Where does Labour go from here?

What is Labour’s future? Soundings journal, and Open Left at Demos ask the question in a new, jointly published e-book, Labour’s Future.

We don’t offer answers, but set out a series of points of view – from Phil Collins’ Liberal Republic to Doreen Massey’s, ‘the political struggle ahead’ – that frame the coming debate.

The decision by the Shadow Cabinet to oppose the AV referendum reinforces the view of a party that is exhausted, out of date and locked in a reactionary frame of mind. Its policy language is stuck with the generation of ’92, the frequent referencing of its values struggles to escape the cliches of ‘fairness’ and ‘progressive’.
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Why we should say no to Red Toryism

Sunny recently wrote of the danger posed by Red Toryism to the left, following a Compass debate on Left and Right Communitarianism.

He argued that the left was unable to produce an effective counter-argument to Phillip Blond’s Red Toryism. He’s not alone in thinking that the left is in a state of intellectual disarray. It’s a symptom of the collapse of the New Labour project and the vacuum it has left behind it.

This intellectual predicament is nothing new. The Labour Party originally emerged out of Liberalism and developed its own socially conservative brand of communitarian politics – Labourism. It was never distinct enough nor intellectually confident enough to break ideologically with Liberalism. At the heart of Labour remains an unresolved conflictual relationship between Liberalism and communitarianism. This dilemma has tended to dominate the left more widely and kept various forms of socialism on the periphery.
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The left’s response to the financial crisis is indeed weak

Three weeks ago Soundings journal published its ebook The Crash – A View From The Left. We’ve had over 40,000 downloads from our small website, so there’s clearly interest in debating how the left can develop a post-crisis politics. Rowenna Davis recently said on Comment is Free and on Liberal Conspiracy that the ebook’s aim as “putting forward a coherent left-of-labour position” ends up being “vague and confused”.

She says our attitude toward markets is muddled because we call for more regulation but also blame “pro-market forces” and call for change within the “market system”. Are we for markets or against them? The resulting ambiguity she argues,leads to a lack of any coherent economic policy agenda.

Here’s my response.
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