Justification

No, not a theological post.

Well, not in the most obvious sense, anyway.

“There is no justification for a Labour Party” in the changed world of the twenty-first century, Simon Hughes told The Week At Westminster. The future belongs to the Lib Dems, apparently. Diane Abbott tried to tell him that Labour still securely held “the working classes, the North, the cities”, but she knows that that isn’t true, and that it was always talked up anyway. The most loyal section of the electorate is working-class Tory. There has never been any shortage of either Northern or urban Tories if you knew where to look for them.

However, a new political formation is certainly necessary. And one, moreover, which is rather closer to Simon Hughes in many ways (not all, but many) than he is to the position of his own party.

A new movement is now needed to fight for the universal and comprehensive Welfare State. To fight for the strong statutory and other (including trade union) protection of workers, consumers, communities and the environment. For fair taxation. For full employment. For the partnership between a strong Parliament and strong local government. For co-operatives, credit unions, mutual guarantee societies, mutual building societies and similar bodies. And for every household to enjoy a base of real property from which to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State.

On that basis, that movement must make itself the voice of all those whose concerns are any one or more of rural, monarchist, cautious and organic with regard to constitutional change, Eurosceptical, Unionist, pro-Commonwealth, academically selective, economically patriotic, morally and socially conservative, explicitly Christian, conservationist rather than environmentalist, and foreign policy realist. These are traditional causes of the British Left, inseparable from the battle against poverty, ignorance, illness, idleness and squalor.

So that movement must stand in the tradition of the trade unionists and activists who dismissed an attempt to make the nascent Labour Party anti-monarchist. Peter Shore’s denunciation of the Major Government’s decision to scrap the Royal Yacht. The concern that power should not be transferred from elected parliamentarians to unelected judges. The concern that any elected second chamber should not subvert the authority of the House of Commons.

The concern that electoral reform should not mean voting for parties rather than people, should not destroy direct local representation, should not give power to anti-constitutional and anti-democratic forces, and should not prevent necessary radical action on behalf of the poor or otherwise disadvantaged.

Total opposition to the constraint of any future government by any written Constitution, never mind one written thirty or forty years ago on the back of a Rizla or in the margins of some Trotskyist rag. Total opposition to any State funding of political parties that detaches them even further from wider civil society.

The Attlee Government’s refusal to join the European Coal and Steel Community on the grounds that it was “the blueprint for a federal state” which “the Durham miners would never wear”. Gaitskell’s rejection of European federalism as “the end of a thousand years of history” and liable to destroy the Commonwealth. The votes of most Labour MPs, and one Liberal, against Heath’s Treaty of Rome.

The Parliamentary Labour Party’s unanimous opposition to Thatcher’s Single European Act. The 66 Labour MPs who voted against Maastricht, including, in Bryan Gould, the only resignation from either front bench in order to do so. The votes of every Labour and Liberal Democrat MP, without exception, against the Common Agricultural and Fisheries Policies annually between 1979 and 1997. That half of the French Socialist Party which successfully opposed the EU Constitution.

That half of the UKIP vote which, based on its geographical distribution, must be Old Labour or (especially in the West Country) Old Liberal rather than Old Tory. The No2EU – Yes To Democracy list in the recent European Elections, which in London included Peter Shore’s old agent, and which in the North West included the immediate past Leader of the Liberal Party (not the Liberal Democrats, the Liberal Party), but which was ignored by the BNP-obsessed media. That list’s campaign for jobs, for public services, for workers’ rights, for welfare provision, against the Lisbon Treaty, against the EU threats to our NHS and our Post Office, and against racism.

Bevan’s ridicule of the first parliamentary Welsh Day on the grounds that “Welsh coal is the same as English coal and Welsh sheep are the same as English sheep”. Those Labour MPs who in the 1970s successfully opposed Scottish and Welsh devolution not least because of its ruinous effects on the North of England. Those Labour activists in the Scottish Highlands, Islands and Borders, and in North, Mid and West Wales, who accurately predicted that their areas would be balefully neglected under devolution. The high vote against devolution – relatively in Scotland, absolutely in Wales – in areas where the Liberal Democrat vote is also high. The feeling among English, Scottish and Welsh ethnic minorities and Catholics that they no more want to go down the road of who is or is not “really” English, Scottish or Welsh than Ulster Protestants want to go down the road of who is or is not “really” Irish.

The Parliamentary Labour Party that voted against the partition of the United Kingdom. The Attlee Government’s first ever acceptance of the principle of consent with regard to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. The Wilson Government’s deployment of British troops to protect Northern Ireland’s grateful Catholics precisely as British subjects. The Callaghan Government’s administration of Northern Ireland exactly as if it were any other part of the United Kingdom. The two Ulster Unionist MPs who voted to save the Callaghan Government (both the fact that they did so and the reason why) when both Irish Nationalists abstained. The last integrationist MP to date elected specifically as such, the Labour-minded Robert McCartney.

Ministerial defence of the grammar schools by “Red Ellen” Wilkinson of the Jarrow Crusade, and by George Tomlinson. Their academic defence by Sidney Webb and R H Tawney. Their vigorous practical defence by Labour councillors and activists around the country, not least while Thatcher, as Education Secretary, was closing so many that there were not enough left at the end for her record ever to be equalled. Their protection in Kent by a campaign long spearheaded by Eric Hammond. Their restoration by popular demand, as soon as the Wall came down, in what is still the very left-wing former East Germany. Their successful popular defence in the Social Democratic heartland of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Labour MPs who defended Catholic schools, and thus all church-based state schools, over several successive decades. The support by national leaders of the Social Democrats for Christian religious instruction in the schools of Berlin.

The early Labour activists who resisted schemes to abort, contracept and sterilise the working class out of existence. The Catholic and other Labour MPs, including John Smith, who fought tooth and nail against abortion and easier divorce. The Methodist and other Labour MPs, including John Smith, who fought tooth and nail against deregulated drinking and gambling. Those, including John Smith, who successfully organised (especially through USDAW) against Thatcher’s and Major’s attempts to destroy the special character of Sunday and of Christmas Day, delivering the only Commons defeat of Thatcher’s Premiership.

Action taken by past Labour Governments to arrest the importation of a new working class whose members understood no English except commands, knew nothing about workers’ rights in this country, could be deported if they stepped out of line, and (since they had no affinity with any particular locality here) could be moved around at will. Such action against the enforced bilingualism or multilingualism that transfers economic, social, cultural and political power to a bilingual or multilingual élite, to the exclusion of the English-speaking working class, black and white. No2EU – Yes To Democracy, headed both in the East Midlands and in Yorkshire and The Humber by leaders of the Lindsey oil refinery workers.

Attlee’s successful dissuasion of Truman from dropping an atom bomb on Korea. Wilson’s refusal to send British forces to Vietnam, but use of military force to safeguard the right of the people of Anguilla to be British. Callaghan’s successful prevention of an Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands.

Solidarity with the eventually victorious trade union-based opposition to Communism in the Eastern Bloc (especially Poland) and elsewhere. Solidarity with the eventually victorious non-racial, non-violent, non-Marxist opposition to apartheid, exemplified by Helen Suzman.

Those Tories who opposed first Thatcherism and then Maastricht. Their economically populist and pro-manufacturing, morally and socially conservative, staunchly Unionist and pro-military, strongly church-based Toryism. Their unyieldingly constitutionalist and civil libertarian Toryism. Their Keynesian, pro-Commonwealth, anti-neoconservative Toryism. Their conservationist, agrarian, anti-nuclear Toryism. The grave reservations about, and indeed outright hostility towards, nuclear weapons expressed by such distinguished Tories as Anthony Head, Peter Thorneycroft, Nigel Birch, Aubrey Jones, George Jellicoe and, above all, Enoch Powell.

The recognition that even conventional wars, while sometimes inescapable (such as when our territory is invaded), are not conservative, but cost taxpayers vast sums of money, create new threats by creating new enemies and entrenching or embittering old ones, and are morally and socially disruptive. The recognition that we are neither fighting nor facing any inescapable war today. The recognition that the point of the Armed Forces is precisely to prevent wars, by deterring them. The recognition that everything to do with the Swinging Sixties really started during the War. And the recognition that economic policies are perfectly conservative if they are acceptable to Gaullists, Christian Democrats, conservative Democrats and other such exemplars of patriotism, moral and social conservatism, or both.

We must secure the election next year of Independent MPs who are committed in principle to creating this new movement. I am standing in North-West Durham.

Where are you standing?

North Southwark & Bermondsey?