Saying we need to choose between power and principles only helps our opponents
There's a view I see argued a lot online - that in the past, Labour election victories have required us to compromise on Labour values. That there’s a choice between a principled Labour Party and an election-winning Labour Party.
There’s a couple of logical conclusions to this - and we’ve seen both argued (fortunately not by the candidates themselves) during this leadership election.
Some people have decided that, if winning elections means having to compromise our values, we shouldn’t be too bothered about winning elections.
And some people have taken the view that, if previous elections were won at the cost of compromising on our values to pursue Conservative voters, we need to find a way to win without Conservative voters - for example by taking votes from the Greens, UKIP, the SNP and winning over non-voters.
But anyone watching what the Tories are doing in power can see that the only way to get Labour values into government is to get the Labour Party into government.
And the numbers for an “any vote but a Tory vote” strategy don’t add up.
So what do we do?
Accept that "power vs principles" is a false choice that only benefits our opponents.
After a couple of bad general election defeats, Labour has lost confidence in our ability to come up with new ideas that are both popular enough to win elections and also chime with Labour values. We need to regain that.
This time tomorrow, there’ll be a new leader of the Labour Party. They need to avoid simply picking up the same old policies that have been floating around for last 40 years and instead give the Party the confidence in new ideas that won us elections in the past.
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Some thoughts on the Labour Party