Labour’s problem is the message, not London accents
“There is no choice between being principled and unelectable, and electable and unprincipled. We have tortured ourselves with this foolishness for too long,” said Tony Blair, in his 1994 speech to Labour Conference, his first as leader. “If the world changes and we do not, we become of no use to the world. Our principles cease being principles and just ossify,” he continued.
Blair is a man already credited with significant political gifts but it appears we can add unerring foresight to the list, at least on issues that don’t involve the European Union. The speech was delivered 25 years ago when he told his party that if it didn’t speak to the concerns of ordinary Britons and accept the basic principles of the modern market it wouldn’t get anywhere near power. Yesterday morning, he offered an updated version.
He conducted an excoriating post-mortem of his party’s performance in the election. He described a “path of almost comic indecision” on Brexit. He labelled the manifesto a “100-page wish list” and said that “any fool can promise everything for free – but the people weren’t fooled.” And he also said that what voters want is “someone who is going to govern the country with a credible programme,” no matter where they’re from or what ‘group’ they represent.
The Labour party is currently trying to digest its epic defeat and begin the process of rebuilding. Jeremy Corbyn called it Labour’s “period of reflection” and so far it is neither edifying nor encouraging.
As the battle for the party’s soul gets underway, many members are convinced the problem was with the messenger rather than the message.
The hard-left seem convinced that their salvation lies outside London, that “metropolitan” is a dirty word.
This rather avoids the fact that a former mayor of the capital named Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, schooled at Eton and Oxford, just lured traditional Labour voters in such numbers that he now commands a stinking majority. Labour’s obsession with identity politics risks ensuring its continued irrelevance.
They won’t woo back their voters just by dressing their Marxist manifesto in a flat cap and having it walk a whippet down to the Rover’s Return.
And nor will the party succeed in winning back the country if it posits that “the north” is all the same, as if Manchester’s Northern Quarter is somehow the same as an ex-mining village in County Durham.
What could make a credible opposition (a vital part of our constitutional arrangement) is for the party to elect a leader who understands aspiration, responsibility, patriotism and leadership. Whether they come from London or Llandudno should make no difference. However, given the Corbynite-shape of the membership and party bureaucracy, don’t expect Labour to fall in love with Blair again just yet.