As the Tory party reverts to type, Labour should draw on its own rich heritage to do the job of ‘renewing common life’
For a short period in the 1990s, it seemed that Labour would launch a communitarian counter-revolution to bring the curtain down on the Thatcher era. Listen to a youthful Tony Blair in 1996, addressing the Women’s Institute: “At the heart of my beliefs is the idea of community,” said Blair. “I don’t just mean the villages, towns and cities in which we live. I mean that our fulfilment as individuals lies in a decent society of others. My argument to you today is that the renewal of community is the answer to the challenges of a changing world.”
That zeal for a politics which challenged the individualism of the age did not last. As the Labour MP Jon Cruddas ruefully noted in his recent book, The Dignity of Labour, in power Blair and his party swerved off in a different direction. Choice, individual aspiration and the imperative to adapt to the consequences of globalisation became New Labour’s guiding themes. The party lost its focus when it came to protecting the self-esteem and interests of places in its post-industrial heartlands, although it did its best to keep many of them financially afloat. Disillusionment and a sense of anomie grew, paving the way for the red wall Brexit vote in 2016. Damaging divisions – cultural as well as economic – emerged between more prosperous, younger cities and declining, ageing towns; between the highly educated and those without a degree, and between an asset-rich generation and those who would never own their own homes. Faith in a social contract that bound the nation together – and in Labour’s ability to secure it – faded.
Julian Coman is a Guardian associate editor
