Well apparently anyway. I’m guessing the Daily Express, the Daily Mail, The Times, The Telegraph didn’t get the memo. Neither did our TV networks. Or I suppose any of our political parties. Or people you meet in pubs…

No huddled masses here we are British.

Hang on, actually loads of people talk about immigration all the time. And in many ways it dominates parts of the British political agenda and has done so for generations.

And as I write this it is dominating the news agenda because our wonderful “man of the people” PM has today tried to rally his troops by giving a borderline BNP speech controversial call to arms to the Tory right over immigration.

As is often the case when the Right want to talk about immigration many of us on the left find it a little difficult to position ourselves. It isn’t a difficult topic for the right but it is for us.

Often it seems our instinct is to both believe, and to say, that anyone who has concerns around immigration and anyone who wants to talk about the issue are racists or at least motivated by subtle racism. The problem for the left, and for Labour is the uncomfortable truth that this often puts us on the other side of the argument from our supporters. Further it just isn’t true.

It is a real challenge for the left to find a way of acknowledging some of the real and legitimate concerns that can motivate people around this issue. That communities can sometimes change very rapidly and in a way people find hard to understand when large numbers of immigrants move into an area is very real. That changing the number of people, and their demographics in a small area will effect the provision of services and division of resources is clearly a fact.

Many people, and Labour supporters and Trade Union members at that, will have many entirely justifiable concerns around these issues. And having concerns about these things does not make one a racist, and these feelings are not necessarily motivated out of racism. If the left is to be successful we have to find a narrative around these issues that acknowledges these concerns but is consistent with our values around diversity and equality. It is a fine line that I feel New Labour often got wrong (from both ends) in office.

However if you thought those last couple of paragraphs were clearly leading up to a big “but”, then you would be absolutely spot on. I have a massive issue with the demonstrably false notion that “no one can talk about immigration without fear of being categorised a racist”. It isn’t true; people are parties have talked openly about immigration for decades.

My big problem is that actually this just often serves as cover for feelings, thoughts and policies around immigration that are plain racist and motivated out of racism. I don’t really see how anyone can seriously argue that a big motivating factor around why immigration is an issue isn’t in some respects racism.

The vile lies and propaganda that the Daily Heil and the Express, around immigrants, particularly Muslim immigrants (and frankly British Muslims) and anyone else they define as “other” or “different” is almost entirely fuelled by bigotry and racism. I have to be honest I don’t think I have ever heard a complaint made in seriousness about white, English speaking immigrants from Australia, America, Canada, South Africa or New Zealand living in the UK.

Let’s be honest here David Cameron almost certainly isn’t a racist (I doubt many of the metropolitan Notting Hill set Tories are). But by making this speech today he is hoping to drum up support from “Monday Club” Tories who probably think along the lines of Alan Clark and his famous “Send them back to Bongo Bongo Land” quote. He might not be a racist but he damn sure wants to appeal to racists, and he damn sure wants racists to vote Conservative. This is immoral and unacceptable politics and the left just has to be on the side of the angels on this issue.

It leaves us with a troubling conundrum. How exactly do we tackle a complex policy issue that arises fierce passions across the electorate in a way that chimes with our supporters and potential supporters which is consistent with our values? The truth is I do not know. But I am pretty sure that in government Labour did not do well out of the “arms race” with the Tories and the right wing press that David Blunkett and Jack Straw tried to engage in. We need new, and intellectually robust thinking on this and we will probably need it quickly.

When the Mrs Duffy stuff happened to Gordon Brown it was something that had been waiting to happen. The intellectual left has utterly lost touch on this issue in so many ways (and frankly i’d count myself as one of those who is out of touch and doesn’t have the answers). We don’t know how to talk to the white working classes on the issue, Labour and the left have to find a way. Otherwise the agenda will continue to be set by the right. And that is the worst of all worlds.

Firstly congratulations on your Election as the leader of the Labour party. I supported you from the start and you got my First preference vote. I even made a small donation to your campaign so I am delighted that you have won.

As a small time political blogger from the Westcountry it is hugely presumptuous of me to give you any advice. However self important presumptuousness is something of the hall mark of political blogging so here I go, a few bits of advice:-

1. Remember that you said this in your acceptance speech.

“I do believe this Country is too unequal, and that the gap between rich and poor doesn’t just harm the poor, it harms us all and it is something government must tackle.”

I think the biggest sense in which new Labour failed was the degree it lost sight of what the mission was, of what we are for, and why we exist politically. With this sentiment you have for me articulated exactly what ought to be the central defining point, the “raison d’etre” for the Labour party in the 21^st century.

Whatever else happens don’t forget this, and make sure it informs everything you do as party leader.

The next Prime Minister?

2. Confound expectations and be prepared to infuriate us on the left.

Uncomfortable as it is for me to admit I recognise that in the real world if I am agreeing with everything the Leader of the Labour party says, then said leader is heading for an electoral defeat. The reality is the the left are out of step with mass popular opinion.

It doesn’t really matter if this is because of false consciousness, propaganda from the right wing media, or just because the left is out of touch. The reality is public opinion is what it is and you need to ensure you win the next election. When Tony Blair said that it wasn’t a choice between “The Labour Government of our Dreams, or a pragmatic Labour Government” but instead a choice between “New Labour or the Tories” he was partially right.

But…. the failure was to believe that his vision was the only possible electable Labour Government, that what he came to believe “new Labour” was became an unchallengeable orthodoxy. In fact if it was anything then New Labour was pragmatic and flexible at the start. It is, and will be, possible to win elections but to be better than what Mandleson and Blair came to believe was the only path. I believe you can do that, and if you keep in mind my point one you will.

3. Drop the authoritarianism.

Iraq aside, I think there was little that upset and alienated our supporter and activists more than the awful Authoritarian tendencies of New Labour, particularly toward the end. We were wrong about detention without trial, trial by jury, ID cards, political protest etc. If you are serious about wooing disaffected Lib Dem voters and activists then you will need to tackle this.

It does not matter what we say the Daily Mail/Express anti crime authoritarian right is never going to back and support Labour, so why alienate our support craving acceptance we are never going to get?

4. Give Ed Balls the health brief.

Despite my Trade Union (the CWU’s) enthusiastic embrace Ed Balls started the campaign as my 5^th Preference, by the end he was my 2^nd. Both a great campaign and a brilliant job of tearing into Gove has led to me having a huge amount of respect for him now.

I think that he is going to be our “star player” in attacking the coalition. And for that reason I think he needs to be where he can cause the most damage. This has to be health. The public are instinctively mistrustful of the Tories on health. People remember the 80s, and they are weak and vulnerable here.

In opposition we can score points in a massive and meaningful way here, based on his mauling of Gove Ed Balls is the bloke to do this.

5. Please remember that being “pro business” does not mean “pro big business only”.

Lots of ordinary working class people run small and medium business’s. The Labour leadership is inevitably going to present itself as being business friendly, it has to to win. But all to often under Labour this seemed to manifest itself as being on the side of the super rich, super powerful companies that frankly whale on the little guy.

There is nothing wrong with standing up to monopolistic business practices, and those who try and strong arm communities. Labour cannot afford to always be on the side of the supermarket over the local independent retailers. Small business people ought to be natural Labour supporters and the party ought to get them onside.

6. Don’t renege on your pledge to campaign for a “Yes” in the AV referendum.

If we really want to have a better kind of politics, then we need to change the rules of the game. I believe AV is far from perfect but it is infinitely better than the status quo. There will probably not be another opportunity to change our voting system for a generation and it will only happen if the Labour Party leadership gets behind it fully.

For my money little would signal nothing had changed if than if Labour did an about turn on this issue for tribal, partisan political purposes.

7. Focus on the Tories, and not the Liberal Democrats

I blogged Recently on why I thought the left were missing a trick by seemingly focussing all of our fire on the Liberal Democrats. The Tories are the enemy, they are the ideological drivers for savage cuts, and regressive ones that hurt the poor most.

But the real issue is at the next election it is the Tories we are fighting to form the next government. I don’t rule out there might be a hung parliament next time around. But the government will either be a Labour led coalition, a Labour Government and Tory led coalition or a Tory government. We need to be fighting this battle, against the Tories if we want to win the next election.

8. Win the next election.

There is no glory is in principled, but long term opposition. There is little comfort to the millions of poor and disadvantaged people who are going to be royally screwed by the ConDems, in hearing opposition Labour politicians issuing welcome but hollow platitudes. If we want to tackle inequality, make the country fairer, put in place a positive vision of a good society then we have to win and be in government.

Do what needs to be done, and win the election!

Yours

Lunchtime Legend!

For my money the Liberal Democrats really didn’t have too much choice after the election given the mathematics of the parliament. There really wasn’t a credible possibility of a workable Lib/Lab coalition and for the Liberals they only really had an option of a coalition with the Tories.

I don’t think there is any particular need for the left to focus it’s attentions on the Liberal Democrats. Simply by getting into bed with the Tories they have caused themselves terrible problems at future elections. We won’t need to work hard on attacking the Liberals to pick up the votes of disillusioned left leaning Lid Dem voters. That is going in part to happen as a matter of course as the pain of the Government cuts starts to bite.

Labour can also achieve far more on this front by stopping being so profoundly illiberal on civil liberties; and no longer following such a hawkish, US aligned foreign policy. Addressing the reason why so many progressive people abandoned the Labour party will do more to attract new activists and voters than attacking the Lib Dems.

The truth is that the enemy are the Tories, they are the ideological drivers for the savage cuts, the Tories are the people who have an in principal, belief led, commitment to the idea of the maintenance of an unequal and unfair society. The Tories are the people the left need to be focussing our ire and energies on.

Labour, Unions and the wider Left cannot afford to let the Tories off the hook for what they are doing, and focussing on the distraction that is the alleged “betrayal” by the Liberal Democrats is meaning the left is wasting valuable time and energy.

Lastly the other thing we cannot ignore is that it is quite possible that there could be another hung parliament after the next election. These are unusual times, and if the Arithmetic is stacked slightly differently next time, a Labour win the most seats and the biggest share of the vote but not a majority we may well need to form some sort of a pact with the Liberal Democrats.

So lets forget Clegg, Cable et al, and start using our gun powder on the real bad guys. The PM, Michael Gove, Lord Ashcroft and most of all George Osborne.

I am massively in favour of voting reform, I think changing “the rules of the game” will have a massive impact on how the game is played. And a proper pluralism in our Party system, where different viewpoint currently kept out of things by our party oligarchies being involved would be a good thing. I think we need disenfranchised voices from the left, from the green, even from the eurosceptic right (though not to keen on them myself) involved more in our party discourse.

But irrespective of whether or not voting reform happens here are a couple of things that are possible (if a little improbable).

A Liberal Conservative Party or List?

It is an oft stated bit of truism that the moderates, and centrists in all of our parties tend to be more comfortable with each other, than with the opposite wings of their respective parties.

One interesting outcome of the Con/Dem pact will be if the Centre and the Left of the Tory Party, in addition to the Centre and the Right of the Lib Dem parties decide they are frankly more comfortable with, and closer to, each other than they are they are to the “extreme” wings of their own parties.

In truth there is probably not a great deal of ideological difference between the Lib Dem “Orange Book” faction and the so called “Notting Hill Set” in the Tory party. Further there are some common philosophical themes through the respective “Libertarian” wings of each party.

As to how it could happen I doubt there would be a dramatic “gang of four” moment with people setting off to form a new party. More probable would be if the coalition lasts until the next election some sort of a selective no competeagreement between the two parties to keep out Labour in key marginals and to increase the proportion of pro-coalition Mps in their respective parties.

I could imagine, that after the next election if no coalition is necessary that the Tory party may well invite a number of Lib Dems to cross the floor and take the Tory whip, boosting their numbers and changing the complexion of the Parliamentary Tory Party to one that would be more instinctively behind Cameron. How the right, particularly at in constituencies would react could be interesting! More on that later….

The Labour Right and the Lib Dem Left.

So in this scenario what happens to the Left of the Lib Dem party? Worth remembering that the Lib Dem party is a coalition themselves, the result of a merger between the Liberal party and the Social Democrat Party. Now the “Orange Book” faction that seem so cosy with the Tories at the moment comes very much more from the Classical Liberal party.

The SDP was essentially a splinter faction of the Labour Party, when the “Gang of Four” (Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen William Rodgers) left the Labour Party due to concerns about its shift to the left and in their eyes it’s un-democratic nature to form a new party of the Centre Left. After failing to dislodge Labour as the party of the left the Liberal and SDP parties merged.

Now the interesting thing is that the Gang of Four probably would not have left the party that Labour became, from the expulsion of the Militant tendency in the 80s, the structural reforms in Labour Party democracy to move closer to one man one vote, and the abolition of clause IV New Labour in many ways became the centrist party the SDP dreamed of.

I think it is probably fair to say that the Right of the Labour party would welcome the disaffected left of the Lib Dems with open arms. Now further if (and I consider this very improbable) the Labour party moves a long way to the left, and the Mandlesonian clique finds themselves marginalised I can see a situation where the Labour Party free marketers might want to come together with the left of the Lib Dems… We could see the SDP reborn!

Right Tory Elements and UKIP

So let’s just assume that the “Libservative” thing happens. Where does that leave the Tory hard right? Well already in lots of places Tory traditionalists and eurosceptics probably see more in common with UKIP than they do with the Cameroon Notting Hill faction. Norman Tebbit has frequently all but come out for UKIP, particularly during the Euro elections.

I think it is probably fair to say a big recasting of the Tory party in a much more liberal “one nation Tory” mode would be manna from heaven for UKIP in terms of defections from the Conservatives. Particularly if some sort of a “no compete” list actually happened, and local associations were disgruntled at having to effectively support a Liberal Democrat in an election.

What now for the Left.

Well since the modernisers in the Labour party came to the fore where Democratic Socialists and those to the left of them fall has been a tricky topic. The Diaspora of myriad left wing parties riddled by factionalism, petty jealousies and in fighting is as shocking as it is depressing.

By my count you have:-

Respect, The Socialist Party, The Socialist Workers Party, The Socialist Labour Party, The Communist Party, Workers Power, The Communist Party of Great Britain, and The Peoples Front of Judea…. no wait a second that last one is from a film!

Now assuming that Labour don’t move drastically to the left (and I am sure they won’t, the conclusion they will reach is that the problem wasn’t that they were new labour, it was that they weren’t new labour enough!) then where will the left coalesce?

My view is that it won’t be any of the infighting fracture groups who are surely doomed to remain a marginalised irrelevance. No I think the future of genuine left wing political groupings will be the Green Party.

Even a cursory glance at recent Green Party manifestos show how in many ways they have adopted the mantle of the disaffected left. They are pro Union, in favour of redistributive tax policies, strong on Labours biggest area of weakness Civil Liberties. And of course they are the strongest on what is going to IMHO increasingly become the rallying call of the left and how the left attracts new disciples… the environment.

Further the Party is a good “brand”, they are a credible nationally organised Party (now boasting a Member of Parliament), they appeal to young people and new voters, to different demographics. Also they poll well in local and European elections giving them a perfect platform to grow particularly if electoral reform ever happens. For the disaffected the left “The future is bright, the future is Green”.

I must say that I find the idea of the Greens attractive, though their crazy mental anti science stance means at least for now they are not for me. But this really is where the left has a chance of making a difference, the plethora of vanity project left wing parties are frankly a joke and will never achieve anything.

So there we have it, much this this will probably never happen but I reckon there is a possibility of some of it taking place.