Labour has to start telling a story about Britain’s past, present and—more importantly— its future

In his keynote party conference address Keir Starmer indicated that he wants to reclaim patriotism as a principle and thread that runs through everything the Labour Party stands for.

This on the surface might sound uncontroversial but it isn’t. The Corbynistas had an instinctive opposition to all things patriotic and to many of the traditional symbols and institutions of Britishness.

More than this the Conservative Party have long claimed patriotism as their own. In response, many on the left have conceded this ground—with Labour historically uneasy about how it champions the country and its history which it aspires to govern and change.

Labour prides itself on its rich history and values and these were centre-stage in Starmer’s speech. Central to this was reclaiming Labour’s record in office and its leaders who won post-war elections and led governments: Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson, and Tony Blair.

This points to the future terrain of a politics of patriotism for Labour—of understanding and championing its own record as a party of patriotism—a party which made the best of Britain through the extension of democracy, standing up to fascism, advancing worker and consumer rights, and freedom and equality under the law.

For the message to have real value, a couple of key examples from the party’s past should be at the cornerstone of how it sees itself, its past achievements, and the story it tells of its role in the best of Britain.

Take the watershed events of May 1940 which saw Winston Churchill become prime minister, with Attlee and Labour entering a coalition government and taking on responsibility for the home front.

If the Corbynistas had known their party history better they would have known that the fate of Britain was decided by the machinations of Labour internal democracy. In the critical days of May 1940 Neville Chamberlain considered his plight as prime minister after the defining “Norway debate” in the Commons had seen him win the vote numerically, but lose the argument, with many Tory MPs voting against their government or abstaining in a vote of confidence.

Chamberlain knew dramatic action was needed and hung onto office as long as he could. His premiership was ultimately decided by the Labour Annual Conference meeting in Bournemouth, with the party’s NEC debating whether they could—and ultimately declining to—support Chamberlain. Labour said they would enter government, but not under Chamberlain who resigned, and when Halifax ruled himself out the path was clear for Churchill to become prime minister.

Similarly once Churchill arrived in Downing Street, central to the war cabinet discussions held over three days —whereby the prime minister outmanoeuvred Chamberlain and Halifax on the possibility of opening peace talks with the Nazis—were Labour’s Clement Attlee and deputy leader Arthur Greenwood. They were staunchly opposed to exploring talks at a moment of British weakness and which would send the wrong signal to the enemy. Attlee and Greenwood were pivotal in Churchill’s formation of the case for continuing the war. The rest is history.

Take the three titanic electoral contests between Attlee and Churchill: 1945, 1950, 1951. On each of the three occasions Labour polled more votes than the Tories, only losing office in 1951 due to a quirk in the distribution of parliamentary seats. Winston Churchill, the great Tory leader, was prime minister for nine years, but not once did he win the popular vote.

A left patriotism has to entail advocating and championing the cause of democratisation and Labour’s role in its progress and the work done to take on the forces of privilege and inequality. One seldom mentioned achievement of Labour’s time in office was the party’s legislation which brought about one member, one vote on an equal franchise.

This occurred 20 years later than many people think when, in 1948, Labour abolished plural voting in the form of business voting and university voting whereby graduates had a second vote and even their own constituencies. This form of separate development was ended by the Attlee government who removed this gerrymandering and built-in advantage to the Tories in British constitutional arrangements.

Labour has its own British story to tell with numerous achievements and milestones to be proud of across the spectrum of economic and social rights, equality, diversity and respect, as well as extending democratisation and human rights, while calling time on the indefensible ways the forces of reaction and privilege have defended their vested interests.

The party has historically shied away from trumpeting this for a number of reasons. One is that mainstream Labour has been constrained by the claim from the left of the party that everything to do with patriotism and telling a story about Britain is reactionary. Not to mention the fear of the omnipotence of the Tory Party claiming that this territory belongs naturally to them.

But there is another factor at play. That is the deep-seated anxieties that senior Labour figures have had about the degree to which they can dare to consider changing Britain. In the party’s own DNA there is a sense that what Andrew Gamble calls “the conservative nation” which speaks beyond the Tory Party and offers support to the ideas of the right might be the true spirit of Britain. It has not helped that the Labour leadership down the years have clung to a conservative interpretation of Britain—on the constitution, on dispersing power, and on where the UK sits internationally and geo-politically. Why vote for the ambivalent conservatives when you can have the real thing?

Labour cannot go on leaving the politics of patriotism, nations and national identity exclusively to the right. Its failures on this are legion—one of which is its continual embarrassment to say anything about England as a democratic space and modern nation.

As the UK faces the multiple crises of Covid-19, Brexit and a fractured union, Labour has to dare to tell its own story of a Britain that is progressive, enlightened and humane which Labour advanced in the past—one that Boris Johnson’s Tories fall scandalously short of and are trashing and humiliating as we speak.

Labour have to find the confidence to champion and make Britain the best it can be, drawing on the past to become a party of the future. This starts with being proud of its achievements and daring to be critical when present day Britain falls well below the standards of a modern democracy.