MP mentioned One Nation as the practical means to achieve it. The success of Thatcherism in changing the paradigm was an inspiration to Wood, Cruddas and Rutherford. More precisely, it provided a ready-​made blueprint of how to do it. Cruddas and Rutherford (2014), in particular, saw themselves at stage one of the process: convincing the Labour Party and thus akin to taking the role of Keith Joseph in getting the Conservative party to adopt monetarism

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(see Denham and Garnett, 2001: 277–​320). This can be seen with Cruddas and Rutherford’s (2014) citation and description of Keith Joseph (1975) and his paper to the then Tory Cabinet, ‘Notes Towards the Definition of Policy’. According to them, this ‘paper recognised the exhaustion of the post-​war political settlement, and established the intellectual parameters for the political project that became known as “Thatcherism’’’ (Cruddas and Rutherford, 2014: 10). In a tone of intellectual admiration, they outlined the bridging role Joseph played between engaging with political theory and implementing it: ‘Joseph was a principal conduit to the shadow cabinet, had pioneered a New Right politics, drawing on the ideas of the classical liberal thinker, Friedrich von Hayek’ (Cruddas and Rutherford, 2014: 10; see also Ranelagh, 1991). If Thatcher drew intellectual inspiration from Hayek and Friedman to usher in the neoliberal paradigm, who would One Nation rely on? For Cruddas and Rutherford (2014), the main intellectual inspiration came from Karl Polanyi, especially his book, The Great Transformation. For them, Polanyi’s work offered a ‘socialism that rejects the impersonal forces of laissez-​faire capitalism and provides another model to the statism and central planning implied in Beveridge’s report’ (Cruddas and Rutherford, 2014: 12). They believed Polanyi’s focus on social renewal was the key, because, as Polanyi (1957: 258) stated himself, the ‘acceptance of the reality of society gives man indomitable courage and strength to remove all removable injustice and unfreedom’. Interestingly, they noted themselves that this thinking was akin to Jesse Norman’s (2010) book, The Big Society, in which Norman argued for greater social renewal via institutions driven and created by human affections. They believed that both Polanyi’s and Norman’s conception of social renewal as well as Michael Young’s (1949) conception of it, as articulated in the pamphlet ‘Small Man, Big World’, which promoted social renewal, activism and a radical devolution of power to people, needed to be revitalized and adopted. While making this argument, Cruddas and Rutherford simultaneously lamented how Polanyi’s and Young’s thoughts had been ‘squeezed out of national debate by orthodox Marxism and the social democracy of Anthony Crosland’ (Cruddas and Rutherford, 2014:  13). They strongly argued that in the face of the financial crash, Polanyi’s work offered a way forward for a sustainable political settlement (Cruddas and Rutherford, 2014: 14). The importance of Polanyi’s work was confirmed by Rutherford (2015) who said, “We thought it was a key text that enabled a critique of capitalism in a non-​Marxist framework and it also allowed to develop a social politics that Marxism doesn’t

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really allow you to do. So, yeah, Polanyi was important.” He also confirmed that they did hope to play a Keith Joseph role and promote Polanyi’s thinking: “Yeah, and we need to do it now. The right have always been very good at it” (Rutherford, 2015). This promotion was evident and substantiated through interviews with shadow cabinet members, with one commenting that the Polanyi’s book, The Great Transformations, was “influential” without being prompted. At this stage, there are couple of points worth highlighting. First, Polanyi’s work, and its promotion through Cruddas and Rutherford, could easily fit within Blue Labour. Indeed, I would argue it is Blue Labour thinking without the label. The emphasis of Polanyi’s thinking on finding the medium between an overpowering state and laissez-​ faire economics is readily at home with Blue Labour literature. In fact, a head of a think tank stated that “Maurice Glasman and others were deeply influenced by Karl Polanyi”. This can be substantiated by tracing back to Glasman’s earlier work. In his book, Unnecessary Suffering, Glasman (1996:  5–​17) used Polanyi’s thinking as the key theoretical framework for his argument. He noted and emphasized Polanyi’s argument that ‘as society develops in size, technological power and complexity, it tends to be eliminated by the centralised state and the competitive economy’ (Glasman, 1996: 6–​7). This argument was the key Blue Labour critique of New Labour and ‘Old’ Labour, as was noted in the Blue Labour section. It is evident, therefore, that in using Polanyi’s thinking, Blue Labour and One Nation were interconnected. The second point is that this interconnection only happened through Cruddas and Rutherford. Therefore, it was clear that one of the main protagonists of One Nation would be individuals who had strongly supported Blue Labour. It signalled that One Nation would incorporate and re-​engage with significant aspects of Blue Labour thought. This was cemented with the inclusion of Rutherford in Cruddas’ Policy Review team. This is fundamental to the story of the idea of One Nation:  it became the new platform for Blue Labour adherents to resurrect some of the latter’s themes.

One Nation: Blue Labour incarnate? In a comment piece by Mark Ferguson (2012a), then editor of Labourlist, written just hours after Ed Miliband had made his One Nation speech, he argued that One Nation Labour was in fact Blue Labour 2.0. He based this argument on the Blue Labour project having ‘two key presentational weaknesses –​Glasman and the name, which seemed off-​putting and tainted’. However, he claimed ‘the

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ideas never died’ (Ferguson, 2012a). His argument, as noted in the Blue Labour section, was accurate; Blue Labour’s presentational weaknesses were real and ultimately doomed it as a label. Ferguson’s rationale for the continued presence of Blue Labour ideas was based on the continued importance of Blue Labour’s ideational personnel in the Labour Party’s policy and leadership teams. With the notable exception of Glasman, the Blue Labourites, as Ferguson described them, who still had influence on policy direction were Cruddas, Rutherford, Wood and Stears. In particular, he relayed the rumour that Stears had ‘a big hand’ in drafting the One Nation speech and that ‘One Nation is a linguistic representation of much of what Blue was trying to be’ (Ferguson, 2012a). For him, One Nation Labour was the repackaged version of Blue Labour and thus ‘the truth is that Blue Labour never died. It didn’t even leave Miliband’s office’ (Ferguson, 2012a). Stears broadly confirmed Ferguson’s analysis while pondering on the inspiration of One Nation and the source of it. It came from Ed Miliband, but ‘he had obviously been touched, moved by the Blue Laboury stuff, he was always impressed by Cruddas’ speeches, he  was impressed by Maurice’s speeches, he knew something was there. He had this phrase which he always used, which was New Labour changed the fabric of our country, but didn’t change its soul. [This had been] playing around in his head for some time, and he settled upon One Nation as the best way of expressing that.’ (Stears, 2015) Rutherford (2015) also picks up on this point and expressed the view that “Ed knew Blue Labour was onto something. A  lot of them understood that we were right somewhere”. When pressed on this point with the citation of Ferguson’s argument, Stears (2015), who confirmed he helped write the speech, corroborated that One Nation Labour was Blue Labour mark 2, “Yeah, that’s right. It was a moderated version of what Blue Labour had been about … it was a speech about ethos and the common good, and both those were Blue Labour concerns.” Stears’ phrase, ‘the moderated version’, was the key point: the leadership wanted to avoid the controversies that Blue Labour had courted. Others substantiated Stears’ comment about Blue Labour’s influence on One Nation. Cruddas (2015) responded to the same question with a tone of a missed opportunity, “Yes, could have been”, while Rutherford (2015) replied with “a bit, a bit”,

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presumably because key elements like masculinity and immigration had been diluted. One Nation, like Blue Labour, also expressed a deep concern for patriotism (see Jackson, 2012: 163; see Jacobs, 2013: 21). In fact, that was the partial rationale for the One Nation speech. Stears (2015) explained that due to the 2012 Olympics “there was a lot of patriotism, progressive patriotism, collective identity”, and they tried to capture that spirit for the left. After all, ‘we win when we are patriotic’ (Cruddas and Rutherford, 2014: 15). For Cruddas (2015), in particular, “the One Nation agenda [was] trying to reimagine a left patriotism … in the context of globalisation when trying to push back against this benign take on globalisation”. Patriotism was a theme Cruddas and Rutherford have spoken on at length, especially about how Labour must recapture it (see Cruddas and Rutherford, 2011). It was also a key element of Blue Labour, with frequent references to it in Blue Labour literature. Patriotism has been a longstanding concern for Cruddas. He stated, “I was always interested in Keating [former Prime Minister of Australia] who expressly talked about a left nation building in Australia” (Cruddas, 2015). Cruddas continued to explain that Paul Keating was a reference point for him, as was Blair in his early years as opposition leader –​during which he evoked One Nation (see Wickham-​Jones, 2013b). Cruddas’ reference to Keating was intriguing because Keating (1992) had released a ‘One Nation’ statement in 1992. Although it was primarily an economic programme for Australia, there appeared to be a loose One Nation connection between Keating, Blair and Cruddas. This might explain Cruddas’ enthusiastic and strong attachment to One Nation when Ed Miliband first raised it. Both Jackson (2012) and Jacobs (2013) pick up on One Nation’s attempt to capture patriotism without simultaneously acquiring the jingoistic connotations and sentiments that often come with it. This was essential, because “patriotism had an uneasy history within the left”, particularly “amongst the rationalist, liberal left [who believed] patriotism unleashed forces that can seduce the mob” and therefore, for them, “patriotism pathology runs deep”(Cruddas, 2015). One Nation, therefore, was an attempt to reshape the political meaning of patriotism and to utilize it as a political weapon for the left. This was acknowledged by a senior backbench MP who explained that “if the idea of progressive patriotism was once an anathema, for One Nation Labour it’s a powerful framework for centre left values”. Jackson (2012) pointed out how One Nation could be utilized as a rhetorical weapon against the right. He noted that with the right rhetorical touch the right-​wing agenda of tax cuts for the rich and economic insecurity

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for everyone else could be an effective way of portraying them as elitist (Jackson, 2012: 164). In other words, such a move could have been deployed for political purposes. One Nation was potentially a powerful communicative weapon, especially in an area where the left was historically weak. One Nation used patriotism as a veil to tackle inequality. A close ally of Ed Miliband explained that patriotism was interwoven with inequality in the sense that everybody should benefit from economic growth, not just a few. This, suggested the interviewee, was encapsulated by the line in Ed Miliband’s 2013 Labour conference speech, “they used to say a rising tide lifts all boats, now the rising tide just seems to lift the yachts” (Miliband, 2013c). Although this speech was not about One Nation, it nonetheless conveys the point the interviewee was trying to make. Labour wished to use One Nation as the Conservatives had, namely to suggest there was huge inequality in Britain, that they sought to address it and in so doing they were patriotic. Addressing inequality was always One Nation’s objective and what distinguished it from Blue Labour. A close friend of Ed Miliband strongly asserted, “What [Ed Miliband] is really interested in is equality and inequality. And you could see that Blue Labour wasn’t really addressing it [and that] moving from Blue Labour to One Nation Labour allowed you to tackle issues of social chasms that have always existed in Britain.” A senior advisor to Miliband supported this analysis and explained that “we wanted to have a project, a soundbite for a project, a character of a project which was about equality, but wasn’t lefty equality. It wasn’t hectoring about inequality”. One Nation Labour, in their view, allowed the party to do that. It was a national message that everybody should be the beneficiaries of growth. This national message was important. Cruddas (2015) spoke about One Nation as an attempt to fashion a national narrative. He cited the electoral victories of 1945, 1964 and 1997 which Labour had won through a national message, rather than speaking to only sectional interests. He asserted that the Labour Party “has only won when it contests the national story”(Cruddas, 2015). Cruddas (2013), in a speech to the think tank Civitas, argued that the British electorate is both ‘radical and conservative … particularly England. Patriotic, love of family.’ Putting aside the language’s resonance with Blue Labour, this, he claimed, was what the Conservatives had forgotten and were thus no longer the ‘One Nation party’ (Cruddas, 2013). It was an explicit attempt to “reassert Labour as a unifying, hopeful, optimistic, patriotic, political movement” (Cruddas, 2015). According to Cruddas, patriotism, expressed early on by Blue Labour, was the basis for the

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reincarnation of One Nation. In response to a question about the origins of One Nation, Cruddas (2015) responded: ‘Ed Miliband, when he became leader, established a seminar in 2011 in the leader’s office on the subject left of patriotism, and that was the origin of a lot of conversations in and out of his office about capturing these categories and sort of ended up with the One Nation rift, but it wasn’t just a phrase, it also reflected a deeper debate that was percolating underneath around the role of patriotism or nationhood within a nation building left story.’ Therefore, in Cruddas’ view, during the year of Blue Labour’s downfall, Ed Miliband did not want to abandon the patriotic element of its message and was actively looking for a new way to communicate it: One Nation fitted that bill.

Demise of One Nation A year after the One Nation speech, One Nation started to become less prominent. In an interview late in 2013, a former Blairite Cabinet minister thought that “One Nation is disappearing just as fast as the third way”. By the time of the 2014 Labour conference, Chakelian (2014) wrote that she could only spot one reference to One Nation in the party’s fringe guide and that it seemed to have fallen out of the lexicon of Labour’s narrative. Once the 2015 general election came around, One Nation was not mentioned at any point in the manifesto. Its fall was thus precipitous. Prima facie, this was a surprising decline, particularly given the scale of ambition some of Ed Miliband’s team had placed on it. Why, then, did One Nation disappear so quickly? Three reasons can be identified: (1) scepticism within the PLP; (2) the political environment changed with the Scottish referendum vote; and (3), critically, Ed Miliband had doubts about its electoral attributes, lost his intellectual enthusiasm for it and thus dropped it (see Batrouni 2017). Certainly, the wider PLP was sceptical and did not support nor fully get the purpose of One Nation. This was exemplified by a Labour whip who explained “I don’t really know what it means. It is a line in a briefing that you are supposed to repeat”. This quote alluded to a widespread scepticism about One Nation which centred on its lack of substance, which immediately led to accusations that One Nation was merely a slogan. As a relatively new backbench MP put it, “the Third Way and One Nation are slogans. You have to be

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media savvy”. This is when One Nation’s advantage of malleability (to appease the right and left-​wing factions) became a disadvantage, as malleability required a degree of ambiguity over its meaning and precise policies. As the weeks and months passed after Miliband’s One Nation speech, it became clear One Nation lacked a coherent repertoire of policies. This did not go unnoticed among Labour MPs at the time. In 2013, there was broad agreement among MPs, representing different parts of the country, that there was a lack of policy substance. It was common to hear that it did not have “a fleshed out policy agenda behind it”, remarked a London Labour MP, and that “One Nation is not fully developed. It needs fleshing out. It is being developed across all spheres of government –​this takes time”, observed a Welsh Labour MP. As one northern MP astutely observed, “You need to create the whole sandwich, not just the surround of the sandwich. That [One Nation] creates the surround; that’s essential. But it’s not enough in itself.” These observations were supported by a junior shadow minister, who defined One Nation as “an overarching idea”, but concurred that “we have to have more detail that sits behind it”. These MPs intuitively knew that more detail was required for One Nation to gain political momentum and to survive as an idea. They knew that for it to last you have “to prove it is real; prove it affects [voters], the individual; and prove it will make [their] life better”, declared a seasoned Labour MP. Given that these quotes above were derived from interviews which took place broadly a year after the launch of One Nation, it became increasingly apparent that this was not only a problem but a fatal one. It generated an irreversible perception of One Nation being lightweight. By 2015, even a key advocate of One Nation, a senior advisor, reported that “there was no real policy that came with it, it was more a device to say we need to shift away from the Conservatives were doing … it was a terminology, I wouldn’t call it an idea”. A shadow cabinet member expressed similar sentiments, “I mean you could create strands out of it in terms of, you know, the pre-​distribution stuff, the squeezed middle stuff, the political economy stuff, but as a governing philosophy it wasn’t fleshed out”. One Nation, as evidenced through interviews at different points of the electoral cycle, was “quite thin” (Diamond, 2014). It would be wrong, however, to suggest that there was not a considerable effort to add substance to it. Indeed, criticisms over substance were seemingly recognized as a problem by Ed Miliband. He sought to partially address it, through fleshing out One Nation in a speech he gave to the Fabian Society three months after launching it

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in which he stated, ‘what One Nation is about [is] our economy, our society and our politics’ (Miliband, 2013d). Addressing each in turn, he argued a One Nation economy would require structural reform of the economy, which New Labour failed to do; a One Nation society was about ‘sharing the vision for a common life’ and ensuring rights and responsibilities, as articulated by New Labour, applied to the top of society as well as to the bottom; and a One Nation politics meant furthering the agenda of devolving more power and control to people’s lives (Miliband, 2013d). Yet, beyond this speech, apart from a token effort in his 2013 Labour conference speech, there is little evidence of Ed Miliband continuing efforts to flesh it out. The main effort, in this regard, came from Cruddas and Rutherford. Led by Cruddas and Rutherford, there were publications like the One Nation Economy (Labour Party, 2013b) and One Nation Society (Labour Party, 2013a) that offered the policy details One Nation critics and supporters were requesting. Yet, they only seemed to strengthen the argument of One Nation’s critics. The more policy documents, reports and papers that were released covering a variety of subjects, the more the idea of One Nation was undermined by cementing the belief that it meant very little. It boosted the general perception that One Nation was just a slogan. This was typified by Simon Danczuk, then Labour MP for Rochdale, who was quoted as saying, ‘I read the other day “One Nation Social Security” –​what the hell is that? Andrew Neil asked me on the Daily Politics about “One Nation Banking”. “One Nation Banking”? For goodness sake!’ (Chakelian, 2014). Every document published diluted the argument that it was an attempt to be a coherent, paradigmatic idea. Labour MP after Labour MP, mainly backbenchers, voiced their concern over One Nation. A particularly vocal backbencher argued, “it seems a crass idea … every prime minister or party leader seems to believe they need some slogan, some solution to everything”. A left-​wing backbencher expressed the belief that it was an attempt to differentiate themselves (he seems to be referring to the leadership of the party) “they came up with a slogan –​an old Tory slogan. I believe in the idea of one nation … but who knows what it means”. This was problematic, because although One Nation was “brilliant” you can’t just repeat it as a mantra “the whole party needs to own it and understand what it is about”, explained a veteran Labour MP. This last point clearly never happened, as one female Labour MP put it to me, “all the One Nation stuff feels very remote to me … it feels to me that its Jon Cruddas and few other people doing things that will be gradually revealed to us”.

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The view that One Nation was vacuous was not the sole preserve of Labour backbenchers. A  shadow cabinet member involved with One Nation candidly admitted that, “I don’t know how politically developed the One Nation philosophy was. I  mean it was a good speech delivered in Manchester, but anything could be One Nation”. This MP continued, stating that One Nation was not an idea “but a good line for Ed to pursue” because it was patriotic. The perception that One Nation was just a slogan became an entrenched belief among the PLP, despite efforts, mainly through the policymaking machinery of the Policy Review, to flesh it out. Over and above concerns of it just being a slogan, members of the PLP also had fears that it was a slogan that did not resonate with voters. Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, expressed her belief that ‘if you ever met people from Walthamstow you wouldn’t tell them anything like that because they’d quite quickly put you in your place’ (Chakelian, 2014). This point was not lost on the leadership, as a senior advisor explained, “it didn’t focus group very well, people didn’t know what it meant … it was too much inside baseball, you had to be a political nerd to understand what it meant”. It was evident that, within the PLP, One Nation did not get universal approval. Fears of substance and a lack of traction with voters undermined One Nation. It failed to communicate internally and externally. This is ironic given its ambiguous nature was partly a mechanism to continue the Blue Labour agenda without agitating the left in the party.

Conclusion Miliband was determined to find the idea or vision that would bridge the divide between New Labour and ‘Old’ Labour and prevent any internecine war. One Nation was that attempt. That is why the press reaction, especially the left-​wing press, which praised it, prompted some of the leadership team to work with it. It was also an avenue by which the critical elements of Blue Labour could be incorporated, given Glasman, and Rutherford to a certain extent, had fatally undermined the label by seriously not considering the factional politics inside the Labour Party. That is why Blue Labour, a serious attempt to renew the party with an idea, was successfully associated with nostalgia and, not unreasonably, to the Blairites, which instantly set a significant portion of the PLP against it. This was the result of a deliberate attempt from left-​wing members of the PLP to attack and undermine it. Among the PLP, this strategy worked. Yet, key members of the leadership team did not want to lose entirely the electoral insights and advantages Blue

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Labour was offering, which Ed Miliband was not oblivious to either. Hence, the attempt to morph Blue Labour into One Nation. In doing this, it did make aspects of the controversial elements of Blue Labour more palatable, mainly by dropping the masculinity and immigration issues and becoming more amorphous. Unfortunately, this vagueness that was designed to avoid controversy and any factional battle rendered it meaningless. This is why, post-​One Nation, Blue Labour’s intellectual presence continued. It became clear that Stears et al separated the demise of Blue Labour into two distinct elements: the Blue Labour label and its association to Glasman; and Blue Labour thought itself. Stears indicated that Blue Labour thinking and policies continued even beyond the controversies surrounding Glasman and past the development of One Nation, but that ‘for Ed the moment in the sand was the publication of the Condition of Britain report by IPPR, which is quite a Blue Laboury document, includes things on social security reform, institution buildings, decentralisation of large chunks of social security and essentially Ed didn’t want to go there. And although he formally welcomed the report, he didn’t implement most of its proposals and didn’t make it to the manifesto. I think that was the moment where a lot of the policy recommendations of the Blue Labour project fell by the wayside.’ (Stears, 2015) Although a well-​placed source argued that the report was not explicitly a Blue Labour document, there was a corroboration of Stears’ view that there was “overlap with Blue Labour [on] the focus of devolution of power, the focus on reciprocity and contribution in the welfare system, focus on training and to think beyond the institutions of delivery state and to think much harder about community, the voluntary sector and families”. Indeed, the IPPR document was based on goals such ‘a more equal distribution of power’, ‘greater recognition of individual agency’, ‘deeper democratic control’ and ‘stronger social relationships’ (Lawton et al, 2014: 15–​16). The overall emphasis was on decentralization. The report noted how large chunks of public spending, such as benefits and housing, were still under Whitehall control and therefore advocated Blue Labour-​lite policies, for example, devolving housing capital budgets and all housing spending in local areas to combined local authorities (Lawton et al, 2014: 248). The Blue Labour undertones

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were replete within the report, with it arguing that, ‘the route to a better society is less certain when we acknowledge that it cannot be guaranteed by either the power of the state or the magic of the market’ and stronger relationships ‘between people, helping to build ties of reciprocal and common citizenship and privilege those institutions that embody reciprocal relationships’ (Lawton et al, 2014: 16). Its prose was brimming with Blue Labour rhetoric and policies. Moreover, and importantly, a senior advisor claimed “it was funded by a chap called Trevor Chinn he was big patron of Maurice’s, he’s a Labour donor, he has a particular interest in Blue Labour. He sponsored it for the IPPR, he also brought Cruddas and Rutherford into it, I think Marc Stears was involved as well”. This was a determined and well-​funded attempt to promote Blue Labour thinking and policies. Given the report was not released until midway through 2014, Blue Labour policy recommendations, as Stears puts it, remained influential until this point. This was the “highpoint of the Blue Labour project, that IPPR report”, said a senior advisor. This was the highpoint of Blue Labour because after the document’s release “Ed basically didn’t want anything to do with it, and ended up just announcing a small bit of it,” stated another senior advisor. It ended up being a big disappointment for the IPPR but also, explained a senior advisor, “Cruddas was really upset by that,” so was “Marc [Stears]. He thought we are turning our back on the best thing intellectual project that someone done for us”. Key advocates of Blue Labour who were still close to the leader and deeply involved in the policymaking process realized that this agenda was finished. Tellingly, Cruddas gave the Relationships Alliance lecture speech in early 2015 that was co-​ authored by Danny Kruger, ‘the prime architect of the Big Society’ (Riddell, 2015). This speech was interpreted by Riddell (2015) as Cruddas’ disillusionment with the way Ed Miliband was not addressing the big intellectual questions and was instead reverting to a policy retail offer aimed at achieving 35 per cent of the vote  –​a psephological turn. Instead, Cruddas argued that politicians should engage in a politics about human relationships, reciprocity and fraternity, which was the language of Blue Labour. This speech represented one of the final protests to Miliband about the future direction of the party. More importantly, it represented the confirmation that Blue Labour thought, in any form, would not have a significant impact on Labour’s manifesto in 2015.

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4

Pre-​distribution Blue Labour and One Nation were not the only ideas that Ed Miliband considered. Pre-​distribution was another, but it had less of a public profile compared to the previous two. Pre-​distribution was an idea developed by the Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker (2011) with his essay the Institutional Foundations of Middle-​Class Democracy. Yet, the theoretical groundwork for the idea came from his joint work with fellow political scientist Paul Pierson (Hacker, 2015) in a book they co-​authored entitled Winner-​Take-​All Politics –​How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (Hacker and Pierson, 2010). This was an investigation into why the gap between the incomes of the richest and the poorest in society (income inequality) had grown markedly after the Second World War in the US. What is more, they posed the question of why this trend was continuing despite the financial crash in 2008, particularly in light of the financial sector in the US still earning $140 billion ‘the highest number on record’ in 2009 (Hacker and Pierson, 2010:  1). This book, as the authors acknowledge, was published in a climate where inequality, particularly income inequality, was high on the political and academic agenda. This was largely as a result of the financial crash, which had opened the narratives about the inadequacies of the banking system, the profligacy of bankers, the extent of their remuneration and the growing disparity between the average income of workers and the top 1 per cent. Their work had been spurred on by the pre-​crash work of Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez (2003), and others, on income inequality in the US which ‘uniquely show[ed] how sharply our economy has tilted toward … the top 1 percent’ (Hacker and Pierson, 2010: 14). Hacker and Pierson searched for answers as to why. Their conclusion, broadly, was that successive American governments and the political process in general had played a significant role in creating a winner-​takes-​all economy. Critically, they asked: how ‘can government influence what

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people earn before they pay taxes or receive government benefits?’ (Hacker and Pierson, 2010: 43). Following that study, in May 2011, Hacker wrote ‘Institutional Foundations of Middle-​Class Democracy’ for the think tank, Policy Network. In addressing income inequality, Hacker (2011) argued that when we think of government’s effects on inequality, we think of redistribution  –​government taxes and transfers that take from some and give to others. Yet many of the most important changes have been in what might be called ‘pre-​distribution’ –​the way in which the market distributes its rewards in the first place. It was at a Policy Network event, the Progressive Governance Conference in Oslo, where Ed Miliband heard about Hacker’s idea. A close advisor explained, “Ed and I went to a Policy Network event in Norway 2011 and Hacker was there. We talked about [pre-​distribution] back on the plane.” Afterwards, “Hacker came over to visit London and we invited him for a chat,” explained a senior advisor. Patrick Diamond, Co-​Chair and Research Director at Policy Network, corroborated the significance of this event, after describing how Policy Network had ‘been following Hacker’s work for a while, he wrote an article for us and then he came and spoke at a conference for us which we held in Oslo, which Ed also attended. And [Hacker’s] speech made a big impact on people and that’s basically how Ed learnt about Hacker’s work.’ (Diamond, 2014) Hacker (2013a) in an interview for Renewal in which he answered a question about why he thought the Labour Party was interested in his idea: ‘Well, I think part of the explanation is personal. I gave a speech in Oslo in 2011 where I first used the word pre-​distribution. Apparently, the word made an impression on Ed Miliband, because he picked it up then.’ Although Ed Miliband would not mention pre-​ distribution, in public at least, for another year, it was clear that the idea had captured his attention, as it could have provided the framework for Labour’s economic policy. In September 2012, pre-​distribution’s influence on Ed Miliband was confirmed. At an event organized by Policy Network at the London Stock Exchange, Miliband gave a speech where he outlined how

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redistribution is necessary and will remain a key aim of the next Labour government. But it is not sufficient to achieve our goals. So we need new ideas if we are to tackle the problems the economy faces … We need to care about pre-​distribution as well as redistribution. (Miliband, 2012b) The details of the thinking behind this speech were explained by a senior advisor of Miliband’s team: ‘We have reached the tolerance of the how much tax and spend we can do on investment and redistribution, you can’t keep doing that. The left will lose again and again if it just taxes more and more to hold back the tide of inequality and to invest in public service, you can’t just do that, the strain is just too great. So you’ve got to roll your sleeves up and re-​wire the way the economy works to make sure market outcomes aren’t unfair or unproductive’. After giving this speech, pre-​distribution was labelled as Ed Miliband’s ‘big idea’ (Ferguson, 2012b); a new ‘big idea’, according to O’Neill and Williamson (2012), that would drive the Labour Party’s economic message up to the 2015 general election. This would be the model that would continue to try and bridge New and ‘Old’ Labour.

Theory of pre-​distribution There were two interwoven reasons why pre-​distribution did not have, as One Nation did, a chorus of voices claiming it was merely a slogan: first, it was a relatively well-​thought through idea underpinned by empirical academic research and, second, it offered a multitude of policy options that could be utilized by a government. It was a “substance idea”, remarked a close aide to Miliband. This attributed substance came from, as previously cited, Hacker’s and Pierson’s (2010) research into income inequality. Their research refuted the explanation that globalization (via increased trade and capital flows) was largely responsible for the increase in income inequality due to it primarily benefiting highly skilled elite workers to the detriment of less skilled workers (Hacker and Pierson, 2010:  289–​90). Indeed, they argued strongly that their research demonstrated that blaming a skill divide based on educational achievement was not only simplistic, but wrong. They claimed the evidence showed that even highly skilled workers

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broadly did not benefit from economic growth in comparison to the super rich. Instead, they argued, the source of this disparity in income was located in the set-​up of the governmental and political system. This is because, in the US, this system had either directly abetted this inequality through legislation or allowed it to happen by being inactive, something they defined as policy ‘drift’ (Hacker and Pierson, 2010:  43–​4). In making this argument, they rejected the fait accompli thesis, namely the idea that growing income inequality was an unstoppable by-​product of globalization. Hacker (2013a) was crystal clear on this point, ‘the conclusion scholars drew from was that rising inequality is caused by technological change and globalisation and government has nothing to do with it. Of course that is just a fundamental mistake. Markets are deeply shaped by government’. By challenging and questioning the unstoppable nature of this process, Hacker and Pierson were keen to stress that it was within the power of people, through democratic government, to address the situation. This argument was fundamental to the idea of pre-​distribution. If the levels of income inequality were largely caused by governments and the way the political system was set up, then the income inequality gap could be closed through political action and reforming the system. Pre-​distribution was therefore about reforming the system in place to ensure it was more equitable, rather than being tilted heavily in favour, in their view, of the top 1 per cent. Hacker (2011) defined pre-​ distribution as the means by which a government could regulate how the market would distribute its resources in the first instance, which thus placed a ‘focus on market reforms that encourage[d]‌a more equal distribution of economic power and rewards even before government collects taxes or pays out benefits’. This was predicated on the argument that governments have a significant ability to shape opportunity and income in a society separate to the most prominent mechanisms such as taxes and benefits (Hacker, 2013a). In other words, it was an explicit alternative to redirecting cash transfers (redistribution). In more specific policy terms, Hacker (2011) cited areas such as the regulation of financial markets and the rights of unions as examples of what could be termed pre-​distributive policy areas that had been either relaxed or reduced. The effect of these changes broadly meant the unleashing of the financial sector to speculate heavily in the search for greater and greater financial rewards without due regard to the consequences. At the other end of the spectrum, the collective bargaining power of workers for better wages had been greatly reduced, resulting in the stagnation or decline of incomes for many people.

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In seeking to ameliorate this change, governments had resorted to redistributive policies. Therefore, in the UK context, as one shadow cabinet minister put it, pre-​distribution was ‘a practical illustration of what we want increasingly, bluntly, wages and rewards that are generated from economic activity to be more equally spread at the point of their generation as opposed to be gathered in from the centre subsequent to their generation by the state, then reallocated out to individuals and families.’ This was system change, rather than changes relating to cash transfers, such as the living wage and so on. In political terms, the attractiveness of the idea to the Labour Party was plain. If pre-​distribution was the use of government power in collaboration with the private sector to create systems that share “wealth more equitably at the front end of wealth generation”, explained a shadow cabinet minister, then the major advantage of pre-​distribution was that it did not cost the state a penny to pursue (Eaton, 2012). In other words, a key asset of pre-​distribution was that it was not redistribution. Hacker (2011) argued that an ‘excessive reliance on redistribution foster[ed] a backlash, making taxes more salient and feeding into the conservative critique that government simply meddles with natural market rewards.’ Hacker knew there was a political limit to the extent a government could rely on redistributive methods to close the income inequality gap. Therefore, as Paul Gregg (2012), a professor of economic and social policy at the University of Bath, argued, pre-​distribution would help to reduce the need for high taxation and benefits. It offered a means by which to tackle income inequality and remain electable. Although Hacker’s research focused on the US, he did make some bespoke observations in relation to the UK on the theoretical platforms of pre-​distribution and why he believed the idea could be exported to the UK. The first reason, he argued, was the loss of faith the public had in governments creating a more just and equal society (Hacker, 2013a). He believed the British people were generally not convinced that an active state which interfered extensively in their financial lives would result in a more just society. Pre-​distribution circumvented this problem and satisfied the British left’s predilection to use the state apparatus to achieve a more just society by advocating changes to the system that most voters would not notice. The second reason, which was closely related to the first, was ‘that ‘the Third Way’ took for granted

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that you could simultaneously celebrate markets and use the power of government to redistribute, to lift up the bottom and supplement the incomes of the middle’ (Hacker, 2013a). This was referred to by a veteran Labour MP that under New Labour “the Crosland agenda was effectively followed. You stimulate growth, you could redistribute to public services”. According to a senior backbench MP, Ed Miliband knew this was no longer viable when he was a government minister, recalling him saying that “you can’t carry on having more and more people in low paying jobs and paying more tax credits”. If people felt the government could not create a just society and redistribution was the primary mechanism for trying, then people were more likely to resent redistributive policies. According to Hacker (2013a), New Labour tried to walk this tightrope but its inherent conflict would always mean it was a difficult combination to maintain.

Income inequality At the heart of pre-​distribution was a concern with inequality, largely income inequality. This was borne out of the financial crisis in 2008, which had displayed the weaknesses of the neoliberal economic system. One of those weaknesses was that the system had allowed a substantial growth in the income gap between the richest and poorest in society, particularly in Western democracies, which was a phenomenon that had started a long time before the financial crisis hit. Hacker (2015) stated that pre-​distribution sought to address ‘the growing gap between those at the top and the rest of British workers, whose jobs have become less secure while their pay has stagnated’. Pre-​distribution offered a resolution to this problem through the strategy of restructuring the economic system to be fairer and more equitable. Thus, ‘as with many buzzwords, the underlying concept of pre-​distribution is not new’ (Gregg, 2012) and that such policies including the national minimum wage, welfare-​to-​work policies and support for occupational pension schemes were all policies that could be labelled as pre-​distributive. Even a senior backbench MP believed that “pre-​distribution [was] the old idea that working people can reshape the economy in their own interest”. Yet, the new incarnation of pre-​distribution resonated with senior Labour figures because it touched on an unavoidable truth that well-​ established economies, like the US and UK, had to restore the link between economic growth and rising living standards –​and they need to do so in a world of tight fiscal constraints (Plunkett, 2012). This tight fiscal constraint severely curtailed the extent to which redistributive

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policies could counteract the growing disparity in income in both the UK and US. This new reality signalled the end for “growth based social democracy across Western market economies”(Cruddas, 2015). The profound nature of the crisis and the questions it posed “meant that people on the centre left had to look much more closely at the generation of inequality and instability in the market, rather than ameliorative redistribution as means of advancing their goals”, explained a head of a think tank. In other words, the New Labour endeavour of growth and redistribution appeared to be no longer viable. This new environment was not lost on Ed Miliband. We know this from Miliband’s (2012b) London Stock Exchange speech in which he acknowledged that redistribution was no longer sufficient to achieve the party’s goals. The objective Miliband referred to was his goal of tackling income inequality. Stears (2015) explained: ‘He has always been obsessed with inequality, I think that’s been his fundamental drive for a very, very long time. His interest in pre-​distribution was largely because he thought it was a more effective way of reducing inequalities in our globalized economy. For him, inequality was always a core concern.’ Another close aide to Ed Miliband confirmed this stating, “that’s right, income inequality underpins everything”. While it should not be a revelation that a Labour leader was concerned with inequality in some form, it was apparent that Miliband’s concern and motivation had been both “heighted and spurred” (Stears, 2015) on by the analysis and conclusions of the book, The Spirit Level, written by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (2010). As a close aide put it, “do not underestimate its influence”. The central premise of The Spirit Level was that the breadth and severity of income inequality in a particular country dictated to a large extent the scale of social ills a particular society was facing. This theory was derived from the conclusion of a quantitative comparative analysis of several countries across the globe which found that countries with a large income gap between the poorest and wealthiest people in society experienced far higher levels of social ills (such as mental illness, lower life expectancy and teenage pregnancy) than countries with a smaller income gap. As the authors concluded, their investigation had ‘shown that most of the important health and social problems of the rich world are more common in more unequal societies’ (Pickett and Wilkinson, 2010: 173). This conclusion had a discernible impact

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on Ed Miliband. Mehdi Hasan and James MacIntyre (2011:  287) reported that ‘he [Ed Miliband] has read and re-​read The Spirit Level’ and quote him as saying ‘Britain is grossly unequal –​in class, income, wealth –​that is what troubles me most about this country’. This was corroborated by a junior shadow minister, “I mean things like The Spirit Level I think has had definite impact on Ed, I mean there are people around that have sort of approach”; and by a close aide, “[The Spirit Level] was really important to Ed. He really liked it and they came and saw him”. The Spirit Level and the idea of tackling income inequality had penetrated far and wide into the PLP, with a London MP stating that “colleagues told me about it” which led him to read it, and another backbench MP responded to the question with incredulity: “of course I have [read it]”. “One of the authors spoke at the House of Commons”, declared a seasoned Labour MP. Even in 2015, another junior shadow minister explained that he “talk[ed] about it today to a shadow cabinet minister”. In relation to pre-​distribution, this is important. While The Spirit Level did not cite the idea of pre-​distribution per se, it did note that there were different routes to solving the problem of inequality, one of which was to narrow ‘differences in gross market incomes before any redistribution’ (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010: 247). This was a path that was remarkably similar to pre-​distribution. Although there is no evidence to suggest that this directly influenced Ed Miliband to look favourably on the idea of pre-​distribution, The Spirit Level’s central argument, according to a close aide to Miliband, “is pre-​distribution”. Then, what can be said for certain is that the book at least suggested to Miliband that alternative routes to redistribution existed in addressing income inequality. O’Neill and Williamson (2012) separated pre-​distribution into a radical and non-​radical form. For brevity, I will focus on the radical version. This version had the ability to create a more equal and just society (O’Neill and Williamson, 2012). This version stemmed mainly from the thinking of James Meade (1964), particularly his book, Efficiency, Equality and the Ownership of Property, but also from John Rawls’ (2001) book, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. The appeal of Meade’s vision was that it aimed to deal with the root causes of inequality, as opposed to just addressing its symptoms (O’Neill and Williamson, 2012). One of the root causes of inequality, described by Meade, was the unequal distribution of property. Meade promoted the idea of a property-​owning democracy because it was not enough to improve the education and training for individuals. It was also crucial to increase the capital stake of each citizen. Meade’s articulation of the

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property-​owning democracy was based on the futuristic and utopian imagination of ‘a world in which no citizen own[ed] an excessively large or an unduly small proportion of the total of private property’ (Meade, 1964: 40). But this should not detract from the point that by improving the capital holdings of the disadvantaged he sought the dilution of pre-​existing concentrations of capital held among the wealthy (O’Neill and Williamson, 2012). Such a property-​owning democracy, in Meade’s view, would fundamentally shift an individual’s power within markets, balancing it out in their favour. O’Neill and Williamson drew on Rawls’ (2001) argument that a property-​owning democracy was essential for a just and equal society and that an active state must invest in both the human and non-​ human form of capital. However, O’Neill and Williamson reduced the significance of Rawls’ original argument. Rawls (2001:  135–​6) viewed a property-​owning democracy ‘as an alternative to capitalism’. It was not simply about making a certain policy architecture work more fairly, it was about changing the architecture entirely. It was only while contrasting a property-​owning democracy with other economic architectures (laissez-​faire capitalism, welfare state capitalism, state socialism and a liberal socialism), that Rawls pointed out the fundamental differences between a property-​owning democracy and the rest: namely, the pre-​distribution of wealth and capital. In this, it is worth quoting Rawls directly: ‘One major difference is this: the background institutions of property-​owning democracy work to disperse the ownership of wealth and capital, and thus to prevent a small part of society from controlling the economy, and indirectly, political life as well.’ It achieved this ‘not by the redistribution of income to those with less at the end of each period … but rather by ensuring the widespread ownership of productive assets and human capital at the beginning of each period’ (Rawls, 2001: 139). It was less about the allocation of capital, than returning to the basics of a well-​functioning economy. This was important because both Meade’s and Rawls’ arguments about capital had a problem: they were discussed in a theoretical context, where political realities were either ignored or circumvented. Transferring wealth would be extremely difficult, politically, and certainly never on the agenda of New Labour.

The failure of the New Labour model Over and above tackling income inequality, there was another reason why pre-​distribution grew in prominence:  namely, the perceived failure of the New Labour economic model. In Miliband’s (2012b)

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London Stock Exchange speech he argued that the present political situation called for a new approach other than redistribution, the erstwhile economic mechanism for social democrats. An economic rationale was needed for the necessity of pre-​distribution. That was why he couched the argument for pre-​distribution in the overall narrative that the Thatcher-​era was over and that the neoliberal assumption that low inflation would ensure stability and growth was now defunct. Instead, a ‘new agenda must be built around new assumptions’ (Miliband, 2012b). For him, this new agenda and these new assumptions were to be based on ‘responsible capitalism’ that required businesses to take a longer-​view in their practices and that pre-​distribution offered, for example, British workers ‘higher skills, with higher wages’ (Miliband, 2012b). In this regard, pre-​distribution was a ‘component of responsible capitalism’, explained a close aide, and this meant pre-​distribution had the ability to forge a radical and exciting agenda for social democracy (O’Neill and Williamson, 2012). Nevertheless, these new assumptions meant that the old economic tenets of the 1990s that New Labour partly ‘challenged … but also left others unchanged’ were finished (Miliband, 2012b). At the heart of Miliband’s reference to New Labour in this speech was to signal that the economic model it had followed had failed with the 2008 financial crash and thus Labour needed a new one. Miliband’s view that the financial crash signalled the end of neoliberalism and New Labour’s economic model was shared by Hacker, who argued that the financial crisis discredited the ‘governing economic philosophy of the prior generation’ (Hacker, 2011:  33) and lamented its record of ushering in a trend of economic wealth transferring, in ever greater proportions, to the wealthiest in society. This view was shared by a head of a think tank, “I think if you talk to Stewart Wood and others, they definitely saw as trying to mark and break with the political economy settlement they had inherited from the Thatcher period”. In more critical terms, a shadow cabinet member stated that “certainly Stewart Wood and Ed Miliband … thought that post-​crash politics would move leftward and it didn’t”. In reality, it did, to a certain extent (see Chapter 5). A senior advisor outlined the thinking that was taking place at the time: ‘[New Labour’s economic model] stopped working in 2008 because of the crash, it brought that system tumbling down. But it had all other sorts of problems too, looking back we realized living standards since 2002 had been collapsing. So on its own terms it was already crumbling

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before 2008. The political economy of New Labour was no longer available. That was definitely a strong central sense we had, so in that sense there was a need for a new paradigm, a need for a new approach for Labour to how to do its political economy.’ New Labour’s model, based on redistributing the proceeds of growth, had not offset declining living standards or addressed root causes of income inequality even when there was growth to redistribute (see Reeves, 2012). For Hacker (2011), this was evidence that redistribution was not enough to solve the problem, as the market had already set the framework whereby income inequality was guaranteed and, indeed, perpetuated. Therefore, while pre-​distribution offered both an explanation of and a solution to income inequality in terms that were consistent with the values of the Labour Party, it also represented a critique and break from the economic model of New Labour. Hacker (2013b) argued in a piece for The Guardian newspaper that the ‘Third Way jujitsu rested on two maxims: let markets be markets and use redistribution to clean up afterwards’. This analysis on New Labour’s maxims were repeated by senior Labour politicians. Cruddas (2015), as cited previously, noted the end of the Third Way and the New Labour economic model of redistributing the proceeds of growth with the simple question, what happened when growth stopped? An exposition of this problem and a critique of the New Labour model was provided by another Labour MP who stated that Balls and Brown thought they could take money from the City of London provided they cultivated and nurtured it and then redistribute growth from financial products. From there, they could “extend tax credits to middle classes for electoral purposes”, but the truth was that this allowed the ‘capitalists’ to hold down wages and allowed landlords to pump up rents. A senior MP, who supports Corbyn, explained that this allowed low wages and ‘capitalists to increase the rate of profit, but no one fell into poverty because of state subsidy to landlords [housing benefit] and bad bosses [tax credits]. Together with a property boom … people borrowing money cheap and tax credits allowed people to think they are well off even though the level of income they were generating as workers was in decline. So the question was, how do we get off the drug [and] how did you tackle the fiscal crisis? It leads you to pre-​distribution.’

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This situation, especially on tax credits, was no surprise to one senior Labour backbench MP who explained that “we all knew this when we were in government”. This was a point Ed Miliband would return to in his pre-​distribution speech where he argued that ‘the redistribution of the last Labour government relied on revenue which the next Labour government will not enjoy. The option of simply increasing tax credits in the way we did before will not be open to us’ (Miliband, 2012b). Such was the changing mindset in the party that a Labour MP close to Miliband described the mechanism of redistribution and “state top ups”, such as tax credits, as an “old Labour idea”. As we know, this observation is only partially true. New Labour’s model adopted two critical pillars commonly seen as Conservative economics, namely the control of inflation and following the ‘golden rule’ in relation to public sector borrowing (see Chapter 2). This is important to note given Ed Balls’ role, or lack of, in the deliberations over pre-​distribution. Although Balls was at the London Stock Exchange speech where pre-​distribution was unveiled, his role promoting it, and other economic ideas, to the leadership was limited. Interestingly, the first senior Labour frontbencher to cite pre-​ distribution was Rachel Reeves (2012), then Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. She mentioned it in the Fabian book, The Shape of Things to Come, “[which] was published two months before Ed’s speech and she used the term pre-​distribution. To the best of my knowledge, that was the first official use of the term pre-​distribution by a Labour Party frontbencher,” stated a senior backbench MP. The fact that it was not first mentioned by Ed Balls was significant, given this was the idea that was meant to be driving Labour’s new economic agenda. The reason, according to a senior advisor, was that Ed Balls was mainly concerned with microeconomics around “tax and spending”. On the level of economic ideas, a senior advisor explained, Balls was on the periphery ‘because austerity was the big issue in town most of his stuff was about that. But on the industrial policy, restructuring, long-​termism, the boardroom, energy policy, that wasn’t Ed Balls. The engine of that came from our team. Torsten Bell was head of a team that was producing this stuff on demand for Ed.’ This was corroborated by a shadow cabinet minister who stated: ‘Balls operated on a more traditional Keynesian model, and thinking pretty conservatively on public finances. I don’t

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think, and this was one of the tensions, he was involved enough or he could have been in some of these debates and there were clearly areas of tension between his office and Ed M’s office.’ Balls, in other words, focused on two ‘conservative’ pillars that had been adopted previously by New Labour, controlling borrowing and inflation. A close aide to Miliband and was closely involved with the proceedings thought it was a “fair point” that Balls was not heavily engaged in these discussions, but that was because he had “no real enthusiasm” for those ideas, he was “not into responsible capitalism”. Yet, we know he was always in the room, so it appears that Balls purposively distanced himself from pre-​distribution. We should not be surprised, though. He was one of the central architects of the New Labour economic model and a fan of Keynesianism. Miliband’s team were openly discussing its failure and trying to find its replacement. This precisely ties in with the thinking of Hacker. For Hacker (2013b), the New Labour strategy had been fatal for three reasons. First, he believed leaving markets alone did not work, because they would not provide public goods that benefit all people. Second, it understated the state’s role in making markets work, therefore undermining the argument that the state could provide the regulatory solution. Third, and finally, the left allowed itself to be cornered into ‘mopping up after markets’ with solely redistributive policies that were generally unpopular (Hacker, 2013b). This unpopularity only increased in intensity during straitened financial times. He argued in his original essay that the extensive use of redistribution eventually suffers a public backlash that plays into the hands of Conservative arguments about non-​interference in the market (Hacker, 2011: 35). This was accurate to a certain extent, but as New Labour proved this could be largely negated if the economy continued to grow. It only became highly toxic when growth stopped and tax revenues diminished significantly as they did after the financial crash in 2008. This forced the party to look for a new idea.

Labour’s new thinking The Spirit Level helpfully spent a significant amount of time explaining and suggesting possible solutions to the above problem. It was clear that for both Pickett and Wilkinson solutions were as important as the diagnosis. Even though their discussion centred around the necessity to change society through incremental stages to make it

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more equal, the objective was radical:  nothing short of shifting a culture and changing a society. That was ‘unlikely to be achieved by tinkering with minor policy options. The key is to map out ways in which the new society can begin to grow within and alongside the institutions it may gradually marginalise and replace’ (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010: 236). There were different routes to achieve this, one of which was the Japanese model. Their analysis had shown that Japan had the narrowest income gap between the rich and poor and experienced far less social problems as a consequence (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010: 17). While Wilkinson and Pickett tentatively unpacked the possible reasons as to why income inequality was so low in Japan, they discovered ‘countries like Japan manage to achieve low levels of inequality before taxes and benefits. Japanese differences in gross earnings (before taxes and benefits) are smaller, so there is less need for large-​ scale redistribution’ (2010: 245, original emphasis) Wilkinson and Pickett (2010: 87) explained that Japan’s narrow level of income inequality was generated after the Second World War and the demilitarization of the country. They noted that the defeat was catastrophic for the Japanese ruling elite as it had precipitated its demise and broke down the traditional hierarchical structure of Japanese society. This, combined with what they describe as far-​sighted American advisors who designed the future Japanese state, resulted in huge transfers in ‘wealth and power’ which ‘led to an egalitarian economy and unrivalled improvements in population health’ (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010: 87). They compared and contrasted this with the Swedish model which had also achieved a narrow level of income inequality, but through a markedly different approach: namely through the traditional route of large and systematic redistributive policies such as taxes and benefits (Wilkinson and Pickett 2010: 183–​4). This Swedish model (the redistributive model) had been the blueprint for social democrats in the UK for some time. Yet, the pursuit of this redistributive model was no longer viable, because ‘what happens if … you back-​end redistribution is not enough to supplement the declining wages of the workers … [its] not an inclusive growth. Second, what happens if your model incentivises low pay itself, by allowing free riders. Thirdly, what happens when the growth stops? Now all of this means you have to reimagine what social democracy is.’ (Cruddas, 2015)

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Even though there is little evidence to suggest the Japanese case study by Wilkinson and Pickett directly influenced the leadership, the move towards a more pre-​distributive (Japanese) model was evidently on the leadership’s agenda by 2012. Rachel Reeves (2012), in her chapter for a Fabian booklet, Meeting the Fiscal Challenge, acknowledged that the fiscal challenge Labour faced was real and needed to be confronted. She concluded that the old means of achieving social justice were no longer available. In it, she drew on several academic papers which discussed the costs to society of the consequences of inequality, including the research by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) commissioned by Miliband, research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and from The Spirit Level. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation research cautiously suggested that the social issues people suffer if they grow up in a poor household could add up to £12 billion a year of extra spending in services like education, housing, criminal justice and social services (Reeves, 2012: 6–​7). Clearly, the commissioning and citation of these studies was a tentative floatation of the pre-​distributive idea by the Labour leadership. As a senior backbench Labour MP observed, “what that indicates to me, because obviously people like her would have it cleared through the policy system, was that the intellectual climate was moving in that direction”. It was not a coincidence that the argument posed by Reeves was similar to Wilkinson’s and Pickett’s. Indeed, Reeves’ entire argument was underpinned by their research. She even briefly mentioned Japan stating that ‘OECD statistics show that while the state in the UK does as much to reduce inequalities as the state in Germany or Sweden, and less than in Japan, we still end up with more unequal outcomes because initial market inequalities are so high’ (Reeves, 2012: 7). Put differently, redistribution was heavily utilized as a tool by previous Labour governments to address the level of income inequality; however, it did not and would not address the core reasons for the size of the inequality gap that had arisen in the first place. This sets up Reeves to argue that the answer to this conundrum was pre-​ distribution. Its implementation would focus on addressing inequalities within the system, negating, to a certain extent, the intervention of costly redistribution policies. Pre-​distribution, however, was not above critique. Despite Gregg’s (2012) enthusiasm for the idea, he was not as optimistic as Reeves for pre-​distribution to reverse the tide of income inequality. He declared that many of pre-​distribution’s key policies had ‘indirect effects, and indirect interventions often lack the power to overturn the processes already at work’ (Gregg, 2012). Yet, there was a bigger problem with

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pre-​distribution. Japan had implemented such a model after the exogenous shock of losing a war and the traditional structure of society being dismantled. A shock of this nature was unlikely to happen in the UK. Although Wilkinson and Pickett suggested a slow and incremental institutional change as another way of achieving a more pre-​distributive system, this would take decades and several political cycles. From a political point of view, this would be too slow and would not yield significant political benefits, at least in the short term. Despite the fact that the Japanese model was not foremost in their minds when Labour figures engaged with pre-​distribution, they nonetheless recognized that the Scandinavian model of redistribution was no longer a politically viable path to social justice in the UK. That prompted key Labour figures to debate openly the future of social democracy, particularly its economic backbone. After all, ‘in the Left’s traditional vision, the good society is founded on the commitment to redistribution. Capitalism inevitably creates inequalities, and the role of social democracy is to ameliorate injustice by redistributing the fruits of growth to those most in need’ (Diamond, 2012). Thus, pre-​distribution represented a significant change in Labour thought. This is not to say, however, policies that could have been labelled as pre-​distributive had not been undertaken in the past, such as the minimum wage, but it is the first time when pre-​distribution had been viewed as an economic strategy that could challenge the neoliberal economic model that has operated in the UK for the past 30 years. Without the vast majority of the PLP realizing, the Labour leadership were engaged in an idea that was markedly different from the traditional Scandinavian approach of redistribution as a means of achieving social justice.

Political appeal Gregg (2012) believed the political attractiveness of adopting pre-​ distribution could be summed up by three points: the first was that there was capacity to shift economic resources, in larger amounts, then that offered by redistribution. This made up for poor targeting of resources. The second was that shifting these resources resulted in little to no economic loss from reduced economic efficiency. As a result of these two points, the third benefit was that it enabled greater political space for action in comparison to the normal system of tax and redistribution. Gregg’s final point tied in with Hacker’s analysis that redistribution had become politically difficult. Hacker was acutely aware of the politics surrounding pre-​distribution and the political environment it operated

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within. Pre-​distribution was politically attractive to the left ‘because it wouldn’t necessarily involve large amounts of new public spending’ (Hacker, 2013a). In a post-​financial crash world where tax revenues had dramatically dropped and the scale of income inequality was brought to the fore, the amount of money available to governments to address this inequality was in short supply. This was captured by a shadow cabinet member who stated that pre-​distribution had opened up “rich terrain” because “it’s about moving on from the fiscal transfer and redistribution model and thinking more sharply models of equality. So there is so much in it in an era of austerity”. In corroboration, a close aide to Miliband said that pre-​distribution was “all about that, it overlapped with economic sustainability”. In short, it was a political mechanism to deal with income inequality in an age of austerity; it was an idea that accepted the austerity framework. Pre-​distribution also offered a political opportunity to address income inequality without being susceptible to the Conservative charge that Labour was being profligate with public spending. This was critical because financial profligacy had been the pillar by which the Conservatives had attacked the previous Labour government’s record. It also provided the narrative for the necessity of austerity and the rationale why voters should not vote Labour. George Osborne (2010), the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in an emergency budget stated ‘the coalition Government have inherited from their predecessors the largest budget deficit of any economy in Europe, with the single exception of Ireland. One pound in every four we spend is being borrowed.’ From this moment on, the Conservative’s focused on economic credibility painting Labour as the ‘too much borrowing, too much spending, too much debt’ party (Mason, 2014). Therefore, avoiding this charge was high on the Labour leadership’s agenda. Wilkinson and Pickett (2010) also touched on another significant political argument that potentially influenced Ed Miliband’s thinking on pre-​distribution. It related to the role of the state. In the midst of offering solutions to income inequality, including the pre-​distributive model, Wilkinson and Pickett (2010: 247) stressed their conclusions and solutions do not mean the resurrection of an overbearing state: ‘it is worth remembering that the argument for greater equality is not necessarily an argument for big government’. For Hacker, to reinsert a counterbalance against the market did not mean reinforcing union or state power, but rather, and interestingly, it meant growing the strength of civil society. He stated ‘if we let civil society atrophy, then we’re caught between the Scylla of unfettered markets and the Charybdis of excessive reliance on the state’ (Hacker, 2013a). Unwittingly, this bore

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a substantial resemblance to Blue Labour thinking and thus it contained the same political advantage as offered by Blue Labour: namely the disassociation with big government and its perceived intrusive nature.

Downfall However, there were a couple of political weak points to pre-​ distribution. The first was the universal agreement that pre-​ distribution was not the most effective political title. This was the most significant criticism. Plunkett (2012) described it as an ‘ugly duckling’, while Diamond (2012) noted it ‘is hardly an election-​ winner crowd-​pleaser’. Yet, pre-​distribution “was never a slogan. It was a behind the frontline term to give you intellectual coherence and ideological mission”, claimed a senior advisor. That was never its purpose, explained Stears (2015), who stated that “[Ed Miliband] never intended to use the word as a slogan or a piece of jargon, it was quite an academic conference he had been talking to when he used it”. A close aide explained that pre-​distribution was “never intended to be used apart from that speech [London Stock Exchange]; the only reason why we used the word was for the media … it was a tactical device to get a hearing for the agenda”. Unfortunately, this tactical move worked as it prompted Ferguson (2012b) to label it Ed Miliband’s ‘new buzzword’. Regrettably, it was the sort of buzzword that would be used, explained a head of think tank, “if you were predisposed to intellectual debate, as Gordon Brown was and Ed Miliband”. In other words, it was not media friendly. This immediately led to a debate among Labour MPs about the suitability of the word, with a senior backbench Labour MP explaining that he thought “it should play in people’s mind the language you use … whether it is sensible to use the term pre-​distribution is a debatable point”. Another Labour MP close to Miliband observed that while pre-​distribution was “one of the important ideas”, “it [was] a very awkward word isn’t it, pre-​ distribution?”. There was an instinctive reaction among some MPs that the word itself would be a problem. The awkward and clumsy nature of the word, from a political point of view, was ruthlessly exposed by the Conservatives at the earliest opportunity. Pre-​distribution had been only briefly floated and explained on 6 September 2012, but by 12 September it had been attacked and ridiculed by David Cameron in an exchange at Prime Minister’s Questions. The prime minister said Ed Miliband had a ‘new plan called pre-​distribution. What I think that means is that we spend the money before we actually get it’ (Cameron 2012). He continued:

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I am surprised that Labour members do not want to hear about their new guru. He is called Mr J Hacker, and Mr J Hacker’s recommendation is that we spend an extra £200 billion and borrow an extra £200 billion in this Parliament. From the work I have done, I have discovered his new book: it is published by Princeton University Press and it is called ‘The Road to Nowhere’. The right hon. Gentleman does not need to read it; he is there already. (Cameron, 2012) Although Hacker (2015) responded to this attack, focusing particularly on the prime minister’s £200bn remark, stating ‘this was a lie’, it was nevertheless very effective. Stears (2015) admitted, “The idea, the word sorry, popped up, was mocked and disappeared.” In one exchange on the floor of the House of Commons, the then prime minister had managed to undermine pre-​distribution’s political strength that Labour had hoped to utilize, namely it did not require huge revenue-​ side expenditure. Hacker (2013b) was fully aware of pre-​distribution’s communicative weakness, arguing that although ‘pre-​distribution may not be a catchy slogan, the left does not need more slogans. It needs to take a cold, hard look at the concessions made to the rhetorical and political triumphs of the right.’ In 2015, in an article just before the general election, Hacker explained how in several discussions with Ed Miliband that he ‘emphasized that it was the idea, not the label, that mattered’ (Hacker, 2015). The trouble was, even as an idea, “nobody understood” it, observed a senior Corbyn supporting MP. This was another reason why the prime minister’s attack was so effective. Pre-​distribution’s technical nature created a degree of obfuscation around it, which allowed opponents to characterize it in a certain way to the public. This point is significant because even among Labour MPs knowledge of the idea was limited. During interviews in 2013, only one MP cited it as an idea that was under consideration even though it had been unveiled a year before. A shadow junior minister explained that “Ed’s ideas about responsibly capitalism and pre-​distribution … intervening early on rather than correcting for capitalism afterwards … is an example of the Labour Party thinking about ideas”. This MP clearly understood it, but despite her knowledge the majority of her colleagues were either unaware of the idea itself, unsure of what it was or could not see its utility. In a sense, this is where the fallibilities of the word came into play. Its technocratic nature made it appear underwhelming, even though its central thrust of tackling income inequality would be an

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idea that many Labour MPs would have embraced, as evidenced by their keen interest in The Spirit Level. The leadership “didn’t have a political strategy to carry it forward”, stated a head of a think tank. Deliverability and political strategy were synonymous. A shadow cabinet minister felt that we ‘should have been much more rigorous with the philosophy of pre-​distribution. What we needed to do was work on a communication strategy, which made the terrible phrase pre-​distribution into something political viable. Behind which was a considered philosophy about governments, inequality, the market and all those elements.’ The indication from this response was that the party, precisely the leadership, had not done this. A  friend and close senior advisor to Miliband explained that “we never wanted to lead with the word in the election campaign, we wanted to get the argument out. I don’t think we actually succeeded in getting the argument out to be honest”. In other words, he had tried to advocate it, but he had ultimately failed. In the aftermath of the prime minister’s attack on pre-​distribution, a member of the shadow cabinet confirmed that they had “dropped the word”, but Stears (2015) explained that although the word had been dropped “the basic ideas remained constant”. This point was repeated by other Labour politicians who recognized problems with the word, “but [that] it wouldn’t affect the idea”, explained a senior backbench MP. So, although the word disappeared, the idea of pre-​distribution itself did not until a year later. By the end of 2013, pre-​distribution had been “dropped too early” in order to focus on more psephological concerns, explained a frustrated senior advisor.

Impact: Policy and manifesto Interestingly, and in contradiction to the interviews above, Hacker (2015) argued that the Labour Party was still following the pre-​ distributive agenda after the party’s election manifesto was launched. While acknowledging that pre-​distribution ‘[had] mostly disappeared from the lexicon of British politicians’, the essential idea was still informing the thinking of the leadership; Ed Miliband was still embracing his ‘big idea’ (Hacker, 2015). This claim was warranted. Ed Miliband gave a speech to the NPF after he had just confirmed many of Labour’s core policies for the general election in which he stated that under him Labour was

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moving on from New Labour, but not going back to Old Labour. Moving on from a belief that rising inequality is just a fact of life. Moving on from a belief that there is nothing we can do about markets that aren’t fair or aren’t working. But not seeing big spending as the answer. (Miliband, 2014) All three themes, (1)  inequality, (2)  challenging markets but not (3) heavy spending were the core pillars of pre-​distribution. Although the word pre-​distribution was not cited once in Labour’s 2015 general election manifesto, Hacker’s argument is further validated through the policies adopted by it. Unlike the other ideas covered under the Miliband era, pre-​ distribution offered a plethora of policies that could be readily enacted. As Gregg (2012) evinced, pre-​distribution ‘open[ed] up a new set of policy tools’ in combating income inequality by reducing the income gap over the long term. Such policy tools could have included legal regulation remedies, ‘such as minimum wages’, but also measures on public procurement, educational solutions concentrating on fixing low educational achievement, and improving the use of competition to benefit the poor by reducing the prices of goods and services (Gregg, 2012). Plunkett (2012), former Labour government minister and then Director of Policy and Development at the Resolution Foundation, argued that pre-​distribution offered practical and politically viable policy measures to tackle inequality. He believed those measures were:  addressing the skills gaps among the non-​g raduates in the population; to go beyond the minimum wage level of pay; to reform the tax and benefit system in order to tailor it to reflect today’s working patterns; and pro-​employment public services, with particular focus on older workers. Both Plunkett and Gregg demonstrated the policy-​ heavy nature of pre-​distribution and its innate ability to provide a policy platform by which other academics and commentators could build on. Plunkett (2012) recognized that the policy measures he suggested required ‘a greater willingness to intervene in market outcomes’ and was the ‘brave next step for progressives’. This sort of intervention was something Hacker readily advocated and he believed Labour’s 2015 general election manifesto was committed to delivering it. Hacker (2015) argued that history had shown that government was critical to innovation and productivity and translating them into economic and social gains. As a result, a government needed to invest in public infrastructure and in research and development (R&D) because although markets are very good at allocating goods and making use of existing knowledge to meet consumer demand, they are notoriously

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bad at investing in basic infrastructure to increase prosperity, both physical and intellectual (Hacker, 2015). For Hacker, Labour’s manifesto delivered on this because it had an investment strategy, referring to commitments to invest in a ‘world-​class infrastructure’ and to set up a National Infrastructure Commission (Labour Party, 2015: 19). He also cited pledges to invest in human capital, like early education and skills with both a promise to improve the skills of young people, especially those who did not wish to go to university, and a commitment to protect early years education budgets (Labour Party, 2015:  24–​5; 37). With these sort of commitments, he concluded that Labour had essentially embraced the main aim of pre-​distribution, namely public investment in physical and human capital (Hacker, 2015). This area of investment in human capital was critical to the pre-​ distributive agenda, argued Diamond (2014). He believed that key pre-​distributive policies should focus on “social investment in the human capital of disadvantaged groups” in order to get “social mobility flowing again”. The policy implications for this strategy, according to Diamond (2014), were outlined as:  a refocus on early intervention strategies; boost parenting support; improve the quality of parenting; reinforce parental responsibilities; extend the pupil premium; reform the system of school choice; and promote multi-​agency working across public services. These aspects of the pre-​distributive agenda were also in Labour’s manifesto. In relation to early intervention and multi-​agency involvement, the manifesto stated that ‘we will encourage local services to co-​locate, so that they work together to shift from sticking plaster solutions to integrated early help’ (Labour Party, 2015: 44). In the area of financial regulation, Hacker (2015) also outlined Labour’s pre-​distributive policies such as the encouragement of institutional investors to ‘prioritise long-​term growth over short-​ term profits for the companies in which they are investing’, to ‘change takeover rules to enhance the role of long-​term investors by restricting voting to those already holding shares when a bid is made’, and ‘strengthening the public interest test’ (Labour Party, 2015: 21). Furthermore, and more ambitious in scope, in Hacker’s (2015) view, were the policies to mandatory disclose votes on executive pay by investment and pension fund managers and ‘by requiring employee representation on remuneration committees’ (Labour Party, 2015: 21). These were audacious initiatives that would address the very real problems of short termism in the economy that fed inequality and increased financial risk (Hacker, 2015). Hacker (2015), throughout his article, continued to cite numerous policies such as upskilling of workers, encouragement of long-​term

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tenancy arrangements, efforts to reduce the costs of energy, water and transport, the increase in the national minimum wage and the banning of exploitative zero-​hours contracts as examples of pre-​distributive policies. This was corroborated by a close aide involved in the Policy Review and in the construction of the manifesto: the “energy price freeze was a pre-​distribution policy”, as was the “minimum wage stuff”. The “redistribution version of the energy price freeze is things like the winter fuel payments”, whereas the energy price freeze “adjusted the market outcomes from the get-​go”, explained the close aide. All of this culminated in Hacker (2015) concluding that Labour had at least partially embraced his idea of pre-​distribution –​that the government can improve how markets work and reduce the economic strains on people. There is no sense that Hacker’s 2015 article was an attempt to capture and re-​interpret Labour’s manifesto commitments in order to justify and prove the idea of pre-​distribution had been taken up. He had consistently raised, well before the publication of Labour’s manifesto, these policies and policy areas that formed part of the pre-​distributive model. For example, Hacker (2011) had extensively discussed the need for effective ‘policies governing financial markets’ including policies on executive pay. By 2013, he was more explicit about the policy recommendations of the pre-​distributive idea that Labour could pursue, such as improving public services without spending much more and, in particular, improve priority areas for long-​term skills development; and serious use of the power of government to make sure that jobs pay well. Not just through welfare, not just through helping those at the bottom (Hacker, 2013a). These policies explicitly downplay the need for more government and welfare spending, which is pertinent post 2015.

Conclusion The reasons for the rise of pre-​distribution are clear. It offered: a new economic model to replace New Labour’s; a fundamental shift in social democratic thinking in how to ameliorate the negative consequences of capitalism; political sanctuary from Conservative attacks on Labour being the big state, big spending party; and a means to tackle income inequality. This fitted with Ed Miliband’s pre-​set agenda. He was also already interested in the pre-​distributive agenda before he had any knowledge of the idea of pre-​distribution. In his speech to the Fabian Society where he launched his leadership bid in 2010, he argued that ‘we did great things on the economy after 1997, but the truth is that the New Labour combination of free markets plus redistribution got us

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a long way, then reached its limits a few years back’ (Miliband, 2010b). He knew the New Labour economic model was moribund after the financial crash in 2008. This was at the forefront of people’s minds in Miliband’s office, explained a senior advisor, who stated: ‘[T]‌here was an incredibly important need for rethinking after the economic crash, the economic crash had changed things it had made the old recipes impossible, there was no way of going back to the kind of pre-​crash way of doing business of the left anymore’. The age of the redistribution of growth to supplement the poorest in society were gone. A new one was needed.’ Through the commissioning of the IFS study (see Brewer and Phillips, 2010), Miliband demonstrated that he was intuitively working along pre-​distributive lines. He knew from his time working with Gordon Brown at the Treasury and as a government minister the intrinsic weaknesses of New Labour’s economic model, especially the tax credit policy. He brought this experience to his leadership stall. He also firmly had the issue of inequality on his agenda. “For Ed, income inequality” was his overriding political concern, explained a close aide. Pre-​distribution, unlike Blue Labour or One Nation, overtly spoke to this agenda. Indeed, observed a head of a think tank, “Ed read widely and he did listen to people [around] the main intellectual currents in economic thinking on inequality”. He was actively searching for new economic thinking that addressed inequality. Yet, even though he found it, he baulked at the radical version it offered; namely to fundamentally shift the distribution of wealth, as well as income. By avoiding this, he and his team circumvented all the controversies such a policy would have incurred. As a result, there was no left/​right battle over pre-​distribution. There was a paucity of engagement with the wider PLP, let alone the wider party, in regards to pre-​distribution. This was deliberate, as the leadership gave it a relatively short publicity time and did not actively push it through any formal policymaking mechanism. This was because Ed Miliband “made the running on the political economy. We could never develop a political economy in the Policy Review” (Rutherford, 2015). It is hard to battle over an idea if both the left and right wings of the party were broadly unaware of its existence. The idea of pre-​ distribution, and any idea on the political economy in general, was the exclusive preserve of Ed Miliband. Of the number of Labour MPs that were aware of pre-​distribution, most were either unclear what it

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meant or worried about the suitability of the word itself. Having said that, there was a small number of MPs who were fully versed in what pre-​distribution was and what it aimed to do. In fact, some lamented how pre-​distribution had not been worked on and used to develop a coherent economic platform. I would surmise that even if there had been extensive knowledge of pre-​distribution among the PLP there would have been little resistance to it given it aimed to tackle inequality, an objective most Labour MPs would subscribe to. Yet, the battle between the left and right remained, albeit muted. On the right of the party, senior figures like Balls ignored the idea, preferring to focus his efforts on preserving some of the New Labour economic orthodoxies. In particular, he was concerned that Labour looked financially prudent. On the left, pre-​distribution would have been seen by them as having a major problem: it accepts the framework of austerity. A theme that had been independently brought up by senior Corbynistas. They were not hostile to Ed Miliband, but they critiqued his stance as Tory lite for the fact that he accepted austerity was the political framework Labour had to operate under. This critique continued into the leadership election after Miliband resigned. Corbyn was the only candidate, at first, to challenge the whole concept of austerity and its necessity. Corbyn’s argument was that it was a political choice as opposed to an economic imperative. Although Miliband accepted austerity, his deliberate and public move away from the figures and sentiments of New Labour helped to pave the way for Corbyn. His major error, from the left’s perspective, was that he did not go far enough away. That policy elements of New Labour lingered and influenced which ideas he engaged with. In nearly every sense, Miliband was the Janus of the Labour Party; the bridge between its two faces and factions.

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5

Corbynism: The Left’s Resurgence The rise of Jeremy Corbyn represented a new surge in left-​wing politics in Britain. His ascent to the top of the Labour Party signified a marked change in the ideological direction of the party, particularly in contrast to New Labour. Although there was a consensus that this represented a new vitality in left-​wing politics in Britain, what this vitality meant in a substantive sense is the subject of this chapter. Put differently, what ideas made up Corbynism? While it is unfair and inaccurate to ascribe to one person a new ideological resurgence, this new development could plausibly be described as Corbynism. It is common to label such movements by their figurehead; the same is true for Thatcherism and the New Right in the 1980s, and Blairism and New Labour in the 1990s. Moreover, in this instance, the “rise of the left in the party is not necessarily ideas driven, rather it focuses on the individual –​that’s Jeremy,” remarked a new intake Labour MP. A close friend and ally of Corbyn described how the public saw “Jeremy as someone who is authentic, speaks his mind, he doesn’t change his principles and says what he means. Jeremy is a thoroughly, thoroughly decent individual”. No MP that was interviewed, even those hostile to Corbyn’s project, disputed or contradicted this claim. If there was any animosity towards the leader within the PLP, it was rarely based on an individual dislike of the man. Instead, it was based on what he ideologically represented. Despite this, it is incredibly difficult to answer and pinpoint exactly what Corbynism consisted of in terms of ideas and whether those ideas represented something new to the Labour Party or was a rehash, as many claimed, of ‘Old’ Labour ideals. This difficulty still arose despite being told by a Labour MP and ally of Corbyn that Corbynism was not “rocket science”. Indeed, it is not, thankfully. However, this MP aptly highlighted the difficulty for

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people to discern the details of Corbynism with the statement that it simply meant a change in the direction of the Labour Party “to support the many and not the few”. The ambiguity over what was Corbynism was furthered by Corbyn (2015) at the party conference, following his leadership victory: ‘I am not a leader who wants impose leadership lines all the time. I don’t believe anyone of us has a monopoly on wisdom and ideas –​we all have ideas and a vision of how things can be better. I want open debate in our party and our movement’. The impression was that ‘Corbynism’ was subject to further development, it was not already set in stone. This was reiterated by McDonnell (2018b:  xi) three years later, when he emphasized the flourishing nature of a plethora of new ideas flowing through the party in order to build a new alternative economic settlement for the UK. Of course, it is important to go beyond the slogans and rhetoric and understand what would be supported and what ideas would be listened to. This is the purpose of this chapter: to provide greater insight into the key ideas, and the people behind them, of Corbynism. This insight will also unveil the battle of ideas that took place in the Labour Party, particularly within the the PLP, under Corbyn’s leadership.

Anti-​austerity Pre-​distribution, and the Miliband era in general, was critical to the formation and intellectual vitality of Corbynism. A senior Corbynista MP declared that “Ed Miliband would probably want to see himself as the bridge between the old and the new”, the old in this case being ‘New Labour’ and the new being Corbynism. As I argued in the last two chapters, Milibandism tried to clearly break with New Labour and wholeheartedly engage with new ideas, but critically with ideas which, implicitly and explicitly, accepted the overarching framework of austerity. This was especially true for pre-​distribution, which was fundamentally built on the premise that the old model of tax and redistribution was no longer possible both economically and politically. This is why Miliband is seen as a bridge between the right and left wings of the party. Corbyn’s central pitch was not to accept that frame of austerity. Instead, he would provide the public with an alternative choice between investment or austerity (Corbyn, 2018). As a Corbyn supporting MP, who was part of the new intake in 2017, explained, he “took the Labour party from being a party of austerity to a party that is firmly anti-​austerity. That was the first move towards a more radical politics”. Crucially, this non-​ acceptance of austerity was authentic. It was not political posturing or changing his political clothes to suit the times; rather, the times had

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moved to his politics. Any examination of his past exudes criticism of neoliberalism and New Labour, intellectually challenging the premise of the Thatcherite settlement that many on the left thought Blair had accepted. For the Labour left, the Thatcher/​Reagan and Blair/​Brown era of neoliberal globalization, mainly consisting of deregulation and increased capital flows between countries, was coming to an end. In this regard, Corbyn was anti-​austerity personified. This proved to be hugely popular with the Labour membership, and many union leaders, when it came to the Labour leadership battle in 2015 following Ed Miliband’s resignation after Labour’s defeat in the general election. This reputation was reinforced during the leadership contest, due to the second reading of the welfare bill that was progressing through parliament in 2015. The bill proposed further cuts to welfare payments, forcing the then acting leader Harriet Harman to decide whether to support these cuts (against her party’s wishes) or to vote against them, walking into the Conservative trap of painting the Labour Party as unable to control public finances. Harman decided to abstain, prompting 48 Labour MPs to rebel including Corbyn, the only leadership candidate to defy Harman’s call to abstain. This single act reaffirmed his anti-​ austerity credentials. There are many good analyses investigating why and how Corbyn won the Labour leadership, like Dorey and Denham (2015) who emphasized the critical role members and registered supporters were to Corbyn’s success. Commentators argued that the soft left, who supported Blair in 1997, felt a sense of betrayal and thus overwhelmingly backed Corbyn (Prince, 2016: 352). Although the numbers and mechanics of the leadership battle were important, our focus is on the ideas behind Corbyn and the movement. Central to this was the growing hostility to austerity imposed by the coalition government between 2010 and 2015. Nunn (2018: 23) outlined how the anti-​austerity movement was building in the background of Ed Miliband’s leadership, but only became a force during the Labour leadership contest after Miliband resigned. Indeed, at the leadership nomination process, a social media campaign had developed pressing left-​leaning MPs in parliament to put forward an anti-​austerity candidate (Prince, 2016: 230). After all, across Europe, anti-​austerity movements had already shown the way to victory, with unexpected electoral successes in Greece, Spain and Portugal (Prince, 2016: 350). In the UK, with the support of left-​wing groups such as Momentum (founded after Corbyn’s victory) and Red Labour (another grassroots movement) armed with savvy and skilled social media teams, Corbyn’s team seized the opportunity to challenge the neoliberal consensus, and the ‘Blairites were the ideal villains [that]

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ideologically exhibited all the signs of rigor mortis’ (Nunn, 2018: 65). The rigor mortis, or the ideological bankruptcy, on the right of the Labour Party was critical to the rise of Corbynism and the resurgence of the left. This ideological bankruptcy was evident during the leadership contest in 2015, as the other candidates against Corbyn struggled to articulate a distinct alternative to Corbyn’s anti-​austerity message, condemning them, ultimately, to defeat. After Corbyn’s victory on 12 September 2015 with 59.5 per cent of the vote, his team, including his close friend and ally, John McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington, brought their anti-​austerity message to a wider audience. In his first speech to Labour conference as Shadow Chancellor, McDonnell (2015) immediately attacked the framework of austerity, culminating in the assertion ‘austerity is not an economic necessity, it’s a political choice’. Labour was now in a position to offer a different choice. This marked a clear break with the Ed Miliband era and demolished the conventional wisdom that Labour should stick to the centre ground, a position which was seen as clinging to austerity as a sign of financial competence. Corbyn (2015), at the same Labour conference, followed McDonnell’s speech by emphasizing that under his leadership ‘Labour will be challenging austerity’ and would be ‘unapologetic’ about a fundamental reform of the economy. He also attacked the Conservative government’s management of the economy, especially its chronic lack of investment in infrastructure. Notably, he also unequivocally affirmed that ‘social democracy itself is exhausted, dead on its feet’ and from its ashes ‘something new and invigorating, popular and authentic has exploded’ (Corbyn, 2015). This was referring to the Labour Party’s membership growth, meaning the party was now ‘fizzing’ with new ideas, though details of these new ideas were not forthcoming at this point. Thus, at this time, it was fairly evident what Corbynism was against, namely austerity and the economic model of neoliberalism, it remained unclear what Corbynism wanted to replace these with. The literature on this point is scarce. Despite the spate of books and articles analyzing Corbyn’s rise, their focus remains on his backstory, the anecdotes of the campaign, key drivers of his movement and with a particular focus on Corbyn’s foreign policy positions. Not many delve into the substantive ideas and policies underpinning Corbynism, or provide systematic analyses of it, especially in relation to Labour’s recent history. One of the few exceptions to this was the work of Bolton and Pitts (2018) who took ‘Corbynism seriously’ and subjected it to a careful critique. Their analysis sought to understand what ideological strands underpinned Corbynism. In this process, they cited a number of strands,

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ranging from traditional factors such as Marxism to more opaque ideas such as Italian autonomism and accelerationism (Bolton and Pitts, 2018: xv). Importantly, their work ascribed a link between Bennism and Corbynism, mainly through an analysis of AES and its modern incarnation, as they claimed, the Alternative Models of Ownership (AMO). One of their main arguments was that the AMO was a rehash, in effect, of the AES. This argument continued the ever-​present narrative that Corbynism represented a resurgence of 1970s socialism. To test the validity of this narrative, an analysis of Corbynism in relation to Labour’s past was necessary, given the dearth of scholarly work in this area had left a vacuum of balanced investigations that sought to scrutinize the ubiquitous narrative that Corbynism was just a new version of 1970s socialism (frequently referred to as ‘Old’ Labour); a version of socialism that conjures associations with economic ideas such as neo-​Marxism and corporatism. Put simply, this led to the argument that Corbyn had certain ideas and positions stemming from the late seventies and eighties and that they remain unchanged (Richards, 2016: 15). But, was this truly the case or was something else happening? As I have shown in previous chapters, the left had been able to generate new ideas and reinvent itself just as well as the right. Previous incarnations of a left resurgence all had the beneficial factor of the right of the party being bereft of new ideas. This was the case during this period, as the right was unable to respond to the anti-​austerity (and anti-​neoliberal) messages and attacks from the left. What the left stood against, in ideas terms, allowed it to supersede the right. Yet, it still needed, realistically, to come up with alternative ideas. But who would do this and what were they looking at?

It’s not Corbyn, it’s McDonnell When it came to who drove the new ideas in the Labour Party, nearly every MP, both supporter and critic, was clear: during this time, John McDonnell was the ideas man. He had thought “very hard about what the left alternative would really look like”, explained a Labour MP and member of the Socialist Campaign group –​a grouping of left-​wing Labour MPs who frequently offered “a critique of New Labour and modern capitalism”. He was more interested in new ideas or policies than Corbyn, as a different MP close to the project explained, “Jeremy has got a very fixed, very longstanding policy. His interests have always been around the justice system, foreign affairs and housing. Those are his three things.” The implication was that anything outside of that trinity of issues Corbyn had little interest in and left it to others to work

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them out. Such was the dominance of McDonnell and his team that “sometimes I think [Corbyn] does not always know what was going on”, explained a new backbench MP. While Corbyn was uninterested or unaware of the development of new ideas is interesting, the more pertinent question was what McDonnell working on and what ideas was he investigating? What would replace neoliberalism? McDonnell (2018b:  x) argued that the intellectual threads that would form an alternative to neoliberalism would be Marxism and guild socialism, ideas that were particularly powerful in the party during the 1930s (see Chapter 1). This was, in effect, the combination of the ideas of a government controlling the main economic levers of the country with a greater element of industrial democracy, where workers were given more power. Both moves were about ‘taking back control’ of the economy. Pertinently, the 1930s was a period where the party, and the country, were struggling to deal with the fallout of the depression triggered by the Wall Street crash in 1929, which was a period akin to the years post the 2008 financial crash. In the modern context, an MP firmly positioned in the middle of the right and left camps of the party observed that McDonnell was the thinker of the Corbyn project, and that “his thinking is born out of Marxism and offers a way of adapting Marxism to a context of the 21st century”. This theme of a 21st century socialism, especially around the economic narrative, was a recurring one among senior MPs. A senior Corbynista and member of the shadow cabinet described the entire economic model being developed as an attempt to create a “socialism fit for the 21st century”. According to this particular MP, with a party membership broadly sympathetic to that approach, McDonnell had plenty of scope to elaborate his ideas and to draw on a pool of policy ideas from people around him. Listening to discussions about McDonnell during interviews with Labour MPs inevitably raised questions about his association with Marxism, a connection eagerly explored by the press (see Marr, 2017). This was not surprising, particularly in light of McDonnell’s attendance at a Marx 200 conference in May 2018 at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) where he argued that people should be unafraid to talk about Marx’s ideas, especially at a time when Marx’s thinking was resonating with a new generation and provoking excitement (Eaton, 2018). However, this observation was too simplistic and did not factor in the more nuanced ideas that had interested McDonnell. At Labour’s 2015 conference, McDonnell (2015) announced the creation of the Economic Advisory Committee (EAC), which would advise Labour’s leadership on how to develop and implement Labour’s new economic strategy. It boasted a formidable membership, including economic

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thinkers like Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty, Mariana Mazzucato, Simon Wren-​Lewis, Ann Pettifor and Danny Blanchflower, as well as Richard Murphy and Prem Sikka. Technically, this committee would report to the leadership, but in reality any recommendations would first go to McDonnell. This announcement suggested that there would be no return to ‘Old’ Labour ideas, and, according to a staunch Corbynista MP that was involved with the committee, Corbynism drew on new ideas for a new century, and the party would “put forward a different economic model”. A Labour MP and member of the Socialist Campaign group closely involved with the committee confirmed that “it was an attempt to reinvent socialist economics that could be popular”, though it was a collection of “odd people”, some of whom “had been around the block a few times”. While the latter contribution did not bode well for the committee, it was nonetheless clear that setting up the committee and its remit meant McDonnell, and his team, were actively searching for new ideas to replace neoliberalism and, critically, ‘Old’ Labour. However, almost a year later, and only after meeting for a few times (Wren-​Lewis, 2018:  12), the committee became moribund, with resignations from Piketty, due to time pressures, and Blanchflower who, more troubling for Corbynistas, called for Corbyn to resign. MPs reported other reasons for the committee’s failure, the most convincing being “they all fell out with each other over purity and the rest of it”, which created a “problem of continuity”, explained an MP close to proceedings. Yet, the failure of the committee did not detract McDonnell from the overall objective of trying to form a different economic model, and John has built upon the initial work of that committee, stated a senior advisor. There was, however, one thing that came out of EAC, Labour’s Fiscal Credibility Rule (FCR) (see Wren-​Lewis, 2018: 12–​22), which represented modern macroeconomic thinking (Wren-​Lewis, 2018: 21) and was included in the Labour Party’s 2017 general election manifesto, but not included in the 2019 manifesto. This rule was premised on correcting current economic thinking around deficits and ‘why austerity was such a foolish thing to do’ (Wren-​Lewis, 2018: 18). The fact that the EAC’s greatest achievement was to develop a policy that opposed austerity was not ground-​breaking. Although Wren-​Lewis and others argued it was innovative, the policy mainly represented and reflected the Labour leadership’s thinking on what they were against, not what they were for. MPs within the inner circle reported that Mazzucato and Stiglitz remained close to McDonnell, post-​EAC, and to the agenda that was being developed. McDonnell was not an obedient actor waiting to

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be informed of the party’s script: “John has had a very clear agenda all the time he has been in politics,” said a Labour MP and member of the Socialist Campaign group, and he was not going to deviate from it. There were several Corbynista MPs who were keen to make it clear that McDonnell, and others in the leadership team, sat in a broader movement of left thinking “which has been going for decades”. It was not the case of “four or five people sat upstairs in the broom cupboard” coming up with ideas and directing them downwards, said a close Corbyn ally. The firmly expressed view was that “it was a mistake to think that Corbynism was decided upon by a group of people meeting up and coming up with ideas from nowhere”, said a shadow cabinet minister. It was no coincidence, went the argument, that the three leading members of the Socialist Campaign group, which have been thinking about alternatives to neoliberalism, and Blairism, for years, emerged as the three leading members of the opposition:  Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott. While no person is an island and that McDonnell did not single-​ handedly drive, derive or hunt for new ideas, he was the main person out of those three to try and develop a substantive, coherent left platform. He was the focal point of the team. He drove the ‘preparing for government’ meetings and with the support of John Trickett, MP for Hemsworth, “every department was working towards having a plan for each government department, not just for a first few days, but for a five-​year parliament”, explained a new intake MP who supported Corbyn. Corbyn supporting MPs frequently referred to the fact that every shadow team was working specifically on policies in their area and this would also be fundamental to Labour’s renewal, at least in policy terms. In addition, outlined a close Corbyn ally, there were “a whole number of thinkers … we’ve got politicians, people from business, people from industry, we have people from across the piste” working on this agenda. This was undoubtedly the case, with a fairly new MP explaining that the practical preparation for a general election, and possible victory, was actively being supported by notable figures such as Gordon Brown and Sir Bob Kerslake. This amount of preparation work and innovation in the development of new policies was vital, of course, but these responses came from the question, what should replace neoliberalism? This was a big idea that could not be replaced through policy-​level innovation. A feeling started to build that the Corbynistas were either in the midst of finding a replacement or keeping quiet about it. It was apparent what they were against (and had been for years): neoliberalism and New Labour ideology. Without exception, Corbyn supporting

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MPs revelled in what they described as witnessing the death throes of neoliberalism and the right wing of the party. Yet, despite waiting for decades for this moment, they initially struggled to outline its replacement. Nevertheless, McDonnell, was fervently developing and shaping the future ideas of the party, and had a critical staff member to help him on that journey.

The failed experiment There was a tremendous amount of media focus on Corbyn’s team, and rightly so. In 2016, a blog for the Spectator magazine outlined the key members of the Corbyn team, declaring the top team was made up of Seumas Milne, Kevin Slocombe, Annelise Midgley and Simon Fletcher (Balls, 2016). It went on to outline the ‘second tier’ of advisors, including Andrew Fisher. It described him as a political advisor with a head for figures and an academic background, making him an asset for the team. This account understated things. Fisher was a central figure, along and in combination with McDonnell. A  mixture of Labour MPs who were involved closely with the Corbyn project, and those who weren’t, identified McDonnell’s team, particularly Fisher, as the ideas and policy engine room. I was told over and over again by Corbyn allies that Fisher “is an integral part of this, without any doubt. Very, very smart individual”. It was him, explained a pro-​remain MP, alongside the trade unions, that produced the 2017 and 2019 manifestos. A moderate Labour MP admitted, unsurprisingly, they did not have “much of a connection at all with the leadership”, but still noted that “Andrew Fisher was very important to them”. According to another MP involved in creating the 2017 manifesto, “Andrew was instrumental in putting that manifesto together” and “he has written a really good book, actually”. His book, The Failed Experiment: And How to Build an Economy That Works (2014), provided the blueprint for Corbynism. The book formed the backbone of the policy programme for Corbyn’s campaign, with Fisher developing Corbyn’s policy line in his spare time, while working for the PCS union (Nunn, 2018: 112). The main thrust of the book was an analysis of the financial crash in 2008, why it happened, and the political decisions made over the past few decades that made the crash possible. His conclusion was that the neoliberal experiment failed and something new was needed –​a point frequently cited by Corbynista MPs. Fisher (2014: 81–​106) described the then economic situation of the UK through several policy themes, concluding that the UK economy continued to fail the vast majority of people in the country. This continuation of failure was being delivered

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by a group of politicians ‘post-​crisis [who] have no answers except to carry on as before in the vain hope that somehow it will work the second time around’ (Fisher, 2014: 102). This was a thinly disguised critique of Blairism and those both inside and outside the party who still supported it. Fisher’s insistence that mainstream politicians wanted to carry on with the old system was a position that was commensurate with the views of MPs in the PLP who supported Corbyn, namely that neoliberalism had failed and there were alternatives to it. This narrative argued that people were emerging from a malaise, that the mainstream political parties had perpetuated, that “there was no alternative to neoliberalism, which is utter nonsense”, said a staunch Corbyn supporting MP. A senior Corbynista MP who was part of the leadership team emphasized the context the Labour Party was facing, especially after the financial crash. They were adamant that the “neoliberal economic, political and social framework were no longer working” and that necessitated “big change”. According to this senior MP, this was aided by the fact that no party, government or other institution were actively seeking to make that change happen –​until the ascendancy of Corbyn. The drive to develop an alternative to neoliberalism, the latter often described interchangeably with globalization, ‘emerged around the turn of the millennium’ and was initially labelled alter-​globalization (Nunn, 2018: 131). Although it is not clear what alter-​globalization is in substantive terms, not a single MP or leadership team member referred to it, it became increasingly evident that globalization was identified as a major fault-​line between New Labour and Corbynism. This preoccupation with New Labour’s acceptance of globalization will be returned to in the next chapter, but it is important to focus on the development of Labour’s alternative to it. Fisher’s book, again, provided some guidance in this regard. Beyond the Corbyn campaign, a senior Corbynista informed me that Fisher “was key. No doubt about it, he was a key person.” This was substantiated by the fact Fisher’s book cited the work of Mariana Mazzucato, Richard Murphy, Prem Sikka and Stiglitz, all of whom joined Labour’s EAC at the beginning of Corbyn’s tenure. Given Fisher’s book came out in 2014, and the committee was set up in 2015, this was not serendipitous. The awareness of Fisher, and thus McDonnell, of these thinkers allowed them to conceive and build the committee. On April 2017, and despite many claims not to be interested in calling an election, Theresa May called a snap general election to be held on 8 June 2017. Suddenly, the Labour Party was thrust into quickly writing a manifesto; a manifesto, as we know, ostensibly written by Fisher. The manifesto he wrote was

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widely heralded as a triumph. This success cannot be underestimated given the number of Labour MPs who stated that Fisher wrote it within two weeks. The speed by which it was written also informs us that Fisher must have had a very good idea of the policies to be included, or at least a repository of policies to choose from. Indeed, he did, especially on the economic side, as they were outlined in the final chapter of his book. Within it, he not only gave his reader’s an indication of the 2017 and 2019 general election manifestos, but also offered some insight as to his policy prescription for developing an alternative to the status quo. He strongly supported the notion that it was simply not good enough to analyze and bemoan the current crisis without providing a framework for an alternative; he regarded it as a ‘cop-​out’ (Fisher, 2014:  107). It is here where we can gain significant insight into the thinking of the person leading Labour’s policy programme during this period. The central areas he focused on were public ownership of industry, ownership of land, taming the global financial system, economic rights of the citizen and a citizen’s income, to name a few (see Fisher, 2014: 107–​24). The majority of these were not in the 2017 manifesto, including a citizen’s income and ownership of land, as they were seen as too radical at the time. They were, however, in the 2019 manifesto, with the piloting of a basic income and the creation of a Sovereign Land Trust (Labour Party, 2019: 60, 79). What was in the 2017 manifesto was a return to the erstwhile policy of re-​nationalization (public ownership as the leadership team referred to it), albeit a modest form of it. Public ownership was vital for the Corbyn policy platform, because ‘you can’t control what you don’t own’ (Fisher, 2014: 108). This was the overarching narrative, yet the practical way to propose such a re-​nationalization programme was split into two stages: modest proposals in the 2017 manifesto and more radical options in the 2019 manifesto. The modest proposals put forward were to nationalize rail companies, ‘regain control of energy supply networks’ (the national grid), water companies and Royal Mail (Labour Party, 2017b: 18). These proposals, at least in Labour circles, were not radical at all. In fact, they were seen as sensible moves given the evident market failures in each of these industries. Fisher advocated many of these proposals and proposed, in conjunction with this, a borrowing to invest strategy, which was also in Labour’s manifesto (2017b: 11), with the creation of the National Transformation Fund that would plough £250 billion over ten years into national infrastructure. This would be paid for by taking ‘advantage of near-​record low interest rates’ (Labour Party, 2017a: 5). This figure would increase to £400 billion in the 2019 manifesto (Labour Party,

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2019: 13). While this was undoubtedly the central economic platform for re-​nationalization under Labour’s programme, the borrowing element was only fleetingly referred to in Labour’s 2017 manifesto, ‘Our FCR is based on the simple principle that government should not be borrowing for day-​to-​day spending, but that future growth depends on investment’ (Labour Party, 2017b: 10). This was the first and only time the word borrowing was used in the document. It also referred to the main policy proposal that emanated from the EAC, the FCR. This rule helped couch Labour’s borrowing plans as prudent, making clear Labour would not borrow just to spend on a daily basis. This bore remarkable resemblance to New Labour’s ‘golden rule’ promise (see Chapter 2). This hints at something grossly underestimated by many commentators about Corbyn’s, or maybe perhaps more accurately, McDonnell’s strategy, namely that there was a high degree of electoral calculation in the project. Political calculation, of course, was closely associated with New Labour and spin. The right of the party often caricatured the left as blind to electoral considerations. That was certainly not true, in policy terms, for the 2017 manifesto. Thus, although Fisher was committed to bold and transformational change, stating clearly how it could be achieved, when it came to the manifesto, he toned down –​or was told to tone down –​the boldness of his proposals. This boldness was unleashed in the 2019 manifesto (see Labour Party, 2019). His boldness and the policy trajectory he advocated was evident in his strong commitment to the borrowing to invest strategy. Fisher (2014: 109) was very clear what he thought the role of government should be:  to act ‘in the public interest [it] should invest and be entrepreneurial’. This narrative was a direct reference to the role of the state unashamedly borrowing, nationalizing and investing in areas of public policy where the private sector had failed. Fisher (2014: 86) cited the work of Mazzucato and her idea of the entrepreneurial state, where the state invested in long-​term projects. This investment would produce a return for the state enabling further investment in the public sector, a virtuous circle where the state derived a return from its entrepreneurialism. For McDonnell (2018b: xiv), Mazzucato’s work nicely critiqued neoliberalism’s crude rhetorical insistence that there was a natural opposition between the private and public sector.

The entrepreneurial state While Fisher et al focused on policy specific ideas, perhaps deliberately avoiding discussions around programmatic ideas that proposed

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something new, there were a number of references to the influence of the work of Mazzucato. A number of Corbyn supporting MPs cited her as an influential thinker on the leadership team. Although she was not the only one, her name consistently came up. For example, a staunch Corbynista MP believed “there are people like Mariana Mazzucato, people of that ilk” advising McDonnell’s team. Fisher’s engagement with Mazzucato’s (2014: 20–​1) work was mainly premised on her book, The Entrepreneurial State –​Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, in which she argued, among many other things, ‘a case for a targeted, proactive, entrepreneurial state, one able to take risks and create a highly networked system of actors that harness the best of the private sector for the national good over a medium-​to long-​term time horizon’. While this language closely followed that of the much-​reviled Third Way espoused by Blair in the early 2000s, it was the suggested larger role for the state that was the draw for Fisher and co. More specifically, Fisher’s (2014: 85–​6) cited her work while arguing for the innovating power of government, especially in terms of investment for R&D that do not produce high rates of return in a short period of time. This was one of Mazzucato’s fundamental points about the power of an active, entrepreneurial state. It is premised that public venture capital, as opposed to private venture capital, should be utilized as it was willing to invest in areas of high risk, and has greater patience and realistic expectations on future returns. Venture capital, in contrast, usually avoids areas of high risk, has less patience and expects much higher returns over a shorter period of time. The entrepreneurial state argument captured McDonnell’s imagination. In his 2015 Labour conference speech where he outlined Labour’s anti-​ austerity position and announced setting up EAC, he explicitly stated that ‘the foundation stones of our economic policy are prosperity and social justice. We will create what Mariana Mazzucato describes as the Entrepreneurial State’ (McDonnell, 2015). This was perhaps unsurprising given Mazzucato’s arguments. She challenged the ‘common-​sense’ notion that businesses were the innovative force in the market economy whereas the ‘the State is cast as the inertial one –​necessary for the basics, but too large and heavy to be the dynamic engine’ (Mazzucato, 2014: 1). She directly critiqued the erstwhile argument that the state should avoid the practice of picking winners and losers in the market because of their past failures. She believed that the successes of state intervention rarely got any attention, which was in stark comparison to its failures. In addition, public investments were usually made in high risk areas; an area the private market was normally reluctant to enter. Therefore, went her argument, public investments took higher risks and were subject to

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more failures. The public venture capital policy was perhaps the most interesting idea she set out, but it remained unclear whether it received a warm reception from McDonnell. The policy of a National Investment Bank (NIB) could conceivably be a vehicle for this, but in the document outlining the proposal there was no reference to public venture capital (Labour Party, 2017b; Labour Party, 2019). The other aspect of Mazzucato’s work, which is interesting in terms of ideas, was her critique of classic Keynesian economics, the economic theory that has been the basis of Labour thinking throughout most of its history. Mazzucato believed in the state being actively involved in R&D in order to encourage and support smart, inclusive and sustainable growth. This agenda was where Keynesian economics fell down, according to Mazzucato (2014: 31) who stated, ‘what has been missing from much of the Keynesian left is a growth agenda which creates and simultaneously redistributes the riches.’ This was because, as she argued, Keynesian theory works on the premise that public investment can ‘crowd out’ the private sector, which she debunked and criticized. She argued that ‘to rely solely and strictly on Keynes is to accept that the role of the State, in balancing accounts, might as well fund a useless search for banknotes in an abandoned coal mine’ (Mazzucato, 2014:  195). Having such a critical voice of Keynesian economics close to the Shadow Chancellor demonstrated that Corbyn’s team were listening to ideas beyond the two previously dominant ideas, neoliberalism and Keynesianism. They were, like Miliband, investigating the possibilities of new programmatic ideas. However, it was easy to suggest more state intervention into R&D, it was harder to outline what specifically it should invest in. In both her books, The Entrepreneurial State and The Value of Everything, Mazzucato (2018: 278) cautioned against progressives faltering and solely calling for investment in infrastructure projects. Instead, she counselled for a green transformation that covered all sectors and challenged the traditional industries, notably steel. She discussed in detail the need for a green revolution, advocating a strong push on the agenda (Mazzucato, 2014: 116–​19). Although calls for a green revolution were not new, previous government interventions had been on the regulatory or tax side. Mazzucato argued for the state to drive it and invest money into technological R&D, not leaving it solely to the market to fill an accommodating environment. The leadership was receptive to this message, as it spoke to an expanded role for the state. In Corbyn’s leadership speech at the Labour conference in 2018, his signature announcement was an investment in and transformation of the economy to achieve a 60 per cent reduction

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in emissions by 2030, and the elimination of greenhouse emissions by the middle of the century, and in so doing creating 400,000 skilled jobs. This reform would be ‘far-​reaching’ and ‘transformational’ (Corbyn, 2018). Within Corbyn’s and Rebecca Long Bailey’s speeches, covering the Shadow Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, they discussed this green revolution in terms of a new industrialization geared towards tackling the biggest issue of our time –​climate change. Critically, this new industrialization would tackle ‘this country’s long deindustrialisation’ that ‘criminally’ neglected millions of people (Long Bailey, 2018). All of this was proposed in the 2019 manifesto (Labour Party, 2019: 16–18) and all of this was also remarkably close to Mazzucato’s ideas. Of course, this connection could have been serendipitous, after all Mazzucato and Corbyn were not the first people to call for a green revolution. Yet, given the evidence from MPs and advisors, it can be confidently asserted that her thinking was influential. Her message for a more active role of the state in the economy sat well with Corbyn’s and McDonnell’ agenda on re-​nationalization.

21st century socialism and re-​nationalization The fears that gripped Crosland, the revisionists and New Labour about the image of nationalization disappeared under Corbyn. This time the Corbynistas perceived that the public mood had changed on this issue. Corbyn (2018) confidently asserted that ‘privatisation and outsourcing are now a national disaster zone’, after listing a series of high-​profile failures such as G4S running prisons, the operation of the railways, Carillion and so on. However, Corbynism was not simply about reverting back to the type of re-​nationalization associated with ‘Old’ Labour. During the Labour leadership campaign, it was evident that Corbyn’s brand of socialism was critical of the top-​down approach to re-​ nationalization, openly preferring a more shared ownership cooperative model (Nunn, 2018: 14). This was quite an explicit message throughout the interviews with Labour MPs, which was corroborated by the report, commissioned by the Shadow Chancellor, entitled Alternative Models of Ownership (AMO) (Labour Party, 2017c). Although the report directly informs the reader that the document did not represent Labour policy, it highlighted the seriousness by which new models were considered by the Labour leadership instead of re-​nationalizing in its centralized form. Moreover, academics close to the Labour leadership launched a new think tank, Common Wealth, to develop Labour’s economic agenda, with a particular focus on new ownership models (Pickard, 2019). Interestingly, Ed Miliband sat on the group’s advisory board.

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The think tank was led by Matthew Lawrence, one of the authors of the report Co-​operatives Unleashed (Lawrence et al, 2018), who argued for the inclusive ownership policy which proposed transferring 10 per cent of shares in all big UK companies to their workers. These models and policies closely aligned to Bennism around economic democracy and 1970s socialism (see Benn, 1975). However, both in speeches and interview transcripts, the Corbyn team carefully and repeatedly avoided their re-​nationalization plans being portrayed or somehow represented the return to ‘Old’ Labour. There were obvious political reasons for this, but it was also more than that. In Corbyn’s 2018 Labour conference speech, he mentioned four times the phrase 21st century, twice when talking about the economy. In his 2017 Labour conference speech, he stated that the National Education Service policy was ‘central to our socialism for the 21st century’. In his 2016 conference speech he proclaimed: With new forms of democratic public ownership, driven by investment in the technology and industries of the future, with decent jobs, education and housing for all with local services run by and for people not outsourced to faceless corporations. That’s not backward-​looking, it’s the very opposite. It’s the socialism of the 21st century. (Corbyn, 2016a) This was a consistent theme; avoiding an association with ‘Old’ Labour. This 21st century socialism would mean building ‘a genuinely mixed economy’ (Corbyn, 2018). This phrasing implied a greater role for the state, an entrepreneurial one, but one that would not suffocate the market. This was the language of revisionism, of moderation, not full-​scale Marxism. This centralist position carried on from the policies Corbyn advocated during the Labour leadership campaign where he apparently described his policy platform as ‘depressingly moderate’ (Nunn, 2018: 15). While this hints at a greater desire to instigate more radical change (this is discussed further on), the more nuanced, and arguably moderate, political positioning seemed to be dominant at this time. Corbynista MP after Corbynista MP explained that re-​ nationalization, commonly perceived as centralized, would not necessarily be the paradigm for public ownership. One staunch Corbyn supporting MP declared, “the difference is that when we talk about public ownership we are not talking about the state-​ run, top-​down monoliths that prevailed from the 1945 Labour government”. Another senior Corbynista and member of the shadow

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cabinet couched it in terms that they “believe in modern forms of public ownership which allow both producers and consumers to have a bigger say on how things are run”. Indeed, Corbyn (2018) outlined that ‘the change we need requires new ideas and new thinking … we need to explore new forms of ownership and public enterprise’. This new thinking on re-​nationalization was a theme within Corbynism. Fisher’s (2014: 109) thoughts here are instructive, because he made the criticism of previous nationalized industries as not always at the ‘cutting edge of dynamism’. Although careful not to denigrate the efficiency of public services in general, he was nonetheless cognizant of the previous inefficiencies of such state-​r un industries. This correlated with the position of a senior Corbynista MP and who was heavily involved in the policy development of the party and believed that “statism, centralisation, hierarchy and all of those characteristics, essentially older forms of socialism, clearly don’t work and don’t work now. I have never believed in it”. Key senior personnel dismissed readily and enthusiastically re-​nationalization in the form of centralizing power to Whitehall. For Corbynism, then, re-​nationalization was critical, but not old school nationalization. Cooperativism and mutual socialism were highly influential in Corbynism, with a member of the campaign group claiming “John [Mcdonnell] sees it as an alternative to state-​ centred economic management and maybe we will see a catharsis in the co-​operative movement”. The continuing message from Corbyn supporting MPs was that it was about democratizing the economy and empowering workers. Yet, before this democratization could take place, ‘the private ownership of public goods needs to be ended so that key parts of our economy are democratically controlled and accountable’ (Fisher, 2014: 108). Not only did the 2017 and 2019 manifestos reaffirm this key cornerstone policy, but also McDonnell (2018a) reiterated that ‘power also comes from ownership’ and then it could be redistributed to the employees. This industrial democracy was explicitly linked, by McDonnell (2018a), to the Co-​op party and especially the MP, Gareth Thomas. In 2018, their version of social democracy was at its heart: ‘I tell you that at the heart of our programme is the greatest extension of economic democratic rights that this country has ever seen. It starts in the workplace.’ (McDonnell, 2018a) This, of course, was not without precedent, as a staunch Corbynista MP explained that democratization of the economy was proposed in the 1974 manifesto. Indeed, this was an accurate statement. It is a message that was heavily associated with Benn, who strongly advocated the democratization of the economy throughout the 1970s.

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Before focusing on Bennism, it is important to turn the spotlight onto other measures that formed the 21st century socialism platform. One of these was Fisher’s citizens income idea: Universal Basic Income (UBI). It neatly demonstrated the influence of Fisher’s thinking and formed another critical aspect of a 21st century socialism. UBI is the idea that all citizens receive a basic income from the state regardless of their level of income. Although it is not a new idea, the basic notion of this idea has been around for over 100 years (see Bregman, 2017:  25–​77), it is nonetheless a radical proposal; a proposal the Shadow Chancellor flirted with since Corbyn’s leadership victory. As early as 2016, McDonnell was arguing that the debate to introduce a basic income for citizens could be won, despite strong opposition to its announcement (Cowburn, 2016). In 2017, McDonnell launched a review of policy to be led by Jonathan Reynolds, Shadow Treasury Minister, and Professor Guy Standing, at SOAS, to investigate its feasibility (Hawkes and Tolhurst, 2017). This review published its report, Basic Income as Common Dividends:  Piloting a Transformative Policy (Standing, 2019), and advocated piloting different forms and amounts of income in certain areas across the country in order to determine its effectiveness. While the report explicitly noted this was not reflective of Labour’s policy, McDonnell ‘hinted’ at it becoming policy and being in the next Labour Party manifesto (Giles, 2019). In the end, it was included in the 2019 manifesto (Labour Party, 2019: 60). It was clear that Fisher’s initial assessment and advocacy of the policy resonated with the Shadow Chancellor’s and the leadership’s thinking. Another radical idea announced at the 2019 conference by McDonnell (BBC News, 2019d) and included in the 2019 manifesto was the policy of reducing the working week from five days to four. This was also mentioned by Fisher and was a recognition of what is often called the fourth wave of industrialization, where a revolution in technology was reshaping the world of work. Increasingly, jobs previously done by humans were being undertaken by robots or automated systems. Reducing the working week, it is argued, would help stymie that trend. Perhaps more convincingly, another presumed benefit of reducing the working week would, allegedly, improve the productivity of workers. Regardless, of their presumed pros and cons, these two policies, as well as others, were radical for their time. UBI, in particular, was a radical idea that could revolutionize Britain’s welfare system; a system that was another part of Labour’s idea legacy. Both Keynes’ and Beveridge’s ideas, the pillars of Labour thought since 1945, were challenged as to their suitability for the 21st century.

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Quiet Bennism Bolton and Pitts (2018:  5) argued that Corbynism was centrally premised on a mixture of Bennism and what they described as ‘personalised forms of anti-​capitalism with Leninist central party planning’. Corbyn naturally brought the Bennism, and McDonnell, among others, brought the Leninism. Without a doubt, Corbyn ‘is one of the last standing Bennites in the Labour party’ (Seymour, 2016: 3). A member of the shadow cabinet explained, “Corbynism emerged from the left strand in the Labour party, it was previously known as Bennism, so Corbynism is not new as such”. This was the only MP who mentioned Bennism, which was a mixture of support for the democratization of industry and Benn’s foreign policy positions, including on the European Union (EU) –​famously Benn (1989: 286) wanted ‘to get the Labour party to come out against Europe’ in the lead up to the 1975 referendum because of the restrictions it placed on industrial policy and fears over sovereignty and democracy. A shadow cabinet member suggested that the lack of awareness over Bennism was because even among Corbyn supporting MPs their awareness and knowledge of what was happening was limited. A senior Labour special advisor overheard our conversation, interjected and commented that in the late 1970s there were two ways out of the then crisis facing Britain: Bennism or Thatcherism –​the ‘British ruling classes’ picked Thatcherism. This was Benn’s (1989: 302) view of the choice facing the government at the time, writing in his diary: Strategy A was the Tory strategy of a pay policy, higher taxes all round and deflation, with Britain staying in the Common market. Then strategy B which is the real Labour policy of savings jobs, a vigorous micro-​investment programme, import control, control of the banks and insurance companies, control of export, of capital, higher taxation of the rich, and Britain leaving the common market. Notice Benn explicitly linking the domestic economic agenda with the membership of the common market (the EU). This is important and will be returned to. The Thatcherite model, according to the special advisor, was now broken and appealed to a smaller and smaller base in society to the extent where “it could not sustain itself ”. The logic here was that the old social democratic consensus broke down in the 1970s, the New Right consensus broke down in 2008 and now was

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the time for Bennism. For the left in 2018, according to the special advisor, “everyone’s intellectual father, or reference point, is Bennism, even if they don’t realise it”. Recent policy pamphlets, according to Bolton and Pitts (2018: 22), sustained this position. For them, Bennism’s economic strategy was the AES and, as a result, this strategy should be compared to the AMO. Benn certainly advocated the AES (however, it was not his idea, it was Stuart Holland’s idea from the early 1970s; see Chapter 1) because it was about regenerating the industrial capacity of the UK after decades of decline. Bolton and Pitts concluded that there were striking similarities between the AES and AMO documents, especially in relation to an emphasis on economic nationalism (see Chapter 6). At this stage, the AMO document, released in 2017, stressed that it was an explorative paper to assess all the options available. Nevertheless, in 2018, some of its proposals were officially adopted by the Labour Party. McDonnell’s (2018a) Labour conference speech set out Labour’s new framework of ‘economic democratic rights’ that directly emanated from AMO’s (2017: 30) paper about ‘increasing democratic accountability’ in the economy. McDonnell (2018a) declared after years of talking about industrial democracy the Labour Party would now ‘legislate to implement it’, which would include things like an Inclusive Ownership Fund, setting up a Public and Community Ownership unit at the Treasury, and launching a consultation on democratic accountability in public services. This agenda was an implicit homage to Benn. Yet, it is hard to definitively establish that Bennism was at the heart of the new central vision of the Labour Party. It was a big idea that could have offered a solution, or at least an alternative path, to neoliberalism that had won out in the 1970s. There were three reasons why Bennism was not trumpeted: • As highlighted by an MP earlier, a lot of the PLP were oblivious to Bennism being the leadership’s guide in policy development. It is difficult to promote something you do not know. • There were political reasons for developing a new Bennism quietly, given its association with ‘Old’ Labour. • There was no attempt, at least in a public sense, to articulate a new ‘big’ idea. This was deliberate. A prominent and staunch Corbyn supporting MP indignantly said, “this is much more than that. This is literally a fundamental transformation of our economy, our country, our society”. In other

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words, the transformation would be at such an unbelievable scale that no phrase, vision or ‘big’ idea could encapsulate it. As a result, “we certainly won’t be looking for a clever slogan, soundbite”, said a staunch Corbynista MP. In a more critical tone, a pro-​remain MP and sceptic of Corbynism said the left’s policy platform is “a collection of individual policies, some of which are new, some of which are very long-​standing, 30  years old or more”. From the left’s perspective, there was legitimate scepticism that some ‘big’ ideas have only been, ultimately, slogans for electoral purposes, but a more senior Corbynista MP explained a deeper rationale for their position: “I don’t think the situation the country is susceptible to a single ‘big’ idea. I think it is quite a complex situation we are in.” Although this was most certainly the case, it is evident from Thatcher’s success with neoliberalism (see Hall, 1993) that a single idea that both identifies the problem and offers a solution to it can not only be electorally successful in unstable times but can also set the tone for the next four decades. There was a mixed reaction to the apparent unwillingness to articulate a ‘big’ idea among other Labour MPs. A number of them made an immediate comparison to the Ed Miliband era: “In the 2015 election, there was no overarching ideas and that was a real hindrance in trying to persuade people to vote Labour,” said a pro-​remain MP. In a similar vein, but confrontational in tone, another pro-​remain MP said: “We are not in an intellectual environment where we are debating ideas, we are debating individual policies. And I think that’s a bad thing. It is a retail approach to elections that I do not share. I don’t think that only Jeremy does it, Ed did it too”. The clear inference was that Corbynism was Milibandism to the extent that they were going for a retail offer (propose certain policies that would appeal to specific demographical voters) to the public and that was the path to electoral victory. A  newly elected member, who was unsympathetic to the Corbyn project, expressed an analogous opinion, ‘I’ve not had anybody who describes themselves as a Corbynite come forward with a grand vision. It is like broadcasting, tick. Next thing, transport –​right well we’ll renationalize the railways, tick. And so on. We are going to do that, but why? What does that deliver?’ It is vital to note this was not the sole view from a group of MPs unsupportive of Corbynism. Although the tone was different, both pro-​and anti-​Corbyn MPs were unaware of the ‘big’ idea or the grand vision. What was interesting from these discussions was the presumption

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that the retail approach was being adopted. This is because it is explicitly an electoral strategy based on appealing to the interests of many specific groups of voters. The hoped outcome is that these series of targeted appeals to specific interest groups brings the collective benefit of them all voting for that party. This strategy is usually associated with the right of the party; the wing of the party ‘concerned’ with winning. While it was accurate to say that Ed Miliband eventually adopted this approach, it is important to point out that Corbyn’s narrative was radically different on austerity. Being simultaneously anti-​austerity and adopting a retail electoral strategy could explain, in part, the reasons for the Labour Party’s better-​than-​expected electoral performance in 2017 (see Dorey, 2017). Yet, it also reveals that Corbynism was not, as some on the right of the party categorized it, as unconcerned with electoral victory. If it were complacent about this, then we would see the left of the party articulating the ‘big’ ideas as it had done in the past, ambivalent to the electoral consequences of those statements. That was not the case in 2017. The retail policy approach was also interesting because it invokes memories of another electoral strategy deployed in the late 1990s which focused on key policies, as opposed to overarching ideas: New Labour’s pledge card policies. A  Blairite MP who was a sceptic of Corbynism put it to me: ‘People didn’t vote for Blair because he talked about the Third Way. He didn’t go around in the mid-​90s talking about it. He went around talking about education, education, education. And he went around talking about crime being a scourge in people’s lives.’ This reflected the attitude of the Corbynistas:  they wanted to talk about real, relatable issues in their election pitch, instead of opaque ideas. This lack of a ‘big’ idea, however, was more troubling for MPs that classed themselves as factionless. A pro-​remain MP passionately expressed the view that the party had put itself ‘into a state where people feel unable to explore big ideas or come up with big ideas. I think it is interesting that the dominant noise in the party, the major voice, are the people who know what they don’t want. They know what they are going to protest against. But what are we for? What’s the alternative?’

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That was a very good question. It was extremely difficult to pin down exactly the alternative. The majority of MPs were unsure or regurgitated anodyne statements that Corbynism was ‘for the many, not the few’. After pressing a senior Corbynista MPs on what would replace neoliberalism, the responses were vague and unclear. There was clarity on what the Corbynistas were against: neoliberalism. But that was where the clarity ended. The rest of the conversations meandered around important things like inequality, corporation tax, redistribution, but none of it could reasonably be described as a coherent alternative to neoliberalism. The left was either still searching for a coherent, guiding idea to define the new zeitgeist, electorally positioning itself as an anti-​establishment movement in order to ascend to power or quietly upgrading Bennism. At the top of the leadership team, it was definitely the latter.

The Labour ‘right’ under Corbynism The Labour Party at this time, like the Conservatives, were split. Tensions eased briefly post Corbyn’s electoral performance in 2017, but some MPs’ unease and discomfort were still simmering underneath a thin veneer. It was portrayed as a left and right battle; the hard left vs the Blairite right. But what was at the core of the dispute? Ideas? Policies? Electoral strategy? It was evident that it was not about the former two. To have competition between ideas you require an idea, or ideas, from the different camps. In this case, the right was silent and split. Some MPs seen to be on the right of the party favoured a return to Keynesian economics, based on the old right-​wing social democratic principles. An MP who was a vocal critic of Corbyn explained that the future of the party was to marry a return to Keynesian economics with patriotism, which was “genuinely the spirit of 45; it would absolutely be a winning formula”. However, there was nothing new here and, indeed, this expressed view could be seen cynically as an ameliorative political repositioning given the then ascendancy of Corbynism. It was clear the right of the party was searching for a new, guiding idea and was hampered in this task due to being bereft of intellectual heavyweights such as Crosland, Brown or Blair. There was no single person to rally around, no competing vision. This situation was made worse, in an echo of the SDP split in 1981, with the loss of a number of moderate Labour MPs on 18 February 2019 (BBC News, 2019a). A  new intake MP, who described themselves as soft left, thought

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those MPs, and a number of others, had a “passion, obsession, quite sometimes unhealthy positioning that if Tony Blair came back that would solve all our problems. I don’t share that view. I don’t see how going back to a 1994, 1997 scenario for a country in 2018 somehow makes things better”. The insinuation was that elements of the right were still stuck in the past, unable to discern new solutions to different problems. A senior Corbynista and member of the shadow cabinet declared “they have nothing new to offer” and were working off an electoral strategy more than 20 years old. They were stuck in a “mid-​to-​late 90s time warp”. Owen Jones (2017), a columnist for The Guardian and well-​known supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, wrote that the Labour right risked falling into the arguments it threw at the left: ‘stuck in the past, inflexible, dogma over evidence.’ This was echoed by Richards (2016: 12), who noted that although a portion of the PLP wanted Corbyn out they did not have an alternative ideology to challenge him with. Fisher (2014:  102) articulated exactly where the Corbynistas believed the Blairites to be situated intellectually: ‘they are competing to manage a failed experiment [of neoliberalism].’ There was substantial evidence for this and it was a major problem for that wing of the party, with it becoming synonymous with “old school thinking”, said a gleeful and staunch Corbynista MP. Perhaps the most damaging criticism came from another prominent Corbynista MP who observed, perceptively, that the important thing that “New Labour said, that was true, was that you had to learn from history, that you have to constantly modernise, but it seems many of those people have failed to learn their own lesson”. This was a point of agreement between the two factions, with a Blairite MP recognizing the same failure: “The whole point of New Labour was to be constantly innovating, constantly modernising and we ran out of steam in terms of ideas.” This was echoed by a shadow minister, who thought neither Blair or Brown had seriously thought about how to embed their ideas in the party and had not developed, or prevented any development, of any new ideas. As the minister explained, “Nothing can stay new forever. The word ‘new’ was fine for the late 90s and early noughties, but what it did not do was tell you where to go after that. In that sense, there was a running out of ideas.” While New Labour failed to adhere to its own mantra to constantly regenerate and develop new ideas, it is worth bearing in mind that this modernization argument, the constant need to reinvent and innovate intellectually, had previously riled the left and was seen by many as a sell-​out of traditional Labour values. Nonetheless, the point remains

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and was salient, the right obviously failed to modernize itself to the new politics and, as a consequence, floundered in that political environment. In a crisis of the status quo, the public, and many members of the Labour Party, were unwilling to listen to the voices that just advocated the idea of neoliberalism, which was a return to the status quo. They were looking for change and solutions. Nor would the unions, the erstwhile backstop of the right of the party, come to their rescue. In a scenario similar to the late 1970s, where a Labour government crossed swords with and disenfranchised the unions, under the New Labour era the unions became disillusioned and critical of a Labour government after what they saw as their interests being ignored, creating a festering sense of betrayal. Nunn (2018:  144–​5) described how the unions had turned left, particularly the new generation of unions leaders, who observed New Labour taking away the traditional and influential role the unions played in the party. This was exemplified by the robust support of Unite’s general secretary, Len McCluskey, for Corbyn, both as a leadership candidate and as leader. McCluskey struck a defiant tone to those MPs hostile to Corbyn, urging them to either back Corbyn or ‘leave the party’ (Syal, 2018) –​something some of them eventually acted on. His rhetoric was consistent throughout the leadership years telling ‘Corbyn-​hating MPs’ to stop working in cahoots with Tory newspapers over the anti-​Semitism issue (Merrick, 2018) and claiming Labour would attract more members if Blair left the party (BBC News, 2018a). With party members, and now unions too, only a section of the PLP offered a bastion of hope for those positioned in the centre of the party.

Corbynism’s battles The 2017 manifesto was a critical document for the Labour Party, its MPs and the debate around policy. For many within the PLP, even hostile MPs to the Corbyn project, the manifesto was seen as a triumph, as it was a document that all MPs could rally around. A  moderate Labour MP believed the economic message in the manifesto was “tremendously exciting [given] that we have moved away from the slightly mixed messages [a reference to the Miliband era] we were sending on borrowing to invest … there is now clear red water”. This is pertinent because, as we have established, Corbyn and his allies viewed the document as a moderate position. An MP that was a close ally and friend to Corbyn went as far to say that “the manifesto isn’t

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in any way, shape or form a left-​wing document”. This person listed several policies covering different areas in the manifesto expressing the view that they were not left wing. Although it was difficult to take this statement too seriously, it did hint to the moderate position, at least viewed through a Labour lens, that Corbyn was taking in policy terms of the 2017 manifesto. This all changed, in terms of radicalism, with the 2019 manifesto. Even though the 2017 manifesto bound the MPs together, MPs sceptical of Corbynism still hesitated to fully support Corbyn’s leadership. A telling contribution came from an MP, positioned on the soft left wing of the party, who was scathing about both left and right camps: ‘The truth is the majority of the PLP are content with the manifesto, these are not problematical ideas for Labour MPs. I think the concern about Corbyn project is about turning the Labour Party into some kind of different organisation that doesn’t represent those traditional interests, and is only dominated by the hard left. That consists of more than Marxist-​inspired ideas. They fear a level of intolerance to different ideas. They drain out civility in the party.’ The clear inference was that the 2017 manifesto was a moderate social democratic mask, which will slip off at some stage unveiling a harder, more intolerant ideology and attitude that was anathema to most of the PLP. This fear was echoed by a new intake MP who described the situation as “if you deviate at all on ideas or policies you are attacked for it”. There was little from Corbyn supporting MPs, unsurprisingly, that gave this fear any credence. Yet a few, and senior, Corbynista MPs hinted at a more aggressive stance once the party was in power: “This isn’t just about having a nice Labour government, it’s about a Labour government that’s committed to a fundamental and irreversible shift in wealth, power and importantly control in favour of working people. In favour of the 99%,” said a shadow cabinet member. This was directly aimed at the neoliberal supporting elite who would robustly defend the old system, but the inclusion of the word ‘nice’ was interesting. It would suggest there would be a nasty edge to the government, necessarily so in order to change the system and tackle the vested interests that, as Corbynistas saw it, would resist this change. This nasty edge and lack of civility paid testament to the fact that the ideological split in the party was alive and well. There were several

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visceral contributions from MPs on both sides. A staunch Corbynista believed that New Labour people ‘shouldn’t be in the party. I think it was Tony Benn who referred to New Labour as cuckoos in the nest. They’re an alien force in the Labour nest. They spent their political lives pushing Labour’s traditional eggs out of the nest, but they didn’t succeed’. This belief, that somehow New Labour were an alien force to the Labour Party, was echoed by other Corbyn supporting MPs, with one stalwart MP who described New Labour as an “aberration” and an “entity” which had a “collection of individuals who purported to be a party” that had the sole purpose of remaining in power. Corbyn and McDonnell, in their view, represented a return to the “roots” of the Labour Party, said a loyal Corbyn MP. Others were more reserved in their hostility, preferring the tone of disappointment, which centred on New Labour’s presumed inability to see the “blindingly obvious”, namely the desire and need for radical change, and instead conflate “the far left with the far right. I  mean that’s an abuse of reality”, expressed a new intake MP. This hostility was even in the literature covering Corbyn’s initial rise, such as Alex Nunn’s (2018: 133) book, The Candidate, which struggled to hide the animosity against New Labour, describing New Labour as social democrats being ‘infected’ by neoliberal economics. The same applied to Richard Seymour’s (2016: 140) book, Corbyn, who described Blair as an ‘SDP viper in the Labour breast’. These analyses were viewed by a Labour MP, who was in neither camp, as “too simplistic”, but that there was certainly an issue with New Labour with regard to “drifting too close to the interests of big corporate bodies, and perhaps being too ready to accept that the power relationship had changed and that the state was unable to exercise any sort of powerful role within the economic system”. In short, New Labour disempowered the state as a tool to change society or the economic system. Instead, the state was only a tool to ameliorate the losses of people who did not benefit from the economic model. The response from the right to these accusations was to launch their own attack, that Corbynism, and the ideas that underpinned it, was harking back to a version of 1970s socialism. An MP deeply sceptical of Corbynism and on the right of the party explained that they were still wondering what “modern socialism” looked like, because all they have “seen was the application of old ideas in a new setting”. This sentiment encapsulated the feeling among the majority of MPs who were still concerned about Corbynism, despite the 2017 election result and manifesto. There was the feeling that although these ideas were

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popular, once put into practice they would ultimately fail to deliver. There was also concern that the hostility, as they saw it, coming from the leadership, was inhibiting the development of new ideas for the new political environment. An MP not supportive of Corbyn stated that “they would cast me as right wing, because they would associate me with being constantly in support of being in government, in favour of modernising the party, not supporting Jeremy for the leadership”, but it was “a false dichotomy” that “blocks out new ideas”. While the leadership’s hostility to an MP openly unsympathetic to their agenda was unsurprising, the more interesting insinuation was that MPs were often castigated as ‘right wing’ for simply suggesting new ideas. It also did not help, in this MP’s view, that “people like Andrew Fisher give no acknowledgement about what a seismic victory and how brilliant [Blair’s] government was”. Indeed, “he has done nothing particular apart from shout at the Labour Party and shout at Labour MPs”. This was not in reference to his then contribution, but more an expression of his past actions towards the party before the new leadership took over. On Fisher’s, McDonnell’s and Corbyn’s policy platform, an anti-​Corbyn MP expressed serious concern at the idea “that we could borrow to re-​nationalise industries as a way to deal with globalisation seems not only out of date, but also short-​sighted”. This position was very much in the minority, but it did encapsulate the leadership’s response to what they saw as the problems generated by globalization. This was very much a traditional ‘response’. In this sense, for the left, New Labour was a blip, an aberration, even from the old right position of Crosland. They were just returning the party back to his traditional roots and ideas. The argument that Corbynism represented a rehash of 1970s socialism was quickly dismissed by MPs close to Corbyn with comments such as “it shows how little people understand of history or the present day … because it is not about returning to the 1970s”. Another significant and senior Corbynista MP dismissively declared, “it is clearly untrue. It is not the rehashed ideas of the 70s or 80s”. They described this view as a deliberate ‘caricature’ of the left’s position, because the reverse was accurate in that they were dealing with the current realities, namely that the Blair model of markets, modernity and globalization had evidently failed in 2008. Even before 2008, this MP claimed, the model was already starting to fail to deliver for many communities up and down the country, both “holding them back and leaving them behind”. This, of course, was also recognized by Ed Miliband and figures like Jon Cruddas during the former’s leadership years. However, in the same breath, Corbyn supporting MPs spoke fondly of the 1970s because it

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was pre-​neoliberalism and working people had far “more opportunity” and “security and stability” in their lives. Moreover, a Labour MP and member of the Socialist Campaign group admitted that Corbyn was a “throwback” to a “more traditionally left-​wing position”. There can little doubt that while the leadership, and most of their PLP supporters, keenly dismissed the suggestion they were returning to ‘Old’ Labour, the appeal of Corbyn lay in the very notion of a return to a ‘traditional’ Labour position. Interestingly, a number of MPs had concluded that the party was not engaged in a battle of ideas, but personalities: “The ideas have gone out the window. It’s about old squabbles coming up. Some of which are purely gratuitous, some of which are long-​standing,” believed a Labour MP and member of the Socialist Campaign group. When it came to many issues, including things like Brexit, there was huge frustration, from all perspectives, that in their view it had come down to a clash of personalities. The frustration was that certain MPs from the right were “more interested in being the next leader”, said a pro-​remain MP, than building a movement within the PLP to challenge Brexit. This had “put off” many MPs from getting involved and who “were failing the country”, explained another pro-​remain Labour MP. Another staunchly pro-​remain MP expressed the same frustration with certain Labour MPs who “pushed too far” because it was “more about [them] than getting the result we actually need”. In short, prominent members on the right made the fight about Brexit a matter of personalities and attacked Corbyn as opposed to remaining in the EU, thus alienating many MPs who were sympathetic to the pro-​remain position. From the Corbynistas’ perspective, the problem emanated, ostensibly, from the right “who haven’t got a degree of loyalty to the Labour party” and “jumped on bandwagons, jumped off greasy poles” in order to acquire some sort of power while Labour was winning, stated a Labour MP and member of the Socialist Campaign group. The obvious insinuation was that New Labour acolytes only joined the party because it was winning, they would have easily joined the Conservative party if they had been winning during late 1990s and 2000s. That might be the case for a few MPs, but what was more striking was the number of MPs labelled as Blairites by the left, who had been effectively marginalized in the PLP, but who agreed with Corbynism’s critique of New Labour. This was particularly true in relation to globalization, both the economic aspects of losing things like the manufacturing industry and culturally where communities feel that they have been left behind (see Chapter 6 for a more detailed discussion on this matter). An MP, labelled a Blairite and on the

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hostile section of the infamous Corbyn list of Labour MPs (see Stone, 2019), gave his opinion that “I am afraid that there is a big wing of the party that get branded as Blairites, but I don’t know how many of us would ever describe ourselves as Blairites”. This group of MPs could perhaps be categorized as members of the old right, a Croslandite social democrat. The demarcation of the split in the right was on the issue of globalization; some were for it, others were far more cautious. This was a significant split that hampered any renewal of ideas on the right of the party.

Conclusion Corbynism was many things, but it could be de-​stilled into several pillars: • Anti-​austerity and neoliberalism: Like the majority of all new waves of political thought, they are often defined by what they are against, rather than what they are for. To this extent, Corbynism was partly a wave of anti-​austerity sentiment and a rejection of the dominant idea of neoliberalism. • Concerned with electoral success: Unlike the caricature of the left who the right claimed were unconcerned with electability, this resurgence, at least under the guidance of McDonnell, had one eye on electoral concerns. They did worry about being castigated as ‘Old’ Labour and just a return to the 70s, because of the potential political consequences of such assertions. They were also less cavalier, then commonly seen, on the borrowing front, choosing to understate it and pushing the message borrow to invest, certainly for the 2017 manifesto. In addition, the strategy of renewal deliberately avoided a totemic ‘big’ idea. • Re-​nationalization: Part of the borrow to invest strategy was to take back control over critical areas of the economy, as outlined in the 2017 and 2019 manifestos. It was also about building infrastructure, particularly green infrastructure. Yet, it was keen to do so in a way that harked back to the Benn era of industrial democracy and giving workers more control over their workplaces. • 21st century socialism: The leading figures of this, John McDonnell, Andrew Fisher and the rest of their team, were genuinely considering a new set of ideas and policies that would have brought 21st century socialism to life. All these leading figures heavily criticized the New Labour governments for various actions and were clearly determined to develop something in response to that government’s perceived

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failures. They engaged with new thinkers and took up new ideas as long as they fitted within the framework of their version of Socialism. The Entrepreneurial State, venture public capital, UBI and a four-​day week all came under this umbrella. The advocates of Corbynism were keen to truly update Socialism, or more accurately Bennism. • Quiet Bennism: The centrepiece of Bennism was industrial democracy, giving workers control. He was also a strong advocate of the AES (see Chapter 1). Both of these were taken up by Corbyn and his team. • Anti-​globalization and pro-​Brexit: These were other elements of Bennism taken up by the left that caused the major split in the party, at least on the ideas front. The disagreement between these two sections (right and left) of the party on this subject was quite profound, centering upon globalization, both culturally and economically. Several MPs referred to this split. There was a noticeable amount of hostility from the Corbynistas to globalization, with one very staunch Corbynista expressing the view that ‘we moved away from the manufacturing base of the economy, which provided quality, well-​paid and secure jobs with a career plan for millions of workers [to] the advent of globalisation and the adoption of Hayek’s philosophy of neoliberalism which saw those jobs close and offshored to low wage economies.’ This point of contestation was important and speaks volumes about the debate around Brexit. Benn was famously against joining the EU and campaigned for a No vote in the 1975 referendum. He also openly advocated economic protectionism, at least over the medium term, in order to protect and restructure the British economy away from what he saw as the power of global capital. The pro-​Brexit and anti-​globalization position taken by the leadership splintered the party.

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6

Corbynism: Brexit and Globalization A vocal Corbynista MP declared, “New Labour, in my opinion, are responsible for the country voting Brexit, because we lacked an industrial strategy, meaning the communities that were decimated and abandoned by Thatcher and Major’s policy continued to be abandoned”. This MP pulled no punches, firmly laying the majority leave vote at New Labour’s door. The left believed that New Labour’s failure to economically regenerate these areas post-​Thatcher combined with its warm embrace of globalization, immigration and its role in the 2008 financial crisis (precipitating the austerity which followed) created the conditions for the leave vote. This view was not uncommon among Corbyn supporting MPs and there was some logic to it. Those on the left categorically laid the intellectual blame on New Labour for following the economic model of neoliberalism; and explicitly wrapped this view within the issues of the EU and globalization. This troika of issues was at the heart of the internal strife of the Labour Party. Yet, these three issues were not equal partners in creating this strife. Different positions on Brexit were the symptom of a growing chasm between MPs, driven in large part by the different demography of their constituencies and how these constituencies, if at all, benefited from globalization and the neoliberal economic model that underpinned it. As we have read, Blue Labour first picked up on this issue as many activists and MPs saw a growing disconnect between working class voters and the party on economic and cultural issues (see Chapter 3); a disconnection that UKIP, the Brexit Party and the Conservatives, under Boris Johnson’s leadership, skillfully exploited. It was the right, not the left, in the Labour Party that drove Blue Labour, but the left was also concerned by this disconnection. It was the response to this disconnection where the split was manifested in the party and it was Brexit that forced this disconnection into the open,

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encapsulating in a single issue the ideological, electoral and economical split in the party. The defining aspect, however, of the divide was on economics, fundamentally between nationalist, protectionist economics and global free trade. It was not on the cultural aspect, because there was little difference between the two sides within the party; they both supported the socially liberal stance of accepting the cultural consequences of globalization.

Globalization, neoliberalism and economic nationalism The terms globalization and neoliberalism are heavily contested in relation to their precise meaning. They are also frequently used interchangeably, even though they are distinct concepts. Yet, although globalization covers many facets of human life, nearly all academic literature concurs that one of the central pillars to it is the increasing interconnectedness of nation-​state markets, forming a global marketplace. This integration has taken time and happened in waves, one of which was the third wave of neoliberal regulation (Crouch, 2019: 16). It is this wave which has been challenged since the financial crash in 2008. Deregulation and increased capital flows between countries are two principle pillars of neoliberalism, meaning economic globalization has ‘become the most overt manifestations of neoliberalism in today’s world’ (Rodrik, 2017). This situation did not bypass the left. In 2018, McDonnell (2018b: viii) declared that since the 2008 financial crash, ‘we have been approaching the end of the road for this economic model’. McDonnell (2016), two years earlier, had signalled his hostility to neoliberalism and economic globalization in a speech to Labour conference stating unequivocally, ‘there will be no more support for TTIP [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership] or any other trade deal that promotes deregulation and privatisation’. TTIP was the policy epitome of neoliberalism, as it was a trade deal between the US and the EU, focusing on reducing trading barriers and tariffs. There was a great deal of consensus in the PLP that the neoliberal paradigm was coming to an end, or, at the very least, a recognition that it was being seriously questioned. There were differences, however, how this should have been confronted, with Corbyn’s economic message, pre the 2016 referendum, premised on heavy state intervention in the economy and a robust scepticism of global free trade, leading the way in terms of popularity within the wider party. The radical nature of this message was viewed as warranted because the policy nostrums that underpinned conventional social democracy everywhere, a mixed economy and Keynesian intervention, ‘will no longer avail,

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because global capitalism would reject them much as a body rejects an organ implant’ (Seymour, 2016: 90). Yet, the referendum on the UK leaving the EU in 2016 scuppered the momentum of this message. The referendum campaign propelled the existential crisis building within the party in response to globalization into the open. It also created a policy trigger for the Labour right to effectively challenge Corbyn, after the failure of previous attempts, as it allowed them to drive a wedge between the majority of Labour’s members, young voters and the leadership (Jones, 2017). This political positioning by the right of the party undermined Corbyn’s and McDonnell’s economic message into a debate about staying in or leaving the EU. The referendum debate immediately highlighted the reticence of key figures behind Corbynism, not least Corbyn himself, to fully back the remain campaign. This should not have come as a surprise, given Corbyn was a Bennite –​Tony Benn opposed the EU principally on democratic and economic grounds. In a passionate speech on the subject in the House of Commons, Benn (1991) referred to the treaty of Rome, one of the founding treaties of the EU, as a ‘ghastly proposal, which is clumsy, secretive, centralized, bureaucratic and divisive. That is how I regard the treaty of Rome.’ Benn’s sentiment was still carried by Corbyn and his leadership team, thus they struggled to wholeheartedly support the case to remain in the EU. A senior Corbyn supporting MP candidly illuminated this reticence explaining that the leadership team “had long debates about it. Our view [in the end] was to argue for remain, but reform” and that “reform had to be fundamental”. The length of the leadership debate suggested there were quite a number of people in the leadership team arguing to side on the leave campaign or, at the very least, questioned automatic support for remain. Indeed, a shadow cabinet member admitted they “erred towards the leave side of the debate”. In the end, the compromise of remain and reform was taken. This position was set out by Corbyn (2016b) in an article for Labourlist, requiring the EU to implement democratic reforms, economic reform in terms of ending austerity across Europe and extending workers’ rights. The critical reform, however, was to give ‘new rights for governments and elected authorities to support public enterprise and halt the pressure to privatise services’. It was no coincidence that Benn’s concerns around democracy and the ability for the state to intervene in the economy were in the reform package. This compromise was exemplified by Corbyn (2016c) stating on a television programme that he was ‘seven … out of ten’ in terms of remaining in the EU. This statement was met with astonishment by many Labour MPs. With “major issues like this you cannot be half

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in, you have to go all in on it”, explained a pro-​remain MP. Another pro-​remain MP and Blairite indignantly retorted, “Jeremy has always been against the EU, because in his view it is a rich man’s club”. It did not come as a surprise to another MP, allied to neither camp, either, because the “traditional left are lukewarm, if not anti, EU –​they see it as a capitalist club. For a lot of them, the socialism in one country fantasy is quite beguiling”. This concept of ‘socialism in one country’ stands out, and fits within the economic narrative, at least, of Corbynism and Bennism. This was exemplified by the position on re-​nationalization. It is unsurprising that the Labour Party took a pro-​nationalization platform –​it formed the building blocks of the party’s belief in common ownership and for greater state involvement in the economy. Yet, perhaps inevitably, such a strong endorsement of re-​nationalization in an era of relentless exchange of ideas and capital signalled, at the very least, a small n-​nationalist policy position. This was evident in speeches from senior figures such as McDonnell at the 2015 Labour conference, where he argued: I found the Conservatives rant against Jeremy’s proposal to bring rail back into public ownership ironic when George Osborne was touring China selling off, to the Chinese State Bank, any British asset he could lay his hands on. It seems the state nationalising our assets is ok with the Tories as long as it’s the Chinese state or in the case of our railways the Dutch or French. This correlated to the central premise that Corbynism, a vision of socialism based on economic nationalism, was to develop local and national obstacles to global capital flows around the country. This was akin to Benn’s position on the economy, where he advocated protectionism in order to insulate the British economy from global capital. He argued, in response to the IMF crisis facing the then Labour government in 1976, that: There are broadly two courses open to us: the monetarist course which the Treasury recommend, and the protectionist course which is the one I have consistently recommended for two and half years. If you compare them, protectionism is a perfectly respectable course of action. It is compatible with our strategy. You withdraw behind walls and reconstruct and re-​emerge. (Benn, 1989: 621)

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This reconstruction and re-​emergence would take the form of greater state intervention into the economy and more democracy in the workplace. For Bolton and Pitts (2018: 131), economic nationalism, which the Corbynistas termed as economic democracy, was based on Bennism. While simultaneously rejecting the aforementioned notion of continuing with TTIP, McDonnell (2015) expressed the view that ‘we’ll make sure any future government has the power to intervene in our economy in the interests of the whole country’. In limiting capital flow and improving internal investment, workers acquire power to ‘take back control’ of the productive capacity (Bolton and Pitts, 2018:  129). The irony of this phrase was not coincidental. This control would be exercised through greater democracy in the workplace, something Benn strongly advocated in the 1970s and early 1980s (see Benn, 1975). In that tradition, McDonnell (2018a) argued that democracy was at the heart of socialism and this meant extending the franchise to workers in the workplace. This speech, and the policies announced during it, such as the Inclusive Ownership Fund, was Bennism. It was the rebirth of an industrial democracy and the repudiation of globalization in favour of a nation-​state focused economy. It was the opposite to Blair’s (2005) view of what works in a globalized world: ‘in the era of rapid globalisation, there is no mystery about what works: an open, liberal economy, prepared constantly to change to remain competitive.’ An open and liberalized economy were the operative words. The accusation that the left was advocating an economic nationalist model was entirely rejected by a shadow cabinet minister believing this was premised on a “misunderstanding of what internationalism is”. For this shadow cabinet minister, it was not the internationalism of Blair which worked with “powerful countries to bomb other people’s countries and an unconditional worshipping of the EU as the most perfect form of politics, economics ever developed”. Instead, it was based on a common understanding with workers in other countries instead of “billionaires in our own”. It was perfectly reasonable to argue there were different types of internationalism, but at that point in time the main policy responses by the left to resist the power of capital, essentially, had been focused on the domestic arena; whether that be increasing the power of workers within companies, more regulation on the city, re-​nationalization or setting up regional banks. Without castigating this policy platform in a negative or positive light, this certainly did not convey a free global trade agenda. It was not an internationalist agenda.

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It is worth reiterating that this policy platform was only convincing because of the financial crash in 2008; a system built on global free trade that was actively encouraged by the then Labour government. New Labour sold this model as being able to make people wealthier through the premise that the UK financial sector would consistently generate bumper tax revenues which could be redistributed. When this model failed, there was an understandable backlash against globalization and the flow of global capital (see Crouch, 2019). Indeed, this phenomenon was observed across the globe, notably in the US and Europe. This fightback against globalization and what was categorized as the ‘financial elite’ or the ‘establishment’ (see Jones, 2015) fitted within the new forms of public ownership model that were being considered and adopted by the Labour Party. All the new forms of public ownership were premised on the basis of enabling people to gain greater control over their lives through economic democracy. This was important because “the decisions bosses, employers and big businesses made on a day-​to-​day basis had more impact on people’s lives than what we decide in Parliament this week”, explained a senior Corbynista and shadow cabinet member. The primary purpose of this economic democracy, which was incidentally also closely aligned to the thinking of Blue Labour, was to resist the destabilizing and unsettling, almost whimsical, flows of capital that disrupted people’s lives through never-​ending global competition that necessitated cost-​cutting and flexibility which workers had to bear. In other words, this economic democracy was about resisting neoliberalism. This resistance was central to combating the sense of disempowerment, as the Corbynistas saw it, among many working class people; a disempowerment that acted like a catalyst to foment a backlash against immigrants and the EU. This was the “overarching framework” to ensure people were invested in society and the economy and was central to a future Labour government, said a pro-​remain Labour MP. The economic democracy narrative was also a critique of Blairism. Even MPs hostile to the Corbyn project criticized Blair’s acceptance of globalization, which in their view was a seminal moment for the Labour Party. In 2005, after New Labour’s third victory in a row, Blair (2005) gave a speech at Labour conference where he informed members that it was futile to discuss globalization: ‘I hear people say we have to stop and debate globalisation. You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer.’ Referring to Blair’s 2005 Labour conference speech, an MP, ironically labelled a Blairite by Corbyn’s allies, denounced Blair’s central message to voters that ‘globalisation is coming through like a train going 500 mph and you’ve got to get

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on that train, it is going to rip through your communities, it is going to decimate your manufacturer sectors, it is going to rip out the heart of your town and sorry mate, that’s just tough’. This was Blue Labour thinking, which corresponded neatly to the left’s new emphasis on economic nationalism. This MP was not the only moderate MP to question Blair’s acceptance of globalization. A Labour MP, who openly admitted their relationship with the leadership was not good, set out in what could be considered as hard left language, that “how can people say that the state does not have a role in dealing with the impact of ruthless global corporations raping and pillaging our economy”. This statement was said with feeling and conviction, leaving no hint of disingenuity. What was apparent from this statement, when compared to the others, was that MPs considered on the right of the party were split between those who still favoured the Blairite model around globalization –​roll over and accept it –​and those who supported the central thrust of Blue Labour –​resist it. Both the left, and a faction of the right of the PLP, had come to the same conclusion: a form of economic nationalism was needed in order to resist the worst excesses of global capital flows. The difference between the Blue Labour right and the left was that the Bennite form of economic nationalism required leaving the common market because ‘it is necessary to leave the single market so as to escape the restrictions on ‘state aid’ and procurement that prevent members from supporting national industries beyond a mutually agreed level’ (Bolton and Pitts, 2018: 132). In order to fulfil this necessity, according to Bolton and Pitts (2018: 130–​1), the government would have had to ‘retreat behind the borders of the nation-​state’ and to achieve this, required, among other things, ‘leaving the European Economic community and its common market’. This was bizarre logic, given the AES was premised on economic models from other European countries, such as Italy (see Holland 1972, 1975), who were in the common market and community. Yet, the case remained that in the left’s view state aid rules prevented, or at least curtailed, the development of an interventionist, nationalist economic strategy.

State aid This issue also became a major pillar of dispute between the right and left in the party. It was a repeating theme in interviews and was evident in public spats among Labour MPs and activists (see Stewart, 2018). These rules essentially prevented the intervention of public authorities (the state) from supporting, usually through finance, any organization

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that gave them an unfair advantage in the EU marketplace. Such rules, then, limited the extent of state intervention in key national industries and thus, in theory, would scupper, or at least curtail, re-​nationalization plans for a potential incoming Labour government. For the left of the party, this curtailing of state intervention in UK industry was unacceptable and thus formed one of the main justifications for the leadership’s lukewarm position on Brexit. These juxtapositions were a live debate within the PLP, with many pro-​remain MPs noting that the left was not keen on the EU because of state aid rules inhibiting the ability of a future Labour government to bring key services and industries into public ownership. In response to this, a staunch Corbynista MP said that was “not entirely fair, but that there was a germ of truth in it”. A shadow minister also believed that this was a “something in the economic stuff”, explaining, “I know it is a worry for them”. These comments, especially the ‘germ of truth’ statement, were refreshingly candid responses to questions about Brexit, as the majority of pro-​Corbyn MPs circumvented this point by insisting that their reason for respecting the vote ‘was based on democracy’. Of course, in probability both positions were simultaneously accurate. Indeed, the amalgam of these two points, democracy and the desire to remove the restrictions of state aid rules, was described as “Labour’s pro-​Brexit position” by an MP on the right of the party. The response to this pro-​Brexit position, especially on state aid rules, from pro-​remain MPs was hostile, tinged with a tone of frustration. Among the pro-​remain camp of MPs, they had adopted the language of describing the leave group of MPs position as ‘Legist’, with the members dubbed as Lexiteers –​Labour MPs who were pro-​Brexit. Many MPs described the state aid position of the left as ‘nonsense’ and claimed that a group of MPs had directly approached the leadership to explain why this was the case by showing how “the Germans and French [governments directly intervened in their economies] all the time”. As a result, a pro-​remain MP described the left’s position as “wrong, legally it is wrong. You can do it, countries do it all the time”. They noted how the Italians frequently circumvented state aid rules, outlining precisely what arguments the Italians had used. A backbench MP went further directly trying to undermine the line “that the vote must be respected” by the left as an act of pure self-​interest, noting the point that this “very small group” of MPs were only concerned with losing their seats, as they held seats that voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU. This pro-​remain MP cited two Lexiteers and described how they “would still win their seats” if the Labour Party said “Brexit was wrong”. Indeed, this MP claimed the numbers had been ‘crunched’ and

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the results had been explained to these pro-​Brexit MPs. Nevertheless, the Lexiteer group of MPs continued to ignore their arguments, hence the palpable frustration expressed by the majority of pro-​remain MPs. Unremarkably, it was evident from discussions with MPs that the PLP was overwhelmingly pro-​remain, and pro-​leave MPs were a very small minority. It was also apparent that a concerted effort had been made within the PLP to disprove the position of the left on state aid and on the ability for Labour to hold seats in the North, as MPs repeatedly explained that “it has been shown quite clearly [to the leadership] that remaining part of the EU would not stop nationalisation plans”. This strategy from pro-​Remainers did not work. In an interview with The Guardian that mainly focused on Labour’s Brexit policy in late December 2018, Corbyn reasserted Labour’s position on leaving the EU and raised his concerns over state aid rules explaining that he thought they had to be ‘looked at again’ because ‘if you want to regenerate an economy then I don’t want to be told by somebody else that we can’t use state aid in order to be able to develop industry in this country’ (Stewart, 2018). Continually holding this position was important, especially in relation to the PLP, because it represented a key point of departure for many MPs from the leadership, including MPs who had previously and unequivocally supported the leader. A new backbench MP who “absolutely hates the Corbynism and Blairite stuff” struck a frustrated tone in declaring, “The only thing I disagree with the frontbench on is Europe”. The leadership’s position on the EU, however, was consistent with their economic nationalism plans. Remaining part of the EU would, at the very least, make heavy state intervention to rebalance the economy difficult, requiring a constant need to find clever ways to flout EU rules. It would also make it difficult to resist in-​flows of foreign capital and, critically, workers into the UK. In a supportive comment piece in the Morning Star, Jonathan White (2019) nicely summarized the left’s position, ‘no-​one has said that you can’t have an industrial strategy within the EU. Of course, you can. But it would still have to bend itself to a competitive framework that places severe constraints on what you can do.’ These constraints, in his view, restricted the desperate need to fundamentally change the deindustrialization and financialization of the British economy. Despite all the debates and arguments about the relevance or power of state aid rules, a senior shadow cabinet minister candidly declared that if the Labour Party had got elected, and hypothetically the UK were still in the EU, they would have implemented their manifesto in full and “if the EU wanted to take us to court to say that we can’t do this or that with our railways

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or whatever, then we would have that fight at the time and see what happens”. This defiance was common among Corbynistas. They would carry on with their agenda regardless of EU rules and restrictions. Their economic plans would not be halted by the EU.

Trumpism and Corbynism One of the most fascinating aspect of the conversation about Corbynism, globalization and Brexit was the association some MPs saw between Corbyn and Trump. To be clear, given the sensitivity of making such an association, there was no attempt by MPs to suggest any moral or ideological equivalence. Instead, they premised the association on the rise of populism in reaction to economic and cultural changes wrought by globalization; and there are distinct versions of it that can be categorized broadly as left wing (Corbyn) and right wing (Trump). The left-​wing version of a backlash against globalization was what anti-​Corbyn MPs were referring to. An MP sceptical of the Corbyn project explained that “the rise of Corbyn and the rise of Trump is anchored in the same starting position which is the friction between globalization and national politics”. Emily Thornberry, Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury, recognized some similarities between Corbynism and Trumpism on their anti-​establishment message and on ‘an economic system that simply isn’t working for most people’ (Elgot and Brooks, 2016). During an interview on BBC Radio 4, Corbyn (2016d) responded to this proposed similarity commenting that ‘it was a very strange comparison’ and that they shared nothing in common. Indeed, Corbyn refused to attend a state visit banquet in Trump’s honour. On many levels, Corbyn was right that he and Trump shared nothing in common. However, when it came to the economic sphere there were some similarities, as Thornberry alluded to. This view was shared by a few MPs in the PLP, who saw connections between Trumpism and Corbynism in relation to economic nationalism and the populism that came along with taking that position. A shadow minister observed how Trump was a reaction to industrial decline in the US and appealed to those American voters who had seen their traditional industry leave their home states and viewed the residents of both the East and West coasts of the US as democratic liberal elites. The parallels of this process were made evident in the UK by the EU referendum. The ‘left behind’ (see Ford and Goodwin, 2014) communities had seen their traditional industries leave, saw relatively low economic gain from globalisation and viewed people in the major cities, particularly London, as bastions of an economic and cultural elite. In both cases,

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the argument for economic nationalism juxtapose to global free trade was a potent political message. This was not lost on Corbyn’s political advisors. They had noted the similarities and indeed viewed their job as ‘to make Jeremy Corbyn the Left’s Donald Trump’ (Evans, 2017). While Trump and Corbyn did not instigate the rise in populism, they sought to ride the wave it offered their respective political horses. It is controversial to associate Corbynism with populism; there is an argument around whether Corbynism represents populism at all. This is because populism is often seen as a negative and un-​progressive political force. This is unfair. Some populist movements are progressive in nature and are labelled populist because they challenge the status quo. In this case, its progressive nature is up for political debate, but ‘it is difficult not to see Corbyn’s success as synonymous with anything other than a distinctive brand of populism’ (Flinders, 2018). This brand has been the basis of Corbyn’s success, especially through his leadership victory that galvanized a new radical variant of left-​wing populism (Dorey, 2017). Both Trump and Corbyn’s aims were to ride the anti-​establishment wave. It is important to highlight that MPs were not necessarily lamenting Corbyn for taking this position; some even had some sympathy for it. They noted that Blair’s acceptance of rampant economic globalization helped foment a cultural and economic backlash and Labour’s antidote was Corbynism. A Blairite MP slammed their own group for not coming up with “ideas on how to deal with the negative consequences of globalisation” enabling the space for populists, both left and right wing, to sweep in and not only speak to people’s legitimate grievances, but also to offer them solutions. In other words, the right had no ideas about how to face the populist wave among the population, while the left had Corbynism. In of itself, MPs were not dismissive of people being offered solutions to the current problems. Rather, their anxiety centred on their perception that Corbynism offered solutions that were not based on new ideas, but rather old ones that offered a nostalgic comfort blanket by referring to a golden past. Once again, here, the same accusation could be levelled at Trump, especially around his slogan ‘Make America Great Again’. It was a reference to a golden past that could be returned to. The draw of nostalgia was intoxicating for many voters, something Blue Labour had noticed nearly a decade before (see Chapter 3). For many in the PLP, this was the essential problem for Corbynism. This feeling was palpable in the PLP, particularly, and unsurprisingly, among MPs who held reservations about Corbyn. In a thoughtful and reflective tone, a moderate Labour MP critical of Corbyn felt that ‘one of the criticisms of Jeremy and Trump, and I tend to put them in the same

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brackets in this assessment, is that they are not trying to understand the future and come up with new ideas, but to pull us back to where we were in the past’. For another backbench MP who openly declared themselves a Blairite, this argument could be boiled down to the old argument of purity vs pragmatism. In this MP’s view, the Corbynistas “are so wedded to their own paradigm that they are not open to new ideas and reality”. This was probably overstating the position, particularly in relation to McDonnell’s concerted effort to incorporate new ideas in order to develop a socialism for the 21st century. Yet, the Bennite elements of Corbynism offered a nostalgic pitch to members of the Labour Party and tried to speak to a broad swath of voters by offering a return to Britain’s industrial past. Both Trump and Corbyn were economic nationalists. Their views on free trade agreements and Brexit were interlinked. Both were Brexiteers and both were sceptical of free trade agreements with other countries. This was premised on many reasons, but the most pertinent was the perceived negative impact global free trade has on workers at home. Trump continually railed against ‘poor’ trade deals like NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) by focusing on its impact on American jobs (BBC News, 2018b). He frequently called on big companies to bring jobs home to the US (Niquette and Broady, 2019) and threatened retribution for any company that offshored jobs (Mui, 2016). On the EU, Trump’s scepticism had stretched back decades (Taylor, 2019), as did Corbyn’s. After all, the EU is the epitome of a free trade agenda, with the single market that is underpinned by the freedom of movement, capital, goods and services. This was contrary to the agenda of Trump, who frequently threatened trade tariffs with other countries, notably China. These stances formed an anti-​neoliberal agenda. It was economic protectionism in action. Corbynism offered the same agenda, albeit with different policies such as workers on boards, who would, presumably, fight against offshoring of jobs. Another point of policy departure was on nationalization. Trump would never countenance such a policy. However, in reality, it was just a different solution in combating the whims of global capital that Corbyn had decided to take. Although Corbynism was offering different forms of ownership and economic democracy, it was protectionist in nature. Both Trump’s and Corbyn’s economic nationalism, albeit pursued in different ways, was an anti-​neoliberal agenda which had proved popular, resonating on both sides of the Atlantic. Brexit was another example of this.

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Brexit Barry Gardiner (2018), Labour MP for Brent North, and Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, wrote a chapter for McDonnell’s (2018b) Economics for the Many, which was premised on a post-​Brexit economy. There was no discussion about staying in the EU. Instead, he outlined, rather contradictorily, Labour’s pro-​international trade agenda, but emphasized the need for nation state regulation because globalization created both winners and losers (Gardiner, 2018: 62–​5). Whether Labour MPs realized it or not, the economic platform being developed was anti-​globalization and anti-​free markets. This platform was hostile to the EU’s single market. The argument on state aid rules was a very public signifier of this stance. A middle of the road MP described how the party’s Brexit stance reminded them of the party’s attitude in the early 1970s and that you could have socialism in one country. This MP, positioned between the factions, explained that “Europeanism was an impediment to achieving socialism in one country because they would always go for a wishy, washy style of European social democracy, but never go for democratic socialism red in tooth and claw”. All Corbynista MPs interviewed claimed, without being asked, that they voted remain. Yet, hardly any of them said it with enthusiasm. The repeated concern was that the vote “separated out” the party’s middle and working class support. The latter class of support had “not changed their minds” and the people in the party calling for a second referendum did not understand the “sociological realities of what this country was like”, explained a Labour MP and member of the Socialist Campaign group. In a similar vein, a new and non-​Corbyn supporting MP described that there was a “complexity” to the issue for voters outside major cities and there was a “real lack of understanding” from colleagues who occupy city seats. A shadow cabinet minister echoed these sentiments saying that the party recognized the fact “that the people voted to leave” and that the “idea of a second referendum as a panacea is deeply mistaken” because it would unleash very dangerous right-​wing forces. This debate about a second referendum (a confirmatory vote) raged in the Labour Party as Theresa May continued to struggle to get her deal through parliament. This internal debate was only stymied by the 2019 General Election. At this time, Labour’s policy on a second referendum, affirmed by the NEC in April 2019, was to push for Labour’s alternative Brexit plan. If that was not successful, they would fight for a general election. Only at this point would the party consider supporting a second referendum.

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Throughout most of 2019, and after the installation of Boris Johnson as prime minister, the party’s policy focused on preventing a no deal, instead of pushing for a general election. On this, there was broad agreement this was the correct policy. Beyond that, however, there was a reluctance from Corbyn to commit to fully become a remain party, opting for a neutral position (see Yorke, 2019). This hesitancy was based on a genuine concern that a major move towards the pro-​remain side of the argument would disenfranchise a large chuck of Labour’s working class support and encourage the continued growth of far right groups in these communities. This political issue was something not lost on Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party (see Maddox, 2019). The hesitancy to fully commit to become a remain party led to “a lot of internal infighting” with people “who are really pro-​remain, people who are really pro-​leave and others sitting in the middle who are debating amongst themselves”, observed a new intake MP. To put this in quantitative terms, the argument over the 2019 NEC decision saw over 100 Labour MPs, led by the Deputy Leader, Tom Watson MP, arguing for a commitment to back a second referendum (Elgot and Syal, 2019). This infighting led to a situation where the party obsessed about its internal procedures, as each side jockeyed for position to dictate the stance on Brexit, and thus to a point where “while Rome was burning, Nero fiddled”, as a new intake MP described it. Another MP, unsympathetic to Corbyn, did not even categories it as an internal fight, because “apart from sixteen MPs the rest of the PLP were pro-​remain”. Yet, a shadow minister who struck a more objective tone observed that the debate was less about the left vs right or even about the substantive issue of EU membership. Instead, it was about the politics of survival for some MPs in relation to their seats. In other words, it was geographically focused, “I have colleagues who represent North of England seats that are very strongly for Brexit and are trying to keep that policy, because they have wafer thin majorities in heavily leave seats; they saw, essentially, the UKIP vote in the North go directly to the Conservatives”. This shadow minister noted further that this set of MPs were unhappy that the party was lukewarm on leaving. They believed it should be unequivocally on the side of leave. In this light, the leadership’s position on the EU was far more pragmatic than the outside world thought, as the EU line from the party was more about managing this internal conflict and keeping vital seats in the North. “Don’t underestimate this issue”, were the shadow minister’s concluding words to this point. But what type of communities and voters were we talking about? For many, these communities have been defined as ‘left behind’. For

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Corbynism, these same communities have been described as ‘held back’. They were ostensibly white working class communities across the country who broadly voted to leave the EU; many of whom were Labour voters. This was estimated to be at around 3 to 4 million voters (BBC News, 2019b). They were integral to the political debate in the Labour Party, especially to the left/​right dispute. The phrase ‘left behind’ largely emanated from the work of Ford and Goodwin (2014: 278) with their analysis on the rise of UKIP. They identified a class of voters that felt that they had been both socially and economically excluded from modern Britain. Evans et  al (2018:  380) noted that Brexit was partly driven by the main parties having a consensus on a platform of being socially liberal, pro-​immigration and pro-​European, which had alienated conservative-​minded voters. Ford and Goodwin (2014: 278) described these voters as ‘older, working-​class, white voters who lack the educational qualifications, incomes and skills that are needed to adapt and thrive amid a modern post-​industrial economy’. While this work was in reference to the rise in right-​wing populism, the same analysis applied to the group of voters the Labour leadership were trying to reach. This group of voters were the focal point of the huge debate around globalization, Europe and the future of the Labour Party. They were the communities that had not benefited, financially at least, from rampant globalization and formed the basis of the electoral concern expressed by the Lexiteers. A pro-​Corbyn MP explained “people in my communities are part of the left behind communities that felt Europe didn’t do that much for them”. Europe was blamed for their economic circumstance and something had to change. Although the EU was not directly responsible, the EU was conflated with the economic system that had let these communities down:  neoliberalism. After all, global trade generated and perpetuated inequality between and within countries (Rodrik, 2018: 21). The erstwhile answer to this problem had been redistribution and safety nets to compensate the ‘losers’ of this interaction; however, the financial crisis and the immediate implementation of austerity by the coalition government in 2010 had undermined these compensatory mechanisms. These political twins created the political cleavages for Corbynism to flourish in the UK. This was not lost on Corbyn’s team. These ‘left behind’ communities have been referred to by the team as ‘held back’, a more loaded term than ‘left behind’. This narrative change had been subtle. Over and over again key members of Corbyn’s team started referring to these communities as ‘held back’ in speeches and interviews. I was frequently told by senior Corbynistas that these “communities [have been] held

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back for too long”. The words ‘held back’ seem innocuous, but this shift in language was deliberate, explained a senior Corbynista, because there was, in their view, a conscious attempt to hold those communities back; the process was not benign as the ‘left behind’ phrase suggested. This was a key point when it came to Brexit and the left in the party, because these communities had been ‘held back’ by neoliberalism, which was perpetuated by globalization and the EU –​ it was a capitalist club. Moreover, by implication, New Labour had also let these communities down and held them back. The answer, therefore, was to resist the two things that New Labour so closely embraced:  globalization and the EU. Such was the passion of this view, that one senior Corbynista was adamant that those words should replace the phrase ‘left behind’ entirely. The leadership have taken this onboard and have adopted this phrase, with Corbyn (2018) telling Labour conference that ‘good jobs based here [would] bring skills and security to communities held back for too long’. He also stressed, in reference to McDonnell’s economic plan, that ‘no community or region [would be] held back’ (Corbyn, 2018). It is vital not to underestimate the importance of this strand of thinking. It was an attempt simultaneously to understand and reconnect with working class communities, sell their economic programme and cement the repudiation of neoliberalism and New Labour. It was a populist message. Populism is notoriously difficult to define and is furiously contested by academics, but at the centre of populist movements are ‘the people’ whose interests are in conflict with that society’s elites (Tormey, 2019: 10). This was the frame being used by the left. They gave those communities something to blame for their current economic circumstances. Yet, there were a significant number of Labour MPs that contested this position. In fact, the entire belief system that these communities had been ‘held back’ by globalization was challenged. A pro-​remain MP argued that “I think they picked the right problem to worry about, but the wrong thing to blame [the EU]”. Another pro-​remain MP articulately pointed out that many people who lamented the effects of globalization “still buy cheaper clothes” because of it. In other words, globalization also benefited working class people and it showed that it “can be a force for good”. In reality, globalization was a double-​edged sword: while it undermined certain employment opportunities and certain industries, like steel, it also lowered costs for consumers. The key problem, therefore, was the loss of the ameliorative mechanisms to offset the negative consequences of globalization. More accurately, the financial crash undermined New Labour’s redistributive mechanisms to compensate

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those people who lost out under their economic model. With the collapse of that compensatory mechanism and the implementation of austerity, the left knew, like the Brexit Party, that they could appeal to those disenfranchised voters by highlighting how they have been ‘held back’. It was an attempt to politically harness that sense of grievance those communities felt. The conflict in the Labour Party over the issue of Brexit and these, largely, northern communities, whether ‘left behind’ or ‘held back’, was publicly observable with the Labour Party’s then chairman, Ian Lavery. Lavery was a well-​known Corbynista and ardent left winger. On paper, he was one of the least probable candidates to rebel against the Corbyn leadership. Yet, twice, Lavery ignored a three-​line whip in order to abstain on a vote for a second referendum on the EU (Schofield, 2019). He was joined in his abstention by Jon Trickett, the then Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office (Mason et al, 2019). Lavery represented the seat of Wansbeck and Trickett the seat of Hemsworth, both in the North of England. Both believed the leave vote had to be respected and their northern constituencies should not be ignored. Both, also, were very supportive of Corbyn. Lavery offered to resign from his position over his defiance, but Corbyn refused to accept it (Moss, 2019). This refusal drew strong criticism from other Labour MPs, mainly pro-​remain ones. This highlighted the rift Corbyn and his team was trying to control in the party and how the left vs right factor was in play. Lavery and Trickett’s views were not shared by all other northern Labour MPs. Four northern Labour MPs challenged the whole concept of the North being ‘Brexitland’ (Creagh et al, 2019). They believed the North was being stereotyped by the London-​based metropolitan elite, particularly the media. They did not subscribe to the analysis that northern Labour MPs had to respect the mantra ‘leave means leave’ because they rejected the belief that leavers in their communities wanted the same thing. Yet, it was no coincidence that these four Labour MPs who challenged Lavery and Trickett’s view were seen as outwardly hostile to the Labour leadership. In a leaked list of MPs, categorized by their view of the leadership, Mary Creagh and Phil Wilson were seen as hostile, Anna Turley was viewed as negative towards the leadership and Catherine McKinnell was labelled as neutral (Pine, 2016). All were pro-​remain MPs that were, at best, sceptical of Corbynism, while Trickett and Lavery were pro-​Brexit and wholeheartedly support Corbynism. Brexit was a left vs right issue in the PLP and, as the 2019 general election showed, Trickett and Lavery had been accurate in their analysis and assessment of the situation on the ground, with Creagh, Wilson and Turley all losing their seats.

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The split On 18 February 2019, the growing chasm between the different wings of the Labour Party spilled into the open with seven Labour MPs –​ then eight –​leaving Labour to form a new party, Change UK. Each MP read out a resignation speech highlighting their rationale for the leaving party. Chief among the reasons were anti-​Semitism, that had become ‘institutionalised’, according to Luciana Berger (2019), then MP for Liverpool Wavertree, and Brexit. Mike Gapes (2019), then MP for Ilford South, said that he was ‘furious that the leadership is complicit in facilitating Brexit’ and that it would, in his view, cause irreparable harm for the communities they represented. Chris Leslie, then MP for Nottingham East, a consistent voice against Corbyn, expressed similar feelings on Brexit: In all conscious, we can no longer knock on doors and support a government led by Jeremy Corbyn or the team around him. Why? Well, for a start the evidence of Labour’s betrayal on Europe is now visible for all to see. Offering to actually enable this government’s Brexit [and] constantly holding back on the public having a final say. (Leslie, 2019) Chuka Umunna, then the MP for Streatham, once a darling of the moderate wing of the Labour Party, had never sought to withhold his feelings about what Labour’s position should be in relation to Brexit, strongly arguing that the party should be pro-​remain. In a Leading Britain’s Conversation (LBC) radio interview with Nick Ferrari, he said that he partly left the Labour Party because of his pro-​remain stance. When pressed that he stood on a manifesto that promised to honour the referendum, he explained that he and other colleagues put out a separate document during the 2017 general election setting out their stance to remain. Therefore, in his view, he had not ‘broken [a]‌contract with the people of Streatham. [His] argument is that the Labour Party had’ (Umunna, 2019a). This ‘broken contract’ argument mainly came from the position that the Labour Party, at this point in time, continually refused to unequivocally back a second referendum; a stance which had changed by the time of the 2019 general election (see Labour Party, 2019). In a New Statesman article, Umunna (2017) accepted the country had voted to leave and that ‘Labour must campaign for a post-​Brexit settlement in the interests of working people’. He outlined the concerns of working class communities and noted that ‘across the UK,

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globalization has seemed like a whirlwind, threatening livelihoods, ways of life and, for millions, their sense of a national identity’. He lamented the destabilizing effects of globalization and that Labour must have an alternative. His solution was for the Labour Party to adopt, essentially, a Blue Labour position. At no point did he refer to it as Blue Labour, but it was in every sense of the word. He talked about building a broad democratic coalition based on the values of work, place and family. He cited the work of Jon Cruddas and noted Ed Miliband’s dismissal of it. He critiqued New Labour for its limited challenge to the ‘power of capital’ and the ‘neo-​liberal market order’. In his view, New Labour ‘did not do enough to protect people from the downside of globalisation’ (Ummuna, 2017). In line with this thinking, it was entirely consistent to take a pro-​Brexit position. Needless to say, Umunna changed his position, subsequently joining the Liberal Democrats, who had promised, by then, to revoke Article 50 and not leave the EU at all. It would be wrong, however, to suggest Umunna and other members of the moderate wing party did not have deep and longstanding ideological differences with the leadership over and above Brexit and anti-​Semitism. In nearly all their resignation speeches as Labour MPs, their consistent message was that their values had not changed, but the party’s had. Gavin Shuker (2019), then MP for Luton South, felt that both major parties had ‘competing visions of the past’, but were bereft of a vision for the future. Leslie (2019) put it in more stark terms: ‘We did everything we could to save it, but it has now been hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left. Our values haven’t changed.’ The day after their mass resignation, Umunna (2019b) was on the TV programme Good Morning Britain and was asked whether Corbyn was a Marxist, his reply: ‘I think so, yes’. Of course, it was politically expedient to emphasize their ideological differences with the leadership, but it also reflects a genuine disagreement between the two factions. This is not to denigrate the anti-​Semitism issue within the party or the disagreement over Brexit, but it seems, given Umunna et al’s continued hostility to the direction the party’s leadership was taking, that this issue was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Nevertheless, the allegation of institutional anti-​Semitism in the party was serious and so was the difference on Brexit. They offered the totemic wedges by which Change UK tried to differentiate itself. On Brexit, Change UK penned an open letter to the Labour Party on 4 March 2019, calling for the party to drop ‘its terms and conditions’ on a second referendum and clarify its current stance on this policy. This was a precursor to a second referendum amendment put down by Sarah Wollaston, a former Conservative MP, the week after the

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publication of the open letter attempting to force the Labour Party to take a definitive stance on a second referendum. Corbyn ordered his MPs to abstain on the amendment, prompting 41 Labour MPs to rebel: 17 MPs opposed it and 24 supported it (BBC News, 2019c). At Prime Minister’s Questions, Prime Minister Theresa May (2019) highlighted the discrepancy of Corbyn’s stance: It is he who abstained last week on a vote on a second referendum, despite the fact that it is Labour party policy, and then had the nerve to stand up in this House and say that he reiterated Labour’s support for a second referendum. He has no idea what he wants on the future of this issue. It is here, in this inconsistency, where the battle lay within the Labour Party. Corbyn had presided over a pro-​remain party and PLP. He, and many of his inner circle, were very sceptical and critical of the EU. He also knew, as did Umunna et al, that the Labour Party was trying to politically square the circle between its inner-​city, youthful support base and with its traditional working class voters when it came to Brexit. This was both an internal and external political problem. The internal problem was exemplified by 75 Labour MPs calling on the NEC to back a second referendum (Jankowicz, 2019), while the external problem seemed to be shown in English local elections in May 2019, where Labour, like the Conservatives, lost votes mainly in leave voting areas (Curtice, 2019). Hence the inconsistency and longstanding fudge the party took over Brexit and a second referendum. The continuance of this was epitomized by Corbyn, after ordering an abstention on a second referendum amendment, backing a ‘confirmatory vote’ as outlined in an amendment proposed by two Labour MPs, Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson (Pickford, 2019). In essence, the Kyle and Wilson proposal would have required the public to endorse, or not, the withdrawal agreement if parliament had passed it. The Labour Party backed this amendment, but was defeated, 292 to 280, on 1 April 2019. This confirmatory vote intervention became highly significant. The then Shadow Brexit Secretary, Keir Starmer (Elgot, 2019), warned that any deal with the government, to get Brexit over the line, had to include a confirmatory vote, otherwise up to 150 Labour MPs would not back the deal. The following day, Tom Watson, then Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, agreed with Starmer’s assessment and went further arguing the Labour Party should be a ‘remain and reform’ party (Walker, 2019). This internal PLP pressure finally succeeded, with Corbyn and his team agreeing to hold a second referendum – The Final Say on

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Brexit (see Labour Party, 2019: 89–92). However, the compromise continued despite this commitment. Corbyn not only kept open the opportunity for this hypothetical Labour government to advocate leaving with a deal (BBC News, 2019c), but also that he would take a neutral stance during a second referendum campaign (Stewart and Walker, 2019). This demonstrated movement in Corbyn’s position, but it was a tactical retreat. It was a political repositioning to ameliorate the voices calling for a second referendum, while simultaneously not committing to the remain position. He was trying to walk a fine line and keep both sides happy. This was evident earlier on in 2019 with his Labour conference speech, with the comment: ‘A Labour government will transform our economy and communities. We stand not just for the 52 per cent or the 48 per cent but for the 99 per cent’ (Corbyn, 2019). This positioning was unacceptable to Watson, who argued not only for a second referendum but for the party to take a clear remain position (BBC News, 2019c). This was a clear sign of division in the Labour shadow cabinet, with Starmer and Watson taking a strong stance on a second referendum and campaigning for remain. This was an anathema to many Corbyn supporting MPs as it would have undermined the interventionist economic nationalism of Corbynism. Corbyn’s supporters within the party demonstrated their hostility to Watson’s open criticism on Brexit through an attempt to eradicate the Deputy Leader position. Jon Lansman, founder of Momentum, tabled a motion at a NEC meeting proposing the removal of the position because of the disloyalty shown to the leadership over Europe (Crerar, 2019). After the furore erupted over this intention, Corbyn stopped the proposal going ahead. All of this indicated the relentless nature of the battle between the right and left over Brexit, and the deeper ideas that lay behind leaving or staying.

Conclusion Corbyn, and Corbynism, was thrown off course by the 2016 referendum and the Brexit debate. The left was in the ascendancy, its policies resonating with the public and its leader hugely popular among the membership. It had a platform to develop a 21st century version of socialism. Although the PLP remained broadly hostile throughout his leadership period, this did not matter while the membership and broad swathes of the public (evidence by the 2017 general election) supported and voted for Corbyn. Brexit derailed this agenda by opening chasms between the leadership team and a significant portion of the Labour membership, significantly the youthful demographic among the public

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who supported his movement (see Sloam et al, 2018), and members of the PLP who were loyal or neutral to the leadership. It also gave the moderate members of Labour the political space to challenge Corbyn and Corbynism. Their direct challenges initially failed, but this issue gave them the opportunity to persistently undermine the left. Rather than focusing on its policy agenda and advocating it in public, the left became bogged down with Brexit and forced to confront more internal problems than they anticipated. This was triggered by the reality of the 2016 referendum campaign and result. The instinctive reticence towards the EU, long held by some in the leadership team, was brought to the fore, and hampered Corbynism through frequent attempts to hold the middle ground between leaving and remaining. Initially, it was remain and reform, then it was accept the result and negotiate the best deal and, finally, it was accept a second referendum but for Corbyn to take a neutral position in that campaign once in government. On the ideas front, the left was in the ascendancy. It was successful in tapping into the angst among some voters around globalization and revelled in the apparent demise of neoliberalism. In response, the right had no answer. It looked out of date, except when it came to the EU. Blairism was unashamedly pro-​European; pro-​single market and membership. Historically, the right had always been pro-​EU and the left, at best, sceptical. This offered the wedge for a right fightback, ironically undermined by the eight Labour MPs who split from the party. Yet, even the right was split between those who firmly believed in globalization and free trade and those who took a more Blue Labour view. That is to say, New Labour were wrong to embrace globalization so readily. The continued significance of Blue Labour during this period illuminated one of the biggest ironies of the modern incarnation of the left vs right battle over ideas: namely, there were a number of similarities between Blue Labour and Corbynism, despite being on opposite sides of the internal Labour Party political spectrum. Both drew extensively on Polanyi’s work in not only critiquing neoliberalism (see McDonnell, 2018b:  x; see Chapter  3), but also in fashioning its replacement. Developing from Polanyi’s intellectual thread, both advocated a form of economic democracy to resist the economic and cultural dislocation wrought by globalization. In line with this, both argued for new forms of ownership, control for workers within the workplace, a deference to a nostalgic past, economically, and worried about those communities, whether ‘left behind’ or ‘held back’. All of these positions inextricably led to a position of being pro-​Brexit, because halting globalization and refocusing on the nation state were ultimately about taking back control of the country’s economics. This

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was the resurrection of Bennism; protectionist on a global stage and interventionist on a national stage. Corbynism and Blue Labour, however, diverged on cultural issues. Although there were hints of social conservative values within Corbynism, it broadly accepted social liberal values to cultural change wrought by globalization. Blue Labour did not. It recognized the growing importance of social conservatism within the working class and Glasman, at least, realized that the Labour Party had to challenge and change its stances on the EU and immigration. It had to move away from the liberal social and cultural values dominant in big cities such as London and Bristol if it wanted to win a majority. The institutional response from the party was to reject this argument and continue along its socially liberal path. This proved to be highly significant in the 2019 general election result, with the Conservatives under Boris Johnson’s leadership winning a parliamentary majority and taking many Labour seats in the North, Midlands and Wales with the message ‘Get Brexit Done’ (BBC, 2019e). While Corbynism focused on economics, its advocates missed the subtle shift in the hierarchy of importance for a majority of the electorate from economics to culture. Brexit was about both, of course, making Corbyn’s simultaneous stance of promising a second referendum and taking a neutral position during it electorally damaging. The 2019 election defeat was the Labour Party’s worst defeat since 1935 (itself an election defeat that was an improvement from the catastrophic 1931 defeat), which does not bode well for the Labour Party’s future. However, Blair’s and Corbyn’s ideas were vastly different; their views diametrically opposed to each other. Blairism was anathema to Corbynism, and vice versa. Yet, Blair and Corbyn were leaders of the same party. This demonstrated the breadth of the policy positions the party can take and what can be achieved when either the left or right faction dominate the party at a particular time. It is rare, if ever, for the left and right to both be in a strong position on the ideas front. Between each dominant period, however, there is a transitory one. This was the role of Kinnock and Miliband. They acted like bridges and cleared the path for either the left or right to take over. They provided the staging posts for each faction’s resurrection. Although the battle is time consuming and drains the party of energy, it is also critical for the party’s lifecycle. It is the means by which the party rejuvenates itself in each political cycle and, in the end, successfully changes itself to the new times. The dominance of either faction over the party prompts the other into action, into renewal and the pursuit of new ideas. Of course, the major problem is that the party tends

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to lose through these periods of transition, making it easier for the Conservative party to become the dominant force in British politics. It is not as ruthlessly focused on winning as the Conservative Party – and maybe it should be – but the battle of ideas between the main factions provides the lifeblood of the party and any complete freeze of this process would result in the party becoming moribund. The battle of ideas will always be the defining feature of the British Labour Party, and the period post-2019 election defeat will be no different. The left will try to maintain its internal institutional dominance and continue to promote its ideas. The big question is whether the right can renew itself and develop new ideas to challenge the left and maintain the party’s ideational lifecycle.

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197

Index A AES (Alternative Economic Strategy)  23, 24, 28, 29, 123, 138, 149, 157 alter-​globalization  128 AMO (Alternative Models of Ownership)  123, 133, 138 An Approach to Policy Making  35 Andrews, K.  36 anti-​austerity  120–​3, 140, 148 anti-​globalization  74, 149, 163 anti-​Semitism  143, 168, 169 anti-​tribalism  48 Ashcroft, M.  74 Attlee, C.  12–​17 austerity  Balls, E.  104 Coalition  63–​4 Corbyn  140, 148, 153, 165 Economic Advisory Committee (EAC)  125 pre-​distribution  109, 117 B Bale, T.  63 Ball, S.  48 Balls, E.  103, 104–​5 Bank of England  13, 16 Basic Income as Common Dividends: Piloting a Transformative Policy  136 Beckett, M.  45 Beech, M.  64, 65, 76 Bell, P.  23, 24, 25 Bell, T.  104 Benn, T.  Corbynism  153–​5, 162, 173 Europe  157 left  29–​30 National Executive Committee (NEC)  24 New Labour  145 Bennism  123, 134, 137–​41, 149, 154, 155, 173 Berger, L.  168

Berman, S.  4, 5 Bevan, A.  16–​18 Beveridge, W.  12, 13, 75, 136 Beveridge report  12, 13, 82 Bevin, E.  14 Bevir, M.  53 ‘big idea’  Corbyn  126, 138–​40, 148 importance of  5–​6 Kinnock  36–​7 Miliband, E.  80–​1, 95, 112 New Labour  53–​7 ‘Big Society’  66, 92 Bish, G.  22–​3, 33 Black, L.  18, 19, 22 Blair, T.  communitarianism  51–​3 Corbyn  128, 142, 143, 145, 147–​8, 173 Cruddas  85 European Union  172 foreign policy decisions  61 Glasman  66 globalization  70, 121, 146, 155, 156–​7, 161 leadership  44–​51 Mais lecture  50–​1 Miliband, D.  67 post-​ideological  era  48 soft left  121 stakeholder capitalism  53–​7 Thatcher leadership model  45–​6 Third Way  57–​62, 131, 140 Blairism  119, 126, 128, 156, 172, 173 Blanchflower, D.  125 Blond, P.  64, 66 Blue Labour  65–​79 big government  110 Corbyn  172–​3 demise of  76–​9, 90–​2 disconnection  151 Englishness  69 globalization  156–​7, 169

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THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

masculinity  71–​4 nostalgia  74–​6, 161 One Nation  83–​7 political aim of  68–​9 small-​c conservatism  70–​1, 76 Blunkett, D.  33, 51, 52–​3 Blyth, M.  4 BNP (British National Party)  69 Bolton, M.  122–​3, 137–​8, 155, 157 Borrie, Sir Gordon  43 Borrie Commission  49 Bragg, B.  76 Brexit  147, 149, 151, 158–​9, 162–​73 Brexit Party  151, 164 Brexit referendum  1, 152–​3, 160, 163, 168, 172 proposed second referendum  163–​4, 167, 168, 169–​71, 172, 173 Britain Will Win with Labour  33 British National Party  see BNP Brown, G.  Blair  24 global financial crisis  63 New Labour  46, 47, 49, 55, 61–​2, 103, 142 pre-​distribution  110 Burns, C.  50 C Callaghan, J.  26–​7 Cameron, D.  66, 110–​11 Campbell, A.  3, 8, 46, 54, 55, 59, 61 capital flows  27, 121, 152, 154, 155, 157 capitalism  Blue Labour  75 Corbyn  137, 153 Crosland on  18–​19 Crossman on  21 EU  154, 166 laissez-​faire  12, 59, 70, 82, 83 manifesto  15 Marxism  12, 21 Miliband, E.  102 Polanyi  82 property-​owning democracy  101 redistribution  108 ‘responsible’  102, 105, 111 stakeholder capitalism  53–​7 Third Way  59 Carstensen, M.  6 centralization  31, 42, 56, 133, 134, 135 Chakelian, A.  87, 89, 90 Change UK  8, 168, 169 Charter 88  49 chemical industry  18 Chinn, T.  92 civil society  109

Clarke, C.  31 class  middle class  20, 69, 71, 103, 163 revisionism  19 working class  68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 75, 77, 156, 163–​6, 168, 170, 173 Clause IV  45 Clements, D.  31 Clinton, B.  59–​60, 70 coalition government  63–​4, 68, 70, 109, 121, 165 collective responsibility  53 Common Wealth  133–​4 communism  20, 21, 58 communitarianism  51–​3, 56–​7, 66 Conservative Party  ‘big government’  65–​6 coalition government  63–​4, 68, 70, 109, 121, 165 economic policies  104, 109, 122 general election 1970  21 general election 1987  34 general election 1992  42 general election 2010  63, 65, 69 general election 2019  173 industrial problems  22 Keynesianism  25 localism  64 neoliberalism  27 on New Labour  55, 60 One Nation  80, 86 pre-​distribution  110 redistribution  105 re-​nationalization  154 Second World War  12 see also Thatcherism conservative socialism  70, 71 consumerism  18, 19 Cooke, G.  70 Corbyn, J.  call for resignation  125 on European Union  153–​4 on held back communities  166 on leadership  120 leadership election  117, 121–​2 Marxism  1 McDonnell  124 public image  119 on socialism  134 Corbynism  1–​2, 119–​49 anti-​austerity  120–​3 Bennism  137–​41 Brexit  151–​74 entrepreneurial state  130–​3 Labour ‘right’  141–​3 McDonnell  123–​7 re-​nationalization  133–​6

200

INDEX

corporate socialism  13, 14 corporatism  55, 56 council housing, right to buy  33 Creagh, M.  167 Creasy, S.  90 Crick, B.  33 Cronin, J.E.  23, 25–​7, 39, 44, 47–​9, 52–​3, 58 Crosland, T.  14–​15, 17, 18–​20, 25–​6, 29, 82, 98, 146, 148 Crossman, R.  14, 15, 16–​17, 20–​1 Cruddas, J.  Blue Labour  67, 69–​71, 73, 77, 79, 92, 169 One Nation  80, 81–​7, 89 pre-​distribution  99, 103 redistribution  106 D D’Ancona, M.  79 Daily Telegraph  76 Dalton, H.  14 Danczuk, S.  89 Davis, R.  66, 79 decentralization  43, 64, 67, 91 Demos  49, 52, 66 Denham, A.  121 deregulation  121, 152 devaluation  21 Diamond, P.  51, 52–​3, 54–​5, 94, 108, 110, 114 Dorey, P.  121 Driver, S.  34–​5, 38, 57 Durbin, E.  14 E EAC (Economic Advisory Committee)  124–​5, 128, 130, 131 Eatwell, J.  33, 36, 39 economic nationalism  138, 154–​5, 157, 159, 160–​1, 162, 171 EDL (English Defence League)  65 entrepreneurial state  130–​3, 149 ERM (Exchange Rate Mechanism)  36 Etzioni, A.  52, 57 EU (European Union)  Benn  137, 149, 153 Blair  155, 172 Blue Labour  76 Corbyn  147, 153, 154, 158–​60, 164–​6, 170, 172 left  70 Trump  162 see also TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) Euro-​Keynesianism  24 European Social Democracy  33, 163

Evans, G. et al. (2018)  165 Evans, J.  161 Exchange Rate Mechanism  see ERM Exley, S.  48 F Fabian Society  12, 58, 88 factionalism  78 families  53, 71, 74, 86 Farage, N.  164 FCR (Fiscal Credibility Rule)  125, 130 feminism  72–​4 Ferguson, M.  83–​4, 95, 110 Fielding, S.  13, 25, 56, 60 Finlayson, A.  73–​4 Fiscal Credibility Rule  see FCR Fisher, A.  127–​9, 130, 131, 135–​6, 142, 146, 148 Fletcher, S.  127 Foot, M.  28, 30 Foote, G.  13–​14 Ford, R.A.  165 Forward with Labour  18 ‘Forward to Socialism’ programme  13 Francis, M.  14 Freeden, M.  48 G Gaffney, J.  74, 79 Gaitskell, H.  14, 18, 19 Gapes, M.  168 Gardiner, B.  163 general elections  1950  14–​15, 20 1951  15, 16, 17, 18, 21 1955  17, 18 1959  18, 19, 20 1970  21, 22, 26 1974  25, 26, 30, 135 1983  29–​31, 34, 42 1987  33–​4 1992  41–​2 2010  63, 65, 66, 67, 68 2017  1, 125, 127, 128–​30, 135, 140, 141, 143–​4, 145, 148, 168 2019  129, 163, 167, 168, 173 Giddens, A.  57–​9, 60 Glasman, M.  65–​8, 70–​8, 83, 84, 90–​1, 173 Glasman, M. et al. (2011)  65 global financial crisis  Brown  63 income inequality  98–​9 neoliberalism  64, 81, 102–​3, 165 New Labour  66, 151 Third Way  61, 62

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globalization  Blue Labour  69, 70, 71 Brexit  151–​7, 163, 165–​6 Corbyn  121, 146, 147, 148, 149, 160–​1, 169, 172–​3 New Labour  128 One Nation  85 pre-​distribution  95–​6, 99 Third Way  58–​9 Trump  160–​1 Glover, S.  79 Goes, E.  63, 64 Golding, J.  30 Goodman, H.  72–​4, 78 Goodwin, M.J.  165 Gould, P.  34, 36, 37, 39, 46, 51, 52, 54, 57 gradualism  13 Gregg, P.  97, 98, 107, 108, 113 Grice, A.  63 guild socialism  12, 124 H Hacker, J.  93–​8, 102–​3, 105, 108–​9, 111, 112–​15 Hale, S.  52 Hall, P.  3–​4, 6 Harman, H.  72, 121 Hart, J.  23, 30 Hasan, M.  100 Hatfield, M.  22–​3, 24 Hattersley, R.  31, 34, 38–​9 Hay, C.  3–​4, 36 Hayek, F. von  82, 149 Hayter, D.  35 Healey, D.  29, 30 Heath, E.  21, 25, 26 Heffer, E.  31, 32 Heffernan, R.  4, 28–​9, 31, 35–​6, 39, 50, 54, 56 Hewitt, P.  31, 49 Hickson, K.  64, 65, 76 Hickson, K. et al. (2004)  2 Hodges, D.  76, 79 Hodgson, G.  33 Holland, S.  23–​4, 25–​6, 28, 30, 32, 138 Hollingshead, I.  59 Hughes, C.  33, 36 Hutton, W.  53–​5, 57 I ideas  2–​9 definition of  4–​5 newness of  6–​7 relational model  6 tiers of  5–​7 ‘ideational infinite regress’  6

IFS (Institute of Fiscal Studies)  107, 116 IMF (International Monetary Fund)  27, 154 immigration  65, 70, 73, 76–​7, 78, 151, 165, 173 In Place of Strife  22 income inequality, pre-​distribution 93–​101, 103, 106–​7, 109, 111, 113, 116 incomes policy  27, 28 individualism  33–​4, 53, 55, 58 industrialization, fourth wave of  136 inflation  21, 22, 26–​7, 50–​1, 102, 104, 105 ‘Inner Core Elite’ model  35–​6, 39, 44, 46, 49, 50, 56 Institute of Fiscal Studies  see IFS Institute for Public Policy Research  see IPPR institutionalism  4 intellectuals  14, 15, 49, 75 International Monetary Fund  see IMF internationalism  155 IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research)  49 Condition of Britain  91–​2 Iraq war  61 Italian Institute for Industrial Reconstruction  24 J Jackson, B.  85–​6 Jacobs, M.  80, 85 Japan  106–​8 Jay, D.  12, 14, 17, 18 Jenkins, R.  14, 26 Jobson, R.  65, 72, 74 Johnson, B.  151, 164, 173 Joint Policy Committee  see JPC Jones, O.  142 Jones, T.  31, 33, 38 Joseph, K.  81–​2 Joseph Rowntree Foundation  107 JPC (Joint Policy Committee)  42, 45 K Kaufman, G.  30 Keating, P.  85 Keep Left  16 Keynes, J.M.  1, 12, 13–​14, 21, 75, 132, 136 Keynesian liberalism  13, 16 Keynesianism  24–​8 Attlee  12–​13 Balls, E.  104, 105 Crosland  19 Crossman  21 demand management  58

202

INDEX

global financial crisis  61 inflation  22 Mazzucato on  132 rejection of  28, 30, 58, 152 right  141 Kingdon, J.  5, 6 Kinnock, N.  30–​9 bridging role  173 Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)  49 leadership  41–​2, 43, 44 modernization  45 New Labour  41 policymaking  46, 47, 57 Kirkup, J.  80 Korea  16–​17 Kruger, D.  92 Kyle, P.  170 L Labour Believes in Britain  14 ‘Labour Listens’  35 Labour’s Immediate Programme  13 Labour’s Programme (1973)  23, 24, 25, 27, 28 Labour’s Programme (1982)  29 Lahel, A.  74, 79 laissez-​faire capitalism  12, 59, 70, 82, 83 Lansman, J.  171 Laski, H.  12 Lavery, I.  167 Lawrence, J.  75 Lawrence, M.  134 Lawson, N.  50–​1 Lawton, K. et al. (2014)  91–​2 ‘left behind’ communities  147, 160, 164–​7 Leninism  137 Leslie, C.  168, 169 Let Us Face the Future  13, 17 Let Us Win Through Together  15 Leys, C.  24, 30, 42, 46, 47–​50 Liberal Democrats  43, 63, 64, 169 see also coalition government Liddle, R.  46, 48, 49 Limehouse declaration  29 localism  64 Long Bailey, R.  133 M MacIntyre, J.  100 MacMurray, J.  52 Mail on Sunday  72 Mandelson, P.  37, 45, 46–​9, 50, 51–​2 Marquand, D.  15, 17, 21 Marqusee, M.  28, 29, 31 Martell, L.  34–​5, 38, 57

Marx, K.  12, 58 Marxism  1, 12–​13, 16, 21, 24, 71, 82, 124, 169 Mason, R.  109 Matthijs, M.  26 Mattinson, D.  37 May, T.  128, 163, 170 Mazzucato, M.  125, 128, 130, 131–​3 McCluskey, L.  79, 143 McDonald, R.  13 McDonnell, J.  135–​7, 138 Alternative Models of Ownership (AMO)  138 anti-​austerity  122 Corbynism  120, 145, 162 electoral concerns  130, 148 entrepreneurial state  130–​2, 133 globalization  152–​5, 166 Leninism  137 Marxism  1 Mazzucato  130 re-​nationalization  135–​6 McKinnell, C.  167 McSmith, A.  42 Meade, J.  100–​1 Meet the Challenge, Make the Change  39 Midgley, A.  127 Mikardo, I.  13, 23 Miliband, D.  54–​5, 57, 64, 66–​7, 78 Miliband, E.  63–​92 austerity  12–​2 Blue Labour  65–​79, 92, 169 as bridge  120, 173 Common Wealth  133 New Labour  101–​2, 112–​13, 115–​17, 146 One Nation  54, 79–​81, 83–​91 pre-​distribution  93, 94–​5, 98, 99–​100, 104–​5, 109, 110–​12 resignation  121 Militant Tendency  31, 32 Milne, S.  127 miners’ strike  22, 32 Minkin, L.  25, 31, 35, 43, 46, 47–​9 modernism  65, 74 modernization  19, 36, 44, 45, 49–​51, 142–​3, 146 Momentum  121 Morgan, K.  15 Morrison, H.  13, 14, 15, 17, 20 Mortimer, J.  32 Mulgan, G.  49, 52, 56 Murphy, R.  125, 128 N National Executive Committee  see NEC National Health Service  see NHS

203

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

National Investment Bank  see NIB National Policy Forum  see NPF National Transformation Fund  129 nationalization  Attlee government  16 Bevan  16 Clause IV  45 Crosland on  18–​20 Crossman  21 European Union  159 Keynes  14 Labour’s Immediate Programme  13 Labour’s Programme (1973)  23 left  16, 18, 21 Let Us Face the Future  13 post war manifestos  15 Trump  162 see also re-​nationalization NEC (National Executive Committee)  Brexit  163, 164, 170, 171 Joint Policy Committee (JPC)  42 Labour’s Immediate Programme  13 policymaking  22, 27–​8, 29, 35, 43–​4, 47 reduction of power  25, 30, 31–​2, 50 Shadow Communication Agency (SCA)  37 Neil, A.  89 neoliberalism  Bennism  138 Conservative Party  27, 139 Corbynism  1, 121, 122, 126–​7, 128, 141, 142–​3, 144–​5, 148, 149, 152, 156 European Union  165–​6, 172 global financial crisis  64, 98, 102 McDonnell  124, 125, 130, 152 New Labour  151 pre-​distribution  108 social ownership  33 Third Way  60 Neuberger, H.  28 New Hope for Britain  29–​30 New Labour  41–​62 communitarianism  51–​3 Corbyn  121, 126, 128, 145, 146, 147, 148, 151 electoral strategy  140 failure of  101–​5, 142 global financial crisis  65–​6 globalization  70, 156, 166, 172 ‘golden rule’ promise  130 Goodman  72 Hacker on  97–​8 leadership contest  64, 65 Miliband, E.  115–​16, 117 One Nation  79–​81, 84, 89

public services  58 redistribution  99 social welfare policy  43 stakeholder capitalism  53–​7 Third Way  57–​62 Umunna on  169 unions  143 New Labour, New Life for Britain  47 New Liberals  13, 38 New Right  41, 53–​4, 57, 58, 82, 119, 137 New Statesman  69, 168 Nexus  49–​50 NHS (National Health Service)  13 NIB (National Investment Bank)  132 Norman, J.  64, 82 NPF (National Policy Forum)  43, 45, 47–​8 Nunn, A.  121–​2, 128, 143, 145 O The Observer  68 oil price  22 ‘Old’ Labour  Bennism  138 Corbynism  119, 123, 125, 133–​4, 147, 148 New Labour  41, 45, 48, 60, 61 One Nation  80 stakeholder capitalism  53–​7 Third Way  57–​8 Old Left  58 One Nation  54, 79–​91 demise of  87–​90 patriotism  85–​6, 90 O’Neill, M.  95, 100–​1 OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries)  22 Osborne, G.  109, 154 Owen, G.  72 P Panitch, L.  24, 30, 42, 46, 47–​50 Parliamentary Labour Party  see PLP Pemberton, H.  22 Philip’s Curve  26 Philpot, R.  74 Pickett, K.  99–​100, 105–​6, 107–​8, 109 Piketty, T.  93, 125 Pierson, P.  93–​4, 95–​6 Pitt, T.  22–​3 Pitts, F.H.  122–​3, 137–​8, 155, 157 PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party)  Bennism  138 Blue Labour  76, 77, 78, 90 Brexit  158–​9, 164, 167, 170

204

INDEX

Corbyn  128, 142, 143–​4, 147, 161, 171, 172 Goodman  72–​3 income inequality  100 Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)  59 left  27, 28 neoliberalism  152, 157 One Nation  87, 90 policymaking  31–​2, 35, 37, 47 pre-​distribution  116, 117 Trumpism  160 unions  24–​5, 30, 46 Plunkett, J.  110, 113 Polanyi, K.  82–​3, 172 Policy Network  94 Powell, L.  72 Powell, M.  60 power cuts  22 pre-​distribution  93–​117, 120 impact of  112–​15 Miliband, E.  120 political appeal  108–​10 radicalism  100 theory of  95–​8 Prescott, J.  45, 61 price controls  13, 18, 23 Prince, R.  80 property-​owning democracy  100–​1 Prospect (magazine)  60, 66 Pryke, R.  23, 24 public expenditure  27, 50 Purnell, J.  67 Putnam, R.  54 Q quasi-​Marxism  12, 13, 14, 16, 21 Quinn, T.  63 R radicalism  1 rational choice theories  4 Rawls, J.  38, 100–​1 rearmament  16–​17 Red Labour  121 Red Toryism  64, 66 redistribution of wealth  austerity  120 energy price freeze  115 globalization  165 Hacker on  94, 96–​8 Hattersley on  38 Japanese model  106 Keynesianism  132 Miliband, E. on  94–​5, 99, 100, 116 New Labour  103–​4, 105, 107, 156, 166

revisionism  26 Rawls on  101 Scandinavian model  108 Reeves, R.  104, 107 re-​nationalization  18, 129–​30, 133–​6, 146, 148, 154, 158 Renewal  94 revisionism  17–​22, 25–​6, 27, 29, 38, 39, 134 Reynolds, J.  136 Richards, D.  51, 52–​3 Richards, S.  52, 79, 80, 142 Riddell, M.  80, 92 Rodrik, D.  152 Rubenstein, D.  21, 30, 42 Rutherford, J.  66–​74, 76, 78, 81–​5, 89, 90, 92, 116 S Saez, E.  93 Sage, D.  74 Sawyer, T.  35 SCA (Shadow Communication Agency)  37 Schmidt, V.  5 Scotland, independence referendum  87 Scott, D.  55 SDP (Social Democratic Party)  28, 29, 30, 42, 48 Second World War  12, 93, 106 Seyd, P.  42 Seymour, R.  137, 145, 153 Shadow Communication Agency  see SCA Shaw, E.  28, 31, 32, 34 Shinwell, E.  13 Shore, P.  31, 42 Short Money  30, 31 Shuker, G.  169 Sikka, P.  125, 128 Slocombe, K.  127 Smith, J.  41–​9 Smith, M.  30, 32, 38 social democracy  Benn on  29, 137 Blair  50, 52 Corbyn  122, 144 Crosland  82 European  33, 163 Giddens on  58 global financial crisis  63 Kinnock  38 Labour ‘right’  141 New Labour  145 McDonnell on  135 pre-​distribution  102 redistribution  99, 106, 108

205

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

Social Democratic Party  see SDP Social Justice Commission  43 social ownership  33 Social Ownership  33 socialism, 21st century  124, 133–​6, 148–​9, 162 Socialist Campaign group  123, 125, 126, 147 Socialist League  13 Soviet Union  20 Spear, J.  30, 32, 38 Spectator (magazine)  127 stagflation  26, 58 stakeholder capitalism  53–​7 Standing, G.  136 Starmer, Sir Keir  170, 171 state aid  157–​60, 163 state intervention  13, 19, 131, 152, 155, 158, 159 Statement of Democratic Socialist Aims and Values  38–​9 statism  50, 53, 82, 135 Stears, M.  Blue Labour  67–​8, 70, 74, 76, 78, 91–​2 on income inequality  99, 110, 111, 112 One Nation  80, 84–​5 Stewart, H.  159 Stiglitz, J.  125, 128 strikes  22, 27, 32 strukturpolitik  24 Sunstein, C.R.  64 Sweden  106, 107 T tax credits  98, 103–​4, 116 taxation  Bennism  137 global financial crisis  61, 105, 109 New Labour  156 One Nation  85 pre-​distribution  94, 95, 96, 97, 120 progressive  19 redistributive  106 Thaler, R.H.  64 Thatcher, M.  1, 45–​6, 50, 102, 139, 151 Thatcherism  Blair  61 Heffernan on  4 Kinnock  33–​4, 39, 43 New Labour  50–​1, 56, 57 paradigm shift  81–​2 public services  58 think tanks  48–​9, 52, 62, 133–​4 Third Way  43, 54, 57–​62, 97, 103, 140 Thomas, G.  135

Thomson, P.  52, 56 Total Politics  73 Toynbee, P.  79–​80 Trade Union Congress  see TUC trade unions  exclusion from policymaking  46 Labour  22, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 46, 127 New Labour  56, 143 stakeholder capitalism  54–​5 Trickett, J.  126, 167 Trotskyism  31 Trump, D.  160–​2 TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership)  152 TUC (Trade Union Congress)  24–​5, 29 Turley, A.  167 U UBI (Universal Basic Income)  136, 149 UKIP (UK Independence Party)  74, 151, 164, 165 Umunna, C.  168–​9 unemployment  26–​7 US  12, 16, 93, 96, 99, 152, 156, 160, 162 utopianism  74, 101 W Watson, T.  164, 170–​1 welfare-​to-​work programmes  53 Westlake, M.  36, 38–​9 White, J.  159 Whiteley, P.  42 Whitty, L.  32 Wickham-​Jones, M.  23, 24, 28, 36 Wilkinson, R.  99–​100, 105–​7, 108, 109 Willetts, D.  64 Williamson, T.  95, 100–​1 Wilson, H.  general election victory  26 Labour’s Programme  24 Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP)  27 unions  22 ‘white heat of technology’ speech  21 Wilson, P.  167, 170 winter of discontent  27, 28 Wintour, P.  33, 36, 37, 78, 79 Wollaston, S.  169–​70 Wood, S.  78, 81, 84, 102 Wren-​Lewis,  S.  125 Y Yearley, A.  72 Young, M.  14, 82

206

“The battle for the soul of any party is both a battle of ideas and a battle between the factions for whom those ideas are the banners under which they march. This fascinating book weaves history and first-hand interviews together to provide a lively and convincing sense of the competing personalities, politics and principles that have taken Labour on the roller coaster ride it’s been on for the last seventy-five years.” Tim Bale, Queen Mary University of London

“Accessibly written and packed with insights and measured analysis, this is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand Labour’s present situation.” Mark Wickham-Jones, University of Bristol

From Attlee to the birth of New Labour, and the advent of Corbynism, this book gives a lively account of the ideological developments and dramas in the Labour Party in recent decades. Batrouni delves into the totemic battles between hard and soft left, examining the destructive and creative elements of key periods of Labour’s ideological exhaustion and ideational confusion. Providing powerful insights from interviews with some of the most influential thinkers, advisors and MPs in the party, he goes on to examine the phenomenal emergence of Corbynism, the impact of Brexit and what lies ahead for the party.

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN THE LABOUR PARTY

Dimitri Batrouni is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Bristol.

DI M IT R I B AT ROU N I

ISBN 978-1-5292-0506-0

@BrisUniPress BristolUniversityPress bristoluniversitypress.co.uk

9 781529 205060

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