Hearts and minds

We are living in a period of increased illiberalism. In the US, the Trump administration is defined by its illiberalism; from the UK right comes a discourse on Britishness and ethnicity that excludes Britons from their own Britishness. After the racist riots of 2024, this summer saw misinformation spread about the policing of protests around asylum accommodation in Epping. A Reform UK politician recently queried the role of women in the police.

I do not believe that Britain is an illiberal country when it comes to, for example, views about being British. Data from the British Social Attitudes Survey backs up this view. But I do think we are seeing increased illiberalism, and anti-liberalism, in our politics, perhaps in part influenced by the increasingly extreme far right politics in the US. The Labour party has a responsibility, as a government and as a centre-left political tradition, to counter this illiberalism, which takes different forms.

Past Liberal thinkers – including William Beveridge and John Maynard Keynes – made hugely significant contributions to Britain’s – and Labour’s – postwar story. The social democratic tradition developed over the last century and half delivers important liberal goals as part of a collective, shared endeavour: individual flourishing within strong communities and through collective action. The current Labour government should be more confident in its social democratic ideology. That includes the left-liberal component that upholds and strengthens universal rights, defends a shared concept of humanity, permits dissent in a healthy democratic polity, and trusts in public policies that we know deliver on Labour values and strengthen our society – in both the short and the long term.

The case for greater liberalism is not accepted by everyone within the Labour party. Most obviously, the Blue Labour faction privileges a conservative component within Labour’s ideology. Today’s Blue Labour thinking, as Marc Stears recently argued, is Trump-inspired in someways. Amid Trump’s politics, Labour’s liberal politics just won’t work – so goes the Blue Labour argument. Maurice Glasman recently told the Observer that he wanted to see welfare cuts, and criticised Labour politicians defending ‘free stuff’. An MP sympathetic to Blue Labour was ‘happy ‘to say the higher education sector – full disclosure, I work in a UK university – should be hollowed out. A Blue Labour policy statement suggested Labour should be opposed to equality, diversity and inclusion policies.

These are bad ideas. Blue Labour thinkers seem to believe that defeating left liberalism is key to Labour’s success. Yet that ignores the progress that has been, and can, be made through Labour’s social democratic political tradition: life-changing public services like Sure Start, equalities legislation to tackle discrimination, a human rights framework to challenge decision-making, to name a few.

Enhancing Labour’s liberalism

These debates can appear rather abstract – a distraction when many in politics want to be ‘getting on with the job’. But ideological debates matter, including when a party is in office. Whether intentionally or through circumstance, governments can become inconsistent by following the ups and downs of the political agenda. Having a coherent ideology is an underappreciated way of avoiding or managing a busy, unpredictable political environment. Indeed, it may be that Blue Labour gets so much attention in part because some of the people involved speak in very ideological ways: they talk about conservatism, liberalism, socialism and capitalism. Social democrats should be encouraged to do this, too. To be ideological is not to be dogmatic. It is to talk about your understanding of the world and why you think it makes sense. And it is something Keir Starmer should do more of.

In relation to Labour’s liberalism, I would highlight the government’s approach to migration as a key area where it needs to act with more confidence. There are many others that could be discussed too; I am sure some are springing to the reader’s mind right now. I have opted for migration because of the attention it has received in Labour’s first year or so in office, and the connection to Labour’s social democratic-liberal tradition: the liberty and freedom of the individual, within an egalitarian politics that believes in shared provision, and a ‘common endeavour’. Some undoubtedly positive moves have come from the government: cancelling the Rwanda scheme, for example. Bridget Phillipson’s rhetoric on international student migration has also marked a welcome change, and the government as a whole – no doubt with significant input from the Department for Education – announced the continuation of a right to remain in the UK after graduation for a period, albeit reduced to 18 months.

In other areas, policymaking has gone in an illiberal direction, including around settlement and citizenship rules. But the area I wish to focus on in particular, and where Labour’s liberalism has very obviously been in retreat, is the government’s overall position on migration as encapsulated in its political rhetoric. Here, Keir Starmer’s comments on migration have been deeply troubling.

I wrote in my pre-election book, Getting Over New Labour, that while a migration bureaucracy is clearly necessary, migration policymaking is located within a wider politics that includes racism, misinformation, and scapegoating. It is the responsibility of Labour politicians to influence this wider political environment, and to contribute both values and evidence to the debate. The prime minister’s rhetoric on migration has fallen short, to say the least. He has since expressed some regret for his choice of words, among them the suggestion that the UK risked becoming an ‘island of strangers’. Yet the Labour leadership’s approach to migration has, for sometime, played with fire. Attacking the Conservatives for ‘a one-nation experiment in open borders’, for example, chose political attack over progressive politics.

Since the summer, and the attention Nigel Farage and Reform UK have received, the government has appeared even more reactive, and even less confident in its values. With the level of net migration now on a downwards trajectory, Labour should have seized this moment to disaggregate the statistics in public policy terms, and to reframe the debate in terms of the (perfectly good) reasons for issuing visas to enter the UK. Policy debates can then be had around the work, study and family routes, with a focus on the evidence and centred around real choices that people can engage with. On asylum policy, it is welcome that the government has recognised the only way to fully address small boat crossings is an agreement with the French government. Yet the pilot scheme announced is some distance from what is required. A UK-French process for applicants in France is key. That way, people can access a clear, rights-respecting asylum process. This would reduce small boat crossings as well as the number of people awaiting a decision in the UK.

Conclusion

Labour’s agency – its power to influence our politics and the ideas that feed into it – has appeared somewhat limited in office. In relation to the prime minister specifically, some notable interventions have been recognised as mistakes, and seemed to – whether through accident or design – emphasise the agendas of rival political forces. One of those forces is illiberalism, coming from parts of the British right: something that may partly define the next election and the years beyond. Labour needs the confidence to challenge these ideas, and to use its political capital in ways that can further a longstanding, contrasting set of values. In the face of illiberalism, we should defend liberalism.

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