Thread by @jon_trickett

If there is to be a debate about our direction of travel, it should be conducted in a generous, honest and tolerant tone. It should focus on true policy positions, not caricatures formulated as part of tactical machine politics. Me for the @NewStatesman

newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…

I am and always have been a radical democratic socialist. There have been moments in our history when we were in the majority within the party leadership, but more often this was not the case. In spite of its pluralism, the Labour Party had socialism in its DNA from the start 1/6

Blair wanted a break with these socialist roots. But even in his pomp he didn’t manage to do so entirely. His new Clause 4 starts boldly with - ahem - the statement that “The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party.” 2/6

It goes on to say that Labour wants a community in which “power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few”. The so-called Third Way is historical aberration. Democratic socialism is now both necessary and can lead to a majoritarian Labour government. 3/6

Blair argued social mobility made acceptable a dynamic market economy, he knew would be inegalitarian. Crosland rejected it: ‘equality is more than meritocratic society of equal opportunities in which the greatest rewards would go to those with the most fortunate background.’4/6

No party of the centre left can survive if it embraces over a prolonged period an economic system that inflicts damage on the very demographic groups which compose its electorate. 5/6

So if there is to be a debate in the party about our direction of travel, it should be conducted in a generous, honest and tolerant tone. It should focus on true policy positions, not caricatures formulated as part of tactical machine politics. 6/6