“Not My Cup of Tea”: Why Mainstream’s National Coordinator Left Me Unconvinced

In my capacities as Deputy Chair of Warwick Labour (a title I’m getting the most out of now, set to lose it as I am in the next week or so), I get to regularly engage with many an interesting Labour figure. It is, therefore, a testament to Mainstream’s National Coordinator, Luke Hurst, that I’ve penned an article inspired by a compelling talk he recently gave. 

Before getting to the crux of the issue, it has to be said that Hurst was a courteous and captivating speaker, and thus, while I will criticise the trademark Mainstream message he provided, it is intended, above all else, to be a friendly and constructive critique – though they don’t always go down so well. Though we come from the same partisan lineage, Hurst and I evidently don’t sing from the same hymn sheet, and that’s okay; ‘tis the nature of a broad-church political party. But if we fail to articulate a discussion of what we ought to be doing internally, we’re going to fail in narrating it on the doorsteps of the nation. Shifting on from polite formalities, my criticism can be summarised through the combined form of two telling idioms: Mainstream is missing the forest for the trees, while anticipating turkeys will vote for Christmas. 

Mainstream is known largely to the British media as a vehicle designed to help propel Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to Downing Street. While this overly simplifies the purpose of this new Labour group, home of the party’s so-called ‘radical realists’, it serves as a particularly telling focal point of the organisation’s objectives. According to Hurst, Burnham was one of the last to sign Mainstream’s founding statement, yet he revealingly sits atop its list of signatories. While Hurst was eager to distance the organisation from labels of being a Burnham political action committee, no outsider could confidently call such an accusation too far askew. But with this key goal in mind, a conflict arises between Mainstream’s ends and means. 

Hurst talked at length about modernising Labour’s internal structures, including instituting pluralism and ensuring the primacy of conference delegates in crafting party policy. Democratisation, specifically within the party and through Britain’s economic systems, is a key part of Mainstream’s agenda, with Hurst citing Burnham’s success in Manchester as evidence in favour of such an approach. Yet, the delivery of this policy contradicts the practical implications of bottom-up decision-making. In a hypothetical world in which Burnham was Prime Minister, would he spend his limited time painstakingly convincing Labour members to support his fiscal policies, or would he do what every effective government does, and whip MPs ahead of Parliamentary divisions? It’s not as if the organisation’s soft-left values are widely heralded. Mainstream’s newfound pluralist Labour would be open to assault from the right of the party, such as Streeting, from the blue faction, such as Mahmood, and from members further to the left who feel such an approach doesn’t go far enough. Since there wouldn’t inherently be a consensus on the policy, Labour would be left with even greater reason to internally bicker as opposed to govern for the British people.

Does Labour need to construct a proper governing narrative, reconnect with itself, and form a definitive answer to what Streeting effectively referred to as the ‘why Labour’ issue? Without a doubt. But the approach of pluralisation will only achieve that if there was consensus, which there isn’t in a party which, as mentioned, is an extremely broad church. The competing factions of Old Labour, Blue Labour, New Labour, and the slightly less semantically compelling soft-left Labour have seldom agreed on anything. If they were all squabbling over direction, the most powerful faction, which in our hypothetical would be the latter, would take the reins, regardless of whether they claim that they wouldn’t. Mainstream’s narrative assumes universal, or at least supermajoritarian, support, but such support fails to materialise. Factionalism pervades such reform and only hurts Labour’s capacity to govern by centring on internal divisions, as opposed to accepting (and largely bypassing) them. 

Hurst referred to electoral reform, specifically a switch to proportional representation, as a core example of Mainstream’s democratisation agenda, and how change under Burnham would be viewed as an opportunity, not a pitfall. While I agree we need a switch to proportional representation, even as a policy supporter, it’s clear that Mainstream’s solution fails to accept its structural realities. At its conferences, Labour has long backed the move, as have many Labour MPs, but no leading party with the means to change the voting system wants to deploy change which will hurt its ability to govern. The same would undoubtedly apply to a Mainstream government under Burnham. 

In achieving the installation of a comprehensive soft-left system in Britain, as the organisation undoubtedly envisions, you need loyal MPs who are willing to be lobby fodder; you need the Parliamentary Labour Party to take the rough with the smooth.  Further, given that one term in government isn’t long enough to change the country, you need sufficient means of majoritarian reelection. A Mainstream Labour government, if succeeding in terms of policy delivery and therefore assumedly in the polls, categorically wouldn’t risk setting fire to its own project to pursue an idealistic urge. Again, the ends of what Mainstream wants to achieve and how it means to achieve it clash, and as with every government, the ends would receive greater favour. 

Mainstream has to its credit correctly recognised several flaws facing the contemporary Labour Party. Their solutions, however, remain hazy and, at best, overly optimistic, if not structurally inconsiderate. As mentioned in this piece’s intro, this isn’t my clique of the party, but the criticisms presented here aren’t bound to ideological premises. Instead, they’re practical observations about why Mainstream doesn’t resonate with me and others of the non-soft-left political sect. Regardless of whether your answer to the question ‘Is Burnham Labour’s knight in shining armour?’ is an emphatic yes or a malaise-ridden no, Mainstream still needs to address these concerns with a more convincing response than just being different. 

Following the conclusion of Hurst’s engaging if unconvincing remarks, I turned to a friend of mine eager to hear his take on it all. I had to rush off to catch a bus, and thus, unfortunately, didn’t have time to get into the nitty-gritty. So instead I asked him to sum up his thoughts in three words, to which he bartered for five, leaving me with perhaps the perfect reaction to the messages Hurst intended to convey: “not my cup of tea”. I couldn’t have put it better, so I won’t try to.

Image: Flickr/World Economic Forum (Faruk Pinjo)

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