Why the centre-left needs to back Brown
Free Radical Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 10:20:23 PM GMT 
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I have never been a big fan of Gordon Brown, though I always thought he had his good points. Within the terms of the job, he was a brilliant Chancellor of the Exchequer. I also believe that he is essentially principled and not in any sense corrupt. But, I have never been a big fan because Gordon Brown, just like Tony Blair, was one of the main architects of so-called “New Labour.” He is fervently pro-market, championed things like PFI, didn’t oppose the Iraq invasion, wants ID cards and 42 days detentions without trial, and, essentially, I see him as a kind of neo-liberal with a reforming bent and a little dash of social democracy about him. Politically there has never been much to choose between Blair and Brown, though of the two I preferred Brown. At least he lacked the frightening megalomania of Blair – at least he doesn’t see himself as The Nation personified.
It’s not a ringing endorsement of our leader and Prime Minister, I admit. But, given all of this, I want to explain why the centre-left in the Party needs to back Gordon Brown in the current circumstances.
Firstly, the current predicament of the party is not all the fault of Brown since he assumed the premiership. Clearly he has made mistakes. But it would be more logical to say that the current miserable state of the party is the fault of Brown and Blair over the past eleven years of New Labour policy and undermining of the Party, rather than Brown’s fault over the past twelve months. But why back Brown now?
This brings me to my second point, that we risk implosion of the party and meltdown in the coming general election if we allow Brown to be attacked and destroyed at this point in the electoral cycle. Most of all we all owe it to the people of this country, and to the party, to do our best to win the next general election. There is no magic formula for replacing Brown at this stage that will help us win the general election. Quite the reverse. Michael Portillo, of all people, makes this point perceptively in the weekend’s Sunday Times article (August 3, 2008). Cynics will of course suggest he has an underlying motivation for keeping Brown so that the Tories win, but a close reading of his article should deter that suspicion.
The third point is the politics of all this. Brown has moved from almost universal acclamation one year ago to his present position of facing opposition from the Blairite right and from the socialist left. But, make no mistake, the only serious opposition with any chance of winning comes from the right – I mean the Milliband’s and Purnell’s of the Parliamentary Labour Party, supported by the Blairite neo-liberal right. Many will see Milliband as not simply right, but he is in no stretch of the imagination of the Labour centre left. A leadership election at this point will not only, in my view, finish any prospect of winning the general election, it will also poison the atmosphere of the party for years to come and entrench the neo-liberal right in power under a neo-liberal party leader, before and after the election (for who could blame a Milliband or a Purnell for losing the coming general election). For a centre-left candidate to have any prospect of winning the leadership, and, just as important, to have any chance of meaningful democratic reform and rejuvenation of the Party, we must wait until after the general election when we will either (optimistically) be back in power – in which case Brown would be unassailable, or (perhaps more likely) be out of power but not destroyed as a political force – in which case the Party can take its time and have a proper debate about policy and leadership, not the current headlong panic.
Moreover, since Brown is currently being attacked primarily by the far right of our Party he will become rather more dependent upon the centre-left and the Trade Unions, and the repulsing of such an attack means that social democracy has some hope of being back upon the political agenda (strengthened by a crisis of capitalism) for the first time in perhaps thirty years.
The last point is that, for all his faults, Brown is a real political heavyweight and it is difficult to see any realistic prospect of any of the current theoretical contenders being able to match Brown in that respect – not Milliband, not Purnell, not Harman, Balls, or Cooper.
This is why I believe it is logical and right in the present circumstances for the left and centre of the party to back Brown’s premiership. Any other course at the moment will make things worse for our movement and for the people of this country.
Why the centre-left needs to back Brown | 31 comments (31 topical)
Why the centre-left needs to back Brown | 31 comments (31 topical)
