A radical new beginning

A new year always brings with it a sense of optimism and renewed hope and I’m determined 2016 should be no different.

Yes, 2015 landed us with five years of Tory rule as David Cameron won a parliamentary majority with the support of just a quarter of the electorate but it also offered Labour the chance to pursue a radical new beginning.

Of course this is no consolation whatsoever for the people up and down our country worst affected by Tory misrule – the millions in insecure and low paid work, our young people being denied housing support and with no prospect of getting decent work or decent pay. All of it is a reminder that Labour must not waste one moment in getting back into power.

Today’s Tories depend much on their ideological rigidity. It allows them to chant `long term economic plan’ while missing every target they set themselves.

It allowed ministers the room to do nothing when the Redcar steelworks was at threat. Providing money to ease the path to the job centre while a viable site and national asset closes is not a strategy, it is the consequence of a failing ideology.

The Tory grip on power is tightening as they continue to dismember our democratic protections too.

From slashing Short money, to shackling unions; from seeking to cow the second chamber to bouncing through boundary changes, the party of privilege is determined to rule for generations. All of this, and so many more reasons, are why Labour must renew and beat that path back to power.

Inspired

Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader inspired all ages and communities to look afresh at Labour. He won the largest personal mandate of any political party leader in recent memory prompting an upsurge in party membership that propelled Labour to the position of the country’s largest political party.

Of course there are those in the party (who occupy a bubble with many in the media) who are finding it difficult to conceive of another world, but conceive they must because voters remain of the view that Westminster and the old way of doing things has cast a spell over MPs, leaving the elected increasingly adrift from the electorate.

That is why I urge our PLP friends to get behind Jeremy’s leadership and allow him to chart a new direction for our country.

And then there is the EU referendum. Expected this summer, this vote spells trouble for David Cameron’s leadership, Osborne’s prospects, Tory party unity and even the continuation of the wider UK.

The stakes are enormous and yet what will this vote apparently hinge on? It would seem that our future in the European Union will turn on the prime minister’s efforts to secure measures that would impoverish migrant workers – people, remember, who are here legally, working in our schools, care homes and shops.  Our neighbours.

And to secure this punishment poverty, the government will have to legislate to impoverish hundreds of thousands of UK citizens too.

Hideous falsehood

This whole vote and our future as a European partner is based on a hideous falsehood; that it is working people who must pay for the failure of governments and institutions to serve the people.

Tory sceptics like Jacob Rees-Mogg dismiss the fruits of Cameron’s desperate shuttle diplomacy as nothing more than a `thin gruel’ which will not satisfy those who seek a full-scale renegotiation. Even Europhiles like Ken Clarke question if the Leave campaign can really be satisfied with an attack on a Latvian’s pay packet?  No, of course they won’t.

I have said before that it is high time that business spoke up and spoke loudly about the shortcomings of the government’s strategy. In presenting voters with an attack on migrant (and domestic) workers it dices with danger. After all these months of hype and noise, Cameron is inviting an outpouring of anger directed at institutions regarded as self-serving and unbending.

The prime minister lacks the strength within his own party to lead an honest defence of the EU so I say to the CBI, the Institute of Directors and other business bodies to do it for him. Do so by telling the prime minister to stop laying the blame for his government’s ideological preferences at the door of the EU.

Tell him, too, that he should not expect their backing for any attempt to dilute or dismantle the social chapter.

It is time that those who have done very well out of the EU remind the prime minister that when he turns to appeal to six million trade union members, their unions and their families to help him carry the day, he may just find that we have scores to settle.

This article first appeared in Tribune, January 8, 2016