Thread by @jon_trickett

My thoughts and concerns on Labour's long-term political direction, including on @Keir_Starmer's recent essay, written for @tribunemagazine at #Lab21 👇

tribunemag.co.uk/2021/09/how-la…

Repeatedly Labour leaderships have emerged committed to maintaining the basic structures of the British economy.

Either you embraced the status quo and abandoned the needs of our voting base or you confronted and transformed the economy in the interests of working people.

The labour movement historically was made up of what we might regard as three ideological traditions; socialists, social democrats, and trade unionists.

Social democracy - the idea of ameliorating capitalism in the interests of the many through gradual reforms - effectively degenerated into what we may call “revisionism”.

This revisionist strand emerged most clearly in the 1970’s when the long post war consensus broke down.

Keir’s ‘contributory society’ is a further round of revisionism which will leave capitalism's key structures untouched. It will not offer relief for the people who we want to vote for us.

Keir Starmer’s recent long essay, and the accompanying commentary from Lord Mandelson, is an attempt to reconstitute Labour into a revisionist project.

Mandelson asserts that they are trying to reimagine social democracy. But this is not the case at all.

Over the covid pandemic, 11 million workers had a 20% reduction in their paychecks through furlough. A third of key workers, who kept this country going under covid, are earning less than the living wage.

14 million people are living in poverty, despite a majority of them being in work.

Yet the richest 250 people in the UK increased their wealth by £106 billion during the COVID lockdown.

The history of much of Labour since the 1970’s has been one of repeated attempts to construct a project that reconciled Labour to a failing economic system.

There are two tracks which need to be followed in order to prepare the ground for a Labour government to be elected.

These are: winning the argument and then building a movement.the movement for social justice is not and can never be confined purely to an electoral battle every few years.

Preparing the ground for a Labour government means understanding the limitations of using Parliament to build power.

We should be proud of how far we came in 2017, but we cannot live in the past. We must build on what we started under Corbyn

We should be proud of how far we came in 2017, but we cannot live in the past. We must build on what we started under Corbyn

Thank you for following my line of thought to the end. I really appreciate it.