And as we seek to analyse the why's and wherefores's of what went wrong, key questions emerge from a black perspective: why in this election, did the white working class leave Labour in their droves, and yet the Black working class, facing the same austerity, plus vicious racism, not only stayed loyal to Labour, but turned out in even greater numbers in this election?
Some in Labour are suggesting that the party lost touch and failed to reflect its Northern working class base. I wouldn't disagree with that analysis, being a Mancunian myself,
However, I start from a radically different place and then come to entirely different conclusion from those who offer this centre right analysis.
In the confusion, shock and anger that has now besieged Labour Party members, there are bitter recriminations and open hostilities, between those that believe the great leader was horribly betrayed by Labour centrists, mounting coup, after failed coup against Jeremy Corbyn, instead of being focused on fighting the Tories, and those who say he was never up to the job in any event.
Whatever your own view, we all know it's a political truism that divided parties usually don't win elections.
Declaring my own interest here, let me say I am a long term supporter of JC having worked with him man and boy over 40 years. Having said that, and having worked on securing two election victories with Ken Livingstone from 2000 - 2008 whilst I supported Jeremy ambitions, I think he surrounded himself with a team that was woefully indulgent, and lacking in any kind of real election experience or any on the ground campaigning creativity. He was, in my view, also bereft of any in depth community mobilising capability outside his traditional base.
That said, Labour got somethings right and to their credit, over the last three or more years recruited hundreds of thousands of new members, many of them young people.
Though Jon Lansman's Momentum tried to offer a new dispensation. it soon betrayed its potential by becoming a curious sort of hybrid, a social movement coupled with old style Stalinist control freaky exemplified by the Unions total domination. Momentum was the Labour aristocracy, arrogant and effusive with their white privilege. National Black organisations were dismissed and ignored whilst Momentum tried to create a new cadre of complaint black left leadership. Its focus on racism was largely cosmetic and infective.
Such arrogance and inexperience could be seen reflected in the parties election manifesto, all JC really needed was a small number of big signature policies and a smaller number of innovative ideas. Instead the electorate was offered a cornucopia of manifesto promises. It was to all to much. In private sector parlance, the market hadn't been warmed up sufficiently for such bold announcements and the old adage of if it looks too good to be true, it probably is, kicked in.
Then there are those who allege that the party's failure to arrive at clear line on Brexit added to the character and 'political history' of Jeremy Corbyn, presented 'unsurmountable obstacles' to securing an election victory. Let me be clear here also, I'm a left wing socialist who believes we should have remained and substantively reformed the European Union.
I believe Brexit to be a project of the extreme right wing, who are using Brexit as cover, a stealth move to deliver their long cherished, economic wet dream of a free trade, deregulated, low wage economy that eviscerate's workers rights.
Notwithstanding that, I also believe that Corbyn's position on the issue was inexplicable to the ordinary voter. My own 84 year old mother, a life long Labour supporter and a huge fan of left political mavericks, could not understand Labours nuanced position on Brexit,
Jeremy should have known you cant play footsie with racism, there is no accommodation to be had, it is all consuming, and when the left seeks to pivot towards working class racism, it always looses, always.
We've seen this time and time again over the last 60 years. Labour desperately trying to justify the racist sentiment of its core base, on a range of issues such as citizenship, immigration, criminal justice and policing. Let's recall, that it was Labour, who over the post war period, when in power, who introduced more immigration legislation than all the other other parties combined.
This election Labour tried to be determinedly anti racist and at the same time, respect Labour Brexit supporters.
Whatever the details of the many perspectives now on offer, now the Tories have a massive majority Brexit supporters say the referendum decision was arrived at democratically and should now be implemented.
I'm not impressed with Brexit's democratic credentials, first the referendum vote was won on a wafer thin majority, and second, history is replete with idiotic and catastrophic decisions that have been democratically endorsed; transatlantic slavery; genocidal colonialism; Hitler and the Third Reich; Jim Crow legislation; South African Apartheid, the Iraq War and of course the French Revolutionaries refusal to recognise the Haitian Revolution of former Enslaved Africans.
In white societies not all democracy is benign, take UK voters relentless support for draconian immigration policies, delivered by Labour under Wilson, Callaghan, Blair and Brown, whose zeal was then reflected by the Camerons Tories who offered even more 'tougher' immigration legalisation, that ended up creating a racist hostile environment, that forcibly and illegally deported Black British citizens and saw people die as result of their illegal denial of citizenship and denial of access to income, housing and the NHS.
The Tories simply took Labour's polices and political rhetoric and presented real racism back to the country.
From a Black perspective, you can see my point. Historically, whenever Labour concedes to racism, its black people who ultimately pay the heaviest price.
There are those who legitimately point to Jeremy's failure to tackle the anti semitism problem head on from the outset. There is some truth in that charge.
The lessons I learned as a key member of Ken Livingstone's administrations during my time at London's City Hall were critical. In regards to racism you have to get ahead of the curve and assemble the big tent coalitions, before the inevitable crisis, manufactured or otherwise, hits your desk. Once that happens, it's usually too late to credibly respond to any such charge, any response is undermined by the fact that you have zero relations or track record with any particular community.
Similar accusations of anti semitism made against Livingstone had less traction precisely because of the work done to assemble the necessary coalitions and establish good relations prior to any crisis.
That said, I'm sure of Crobyn's anti racist credentials as an individual, however I think Labour as an organisation, like the majority of white institutions, when confronted with accusations of racism, experience a form of brain freeze that often tend to leave them resembling frightened deer, trembling trapped in the lights of a fast oncoming truck.
His inner circle and trusted advisers were culturally predisposed to disbelieve these complaints and failed to act decisively as a result. Had they deepened their friendly relations with Jewish communities prior to these accusations gathering real momentum, they could have relied upon broader support and good advice to guide them through this issue.
Instead they looked wooden, reactive, classically defensive and therefore fell back on bureaucratic procedural responses that gave the public impression of seeking to stall or bury the issue.
It was clumsy and ham fisted.
Let me be clear though, there are some elements on the left that are indeed anti semetic, that much I've seen and heard myself. They are a vitriolic fringe minority in my experience, but when it comes to racism size means nothing. I also believe that the centre right sought to opportunistically inflate this issue for their own nefarious purposes. People who have been largely silent on institutional racism and islamophobia suddenly sprang into life presenting as "life long committed anti racists" Utter bullshit.
Labour, like every other major British institution is an institutionally racist organisation. That title must be embraced if the issue of racism is to be effectively dealt with. There were too many in the senior ranks of the party who sought to deny that fact.
For Black people this is resonant with our lived experience of white privilege.
More broadly on this topic and specifically in relation to black representation in the party, we've seen a huge decline in the number of elected local African and Caribbean councillors, inparticular black men over the last 20 years.
For example there are only 62 Black male Councillors in the whole of London representing 3.4% of the total and when Black women are added, we still only make up around 9% of the total.
While Jeremy talked passionately of equality and democracy for all, the Party had other ideas.
As part of his focus on internal constitutional reform, the Labour BAME network grouping for example saw its power reduced after Unite and other unions conspired to deny them greater autonomy and independence they argued for.
As result, and unbelievably, BAME Labour saw their constitutional remit, and level of democratic control, actually reduced after his democracy review, not enhanced, despite all the promises.
In looking at Labour's election campaign as a whole neither the strategy nor the manifesto were correctly calibrated.
Take the manifesto for example, this was packed to the gills with big spending policies, such was the scale of the offer that people began to doubt its credibility and despite the publication of the Grey Book costing public expenditure and tax funding sources the manifest though hugely popular in parts was overcooked. In politics as in life, sometimes less is more.
Finally and providing to be the most insidious, powerful, dominating, and overarching context, there was the issue of Brexit itself an issue that has fundamentally re-aligned the landscape of British politics from the "hard left to the extreme right." No other issue has so divided the nation.
Politics is a contact sport and the nice guys don't always win. Livingstone's secret was creativity, flair, team discipline and policy rigour, most of all the later.
In relation to Jeremy Corbyn he was predictably publicly traduced by the majority of the billionaire owned British media for over a year, prior to the election and some would say throughout his entire political career.
His personal poll ratings plummeted and yet there appeared no counter strategy to offset or at least minimise this. Public rallies and twitter feeds were simply not enough. Its not as though the high command didn't have the information. They did, and for some inexplicable reason they chose to ignore it.
I and others continually warned him that after his success in 2017, they would not underestimate him again. It was as clear as day, that they would double down on Corbyn. And yet no counter strategy was put in place. Momentum tried and failed to counter this attack. His front bencher Diane Abbott was mercilessly attacked, relying on readily accepted racist tropes, she and Corbyn, like Ken and I in 2008 faced an unprecedented campaign of public smears. lies and falsehoods.
Whilst Jeremy and Diane faced much worse, (and credit to their reliance under fire, trust me I know the personal toll this takes) the press and social media campaign was disgustingly racist for sure, but it was also so entirely predictable.
I was not alone in warning Jeremy, Diane and the Party. I still bear the scars of Johnsons relentless racism election campaign to oust Ken Livingstone, where we were the victims of the very same 'dog whistle' tactics perfected by Aussie Camapign guru, Lynton Crosby, whose tactics including smears, innuendo's, racism and bare faced lies. His tactics were singularly focused and brutal. Here's what former Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis wrote in the New Statesman recently,
'If you ask the commentariat for an explanation of this paradox, you will get an earful of chatter about Corbyn’s Marxism, alleged anti-Europeanism and lack of character. However, the truth is simpler and uglier than any of this. From day one, after he won Labour’s leadership in 2015, the game was afoot. Soon after Corbyn became leader, I warned that a huge campaign of character assassination was inevitable. It was not difficult to see it coming.''
Now Labour's centre right Labour political commentators, MP's and right wing media pundits are seeking to blame Corbyn and Corbynism alone, whilst the Labour left are blaming Brexit,
Personally I think the later must be true. There can be no doubt that Brexit has transformed the tribal alliances of post war British party politics. However if you can see a punch coming your duty is to avoid it. Labour bears some responsibilty for that.
There was no real recognition that Brexit had the wholly negative and yet transformative effect of uniting the right and rehabilitating racism, bigotry and xenophobia back into the heart of 'patriotic' British politics. While Labour struggled, we as black people noted that the real message of Brexit is,
"We know what we voted for and we prefer to be poorer than be more diverse"
The real reality is the country choose racism over economic good sense, and that was and remains the Labour dilemma wrapped up in a nutshell
The bigger picture here, for students of global politics, is one of gradual economic decline of European nations including Britain, combined with a disastrously low European birth rate.
Contrast this with the economic growth and populations explosion of China, India and Africa. It's as though the European and American white elites, having seen the writing on the wall, are seeking once last throw off the dice to screw every last penny from their stagnant economies by doubling down on the poor.
They know, that the only immediate way to reflate their flagging economies fast is with a good old fashioned war. So they're warming up the populace with bombastic nationalism and talk of the glorious return of the days of Empire. Brexit in this purely political context can be seen to be what it is, having fed the nation a continuous diet of lies and propaganda for decades, promoting British and English exceptionalism and refusing to acknowledge the crimes of Britains colonial past, Brexit can be seen as a form of colonial karma.
The British empire, like all empires either had to adapt to its new post colonial realties or suffer the inevitable consequences. As Dr Martin Luther King Jnr said,
"The arch of the moral universe may be long, but it bends towards justice."
And so powerful was Millwalls reputation that it remains intact despite the best efforts of the club.
They're proud acknowledgement of their toxic reputation was epitomised in the now infamous chant,
"No one likes us and we don't care."
Today, that sentiment appears to be the national, cultural default setting, a glorious return to the days of 17th century, when Britain was known as the most Perfidious Albion. This Millwall sentiment is now the proud clarion call of most Brexiteers and though Brexit supporters resolutely claim they are not all racist, all racist are Brexiteers.
Their furious denials of racism are critically undermined by the huge numbers of out and proud obvious racist in their midsts, who they appear more than happy to defend and tolerate.
We see no consequent, anti racist Brexit movement, condemning the vilest among their ranks No public statements rejecting their support, no condemnation of their fellow comrades in arms. In fact we see claims of racism dismissed as utter rubbish, with some even claiming that racism is an invention of the left and British whites are the real victims of racism. Indeed their cheer leader in chief Boris Johnson's is Britains most ardent defender and advocator the extreme right.
Since the EU referendum racist attacks and hate crimes have exploded massively across England in particular and the popular refrain of the 60, 70 and 80's,
"Go back to where you come from."
This nasty slur, aimed at anyone who is assumed not to be British, has made a dramatic return following this election. Today social media is awash with tales of neighbours telling their Black, Asian European neighbours, that now Boris is in power, its time to pack their bags and fuck off. The ensuing wildly irresponsible nature of the political and media debate on Brexit saw the brutal murder of Labour MP Joe Cox.
Thomas Mair an extreme right wing, white supremacist slaughtered the Batley and Spent MP Joe Cox in June2016 in broad daylight. In the subsequent years we have seen fascist organisations, whites males members, being convicted of preparing or intending to commit acts of racial terrorism.
The culminative effect of Labour, who since 2005 saw an increasing number of Labour Council seats in the North fall to the Tories, should've provided an early warning system, that Labour voters in the North were revolting. The collapse of Labours Red Wall was therefore to be expected, given the extent to which constituencies, such as my home town of Oldham, and towns like Hartlepool and Batley had all been progressively abandoned, sinking into the quagmires of long term unemployment. drug and alcohol addictions, ill health, depression and violence, all symptoms of poverty and long term deprivation.
They suffered deindustrialisation and globalisation and in the context where the global rate of wealth inequalities rose dramatically, as ably demonstrated by the French economist Thomas Pikkety, whose work charts the amassing of wealth in the post war period, and demonstrates that the gap between the worlds super rich and the poorest has grown substantively over that time. He also points to the consequences of such inequality, rises in racism, xenophobia and fascism.
These former mining and cotton towns were crushed by 1980's Thatcherism and later pounded by Tory austerity. These communities, tired of broken promises and witnessing their own relentless demise decided to inflict a punishment beating on the establishment. That anger could've been directed at Bankers, but was instead skilfully redirected towards Muslims, and then Europe Union and then wider still to Eastern Europeans all of whom joined black peoples as demonised communities.
These largely white working class communities began to turn first to the British National Party, then the EDL, then onto UKIP and finally to Farage.
Labour, the trade unions and the left anti racist movements, had no real response to the growth of working class racism, other than pithy slogans, white left 'conferences" and barley attended protests.
Brexit has turned out to be a perfect exercise in divide and rule using the oldest political trick in the Western democracy playbook, the scapegoating of 'unpopular minorities.'
Slugish unresponsive Labour Councils saw increasing numbers of people not voting and becoming increasingly alienated from local democracy. The last 40 years or so has seen UK voter turnout decline another indication that should have altered Labours high command. They just didn't care and determined instead, to simply continue to take these constituencies for granted.
Concerns about poverty, unemployment, poor housing, worse schools and high crime rates, were all decades long frustrations, that were all eventually poured into the Brexit cup.
Here is the rub. British Black communities have long suffered the same economic disadvantages faced by these towns, and they didn't desert Labour, on the contrary they supported the party in even greater numbers.
My own view is the the centre right detested this radical working class history.
British white working class communities, in these now former Labour towns, simply became ignorant of there own fabulous history, that gave birth to the Labour Party, Anti Slavery movement and inspired the Suffragettes, and in doing so have left themselves vulnerable to becoming seduced, infected with ideas of narrow nationalism, given false hope by the idea that Britain can be great again.
Real political education was abandoned by Labour and the Trade Unions in favour of focus groups. Who remembers Socialist Sunday schools today?
Fed by a constant and relentless wall of media racism for the last 70 years, communities in the North have become infected with racism, bigotry and prejudices, largely thanks to our disgusting right wing media, and opportunist politicians, whose propaganda campaigns designed to split the working class and maintain the status qou has been total and overwhelming.
However rather than simply bemoan the fact, the Labour movement offered no education on the matter.
It is of course, the hegemonic domination of Britains powerful elite that has brought about this dreadful election result. The post war commitment of the British elite class to ruthlessly maintaining their wealth has never wavered for one second.
Black communities however have been both let down, and disappointed but remain clear sighted on who are the the real culprits responsible for our continued oppression and exclusion. Remembering our history we are less susceptible to the elite's relentless propoganda.
The task now at hand is truly momentous. In the context of Britain leaving the EU we must now circle the wagons, pause and reflect on how and why we got here.
Workers rights and anti discrimination laws enshrined in the EU human rights framework are in danger of being washed away. History teaches us that when the British economy suffer's recession, racism is always amplified. We recall the rise in racist murders Britain witnessed in the mini recession of the early 1990's that saw the murder of many, including Stephen Lawrence.
The coming Brexit recession will make that era seem like a walk in the park. And we know, as black people, that when the white working class wake up to the fact they've been brutally betrayed, it's not the Tories that will get the blame, it will be whatever convenient scapegoating minority fits the bill at the time.
Such is the scale of the crisis facing us, that it requires us to consolidate our collective forces, faith groups, community organisations, charities, campaigning groups, black trade unionists, student and our pensioners in an consolidated effort to reaffirm our political alliances with the aim of creating a bulwark against the racism that is inevitably headed our way.
That requires bold, ethical leadership and courage, for our duty now is to build legacy of a solid black movement that can better protect the next generation from the predations of British racism, injustice and inequality.
I believe it is now time for a National Civil Rights Convention aimed at bringing together our disparate and fragmented communities together, to build a unified movement with Labour activists and the wider black community, as we begin to prepare our communities to face these unprecedented challenges.
The issues of global rising inequality, climate change and environmental racism, poverty and injustice loom large. We must not ignore the warning signs. The challenges for the next generations are immense. Our job is to ensure we put aside our ego's, stop the cut throat competition among black organisations, abandoned petty differences and build a movement.
Such a 21st century conception has to focus not just domestically, but internationally in recognition that our condition here in the UK can be mitigated by ensuring we provide global opportunities for our young people, to access improved trading links with the global African diaspora, demand environmental protections. quality education and enhanced human and civil rights.
In addition we will need a new, domestic black youth led, anti racist movement that demands that the Labour educates working class communities out of their wholly misplaced beliefs on issues on issues of inequality, racism and and the value of diversity.
The idea that Labour has to move to the right in order to reconnect to these voters is simply a misunderstanding of how we got here.
There is no rush too find a new leader, the next election is not until 2025. What's needed now is not a reactionary snap back to the centrist right positions of yesteryear, conceding to racist sentiment, but a deep analysis of what went wrong and what now needs to change.
Lee Jasper
