Michael Meacher - Labour's Future

There is something really surreal about the current political scene. As the position of the two main parties becomes increasingly intertwined and the differences between the Blairite and Brownite variations of neo-liberalism become increasingly difficult to detect, the debate about the political fundamentals has dwindled almost to invisibility. Never was ideology more needed, and never was it more lacking.

It isn’t as though there’s little to debate. The free-market Washington consensus, which has governed the global economy for the past quarter century, is in crisis as a result of the sub-prime market fiasco and other excesses of two or more decades of deregulated markets. Yet neither in Parliament nor in the media is there any serious debate of long-term reform. The power structure in Britain has dramatically altered over the same period with the growing centralisation of power around No.10 balanced by the downgrading of Parliament, and linked to the dominance (till now) of the City, big business and increasingly the media. But nowhere is the loss of democratic accountability even discussed, let alone remedied. And since the Iraq war ended nearly five years ago, there has still not been a Parliamentary debate with a vote on the causes, handling and aftermath of the war.

In the absence of discussion about the real big issues, politics has become a matter of narrow positioning, re-positioning and counter-positioning between political elites round daily issues as they arise. Of course these issues have to be addressed, but addressed in terms of an overarching philosophy with which people can identify. The Progress think-tank talk of “a future agenda which is post-Blair, but not anti-Blair; building on the achievements of the past decade, not running away from them” is simply not fit for purpose.

Labour will only make a major and sustained recovery when it stands up for its natural supporters – potentially more than half the population – against the forces of the market which always favour the wealthy over the powerless. The new ultra-wealthy, epitomised by the £27m (£519,230 a week) paid to Bob Diamond of Barclays Capital, are seen by many as greed incorporated when living in the same society as those on a minimum wage of £200 a week. A ratio between top and bottom incomes, which was less than 50:1 only thirty years ago, has now risen to 2,600:1. Labour voters expect their Government to fight inequality, not side with it.

What Labour needs to do, to inspire its potential supporters that they have a Government on their side, is to change the power structure in the manifold different ways that will strengthen the hand of those at present with little or no power. It means implementing the Charter of Fundamental Rights which the other 26 EU States have all accepted without demur. It means restoring the same employment protection rights as are enjoyed elsewhere throughout Europe, particularly for temporary and agency workers. And it must involve protecting individual freedoms from being eroded by cutbacks in legal aid, restrictions on jury trials, limits on the right to protest, and undue detention without charge.

Money is power too, so raising the minimum wage, currently just £5.52 an hour, to at least £7 in the first instance, would empower many with little opportunities. Equally, ensuring through greater transparency in wage and salary determination that representatives of all the main grades in an organisation share a much bigger say in the allocation of annual pay increases would radically change perceptions about rights and power. And it means taking redistribution out of its taboo seclusion – reclaiming a good chunk of the £25bn a year identified by the Institute of Fiscal Studies as tax avoided or evaded by large corporations or very rich individuals (including the hyper-rich non-doms who pay no tax at all) and using it par excellence to provide decent social care for the most vulnerable elderly.

Labour is expected too to ensure that the market is kept in its proper place and not allowed to subvert the public values which give protection and rights and meaning to citizenship. The concept of ‘choice’ in the health services and education has been largely a pretext to open them up to the private sector, without any firm evidence of better outcomes and leading bizarrely to the Tories being poll-rated on health as better than Labour. This aberration should now be stopped if Labour’s reputation as the party of the universality, equity and accountability of public service is to be retrieved. There are other reasons too for a major change of direction here. PFI has proved enormously wasteful, over-extended IT projects have cost billions and still failed, and consultants have enriched themselves at taxpayers’ expense out of all proportion to public benefit. Yet preventive health services, where both better health and much greater cost-effectiveness could be secured, remain hugely under-subscribed. A change here could bring enormous dividends.

Above all, electors want a Labour Government dealing effectively with market failures and excesses. They would prefer temporary public ownership for Northern Rock if that avoids £56bn of loans and guarantees at their expense. Where privatisation has led to hospital infection and overcrowded trains, which they feel strongly about, they look to the State to reverse it if that is necessary. They want a changed relationship with the market which allows the private company brought in to upgrade the London Underground, Metronet, to walk away leaving the public to pick up their £2bn debts. And they expect a Labour Government to tackle Big Business on their behalf where that is necessary – the food industry over unhealthy food and obesity, the gaming industry over casinos, the drinks industry over alcohol-fuelled violence and anti-social behaviour, and the airlines over climate change.

It will not be easy for any Government to begin to move away from the privatisation, deregulation, unfettered market tenets of neo-liberalism which have governed Western political economy for the last three decades and to establish again a much more healthy relationship between the market and society. But the gathering international crisis where money and power have so clearly over-reached themselves offers a real chance. And re-inspiring the Labour project in the run-up to the next election may leave little choice.