Over on the Spectator website, Peter Hoskin neatly summarises the latest warming in the Labour Party’s official attitude towards the Liberal Democrats:
Remember when MiliE described them as a ‘disgrace to the traditions of liberalism’? Since then he has said that, actually, he’d work with the Lib Dems so long as they ditched Clegg; that he’d work with them even if they kept Clegg; that … oh, you get the picture. And now this [a piece by Douglas Alexander]: the closest that Labour have come, in spirit at least, to matching the ‘big, open, comprehensive offer’ that Cameron made at the end of last year’s general election. The headline of Alexander’s Statesman piece is even that ‘Labour will make a big, open offer to the Lib Dems on Europe’.
I say “official” because it’s not a change of mood that is shared by all in the Labour Party (or indeed, to be fair, welcomed by all in the Liberal Democrats either).
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19 Comments
The problem with a coalition with Labour is that there are many parts of that party that are even more tribalist & “conservative” that the Tories, you just need to look at the range of regressive policies they perused in Health & Education when in Government.. I think that Labour backbenchers would be even harder to work with that the Tories and we would struggle to get even as much of our progressive policies enacted as we have working with the Tories.
“As I’ve said before, much of his leadership has been about shifting the Lib Dems away from being a party of straighforward tax ‘n’ spend, towards being one of spending cuts and public service reform”
Very much agreed.
The Labour offer might well appeal to a few tortured hand-wringing types, but it won’t to Clegg. The more likely effect of this offer, being given now, is to add pressure to the Lib-Dem end of the coalition.
Perhaps, but I think the problem here is the extent to which both Labour and the Tories have backbenchers with intolerable policies, who are elected on the basis of the party’s presentation of its beliefs, which the backbench MP does not actually agree with.
The ideal outcome would be if we could have a coalition formed from a breakaway group of the more reasonable Tories (the 20-30% of their MPs who are basically centre-right liberals), the Lib Dems, and the large chunk of Labour that aren’t authoritarian. All of these groups have more in common than they do separating them, and a lot of the mess in UK politics has come from the fact that the reasonable liberals are divided by tribalism and the need to work with left/right extremists whom they despise.
I am hoping that the current coalition government will signal the end of “red vs blue” thinking in UK politics, and make such an outcome achievable in my lifetime. I don’t expect it to be in the next few years – but maybe now people will be more willing to consider alternatives to “join with the extremists to defeat the opposition” as a political strategy.
Complete rubbish.
“I am hoping that the current coalition government will signal the end of “red vs blue” thinking in UK politics, and make such an outcome achievable in my lifetime”
I believe it unlikely, Britain is wedded to adversarial politics and will remain so as long as we retain an electoral system that supports it, a self-reinforcing cycle that is not easy to break.
There is anecdotal evidence that Labour Membership has been falling by around 3,000 a Month since the summer. If we can maintain our own Membership levels then we could be going into the Election of 2015 in a much stronger relative position. I expect us to come 2nd in Vote share which will be pretty demoralising for Labour, they havnt been 3rd for 90 years.
Ed Miliband has consistently shown he is incapable of maintaining a position for more than 5 minutes – the question is now whether he will face a leadership challenge, and this is Douglas Alexander effectively throwing his hat into the ring.
Given Labour’s rhetoric since the last GE I think LibDems would struggle to accept any coalition with Miliband or Balls at its head.
@ paul Barker
“I expect us to come 2nd in Vote share which will be pretty demoralising for Labour, they havnt been 3rd for 90 years.”
I’ll take that bet. I reckon lib dems on a worse share in 2015 than in 2010, and i’ll genuinely put up as much money on that wager as you care to suggest. £1000?
Seriously, though, are you living in cloud cuckoo land?
As the Tory right and the faltering economic recovery drag the Tories towards traditional Thatcherite policies (hostile to the EU, curtailing employment rights, dismissive of environmental concerns, etc) there must be scope for greater co-operation with Labour on progressive issues.
What’s more, those commentators who continue to chunter about David Cameron “calling a snap election” seem unaware that, after the Fixed Term Parliament Act, this is no longer an option. There’s nothing to stop the LibDems co-operating with Labour on issues of mutual interest whilst still sticking with the broad thrust of the coalition’s economic strategy.
Why, exactly, would we want to work with Labour?
They are responsible for the financial position that the country is in.
That would be bad enough, but they now try to convey that impression that they would be doing something radically diifferent if they were in government.
I very much agree with Oranjepan. Ed Balls is a major impediment. Would Labour be willing to ditch him? I doubt it.
@paul barker: “I expect us to come 2nd in Vote share which will be pretty demoralising for Labour, they havnt been 3rd for 90 years.”
I have never felt the need to say this before, and may never do so again, but: ROFLMAO.
Labour – the party of rabid centralisation, curtailment of individual liberty and fiscal ineptitude? No thanks.
It would take a major shift in emphasis in the Labour ranks to make this possible. And I don’t mean ditching the two Eds – Miliband is in any case a goner, it’s only a matter if time before a stalking horse challenges him.
What Labour will have to do is emerge with a genuine candidate who can engage on a broad range of policies we can negotiate on. Labour have neither the candidate nor the policies at the moment.
That said, we should not dismiss the Labour Party out of hand, for the same reason we should never dismiss the Tories out of hand. We need to have two potential negotiating partners to strengthen our own hand by playing their offers against each other. To dismiss either of the other two parties is to weaken ourselves.
If we allow a rather partial view of the country’s financial plight, or disliking Balls (the person, not the body parts), or believing all political rhetoric and taking it to be made of steel rather than tinsel, to cause us to rule out working with Labour rather than the Conservatives, then the party is dead; and I speak as someone who as leader of a local council group supported a local Tory minority administration against Labour.
As a matter of political calculation we must keep our options open. If we wish to keep a heart as well as a head, we cannot tie ourselves permanently to the Conservatives, and the option of forming our own administration will not be on the table after the next (or, I strongly suspect, the next but one) election.
As for snap elections, this has already been debated at length on this group a day or two ago. Parliament can still vote for an early election by a two-thirds majority, or indeed repeal the legislation by a simple majority.
It’s the eternal political problem. One way to get people to vote for your candidate to get voters to hate and distrust all the rest. The moment the count is finished, and one party hasn’t got a firm majority, administration forming requires negotiating with some of the people you’ve just been slagging off, and compromising with them. The problem with that is that it leaves a lot of voters and party workers behind in “two-minute hate” mode.
Cameron was well prepared for the sudden switch from election mode to administration-forming mode in May 2010; the surprise was that Labour wasn’t, especially as Tony Blair had been successfully been riding both horses in 1997.
A more recent surprise is that Cameron went from master negotiator in May 2010 to rubbish negotiator in Brussels last week.
Labour leadership is now apparently preparing its members and supporters for the possibility that they may have to do a deal with those horrid LibDems after the next election, and that there may be instances meanwhile where thay can make common cause with them – such as Cameron’s Euro-fiasco.
“A more recent surprise is that Cameron went from master negotiator in May 2010 to rubbish negotiator in Brussels last week. ”
Oh, I don’t know. If you got thrashed in a local chess tournament, then saw your opponent lose horribly to a grand master next month — would you conclude that your opponent had become suddenly much worse? Or that you weren’t as good a player yourself as you thought you were?
Or might you conclude that winning is politics is less binary than is the case with chess, and defining a “win” rather depends on your priorities, which if different from your opponent will result entirely different interpretations……….
Interesting discussion fellas, but remember, there are three players in our political system: ‘The Government’, The Opposition and the Media, – which one wields the most power.? Until someone bites the bullet of sorting them out all the reform that we hope for will be continually undermined if it doesn’t suit their isolationist, little England agenda.
Simon Shaw writes: “Why, exactly, would we want to work with Labour?”
For two reasons. Firstly, on several issues (such as Europe, the environment, workplace rights and the NHS) I believe that there is more in common between the LibDems and Labour than between the LibDems and the Conservatives (I am not saying they are the same, just that the parties have more in common).
Secondly because, as Alisdair McGregor points out, ruling out any co-operation with Labour is a daft negotiating strategy. If you do that and the next election produces a hung parliament, then the Conservatives can fix whatever terms they wish, you have nowhere else to go.
“Secondly because, as Alisdair McGregor points out, ruling out any co-operation with Labour is a daft negotiating strategy. If you do that and the next election produces a hung parliament, then the Conservatives can fix whatever terms they wish, you have nowhere else to go.”
Agreed, and obviously with Alisdair too.