Truth - is best avoided

I went to a meeting a few days ago. It was called to bring together the (selected) left in a small town. There were 4 or 5 speakers and they all, in various ways, with various witty twists, told us that now was the time to wind up the Labour Party machine again and to prepare for a Labour victory in 2015.

It was pointed out that Labour had lost 'nearly 6 million voters' since 1997. Its membership is still 'well under' 200 000. In government it had 'made mistakes.' In the past 'the left had been marginalised' but no longer! The election of Ed Milliband as leader, said one speaker, 'was the the sign that a reform of the labour Party' was underway. There was all this new thinking. Ed himself had said that we needed more working class people in Parliament.

There were about 150 people in the meeting. Average age maybe 55? As each speaker did their stuff the meeting got the 'old religion' and by the end it looked like most people had been revved up enough to 'get out there and give 'em the message!'

I could not believe it.


In an official submission to the Electoral Commission, Labour admitted that its membership at the end of 2007 was 176,891 and that was the lowest total since Labour was founded. It has barely moved since then. The 2010 results also showed the continuing collapse of the two party system in general elections, with the combined share for the biggest two parties (57 per cent) being the lowest ever in a British election. There has been no 'decisive shift in wealth and power' under Labour despite being being in government for 25 years since 1964. We are in the gravest crisis of capitalism for 100 years. Everything, everything, in the world is changing. Nothing will be the same in ten years.

How was it that a room full of apparently sensible people could swallow this guff? I think it was a reflex.

They cheered for what they know. Since 1964 Labour leaders have told us they are left and then defended the status quo when they got into government. The people in the room were good people. They believed there should be a fairer society. They want life to be better for the under-privileged. But most of all, they want to feel ok. They have done their bit. They have trusted the leaders. No matter that it is not the first time but is the twenty first time, they have renewed their pledge.

Inexorably history grinds their goodwill into dust. Re-affirmation to a lost cause is the saddest political act of all.

It is both awful and liberating to face the fact that 100 years of working class instinctual support for Labour is over. The new, hard truth, especially in the unions under threat of extinction, know this. Something new must be created.