Can Boris Johnson hold on to the Working Class? Credit: Finnbarr Webster/Getty
I am often asked, on social media and elsewhere, why I remain attached to the Labour party. The questioners are usually well-meaning, though many find it hard to disguise their incomprehension at the fact that anyone purporting to stand for the interests of the working-class would have anything to do with an organisation which has, in large measure, become openly hostile to it.
Often these interlocutors will reveal an inner residual fondness for what they believe Labour to have once been – a communitarian, patriotic party espousing economic justice and rooted in the principles of family, work, belonging, vocation and reciprocity – and declare that they would support the party today if it still stood for these things. “I’d vote for the Labour party my grandparents voted for,” is a common refrain.
I tell them that I am under no illusion about the extent of the chasm that has emerged between Labour and the working class. Labour has historically been the vehicle that has advanced the interests of the working-class through its willingness to challenge the domination of capital, confront vested interests and diffuse power and wealth more widely throughout society. And for all its current and deep-seated faults, it still has the capacity to play that particular role.
And notwithstanding its oversteer towards the urban middle-classes and the attendant self-destructive slide into hyper-liberalism and identity politics, there continues to exist within the party a few lingering threads on a fraying rope that are just about preventing it being wrenched irretrievably from its old ideological moorings. These can be seen in the work of a small number of groups and individuals who understand that, to win power again, Labour must begin lavishing love and attention on the very people – the traditional working-class – whom it has spent so long alienating.
So while it cannot be denied that much of today’s Labour party is wedded to the precepts of liberal wokedom and obsessed with fringe political causes, it also remains the party of the Durham Miners’ Gala, the co-operative movement, trade unionism and the singing of Jerusalem at the end of each annual conference. These sorts of things represent a vestigial working-class spirit within Labour that the Tories will always struggle to emulate.
Nonetheless, it is hard to pinpoint a time since the 1930s when Labour was so disconnected from its working-class base and far from power. Even in the calamitous general election of 1983, the party largely held on to its strongholds. But today, seven months on from the latest electoral catastrophe and on the anniversary of Boris Johnson’s first year in office, Labour arguably remains at its weakest in almost a century, its poll ratings flagging (in spite of the party being under new management) and many of its so-called Red Wall seats under Tory management. That this should be happening after a decade of grinding Tory austerity remains a mystery to some. But it really oughtn’t be.
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Subscribe“The Left is still more obsessed with identity politics than finding ways to win back the working class”
It doesn’t want them. It just wants their votes. The penny had dropped by the time Gordon Brown was caught on air (2010) referring to Gillian Duffy, a perfectly ordinary northern woman with mainstream working class views, as ‘that bigoted woman’. I say already because in 2009 Andrew Neather had confessed to Labour’s deliberate policy of mass immigration ‘to rub the Right’s nose in diversity.’ Then in 2014 came the Emily Thornberry St George’s flag tweet. There is no way back from such expressions of contempt.
How right you are – well said.
Totally agree. It’s been a strange and horrifying thing to watch.
The Durham miners gala! About as
relevant as a gala for match stick girls.
I am a working class English man who lives in London, keir starmer is my MP and he is everything that is wrong with labour, the only difference between me and a northern working class man is I just live closer to parliament.
Labour no longer represent us, in fact they despise us and so why should we vote for a party that thinks that of us?
And yet the alternative is a party led by a clinically obese Etonian, who knows zero about, cares even less for, the working class Englishman.
His government has recently donated £71 million to the ‘poor’ Chinese, and allowed 3000 illegal immigrants to paddle across the Channel. If this continues, by Christmas 7000 will have crossed.
Almost the same number as crossed with William the b*****d in 1066!
Exactly
So how bad is labour that the tories are the best party to represent me?
And I don’t vote for them and while living in a 30000+ labour majority I have no voice apart from a referendum that labour wanted to overturn
Despite my cynicism,I feel we really are on the cusp of serious improvement for working class England.
Once this C-19 nonsense is passed, change is imperative.
They call you gammon. That’s all you need to know about them. Emily Thornberry is a typical example.
Always amazes me that all of the people I know who have never done a days work in their entire lives and never intend to either all vote Labour. The irony would be side splitting were it not so pathetic.
Well said.
Ever since Labour was high jacked by the ‘shriekers’ it has been the party of the feckless and the idle.
It continues in that tradition.
That’s hardly a huge demographic. The problem with labour and the left is the importation of American identity politics.
By Paul’s standards a slightly superficial article that merely states the obvious.
As for this:
‘Show that it can again be the vehicle to advance the cause of the working class against the resistance of vested interests.’
Paul doesn’t really suggest how Labour might do this. Nor does he point out that those globalist ‘vested interests’ are, to a large extent, the people who now vote Labour i.e. the metropolitan elites and university towns etc.
Interestingly, Labour has not shown any sign of coming back in Scotland, where is was so wonderfully wiped out a few years ago. But the Scots’ enthusiasm for the SNP is, I believe, far stronger that the Red Wall’s attachment to the Tories, which was, I believe, very much a temporary factor motivated by Brexit.
Right now the Tories are behaving very much like the Labour Party, throwing borrowed or printed money at anyone and everyone, and generally doing insane and wicked things. Many of those things seem designed to kick normal people in the teeth, for instance giving pay rises to teachers who refuse to teach, or making them wear face masks in supermarkets. Really, there is nowhere for normal people to turn in electoral terms, unless perhaps Farage forms his Reform Party.
“Really, there is nowhere for normal people to turn in electoral terms”
If you’re attacking Boris from the right, I’m sorry, but you’re not “normal people”.
The libertarian Thatcherite is as rare as a Liberal Democrat MP these days. Yes, they exist, but both are equally out of tune with the zeitgesit.
I’m not really attacking him from the right. For instance, I would be happy to see the railways renationalised, along with utilities such as water. I’m just attacking him from the point of view of someone who wants to see all the disasters of the New Labour and Cameron/May years unwound. For a long time now our society has rewarded all the wrong people all the wrong behaviours. It would nice to see this reversed.
e railways renationalised – Why?
No doubt you use them and you want to force non users to fund your transport costs
Do the non users not get a right of consent in the matter?
“Come back Dr Beeching, all is forgiven”.
Nationalised or Privatised we have far too many tax subsidised railways. In fact currently it is worse than dear old British Rail. Something I mistakenly thought I would never see in my lifetime.
‘…..dear old British Rail.’ Did you mean ‘drear old British Rail’ with its appalling filth and dirt, total lack of punctuality, frequent and unannounced cancellations? But I do agree with your main points about the many tax-subsidised railways nowadays.
Things have certainly got cleaner since the demise of steam engines, which in the latter years appeared to have been kept deliberately filthy so as to contrast with the ‘wonderful’, new, shiny Diesels etc.
However cancellations and punctuality are still very poor, particularly now they have the perfect excuse; C-19!
I wasn’t around in British Rail’s heyday but the idea that it was worse than now is denied by people I know who were.
The irony is that the railways as they stand today, post-COVID are nationalised.
The physical infrastructure of the rails, signalling, the stations, the land is owned by Network Rail which is a public body, we all own this. The rail operators which run the services. the franchisees are only kept going by public grants to keep essential services going. The only private bit left is the rolling stock, owned by the leasing companies.
Private operation of the railways is nothing more than a charade, we’d be better accepting the reality that they are nationalised and operate them accordingly.
I too wonder why Labour seems to have abandoned Scotland. Surely there must be room for a left-wing party which is unequivocally in favour of maintaining the Union. Instead, Labour flirts with Nationalists; ground already firmly occupied by the SNP.
I think Scotland is a lost cause for any Unionist party. For more than 20 years now Scottish children have been indoctrinated with the Mel Gibson version of their history, and I recall reading that every head teacher appointed in Scotland since 2015 has been pro-independence.
I don’t see how he is attacking him from the right. But then I don’t see the terms left and right as having any significance except as handy terms of abuse.
The pressing political issue is that a whole tranche of the working and lower middle class electorate see themselves as being without representation – and they are right.
I am surprised that Paul Embery thinks that the Labour Party can be salvaged. Kim Beezley’s cry from the heart comes to my mind:
“When I joined the Labor Party, it contained the cream of the working class. But as I look about me now, all I see are the dregs of the middle class. When will you middle class perverts stop using the Labor Party as a cultural spittoon?”
Trust an Aussie to spell it out.
Boris is doing a Ted Heath.
I am not sure Labourt can disnetangle itself from it’s balkanised state of being made up of (now, competing) identarian groups and find a way back to something ordinary people, whether Labour voters previously or not, can ever recognise as a party concerned with the basic issues that concern them.
Labour voters were expected to return to the fold after dallying with the SNP, they didn’t. I don’t expect the Northern voters will either.
All that says to me is that Scots have embraced woke identity politics, wrapped up in a hypernationalistic victimhood story of ‘colonial oppression’ that never actually existed.
When the Labour Party was founded Britain was a very different social hierarchy. We had a clear pyramid structure with a small aristocracy at the apex and a clear large working class base of white working class. The Labour party had a clear constituency (labourers) and purpose to represent the interests of said labourers.
In 2020 that construct is long gone. The divide is no longer white working class v toffs but liberals v conservatives (note diliberate use of lower case in these terms). The modern Labour Party has chosen to be liberal. Although Momentum are accused of being trot entryists the biggest entryists to Labour were the liberals under Blair.
While Labour backs liberalism/wokeness it is highly unlikely to win back the conservatives. It is also unlikely the Tory party who are also liberals if marginally less woke will hold on to the conservative vote in the long term either.
Regards
NHP
Yes, as you say, the old societal constructs have largely disappeared. The new aristocrats are the higher levels of the public sector, the university VCs and the leaders of the more ‘woke’ corporates. They vote Labour and have far more disdain for the working classes that the original aristocrats ever had. The labourers I know all hate the Labour Party.
“It is also unlikely the Tory party who are also liberals if marginally
less woke will hold on to the conservative vote in the long term either.”
I really don’t see this. The Tories are that most malleable of parties and their dominance of British politics shows this shape-shifting pays off.
The other way of putting it of course is that they give the punters what they want and others don’t.
Through the first half of my life I agree with your observation on the Tory Party, but just as the modern Labour Parliamentary Party doesn’t represent labourers the bulk of the current Conservative Parliamentary Party by and large doesn’t represent conservatives. That these ironies seemed to be totally lost on the political class would be funny if not so sad. As another poster has noted, there is a large constituency of people all over the UK with no obvious political party to represent their beliefs and interests.
Regards
NHP
Interesting to compare what’s going on with the BBC looking for parallels.
The BBC doesn’t represent lots of people. It represents the met elite labour marxists.
So what do people do when they aren’t represented? In the case of the BBC they are just defunding.
In the case of the state, that can and will happen too.
Really?
We have moved from a ‘social hierarchy’ to a ‘vocal hierarchy’ in which those who shout (or Tweet) most loudly and most often dominate society. The rest of us still have a voice at the ballot box. But that would have gone had Corbyn come to power.
Yes, tyranny of the most offended.
The speed with which the Brexit party won electoral support, (love it or hate it) is an indication that the door is open for a new party that catches the mood of the nation. In its pursuit of what we might call the politically correct agenda, Labour has gone so far from its core support and divided iteslf so much in the process, that it is hard to see it ever coming back to being a serious challenger for power.
Yes. Farage needs to get on with the Reform Party that was mooted last year.
No mention by Paul of the fact that how many people voted Tory holding their noses when they would have preferred to vote for the brexit party
Labour are a london cosmopolitan shitlib party. Starmer is only interested purging the pro Palestinian wing from the party. Labour would rather cut their own throats than identify with the white english underclass who have been completely abandoned & demonized.Blair opened the floodgates & began the importing of a new electorate. Who exactly is labours constituency? What are they going to do for victims of multicultural rape gangs in northern england? They are completely wedded to neoliberalism. Maybe they should start by identifying with the people of england instead of scorning them as gammons.
I’ve wondered why the conservatives don’t play the cultural war more thoroughly to fasten the grip on the northern white working classes, the red wall. Unlike the US the demographics of getting the white (and general conservative including British Indians) vote is favourable. Just highlight the absurdities of the extreme trans lobby – lots of female votes there.
Opine at the highest level that it “ok to be white” and watch the reaction. If what happened in Scotland (see https://www.bbc.com/news/uk… happens again and the tories use the reaction in attack ads the Working class white vote is locked in for generations. Might be a good way, also, to take on the SNP.
The Tory Party deliberately pitched to the Brexit voting North: economically liberal but socially conservative who object to uppity migrants imposing their own lifestyle on them and, worse still, with the compliance of a silent liberal elite, devastating white working class communities with the mass abuse of young girls up and down the country. It promised to reverse the austerity of the past 10 years without the baggage of Free Palestine, the Alphabet people and all the other identity issues normal, working class people don’t give a flying fark about. All in all, the strategy was brilliant but all knocked off course by COVID.
Sorry Paul,but there is no “frayed rope” these days.
There was one in the Kinnock days, but after being put firmly in their place by Kinnock the left made sure when they came back they wouldn’t be taking any prisoners.
And momentum made sure that Labour would remain London centric and woke, Their ‘comfort zone’ is much more important to them than the ‘workers’
Labour established its relationship to the working class at a time when the working class were active participants in extra-parliamentary politics, primarily through trade unionism, which, apart for the period around 1929-30, was generally growing in numbers, power and influence, throughout the first half of the twentieth century. There were also tenants campaigns, like that which led rent-strikes during the First World War, leading to the introduction of rent-control, and many other kinds of mass campaigns, like the Kinder Scout trespass.
But now, the trade unions really only exist among public employees, they are not present among the millions who suffer from low pay. Similarly, high rents are a torment to thousands of families, but there is no such thing as a tenants’ movement. Why should people be expected to feel enthusiastic about a party which focussed exclusively upon parliament, spin doctors and PMQ’s?
One very strong signal that Labour’s new management could send to its lost supporters would be to move an amendment to the new immigration legislation, enabling the government to impose an annual immigration cap. Unlike the Australian model with which the government ceaselessly compares its legislation, the present bill before Parliament contains no cap and, as Migration Watch has pointed out, if the government subsequently realises that it needs one it will take time – probably years – to bring it in.
But is Labour, in its present condition, still capable of acting as old-style Labour PMs – eg Jim Callaghan – would have acted? It seems unlikely.
Labour would never do that. It will always seek to import new voters and will never cease in its quest for an Islamic Britain.
‘Demonstrate that it really means business by ditching the obsession with identity politics and wokedom.’
Don’t worry. There’ll always be that picture of Starmer and Rayner ‘taking the knee’. That should be enough.
Everyone talks about this ‘grinding Tory austerity’ as if it’s a given and something particularly ‘Tory-like’. I’d like to know what the alternative would be after a decade of economic recovery from a global recession, *continuously increased public spending*, massive increases in immigration (no they’re not all ‘net contributors’ and they’re not all a ‘benefit’), and EU mandated austerity across the continent (so whose policy is it really?). I bought into this stuff until I started reading up about the EU and looked up some general facts and figures. It’s yet another example of engineered reaction – if you keep repeating something often enough people will eventually just believe it’s true.
Saying that, I’m generally a fan of Paul Embery and have traditionally sat on the left of centre. But this idea that Tories not only don’t care about people but actively want them to suffer, is ridiculous. You could argue that tough love is better in the long run than short term pandering. It’s just a different parenting style, and who is to say their way isn’t better sometimes???
‘ What Labour learned from a year of Boris’
That they were on the right track with Marxist totalitarianism, they just had a presentational problem, with the wrong person leading the project?
That is after all why lifelong, century-long Socialists voted ‘Conservative’ last year isn’t it?
To be fair, I’m not sure they were all “socialists”. Maybe some socialists did vote Conservative, but I imagine it’s a description many former Labour voters would not have used of themselves.
Entirely accurate – if Labour doesn’t become hungry for power (i.e drop all the Woke crap) and fast – then it might as well plan to team up with the Liberals in the next election – and cross its fingers
It seems that the class idea is so 18th century , any political party that keeps regurgitating if is in serious trouble .
I strongly suspect that the majority of people don’t like the socialists tacky label of “Working class “because of the flat cap , whippet , Alf Garnet connotations associated with it and left leaning socialist dogma.
Having lived through various strikes since 1950 which in the main were backed or supported by the Labour party that affected my own family . There is no way I’d ever go back to voting for Labour not in the next hundred years. for they keep trying to implement failed policies & political group think .
This saying immediately comes to mind ” Keeping on doing the same failing thing & expecting a different outcome is utter stupidity. Labour need to be able to read that and take it onboard .
There’s a lot more to do than flushing out the identity politics hordes that needs doing to sort out Labour . Socialism is no longer useful around the world unless you are a small minded control freak .
That’s an odd statement given the failures of neo liberalism in the last few decades.
Politics has always been a dirty old, cynical business.
Working within the understood parameters of the existing electoral system means that the ‘adoption’ of seemingly popular ideas from your opponents always makes perfect sense if it doesn’t mean alienating your own existing core vote to any great degree.
At its basest level, it’s a simple numbers game.
Something which Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’ and its various architects at the time understood very well and which the Tories have, arguably, quietly mastered since Margaret Thatcher.
Hence ‘New Labour’ in the 1990s became, essentially, a highly successful rebranding exercise, much like the relaunch of an outmoded chocolate bar or washing detergent.
It undeniably did the job for the Labour Party as was at the time, returning Mr Blair to office three times no less, albeit in predominantly far, far rosier times.
Unfortunately this political expediency by a here today, gone tomorrow flag of convenience ideologically bereft political chancer has effectively rendered the once great Labour Party unelectable (particularly with the loss of Scotland and its erstwhile redoubtable bastions in the North) for the foreseeable future under the current electoral system, barring some tectonic, socially divisive shift…..
Additionally, ‘wokeness’ has proved to be an unhelpful, parochial, virtue signalling distraction.
Whilst it undoubtedly speaks to certain relatively narrow sections of its potential electorate it likely alienates far, far more, I’m afraid, not least people who are, in their hearts, Labour voters, but who (and not because they don’t care, incidentally) are far more concerned with the more day to day, mundane to some vagaries as to whether they’ve still got a chance of a reasonable paying job to go to in the morning and whether they can afford to home, feed and clothe their kids with some personal dignity and security off the back of it.
“… it also remains the party of the Durham Miners’ Gala, the co-operative movement,
trade unionism and the singing of Jerusalem at the end of each annual conference.”
A Disneyfied version of the Labour Party, a heritage theme park, a mocked-up film set that tells a fantasy story.
And you say you still support this historical relic?
Remarkable.
That this should be happening after a decade of grinding Tory austerity remains a mystery to some.
===============
See that shows why you are clueless.
Look at the accounts. 220 bn a year, 30% of tax goes on the socialist debts. The Welfare state is a socialist ponzi. It’s 14 trillion pounds of debt.
Austerity is a consequence not a policy.
I don’t think he’s getting into the economics of it.
He’s highlighting how that a generally unpopular policy that has seen reduced spending across the spectrum of services is still not enough to dissuade voters.
Perhaps a better way of putting it is that usually after 8-10 years of one government type, the people have traditionally get fed up and switched – or at least the government in power’s popularity has waned over time.
I think Paul’s point is that Labour have been so bad that this has not happened despite some unpopular measures by the Tories.
Does the socialist debt include the socialisation of bank debt?
A realignment is massively overdue as it is clear that the Labour Party as currently constituted has become an irrelevance. The party that appears to come closest to much of the Blue Labour thinking that Paul supports is the reinvigorated SDP and I do believe that a coming together of these two groups could result in us having a genuine alternative at the ballot box.
Wouldn’t it have been quicker just to write: ‘Nothing’?
What we have with politicians is the same thing as firemen who commit arson so they can be heroes putting out the blaze.
Politicians assets striped the masses of their wealth. Pay use 20% of your income as national insurance and we will look after you in your old age, in your time of need.
Then along comes Covid. We are heroes MPs say, here’s some money. Except if you are self employed in which case you are scum.
So they handed out a few thousand pounds. Mr Average if he invested his NI last year would have had close to 8K in a fund. With compound interest over a life time, that comes to £1.3 million. The state says you have no wealth, here’s 6.3K a year and be grateful as well.
That’s why they hide the socialist debts off the books. If people got a statement of their share it is clear who is to blame.
I’ve read the article for a third time.
What’s interesting is that its just a moan. There’s just complaint after complaint about symptoms. There’s no analysis of any causes. There are no proposals of any cures.
This is why Labour has failed.
As pointed out by other posters – this is a bit of a random one. I would recommend reading the writer’s back articles where he’s been cataloguing Labour’s failures in detail for a few years
This is not one of his best – although raises the basic point that Labour still haven’t learnt
True, but Paul’s articles are normally better than this.
“What’s interesting is that its just a moan”, agreed. “Paul’s articles are normally better than this”, agreed.
But isn’t this where identity politics was always going to get us, and who is this really benefitting? No doubt there’s an obsession in some elements of the left, but ranting on about ‘wokedom’ is also not productive. It just creates caracitures to rant more about, not solutions that transcend divisiveness.
“Freedom for Palestine?” Paul asks. “Rename Palestine” would be a much better project. Gaza is already Gaza, but why not call the West Bank West Jordan, in homage to West Virginia. Of course, the West Bank became a separate entity in a grubby little turf war between Hamas and Fatah, not, like West Virginia, in a heroic struggle to end slavery, but no need to bring that up. There is no sense in offending the people you wish to persuade. How about “moving the UK embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem”? That would definitely be a great policy. There are lots of foreign policy initiatives the Labour Party might take on if they put their minds to it. Calling for all NATO troops to withdraw from the Baltic States should be another item on the list. Whether they would appeal to the British working class I don’t really know. I’m not working class. I’m not even British. But they all sound like great policies to me.
NATO should stay in the Baltic states until Russia replaces its current thugocracy with a proper government that doesn’t threaten its neighbours and doesn’t dream of the “greater Russia” from the Soviet days.
This article articulates the problem well, but what’s the answer?
I hope,for democracy’s sake Kier Starmer will be able to free the Labour Party from the shackles of identity politics and win back its traditional support.
I lost hope in the Labour Party the day Gordon Brown and his family walked away from Downing Street. Since then it has lacked discipline,sane political judgement,sound policies and the ability to empathise with its core supporters. For all their faults Harold Wilson,Jim Callaghan,Dennis Healey,John Smith and Neil Kinnock could empathise and they were loved and supported for it.
For me the great issue of our time is recovery from the wreckage in our society caused by the secular,Marxist,liberal destruction of Marriage,family life and values such as the sanctity of human life. I don’t trust the Conservatives,especially under Boris Johnson. I was hoping UKIP might have taken up the banner but they became a laughing stock. The only viable leader of a new party would be Nigel Farage,if only he would focus. But I don’t think Lcould trust him with my main concerns.
‘I lost hope in the Labour Party the day Gordon Brown and his family walked away from Downing Street’
Crikey, that was a bit late in the day. Most of us lost hope around 1999.
Very well argued, as always. But (as a student of French history) I cannot help but recall that “famille, travail, patrie” was the great slogan of Vichy France under the occupation of 1940/44 – perhaps not a good precedent? Not that I am a devotee of “liberté, Egalité, fraternité” either….
I use Curtis Yarvin’s Three Layer notion to analyze politics: Gentry, Commoners, and Clients.
Back in the day, Gentry were Liberals, Commoners were chaps like Adam Bede and Caleb Garth, and Clients were the workers saved from starvation by the Industrial Revolution.
So the Liberals — and later Labour — said “vote for us, workers, and we will set you up forever.” But of course, nobody can do that, not even political magicians.
Today the Gentry is the educated class, comfortable in its various sinecures. Commoners are the old working class and White Van Man. Clients are the recently imported immigrants.
Whatabout the tribes of the various Layers? I’d say the tribe of the Gentry is globalism; the tribe of the Commoner is the nation; the tribe of the Client is the race, the union, the urban gang.
You can see that, for an old Labour hand, things would be a bit confusing today.
If you use the official name of Conservative, you will understand the politics better. It’s about building on top of hundreds of years of historical action.
Yes, British sailors did copy the Portuguese and Spannish in the Slave Trade. But also were the 1st to ban it.
The Germans created the 1st printing press, but the British moved on to bigger industrial things. Ditto the religious reformation.
Nothing in history is all bad. Nor all good.
We like ourselves – and wish to keep our communities and customs.
Self-styled “Progressives” are always promoting something new for the sake of newness. It’s usually worse for living in.