Until very recently, I would not have believed that I would share with Rupert Murdoch the need to make a public apology. But though I would not go so far as to say that this is the most humble day in my life, it does rank with the worst of them.
There are rules that you learn in community organising that inform effective action. “Relationships precede action” is an important one and “Don’t allow the position to move ahead of the relationships” is another. A third might be “Don’t engage in theoretical speculation in the Fabian Review“. I have been punished, and rightly so, for forgetting rules I used to teach and it has felt quite wretched. There is a saying in Italian that there are two kinds of idiot, and the bigger idiot is the one who didn’t mean it.
Being described as the “voice of reason” by the Daily Mail is not, as David Cameron says of the cuts, “what I went into politics for”. The worst part of it is that Blue Labour is a form of collegial politics, the work of many hands with varied opinions. It was just beginning to find its common themes – about relationships, power and action, democratic resistance to the exploitative pressure of capitalism, broad-based coalitions in support of the common good that defy power elites, and the radical potential of tradition – when the Fabian Review piece was republished in the Daily Telegraph on 18 July. Then it was suddenly all about immigration.
I am sorry for the crassness and thoughtlessness with which my views on immigration were expressed. I made a few mistakes early on and should have learned the lessons. It did not cross my mind that anyone could think that I support the English Defence League (EDL), which I consider a thuggish and violent organisation. When I said in an interview with Progress magazine in April that we should listen to supporters of the EDL, I was arguing that the best way to defeat fascist organisations is to engage with their supporters in a politics of the common good that addresses issues of family housing and safer streets, the living wage and a cap on interest rates.
These are policies that defy market distributions and strengthen the form of common life that we call democratic politics. In the Progress interview, I was making the point that these were not really features of New Labour and that there is a relationship between disconnected elites and right-wing populism. I thought it was an internal discussion with eight Labour Party members and one who couldn’t decide whether to renew. But it ended up in the Sun. If I had known that would happen, I would not have used the term “EDL” or said Labour had “lied” about the extent of immigration.
This was a big mistake on my part, as Labour’s tradition has always been defined by building relationships between those who are divided: immigrants and local people, atheists and believers, men and women. I knew that the biggest danger was that this would be mistaken for right-wing populism, because the language of Blue Labour is vivid and emotional. It is patriotic, and tries to honour what is honoured by people and work with that. It was a mistake, but I thought I could be forgiven because it was the first time and I had to learn. I vowed to stress in future that this was an anti-fascist, broad-based, democratic and relational politics.
My argument is that Labour was robust in defeating fascism and communism precisely because it had the faithful support of a working class that was loyal to its own form of radical traditionalism. There is a battle with a nationalist politics going on in England and, to win it, we need to work with people whom we have lost; people who feel abandoned and betrayed. Our elite institutions, the City, parliament, the police and the media, are all corrupted in the eyes of the people.
That is the root of fascism: a rage against invisible power and the will to destroy the hold that the elite have over honest, hard-working people. It is also the source of the Labour tradition, which emerged from the limits of liberalism and Marxism and argued for organised resistance to the rule of the rich through the democratic renewal of ancient institutions. This was to be achieved through broad-based organising
between estranged communities: Catholic and Protestant, the skilled and the unskilled.
Labour represents a sublime tradition that I am only just beginning to appreciate. We defeated fascism in Britain with ease, and were not undermined by Stalinists or Trotskyites. For a large part of its history, Labour worked with the idea of a democratic constitution within firms, so that workers would be treated with respect and have power in their working lives. The honouring of work, and its degradation by capitalism, were the common experiences that brought people together and around which Labour organised. There is still exploitation at work; and there are still issues of corporate governance and vocational training and standards that can form the basis of a Labour politics of the common good. That is the point I wanted to make, but it didn’t come out that way.
My conversation with the Fabians has been crucial in developing my arguments. So when they asked for an interview I felt honour-bound; and I respect the interviewer, Mary Riddell, whom I find intelligent and fair-minded. I still do. She came to my flat and we spoke on my kitchen balcony. The conversation was wide-ranging and enjoyable. The only problem was that I forgot it was an interview and when I remembered, I thought, it’s the Fabians, they’ll understand. It ended up on the front page of the Telegraph and then in the Daily Express.
In the part of the conversation about immigration, I was pursuing an argument about democratic politics, not stating a position. Mary asked what I would do about it when there was nothing anyone could do because of European Union law. The first response should have been to say that we need to reimagine the EU. It began as a partnership between Germany and France to resist the commodification of land. The German social market economy, with its vocational training, city parliaments, worker representation on boards and regional banks, is a huge inspiration for me and for others involved in Blue Labour. It has proved more successful than our financially driven, transferrable skills economy. I wrote my PhD on the German social market economy (published as a book, Unnecessary Suffering, in 1996). German ordoliberalism and the social and Christian democratic traditions have all provided important insights, which I have drawn upon in my own thinking. The German social market economy has also proved superior to its rivals in terms of innovation and change. This is a big deal.
The European Union should be about strong city democracy and protection of vocational institutions that preserve knowledge, trust and ethics. Instead, we’ve got the free movement of capital and people, an EU built around bank takeovers. A crucial part of the Blue Labour agenda is reimagining the EU and returning it to its original principles, which were about strengthening the democratic resistance to a free market in labour and land, in human beings and nature.
I think Labour should take the lead in building democratic alliances across Europe to reassert both democratic politics and international solidarity. I have good relationships with academics and politicians all over Europe who are thinking the same thing – people who are, like me, disappointed with the EU and who wish to see it change.
The cornerstone of my approach to internationalism is my total commitment to free and democratic trade unions in China. The workers there are being exploited without being able to organise resistance to their degradation. We need to support free and democratic trade unions all over the world and renew our organisational solidarity. No one benefits from a low-wage economy other than bosses and tyrants. This is part of the renewal of Labour as a force for democracy and liberty.
Instead of saying all that, I made the argument that a free and democratic people are capable of making their own decisions about immigration and that “we are not an outpost of the UN”. That included stopping immigration. What I did not say was that, in the debate, we must be sympathetic to both the immigrant and local populations. They can do harm to each other, or they can build a common life together in which differences and common interests are recognised.
The most important consideration concerns the conditions of poor workers: they should not be played off against each other and nor should newcomers be used to implement a de facto incomes policy that undermines working arrangements, both tacit and formal. This does not lead to economic efficiency or innovation, but to a low-wage, high-churn economy that guarantees neither status nor security for the workers.
For the past decade I have worked through London Citizens with faith communities, many of them immigrant churches and mosques. This has been transformative for me. I have learned that many immigrants put great emphasis on their faith and that this is to be respected. It is precisely because it is necessary to build a common life with new neighbours that we should try to understand their conception of the good and work together on what can be agreed.
The Living Wage Campaign was created and driven by faith communities as a common expression of their conception of the good. In an exploitative system driven by the creation of insatiable desires, we need all the good we can get. The renewal in the years ahead of the common life of our cities, from a combination of new materials, the creation of novel forms of civic life and relational solidarity, is an inspiring prospect.
What I have learned, above all, is that the present political economy leads to the exploitation of both local and immigrant. If I had been talking about this with Mary seriously, and not casually, I would have mentioned my support for the regularisation of illegal immigrants and my work with the Strangers Into Citizens campaign. I would have spoken more considerately about how hard it is to generate solidarity among people who do not know each other. I would have said that the levels of immigration over the past years have been unprecedented in our history, and how important it is to recognise both the challenge and the possibilities that flow from this. As it was, I talked about what it was possible for a democratic polity to do in principle.
It was a failed action that generated the wrong reaction. It generated not debate, but denunciation; it did not improve relationships but threatened them. It was bad political craftsmanship, and that is unforgivable. There is great energy and beauty in Blue Labour when it strives towards the common good by building alliances and relationships between estranged positions. There is much wrong, however, when it stumbles into an ugly position without honouring the complexity of the ethics and human concerns. Agitation ought to be for a purpose, and this was conversational arrogance. If you mess up, you “eat crow”, as they say in the US. That’s a golden rule, and I have had to eat loads, and will have to eat more before the true position can be heard once more.
Ed Miliband has opened up great possibilities with his handling of the Murdoch affair. There are now dreams to dream: about the BBC as a regional force for the public interest and for local accountability, vocational training and broadcasting of music; of a renewed local press funded by local banks and owned by local people; of introducing a balance of interest within every institution, in every sector; of a bold Labour politics that brings hope and energy to the people and is worthy of their renewed respect and trust.
It ill be a relief to many that I intend to take a vow of silence for the summer. I will reflect on what I have done right and what I have done wrong. And I shall learn from my experience. I will ask how I can help Labour generate a winning agenda by bringing politics and power to people who are alone and bereft, and a vocation and childcare to those without assets. For the vices of arrogance, vanity and carelessness, I am sorry.
Maurice Glasman is a Labour peer and director of the Faith and Citizenship Programme at London Metropolitan University
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