Why Labour? Why now?

Justin asks what has changed in Labour that you should rejoin it:

Can New Labour remodel itself as ‘progressive’ (whatever that means these days) even if it wanted to? This is what puzzled me about the people who crashed the New Labour website the other night in their stampede to rejoin the party. Nothing has changed just because Gordon Brown has shuffled off to spend more time with his sulk. Does a Miliband or a Balls have the emotional intelligence to notice and care about this stuff, let alone point it out?

The rush to (re)join Labour is proof of two things: visceral hatred of Tories in government and the ongoing failure to establish a proper leftwing alternative to Labour. It’s true that all the bad authoritarian, warmongering impulses of New Labour still exist, but I think people felt they had no choice. It is a reasonable assumption to think that bad as New Labour was, the Tories will be worse and with the Liberals in bed with them, the only place left is Labour…

Labour was awful when it came to civil rights, authoritarian and downright evil in places (War on Iraq, treatment of refugees), but for better or worse is still seen as slightly less evil than the Tories — the memories of what they did to the working classes the last time they were in power still remain.Labour quite frankly is the lesser of two evils, despised on what they did in the past thirteen years but few people have any illusions the Tories would’ve behaved better, which why now Labour has been punished people instinctively flow back towards it.

This may be a blessing in disguise, if an organised left can be established in the party to take it back from the Blairites/Brownies, but it will take years. Tony and Gordon’s acolytes are too firmly entrenched, hold all the positions of power in the party to be quickly gotten rid off. The next election will be crucial: if New Labour is still in power in the party and win the election, they will never be removed.

You can compare it with the Democratic Party in the US: after Bush stole the elections in 2000, and especially after 2002/03 when there was a huge antiwar movement with no real political home, there was a chance to move the Democrats to the left, but the centrists won the powerstruggle, sidelined the activists and just waited until the Republicans became unpoplar enough to lose the election.

A leftward turn is needed for Labour, but it can only be forced upon the party. Those who joined out of disappointment with the Lib-Dems need to be politcally active in the party to do so. Now’s the chance to win the party back.