A new hope v the old attitudes

The question of how best to build the progressive fight back was the subject of the Left Foot Forward/Labour List fringe meeting at the Compass ‘A New Hope‘ post-election conference at the Institute of Education yesterday. Though the day’s headlines were inevitably taken with the latest Labour leadership hustings – in which Diane Abbott again appeared to excel – and Jon Cruddas for his electrifying speech, it was at the fringe where the real pulse of the nation’s progressives could be felt.

As briefed on Friday, our meeting featured Will Straw; Labour List’s editor Alex Smith; Matthew McGregor, whose day job is at Blue State Digital, and who has worked on many election campaigns and spoke as a Labour Party member; and Sian Berry, the Green Party’s candidate for London mayor in 2008, with Will opening the debate by arguing that, if a hung parliament were to occur in the future, Labour “will need to work with Liberal Democrat and Green MPs to secure a majority”.

Speaking first, Alex echoed Will’s call for plurality by saying the party needed to “look outwards, create new organisations that are progressives reaching out, supportive but independent, critical yet productive… we need to work with communities, tenants and residents” and Labour “needs to win back Lib Dem voters”.

Sian spoke about the experience of the Greens in Europe, and that the party was “in a position to help”, and were already working with progressive groups like Hope Not Hate and contributing to progressive blogs such as oursleves and Bright Green Scotland.

Matthew, meanwhile, cautioned against too close an alliance with the Lib Dems, warning:

“Do not assume the Liberals are progressive. Locally, they are fiscally conservative. In local councils throughout the country their cuts hit the poorest, and they are anti-union. Though Labour has to re-earn the label progressive, on issues such as ID cards, the Coalition is much less progressive.

“We’ve seen it this week with the decision on free school meals, scrapping Labour’s extension of the scheme to 500,000 of the poorest working families. And we’ve seen it with the Libs with their position on child trust funds.”

He added that Labour “can’t just be right [on these issues]” but ”needs to organise, with groups like 38 Degrees, Friends of the Earth, the Traid Justice Movement and the Fair Trade Network… we need to be open and inclusive, in our decision making, and we need not just a narrow campaign but a broad one”.

The audience seemed split on the issue, with some thinking Labour need not look outside and that party members should be the only ones who have any say, not the broader progressive movement; while others embraced the new ideas of closer co-operation with parties like the Greens and groups like Hope Not Hate, the introduction of primaries and the importance of organisation.

The most incisive comment, however, came not from a Labour Party member, but from an American, who gave an insight into how the Democrats do things, and what lessons Britain might learn, relaying the remarkable tale of one selection in which a candidate who spent one-tenth the amount of his main rival ended up winning the selection, proving that, even in America, money need not be the be all and end all in political selections.