Left behind: how Labour betrayed its base

I love the labour movement. I love its history, its traditions, its brass bands and banners. I love its rousing songs, anthems and festivals. I love its slogans and rallying cries, inspired, as they are, by an abiding faith in the collective spirit and the seductive vision of the New Jerusalem.

For all that tribalism is given a bad name these days — sometimes with good reason — I feel tribal about my attachment to the labour movement. And I offer no apology for that. As it was for millions of others who grew up in working-class communities, tribalism in the cause of labour was for me less a matter of choice and more one of imperative. This wasn’t like choosing a football team; this was about recognising the place of our people in the prevailing economic order and understanding that advancing our interests meant not waiting submissively for some benevolent ruling class to come to our aid, but organising through our own democratic institutions to challenge society’s injustices. It was through the vehicle of the labour movement that the lives of millions — in the workplace and beyond — were transformed for the better, spiritually as well as materially.

Decent wages, robust safety-at-work laws, paid holidays, sanitary and affordable housing, a welfare system, universal healthcare: these are the things the labour movement played a pivotal role in securing for people like us. The movement was on our side, and I knew it from early on. It is why I joined a trade union at the age of 16 immediately on landing a Saturday job stacking shelves at the Dagenham branch of Asda (which happened to fall quite literally within the shadow of the famed Ford motor plant, the setting for the totemic 1960s struggle of the women machinists) and then the Labour party three years later.