Cross-posted from Left Outside

I don’t think Labour really know that the game has changed. We will have an election in 2015 and there is very little chance of one before that. The move to fixed term parliaments means that Ed Miliband et al find themselves in a totally different position to someone like Cameron circa 2005 or Blair in 1994.

In 2005 Cameron suspected the next election wouldn’t be for five years – and he turned out to be right. But he nearly had to fight an election in 2007 against a newly inaugurated Brown. This is something he had to expect and prepare for from the day he was elected Tory Leader, because we all knew some sort of hand over from Blair to Brown was imminent and that this may have been followed by an election.

This meant that Cameron spent a lot time and effort trying to appear electable, trying to appear “in-touch” by visiting the arctic, liberal by hugging hoodies and as a better heir to Blair than Brown could ever be. All this was essential when Labour could have called an ambush election at any point.

Tean Miliband seems to be employing a similar tactic. Liam Byrne is fighting to appear tough on benefits claimants, Ed Balls is trying to sound more fiscally conservative, even Diane Abbott is doing her best to swiftly cover up her gaffes. The commetariat are also playing along, they want to know if he is too ugly to be prime minister etc. Cameron moved left while Ed is moving right.

All of this is stupid. As Sunny has been documenting, not only is nuance from Labour Wonks confusing the public, those who aren’t confused couldn’t care less anyway. I have a better plan for Ed, to be in operation for the next three years or so, or at least until a year before the election date. Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition should officially and unequivocally object, to everything, even good ideas, loudly and often.

First of all, this is essential to good governance. A noisy opposition ensures that a Government has to advance the strongest arguments for its policies and ensure the sharpest execution for fear of being lambasted. If all Tory mistakes are leapt on with gay abandon then the Tories will make sure they screw up less. Remember the incorrect list of schools Gove released last year? That is what happens when people are not terrified of screwing up.

Even where this policy would be a trap it is good policy. For example, Miliband will gain almost no votes by opposing capping benefits at £26,000, but he won’t lose any votes either because, and this is important, nobody is voting until 2015.

Any damage supporting bad policies or opposing bad policy while in opposition can be shrugged off because the opposition won’t have done anything because they can’t. Wrong calls can be disowned and vote winning stances embraced as manifesto fodder. A manifesto which won’t need to be published until 2015 because, I repeat, that is when the next election will be. Plus, by being the voice of opposition Labour would be able to build an activist base which will be important in getting out the vote and campaigning come election time.

By playing the old game, where an opposition has to be constantly on the alert for an election Labour are strengthening the Tories, and doing damage to people’s lives. They need to shape up and realise the rules have changed.

In recent weeks, as public sector strikes over pension reforms loom large, there’s been a growing call for tougher strike laws – specifically, for some kind of minimum threshold in strike ballots for them to be valid. The Telegraph were talking approvingly about it last week, but it’s been kicking around for some time – the Telegraph was getting all moist and happy when Boris Johnson and the CBI were calling for this at least as far back as October. Tory MP Dominic Raab then really got things going back in April, introducing a Bill to Parliament which required unions to get absolute majorities of all eligible members before a strike was legal, rather than simply a majority of those who voted. He was quickly defeated, but Boris Johnson took back the anti-union baton a couple of weeks later in response to a strike announced by the RMT, and allegedly got a sympathetic hearing from Cameron and Philip Hammond when he did so. Then Vince Cable was dispatched to the GMB conference to warn those pesky trade unionists that while of course he supported the right of workers to go on strike, if they had the temerity to actually exercise that right then it was regrettably possible that all those nasty Tories who he sat round the Cabinet table with might pass some horrible anti-strike laws, and wouldn’t that be a shame? Said nasty Tories then confirmed this.

Image: Keith Bacongco/flickr

The trouble is, while something like this is easy to deride from the comfort zone/echo chamber of the lefty blogosphere, the uncomfortable reality is that a law requiring some kind of threshold for strike ballots would actually be pretty popular – and not just among the rightwing commentariat either; 73% of people in the UK think there should be some kind of turnout threshold on strike ballots (Johnson and the CBI are suggesting a threshold on the proportion of yes votes which is a bit different but would have a similar effect). This shouldn’t be surprising; superficially, the case for a threshold of some sort seems quite plausible – why shouldn’t unions only be allowed to strike if they can demonstrate a majority (or at least a substantial chunk) of their members actually want to do so? Isn’t that the democratic thing to do?

There’s no denying that a higher turnout helps any ballot achieve greater legitimacy, and that it would probably be better if turnout in strike ballots was higher than it is most of the time. But this doesn’t mean that yes votes in strike ballots with low turnouts can just be discounted. To claim that a yes vote in a strike ballot is only valid if some kind of threshold requirement is met is to make the tacit assumption that anyone who doesn’t vote does so because they don’t support the strike enough to vote for it. But why assume this? Surely it’s just as legitimate to assume they didn’t vote because they don’t oppose the strike enough to voe against it? After all, going on strike can be a costly and hazardous activity – a point frequently made by rightwingers when they’re wringing their hands at the plight of the poor workers they claim are being held hostage by unrepresentative far-left cabals of union officials. Given this, surely any union member who thought going on strike was a bad idea would vote against it, rather than abstain? There are any number of reasons why someone might not vote, and as such it’s not justifiable to interpret a failure to fill in a ballot paper as either assent or dissent. Requiring unions to treat abstentions as some kind of weaker no vote is anti-democratic, pure and simple.

Following on from yesterday’s article, we are very lucky this guest post by Michael Talbot, a PhD Researcher currently based in Turkey.

The bunting hanging across almost every street and the minivans blaring out propaganda songs announce season in Turkey, and scarce a street in Istanbul is without the posters and flags of the 25+ parties contesting this year’s general election on 12 June.

By far the most common displays of loyalty are for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi/ Justice and Development Party), and the PM’s face, forward-looking and decisive, dominates billboards across the city. From boot-blacks to university students, AKP seems to have something that appeals to almost every section of society. Economic growth, improvements in higher education, strong international diplomacy, judicial reform, eroding the power of the Kemalist elite (particularly the army), these are just some of the reasons I have been given for why people will vote for Erdoğan, often beginning their explanations with, ‘I/my family have never voted for AKP before but…’

With unknown millions of lira poured into his election campaign, and with hundreds of thousands attending his party rallies across this vast country, it seems safe to say that Erdoğan will gain another four years of government. Much of the enthusiasm comes from the PM’s ‘Hedef 2023′ (2023 objective), a series of policies designed to demonstrate Turkey’s greatness and progressiveness in time for the centenary of the Republic’s founding. The vision includes plans to universalise healthcare, to reform the country’s energy consumption through both renewable sources and nuclear power, to expand domestic infrastructure and institute a Turkish space program. Foreign policy and the economy are the two main points of this objective. By 2023, Erdoğan’s Turkey aims to develop economic and political integration in its immediate neighbourhood (i.e. the Balkans, Caucasus and Middle East) and, after a rather long wait, to become a full EU member state. All of this will be achieved by massive investment in the country’s economy, bringing down the perennially high unemployment figures through new industries and services aimed at the export market, the result of which will see Turkey zoom into one of the top ten world economies.

This is music to the ears of many. Although Turkey has been affected by the global financial crises, and possesses an ever-growing budget deficit, the AKP, by introducing tax-breaks for locally produced goods, has managed to stimulate industrial growth, despite losing much of its EU manufacturing market to China. Most importantly, the very fresh memory of the catastrophic market crash in 2001 – which resulted in insane inflation, a massive loss of the country’s foreign currency reserves, and mass unemployment – means that the current economic situation, and the promise of better to come, has won the party many supporters.

Moreover, the PM is planning hold a referendum after the election on a new constitution with wide-ranging political reforms, including an American-style presidential system, to replace the current constitution imposed after the 1980 Coup (with some judicial amendments approved with 58% support in last year’s referendum). This all sounds very promising to a large number of Turkish voters, especially here in Istanbul which, with 85 seats out of a 550-seat parliament up for grabs, is crucial for any electoral success.

But what about the opposition? The CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi/ Republican People’s Party), the party of Turkey’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, has been gaining some ground in these later stages of the campaign. Its incredibly charming leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, nicknamed ‘Gandhi’ for his remarkable resemblance to old Mahatma, seems to be appealing to more and more people, which is not hard after replacing the very unappealing Deniz Baykal about this time last year. But the problem is, perhaps, that being so new a figure, it will take time for him to establish himself as a popular figure, although his book outlining his ideology seems to be doing quite well in the bookstores recently.

However the CHP does at the election, it will not face the problem of most political parties in Turkey. Under the PR system here, parties must attain over 10% of the national vote in order to gain representation in parliament. In the last general election in 2007, in addition to AKP and CHP, only the ultra-nationalist MHP (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi/ Nationalist Movement Party) gained such a percentage (although a number of independents made it in). MHP, led by the sinister Devlet Bahçeli is currently mired in scandal, losing six major members after a rather dicey sex-tape was leaked to the press in mid-May, a big no-no for its conservative and rural support base. At the moment it seems likely to scrape past the electoral barrier, but a repeat of its huge successes in 2007 seems far off.

So that leaves another 25-or-so parties, often based on personality cults and splinter groups. For instance, the newly-formed HAS Parti (Halkın Sesi Partisi / Voice of the People Party) is the brain-child of an ex-member of the SP (Saadet Partisi / Felicity Party), and has developed a loyal and socially conservative fan-base almost solely around the leader’s charisma.

Most centre-left parties have merged with CHP, but there are still a number of more radical parties contesting the elections. Some are more visible in the public arena than others. The TKP (Türkiye Komünist Partisi / Communist Party of Turkey), whose campaign is running under the slogan ‘Boyun Eğme’ (don’t submit), has been leafleting in the heaving ferry terminals at Eminönü and Istanbul’s Oxford Street, İstiklâl Caddessi, as well as putting up posters and banners all over the centre of the city.

Smaller groups include EMEP (Emek Partisi / Labour Party), whose support-base seems to be growing, and which is associated with one of the few genuinely left papers Turkey, Evrensel (Universal). There are two parties that specifically class themselves as ‘libertarian socialist’ (özgürlükçü sosyalist), essentially loose associations of various socialist and anarchist groups, the EDP (Eşitlik ve Demokrasi Partisi / Equality and Democracy Party) and ÖDP (Özgürlük ve Dayanışma Partisi / Freedom and Solidarity Party), which is dominated by the Dev Sol (Revolutionary Left), a radical movement that has struggled since the 1970s against the Kemalist establishment, fascist militias, and Islamists. The İP (İşçi Partisi / Workers’ Party) hold a bizarre mix of policies, based in part on Maoism and Kemalist nationalism.

The left in Turkey suffers from the same problems as its comrades abroad, large egos and continual disagreement over dogma. Although there are frequent protests, in Istanbul and Ankara for rights for LGBTT, women, and minorities, as well as anti-NATO actions and an attempted occupation of Istanbul’s Taksim Square in protest over moves to build new nuclear plants in Turkey, these actions attract anything from a few dozen to maybe a couple of thousand, nothing more. Between them, the parties above may receive, judging on various polls and previous results, these various left parties might receive between 1 to 1.5% of the national vote.

The party to watch, in terms of its electoral success and post-election actions, will be the BDP (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi / Peace and Democracy Party). The BDP has its predecessors have often been described as ‘Kurdish’ parties, but it is really much more complex. Yes, a lot of its support base comes from Kurds, but many Turkish progressives also support the party; yes it attracts many Kurdish nationalists, but also those who see the Kurds’ struggle against Turkey as a means to fight both kinds of nationalism. The BDP will do will, gaining perhaps 5.5 to 6% of the vote on a good day, but, of course, this is still well below the necessary 10% for representation. Although Turkish politics is prone to shock results now and then, it seems unlikely that the party can break that barrier.

This electoral barrier is therefore a huge problem for left parties in Turkey. It creates a bi-partisan system, where the AKP and CHP dominate, the system discouraging people from voting for TKP/EMEP et. al. on account of the 10% barrier making them seem like wasted votes. And raising mass movements is incredibly difficult. There are two main reasons for this which I will briefly explain, based on conversations at protests and emails with different activists and journalists in Istanbul from different parties and ideologies.

One major problem is AKP’s use of Islam as a political discourse. Whenever in conversation the occasional cooperation between certain left and Islamist groups in Europe, and the concept of Islamophobia in the UK has come up, the overwhelming response here has been one of dismay. ‘Let them see what Islam has done here,’ one activist told me, ‘and they will think twice about cooperating with these people.’ Far from criticising the role of Islam in politics from the perspective of Kemalist laïcité, the left in Turkey views Islam as reactionary, and its influence on AKP’s policies as fundamentally damaging to Turkey’s most oppressed. Erdoğan recently dismissed Kurdish nationalism, arguing that they were all brothers in Islam. The recent protest commemorating the one-year anniversary of the attack on the Mavi Marmara was not so much a rally in support of the Palestinians as a demonstration of AKP’s power. Many of the activists I have spoken to believe that the AKP’s focus on the issue of Palestine distracts from Turkey’s oppression of the Kurds. Moreover, thousands of supporters chanting ‘Allahu Ekber’ in the secular heart of Istanbul was a clear message to political opponents that, in a country where such a rally would have been unthinkable even ten years ago, AKP has the power and influence mobilise thousands of angry people on demand.

AKP publicises the ‘good works’ of various Islamic philanthropists, foundations and charities which provide some relief for the poverty-stricken. These are supported by but not funded by the government, thus removing the expense of welfare from the state. Such institutions do little to alleviate the massive problems of widespread child labour, lack of pensions and support for the elderly, oppression of women (no, not the headscarf issue but honour killings, marital rape, and general forced subservience to men for a large number of women), oppression of minorities, and sub-standard housing. Education is becoming a big problem, with a growing emphasis on Islamic education and schools, and increased government funding to religious schools, which do not provide a suitable education, unless you consider studying one book over and over again to be sufficient. At the same time, secular state schools are threatened with cuts and privatisation, leading to the formation of groups such as Okuluma Dokunma İnisiyatifi uniting students and activists to protect their institutions.

So the Islamic element is a problem, but it is by no means the biggest. When posed the question, ‘what are the biggest challenges facing progressives in Turkey today?’, one activist/journalist responded simply:

‘Freedom of expression! It is possible for you to find yourself in court facing the judge right after you opened your mouth. There are some other important problems, but this is so fundamental a problem.’

There are elements of this linked to the Islamic factor, with various AKP initiatives being proposed (and in some places implemented) to curb alcohol consumption and (sorry Reuben) smoking as detrimental to public morality and health – some worry that Islam will replace Kemalism as the new censor, although this seems unlikely. The biggest problem here is that Turkey still suffers from huge violations of rights of protest and speech. Journalists are very often harrassed, with kidnappings and murders a hazard of the job. Political prisoners are still tortured. Police and military go unpunished for their brutality. Those attempting to express any opinion on ‘sensitive’ issues such as the right of Kurdish self-determination and the ‘events of 1915′ can get in serious trouble. With the army on the back foot following allegations of an attempted coup a few years ago, the police have become increasingly employed as the strong arm of the government. Just two days ago, a demonstration in Istanbul by mothers of men murdered in police custody attracted the attention of several coach-loads of heavily armed police who intimidated them and threatened force against them.

But resistance is always there, from bereaved wives to enraged students. Many have asked me if the Kurds or others will take a leaf from the Arab world. The fact is that those struggling for equality and justice in Turkey have plenty of experience, and plenty of ideas. Both the Kurdish population and the radical left have fought a war for many decades, both rhetorically and physically, against the forces of the Kemalist establishment and now the AKP. From the throwing of eggs at politicians visiting university campuses to the full-scale riots in Hopa when Erdoğan visited last week (brutally suppressed by the police), from the increasing graffiti campaigns in the major cities to growing mobilisation of activists, it seems that something is brewing. Several activists I have spoken too have told me that big unrest is being planned should AKP gain a large majority in these elections, primarily nonviolent civil disobedience, but more drastic measures too. Whether this is just bravado or not will have to be seen, but it is clear that although many are happy with what AKP has been doing in Turkey, there are others who see that its reforms and Erdoğan’s visions will not only fail to tackle the huge disparities in wealth and massive social and political injustices in the country, but indeed deepen them.

To contact Reuben email reuben@thethirdestate.net

When you’re a member of a small party to the left of Labour, elections rarely give you much to cheer. Thankfully, the Greens (in England at least) have provided a somewhat more positive narrative for those of us who believe the Labour party’s dominance over the progressive vote is a dangerous thing.

Reading some of the party material before the election, it sounded as though the Greens were bracing for a setback in Brighton & Hove after Caroline Lucas’s breakthrough result, and losing council seats to a resurgent Labour party would have been very uncomfortable. Thankfully, they held all their seats and won ten more to become the largest party on the council.

Over at Socialist Unity, Andy Player has some good analysis of the challenges the party will now face, and the hope that those to the left of Labour might see in a rising Green Party.

After defending 13 seats and winning 10 new ones, the Green party now has the largest group on Brighton & Hove city council. The Tories dropped from 26 to 18, Labour remained on 13 and the Lib Dems were wiped off the map.

Following on from the remarkable General Election victory a year ago to the day, the Greens have made astonishing progress at a time when votes for smaller parties seems to be diminishing.

In many central Brighton seats the Greens had already replaced Labour as the progressive choice. The results in these wards were cemented by campaigning last year and large majorities increased on Thursday.

The push continued into the Labour suburbs with one seat being turned into three in Preston Park and two seats out of three taken in Hollingdean and Stanmer – with Labour deputy leader Pat Hawkes ousted.

Seats were taken from the Tories in previous Tory / Labour marginals like Goldsmid, but the shock results were in two ‘safe’ Tory wards – Central Hove and Withdean – where a Green candidate came from nowhere to top the poll.

The Greens’ relentless progress in Brighton & Hove should be of enormous interest to those on the left who believe that electoral politics play a part in the fight for a better world.

The Green party won their first council seat in 1996, adding two, then another three, and then another six at subsequent elections, plus a first Hove councillor in a by-election the year before Caroline Lucas won in Brighton Pavilion.

One lesson for the left is that the Greens in Brighton & Hove have achieved electoral success through consistent hard work. They have also built a significant layer of support amongst trade unionists and campaigners with their swift and unambiguous backing of the right causes.

The Greens in Brighton & Hove have a reputation for being honest, active and progressive. That is a breath of fresh air for many voters in this city.

Hard work and the right principles are one thing, but the crucial factor in surviving the current electoral squeeze of smaller parties is that voters believe the Greens can win. After last year’s result, that belief has mushroomed.

The Green party have now replaced Labour in most of their traditional areas and have become the opposition party in most Tory wards. Are we seeing the crumbling of Labourism – the Holy Grail for left-of-Labour electoral parties?

Some big challenges face the Brighton & Hove Green party councillors and the local party membership. The Green platform in these elections was to oppose cuts to services and to protect jobs. Taking over the council purse-strings in a time of savage cuts is not good timing for a progressive party, yet it is what the electorate demanded.

Tories, Labour and many on the left will be rubbing their hands and waiting for the new Green administration to ‘sell out’. To deliver on the local party’s manifesto is not going to be easy. But our local party has not got to where it is by being strategically naïve, vain or politically cowardly. We may have been handed the poisoned chalice, but no-one is forcing us to drink it.

“Vade retro Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas!” as Saint Benedict of Nursia once said.

There have been growing mutterings recently about the prospect of the Coalition becoming an outright merger between the Tories and Lib Dems sometime between now and the next general election. I don’t know how likely it is – the prospect of strong resistance from rightwing Tories who take the same view as Fraser Nelson in the article I’ve linked to above and (to a lesser extent) leftwing Lib Dems who still have a conscience makes me sceptical – but if it did happen I don’t think it would be Spectator readers and their ilk who’d really regret it. The first commenter at the bottom of Nelson’s piece writes:

Merger means the LibDems of the Orange Book persuasion becoming Conservatives, does it not? And the sandal-wearing twats will join Labour, giving them a dreadful headache. All this will be excellent news for the Greens, who will become the third party. Don’t you think, Fraser?

I’d take issue with the language, but since most socialists probably have as much contempt for sandal-wearing Lib Dems as rightwing Tories do, I realise I probably wouldn’t get much sympathy. The more glaring problem with the comment, though, is the supposition that the Greens and Labour would be the major beneficiaries of a merger between the coalition parties. I agree that those on the right of the Tory party would do badly out of it (so Nelson’s consternation is understandable), but I really don’t see how any party on the left would gain from it either.

Image: Financial Times photos/flickr

In terms of electoral support, YouGov currently has Labour at 41%, the Tories at 39 and the Lib Dems on 9 – +12, +3 and -14 points compared to the general election in May, respectively. This suggests a pretty large chunk of left-leaning Lib Dem support has already gone to Labour – which isn’t surprising, given both the coalition’s policies and the Tories’ deftness in making the Lib Dems scapegoats for those policies. What hasn’t happened is any significant rightward erosion of Tory support, but if there was a merger it could happen.

So where would all the disillusioned Thatcherites go? Well, UKIP pretty clearly fits the bill best: economically conservative, anti-immigration, climate change-denying, big on defence, and, of course, about as Eurosceptic as you can get. And let’s not forget that it was they, not the Greens, who came fourth in terms of votes cast last May (to say nothing of coming second in the EU elections the year before). So there’s a real chance of UKIP getting a boost in support if a Conservative-Lib Dem merger goes through.

Another possibility, though (which isn’t incompatible with the first) is that the new merged party could do extremely well. It would be very easy for a party led by Cameron and Clegg to paint itself as closer to the centre ground than Labour, particularly if it had the support of the Murdoch press (and a wholly Murdoch-owned Sky News, courtesy of Jeremy Hunt). Right-leaning Lib Dem supporters would vote for the new party, while the left-leaning ones would have been lost to Labour, the Greens or disgusted apathy long before. If this happens, the main electoral losers are going to be on the left, not the right.

As the campaign manager for the Ralph for Leader bid, I feel it falls to me to describe what happened today. What we have seen is that Ralph’s son Bert has beaten his other son, Ernie, to become leader of the Labour Party. This isn’t to say the Ralph didn’t put up one hell of a good fight.

Taking his cue from global capitalism, Ralph has arisen in a zombie like state at several points in these last few months, to lay claim to his rightful position as head of the Party he despised for so many years. Who will forget that moment when his half rotting corpse managed to trounce Diane Abbot in the identity politics game. It was certainly a close call to see who was more under-represented in British politics: dead white male marxists or living black female soft-socialists.

And I will always smile when I recall Ralph on Question Time, crankily wandering onto the stage half way through to throw a pint of his own blood over Ed Balls. Oh how we laughed. It’s been a good campaign.

But a new dawn is upon us, and Ralph is quite tired now. The Labour Party must lurch forward again, with Bert at the helm, to lead the muppets in cabinet yet further into the brink, away from unions of which he has never been a part, away from the constituency he has only represented for five years. But in the words of Ralph, we can take this comfort:

“Socialist democracy would have an inherent bias against great executive power being power being vested in the hands of any one individual, whether president, chancellor or prime minister. Such a concentration of power means that major decisions are made without much or any reference to anyone outside a small coterie of advisers. Prime ministers in capitalist democracies are generally rather more constrained in the exercise of personal power than presidents elected by universal suffrage, but experience here too shows that a prime minister determined to exercise great power has a good deal of room to do so.

“It would be naive to think that this can easily be avoided, whatever the system. But it is nevertheless worth saying that a socialist democratic regime ought to enshrine the principle of ‘collective leadership’, and ensure that no single person should be given a preponderance of power. Socialist democracy would establish a political climate in in which great personal power would be viewed as an undue and dangerous privilege, and any ‘cult of the personality’ taken for an unacceptable deviation from democratic values.”

(Ralph Miliband, Socialism for a Sceptical Age, 1994)

Guest post by Roland Miller McCall

Australia went to the polls today after the most mundane election campaigns anyone can remember. Neither Labor nor the Coalition opposition has engaged with the big issues nor proposed a vision for Australia’s future. In recent days the debate has descended into high farce with the defining issue of a substanceless campaign being a debate about whether there would be another leader’s debate.

The Labor Government is led by Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who barely two months ago sensationally ousted Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Labor had spooked at Rudd’s declining popularity and without any warning the Parliamentary Party installed Gillard after a late night coup. The Welsh born Gillard, who is Australia’s first female Prime Minister is an unmarried, childless atheist (the latter being her most controversial attribute).

Her opponent Tony Abbott, also British-born, is the leader of the ineptly named Liberal Party of Australia (the Conservatives). Abbott is a macho, straight-talking, Rhodes Scholar, surfer and onetime trainee-Catholic priest. An archconservative from the right of the Liberal Party he is the ideological heir of former PM John Howard. Abbott is often called the ‘mad monk’ of Australian politics and is known for espousing such as that girls should preserve their virginity as a “precious gift” for the wedding night.

Yet despite much being at stake, including whether we elect one of the most conservative Prime Ministers we have ever had, it is a hard one to get enthused about. Immigration, largely at the behest of the Liberal Party has once again come to dominate the political agenda. Despite receiving a tiny fraction of Europe’s asylum seekers, the presence of several thousand refugees or ‘Boat People’ arriving on our shores each year is apparently something that keeps the ‘swinging voter’ up at night. Australia, at least in its marginal seats, seems unable to escape its xenophobic past. The Liberals are planning to use the Royal Australian Navy to “STOP THE BOATS”, while Labor is promising to process asylum seekers in East Timor.

Arguably, much of the blame for the dullness of the campaign and lack of progressive agenda rests with Labor. Unfortunately Australian Labor displays much of the ideological bankruptcy of its British counterpart. Indeed, many of Gillard’s key policies bear the hallmark of New Labour. A friend recently asked “why are we copying all the policies that tried and failed in the UK about five years ago…are these people in some drugged out timewarp?!” My reply was that this was hardly surprising when it is considered that Gillard’s key policy advisor and deputy chief of staff is Tom Bentley, a former Blair advisor. Ultimately, Australia Labor’s, like British Labour’s, lack of progressive agenda can be put down the reality it is now the party of the middle classes. Both parties have struggled to redefine their ideology after abandoning their working class roots.

Yet for all Labor’s failings, as someone who grew up during John Howard’s decade of conservative rule, the last few years under Labor have been a welcome change. Gone are John Howard’s Thatcherite policies of undermining workers rights and the slashing of public spending (he based much of his ideology Thatcher’s). Labor has begun righting many of these wrongs and delivered modest increases in health and education spending. Amongst its major achievements were delivering a long over due apology to a generation of indigenous children who had been removed from their parents. Labor also ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which John Howard had spent a decade refusing to sign.

Climate change is the issue on which Labor has been most disappointing. In 2007, it was the defining issue of a campaign that was referred to the “the world’s first climate change election.” Australian’s had grown tired of Howard’s continued scepticism and wanted real and decisive action. Rudd and Labor promised much but delivered little. In fairness, the emissions trading scheme that was the centerpiece of Labor’s policy was rejected three times by the Australian Senate. But much of the blame rests with Labor for delivering legislation that in trying to satisfy both environmentalist and polluter alike ended up satisfying neither. Much of the blame can also be placed on the Liberal Party, which negotiated a compromise with the government, before the climate denying wing of the party got the numbers and dumped their leader, Malcolm Turnbull. In his place they installed Tony Abbott; a climate sceptic once described climate science as “absolute crap.” Abbott immediately went on the attack against what he called a “Great Big New Tax”, which combined with the disappointment from Copenhagen saw Labor lose its nerve.

In March 2010, Rudd announced that any emissions trading scheme be postponed until 2013. Rudd’s willingness to abandon action on an issue he emphatically described as “the greatest moral challenge of our time” was terminal to his popularity, which instantly plummeted along with his political fortunes. As Fairfax columnist Peter Hartcher commented, “Voters, especially Labor voters, [saw] the surrender on the scheme as evidence of a Labor Party that doesn’t believe in anything, a self-perpetuating patronage machine no longer willing to fight for any cause.”

Climate change has now played a role in the demise of at least two Liberal opposition leaders and a Liberal and Labor Prime Minister. These politicians have been unable to reconcile the competing, if not irreconcilable demands, of some of the world’s largest resource companies with a population who wants action to reduce emissions. Gillard has attempted to avoid this political deathtrap by deferring action until there is “a broad consensus in the community.” To achieve this several weeks ago Tom Bentley devised a Citizens Assembly of 150 randomly selected people who would meet and talk climate change. Such a ludicrous policy instantly ended Gillard’s honeymoon period as people questioned what she and the rest of Labor stood for.

Whatever happens today, the one thing that is almost certain is that the Australian Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate. They already have five Senators and are likely to gain two more. This will give them the power to block or amend legislation and potentially place them in a position to break the climate change policy deadlock. It will be their coming of age as a third force in Australian politics and whether they are able to meet the expectation of their supporters while reaching compromise on legislation with government remains to be seen. The Greens also have a chance of winning their first House of Representatives seat in the inner city electorate of Melbourne.

In the House of Representatives things are less clear-cut. At this stage it looks like although the Liberals inched ahead several weeks ago Labor appears to have clawed back a narrow lead. Although Labor is certain to lose seats in New South Wales and Queensland it looks like the party will retain power with a small majority on the basis of Greens preferences (Australia has a preferential system of voting). In all likelihood, hopefully the Gillard Labor government will be returned. Labor’s election slogan may be “Let’s move Australian forward’s” and despite there being very little indication about what this means, the one thing that is certain is that Tony Abbott and the Liberals would genuinely take Australia backwards. It’s going to be a long night tonight and while Labor may have its flaws it sure beats the alternative.

Like most readers of this blog, the Budget made me pretty angry – the VAT increase and tighter controls on benefits combined with the cut in corporation tax make a complete mockery of the claims that this Budget was ‘progressive’ in any sense, and millions of the poorest and most vulnerable people in this country will be worse off because of it. But this has been said by any number of people with far more expertise than me in great detail already, so I don’t intend to go over the same ground. What I want to write about is the overwhelming desire I have, now that a supposedly centre-left party is colluding with Tories to bring in the most regressive economic measures in decades, to grab every soi-disant leftie I know who voted Lib Dem and shout ‘Is this what you wanted? Is it? Osborne’s going to be able to do everything Thatcher didn’t have the guts to do, and you helped it happen!’ in their smug self-deluding faces. But I want to write about it because I don’t think that reaction’s justified, no matter how strong its appeal might be. Yes, a blue-yellow coalition was always a possibility under a hung parliament, and one that those voting for the Lib Dems should have borne in mind. But that’s all it was; a possibility, not an inevitability. And in any case, it’s hard to judge people too harshly for turning away from Labour when you consider so much of the record of the Blair and Brown governments.

First, consider the actual election result. Thanks to the random vagaries of our electoral system, no one could have predicted the result we got. A hung parliament was always quite likely, of course, but the specific result of a hung parliament where Labour and the Lib Dems didn’t have a majority between them wasn’t something anyone predicted. And it’s because of this result that the Lib Dems didn’t really have many options open to them other than getting into bed with Cameron and friends; remember that Labour was pretty openly against Alex Salmond’s suggestion of a centre-left ‘rainbow coalition’ and that pretty much no party save the Tories really had the money to fight another election campaign (which would have been the likely result of a minority Conservative government). There weren’t many options open to the Liberal Democrats after the election, and none were appealing.

As for those who actually voted for the Lib Dems, it’s easy to criticise them in hindsight, now that we know what we do about how things turned out. But equally there were a hell of a lot of good reasons for people to turn away from Labour, and – given our first past the post system – not many credible alternatives in most parts of the country. The reforms to jobseekers’ and disability living allowance being introduced now are atrocious, but we shouldn’t forget that the benefits system was already pretty damn draconian – a point made by our own Dan during the election campaign and more recently by Laurie Penny at the New Statesman. Then there were the attacks on civil liberties (and for all the hateful shit the coalition’s doing, we can at least be thankful that ID cards and the vetting and barring scheme are on the way out), the privatisations, the corruption, the utter failure to do anything meaningful about climate change, the warmongering…it’s a familiar list, and one that could be made a lot longer. I voted Labour because my local MP was opposed to most of that, but if I lived in an area where that wasn’t the case I’d find putting a cross next to that red rose logo on the ballot paper a lot harder to stomach.

Laying the blame for the coalition’s failings at the feet of those who voted Lib Dem is easy and very tempting. It was, in retrospect, a serious error. But it was an understandable error, and what’s more, it’s an error that many Lib Dem voters are now recognising. The left cause won’t be helped by going on about it. Right now we need to do everything we can to minimise the damage the government’s going to do to the social fabric of the UK. Turning on each other over past differences really isn’t going to help.

As the campaign manager for the ‘Ralph for Leader’ campaign, I’m pleased to confirm that Ralph Miliband, former lecturer in politics at LSE, Leeds and Roosevelt Universities, as well as former editor of The Socialist Register, will be standing for Labour Leader.

As mentioned by David Miliband, one of Ralph’s two sons, Ralph is currently “scratching his head, and asking with a big laugh ‘What did I do wrong?’ Both my sons Labour Cabinet Ministers!”

Since then, Ralph has come to some conclusions, and will explain why he hopes his candidacy can be seen as the only option for a true renewal of the Labour Party.*

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Ralph: Better on being Progressive!

Ed says: “Being Labour means you always listen to the people — North and South, working-class and middle-class — and understand their concerns, interests and needs.”

David has said: “I stand for individual freedom and social justice.  The two traditions of progressive politics in Britain.”

Ralph says: “‘Progressive’ might be used to designate people who seek the reform of various aspects of the social order in democratic and egalitarian directions.”

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Ralph: Better on Unions!

David says: “We need to engage far far better with those three million trade unionists who choose to pay the political levy in what I believe is a positive act of democratic participation.”

Ed says: “The trade union link matters because it is our link to working people in this country and it is very important.”

Ralph says: “In so far as some of [strike] actions are illegal, they are inevitably opposed and repudiated by the unions. But even where action is legal and ‘official’, trade union leaders and officials are most likely, by the very nature of their role and location, to seek a restoration of business as usual. No doubt their eagerness to do so, and the praise they are willing to pay by way of compromise and retreat, will vary according to ideological dispositions and circumstances. But the business of trade union leaders and officials is bargaining, compromise, conciliation: a strike and other manifestations of militancy are as much an interruption of normal business for trade union officials as it is for employers, and constitute a nuisance and a threat, to be averted if at all possible, or to be brought to an end at the earliest opportunity.”

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Ralph: Better on Reform!

Ed says: “We do need to be far more radical. We need to show we are the people who can reform the state to make it more accountable and give power away.”

David says: I am immensely proud of what Labour has done in government.  Every constituency in Britain has benefitted.  Tony Blair led for a remarkable decade.  Gordon Brown, in the most difficult circumstances, took decisions that showed great leadership that saved our economy from catastrophe.    He fought every day for fairness in our country.

Ralph says: “The history of reform under capitalism shows it to have been a very partial response to specific ‘problems’, and to have remained constrained by the logic of capital. Far from seeking to achieve radical cures, conservative governments have viewed reform as a means of preventing radical transformation from occurring by buying social peace with concessions.”

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Ralph’s even better on criticising Cameron’s “Big Society”!

David says: The politics of protection: what we need to provide ourselves, what the state needs to provide, and what needs to be done together; it’s about rights and responsibilities together, in welfare, in social care, in respect of crime and anti social behaviour

Ed says: “The powerlessness of people is as much an injury in our society as lack of income or wealth. Now, David Cameron’s Big Society is not a way of solving this problem because it is a recipe for abandonment.”

Ralph says: “Human labour cannot be dispensed with, and this also counts for the growth within advanced capitalism of a vast ‘industrial relations’ enterprise, whose purpose is to elicit from wage-earners the ‘positive’ attitudes, the  ‘loyalty’ and co-operative spirit which the collective, ‘socialised’ process of production requires, but which the dynamic of capitalism serves to undermine.”

Vote Ralph – he’s dead Marxist!

Ralph's sons, David and Ed

*All quotes from Ralph Miliband (1924-1994) are from Divided Societies: Class Struggle in Contemporary Capitalism (1989) and Socialism for a Sceptical Age (1994).

Well, it happened. Not quite as anyone had been expecting, but it happened. The moment we’ve dreaded for the last three years.

David Cameron is the new Prime Minister.

I can’t say I will be sorry to see Brown go. I can’t say New Labour didn’t deserve to lose this election. I can say I will be sorry to see the country run by Cameron.

I wonder now how all those Lib Dem voters – genuinely, and quite rightly, believing that they were voting for a party to the left of Labour – will be feeling now that Clegg has placed the crown on Cameron’s head. The Lib Dems have always been famous for flip-flops, shifting to the left when trying to attract disaffected Labour voters, swinging to the right with the next manifesto when hoping to scalp the Tories. But I never thought I would see them enter into a coalition with the Conservatives.

It goes without saying that the Tories won the election. Like it or not, they have the moral right to govern. A Lib-Lab pact would have had little legitimacy without the nationalists on board and Caroline Lucas was correctly keeping her hands clean.

In actively choosing to prop up a Conservative government and give them the majority they need to survive in power, the Lib Dems have betrayed their supporters and they may well suffer for it. Whilst a Prime Minister’s first duty is to statecraft, a leader’s first duty should be to his or her party, to their manifesto and to their ideological compass. If Nick Clegg does not achieve full PR through this deal, then he could very well be seen to have turned his back on them.

New Labour betrayed its working class supporters even before they got into power, but at least the country knew it. People backed Labour for the last 13 years without any illusions. There was never any question of socialism, it was dead from the moment Tony Blair took charge and had been dying even before then. But Lib Dem voters across the country who put their cross in a box they thought meant progressive change should be feeling rightly incensed that the people they elected are now in government with the Tories.

But then, as the country should quickly be realising, Saint Clegg is just a politician and far from finding himself above hypocrisy.

“The Conservatives’ commitment to this kind of reform [civil liberties] is just paper thin,” Nick Clegg told me in an interview with The Third Estate last year. “I don’t think anyone should take them seriously on the rights of the citizen while they retain their commitment to abolish the Human Rights Act.”

Of course, for the rest of us, we should be breathing a slight sigh of relief. A Conservative government was almost preordained three years ago. We should be thankful that they failed to achieve a majority and that they will have the constraints of coalition placed on them. The Lib Dems may prove a moderating influence. It looks likely that the Tory inheritance tax reform will be scrapped and Clegg’s party will get its way on the £10,000 starting tax rate – both of which are very welcome developments.  The Alternative Vote system is nothing to cheer, but at least the issue of electoral reform will remain in conversation as long as the Liberal Democrats are in government. Meanwhile, we should be thankful that both the Tories and the Lib Dems are committed to scrapping ID cards and that neither party will be as abysmal as New Labour on civil liberties.

A spell in opposition may be just what Labour needs right now. If it uses this time to reconnect with its roots, to bring ideology and class back into politics and to elect – not crown – a genuine left wing reformer who will turn his (unfortunately it’s unlikely to be her) back on the Blairites and the Brownites and their vain squabbles over nothing of any significance, then it has a chance to re-emerge as a strong and necessary party again that has learnt the lessons of its past. On the other hand, it will probably elect David Milliband as its leader. In which case, it deserves to lose the next election as well.

Either way, the lefty blogosphere will have two battles in the coming months. The battle against the Tory cuts and the battle to rid ourselves of the last ugly vestiges of the New Labour regime, a poison that has done far more to entrench the values of Thatcherism than the Conservatives ever could.

The fight-back starts here!