Can they learn the lessons of Bradford?

He won over 50% of the vote.  He destroyed a Labour majority of nearly 6,000 and emerged with a majority of over 10,000.  He did it all in three weeks.  Galloway’s success in Bradford West was spectacular – and no political party can deny it.  But if they can’t deny it, they are at a loss to explain it.

The Tories are delighted that Galloway is the Bradford West story, because it has deflected attention from the meltdown of their own vote.  They have been happy to emphasise the disaster this is for Labour and take the usual line that “Governments don’t tend to win by-elections”.  Indeed they don’t – but they don’t usually see a vote of 12,638 (31.1%) in the last General Election slump to 2,746 (8.4%) in a by-election either.  In a fortnight which was bad for the Government, the mainstream media should have homed in on what is almost a vote of “no confidence”, but they have hardly pressed the point at all.

The media has also been kind to the Lib-Dems (4,732/11.7% in the 2010 General Election to 1,505/4.6% at the by-election). Most of them are probably too busy having a whip round to pay the cost of their lost deposit to appear in the media, and there’s probably enough people crying on national TV already.  But again the mainstream media could have questioned them about whether their decision to foist a Tory Government on the nation was, with hindsight, a wise move.

The Party most at a loss to explain the result is Labour – which is a shame, because they have said they will learn the lessons of the result, which will be hard if they do not understand the reasons for it.  This is the Party whose activists were still predicting victory as they entered the Count and whose faces, Sky News reported, only turned glum as the ballots were counted (very reminiscent of the Bethnal Green & Bow General Election in 2005 and the Tower Hamlets Mayor election in October 2010).

Labour swept to office in the landslide General Election of 1997 because people wanted a change from the Tories and Labour was the only alternative Party of government and did seem to offer hope that “things can only get better”.  A few things did get better: more money for the NHS and education and overseas aid, a minimum wage (but far too low), civil partnerships…  But most things stayed the same or got worse (private sector provision introduced in the NHS and education, anti-union and discriminatory immigration legislation, a war on Council housing) and it soon became clear that Labour was not an alternative to the Tories but, in many ways, a continuation of Thatcherism.  In no single issue was this clearer than when it came to Blair’s attempt to get his own “Falklands Factor”: support for the invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq – the latter despite a demonstration of the best part of two million people.

The fact that Labour was returned to government at the next two General Elections was no public endorsement of New Labour but rather because there was no alternative – except going back to the Tories again.  As Owen Jones puts it (http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/03/30/galloways-shot-across-the-bows):

“In the New Labour era, the sense in Blair and Brown’s inner circle was that the so-called ‘core vote’ had nowhere else to go: the trick was to keep ‘Middle Britain’ on board. In truth, they weren’t talking about the real Middle Britain – which is those on median incomes of around £21,000, but rather the most affluent voters.
“But while Labour lost 5 percentage points among the professional ‘ABs’ in its thirteen years in power, it haemorraged a stunning 21 points among the skilled and semi-skilled ‘C2’s, and 19 points among the ‘DE’s at the bottom. Indeed, while Labour lost 5 million votes during its period office, the Tories only gained a million. What happened – above all else – is that Labour’s voters increasingly sat on their hands rather than make it to the polling booth. As Ed Miliband put it during his leadership election (though not since), the ‘core vote’ became the ’swing vote’. Unless they feel they have something worth voting for, anti-Tory working-class voters will either abstain or – as in this case – find another political home.”

This is the lesson that Ed Miliband should learn.  We have one Tory Party – two, in fact, if you count the newly converted Lib-Dems.  Let them be the Tories.  It’s your job to be Labour.  Labour policies are popular and will win you votes.  New Labour policies are not popular and they lost you the last General Election – in which you only got as many MPs as you did because in the last week people woke up to the real threat of a Tory Government, held their noses and voted Labour in a desperate attempt to keep that threat at bay.

Miliband is hampered by the fact that many policies of the current Government were begun by Blair and Brown: that’s one of the reasons why his Shadow Cabinet (and most of the Parliamentary Labour Party) is at a loss over how to oppose them. It’s time Miliband laid down the law in his Party and took control.  First, Labour is having a policy review.  Instead of sidelining the popular policies that are submitted by local Labour Parties and trade unions (renationalisation of rail, building Council housing, a minimum wage at living wage levels) he must embrace them.  Instead of deferring to the numpties in the Shadow Cabinet, Miliband must give full backing to open and democratic re-selection procedures, so their futures are in the hands of their local party members.

Those two measures would bring a real upturn in Miliband’s fortunes.  He could experience popular support like Galloway did in Bradford, a rise in Labour Party membership and an improvement in his poll ratings.  He has nothing to lose: the numpties are already plotting to ditch him in favour of – save us! – the better Tory clone David Miliband.  And nothing will improve his stock against the plotters as much as an increase in support for Labour.

As Galloway put it after the result:  “ordinary people need a Labour Party to stand up for working people, the marginalised and the poor.  Labour needs to be Labour again.”

You want to learn the lessons of Bradford, Ed?  Try listening to Galloway.  The voters did.

Coming shortly:
•Bradford West: beware playing the race card
•Do we need a Party to the left of Labour?
Check back soon!