A More Liberal Left?

30 September 2009

During the last year, liberalism has moved to the centre of new thinking about British social democracy. The ideology has suffered attacks from figures on the ‘Compass Left’ and others, who fear it signals an anomic departure from the primacy of community, mutuality and equality. By fetishising the ‘unencumbered self’, liberals from Locke to Rawls have apparently neglected the importance that relations with others play in creating individuals, and hence have little to offer the left.

These commentators’ feathers were ruffled by a series of opinion pieces by Philip Collins and Richard Reeves, thinkers with a long association with the right of the party. Last year Collins began calling on Labour to reconsider its liberal roots; recently he and Reeves fleshed out this thesis with an embrace of liberal republicanism.

In thinking about ways to revitalise the Labour movement, it is imperative that we don’t neglect our past. By looking back to the liberals, Collins and Reeves have tapped in to a rich vein of radical, reformist potential. Because, if the Labour Party was more Methodist that Marxist, it was more liberal still. Consider the great liberal ideologues – Beveridge, Keynes, Hobhouse – who played such a formative role in the development of the Labour movement.

Liberal republicanism likewise presents an opportunity to unite rather than divide. The liberal protection of individual rights should appeal to all on the left, where resistance to arbitrary power runs deep. Republicans have traditionally offered a critique of markets that stresses the primacy of civic virtues, a notion that will find friends in this recession across the spectrum. And differing opinions about equality need not be as rigid as the debate at times suggests. For Amartya Sen, whose concept of human ‘capabilities’ has made such an impact on Collins and Reeves’ ‘republican centre’, liberty and equality are ‘not alternatives. Liberty is among the possible fields of application of equality, and equality is among the possible patterns of distribution of liberty’.

At the root of any consensus must lie the acceptance that power stems from people, not governments. Gordon Brown acknowledged this in an important speech on liberty, but his constitutional reforms up to this stage have devolved powers only as far as Parliament. Parliament and people are not the same. What we need is a root and branch restructuring of political arrangements. This must start with the reform of party machinery, by removing power to select candidates from a tiny number of members and so allow voters, not parties, to set the agenda for elections. Electoral reform is crucial, too. Despite the fears of many sitting MPs, PR will bring representatives closer by allowing citizens to choose whoever they want, and have a real chance of seeing their views expressed at the highest level.

But representative democracy can only go so far. Liberalism demands that power reside at the lowest possible level. New communications technologies mean that traditionally faceless institutions can be made to work for people. Far from driving us apart, more and more decisions will now have to be taken by communities.

Liberalism naturally presents challenges as well as opportunities. If power is returned to the lowest level, how do we forge the democratic Europe that we’ll need to solve the big economic and climatic challenges of the coming decades? How do we balance freedom of speech with security in a pluralist, multicultural society – would true liberals ban a future Geert Wilders? How will politicians react when they realise they can’t influence policy in conventional ways?

These questions should inspire, not frighten, the British left. Liberalism isn’t about to disappear. Every section of the Labour movement would do well to consider the liberal tradition and recognise that it has as much to offer our future as it did our past.

Tristan Stubbs is Public Affairs Manager at the Environment Industries Commission and former Political Advisor to a Labour MEP

1 Comment

One Response to “A More Liberal Left?”

  1. michael_green
    October 10th, 2009 @ 2:21 pm

    Some policy suggestions would be helpful.

    It's not about liberalism or socialism, it's about equitable policies and powerful people.

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