Labour pains

I can't find anything positive in the news that seven MPs have left Labour and will now stand against it. Although I disagree with the politics of most of the seven, if you believe that cognitive diversity has value you have to think that Labour becoming a narrower church is a bad thing. And no-one with a brain (which, sadly, apparently rules out some people on the Left) can listen to Luciana Berger and not take it seriously. Yesterday was a bad day.

But what actually depresses me is the potential this group has to close down politics again. When you look at many of the people who are enthusiastic about the split, and you read the initial statement of intent, it is clear that this is not "new politics" at all. The framing is 1990s "radical centre" type stuff. And it's clear that many of those involved with this and other similar initiatives do not want to break with the past, they want to return to it. It seems that they see the problem being that politics in its 1990s/noughties version has been displaced, and needs to be reinstated.

I really would not get out of bed for that. I've not enjoyed the last decade of UK politics much, but one sliver of hope has been the willingness of people on the Left to start asking some proper questions about political economy again. Too much of this has been backward-looking. But willingness to at least discuss issues again, and test out ideas that are to Left of where people expect Labour to be as well as to the Right, is what has generated so much enthusiasm. In contrast, voices from the Right of Labour have been continually stuck on "you can't do that". I bet that alone explains a lot of Corbyn's support.

In contrast, my expectation is that the Independent Group, especially if it is bolstered by Tory defectors, will seek to position itself as being mindlessly "pro business" and, in my experience, this type of approach is the way to kill new ideas at birth. Nothing of significance on corporate governance or ownership policy has come from business or financial lobby groups in recent years. Rather any public policy interventions from them have repeatedly aimed behind where interesting ideas are in order to slow down and stifle reform.

No doubt "socially responsible" business lobbyists will be crawling over the Independent Group already with interesting ideas that, coincidentally, will push the pendulum back towards the status quo. (And given the group's stated desire to be "evidence-based" rather than "ideological" you have to think that status quo bias is already alive and well).

I fear that politics - at least in my back yard - may get more boring.