Not Now And Not This Way: The Labour and Green parties have announced their new “Understanding” far too soon; without preparing the electorate or priming the news media; without securing real and valuable gains for both partners; without carefully gauging the reaction of both their members and their voters; and without having straightforward answers to journalists’ straightforward (and entirely predictable) questions.
AS SO OFTEN HAPPENS when I appear on Paul Henry’s morning
show, a host of lefties have devoted the rest of the day to disowning me.
Underpinning their criticism is a strongly held belief that anyone billed as
“left-wing” has a duty to stick up for Team Red – no matter what. Independent
critical analysis is not considered helpful. Whenever someone like Paul Henry
asks someone from the Left for their opinion, the only acceptable response,
apparently, is: “Hooray for our side!”
But whatever else I may be, I am not a cheerleader. If I
believe the Labour and Green parties have announced their new “Understanding”
far too soon; without preparing the electorate or priming the news media;
without securing real and valuable gains for both partners; without carefully
gauging the reaction of both their members and their voters; and without having
straightforward answers to journalists’ straightforward (and entirely
predictable) questions; then I reserve the right to speak bluntly and critically
about these deficiencies.
I further think that it is especially important to give
voice to my misgivings if the deficiencies I’ve observed suggest a host of even
bigger problems behind the scenes.
For months now there has been much discussion “inside the
beltway” of Labour’s deep-seated financial difficulties. The slightest
suggestion that a person might harbour left-wing sympathies has been enough to
earn them a deluge of begging e-mails from Andrew Little and other Labour
politicians. People make a joke of it, but those who know something about
political fundraising are only too aware that these are the tactics of
desperation.
It gets worse. Just last week the veteran political
journalist, Richard Harman, writing on his “Politik” blog, suggested that
Labour’s membership might now be less than the Greens. If true (and Richard is
no slouch when it comes to acquiring “usually reliable” sources) that would
indicate a total of, at most, 5,000. Some have gone so far as to say that if
the number of affiliated trade union members is subtracted from that total,
then there may actually be fewer than 2,000 paid-up ordinary members in the
whole party.
This is the kind of information that a political analyst
draws upon when confronted with an event like yesterday’s announcement. And so,
because I cannot pretend to be unaware of Labour’s difficulties, I will not
characterise Labour’s decision to strengthen its relationship with the Greens
as anything other than a desperate concession of organisational and electoral weakness.
Indeed, were I a member of the Labour Caucus, I would be demanding to read the
fine print of this new “Red-Green Alliance”.
Even were Labour coming at this from a position of strength,
I would be doubtful of its efficacy. The historian in me reacts badly when
people cite the example of 1998 – when Labour and the Alliance finally decided
to end their civil war. The punishment meted out to both parties by the voters
in 1996 had transformed the theoretical arguments in favour of reconciliation
into objective psephological fact. Both Jim Anderton and Helen Clark knew they
had to respond to the wishes of their core constituencies, and they did so with
tremendous theatricality. In their superbly choreographed television embrace,
centre-left voters saw the beginning of the end of Jenny Shipley’s turncoat
government. Clark, quoting Dickens’ A
Tale of two Cities, called it “The Spring of Hope”.
The skill with which the coming together of Labour and the
Alliance was communicated to the electorate spoke volumes about the readiness
of both parties for the rigors of office. The gimcrack quality of yesterday’s
(31/5/16) announcement: a hastily cobbled together presser in the old
Legislative Chamber; likewise had a story to tell.
It is the story of an exhausted and impecunious political
organisation. A party stumbling towards its 100th anniversary in
desperate need of support – any support.
It is also the story of a younger and much more vital party desperate for its
chance to exercise real power, and absolutely determined that it will not, once
again, be robbed of its chance at the eleventh hour.
Such is my understanding of the Labour-Green
“Understanding”.
Those who think they’ve witnessed a marriage made in
electoral heaven – should think again.
This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Wednesday, 1 June 2016.
