‘The ideal opponent’

Michael Foot, 1913-2010

THE British and Welsh political classes’ tributes to Michael Foot have been warm and expansive, pointing up the former Ebbw Vale MP’s intellect, principles and powerful oratory, not to mention his record as a Minister. Few would gainsay these assessments, but in a strikingly candid appraisal of his performance as Labour Leader, Michael Hesletine tonight described Foot as “the ideal opponent”. He meant, of course, the disastrous platform upon which Foot stood his party in the 1983 election, including unilateral nuclear disarmament, renationalisation and withdrawal from the EU.  Labour’s punishment was a generational low 24% of the vote, including its lowest share of the vote in Wales since the First World War.

It scarcely seems possible today that any mainstream political party, much less one that had been in power only four years previously, could espouse such policies. It is a reminder, as Labour prepares once again for a possible period of opposition, of how badly a defeated party can lose the plot. It is a warning against those who suggest that there is some sort of straightforward return to so-called traditional Labour values that will cleanse the party and rebuild a fractured relationship with its base, especially in Wales. And it is a rebuttal of the notion that opposition brings its own rewards.

If being kicked out of government is Labour’s fate, it should not be easy. Electoral rejection is painful, and ought to impute tough and discomfiting lessons. An overdue ejection, as some maintain is the case, may be more traumatic still – indeed some people maintain that Conservative Party is still experiencing electoral rejection even today, 13 years after losing office.

A defeated Labour Party will have to rebuild not just its relationship with the people, but its sense of what it exists to do. Critical, widespread reappraisal is a necessary party of this process. If it gets it right, chooses the right leader (at the right time, which means waiting until the autumn) and has some necessary luck, Labour could be back in power at Westminster by 2015. By June, we’ll know whether it embarks on that process, or on the arguably much harder one of regeneration in office. If the former, it might look to Michael Foot’s legacy. It should be inspired by his intellect and integrity, but rendered sober by his record as leader. And it should resolve never to allow that kind of Labour Party to re-emerge.