In 1945 the Labour Party was swept to power, in the process dethroning a murderous racist whose legacy has finally been successfully reckoned with. That same year, the new deputy prime minister remarked that granting independence to Britain’s African colonies would be “like giving a child of ten a latchkey, a bank account and a shotgun”. Not long after, the Labour Prime Minister theorised about diverting the Empire Windrush away from British shores. In the 1960s, Labour presided over restrictions on Commonwealth migration, started by the Conservatives, and motivated by fears about a possible intake of Kenyan Asian refugees; a group being persecuted under the rule of a violent dictator. Two decades later black and Asian Labour activists were suffocated by a belligerent Labour leadership, resulting in a black activist being vetoed from standing for Parliament, despite overwhelming support from local members. We’re not done, either. By the 2000s the red party was engaging in “acceptable” bigotry, namely against asylum seekers, muslims and the GRT community. Some of the highlights include using language last employed by Thatcher to demonize refugees, proposing to ban their children from going to state schools, saying Muslims would have to accept being profiled as criminals as a “reality”, accusing GRT communities of “defecating in doorways” among other things, commandeering BNP slogans, and identifying a homogenous “black culture” as the cause of murders. By 2015, they were reduced to a poor tribute act of their past selves, bringing out a mug emblazoned with the UKIP-like statement: “Controls on Immigration”. Unsurprisingly, dire memorabilia was not the saviour the Party desperately needed, and they lost. These incidents, scattered across the last three quarters of a century, reflect an alarming pattern; for the majority of its history, Labour hasn’t cared about minorities.
A part of this indifference to injustice is clearly the result of cynicism and detachment. Labour has been led exclusively by white men in its long history, and that doesn’t look like changing anytime soon. If you have never experienced an act of racism directed at you, either from an individual or from structurally embedded bigotry, you are far more likely to treat it as a vote winning opportunity than a matter of shame; particularly if the first Black and Asian MP’s in your party’s history only appear 87 years after its foundation. Such comes the tendency to capitalise on misplaced fear, a tactic deployed by the reds in 1968. With the public mortified by the prospect of people fleeing oppression – some things don’t change – Harold Wilson’s silver bullet was to go further in reducing the rights of Commonwealth citizens than the Tories had dared. The racial undertones of this decision need no explaining; a move designed to placate the underlying racism in British society at the time. The organisation forged in the flame of protest meekly gave way at the expense of an already marginalised community, with solidarity not even entertained. Sadly this rejection of justice was not unique.
By the 21st Century a new “Liberal Britain” had supposedly been ushered in, leaving old prejudices and stiff upper lips behind in the pursuit of equality, backed all the way by the new progressives in Downing Street. In some cases this was true; attitudes towards same sex relationships were increasingly positive, and the untimely death of Princess Diana sparked an outpouring of compassion and unashamed public grief. A look at popular culture, though, suggests all was unwell – shows like Little Britain were devices for privately educated comedians to openly mock anyone and everyone different from them, and yet became pillars of modern British culture. Again, when the victims of such acceptable derision turned to their politicians, many supposedly from a party that would protect their interests, they were met with equal distaste, and there was nothing funny about it. A succession of Labour’s leading lights were content to express reactionary view after reactionary view, particularly against asylum seekers, the GRT community and ‘black culture’, in what was either a knowingly cynical attempt to secure Tony Blair another term in office or an idealistic crusade its purveyors genuinely believed in. I’m not sure which would be the least worse. Coupled to campaigns designed to ‘get the white vote angry’ and depictions of Jewish politicians as pigs and you have a wholeheartedly disgusting era of British life, where bigotry was standard practice and the experiences of thousands of people were second to squeezing a few more votes through appeals to the worst of society.
A decade after New Labour’s curtain call, different approaches have subsequently been taken to nationwide bigotry. Ed Miliband’s attempts to combat the rise of UKIP with some pitiful yet infuriating anti-immigrant mugs were a sign of the Labour times and their failure to capture the national imagination (shocking, I know) proved to be the catalyst for the rise of Labour’s most unanticipated leader. While there’s very little to say about Jeremy Corbyn that hasn’t already been said, it is worth saying that he’s arguably the only labour leader with any anti-racist credentials, and his defence of those so often overlooked by Labour governments past was undoubtedly a huge shift in attitude. He is not without his criticisms in this field – a commitment to have more police on the streets isn’t something to be relished especially when we know what we know about them – his capacity for empathy with the people who needed an empathetic, transformative government is unmatched among his contemporaries, and helped to induct a generation into the politics of compassion. For this alone he deserves immense credit, let alone for delivering the party’s most impressive electoral performance in terms of votes in the century. One of his contemporaries, however, didn’t get the message.
Despite pledging to do otherwise, Keir Starmer has treated the 2019 election as a watershed rather than a setback; an irredeemable failure that must be corrected as quickly as possible. So far this has entailed complete contempt for movements seeking to challenge racism in our institutions, particularly the police force, which has had a role in the deaths of multiple black people in its modern history (as the leader of one of these operations is now in charge of London’s wing, it appears they’re not too bothered). For Starmer, though,they weren’t doing it right. Edward Coulston’s statue should have stayed up, Black Lives Matter is a ‘moment’, any notion of diverting funds from the police ‘nonsense’. Despite claims he misspoke, these assertions are a wink to the mystical voter who deserted Labour because they like minorities too much. You’re safe with Starmer; he couldn’t care less about us either. As if to ingratiate himself further to the mystical patriot, he found time in his presumably busy schedule to condemn a man urinating on a memorial but failed to say a word against the assertion by a Tory MP that the spread of coronavirus was BAME people’s fault, despite Black people in particular dying disproportionately from it and minority groups working on the frontline through the crisis, in hospitals and on public transport amongst others, to keep the country ticking. The ex-DPP has been a disappointment for many reasons so far, but the move back to nonchalance from a desire to challenge structural racism has been the greatest.
In 2020 the Labour party stands at a unique crossroads. For the first time, the party’s leader was not content to weaponize racism for electoral gain, his worldview centred around the principles of equality for all. Sadly, and perhaps tellingly, this has undoubtedly been undone; Workington Man haunts Keir Starmer – the fact he doesn’t seem to exist isn’t important – and his contempt for BLM is an early indicator of a bleak future. I don’t know where this march for votes will conclude, but there are no acceptable resting places on this dangerous road. I hope the Party’s new leadership recognises that too.
Keeping Left 