Sightlines from Labour's 2018 Conference

Contrasting emotions coursed through the 2018 Conference. Excitement abounded at the prospect of power that to some seemed almost close enough to touch. In the peroration of his closing speech to a packed auditorium, Jeremy Corbyn gave voice to that excitement by expressing the hope that by next year’s conference Labour would be in goverment. A confident prediction? Or premature euphoria with the potential for disappointment or frustration of a kind familiar to those who have experienced an unsuccessful coupling or failed a driving test?
At a fringe event for business people, I met a cluster of closet Tories happy to swallow their ideological pride in exchange for a chance to cosy up to Labour politicians. Coaxed into revealing their political affiliation, two of them assured me sotto voce that there would be no general election before 2022. Such without doubt, is the fervent wish of the incumbent of 10 Downing Street and her followers - and doubtless of even those Tories who would like to see the back of Mrs May and her replacement by a rebellious Brexit hardliner.
Indignation was the other predominant emotion and it came in several guises: anger at the ravages wrought on vulnerable communities by Tory austerity, revulsion at Theresa May’s “hostile environment” for so-called illegal immigrants which had resulted in the cruelties of Windrush, and dismay with a touch of Schadenfreude at the government’s shambolic mishandlng of Brexit.

Anguish at the plight of the Palestinians and support for the creation of a Palestinian state found expression not only in speeches by senior Labour figures, but in many conference attendees, Jews among them, who swapped the lanyard that came with their credential for one in the colours of the Palestinian flag.

Solidarity with the Palestinian people was a theme of the Conference for JVL (Jewish Voices for Labour), as was clear rejection of the accusations of antisemitism directed at Jeremy Corbyn by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, most of the UK media including the BBC, more than a few Tories, and even some Labour MPs. Nor was JVL alone in rejecting those accusations. Handing out pro-Corbyn leaflets at the entrance to the Conference Centre on the final day were two representatives of Naturei Karta - an Orthodox, anti-Zionist/anti-Israel Jewish sect considered extremist and even reviled by many Jews, including (full disclosure) some members of my own family. Naturei Karta are - be it said - no less Jewish for being a minority and, like JVL, they are a living refutation of the trope put out by the media of a single, unified Jewish community convinced that Corbyn and his entourage are antisemitic.

While the official Conference speeches and debates received the bulk of media coverage, most of the activity takes place at fringe events. On a full day, there are over 150 of these. They begin as early as 7am and continue late into the evening, with dozens underway simultaneously. Impossible, therefore, to cover the ground, to take in the full range of topics, debates, disputes, ideas, analyses and opinions on offer. The standard format consists of brief speeches from four or five panelists followed by a discussion with the audience. MPs - including shadow ministers - participate fully, some of them dashing from one meeting to the next like couriers on a delivery round.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell seemed to be everywhere, sometimes a little breathless, but indefatigable, and concealing whatever exhaustion he might have felt behind a bon mot and an easy command of his brief.
That brief - honed over years of opposition, battleground defeats and strategic revision - is the most radical since the Labour government of 1945 under Clement Attlee. It includes renationalisation of public utilities and the railways, legislation to force large companies to allocate shares to employees and to have worker representation on boards of directors, an end to ruinously expensive PFI contracts, major infrastructural invesment in all regions of the UK, an end to free schools and the fragmentation of our educational system, and so on. Its fundamental principles are twofold: to launch a counterattack against neoliberalism, which has governed public policy since Thatcher and has catalysed a savage rise in inequality; and to restore a sense of empowerment and economic dignity to those millions who have been betrayed and impoverished by Tory austerity. Popular in the Conference auditorium and doubtless among many voters, Labour’s ambitious programme of economic reform evokes alarm and contempt in sections of the right-wing media, and perhaps a degree of panic in Tory ranks.
What of Brexit, dangerous ground for both Labour and Tories alike? At a hearts-on-sleeve fringe session, I heard MPs Ben Bradshaw, Caroline Flint and Stephen Kinnock plus Professor Anand Menon offer opposing views of what the party should do when Mrs May returns from Brussels with or without a deal. Ben Bradshaw favoured a second referendum with ‘Remain’ among the options on the ballot paper, a posture that Caroline Flint argued against because she felt it would fail to unite the country, while Stephen Kinnock advocated membership of EFTA (the European Free Trade Association) - the so-called Norway option with access to the EEA (European Economic Area). Anand Menon spoke learnedly but left his listeners unclear as to what, if anything, he was recommending. The variety of views on Brexit reportedly led to a six-hour tussle among MPs and delegates that ended with a position to which none of the contending parties could withhold consent, namely to leave all options on the table. Conference was thus left with what looked like a pecking order of initiatives:
- acceptance of May’s deal in the unlikely event she achieves a slam dunk negotiation;
- a call for fresh elections if she fails to get her deal through parliament;
- a second referendum if parliament - like the main parties - is unable to agree on an alternative course of action.
In his Conference address, the Labour leader, after an oblique reference to the arduousness of the negotiation that produced this sequence, stated that the Party now had a settled Brexit position. Well…. maybe.
Despite the superabundance of meetings, Labour’s 2018 Conference showed a disappointing lack of concern for the globalised world in which we now we live. Conflict in the Middle East, the issue of Israel and the Palestinians, and British arms sales to belligerent states received attention. But I heard little on the refugee crisis, and on the burning question of the UK’s relationship with Russia. Other regions of the world - Africa, the Far East, Latin America - were absent from Labour’s agenda, while Canada and USA were acknowledged merely as targets or models for trade deals. Europe figured in terms of Brexit, but not otherwise. Two scheduled meetings on foreign policy - the only two - were cancelled without explanation. A correspondent from Austria asked me why no one at the Conference seemed interested in or even know much about the rest of Europe. “Islanders,” I replied, “are insular.” Post Brexit we are supposed to be reaching out to the world; but so far Labour has shown scant evidence of understanding what that might imply.

And the denouement? Brexit aside, Corbyn’s closing address conveyed a sense of direction that it had lacked at the Brighton Conference a year earlier. He is not a natural orator, but he has worked hard at the arts of timing and emphasis, and he now has a programme to deliver that is radical, well-thought-out and thoroughly rehearsed. At the end he left his audience stirred by the prospect, under a Labour government, of a better, more egalitarian, more humane , more honest, more principled, more socially responsible country. Labour’s programme is at once ambitious and for Party members, at least, both credible and inspiring.
Leaving the Conference precinct after Corbyn’s speech I made my way through Liverpool One - the city’s magnificent, traffic-free retail and leisure zone. It was crowded with shoppers, strollers, people relaxing on benches, or enjoying the hospitality of bars and restaurants.

Street musicians entertained - competing with each other for attention and coin. Like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, I stopped a few pedestrians to ask what they knew or thought of the Labour Party Conference. A few said they aware of it, but most were not, and none showed much interest in the event, nor trust in the promises of politicians. Therein, perhaps, lies the true challenge not just for Labour but for all political parties. Annual Party Conferences are bubbles of purpose, passion, and of a shared sense of hope and solidarity among the faithful. In the world outside, however, life goes on as before, and what most people learn of Party manifestos comes not from participation in conferences, but from snippets of news, and sound-bites from commentators more anxious to provoke than to enlighten. Labour now has a coherent programme and a corps of conviction politicians ready to work on implemention. The task that remains is to convince.