Section:GDN 1J PaGe:3 Edition Date:190803 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 2/8/2019 17:31 cYanmaGentaYellowblac

Saturday 3 August 2019 The Guardian •

3

B

ritain’s current political dynamics have

been made crystal clear by the Brecon

and Radnorshire byelection result. The

Liberal Democrats won because Plaid

Cymru and the Greens stood down, in

an explicit electoral pact. The Tories

could have inched it had the Brexit

party also stood down. Labour, which

never had a chance in this rural constituency, saw its

vote share slump from 17% two years ago to just over 5%.

With a majority of just one, it is now inevitable that

Britain faces a snap general election – either because

Boris Johnson’s government is defeated in the Commons

or because, having achieved some shabby Brexit deal, he

will seize the moment to look for an electoral mandate.

For progressives, the last two weeks have shown how

high the cost of losing that general election would be.

The country would be ruled by a faction of elite Tories.

Britain would become an appendage of the United States,

in foreign policy and in trade. It would be goodbye to the

welfare state and the tolerant society.

There is only one proven response in history that

beats an alliance of far-right populists and conservative

amoralists: a temporary alliance of the centre and the

left. That’s what the Greens, Plaid and the Lib Dems

achieved in Brecon – and it looks like a big chunk of

2017 Labour voters took part in it.

To make it work nationally will not be easy.

Everything depends on Labour. Basically its choice

is either to lead an informal progressive alliance or to

become one. The fi rst thing Labour’s frontbench has to

do is to commit – immediately and unequivocally – to

fi ght any general election called before Britain leaves the

EU on a remain and transform ticket.

But committing enthusiastically to remain only

gets you to fi rst base. On top of that, we need a one-

off electoral arrangement between parties of the left

and centre aimed at preventing a no- deal Brexit and

removing Johnson from Downing Street.

I can predict now the screams of protest from many

Labour activists. But the popular-front tactic has deep

antecedents in the very political traditions the modern

Labour left emerged from. After Neville Chamberlain’s

peace deal with Hitler in 1938 , Nye Bevan and Staff ord

Cripps , two key fi gures on the Labour left , advocated



Paul Mason

is a writer and

broadcaster on

economics and

social justice

Jeremy Corbyn

in Coatbridge,

North

Lanarkshire,

in 2017

PHOTOGRAPH:

JANE BARLOW/PA

an electoral pact including Communists, Liberals and

anti-fascist Tories. Both were expelled from the party

in March 1939 , but they paved the way for Labour’s

wartime coalition with Winston Churchill. So the

popular-front tactic is not some piece of niche, retro-

leftist memorabilia. It is the property of the western

democratic tradition ; the only tactic that halted or

delayed the march to fascism in the 1930s. And it was

invented by the Corbynistas of their day. So how could

we make it happen now?

The most obvious part of the proposition concerns

the Green party. Up to a million people could simply vote

Green as a protest , as they did in 2015, especially since the

climate emergency is energising young voters. Labour

should off er Caroline Lucas a place in the shadow cabinet

now, a place in cabinet if it wins, and to stand down in her

constituency and in up to two others where the Greens

have a chance. In return, and for one time only, Labour

should ask the Greens to stand down everywhere else

and to join a united local campaign team. This should be

done through formal negotiation beginning now.

Brecon was a victory for the Unite to Remain alliance

• but I do not propose that Labour joins it. As the offi cial
  opposition party, it is powerful enough to set its own
  terms for a limited formal agreement to defeat Johnson.
  Or the party bureaucracy could simply stop expelling
  activists who make local-level agreements. Either way,
  the conversation needs to start immediately – because it
  will take place with or without the Labour leadership.

I

sense cognitive dissonance among many Labour

people over the Lib Dem surge: surely it’s not

real or permanent? The only way for Labour to

win back millions of votes from the Lib Dems

is by listening to the reasons why those voters

deserted Labour, by proposing a practical unity

against no deal, and allowing voters to measure

the Lib Dems’ actions against their rhetoric.

Labour activists have to face a grim fact. In addition

to being toxic on the doorsteps of many working-class

voters in the north and Midlands of England, antipathy

towards Jeremy Corbyn in many liberal metropolitan

constituencies is now high. That antipathy is entirely

of his own making. He has looked uncertain on Brexit –

calculating and cagey when progressive working-class

people expected fl air and courage.

But those same voters are also seething about no

deal and the money Johnson is spending on it. To

seize back the high ground is a tall order for Corbyn,

but it’s possible – with a decisive change of tone and

narrative. What he needs to do, and urgently, is show he

understands the severity of the threat – to democracy,

to the welfare state and to our tolerant society – and to

speak from the heart to the party’s twin heartlands: the

cosmopolitan cities and the devastated small towns.

The route to power Labour saw in 2017 is no longer

open. Even if it claws its way back from 25% to 40%, that

will not be enough to form a government if faced with a

Nigel Farage -Johnson pact backed by dark money and

the social-media savvy of the far right. In any marginal

constituency where the xenophobic right has one

candidate and the progressive left two, the right will win.

Every Labour member should be asking themselves

the question: is beating Johnson in a snap election

more important than anything else? If you want to beat

Johnson, listen to the polls, the professionals and above

all the historians – about what it’s going to take to do

that. And rule nothing out.

Labour must

adopt a tactic

from the 1930s:

a popular front

Opinion

The climate

emergency

is energising young

voters. Corbyn

should off er Caroline

Lucas a place in the

shadow cabinet

Paul

Mason

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