Beyond factionalism to unity: Labour under Starmer.
| Author | Martell, Luke |
Early in the Labour leadership contest Rebecca Long-Bailey seemed most likely to get the support of the Corbyn-sympathetic membership. However, some who had not supported Corbyn joined the party to vote for Keir Starmer. Soft left and right members cast their ballot for him too. And some Corbynites opted for Starmer as the candidate perceived most likely to win the next general election, and as a contender who had said he would continue with significant planks of Corbynism. Starmer's statements during the contest stayed open enough to keep members from all wings of the party on board.
Starmer argued there was no point to Labour unless they could win power and that four times since 2010 they had excluded themselves from being in that position. Unity and an end to factionalism was, he said, key to electoral success. Starmer also commended Corbyn's shifting of Labour to an anti-austerity position and said he would not steer away from the broad policy direction of the previous leader.
This approach has led to technocratic ambiguity and factional anti-factionalism. What Starmer proposes in ideology and policy is unclear, deliberately so. Yet he has to appeal across the UK's plural social structure, and across his own party. I think there are substantive policy bases on which he can do so and that he needs to build support for over time.
Nine ways to unity
Starmer argued through the leadership contest for unity and an end to factionalism. We can't win if we keep 'taking lumps out of each other' was a frequent refrain. The candidates mostly stuck to this, and the benefit for Starmer was that he was protected from criticism by the other contenders. Of course, he has also been seen as a disunifying figure, supporting the attempted coup against Corbyn and pushing the party's mixed position on Brexit that many saw as electorally damaging.
But what does unity mean and where will it lead? I want to outline what form it could take under Starmer and what a substantive approach could be to bridging across the party and electorate. There are several ways a party can pursue unity. (1)
First, it can be built by reconciling differences and building consensus on ideology and policy. But the Labour Party has always been a broad church, as its leaders have liked to repeat. Differences are of genuine ideological kinds, at the most basic level between mitigating social democrats who accept capitalism and reforming democratic socialists who want another kind of society - quite a big distinction, with many other positions along the spectrum. Factionalism is built into Labour, and politics generally is inherently conflictual. Variations of outlook within Labour can be healthy or pursued unhealthily. But there are essential ideological differences, and consensus across them is not possible.
A second approach is compromise. Factions of the party can reach a compromise over a programme that is far from perfect for any of them but which they can mostly agree on to win power and implement. So, a negotiated agreement. Agreed compromises are less than consensus, but more possible. Yet they still require overcoming differences, and so far Starmer is not proposing enough of substance on which negotiated agreement can be built. But he has only been leader for a few months and hopefully this is to come.
Thirdly, while factions may not be able to forge a consensus or negotiate an agreement they can compromise on, they could call a truce or ceasefire to stop infighting and win power. They may not all be able to sign up to the programme, but they can suppress dissent over it. This might be possible for a while, but a truce can only hold for so long under the pressure of real differences in ideology and policy. It needs to be built on something substantive in common, maybe coupled with one of the other options outlined. In fact, truce (option 3) with negotiated agreement (option 2) is what Starmer has said he means by unity. (2)
Fourthly, Starmer may be able to set out a hegemonic position, an ideological framework and policy programme that can mobilise people behind it. This may not all be agreed by everyone, but hegemonic leadership around a narrative that wins enough acquiescence to establish dominance for his leadership can save the day. Here one faction or factions may lead, and the others fall into place. However, Starmer does not yet have an evident clear ideology or perspective, and the dominant group in the PLP, the soft left, may not either. The soft left has tended to swing behind the dominant strand in the party and pursue moderately left policies that are electorally possible rather than having an approach that could become hegemonic. (3) The Corbynite left has more of a worked-out approach, so Starmer could build from that to develop a hegemonic project.
A fifth method is more pragmatic: live with the differences in the party but try to manage them. Factions can be given enough in jobs and policies to keep them happy and behind the project. However, while the soft...
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