Labour did not lose election because it was too leftwing, says Unite chief
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Version 0 of 1. Labour lost the election, not because it was too leftwing, but largely because it had a muddled message on austerity and lacked a coherent narrative linking together individually popular policies, according to Len McCluskey, Unite’s general secretary. Related: Mandelson is wrong: Labour can’t survive without the unions | Len McCluskey In a Guardian article on Wednesday he also said Ed Miliband appeared to lack the courage of his convictions and warned of a battle ahead with the party modernisers if their talk of wealth creation came to be code for abandoning the party’s duty to protect the neediest in society. The views of McCluskey, probably Labour’s single largest financial backer, will be studied closely because it is likely to reflect the response of many in the union movement to the defeat. Unite can have direct sway over the Labour leadership election, both through the votes of its political levy-payers and Unite-sponsored MPs who nominate the candidates. McCluskey singled out the pledge to bring the deficit down by the end of the parliament and to cut the deficit every year for criticism, saying the issue “was allowed to entirely dominate Labour’s manifesto launch – surely securing not a single additional vote”. He said Labour fell for the Tories’ austerity trap long before the election. He wrote: “Ignoring the views of many economists, it accepted a need to balance the budget and eliminate the deficit, which left them playing on Tory ground. Once this was conceded, Labour was on a hiding to nothing – no one will ever believe that they would be more reliable cutters than the Tories. “So Labour was left trying to protect the victims of the Tory cuts agenda while accepting its underlying premises, also depriving itself of a coherent narrative linking together popular individual policies.” He added: “Labour had no central theme, defining what it stood for. Something that could – as in 1945, 1966 and 1997 – unite working-class and middle-class voters around a vision for society.” He said Miliband did not seem to have the courage of his convictions, adding he “was unable to get many of his own shadow cabinet on message. Some of the fights he picked were with the right people, as with Murdoch over phone hacking, and some were with the wrong ones – attacking Unite over the Falkirk selection”. He also complained that the party did not embrace popular policies such as renationalisation of the railways. McCluskey said he had no problem with the current buzzwords of aspiration and wealth creation, phrases being used by many of the potential modernising candidates. But he warned that there would be a battle ahead if these words came to be code for ignoring the party’s historic role to defend the neediest in society. He expressed his anger with Blairites for claiming the defeat “was due to the party going too far to the left”, instead arguing that “the New Labour model of wealth creation went bust in 2008, and nothing had been put in its place. Leave it to the market, let the City rip – these were guiding principles of New Labour’s economic policy and, whatever their merits in 1997, they are simply not credible today.” He argued: “This general election was a long time in the losing. Millions of people voted for parties perceived as to Labour’s left – the SNP and the Greens. Even more voted for Ukip and in many cases they too were expressing hostility to elite economics.” He also condemned Lord Mandelson, the former business secretary, claiming: “All the pews in his broad church will apparently be occupied by the filthy rich. His anti-union outlook is in danger of becoming obsessive and demeans an otherwise interesting political figure.” |