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| Ignore the patronising naysayers, Labour members can drive a revolution | |
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| While there is much that the Labour leadership can do to help ensure national electoral success once Jeremy Corbyn is crowned for the second time, the most important factor is not in the hands of the Westminster villagers. It is the hundreds of thousands of people that make up the new mass membership of the party that can have the biggest impact. It is they, more than anyone, who now have the means to change the country. And they can get started on it straight away. | While there is much that the Labour leadership can do to help ensure national electoral success once Jeremy Corbyn is crowned for the second time, the most important factor is not in the hands of the Westminster villagers. It is the hundreds of thousands of people that make up the new mass membership of the party that can have the biggest impact. It is they, more than anyone, who now have the means to change the country. And they can get started on it straight away. |
| The political and cultural theorist Jeremy Gilbert identifies two competing approaches as to how Labour should address the question of electability: marketing and movement-building. The marketing approach treats the electorate as consumers with fixed preferences, where the ideal politician is a polished salesperson armed with a perfectly calibrated retail policy offer. The movement-building approach treats public opinion as a changeable landscape, where elections are won not only by competent politicians but by social forces mobilised in support of a transformative agenda. | The political and cultural theorist Jeremy Gilbert identifies two competing approaches as to how Labour should address the question of electability: marketing and movement-building. The marketing approach treats the electorate as consumers with fixed preferences, where the ideal politician is a polished salesperson armed with a perfectly calibrated retail policy offer. The movement-building approach treats public opinion as a changeable landscape, where elections are won not only by competent politicians but by social forces mobilised in support of a transformative agenda. |
| As Gilbert notes, the problem with the marketing approach is that it cannot explain how socio-political change happens. Imagine if Sylvia Pankhurst or Rosa Parks had said that “we have to accept where people are” on women’s rights, or “we understand the public’s legitimate concerns” on desegregation. The legacy of those figures, and thousands of activists like them, is a standing rebuke to the oft-repeated, ahistorical nonsense that Labour can achieve nothing with protest, but only by first winning power. In reality, the power to enact serious change can only be won by first preparing the ground through patient and committed grassroots action. | As Gilbert notes, the problem with the marketing approach is that it cannot explain how socio-political change happens. Imagine if Sylvia Pankhurst or Rosa Parks had said that “we have to accept where people are” on women’s rights, or “we understand the public’s legitimate concerns” on desegregation. The legacy of those figures, and thousands of activists like them, is a standing rebuke to the oft-repeated, ahistorical nonsense that Labour can achieve nothing with protest, but only by first winning power. In reality, the power to enact serious change can only be won by first preparing the ground through patient and committed grassroots action. |
| The other problem with the marketing approach is that it encourages the erasure of moral red lines. If majority opinion blames immigrants and people on social security for the country’s problems, then Labour must appeal to these voter-consumer preferences. Consciences can always be soothed with some feeble rhetoric about how it is, in some tortured sense, progressive to collude in the politics of scapegoating. The marketing approach precludes not only a transformative agenda, but sometimes even basic levels of human decency. | The other problem with the marketing approach is that it encourages the erasure of moral red lines. If majority opinion blames immigrants and people on social security for the country’s problems, then Labour must appeal to these voter-consumer preferences. Consciences can always be soothed with some feeble rhetoric about how it is, in some tortured sense, progressive to collude in the politics of scapegoating. The marketing approach precludes not only a transformative agenda, but sometimes even basic levels of human decency. |
| The alternative is to treat people as adults who can be engaged in conversation and potentially persuaded of a different point of view. And the emergence of a social movement means that the task of persuasion can be taken up, not by a remote elite, but by your friends, family, neighbours and colleagues. In workplaces, round dinner tables, in pubs and cafes, every lying tabloid front-page can now be met with a counterargument from a familiar and trusted voice. | The alternative is to treat people as adults who can be engaged in conversation and potentially persuaded of a different point of view. And the emergence of a social movement means that the task of persuasion can be taken up, not by a remote elite, but by your friends, family, neighbours and colleagues. In workplaces, round dinner tables, in pubs and cafes, every lying tabloid front-page can now be met with a counterargument from a familiar and trusted voice. |
| Labour members can win the right to be heard by taking up a multitude of local causes in communities up and down the country. And often, attitudes can shift through the experience of these collective struggles. In the late 1960s, London dockers marched in support of Nigel Farage’s hero, Enoch Powell. But by 1976, some of those same dockers were supporting the famous Grunwick strike, where a largely female, immigrant workforce, together with union allies from the “white working class”, put up a formidable fight against their common opponents. Empowering the best aspects of British society is always a more constructive path than pandering and genuflecting to the worst. | Labour members can win the right to be heard by taking up a multitude of local causes in communities up and down the country. And often, attitudes can shift through the experience of these collective struggles. In the late 1960s, London dockers marched in support of Nigel Farage’s hero, Enoch Powell. But by 1976, some of those same dockers were supporting the famous Grunwick strike, where a largely female, immigrant workforce, together with union allies from the “white working class”, put up a formidable fight against their common opponents. Empowering the best aspects of British society is always a more constructive path than pandering and genuflecting to the worst. |
| Labour as a mobilised mass movement can be a space where the marginalised and the voiceless gain political agency, and build social bonds with the rest of society. The single mothers organising childcare so that more people can participate in Momentum meetings is just one example of how this can work. A thousand local initiatives like this can counteract social atomisation and division, and help foster the ethos of kindness and mutual obligation that is the foundation of any serious leftwing politics. | Labour as a mobilised mass movement can be a space where the marginalised and the voiceless gain political agency, and build social bonds with the rest of society. The single mothers organising childcare so that more people can participate in Momentum meetings is just one example of how this can work. A thousand local initiatives like this can counteract social atomisation and division, and help foster the ethos of kindness and mutual obligation that is the foundation of any serious leftwing politics. |
| For now, the Labour membership’s potential to organise as an active social movement has yet to be realised, which is unsurprising given the exclusionary, aggressive and patronising attitude they have been greeted with by the party establishment. But those members should not allow themselves to be demoralised by what’s happening in Westminster. Instead, they can take the initiative themselves, and set about shifting the ground on which future general elections will be fought and won. In time, their children and grandchildren will look back on that work with gratitude, as they enjoy life in the better, happier country that it helped to create. | For now, the Labour membership’s potential to organise as an active social movement has yet to be realised, which is unsurprising given the exclusionary, aggressive and patronising attitude they have been greeted with by the party establishment. But those members should not allow themselves to be demoralised by what’s happening in Westminster. Instead, they can take the initiative themselves, and set about shifting the ground on which future general elections will be fought and won. In time, their children and grandchildren will look back on that work with gratitude, as they enjoy life in the better, happier country that it helped to create. |