Stuart Donald writes on ‘the dilemma of party ambition versus social justice’ which faces the Labour Party – and explains why Proportional Representation is a key issue
Labour’s sensational victory in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election earlier this month could not have a been better launch pad for their final party conference before the General Election. It teed them up perfectly to deliver their ultimate set-piece rally, to go on, rout the Tories, sweep to power and bring social justice in the UK back to the standards of our European peers. New Labour 2.0.
Now Keir Starmer's party has won two by-elections in England - Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire - Labour's hopes of forming the next UK government are boosted further. Surely we can look forward with confidence to policies that will address inequality and really deliver social justice?
... But new research, covering the last forty years, shows that is a false promise. Even if Starmer achieves the majorities and the longevity of his predecessors, he will have next to no chance of achieving this goal. That’s because New Labour did not get close either.
Labour MPs are already well-drilled to trot out soundbites attributing all and every woe suffered by the UK to the last thirteen years of Tory rule. They let you believe that all was ok back in 2010 under the Labour government that had exorcised the eighteen-year evil of Thatcherism.
But the new research shows that, when you compare the UK with its closest European peers, the last forty years has largely been one unbroken, continuum of ever-increasing inequality. Labour trumpet the ‘millions’ they lifted out of poverty with higher benefits, but there was no Labour legacy to counter a return to misery when the Tories unleashed austerity. Instead, the most powerful ‘social democratic’ government in Europe since WWII, came and went without making any medium- or long-term impact on the UK’s main well-being statistics as compared with other peer countries (the relevant European peer group comprises Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and France; Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland; and Ireland); inferior life expectancy for young and old, poorer cancer survival and child mortality rates.
This is largely because they were simply too grippy; they spent less per head and as a percentage of GDP on health and welfare than any of their comparable peers, every single year they were in power.
They’ll tell you they spent more than the Tories but what sort of benchmark is that?
They won’t tell you that these peers were mostly centre or centre-right governments.
They are even less likely to tell you that in 2006, Labour oversaw the UK’s supplanting Ireland as the state with the highest rate of child mortality among peer countries. Equally, you won’t hear them observing that in 2007, they allowed the income share of the UK’s wealthiest one per cent to increase to 15 per cent of all income earned, their highest share recorded since the 1930s. Despite all this, Labour is already warning us that since they are not blessed with a booming economy like Blair in 1997, there will be no hike in public investment beyond current Tory levels. What is going on?
How can it be that with three back-to-back single party majorities, thirteen consecutive years in power and a booming economy, Labour failed to make any material progress towards mainland levels of quality of life? There is one major reason; they would not dare spend the money needed. If they’d raised public spending to even peer average levels, they’d instantly have lost the trust of key voters and become unelectable. Look what happened to Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 when Labour pledged to increase public spending to around 43 per cent of GDP up from forty under the Tories; he was damned as a reckless Marxist. But across the North Sea, Angela Merkel’s CDU, a centre-right collation, was spending 44 per cent of GDP in Germany (needless to say, Germany massively out-performs the UK on all equality metrics) and even that was below the European peer average (46 per cent).
This all happens because of our electoral system. Its design ensures that getting to and staying in power is all about a vast swathe of voters – those who believe they have something to lose; taxable income or assets, property land, voters that want governments to leave them alone. These are default Tory voters but every now and then, when tired of the home team, they are prepared to vote Labour, provided it can be trusted with the Treasury’s purse strings. It is this adherence to fiscal thrift, across Tory and Labour governments alike, that has slashed income re-distribution and in turn pushed inequality in the UK through the roof since 1980. Meanwhile, the data shows that countries with Proportional Representation (PR), do not end up trapped by a mass desire for public thrift, and thus have far lower inequality as well as far higher standards of living. The moderating, compromising character of PR systems, even with long spells of right of centre governments at the helm, seem to ensure that voters behave more altruistically.
So, if all this is known, why is PR not front and centre in Labour’s plans? I mean, as our only UK-wide electable progressive party, the pursuit of social justice is their raison d’être is it not?
Surprisingly, they have long been the only social democratic party in the world not to support PR. But today, they are certainly closer than they’ve ever been. In 2022, the Labour conference voted to enshrine PR into their constitution, backed for the first time by the major Unions. But their historic reticence is rooted in the parliamentary party; still today, around half of current Labour MPs publicly pay lip-service to ever more tired sounding pro-FPTP arguments, masking private agendas of careerism and other conflicts of interest; they know that ending winner-takes-all will result in dozens of them losing their ‘safe’ seats, party plurality will eventually break up the two party system, denying Labour its privileged position as ‘guaranteed’ opposition and worst of all for many, PR will inevitably result in the break-up of the old Labour church itself.
Then there is Starmer; is he prepared to risk a once-in-lifetime shot at single party majority rule for two, maybe three terms, by putting in place PR based on the above? Blair even had a written commitment to PR in his 1997 manifesto but in euphoria of his landslide victory, that particular promise was conveniently forgotten…
Even if the parliamentary Labour party come to support PR, it will take many years to deliver; endless wrangling over which type of PR, whether we need a referendum, all the work to look at and set up the new constituency boundaries. All this has to co-exist with the unsettled, pro-establishment press that will doubtless be bellowing about getting on with the ‘day job’. And then there is the formidable wealth and power of the UK establishment itself. Make no mistake, it will be quick to clock PR as a massive threat to the status quo and will use all their media and financial muscle to prevent it. It will make their campaigns for the AV and EU referendums look like spats over who gets to run the local church fete.
So, the pressure is on for ‘Labour for a new democracy’, the party’s leading pro-PR lobby. They held an enthusiastic fringe event on the opening night of Conference, as they try to will PR to the top of Starmer’s policy agenda; they know it’s a long shot. They were also reminded by Paul Sweeney, a Labour Glasgow MSP, of another consequence of failure to deliver electoral reform: the break-up of the Union. Sweeney’s argument is that, at some point, as inequality continues to grind, Scotland will realise it has the solution right under its nose; a fully-fledged PR devolved plurality with now 25-years under its belt. And then the constitutional debate takes on a new life…
Stuart Donald lives in West Lothian and campaigns for Proportional Representation. His regularly-updated website carries a range of relevant articles and research findings: www.sdonald4pr.com
Published 20 October 2023.