Society needs a Labour Government. Compromise is not a dirty word.
I’ve read, watched and listened to many of the columns, discussions and speeches concerning the current state of the Labour Party, & what needs to be done for Labour to become electable. Some of them inspiring and motivating, some less so. I found Steve Akehurst’s piece here on Medium — ‘Two tribes go to war: making sense of the battle for Labour’ — particularly interesting.
His subject is “the fight going on within the Labour party, where the priestly disposition of the influx of new members is at odds with the party apparatus and longer standing members. What makes this so intractable, and gives it the feeling of a culture war, is that it is not a pitched battle over policy per se - the differences between the two sides are over stated. It’s really a fight between two different modes of activism; one that have at their core two different and largely incompatible theories of persuasion, and how you win people over to your side.”
There’s a vast, longstanding literature and quite diverse schools of thought on the nature and practice of persuasion, stretching from rhetoric and the writings of Machiavelli, via management schools and psychology through to the emerging and nuanced sub-discipline of critical public relations, to name but a few.
Akehurst broadly characterises the different camps within Labour as ‘mathematicians’ vs ‘priests’. I feel this is instructive.
On one side we have the ultra-pragmatic data worshipers with their emphasis on evidence based analysis of how persuasion works. Through the lens of a highly simplified view of rhetoric, this position is loosely akin to emphasising the techniques of appropriately executing ‘logos’, or the appeal to logic - the means to convince an audience by use of logic or reason.
On the other side we have the idealistic ideological purists, approximating to emphasising ‘pathos’ or emotional appeal - the means to persuade an audience by appealing to their emotions.
Both perspectives depend to no small extent on ‘ethos’, or a significant element of the argument’s ‘ethical appeal’ - the means to convince an audience of the author or orator’s credibility or character. An author or orator would use ethos to demonstrate to his audience that he is a credible source worth listening to. Ethos is the Greek word for ‘character’ and the word ‘ethic’ is derived from ethos. Broadly, one side thinks Corbyn has this in spades, and the other doesn’t. Evidence suggests substantial numbers within the electorate - and especially many (but by no means all) of the over 50s who still largely depend on a predominantly right wing news media - believe the latter. Of course, ethos, or the credibility of the speaker, is in the eye of the beholder.
However, I’m not convinced the ‘modes of persuasion’ eloquently articulated by Akehurst are mutually exclusive. What persuades one group or individual is anathema to the other. I therefore groan whenever I encounter the entrenched critical positions around either Corbyn ‘just preaching to the converted’ or ‘focus groups and targeted messaging is just New Labour spin’.
One part of the solution is to recognise and accept there is certainly no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to persuading people to vote Labour.
While many see Corbyn as Britain’s best hope for a brighter, fairer future, swathes of voters struggle to accept him as our future PM. So while the majority of Labour members clearly and demonstrably support Corbyn and want him to remain leader, many who might both self-identify as, and pejoratively be called ‘centrists’, do not.
To endlessly challenge the perspective and strategy of the ‘other side’ is tiring, damaging, counterproductive and, frankly, depressing.
Characterising such a complex, dynamic amalgamation of views and individuals with simplistic binary oppositions such as idealist/pragmatist or evangelist/realist or even ‘Old labour/New labour’ is humiliating, fueling and exaggerating any differences, and gets us nowhere.
It’s also seen by some as naive to keep reminding every Labour supporter that unity and solidarity are among the most foundational principles of Labour values. I’m sure we’ve all sat through endless meetings where there is agreement on the desired outcome (in our case a Labour Government) while interminable discussions from entrenched positions undermine developing an appropriate strategy for reaching the desired goal.
This is where compromise comes in - the settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions. And this is what every single Labour MP, member and supporter needs to sign up to if we’re to reach our goal.
Different people respond to different forms of persuasion. An agreed, clear, optimistic narrative and costed policies do of course need urgently thrashing out, and there’s plenty of evidence that many good, capable people from all areas and organisations of the Labour movement are certainly getting on with this. There will always be insurmountable differences on some issues, such as Trident, or Brexit, but a sufficient majority of the electorate can certainly be persuaded to vote Labour given the right narrative and policies, and the right techniques of effective, ethical, targeted persuasive communication.
The relentless public bickering - which only helps the Conservatives and decreases our chances of victory - really needs to stop: Corbyn supporters need to accept the positive lessons and achievements from 3 successive New Labour victories, and embrace the more ethical and pragmatic elements of the techniques they deployed to secure victory. ‘Centrists’ need to welcome and utilise the idealism of the generally more recent, largely pro-Corbyn Labour supporters, and nurture and utilise their enthusiasm.
It’s complex, messy and passionate - but certainly not insurmountable. And while there are some within Labour with sizable egos, who have an almost dogmatic belief that their views are the correct ones, surely all of us recognise we all have far more in common than divides us, and most importantly, a shared goal to work towards.
I’ve stated before that there is a demonstrably growing appetite for a new radicalism in British politics, which positions Labour as clearly distinguishable from the other main political parties, and which challenges head on many of the startlingly clear areas where the government is failing vast swathes of the British population.
Labour has some very tough policy decisions to make and there are many gifted people within and without the PLP who are making extremely valuable contributions to this: Labour needs to foreground the grotesque, growing and completely unacceptable levels of inequality; to demonstrate economic competence; to find ways of reconnecting with alienated and marginalised working class people; to clearly state its total support for the majority of workers and leaders who are self-employed or employed in small and medium businesses; it needs to call out corporations’ irresponsible greed, unaccountability and lack of transparency; it needs to emphasise solutions to global warming and articulate a coherent ‘green revolution’ that benefits the economy and everyone’s long-term interests; it needs to convince employers and organisations to see the benefits of working with and not against unions, and for employees to see the value of belonging to a union; it needs a new food and farming policy, a new, integrated public transport policy, and to embrace both expert academic and professional private sector opinion on a range of issues including health, defence, crime and education; it needs to commit to a fully nationalised health service and proudly stand up for the poor, the sick, the disabled and the marginalised, and, which is particularly challenging - especially for Corbyn and his supporters - it needs to embrace the value of internationalism and articulate, especially in the context of Brexit, a comprehensible and persuasive narrative around heartfelt concerns around migration.
We can do all this, and much more - but only with a majority government.
Labour needs to balance bold, progressive ideals with pragmatic vote winning policies and get everyone in the Labour movement signed up to a new vision for a better world.
We need to work together. We need to stop undermining each other, online and in public. We need to (re)learn, embrace and practice sophisticated, targeted yet ethical forms of persuasion. We shouldn’t keep harking back to either New Labour or ‘Old Labour’, just Labour for the 21st century.
It’s fine - inevitable - to disagree with each other. But occupying intractable dogmatic positions, where at best we don’t even engage in constructive dialogue with fellow Labour supporters and at worst show contempt for them, should no longer be acceptable.
We have an amazing opportunity for renewal, to place everything on the table and to nurture the art of compromise.
Let’s all swallow our pride and look forward, not backwards, win people over and get Labour where it belongs - back in power
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