The Telegraph suggests that “senior” Labour MPs and peers are considering breaking away from their party in disgust at Gordon Brown’s leadership and fear of a lurch to the left. Talks are apparently afoot to convince them to become Liberal Democrats. As usual with unattributed stories, it is impossible to tell whether there is any basis to the newspaper’s speculation – or whether it is entirely unfounded.
But assuming for a moment it is true, some will be tempted to question whether the party should welcome defectors from Labour. I’ve previously outlined why I don’t subscribe to the view (held by many Labour supporters) that our two parties are needlessly separated, and that the “left” (or “liberal left” as some think of it) should reunite, in coalition or in merger.
There are important reasons why the Liberal Democrats exist as an independent force in British politics, and being a second-rate Labour party or a second-rate Conservative party is not one of them… quite the opposite, in fact. We don’t want to be part of a leftist project, but a liberal one. The Liberal Democrats are clearly an anti-conservative party and a progressive party, but that does not make us a quaint administrative unit within an imagined “liberal left”, embodied by the Labour party and the labour movement.
Yet the Liberal party’s traumatic twentieth century has meant that British liberals have not always seen the party and its successor to be their natural home. The SDP merger saw part of the liberal diaspora come home, but there are still liberals stranded in Britain’s Conservative, Labour and Green parties who we should welcome as we build a broader and stronger coalition within the Liberal Democrats. Clearly, we have an immense opportunity to realign British politics by attracting former Labour politicians and their supporters to help the Liberal Democrats replace Labour as the largest progressive party in British politics.
It would quite obviously be difficult – nay, impossible – for a discontent like Charles Clarke to be offered membership of the Liberal Democrats, unless he wants to recant the entire authoritarian project he pursued as Home Secretary, most notably with ID cards and detention without trial. Quite how the Telegraph intends the term “Blairite” to be interpreted is crucial here. If they refer to MPs who reject Old Labour’s politics of class warfare and statist fundamentalism, then that is one thing – and presumably what Lib Dem sources identified as “moderate”. This would include those Labour MPs who – like Paddy Ashdown and Roy Jenkins – were assured by Tony Blair that he aimed to pursue a project similar to the SDP agenda of the 1980s, and convert Old Labour into a progressive liberal party. It is quite another thing if “Blairite” means those like Clarke who enthusiastically supported the odious Blairite cocktail of attacking civil liberties, abandoning a moral foreign policy and unthinkingly fetishising market forces. (For a critique of the latter, see Our Vince’s excellent pamphlet).
Yet there are a large number of Labour MPs who could sit happily as Liberal Democrat MPs (and many Conservatives, too). One of the only downsides to the recent and healthy flourishing of ideological debate within our party is its tendency to create factionalism. As has been suggested elsewhere, supporters of different traditions within the Liberal Democrats should never take recourse to purging or persecuting their opponents – not least because there is as much division on specific issues within the imagined tribes as between them. It would be a terrible mistake to reject an influx of former Labour supporters into a party. On the contrary, we should court and welcome them.
Political parties are intrinsically coalitions of individuals with varied views but a liberal party – I would argue – is naturally in a perpetual state of coalition. This is because the essence of liberalism is the preservation, in the face of new challenges, technologies and situations, of a balance between liberty and equality. Invariably, no two liberals will agree on quite how the balance between negative liberties and positive equalities stacks up over the hundreds of issues that surface within their lifetimes. While this paradox in our political ideology can often feel like a drawback – for it denies us the safe but deceptive certainties of socialism or market fundamentalism – it is the essence of liberalism as a political creed.
In the 1990s, the Liberal Democrats benefited greatly from former Conservatives who became not simply disillusioned with their Prime Minister, but sure that their principles were more at home within the Liberal Democrats. We would be made not to welcome defectors from Labour in similar circumstances, while retaining caution against those who imagine us to be a bland centrist party as opposed to a radical movement.
The Liberal Democrats should always be the natural home of British liberals, wherever they have been marooned in their careers thus far. Paddy Ashdown’s success at bringing home ex-Conservatives in the 1990s should be enthusiastically pursued by Nick Clegg in today’s climate, welcoming Labour members into our ranks. Tony Blair’s henchmen should be kept at a distance, but liberal Labour MPs would be more than welcome in Britain’s progressive and radical party. They would be at home in a party that champions social justice, civil liberty and opportunity for all.
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35 Comments
Great read Richard.
I believe that anybody who truly wants the type of government that the Liberal Democrats offer… should join.
Also, listening to the media speculation since Cameron agreed with Clegg, about whether there would be some alliance or other (did you hear the harsh, probing and insistant questioning on ‘This Week’ of Sarah Tether?)… surely our party and representatives will just go on striving to achieve our goals, regardless of anyone elses views; be they for or against ours?
I don’t think it matters whether the other parties agree or differ with us, I don’t think it matters if they see sense and join us, or remain blind and don’t… surely all that matters is that we keep on being true to the policies we declare and that we do it without being influenced by the other parties?
The telegraph article just looks like Tory trouble making eh?
However seeing “the curious death of Labourite Britain” would be f@cking fantastic
Without wanting to sound overly partisan I can’t actually think of anything particularly positive they’ve ever done
Maybe not joining Vietnam?
Most of the social security stuff could have been done much better by liberal means as opposed to the socialist ones they employed,
ie the original liberal idea of negative income taxation
asides from that, they destroyed our manufacturing industry by nationalizing most of it then propping it up with protectionism until it was so inefficient it was a burden on the rest of society
Essentially the Oxford manifesto still makes sense today,
If you read an old Labour manifesto it looks like something out of pravda
Anyone who is happy to put their name to our manifesto, to denounce ID cards and the creeping authoritarianism of the Labour party, etc, should be perfectly welcome. Parties can’t be too sniffy about who they accept, as Richard points out.
However, until they turn up at our door, can we keep calm and carry on as normal?
These NL MP’S should not be allowed to
parachute in to another party, they are only thinking of their own jobs anyway.
Many people will have been working for the lib/dems for years with a view to standing for the lib/dums for parliament. why should they be pushed to one side to give employment for a member of another party?
There is also thedanger public sees this as a con and vote tory to teach you a lesson.
If, as seems likely at the moment, Labour lose the next election badly, then they face a long period of probably anguished debate about what they stand for and how they can make themselves relevant again. Their problem is that in order to make them electable in 1997 Blair pretty well filleted all elements of ideology from the party and replaced them with the spin and media manipulation which over time has corroded the public’s trust in politicians. There may well be people in the Labour Party who feel that the process of redefining the party’s purpose and strategy might be drawn-out, bloody, and the outcome uncertain, and who therefore feel that we would be a more congenial path for continued political activism. Power does corrupt: it also saps.
Hmmm. My card is in its envelope just waiting for such an event to add a stamp to it…:)
The Party is not an exclusive club, it is already full of people who were on the right of the old Labour Party, these Blairites are their natural successors.
People move from Party to Party all the time based on ideological movements. I would be surprised if Blairite Labour MP’s wanted to join us as we are to the left of them anyway.
Frank Field would be welcome.
usual problem with defectees……
viewed with hate from the place they have left:
viewed with suspicion from the place they have moved to.
having said that, I’m for bringing people together.
Whilst I am not against accepting defectors I would urge caution and ask ‘the leadership’ to remember the last Labour MP to defect to us – Paul Marsden.
We were taken in by him, his voting record was fairly Liberal – I would even contend he was fairly Liberal but I think we all remember what happened next…
I will ignore the bad poetry and the affair, as I am sure many of our MPs could be guilty of one of the other (hopefully not the poetry which was really bad) but his refusal to really play ball with the party and then the attempted defection back to Labour during the General Election campaign showed that he was never a Liberal Democrat.
So please be careful, I would be happy to see some Labour MPs and Lords ‘come home’ but let’s just make sure we are getting the right ones!
Colin
I’m very much for letting them in. These are moderates who think politics should be organised around something other than class. They’re also largely pro-European. People like Byers and Milburn have been extremely supportive of the localist agenda.
If Charles Clarke is coming round to a liberal way of thinking, I think we should be grown-up enough to welcome him and his experience. We’re a party formed around a broad concept of liberalism, not an ideological sect like the Hague-era Conservatives. And we shouldn’t forget that even Roy Jenkins, as home secretary, passed a Prevention of Terrorism Act that introduced exclusion orders and extended detention-without-charge.
Also, aren’t we the party that supports the rehabilitation of offenders?… š
If they’re so disillusioned and passionate about Liberalism then why not join us now? Get on with it or it’s a ‘No Thanks’ from me.
Yes – then keep them in an open prison for a while! Or at least one of Thurso’s places. With 24hr care, suicide watch and psychological resettlement. When we think might be ready, I suggest submitting them to a barage of tests, such as the ducking stool and weighing them against a copy of On Liberty, and maybe finally a week of “I’m a celebrity get me outof here flmed in the Polar Bear enclosure at Berlin Zoo…:)
If they are people who have kept their seats whilst standing as Labour candidates in a rout of Labour they may only be permitted in on the condition of holding a bye-election, and if they defect before a general election in a seat we have already selected for they can help with some delivery but no special treatment on being adopted as a candidate unless our already selected candidate agrees to any change.
Personally, I think most of them would find the Tory party more to their tastes. But if they pass all these tests, then perhaps, but we need to give some thought to penance too of course…:)
The right winf of Labour – or “New” Labour should NOT consider joining us. The politics of Rupert Murdoch which dominate New Labour is a variation of Thatcherism; neo-liberal economics that led to the disasterous crash in the economy, neo-conservative foreign pollicy that led to disaster in Iraq, plus a tabloid disdain for civil liberties.
We should have nothing to do with them and denounce them at every opportunity.
If there are any Labour MPs left that believe in civil liberties and Keynsian economics, then they are the ones who should be joining us.
Frank Field would be welcome.
If someone as sanctimonious, authoritarian, and socially conservative as Frank Field were to join the Party I’d be one of the first to rush screaming out of the door, regardless of what he may be capable of bringing to the table from an economic perspective.
He won’t though; even I concede that Field has enough probity about him not to throw in his lot with a liberal party, unlike many in Labour who’d do it just to save their skins.
Jock – would you have resigned from Oxford East Lib Dems in c.2002 when Labour party member Stephen Tall defected?
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I think it does all depend on who these “Blairites” were.
If they are more of the socially-liberal, electoral-reform-promising early years of Blair type then come on over. If they were cheerleaders for Iraq, ID Cards, detention, rendition and all that jazz then no.
Overall though, we as a party membership need to reconcile ourselves to the fact that over the years a great many people who might otherwise classify themselves as “liberal” have gone to the Tories because they believed in the market and talked about individualism – or to Labour because they talked about equality and social progress – and ignored the Lib Dems because, even though we might be more authentically liberal, they judged one of the other parties as a better vehicle for actually achieving their aims.
As this party grows and strengthens – and I hope no-one is still labouring under the tragi-romantic idea that we will always remain a rump third party, ideologically pure but useless – we will inevitably accumulate people who have been with other parties. If they are genuine in their belief in liberalism and honestly want to work with us to acheive our gommon goals then we must welcome them with open arms, give them a bunch of Focuses and send them on their way.
On these particular rumours, with all the above provisos, I would urge the Party leadership to be as open as possible to MPs and Lords wanting to cross the floor from whatever direction – the more hits we can score against Labour, the Tories, the SNP or whomever else, the more it will help us in the country.
One word of caution if anyone at POLD is reading – before anyone gets given a gold rosette and a press conference, I want their expenses gone through with the finest of fine tooth combs!
I’m with Tez on Frank Field, was very reticent about the stuff Vince did with him because of what he’s said/done in the past (especially his anti-immigration crap).
But overall, the party’s got a large number of “soft Labour men” in it already, a few more won’t tip the balance too much, especially given the large number of fully liberal members there are in the younger activist base.
I joined the Liberal Democrats, and want us to reach out and rebuild a liberal coalition, not the small rump party that existed pre-merger.
Clarke’s an authoritarian fool, but other moderates within Labour? Fine, as long as it’s handled right.
Let’s not forget, the public are anti-Labour at the moment, they don’t really /want/ the Tories, but don’t think we can win.
If a chunk more of Labour came to us and signed up to our ideals and our constitution (especially the preamble), then that’ll bring a lot of moderate Labour types and former activists as well.
If that gives us the tipping point to finally break the mold, I’m good.
Then we can have STV, Jock and I can form a radically left wing mutualist party of our own and the whole thing is settled.
We need to win as many seats as possible supporting our agenda under an electoral system that’s designed to stop us.
Let’s not turn away a good chance at doing so just because we don’t like some of them.
“ideologically pure but useless”
I ‘d say ideologically pure would be a terrible way to describe the Lib Dems
at least from an economic perspective
just look at the posts on any thread on this site
Keynesians, Libertarians, Geo-liberals Classical liberals, American style social democrat liberals, Georgists, geo-libertarians
Its all good to see but the Lib Dem party is like trying to herd cats
>Keynesians, Libertarians, Geo-liberals Classical liberals, American style social democrat liberals, Georgists, geo-libertarians
Georgists? Geo-Libertarians?
I admit that is beyond my ken of the varieties of Liberals.
Do they kiss the girls and make them cry and hide themselves in caches in the Peak District respectively?
Help.
Thanks.
Mattā”Georgist” and “Geo-liberal” (although the latter is normally geo-mutualist unless I’ve missed something) are proponents of Land Value Tax (as per People’s Budget 1909), as proposed by economist Henry George.
Surprised you haven’t encountered the Georgists given your wonders around blogging, maybe they’re not posting on the subject as much these days, they certainly persuaded me. Then, find a Lib Dem that doesn’t, eventually, favour some form of LVT as a medium term goal…
We should alwasy remember that as a third party, we have to try and effect maximum damage to the two other parties, and certainly engineering a collapse in New Labour could help us gain power in the long term.
Obviously, some anti-Brown Labour mps would not be a good fit (the Blairite ultras for example) but I think there are many good Labour Mp’s who could serve their constituents far better under a yellow flag.
An excellent article, Richard.
Just three comments:
1) I would hate to think of anybody “unthinkingly fetishising market forces” but what about those who have thought about it very carefully, weighed all the odds, and concluded that the market is infinitely superior to any sort of planned or mixed economy?
2) “We would be made not to welcome defectors from Labour in similar circumstances”. Unless you mean we would join the Mafia, I guess that should read “mad” :o)
3) In some paragraphs you differentiate liberals from socialists and conservatives, in others from “socialism or market fundamentalism”. I hope that this is not to suggest that there is anything that connects conservativism with free markets, which have only ever shared common ground when Tories used free markets as a tactic to achieve their own ends.
On the general point, however, you have interestingly (and perhaps both deliberately and with good reason) avoided the politics of this. Depending on the number and prominance of the defectors, such a shift could be a massive non-event or a huge boon to the Liberal Democrats. As long as we were not compromising our principles we should be wary of looking a gift-horse in the mouth.
Thanks Mat.
“The market is infinitely superior to any sort of planned or mixed economy.”
After the total collapse of the free market economy, this is simply world-class lunacy. It’s on a par with Kim Il-Sung, Osama bin Laden, Arthur Scargill, David Icke, and Ozymandias!
We used to boast of being the party of common sense, the party that didn’t get blinded by crazy ideologies, etcetera. My, how we’ve degenerated.
“After the total collapse of the free market economy, this is simply world-class lunacy. Itās on a par with Kim Il-Sung, Osama bin Laden, Arthur Scargill, David Icke, and Ozymandias!
We used to boast of being the party of common sense, the party that didnāt get blinded by crazy ideologies, etcetera. My, how weāve degenerated.”
Hmmm. I don’t think we’ve got the total collapse of the market economy happening at the moment.
And Tom’s argument still stands – a properly regulated market economy is still infinitely superior to a planned or mixed one. You’re confusing the means of exchange with the type of ownership. There’s no reason why a market economy can’t function with mutuals and co-operatives as well as share-holder funded companies.
There should be a clear rule – any Labour MP defecting should have to go through the party’s standard procedures on candidate selection and face a ballot of local party members as anyother candidate would do. No ifs, no buts.
Personally, although I disagree with Charles Clark’s tendancy towards authoritarianism, I wouldn’t have a problem with him joining the party. The reason? We don’t exactly hide our anti-authoritarian streak under a bushel, so in the (highly unlikely) event he chose to defect he would be coming to us clearly in the understanding that he would have to accept our policies – including ID cards.
As far as anything pre-election was concerned, where there is a candidate in situ then the defecting MP would have to accept that and either stand down or find another seat.
Tom – Yep, “mad” not “made”. š
On your bigger questions, where my non-libertarian personal preferences came through despite studied non-intra-partisanship:
I will always defend the party being a broad tent, but I’ll also aim to make sure the ideologies I describe as democratic socialism and economic libertarianism are opposing guide ropes rather than the tent’s frame. (Wow, that metaphor is tortured even by my cruel and unusual standards, but I quite like it so I’ll let it stand).
Now, I understand very well that we have different definitions of what those ideologies are. And you’d probably consider *me* a democratic socialist and your libertarianism to be authentic liberalism. But let’s leave aside the “I’m the only real liberal in the village” argument as we’ve all been through that one before. š
Steve Travis,
A “properly regulated” market economy is one where Government has seen enough sense to introduce an element of planning and external governance. If that’s what you support, then you’re not the kind of crazy fundamentalist neocon free-market loony I was aiming my comments at! But there are far too many of them out there, and phrases like “infinitely superior” do rather give them away.
“I donāt think weāve got the total collapse of the market economy happening at the moment.”
OK, OK, I did overstate things. A little!
Sorry, the man who’s convinced that the free market economy has utterly failed is accusing others of being ideologues?
Ouch, I must hold my sides.
No. a properly regulated market is one in which the rule of law is upheld, monopolies are prevented or broken up, and attempts to conceal information are treated as serious crimes.
Governments are terrible at planning economies, that’s been a basic principle of liberalism for as long as there’s been a definition of liberalism.
The current problem is a market correction after our government, as well as the US government, failed in its duty and stoked up an artificial boom in the housing and consumer credit markets.
In other words, we had government planning and governance, it failed, as our Governments were incompetent. Both Nick and Vince have made serious speeches and articles on this over the last 2 years, Nick’s speech on banking reform from February last year makes especially good reading and sense.
Markets are a system of distribution and exchange. They work, well, as such, but have faults. It’s the responsibility of Govts to find and fix those faults.
The current incumbents failed in this duty. The market is punishing them for it, heavily. We’re all caught up in the same tide.
Ye gods, why does it take the openly labelled socialist to explain this to the supposed liberal?
Hmmm – don’t remember that one. I remember a chap called “Fairweather-Tall”. Maybe the same chap? But I think I recall him defecting because Labour were becoming too “new”.
š
Must’ve been a bit before that I think, as we were both on the council together I think – must’ve been 2000?
And the great host of the liberal ancestry sayeth: as oft as any of you, who go by the name “statists”, oft also described as “social liberals” in order to deceive, preach such unsubstantiated falsehoods to the world, I will repeat unto ye – “we have never had a free market economy whereof we may bear witness to its collapse”. When the whole earth is utterly subjected to the whim of money lenders, rentiers, monopolists and their political acolytes, in that land there cannot be a free market. The great host of the liberal ancestry came to destroy such outrages but were repeatedly vanquished, until their descendents too became subjugated to the “statists”.
Verily did Liberals once both understand what a free market consists of and believe it was the best way conceived, yeah even by an Invisible Hand, to provide for the relief of the greatest suffering amongst the greatest number of the poor and disposessed. And lo! did the greatest number of the poor and disposessed heartily agree with them.
Then there came from the darkness, false prophets, pretending to be “left” but really knowing themselves to be secretly of the “right”, calling themselves “socialists”, who did deceive liberals and the poor and disposessed into believing men of small mental stature and large self-regard could plan such relief better by mainforce, thievery and “redistribution” of what was not theirs to sequester. And by these means Liberals were indeed degenerated and threwn into great long exile for an hundred years and more.
Yes, if they are prepared to start again near the bottom, deliver their ward Focus etc and not expect any special treatment becuase they were influential once in a previous bad existance. If they want to get a safe seat or have a peerage given out of our gratitude to them, forget it.
Let’s not forget almost all of these guys and gals supported the invasion of Iraq, ID cards, increased detention without charge etc etc. Any that opposed most or all of these issues consistently – yes we can consider them.
“Then there came from the darkness, false prophets, pretending to be āleftā but really knowing themselves to be secretly of the ārightā, calling themselves āsocialistsā, who did deceive liberals and the poor and disposessed into believing men of small mental stature and large self-regard could plan such relief better by mainforce, thievery and āredistributionā of what was not theirs to sequester. And by these means Liberals were indeed degenerated and threwn into great long exile for an hundred years and more.”
Pure deed brulliant! Best post I’ve read for a long time! š
I’ve heard various things about Labour MPsjoining us but I’ve yet to hear any genuinely viable names mentioned.
Have there been any concrete suggestions of people who’d consider us who’d we’d actually want to have?
Well who cares?
As long we are neatly happy in our insular protective self righteous intellectual hubs? Who cares about the real issues which are how to govern an effective society?