Après le deluge - where does Labour go now?

The 2019 debacle leaves both the left and Blairites facing some uncomfortable truths. For nostalgic Blairites, there is no cosmetic 'middle ground' relevant to the challenges ahead. Individualised, aspirational politics offers no answers to climate crises. Nor can we expect to shop our way through the upheavals to come.

For the left, the problems begin with Labour's failure to root its policies in the radical decentralisation regularly espoused by both Corbyn and McDonnell, but which never made it past control obsessions within the 'Corridoriat' of senior advisors surrounding them.

In 2017, thousands were drawn towards Jeremy, because he symbolised a different sort of politics; something open, honest, radical and inclusive - a politics that promised to be genuinely transformative. In 2017 Labour lost, but we felt like winners.

But even in 2017 it was clear that, for the following election, the technicolor dreamboat of valuesdrawn to Corbyn's Labour would need more specific pegs to hook itself onto. People also neededto know their own part - as players, not just passengers, in this transformative change. On bothcounts, Labour failed.

The 2019 electoral disaster was a combination of catastrophic misjudgment and ill-focusedorganisation. Jeremy will inevitably carry much of the blame. But Labour's deeper problems liemore in the cadre of senior advisors surrounding Corbyn. None should be allowed within a millionmiles of Labour's rebuilding.

This was an election that should never have happened. Johnson had only one card – Brexit – andLabour allowed him to play it. Labour should have forced the Tories to wallow in the Brexit messJohnson had wrapped himself in. A spring or summer election would have suited Labour muchbetter - especially if the condition for agreeing to one was that Johnson's Brexit deal shouldhave been put to a public vote first.

Anything other than this was certain to end up as a Brexit election, with the inevitable bottom-of-a -barrel race into alienation and resentment that followed. The trouble is that many of those closestto Corbyn always looked as if they wanted Brexit anyway.

The fudge of Brexit neutrality made Labour look indecisive and Jeremy weak. It spurned Labour'sstrongest card in favour of a public vote. This should have been championed as a demonstration ofwhat trade union democracy always involves. Trade unionleaders negotiate with employers, but the deal they get always goes back to the members for their final informed decision.

It is the high ground of democratic accountability the Party should have stood on. Whatever theoutcome, it would have taken Brexit off the table. Any subsequent election would have had toaddress the bigger threats of societal and climate collapse.It was self-deceiving to say Labour won the bigger arguments in the election. We never even gotclose to having them.

Labour's manifesto - full of genuinely radical changes - was longer than mymum's shopping lists. These were policy arguments that had to be won before an election, notduring one. Even candidates struggled to digest many of the manifesto details.

More decisively, Labour lacked a simple strap-line. We didn't even have the wit to pinch the Toryone. Dumping the 'Brexit' part of their 'Get it done' and prefacing it with a succession of biggerissues: 'Fix the planet: Get it done', 'Tackle homelessness:...', 'Repair the NHS:...', 'End poverty:...'.wouldat least have forced a proper debate on the more fundamental challenges ahead.

This criticism, though, merely puts a bow-tie on a corpse. Labour had been playing into Tory handslong before Johnson took control. This may be the hardest thing for the left to face up to.

While Labour was still falling in love with Jeremy, the Tories set about casting him as a man whocouldn't lead. Corbyn's senior team helped with this, turning Jeremy's campaigning zeal into anabsence rather than an asset. Within the LOTO (Leader of the Opposition’s Office) comfort zone, activity passed for strategy, when there was none. Instead of leading a mass movement, with ahugely empowered, devolved power base, Jeremy ended up with a corridor cabal. The opportunityto build a wider consensus (even within the PLP) got lost behind internal obsessions with control.

When David Cameron began his attempt to detoxify the Tory image, he knew he couldn't do so fromwithin his parliamentary party. It was (and is) full of too many crazies. His answer was to set up a series of commissions, bringing fresh ideas in from outside. . Post-2016, the left needed to do the same.

Corbyn inherited a PLP that wanted to lynch him and (to its credit) an office determined to stopthem. Sadly, it also created a siege mentality that was never able to reach outwards.McDonnell brought in Lord Kerslake to oversee Treasury reform plans. No parallel commissionsever got through the LOTO net. No national or international figures were brought in to raiseJeremy's policy/leadership profile. No one who'd ever arm-wrestled in climate negotiations, tradedeals or peace diplomacy came in to lead Labour's transformation planning.

Instead, 'corridor control' came to dominate. Factionalism overtook radicalism. At the most seniorlevels, people who'd never negotiated anything more than an extended tea-break were left incharge of the policy sifting process. The most repeated Shadow Ministerial complaint was aboutdelays in getting radical policy proposals through the LOTO soup. Sue Hayman saw a string of herEnvironment proposals get lost in this never-never-land. Two years on, Alan Whitehead still awaitsapproval for publication of his Local Energy book on radical decentralisation. Andy MacDonald'spledge to set annual carbon budgets for every part of the transport sector never became theplatform for transformative changes in aviation and shipping policy. His proposed 'pendulum shift'of funding from private to public transport infrastructures went the same way. Germany's 10% cutin rail fares shows how popular such radical changes can be.

Labour also got trashed because the Blairite legacy finally caught up with it. When I entered Parliament in 1992, Scotland was solidly Labour. So too were all the northern seats we've just lost.But in 1997 New Labour had different priorities.

Week after week, meetings of the PLP were offered policy initiatives basedon New Labour fixations with competitive individualism and the 'opportunity society'. Real powershifted from citizens to corporations and from the public realm to the private.

Those of us complaining that such policies offered little to Labour's 'core voters' were told bluntlythat core voters had nowhere else to go. One look at the Labour wasteland that is now Scotland,and the broken Red Wall of the North and Midlands, tells you how foolish the claim was.

The Tories will try to hang on to these seats by throwing money at them, but almost certainly onterms that reward corporate backers far more than impoverished communities. So where doesLabour go next?

The first thing Labour must do is avoid any retreat into centrism. Look at the fires currently ragingin Australia and the floods in nearby Indonesia. There is no 'nicepolitics' of the middle ground to return to. Any wannabe LabourLeader who ducks the centrality of transformative climate politics is not worth following.

No less dangerous are any siren calls to patriotism. The left needs a bigger, anti-poverty, climate politics to holdcommunities, and the country, together. The real answers will be found closer to mutualism thanpatriotism.

Regionalised and localised approaches to flood prevention, food security, air quality, re-wilding,fuel poverty, clean energy and transport must form the backbone of a Labour commitment to refound accountable, secure and inclusive democracy. It needs to go hand in hand with theradical re-empowerment of local government. There is no other way of delivering the 20%+annual CO2 reductions needed to avoid the next tranche of climate tipping points.

In early 2017, John McDonnell, Jeremy and I began work on what was to be a Labour 'SmartCities' Initiative. The plan was to open up conversations with up to 20 localities about thedevelopment of radically decentralised, clean-energy grids. Modelled on lessons from bothDenmark and Germany, the plan was to put localities in the driving seat of strategies that made'climate' the centrepiece of tomorrow'seconomics. It needed rapid decarbonisation of the energysystem, nationwide energy efficiency and waste reduction programmes, the use of smarttechnologies to localise, store and share energy, and a new skills agenda delivering fullemployment in a more circular economy.

The Party HQ balked at 20 pilot areas but agreed to a launch group of three, kicking off on Merseyside,with support from the Metro Mayor. The Mayor was great. The venue, workshops and speakerswere all agreed on. But the political penny began to drop that this posed a serious threat toexisting fossil fuel interests and to centralised energy generation. Suddenly no one could find acommon diary date for Jeremy and John. No one could agree which part of LOTO's lap it shouldfall on. The 3-D commitment - decarbonisation, decentralisation and democratisation - became thefirst of Labour's 'corridor casualties'.

Climate priorities, as well as electoral calculations, dictate that this is where Labour's repair workmust begin. What happens in the next decade willdetermine whether we tip from crisis to collapse. Labour needs to become the Party that ensureswe don't.