After weeks of development, I have finally come up with Labour’s election slogan for the 2019 general election: ‘Take Back Control.’ It is so blindingly obvious I wonder why no-one else has thought of it. I know it was used by the Brexit crowd during the referendum, but I don’t think they copyrighted it. Why would it have been good for 2019? So far as Brexit is concerned, Labour could have portrayed the Tory Brexit mess in a different light, and inter alia our solution—a second referendum. But the slogan’s use could have extended well beyond Brexit. At every opportunity Corbyn could have prefaced his answers with take back control—of rogue landlords, or chaotic rail services, multinational rip offs—the list is endless and would under this single motto have demonstrated what real control means. Particularly so since in the last three years Brexiteers have signally failed to show what ‘control’ really means. More power to people or more power to elites? Thinking about it, it should be the driving mission statement of Labour in this coming year. Now we can’t stop Brexit, so we must define what taking control means—and contrast that with the pro-elite version which will be pursued by Johnson (with or without his bribes to the North).
Labour should now promote with vigour some of the key elements of its manifesto, e.g. the green transformation, some re-nationalisations (particularly rail and water) and the housing agenda. It should discard policies which no matter how desirable did not convince voters of our seriousness. Very expensive pledges on WASPI women, tuition fees and free broadband did not sound thought out and were presented half heartedly. No-one believed in them. Some policies will unite the party quickly, particularly on housing. After watching a clip of a recent, post-election speech by Tony Blair, predictably excoriating Corbyn’s Labour (despite the fact he did better in votes than in 2005 when Blair won) I thought I would take a look to see what magical remedies the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) was coming up with. Here’s one proposal for housing: ‘A new Sovereign Property Fund to support property acquisition by local councils for the express purpose of housing construction and rehabilitation.’ That appears on the TBI website and was dated 2017. What appeared in Labour’s 2019 Manifesto? What a co-incidence: [in the first 100 days] ‘Set up a new English Sovereign Land Trust to buy, assemble and co-ordinate the delivery of new homes.’ I suspect that sprinkled though the 2019 manifesto there may be other examples of such policy sharing with bodies like TBI. There is room here to create a dialogue which does not rely on simplistic criticisms, in which I include Blair’s reference in his speech to voters not liking Corbyn’s alleged dislike of ‘western values’ (whatever they are) or his parroting of the anti-Semitism smear. Well, we can live in hope.
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