Labour’s dismal lockdown performance

We need an opposition who oppose the dismantling of ancient civil liberties, not one who cheers it on and claim such encouragement is based on a sentiment of national pride.

Early this year a Labour party internal strategy presentation was leaked to The Guardian. To recapture support from ‘red wall’ constituencies following the landslide defeat to the Tories in 2019, an emphasis on the symbols of national-identity politics was recommended. Allegedly, voters would be won back by changing “the party’s body language” with flags, patriotism and “dressing smartly”.

Earlier this month, Kier Starmer broadcast his support for the institution of Plan B coronavirus restrictions. He and his spin doctors had not forgotten the advice to play the part of a flag-waving patriot.

Starmer, with a flaccid Union Jack to his right, asserted that “[Labour] are a Patriotic Party, and it’s our patriotic duty to vote for [Plan B] measures to ensure that they go through”. He added “in doing so we are supporting the NHS and supporting our country”.

A naïve anthropologist studying the people of Britain would be forgiven for concluding that we worshipped a deity called Enaitchess. Who knows what they would make of a politician claiming a connection between British patriotism and health ID cards or veils for the bottom half of the human face?

Though perhaps they would begin to doubt his faith in Enaitchess, upon learning that he was offering his support for legislation that would likely deprive the country of tens of thousands of health care workers, who had not accepted an offer of a Covid-19 vaccination or were content to defer their decision for the moment.

This transparent attempt at manipulating excluded and marginalised former core-voters by having a national emblem nearby or throwing in words like “patriotic” where they are clearly unwarranted, is not persuasive. As long as Starmer and co believe the problem was Jeremy Corbyn’s sympathy for the IRA or that he dressed scruffily, they will continue to be rejected by the public. The Labour Party are facing the consequences of alienating blue-collar supporters across decades.

In the meantime, they are likely to feel a backlash from student voters on whom they depend. It will also become even less probable that they will win back any of the Scottish constituencies they need to have a hope of forming a parliamentary majority again.

If they really wanted to win voters back, they could have reminded SAGE of the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf and punished the Government for their U-turn back towards the bio-authoritarian dystopia it seemed like we were escaping from. But this is about as likely as them abolishing the minimum wage or condemning the ‘taking of the knee’.

We already have a party who make trivial displays of emotionally stirring national symbols for propaganda purposes. We do not need another. We need an opposition who oppose the dismantling of ancient civil liberties, not one who cheers it on and claim such encouragement is based on a sentiment of national pride.