Speech at Demos, London - please as always check against delivery.
Introduction We meet here at a time when the Labour party, the centre Left and Right, and the country, are all reaching out for something new. That would have been natural after three terms of government. It would have been understandable after a seismic shift in politics across the Atlantic. It might have happened in response to some high profile tragedies, such as the death of Baby P or the case of Shannon Matthews. It become ever more likely as the scale of the global downturn revealed itself, banks were nationalised, and the effects began to bite. But put all these things together and it has become almost inevitable. Change is in the air, the question is who defines what that means. Today I want to talk about the new politics of movement – why it matters and how it can be harnessed for the common good. Why it goes to the heart of the kind of society that we want to live in – and the role we all need to play in helping to create it. This idea, of the people coming together, is something that Demos stands for in the very literal sense. Since it was established, Demos has been telling politicians that the era of top down political organisation is over, that the barriers to political participation need to be lowered, that the politics of the cabal has given way to the politics of open source. That’s the same spirit evoked by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman when he said that “good government could never be a substitute for government by the people themselves". So this is a subject that is close to your hearts. It’s also integral to my own politics, formed in the 1970s and 80s, growing up in inner-city Tottenham. Westminster may have been a few stops on the tube. But the truth was, it seemed a world away. It felt that way as I grew up watching politicians talk a different language on the TV – and it still seemed that way when I went to Parliament for the first time to take up my seat less than a decade ago. It is often said that the great British obsession is with class, but as a teenager, a student, a lawyer and then a politician I have always felt that it is the political class that often seems the most distant from the rest of us. I said in my maiden speech that, in Tottenham, we have a grassroots intellectual tradition that has been nurtured on the margins of society. And although the margins of a society have provided some of the worst statistics on social exclusion, they can also shed the most radical and exciting perspective on social thought. Don’t get me wrong: Parliament is a great institution. As a Black Briton, an MP, a Privy Counsellor, someone whose parents were raised in Commonwealth Guyana, I’m proud of its history and what it stands for. But I don’t view it through rose-tinted spectacles. I recognise the uncomfortable truths of British history: of a rigid social hierarchy, of a ‘top down’, centralist political culture. Traditionalists may laud the ‘evolutionary’ nature of the British constitution. They may tell a story of incrementalism, of rights handed down, not won. Where the farm labourer, the miner, the ethnic minority, the woman ‘knew their place’ and were accommodated by gradual change. But behind that change lies a history of struggle; of movements of people, coming together, to help and support each other. Too often the Labour party is associated with one side of that equation: understanding in its lifeblood the power of the state at the centre to effect social change. But the Labour party today stands on the shoulders of those popular movements. Because although reforms are often announced in Westminster, their inspiration usually lies far beyond its corridors. Just over a century ago, Asquith’s Liberal Government introduced an Old Age Pensions Bill – which marked the birth of the welfare state in Britain. But Herbert Gladstone, Asquith’s chief whip, said at the time that governments could not create social change on their own. Reform, he said, requires 'the force majeure which activates and arms' – a popular movement forcing progress. Asquith’s Bill – just like the Minimum Wage – may have been written up as a triumph of Parliament, but it came about because of the campaigns of the TUC and the Labour Representation Committee, and decades of pressure from the trade union movement. The values of the co-operative movement and the friendly societies – organisations which brought working people together to overcome the kind of poverty and social dislocation described by Dickens and D.H. Lawrence just decades before – were reflected in the Pensions Bill. The Bill built on a newfound faith, in the nineteenth century, in the capacity for collective action to address urgent social needs, and drive radical policy innovation across Britain’s great cities. In Birmingham, within three years of his election, Joseph Chamberlain had paved the roads, lit the streets, provided gas and water, and sparked the beginning of an intellectual revolution by building free libraries and experimenting with new forms of public ownership. In London, Sidney Webb told the LCC his priority was “the growth among citizens of a greater sense of common life” – and pioneered a cross-party movement for municipal housing. In Manchester, the revolution in civic building had led the great Tory Disraeli to describe it as ‘the most wonderful city of modern times’. But that renaissance meant nothing unless it was about more than just buildings. That’s why Manchester became the city where the Co-operative Movement began, where the TUC Congress first met; the city of Engels and the Pankhursts. But while we have a long history of successful reform to learn from, political and social change have been hard fought and hard won. As the great-grandson of slaves; the grandson of a grandmother who could never dream of owning her own tiny home in Guyana; and the son of a mother whose first experience of arriving in Britain was to be strip-searched at Heathrow, I am acutely aware what it takes to win freedoms like citizenship, equality before the law, and the right to self-determination. Women didn’t get the vote by asking for it politely. As I walked through Linda Colley’s excellent ‘Taking Liberties’ exhibition at the British Library, what really struck me were not the great documents of our history like the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights or the Reform Acts, but a purse belonging to the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison – which was found on her body as she was crushed and killed under the King’s racehorse at Epsom. Women’s suffrage took over six decades of struggle, agitation and protest. Without it, there would be no Nancy Astor, no Barbara Castle, no Margaret Thatcher. These small echoes from history show us that coalitions, sometimes unexpected, can be created to solve profound social and economic problems – not necessarily between political parties, but outside the boundaries of the ‘state’, between groups of concerned citizens demanding both social change and government action. This process continues today. Some of the most potent and inspiring movements of our time are those that have challenged government. The beginning of the twenty-first century has seen the most extraordinary first decade. It began with 9/11; wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; 7/7; long overdue recognition of the catastrophe of climate change. A party of government may not always find it easy to reconcile itself with these forces. But genuine renewal means embracing and finding common cause with the movements that are grappling with the huge forces shaping this century, even when that feels uncomfortable. It is understandable that people have taken issue with the war in Iraq, and with successive commitments on climate change – including Heathrow. Violence can never be excused. But as we approach the G20, it is incumbent on us to understand that behind these protests are genuine concerns about the consumerism and hyper-capitalism that have undermined the economic model of the last 20 years. So governments must learn to live and work with these movements where possible. But there is a second vital element of movement politics: not just campaigns to change what is on the statute book but the politics of citizenship and civic mobilisation. The politics of the ‘everyday’ as Demos has often described it. Because without changes to attitudes and values and everyday actions, constitutional reform, or race relations acts, or climate change bills will gather dust on the statute book without fulfilling the vision of society that inspired them. This is how politics lives and breathes. ‘Movement’ and the role of the state Yet despite this central role in political and social change, our politics does not fully engage with the power of civic mobilisation. The right, for most of its history, has based its politics on an impoverished view of government in perpetual conflict and competition with civil society. David Cameron’s positive case for voting Conservative is what he calls ‘a post-bureaucratic age’. He tries to argue that the Tories can be progressive by combining the power of Google with the power of the market. That he can unleash a wave of civic and social action by pulling back the limits of government. And while some of them may espouse ‘progressive ends’, they come unstuck when forced to contemplate how they can provide the fundamental protections that government offers us. ‘Social Responsibility not state action’ says David Cameron, as if we must choose between paying our taxes and volunteering at our local community centre. Must we really choose one or the other? Can we really afford to? For the left, representing the public interest has most often been about seizing control of the powers of the state and applying them for the good of the people. In 1997, New Labour faced monumental challenges: a damaged society; dislocation in our inner cities; a dysfunctional education system; a crumbling NHS; widespread child poverty. New Labour rehabilitated the role of modern government and shifted the political centre of gravity back towards the disadvantaged and vulnerable in our society. Government provided the tools to build new hospitals, equip people with new skills, help people into new jobs and redistribute money to people who worked hard but earned too little. But a progressive agenda for government can never be limited to restoring public services or reversing the regressive policies of previous administrations. A truly ambitious agenda for change must look beyond the state and ask how we can build a good society. The truth is that in spite of our achievements, we have failed to sustain a movement. Party politics now comes a poor third, not just to the private pursuits of leisure and consumption, but also to the more personalised forms of activism that many people choose. The potential of civil society It’s true, the current crisis is redefining the role of government and reminding people that it is the state that can act as guarantor of the public good. In the eye of the storm, it was government that had to stand behind the banks. As people worry for their jobs, even their homes, it is government that enables society to pool risk rather than let the market rip. And when the storm subsides it will be government – nationally and globally – that sets the rules for a more responsible capitalism. But is this it? Is the only question we have to face as a society one about how best to regulate financial services? Ought we not be far more ambitious than this? Should we not be asking what the values were that led us here? What kind of society we want to build instead? And what role are we all ready and willing to play? Because the truth is this: there is more to the good society than good government, vital though it is. For me a good society refers not only to the choices we make at the ballot box, but also the way we relate to one another in our everyday lives. The good society is the one where we use the freedoms and privileges and victories won by previous generations to enrich not just our own lives, but also those of others. It is a society where citizenship means more than the 60 minutes each of us spends in our lifetime voting – for those of us that still do. And it is a society where politicians do more than administer public services or sit back and admire the Good Samaritan. It is a politics with a vision of civil society at its heart, not one that is an afterthought when the market or the state has done its work. And I want to be clear here that I don’t simply mean new and different forms of consultation, or the latest version of a citizens' jury – or simply putting people on Foundation Trusts or school boards. I’m not talking about more legal duties. I am talking about the moral responsibilities that come with citizenship and the social action that arises from free association. We have to rebuild the relationship between formal representative politics and the wider power of movement politics. New Labour has spent the last ten years carefully constructing a progressive consensus. What we need now is much more ambitious: we need a progressive movement. A new direction This, of course, is easy for me to say. It is much harder to achieve. We can start by thinking differently when we are faced with a social problem – or a social ambition. New Labour’s mantra over the last ten years has been to help people to help themselves. Government can help you achieve your dreams, set you free, help you get what you deserve. And sometimes, where appropriate, that help will come with terms and conditions attached. This is the vision that informs progressive policy on welfare to work, on help to stay on in learning, or tax credits that boost the wages of low earners. But a Party that really believes in Civil Society – that is really connected to civil society – must do more than this. Of course it must help people to help themselves – but just as importantly, it should be in the business of helping people to help each other. We must also be experimenting with the tools to help people mobilise and create their own shared solutions. If the last century was the era of large, homogeneous organisations, this one is about the interconnection of people and projects through overlapping, interactive networks. Where the big problems of the last century were tackled by big government or big business, the big challenges of this century will require the mobilisation of millions of people to change their behaviour, shape their own environments and help one another in myriad ways. We see this revolution taking place in our daily lives: The website Freecycle connects 6 million users across 5,000 communities, so they can offer goods they no longer want to others for free while reducing landfill waste. What a brilliant, progressive idea – but how many councils are directing people towards this resource at a time when money is short for people? Around the world, we see similar systems of mutual support. In Japan, community currencies - called Fureai Kippu - underpin an entire system of care for the elderly. What makes this system so powerful is that the basic unit of currency is the hour, not the Yen. By helping elderly people in their own community, volunteers earn credits they can transfer to their elderly parents who may live hundreds of miles away. The system thrives not only because it enables people to exchange useful services - but because of the personal, human connection between those who give and receive. The community ethic is stronger than any commercial relationship. Imagine if donations from philanthropists came in the currency of time as well as money – how many young men could have a mentor that would make a difference to their lives? In public services, the trick is the same. Surestart is a wonderful service, providing support and advice for parents who need it. But alongside this wonderful service, provided by the state, the website Netmums has 250,000 people logging on everyday to give each other advice about their daily problems. This is not a replacement for the Surestart centre, it is the civic rather than the governmental model of people coming together. The question is where else we can apply this model to help people help each other. I see this in my role as a Minister for Higher Education. Alongside internships and postgraduate opportunities for our students as they enter a difficult summer, we will need an online forum where graduates can help each other. It’s why we want to look in detail at a new settlement for intellectual property, exploring solutions to whether we can regularize rather than criminalise peer-to-peer interaction. Even in international affairs, this idea of a citizenship based on action not just consultation has a place. Avaaz.org, the global campaigning network, has more than a million members who can campaign on everything from climate change to labour standards. Public and cultural diplomacy, two ideas I know Demos has taken a keen interest in, introduce the idea of ties between people, not just their governments. From the politics of control to movement politics This for me is the big challenge for political parties. Sitting back and admiring some sweeping changes in the world around us cannot be enough – politics has to find new ways to harness these currents to make itself relevant again. The financial crisis is a stark example. Some people take the crisis as a sign that ‘government is back’. …Who knows if they are right or what that really means? Government was back in the 1970s but the economy faltered. Government retreated in the 1980s and we had the worst excesses of the market. So simply arguing that ‘government is back’ gets us nowhere. Others say that the last 12 months teach us the need for pragmatism. But which government or political party ever felt that its position was not pragmatic? Pragmatism, like common sense, means different things to different people. A third group concludes that the credit crunch proves that markets need rules to govern them. Of course this is true. But even the staunchest libertarian agrees. Markets only function with rules which govern property rights and provide due process. But regulation is neither good nor bad in itself. It is what it aims for and achieves that matters. And that is where the real answer lies: that markets need values infused into them to make them worthwhile, to achieve their potential for society. A clear set of values that says we won’t let people sink or swim in a recession that puts a sustainable planet ahead short-term profits, that prevents young girls being sexualized by advertising, or unhealthy food from stunting our children’s development, that ensures that companies treat their staff and customers with dignity and respect. Without these values society is drained of ethics, of values and of democracy itself. This debate can only happen on the Left. Because the key difference between the Right and the Left is this: the Right believes that markets come with the right values built in because they reflect a certain understanding of freedom. On the Left we cannot be satisfied with that narrow ambition for society or that impoverished view of a free and fulfilling life. We believe that democracy is there to infuse markets with the values of the good society. And the key point for the future is that government neither can nor should try to do all of this on its own. A few all-knowing, all-powerful regulators simply can’t achieve this in isolation. This is a job for citizens working alongside their governments. When we see the consequences of unbridled capitalism in our communities – another gambling shop saturating a high street in Tottenham, another slum landlord exploiting migrant workers in our neighbourhoods ten-to-a-room, another product polluting the atmosphere around us, or another company mistreating its employees in a supply chain oversees – we know that regulation alone cannot create the kind of society we seek. It is a job for armies of ethical consumers, activist shareholders and empowered employees to take on. All armed with the rights, the information, and the power they need. That requires civic mobilisation. The Left has to be bold and imaginative enough to make that possible. As we think about the long-term future of capitalism nothing should be off-limits, from ways to encourage greater employee ownership of firms to new consumer rights and forms of information that encourage and enable ethical consumption. For other great social problems the principles are the same.
When we see teenagers murdered on the streets and young people worried by youth-on-youth crime, we know that we need a more ambitious response. Of course the sensible response is community policing and more officers on the streets. But the sensitive response recognises the arms of the state alone cannot tackle violent crime amongst young people. Young men across London need mentors providing them with role models, with someone to look up to and learn from. Someone who has invested in them personally. Someone who they don’t want to let down. Our youth workers do a heroic job, but they can’t do all this on their own. It’s up to us too – and the progressive left has to be looking at ways to remove the barriers, create the incentives, offer the opportunities to make this the norm, not the exception. Similarly, the consequences of demographic change are not fixed and the solutions are yet to be negotiated. As our society ages, we know that the state has a vital role to play, but we cannot expect the state or the market alone to provide for us, as Demos has recently pointed out. If we want people to receive the care they deserve in an ageing and increasingly diverse society we need to find new ways to encourage people to help one another - like the system of time-based currencies used in Japan. If we’re serious about building a society in which elderly care means just that, we need a movement. These are the ways we can help people to help one another, through government and also in civil society. In all these areas, progressives can be engaging directly with those who would turn their dissatisfaction with the status quo into a movement that extends beyond the current limits of politics. I think our political class sees civil society a bit like a lot of us see the weather: it’s nice when it’s pleasant, but there’s not much we can do to affect it. David Cameron’s strategy so far has been to talk about society because his party has nothing to say about the market or the state – not least during the credit crunch. And on the left, the language of ‘what works’ has, at times, obscured the importance of what really matters. Labour has to move definitively beyond a state-based, top-down, centralised approach to achieving change. That’s not about abandoning collectivism, but about embracing it in all its forms. There is a major opportunity here for the first political party that definitively grasps this agenda. While the political class likes to nod with approval towards civil society, the really ambitious political project is one that encourages it, which challenges it and which learns to galvanize it to create the common good anew. Any great party needs to be able to think both like a government and like a movement. That's bound to be difficult. But being in power for any length of time means a rising risk that the government side of the brain drowns out the movement side of the brain. So we need to remember that there are many routes to change - not all of which pass through Whitehall or the Town Hall. Some also pass through peoples hearts and their minds; through communities; through our lives as citizens not just as voters. The ultimate risk of not being a movement is that you stop moving. And as we enter turbulent times, when millions more will need help and support, we need to be more not less in touch with the spirit of self-reliance and mutual support that has always animated Labour at its best.
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