By Kezia Dugdale / @kezdugdale
Feeling world weary, down-trodden, and thoroughly bereft of any lust for life after the Euro elections? Don’t we all. But here in Edinburgh East, a two way battle with the SNP on the crest of tidal wave of popularity, we can’t afford to stop and feel downbeat. Losing to the SNP in the Euro elections hurt, but we kept our 2 MEPs and now we must dust ourselves down and get on with the job of taking the campaign to the SNP. That’s why last night, when the news of Labour’s worst defeat in our history broke, we went door knocking.
And what did we find?
* Significant support for Labour, helped by an excellent local Labour Councillor.
* Significant support for the SNP. Not nationalists, but disaffected, angry people, often former Labour voters.
* And for the first time, notable support for the BNP.
I know it’s early days and there’s a certain rawness to the voter ID you get the day after an election, but I seriously fear for the impact that the BNP’s arrival on the Euro stage will have on the future of our politics. The millions of pounds they will receive in Euro allowances is essentially irrelevant. What worries me more is the legitimacy that their election has given them. We now have two democratically elected facists representing the UK. We have them not simply because Labour did badly, or the Greens failed to do better. We’ve got them – because hundreds of thousands of people across the country voted for them.
However abhorrent their views, the BNP’s election was democratic and fair. They have a mandate and five years in which to serve it.
I saw one BNP poster up in an Edinburgh East window tonight. But several more voters mentioned it on the doorstep. It wasn’t direct support, more implicit. Things like “The BNP have the right ideas on immigration”, “Too many immigrants taking our jobs and our houses.”
The BNP’s language resonates with voters because it’s the same way people are talking in pubs and living rooms across the land. The fact that’s ignorant, bloody minded, fuelled by prejudice and fired by hate is completely secondary. It’s an emotional rhetoric. Simple and conversational. Human. A language which Labour has long since forgotten. Yes, it’s racist. But it’s how people think and feel and we’ll forget that at our peril.
To tackle it, we have to communicate the power of our over-powering counter arguments in the same simple, conversational, human terms. In the run up to the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections, Labour boasted about the fact that it's manifesto was twice the size of the SNP's. As if the weight of a manifesto measured the degree of ambition within it. 100 pages long and I couldn’t name five things in it now. It was worthy. Thorough and detailed. Rational and dull.
The SNP on the hand had 6 simple promises. Some they would keep. Some they would break. But memorable nonetheless: scrapping bridge tolls, more police, dumping student debt, to name but three. Voters knew what the SNP stood for and very few could disagree with the pledges. Voters know what the BNP stand for and the vast majority reject it. But the oxygen of a legitimate win lets the BNP support breed whilst the pain of our loss leaves us gasping for air.
This is my plea to those writing Labour’s next general election manifesto. I expect Gordon Brown’s name to be at the front of it – but whatever happens, the pages that follow are far more important.
That request for the opportunity to serve a fourth term, must be bold and emotive and it must be Labour.
What do we value? What can my granny expect to live off? Is it fair – are we equal? What school will my kids to go to? How rich are the rich? How poor are the poor? How do I get to work and can I walk home at night? What rights do I have and what’s wrong with the world?
No more managerial speak and statistical bulletins. No roll calls on success. Nobody will vote for what we have done – only what we promise to do.
If I can’t sell it in a sentence on a doorstep, I don’t want to know.
If we find our political instinct again and emotional narrative to communicate it, we won't need to spend our time spelling out the dividing lines between the parties. It should be blatantly obvious.
It just has to be.
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Of course, the appalling leadership and Government by the smear, midnight call and flying Nokia havent helped but even if you fix those issues, what's left to sell to the electorate. Nothing. A vacuum.
If Enoch Powell ever said one true thing, it was that "all political careers end in failure". Purnell and Blears are finding that out, and the ruump of ultra-Blairites that can't let go. They are in the same position as the ueber-Thatcherite wing of the Tory party. It was only after Cameron tried to rebrand his partty they started getting more successful, and sadly until people like Byers, Field, Flint etc shut up and face reality Labour is in the same position as the Tories back then. The problem with politicians is that they never let the shipwrecks of others be their sea marks.
This means that those members of the Labour Party, those activists and councillors have a chance to reform our party. I am not referring New or Old Labour, just Labour. We have chance to shed the cheap trash and replace it with people of high moral character. My advice for as many people in the party is get on that Parliamentary Panel. Build strong relationships within your Constituency party and discuss what kind of MP you want. At your constituency meeting do not focus on GE defeat, focus on the kind of person and charcacter your Constituency needs. You need someone who will fight your corner and be committed to helping others. It might be worth asking what vocational experience they have had as this will enable your prospective MP relate to the very people they represent. So with lunatics like Margaret Becket about to feel the axe in Derby, and similar MP's who have committed political suicide in the name of egoism, remember humility is a cracking trait for that all important Labour MP. So if you do not think you want the job or are afraid of it but have led a decent life, get yourself on that Parliamentary List. We need you now!!!!!!!
Don't really know what you mean.
Unless you think the Conservative and Lib Dems are pro-poverty or anti-education then it's not necessarily obvious. We disagree on not what is to be done but how it is to be done. That's what we need to spell out.
I agree we shouldn't need to point out the differences though. If we passionatly believe in our particular politics and talk about what WE want to do not what THEY will do then I suspect we'd be much less homogenous in appearance.
I find it particularily hypocritical because the whole point of the labour movement was to support the british working man and woman.
Now these working people note that there jobs are going to foriegn workers and because they complain they are racist.
These people identify with the BNP because the labour movement has let them down, the labour movement doesnt care about
the working class,
they just care about (alleged)racism and other inconsequential pc claptrap, its a great way to divert the pressure of a failing argument.
"I am really concerned about the future, the job I had has been taken by a migrant worker." Says the worker.
"Really" says the labour activist, "They are in Europe and are allowed to come here."
"I agree, but that doesnt help me when I'm facing repossesion because I cant pay me mortgage, why dont they get a job in their own country?"
"RACIST" screeches the labour activist.
The conversation ends with the innocent individual made to feel guilty and the activist stalking off - what is to note,
is that the answer about jobs didnt come. There isnt an answer that the left can provide. But the argument was diverted
and the pressure moved.
I remember seeing the looks on envious uncreatice Conservative Mp's when Tony Blair was demolishing them. He scalped enough Tory leaders.
We brought dignity to the people earning less than a pound an hour, stopped the elderly freezing to death, who had served in the WW1 and WW2. Hell they would never vote for us but we did it because it was right. When I served in the armed forces soldiers wages went from 700 pounds a month to 1k. I do not think the Tories have crap all to offer. Only the Labour party EVER Vhelped the Gurkhas, the Liberal and Tories just milked a political situation for more for the Gurkhas without giving them anything. In the end history will state factually that ONLY Labour helped them.
Businesses need money they don't care where they get it from. Our welfare reform has ensured they get it during difficult times. If you think people unemployed with no money is a great idea look at the US they have towns disappearing off the map, becoming ghosttowns due to the depravity. Oh and lets think who caused all this crap...hmmm Reagan and Bush..oh aren't they Tories. My advice to Tory bloggers : get a life and go to your own sad blogg sites, friendless and ruthless as they may be. Go away get lost! We are the Labour Party and we are well adjusted people who do not take pleasure fromthe suffering of others. You are sadists and belong in a tiolet..so please..please just go and we will happliy flush you away!
I recognise that Labour has made strides in helping those at risk, but the profligacy with which Labour has thrown money about is likely to bring those policies to a crashing halt and put those very people at more risk.
Incidentally, I don't think you meant "becoming ghosttowns due to the depravity", unless they died because of too much online porn! Try "deprivation" instead.
I am sure your bRaInSpeW above could be edited so it makes sense, do mention any policies you can think of.
If we find our political instinct again and emotional narrative to communicate it
Keep trying.
As for the rest of it, I agree. However, it more than words, Labour needs to start to actually represent someone, actually tangible people and not ideals.