The Phil Woolas affair is about the soul of the Labour party
Was Harriet Harman right to distance the Labour party from Phil Woolas after he was found guilty of lying in election leaflets? The public thinks so; some Labour MPs don't – unleashing a ferocious internal argument. But this isn't just about whether Harman was too rash or whether Woolas deserves a second chance; it's about competing visions of the future of Labour. It goes to the core of the party's soul.
Behind his support lies the belief by a number of Labour MPs that Woolas was right to be strident on immigration. It was the number one issue on doorsteps, they resolutely keep repeating (apparently no one cared about the economy), and nothing less than a rollout of "Are You Thinking What We're Thinking?" posters, long after Michael Howard abandoned them, will get Labour re-elected.
But this is a cop-out. It's a feeble response to the real debate that Labour wants to avoid: asking why immigration comes up.
Sure, there are some who generally want to avoid people of other countries in their local area because it feels unsettling. But Labour's problem with immigration is less cultural and more economic: shortage of housing and jobs, economic instability and rising inequality. Their voters feel insecure and worse off, and immigrants get the blame thanks to the tabloid habit of using isolated cases to whip up uninformed hysteria.
How can Labour respond? Being more honest with the electorate would be a start. If you sign up to the economic consensus on globalisation, free movement of capital and labour, free trade and an economy focused on reducing inflation rather than full employment, this is what you get. Of course, you also get inexpensive clothes, televisions, international food and dirt-cheap loans.
And what is the point of training up skilled labour in the UK for a company, if they can set up a company in Malaysia and import the goods for cheaper? This is no longer just an economic calculation: it has turned into a toxic social and political issue.
The Labour party accepted and co-opted Margaret Thatcher's economic ideas because it was desperate to get elected. In return it promised to redistribute some of those gains more equitably in the hope the lower middle classes would also feel enriched. This is what the tax credits were about.
Having Woolas talking tough on immigration isn't going to solve the problem; it only gives the temporary illusion that something is being done about it.
Dan Hodges says Woolas was simply the fall guy. This is disingenuous: that Woolas and his team went out to "make white folk angry" is beyond doubt. In other leaflets, Woolas deliberately conflated immigration and religious extremism, despite saying himself we should talk about the issues sensibly and separately. They weren't just trying to deal with the BNP – they were singing from the same hymn sheet.
This should matter to Labour's new leader Ed Miliband. He went the furthest out of the New Labour generation to recognise that concerns over immigration are a class issue and driven by feelings of economic insecurity. Rather than sounding "tough" on immigration, he instead campaigned to support a living wage for workers and better protection for agency workers.
In other words, the vision that Woolas epitomises is the one Ed Miliband abandoned during his leadership campaign.
And here's another vision:
"An ex-minister wrote last week of how we needed to 'crack down on the welfare underclass'. Others argue for us to become the 'anti-immigration party'. A new kiss up, kick down politics that blames the victim. There lies political death for Labour. No language, no warmth no kindness; no generosity, vitality nor optimism. No compassion. If you seek to outflank the coalition from the right, you will turn Labour into a byword for intolerance."
That was Labour MP Jon Cruddas, who represents some of the poorest working-class communities in London.
This isn't about race; this is about Labour's soul. Phil Woolas symbolised the people who sold the party's soul. It needs a new direction to get that back. |
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