The political void that Labour needs to fill
by Paul Embury, UnHerd:
As politics splinters across the West, the old divide of Left vs Right no longer seems to explain how voters think. Is the two-party grip on the existing system faltering? Could a new movement give voters what they want? It’s political realignment week at UnHerd and we have asked our contributors to invent a party and put together its manifesto. Will it be for the many – or the few?
I joined the Labour Party in 1994, and have no intention of leaving it. I have a hope, still, that it will re-emerge as the natural home of the working-class. But if it collapsed tomorrow, here’s where a new party of the Left should begin.
It should immerse itself among working-class people, representing a permanent presence in their streets, workplaces, communities and institutions. It should be as much a party of villages and towns as of the big cities.
It should challenge the social and economic liberal consensus head-on.
It should ditch vapid buzzwords such as ‘diversity’, ‘inclusivity’ and ‘fairness’, and resurrect the language of family, place and vocation. It should speak in concrete terms about the dignity of work and the human desire to belong – the things that really matter to ordinary people. It should emphasise responsibilities as much as rights, and take an axe to the whole divisive concept of identity politics.
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