Selling Labour versus Being Labour

Over the weekend I had an altercation on Twitter with a man in his twenties who seemed to hold me personally responsible for the actions of the Blair governments. "How can you condemn what's going on in Gaza - you gave us Iraq?". I am, the argument seemed to be, a member of the Labour Party. And Labour was responsible for Iraq. Therefore I was responsible for Iraq. Bastard.

What I find interesting about these kind of debates, and I have a lot of them (generally with activists younger than myself), is that they quickly reach an impasse. I say things like, "I was utterly opposed to Iraq. I am on the Left of the Labour Party, and oppose the leadership on many things. Within the Party I vote, argue, and organise against the kind of things you - left-wing activist - dislike". And my interlocutor says things like, "No, you're wrong. Labour supported the Iraq war. So if you're in Labour, you must support it. Otherwise you should leave."

The problem here is that two basically different conceptions of political parties are going head-to-head. I believe that an electoral party like Labour is a coalition of interests, a movement and a site of struggle. To be sure, it is one in which the Left is at an historically low point, but that doesn't alter the fact that what Labour is, or stands for, is constantly contested - and not in a vacuum, but within the broader setting of the labour movement and Labour's electoral base. Against me is posed a passive, consumerist, version of electoral politics. Political parties are brands; I pick the one that suits me (my lifestyle, my values, my economic interests) most exactly, perhaps after perusing a few manifestos. If I'm very enthusiastic, a brand junkie, I might even join a party. My role within the Party, on the current model, is as an electoral footsoldier, a volunteer. Labour and its policy are just there, prior to and independent of me. My role is to sell them to a wider public.

One of Tony Blair's crowning achievements was to popularise the consumerist model of politics, and to partially restructure Labour on the basis of it. A generation of left-wing activists has unconsciously taken it on board. It is entirely pointless for the Labour Left to attempt recruitment to the Party from among activists of this sort unless we are prepared to address, and argue against, basic assumptions about the nature of party politics itself.