The most important thing that Labour can do in 2015 is get elected in 2020. As my constituency secretary says, it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be a challenge. It’s going to involve discipline, focus and political skill.
So what the hell happened last night? Not only did George Osborne set a trap for Labour, he actually wrote an article about the trap, clearly and unambiguously, and published it in the Guardian the previous morning:
Not just some doublespeak “Don ’t throw me in the briar patch, Brer Rabbit” coded message, which the naive or deluded might struggle to understand, but in words of if not one at most two syllables. He pretty much spelt out what amounts to a plan to either leave Labour split into two parties, or internally divided to the point of irrelevance, between what one might term (to take the language of German green politics, themselves no strangers to futile opposition) “realo” and “fundi” strands. He’s encouraging Labour MPs, perhaps MPs who see politics as government, rather than a Sealed Knot Society re-enactment of the Winter of Discontent, to look up “Limehouse” in their A to Z. This is not the subtle dark arts that we provincials can neither know nor understand, this is stuff so obvious that there are West Wing episodes about it. A “realo” Labour offshoot, or indeed the “realo” phoenix emerging from the smoking ruins of a divided party, might be able to win in 2030, but Osborne doesn’t care: he’s looking straight at getting into office in 2020 and doesn’t much care what happens after he wins a second term in 2025. And by God he’s doing a good job. You can admire the execution even if you despise the intentions.
Harriet Harman, because she’s clever and has been around parliament long enough to know how things work, saw the trap and did the only thing she could do in that situation, which is to order abstention. Vote for the budget and Labour are Tories attacking the poor, vote against the budget and the next five years are a re-run of 2010-15, all talk of Labour’s mismanagement of the economy, excessive spending and building of a client state. Cameron’s speeches almost write themselves, to the point that he’d have a big key on his computer marked “Greece” and another marked “Syrzia” to avoid having to type them in full each time. “Banks closed, pensioners unable to buy food: this is what happens when welfare outstrips revenue”. It would be nonsense, of course, but it would be politically devastating, putting Labour back to 2011 but now out of office for longer, having to fight on the economy and being unable to be heard on anything else. Cameron would be able to give Neil Kinnock’s “scurrying around in Taxis” speech, with minor modifications, every week.
This was such obvious politics from the Tories that even Tom Watson, rarely a man to pass up on an opportunity to get on the telly being contrary, saw it for what it was and abstained. The choice is between harmful gesture and galling but ultimately harmless abstention: the point of being an MP, rather than a ranty bloke in a meeting, is knowing when to shoot, and when to keep one’s powder dry.
So what did the self-indulgent, ill-disciplined, suicidal 48 do? For the sake of a moment’s futile self-righteousness, they made Labour look split, incompetent and incoherent. They made it clear to Harman, and by extension any future Labour leader, that they reserved the right to be disloyal at the drop of a hat, to make gestures that will have no effect beyond showing the willingness to look like a rabble for the sake of two minutes of glory in front of their own supporters. Abstaining has no political cost: if challenged in twelve months time, “I was following the line of the then leader for the sake of avoiding a damaging split right after a bruising election” satisfies all but the most irreconcilable headbangers. Not a single child will be fed, not a single family will have their benefits restored, as a result of last night. But as a free gift to the Tories, it makes a Labour government in 2020 that little bit less likely, and that Labour government in 2020 is the only effective help that those in poverty can look forward to.
Some Tory said last night that it’s impressive to have a leadership crisis when you don’t have a leader. They did not mean this kindly. When Pierre Bosquet wrote of the Charge of the Light Brigade that "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre: c'est de la folie" he was at least admiring of the bravery and sacrifice of the men; this is beyond that. This is the sort of stuff that the Tories dream of: a majority, a divided opposition and a leaderless Labour Party ripping itself to pieces. They could ram through legislation criminalising the consumption of coffee and declaring war on Sunderland and no-one would notice.
If this is what the next five years are going to be like, Frances Osborne should nip next door right now and start measuring up for curtains. What sort of smoking ruin of a party is the next leader, and worse the next leader but one, going to inherit?
A Labour Government in 2020. Surely to God that’s the main objective? Please?
ian