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Blue Labour: Forging a New Politics
Following Labour's defeat at the polls in 2015, and at time when the Party is attempting to redefine its meaning, values and even identity, there is an urgent need for fresh thinking. Most people agree that a new start is needed. But in which direction should Labour turn? A crucial conversation is beginning, and it is in this fluid and volatile context that Blue Labour ideas could make a crucial difference. Seeking to move beyond the centrist pragmatism of both Blair and Cameron, and attempting to inject into politics a newfound passion and significance with which people can truly engage, this essential work speaks to the needs of diverse people and communities across the country. Critiquing the dominance in Britain of a social-cultural liberalism linked to the left and a free-market liberalism associated with the right, Blue Labour blends a 'progressive' commitment to greater economic equality with a more 'conservative' disposition emphasising personal loyalty, family, community and locality. It is the manifesto of a vital new force in politics: one that could define the thinking of the next generation and beyond.
- GenresPolitics
320 pages, Paperback
First published February 28, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 23, 2024
I wanted to read this book because I had a passing familiarity with the Blue Labour label. It's a label that many people I'm close to hold to. Blue Labour, the Conservative Left.
Nine years is a long time in politics - much has changed in the UK since this collection was published. The silence regarding Brexit was deafening - the vote took place less than two years after its publication. Despite this, I thought the recent, resounding Labour Party victory at Westminster provided the ideal opportunity to (re)visit these essays.
I was disappointed. I do sympathise with many of the authors' concerns, especially the hollowing out of local politics and non-state social support in the UK. But these essays lacked concete policy proposals. A few authors singled out the German corporatist system as a potential model - though the recent rise of far-right populism in Germany suggests this system is showing cracks. Moreover, these essays remained content to attack poorly-defined boogeymen like neoliberalism. On cultural issues like the family, the authors seemed to try to avoid offence while trying to remain radical-sounding.
Some of these essays raised important questions regarding our current political system. But pointing at problems is easy. At the end of the day, I still don't really know what the conservatism is that this book is arguing for.
Nine years is a long time in politics - much has changed in the UK since this collection was published. The silence regarding Brexit was deafening - the vote took place less than two years after its publication. Despite this, I thought the recent, resounding Labour Party victory at Westminster provided the ideal opportunity to (re)visit these essays.
I was disappointed. I do sympathise with many of the authors' concerns, especially the hollowing out of local politics and non-state social support in the UK. But these essays lacked concete policy proposals. A few authors singled out the German corporatist system as a potential model - though the recent rise of far-right populism in Germany suggests this system is showing cracks. Moreover, these essays remained content to attack poorly-defined boogeymen like neoliberalism. On cultural issues like the family, the authors seemed to try to avoid offence while trying to remain radical-sounding.
Some of these essays raised important questions regarding our current political system. But pointing at problems is easy. At the end of the day, I still don't really know what the conservatism is that this book is arguing for.
March 24, 2021
Published in 2015, this compendium of articles sets out the case for a communitarian version of Labourism that consciously clings to the established values of the people who are seen to be Labour’s core constituency.
It represents a sharp break with the tendencies which have become dominant on the left of the party in recent decades. These have raised a challenge to what are represented here as ‘virtues’ (“courage, justice, honour and integrity”) as the central motifs of a politics of transformation because they fail to provide a basis for critiquing the repressive tolerance of contemporary capitalism, which fuses large parts of working class consciousness to patriarchy, sexism, racism, consumerism and nationalism. The Blue Labour charge is that harping on about these things has proven unsettling to the perceptions of the world that have sustained family life and the communal solidarity that working people have needed over the years to stiffen their resolve in going up against capitalism.
Across the chapters in this collection political contest is represented as a face-off between liberalism and conservatism, and the ideologues of Blue Labour come down on the side of the latter. Liberalism has served to foist the individualising values of the market on working class communities and hence to loosen the ties that once encouraged people to stand and fight together for the things they believed in. Conservatism (of the small ‘c’ variety) grows out of an organic connection between people who want to preserve a ‘common life’ against the ravages of consumerist capitalism. When it is playing this useful role it functions outside the realm of politics understood as strife between parties committed to an ideological stance. Tellingly, the lead authors (Maurice Glasman, Adrian Padst and John Milbank) offer up Catholic Social Teaching (always capitalised, suggesting a body of work that is explicit and definitive) as their guide to what they claim is a ‘new’ politics. With this as its guiding light, Blue Labour comes across as being less than a rallying call for a new age of struggle against capitalism, and more of an appeal to be happy with your lot, working together across classes and interests to salvage something that might be represented as a common life.
The opponents of Blue Labour – socialists who fall on the liberal side of the great demarcation – are shown as doing the worst of their work in the 1960s when authority of all sorts became subject to an analytical reconstruction which arrived at the conclusion that human liberation required the overthrow of everything, from the most intimate matters relating to our private lives, loving parenthood, and the nation-state. What this ushered in was the epoch of the individual, existing in a world without roots or solidarities, and left to pursue a version of happiness that could only be obtained in a marketplace where he/she was configured as the sovereign consumer.
Sustaining this insistence on the conservative/liberal binary means that quite a few facts that don’t quite fit into the schema have to be repurposed to make sure that they do. The ‘traditional’ working class, to whose cause Blue Labour is pledged, are required to figure as innocents who have things done to them and who can be absolved from blame about the way things have turned out. It is as if no working class votes went in the direction of Mrs Thatcher in 1979 when she set out to end the post-war experiment in welfarism. Or that an even greater proportion went in direction a few years later when working class patriotism and militarism awarded her the spoils that came from victory in the Falklands War. Or that there were plenty of takers for the windfall gains that came from privatisation of public and mutual enterprises in the 1980s. Or the biggest bung of all, in the form of the ‘right-to-buy’ sell-off of council housing.
The essays in the book show that Blue Labour is eager to excuse hostility to immigrants which became more of a feature of the life of the commons as the older millennium turned into the new on the grounds that this was a reasonable response on the part of people who had a strong sense of coming from a definite ‘somewhere’, which they had experienced as ethnic homogeneity. The trope of the evil done by the ‘people from nowhere’ is seized on here, investing heavily in the reactionary idea that there really does exist a people who are entirely shown of knowledge of the experiences in life with formed their sense of selfhood. The vital strand of working class antiracism, admittedly minority but nonetheless active and real, is entirely washed over as the Blue Labour essayist insist that a social current resistant to xenophobia could only be forged by neoliberal commitment to the market.
Blue Labour stumbles on a number of occasions. It clearly regards Tony Blair as a culprit in bringing the world of today into existence, disregarding the fact that he was the champion of the ‘radical centre’ stance which they now wish to remake as their own. Like Blair they believe that what has been presented over generations as a politics of right and left can be rendered meaningless in a new settlement on which both conservatives and socialists can change the world by committing themselves to keeping things as they are.
With Catholic Social Teaching as its inspiration and a vision of a socialism of small spaces as its destination, Blue Labour shows itself for what it actually is: a humble petition to the ruling elites to be permission to live in enclaves that enjoy a degree of protection from the ravages of global capitalism. There is no programme for democratic mobilisation to be found in these pages, If the Blue Labourites seem to be keen for any sort of a scrap their ire is directed more against socialists of a more internationalist bent than anyone representing naked capitalist interests. This seems to be down to the fact that their strategy, such as it can be discerned, is ultimately about nothing more than putting a Blue Labour Labour Party in a position where it can wheedle concessions out of capitalism that tick the pretty minimalist communitarian boxes, on the understand that in return they will deliver a pliant labour force that will have no ambitions greater than taking home a wage at the end of week. A humble petition indeed!
It represents a sharp break with the tendencies which have become dominant on the left of the party in recent decades. These have raised a challenge to what are represented here as ‘virtues’ (“courage, justice, honour and integrity”) as the central motifs of a politics of transformation because they fail to provide a basis for critiquing the repressive tolerance of contemporary capitalism, which fuses large parts of working class consciousness to patriarchy, sexism, racism, consumerism and nationalism. The Blue Labour charge is that harping on about these things has proven unsettling to the perceptions of the world that have sustained family life and the communal solidarity that working people have needed over the years to stiffen their resolve in going up against capitalism.
Across the chapters in this collection political contest is represented as a face-off between liberalism and conservatism, and the ideologues of Blue Labour come down on the side of the latter. Liberalism has served to foist the individualising values of the market on working class communities and hence to loosen the ties that once encouraged people to stand and fight together for the things they believed in. Conservatism (of the small ‘c’ variety) grows out of an organic connection between people who want to preserve a ‘common life’ against the ravages of consumerist capitalism. When it is playing this useful role it functions outside the realm of politics understood as strife between parties committed to an ideological stance. Tellingly, the lead authors (Maurice Glasman, Adrian Padst and John Milbank) offer up Catholic Social Teaching (always capitalised, suggesting a body of work that is explicit and definitive) as their guide to what they claim is a ‘new’ politics. With this as its guiding light, Blue Labour comes across as being less than a rallying call for a new age of struggle against capitalism, and more of an appeal to be happy with your lot, working together across classes and interests to salvage something that might be represented as a common life.
The opponents of Blue Labour – socialists who fall on the liberal side of the great demarcation – are shown as doing the worst of their work in the 1960s when authority of all sorts became subject to an analytical reconstruction which arrived at the conclusion that human liberation required the overthrow of everything, from the most intimate matters relating to our private lives, loving parenthood, and the nation-state. What this ushered in was the epoch of the individual, existing in a world without roots or solidarities, and left to pursue a version of happiness that could only be obtained in a marketplace where he/she was configured as the sovereign consumer.
Sustaining this insistence on the conservative/liberal binary means that quite a few facts that don’t quite fit into the schema have to be repurposed to make sure that they do. The ‘traditional’ working class, to whose cause Blue Labour is pledged, are required to figure as innocents who have things done to them and who can be absolved from blame about the way things have turned out. It is as if no working class votes went in the direction of Mrs Thatcher in 1979 when she set out to end the post-war experiment in welfarism. Or that an even greater proportion went in direction a few years later when working class patriotism and militarism awarded her the spoils that came from victory in the Falklands War. Or that there were plenty of takers for the windfall gains that came from privatisation of public and mutual enterprises in the 1980s. Or the biggest bung of all, in the form of the ‘right-to-buy’ sell-off of council housing.
The essays in the book show that Blue Labour is eager to excuse hostility to immigrants which became more of a feature of the life of the commons as the older millennium turned into the new on the grounds that this was a reasonable response on the part of people who had a strong sense of coming from a definite ‘somewhere’, which they had experienced as ethnic homogeneity. The trope of the evil done by the ‘people from nowhere’ is seized on here, investing heavily in the reactionary idea that there really does exist a people who are entirely shown of knowledge of the experiences in life with formed their sense of selfhood. The vital strand of working class antiracism, admittedly minority but nonetheless active and real, is entirely washed over as the Blue Labour essayist insist that a social current resistant to xenophobia could only be forged by neoliberal commitment to the market.
Blue Labour stumbles on a number of occasions. It clearly regards Tony Blair as a culprit in bringing the world of today into existence, disregarding the fact that he was the champion of the ‘radical centre’ stance which they now wish to remake as their own. Like Blair they believe that what has been presented over generations as a politics of right and left can be rendered meaningless in a new settlement on which both conservatives and socialists can change the world by committing themselves to keeping things as they are.
With Catholic Social Teaching as its inspiration and a vision of a socialism of small spaces as its destination, Blue Labour shows itself for what it actually is: a humble petition to the ruling elites to be permission to live in enclaves that enjoy a degree of protection from the ravages of global capitalism. There is no programme for democratic mobilisation to be found in these pages, If the Blue Labourites seem to be keen for any sort of a scrap their ire is directed more against socialists of a more internationalist bent than anyone representing naked capitalist interests. This seems to be down to the fact that their strategy, such as it can be discerned, is ultimately about nothing more than putting a Blue Labour Labour Party in a position where it can wheedle concessions out of capitalism that tick the pretty minimalist communitarian boxes, on the understand that in return they will deliver a pliant labour force that will have no ambitions greater than taking home a wage at the end of week. A humble petition indeed!
March 4, 2025
A mixed bag. Contrary to many of the reviews on here, I actually think the more dense / academic essays were amongst the best. Argumentation within each essay was strong more often than weak.
Where this book crucially lacks, however, is coherency tying all of these disparate ideas together. At the end of practically each essay is a ~two page section attempting to do this, but they fail. These sections often rely too heavily on cliché, re-iteration instead of clarification, and generally don’t inspire.
Reading this a decade after its publishing made it clear that, despite well-thought out and reasonable positions, lack of a communicated, coherent and unified message was not only the downfall of this book, but of the movement altogether.
Where this book crucially lacks, however, is coherency tying all of these disparate ideas together. At the end of practically each essay is a ~two page section attempting to do this, but they fail. These sections often rely too heavily on cliché, re-iteration instead of clarification, and generally don’t inspire.
Reading this a decade after its publishing made it clear that, despite well-thought out and reasonable positions, lack of a communicated, coherent and unified message was not only the downfall of this book, but of the movement altogether.
January 2, 2019
I can’t quite make my mind up about this book.
On the one hand this is a very interesting read, especially for those of us feeling a little disaffected with Corbyn’s Labour. One of the books central premises - that culture and a sense of place - are important to a lot of British citizens, seems sound and a valuable contribution.
But on the other hand the book makes some pretty unsubstantiated assumptions on what the ‘common sense’ of the British people is, without much evidence. Indeed it doesn’t really consider how this ‘common sense’ could change, or whether it should change. In this way it’s a little uninspiring as a vision, and would tie Labour politicians just to trying desperately to reflect the (perceived) will of the people.
In terms of format, some excellent essays (especially from David Lammy) but repetitive at points.
On the one hand this is a very interesting read, especially for those of us feeling a little disaffected with Corbyn’s Labour. One of the books central premises - that culture and a sense of place - are important to a lot of British citizens, seems sound and a valuable contribution.
But on the other hand the book makes some pretty unsubstantiated assumptions on what the ‘common sense’ of the British people is, without much evidence. Indeed it doesn’t really consider how this ‘common sense’ could change, or whether it should change. In this way it’s a little uninspiring as a vision, and would tie Labour politicians just to trying desperately to reflect the (perceived) will of the people.
In terms of format, some excellent essays (especially from David Lammy) but repetitive at points.
January 22, 2023
At one time, I would have considered myself Blue Labour. The fascinating thing with this book is that it is routed in a period of time prior to Brexit that means you have odd contributions from authors. For example, David Lammy contributed to the book.
The idea behind this book is that Labour should abandon liberalism and return to its communitarian routes with leftwing economics, rightwing social views. I say left wing economics but it is highly anti-statist viewing government spending as bad and mutual groups as good. Patriotism, community and cooperation.
I give it three stars for a few reasons. Firstly it is rather dated. It thinks that Russia and Syria could be befriended (yes, that's turned out well...), makes it look rather like needing an update.
Secondly, it is very much an elitist book for how Labour should respond. Sounds odd but the Blue Labour tradition is very much MPs and political elites suggesting the problems of Labour. It is a top down vision of the Labour party.
Thirdly in many ways, Starmer is very much the Blue Labour leader. Tough on crime and punishment. Tough on immigration. Tight spending policies. Patriotism. Devolution and localism. Yet, no one is citing that as what Starmer stands for, which says that the book hasn't really influenced much in the Labour party other than the chattering class.
Fourthly, Blue Labour talks a lot about class. But the biggest predictor of voting isn't class but age. This feeds into the first point but I really think there are no analyses of age as a defining point of politics. I don't really think this book has anything to say for young people. Patriotism? What like young people love Britain? Localism? Since when did young people really want a locally centred politics (most young people move to the big cities). Given that millennials and Generation Z are hardly going to drift into communitarianism. And climate change isn't even in the index.
Fifthly, the ideas mentioned in the book only really outline one part of the electorate that Labour has been losing- the working class. Just who is the working class though? I think it is better to talk of the working class in the plural as working classes because it identifies that there aren't that much to unify a certain group of people who really are only unified in that they are all... well... work with their hands. The age of the large factory has gone and so have the working class with it. Do working class people have any solidarity these days?
So what would I summarise the book as? The book of Starmer that no one attributes to Starmer despite Starmer implementing much of its ideas. Sums up Blue Labour.
The idea behind this book is that Labour should abandon liberalism and return to its communitarian routes with leftwing economics, rightwing social views. I say left wing economics but it is highly anti-statist viewing government spending as bad and mutual groups as good. Patriotism, community and cooperation.
I give it three stars for a few reasons. Firstly it is rather dated. It thinks that Russia and Syria could be befriended (yes, that's turned out well...), makes it look rather like needing an update.
Secondly, it is very much an elitist book for how Labour should respond. Sounds odd but the Blue Labour tradition is very much MPs and political elites suggesting the problems of Labour. It is a top down vision of the Labour party.
Thirdly in many ways, Starmer is very much the Blue Labour leader. Tough on crime and punishment. Tough on immigration. Tight spending policies. Patriotism. Devolution and localism. Yet, no one is citing that as what Starmer stands for, which says that the book hasn't really influenced much in the Labour party other than the chattering class.
Fourthly, Blue Labour talks a lot about class. But the biggest predictor of voting isn't class but age. This feeds into the first point but I really think there are no analyses of age as a defining point of politics. I don't really think this book has anything to say for young people. Patriotism? What like young people love Britain? Localism? Since when did young people really want a locally centred politics (most young people move to the big cities). Given that millennials and Generation Z are hardly going to drift into communitarianism. And climate change isn't even in the index.
Fifthly, the ideas mentioned in the book only really outline one part of the electorate that Labour has been losing- the working class. Just who is the working class though? I think it is better to talk of the working class in the plural as working classes because it identifies that there aren't that much to unify a certain group of people who really are only unified in that they are all... well... work with their hands. The age of the large factory has gone and so have the working class with it. Do working class people have any solidarity these days?
So what would I summarise the book as? The book of Starmer that no one attributes to Starmer despite Starmer implementing much of its ideas. Sums up Blue Labour.
January 6, 2018
Interesting topic, but the essays do get repetitive. There were a few, including Frank Fields' and David Lammy's, that were fascinating. However, most of the essays were written in a dry, inaccessible format. Maybe this is good for a political science class, but as a casual read, even for politically nerdy me, it was a little much. I didn't get to finish.
June 10, 2020
Hit and miss, although horrifically over-criticised in bad faith by ideological opponents - not to mention the basic premises seem to have been proven right in the long term. Some of the article were flat out boring and unrevealing, but Lammy's entry and especially the chapter on Work & Meaning are particularly insightful and worth reading.
August 2, 2015
As Labour walks into its warm, dark room with its bottle of whiskey, notepaper and service revolver, reading this feels a little macabre - this being a set of ideas aimed at making it electable. Still, lots of interest here on - basically - reviving some of the qualities (including shedding a distaste for family and nation) that made it appealing in the first place. Some quite satisfying challenges to Guardian orthodoxies too (including the point that immigration benefits the wealthy and not the poor - uncomfortable as this may seem).
The most readable essays are by Ed West, Lammy, Frank Field and Cruddas (as in: people who can communicate and make an argument). The least are the usual poorly supported academic abstractions (what the fuck is 'meaning-making' to a guy delivering Domino's pizzas, pray?). "Support your argument with examples", we were always told at school and college. The academics were working on their footnotes and missed that.
Irrelevant for the present, but could be picked up in a few years. Ed Milliband just grabbed a few bits from it - principally the phrase 'One Nation'. That aside, some of it could still be salvageable.
The most readable essays are by Ed West, Lammy, Frank Field and Cruddas (as in: people who can communicate and make an argument). The least are the usual poorly supported academic abstractions (what the fuck is 'meaning-making' to a guy delivering Domino's pizzas, pray?). "Support your argument with examples", we were always told at school and college. The academics were working on their footnotes and missed that.
Irrelevant for the present, but could be picked up in a few years. Ed Milliband just grabbed a few bits from it - principally the phrase 'One Nation'. That aside, some of it could still be salvageable.
August 28, 2015
I found the book stimulating and particularly liked the essays by Ruth Davis, Rowenna Davis, Michael Merrick and David Goodhart. My only criticism was that the quality of writing was quite patchy. Some of the essays used a lot of technical terms, and we're heavy going whereas others, such as the one by Ruth Davis were models of clarity.
June 12, 2019
Completely changed my perspective on politics. Some incredible essays in this book that cover a wide range of topics - from the civil economy to immigration.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews