Running Against Themselves

John Harris writes:

Siobhain McDonagh boasts of never having voted against the government; as Mark Seddon points out elsewhere on Cif, Joan Ryan has long been in the habit of "ritually denouncing" anyone who wants to question the New Labour script. The fact that some of them have put in spells as junior ministers might conceivably be raised in their defence, but nonetheless, a quick visit to Theyworkforyou.com fleshes out the profiles of such sudden insurrectionists as George Howarth, Greg Pope, Janet Anderson, Jim Dowd and Barry Gardiner: all of them voted for the introduction of ID cards, foundation hospitals, top-up fees, the replacement of Trident and the Iraq war. The fact that they've been joined by looser cannons such as as Graham Stringer, Gordon Prentice and that hard-left desperado John McDonnell (who has surely managed his own version of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact) doesn't alter the revolt's fundamentals: politically, its prime movers are stuck on exactly the same page as the PM they want to topple.

In that context, their explanation for their volte-face are inevitably rather contorted. As far as I'm aware, McDonagh and Ryan – by far the most visible plotters, to date at least – have gone on endlessly about the need for a change of "direction", without even beginning to detail what that actually mean. Howarth has a go in this morning's Independent, and it is not pretty: "We must take control and confront the problems that now face us," he says, daringly. "We have to explain what sort of country we want Britain to be in a way that resonates with the public. We need a story that tells how our progressive principles translate into policies that help ordinary people." The rest passes in a haze of grey New Labourspeak: by way of a vision, he offers not much more than a picture of "individuals, families and society working together to be the best we can be".

His most priceless line, however, is the claim that Labour has to act fast to "rebuild the support we have lost over the last year". Not that one wants to sound too withering, but really: between the elections of 1997 and 2005 – that is, prior to the last 12 months – Labour lost no less than 4.5 million voters. The fact that neither its core support nor millions of floating voters seem to have much of a clue about what Labour now stands for is a malaise that took root long ago, when Blair was merrily trashing Labour orthodoxy and most of the rebels were dutifully applauding. Brown's problems have been twofold: a chronically dysfunctional approach to administration and PR, for sure, but also his refusal to consider the kind of social-democratic moves that the times demand (on this score, needless to say, his refusal to go near a windfall tax on the energy companies speaks volumes), and use rhetoric more convincing than the washed-out stuff of New Labourism. One thinks of a comment from a voter heard during the Crewe and Nantwich byelection: "We thought he'd be different from Blair, and he's exactly the same."

The only revolt worth taking seriously – and one that, needless to say, has yet to materialise – would be one built on an intelligent understanding of the essentials of Labour's current predicament: the fact that, as such well-known lefties as Will Hutton have lately been pointing out, the terms of politics and economics are changing at speed, and articles of faith minted in the mid-1990s will no longer do the business. The September plotters – and, indeed, the outer ring of anti-Brownites whose nebulous critique is here – apparently have nothing to offer beyond more of the same. It's true: to all intents and purposes, they are running against themselves.