Why Simon Danczuk is wrong about Ed Miliband's Labour

On Monday, Labour MP for Rochdale Simon Danczuk gave an interview in the New Statesman in which he appeared to harshly criticise the current direction of Labour under Ed Miliband. His remarks in turn were picked up in several national papers, including anti-Labour papers like the Daily Mail, and forced him to issue a ‘clarification’ to the Mirror. Danczuk is known for speaking his mind and many of the criticisms he made are ones he has raised before, but coming as they do six weeks before a high-stakes general election, he has drawn significant fire from within the party.

Simon Danczuk MP speaking at the Political Studies
Association (Flickr, Nov 2014)

I’ll start by saying that there is much I like about Simon Danczuk. In some ways he represents a lot of what Labour genuinely does need more of in Westminster. As the NS piece stated, “Danczuk is one of a declining number of politicians from disadvantaged backgrounds that has made his way into politics”. He left school at 16 to work in a factory making gas fires before later attending Lancaster University as a mature student, reminding a chamber where a quarter of MPs were Oxbridge-educated that not everyone needs to cut their teeth in university (hence Labour’s promise of an apprenticeship for every school leaver who gets the basic grades). He was a successful small businessman before he entered politics – again something Labour needs more of on its benches, hence why Ed Miliband and shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna made it a focus of the Future Candidates Programme.

In 2004 Danczuk also founded a campaign group to help make the case for a North West regional assembly, showing he has long been an advocate of the kind of radical English devolution Labour is once again pledging if returned to government. He has been a frank voice in the difficult debate Britain has had to have about the prevalence of sexual abuse, both recent (Rotherham) and historic (Rochdale’s Cyril Smith, on whom Danczuk wrote an acclaimed book). He has long fought hard for Labour values, becoming a councillor at 27 and scoring an 889 vote victory against an incumbent Lib Dem in 2010, despite an anti-Labour tide nationally and Gordon Brown’s Gillian Duffy incident occurring in Rochdale. And while I question some of his statements, I do think he sincerely wants to reform politics and put Labour back in touch with voters.

But all the same, there is much that was wrong with his remarks. Let’s go through some of them.

“Any Labour politician that says to you they knock on a door and Ed Miliband is popular are telling lies. They’re just telling lies. It’s just not true…[Miliband] has an image of being more of a toff than David Cameron. That’s how the public see it. And what they mean by that is that he’s seen as more aloof. They’d prefer to go for a pint with David Cameron than they would with Ed Miliband, that’s the reality of it.”

I don’t think there’s many people, Labour MPs or otherwise, who would try and claim that Ed is the most popular thing since sliced bread, so I’m not sure who these liars Danczuk is so vehemently denouncing actually are. Danczuk’s claim about “who they’d prefer to go for a pint with” is also pretty much backed up by polls (although the “more of a toff than Cameron” bit certainly isn’t – over twice as many voters see Ed as in touch with their concerns than Cameron). Even Ed himself acknowledges the problems he has presenting himself to the public at times. He name-checked the frequent Wallace & Gromit comparisons in his very first conference speech in 2010 and in 2012, he self-deprecatingly remarked that "If spin doctors could design a politician, I suspect he wouldn't look like me".

But Ed is still the Labour leader and candidate for Prime Minister, and appearances aside, there are plenty of good reasons for that – I laid them out in an extended blog last year for anyone to read. In short, I think he has sought to reposition Labour to radically overhaul our economy and society, he has fought Labour’s liberal orthodoxies in order to put the party back in touch with the public on deep-seated cultural questions like immigration and national identity (more on that in a bit), he has proven his heft for the foreign policy aspect of Downing Street, and he is a man of great intellect and personal character. I also re-stated the wisdom of his current vision in a separate blog in January, after Ed’s approach was criticised by Tony Blair.

“Harriet Harman came out and said he [Miliband] was right to pose with the Sun newspaper and he was right to apologise for posing with the Sun newspaper,” says Danczuk. “And it’s that sort of double speak from politicians: how could he be right on both counts? That turns people off politics. So when somebody hears a politician say that, you know what they think, if you pardon the language: ‘what a fucking knob’. That’s the reality of it.”

I cringed at that Sun episode as well, but I also think the final months of this critical general election campaign are already being dominated by enough brand-new ephemeral nonsense, without us dredging up additional distracting bollocks from 2014 as well. As an aside, much as Blair did in January, Danczuk has subsequently tried to back-pedal away from his various remarks about Ed Miliband today, telling the Mirror that “I am not having a go at Ed Miliband. This wasn’t an attack on the leader at all. I want to see Ed Miliband in Downing Street.” Comparing that claim with some of remarks above (and others from the full NS interview), I’m reaching a conclusion that Harriet Harman is not the only politician who can engage in “double speak”.

NS: Danczuk adds that the party should listen to Maurice Glasman – the architect of Blue Labour – more. “I think that would help. If the party was more connected to the communities that we want to represent I think we’d do so much better from it. That’s why we should have people coming forward and getting into frontline politics.”

I couldn’t agree more. But I’d note that Jon Cruddas MP, another Glasman disciple, is Labour’s policy co-ordinator (Marc Stears, Jonathan Rutherford and other Blue Labour voices are also still very much present). Blue Labour could stand to be still-more embedded in party policy, and I wonder whether the community organising aspects of it are still too neglected, but Blue Labour/One Nation remains influential. And far from being too ‘liberal elite’ to embrace the Blue Labour agenda, as I’ve pointed out before, Ed Miliband has actually had to fight off criticisms from both the liberal-left Owen Joneses and neoliberal Tony Blairs of the party in order embed Blue Labour in the party’s current agenda (in 2011, Blair mocked Blue Labour as a “a Labour equivalent of warm beer and old maids bicycling”).

“I do think the party has almost been hijacked by what I’ve described previously as a north London liberal elite”

Concerns about the overbearing dominance of London in public life are common and to some extent justified – it’s one of the best arguments for the radical political devolution and economic rebalancing that Ed Miliband has already committed Labour to (proof in itself that he is not tone-deaf to the problem). But to me that’s all got more to do with the fact that a centralisation of economic and political power in any one place will always leave the rest of the population underrepresented and marginalised, pretty much regardless of where that one place is.

Meanwhile, “north London” being used as an epithet for elitism continues to irk me. In theory it’s a loose term that can cover an area including 2 million people. But even if you take it to mean what it usually does in this context (a lazy shorthand mostly for the boroughs of Camden and Islington, where the ‘liberal elite’ or ‘chattering classes’ are all meant to be found), that’s still 400,000 residents from many different backgrounds being used as a punchline. Here in Islington or over in Ed Miliband’s birthplace in Camden, privilege is never found far from areas of high deprivation (as a direct result, Islington is one of the most economically divided boroughs in England). Even where there is affluence, though, we at least buck a national trend in that it doesn’t seem to reliably translate into Toryism here. My Islington South MP Emily Thornberry may live in Barnsbury, but she fights hard for all her constituents affected by legal aid or welfare cuts (she was also raised partly in a council flat in Guildford, but that doesn’t fit the neat stereotypes either). Attacking our entire area is no better than that ill-judged, offensive tweet Danczuk rightfully denounced Thornberry for last year, or than one Conservative Lord’s description of Danczuk’s north of England heartland as a “desolate” place ripe for fracking. One Nation Labour has branded itself that for a reason – divide-and-rule is a Tory game. No part of Labour’s diverse electoral coalition can afford to succumb to it, especially with an election only weeks away.

“Now, if we as a political party think we’re above and beyond using [The Sun] for getting across to the electorate, then we’re on to a loser aren’t we?”

The natural rightward lean of the Murdoch press, Ed’s rightful criticisms of The Sun on phone-hacking and historic anger over Hillsborough in Labour’s Merseyside stronghold all make relations between the party and the nation’s most-read newspaper a bit tetchy, to say the least. But all that being said, Labour hasn’t been “above and beyond” reaching voters through The Sun. Here’s a link to one piece by Ed Balls for The Sun, and another. And here's one by Ed Miliband, and another. And another by Miliband, headlined “We will listen to YOUR fears on migrants”, which brings us promptly to the worst thing Danczuk said…

“[Labour] don’t speak on immigration because we’re afraid of upsetting certain sections of the London Labour party. You know, what about Rochdale where we have 600-800 asylum seekers? Where immigration is a massive problem.”

Last October after the party’s near-loss in Heywood, Danczuk wrote something in the Daily Mail blasting Labour’s supposed failure to address immigration as an issue. I agree with Danczuk that Labour cannot afford to be out of touch with mass public concern on immigration, something the party had arguably been too tin-eared about in the Blair era. But I nevertheless agreed with large parts of a counter-piece by the writer Blighty in The Economist, who queried many of Danczuk’s statements:

[Danczuk] "Labour can no longer ignore immigration"

[Blighty] “Labour really isn't doing that. Ed Miliband has given three big speeches on the subject. So has Yvette Cooper. The party has even made it the subject of a party political broadcast”

[Danczuk] "It’s as though we can only talk about the positive impact of immigration."

[Blighty] “No it isn't. Not even a bit. Politicians are forever alleging immigration's "unsettling effects" on neighbourhoods, its depression of wages, its strains on public services and the like”.

[Danczuk] "Ed Miliband may feel uncomfortable at talking about immigration because he’s the son of immigrants."

[Blighty] “In fact he rarely talks about immigration without invoking his parents, who were refugees from the Holocaust”. 

Blighty was correct to point out Danczuk’s habit of straw-manning Labour’s own position on immigration to suit his own rhetoric. But this week, the contradiction became even more jarring, as Danczuck’s fresh claim that Labour “don’t speak on immigration because we’re afraid of upsetting certain sections of the London Labour party” came only 10 days after Labour released its five-point general election pledge card (see below), on which a pledge for “Controls on immigration” is point four. Ritually denouncing your party for failing to do something it is already doing – and on an issue you stress you are passionate about - is a truly odd strategy

Labour's 2015 election pledge card, unveiled on February 14th

Also worrying were Danczuk’s references to the number of “asylum seekers” in Rochdale. One of the most positive shifts in the language of the immigration debate has been a refocusing in the past ten years or so on the issue of economic migration, in contrast to the dark days of the early/mid-noughties when “asylum seekers” (in strict definition meaning political refugees, but in practice often used then as sloppy shorthand for all migration) were so often demonised. Determining the right level and type of economic migration for the UK remains difficult, but I am proud that Britain offers safe haven to those fleeing persecution, as we are obligated to do by both international treaties we have signed and our own fundamental values as a country. Let’s not let ourselves fall back into bad habits.

And that’s all before we get to the other point Blighty put to Danczuk, which goes to the very core of Labour’s challenge on the issue of immigration.

[Blighty] “The biggest flaw in the piece is that it repeatedly demands that something be done...”

[Danczuk] "Labour can no longer ignore immigration", "raise the subject of immigration", "it troubles me that we in the Labour Party are not part of that conversation", "address some of the more challenging issues", "unless they are tackled head on by the Labour Party...", "they refuse to tackle one of the most important issues of our time", "he has no choice but to grasp the nettle."

[Blighty] “...without once saying what should be done. If Mr Danczuk is insinuating that Labour should confront voters with the facts about immigration (polling by Ipsos MORI last year found that they believe its rate to be three times what it is), make the positive case for it and concentrate on providing more housing, better jobs and more effective schools, then he should say so. If he is suggesting something different, he should spell that out too. Yet very rarely do any of those currently calling for his party to Do Something trouble themselves with such details. If they want more money spent on the immigration system, let them say so (and, preferably, where it should come from). If they want Britain to deny asylum to those fleeing oppression, let them say so. If they want it to end free movement by leaving the EU, let them say that. Darkly allusive comments about "tackling" the "issues" do Labour and the other mainstream parties no favours”

The reason Labour continues to struggle with immigration isn’t the failure to “raise the subject” or be “part of the conversation” – as I noted, Labour has already been doing that for a few years now. But voters feel that talk is cheap and they will weight actions over words - they remember Labour allowing mass Eastern European migration, so Ed Miliband’s focus on the issue from the powerless confines of opposition simply hasn’t done much (and even some genuine actions can be ignored if they don’t fit the prevailing narrative - e.g. Gordon Brown’s late establishment of a Points-Based System for non-EU migrants in 2008).

Further, insofar as Labour’s newfound public engagement and tougher rhetoric has been backed by concrete policy, Labour has four main ideas; no benefits to migrants for the first two years, maximum transition controls for EU migration, wage enforcement and bans on migrant-only agencies to prevent employers using migrants to undercut British workers, and ensuring that migrants working in public services speak English. These pledges do amount to a substantive policy shift and the public certainly do support these things, but people might well observe than it still doesn’t really amount to a pledge to curb migration to the degree strong majorities of the public would support. This is because it doesn’t. Recently Ed Miliband tried to explain Labour’s position on migrant benefits and wage enforcement to a BAE Systems electrician in Lancashire, Tom Baldwin, to which Mr Baldwin replied “We have too many people here, that’s why we’ve got all these people out of work” – that is essentially the discussion Labour is having with the public at large.

As keen as Labour is to try to bridge the gap with the public on the critical issue of immigration, the Tories have already proven that a crowd-pleasing “tens of thousands” pledge for non-EU migration levels simply isn’t deliverable. Pledges of this kind can therefore only serve to further erode public trust when they are inevitably broken (or would be economically suicidal if actually implemented – young migration balances out our ageing population, Britain’s economy does receive a boost from immigration and public services like the NHS have long been propped up by immigrants). A total reduction including EU migration would also involve ending free movement, which as Blighty noted, would require British withdrawal from the EU – Labour strongly opposes doing this, as the party believes that millions of British jobs and our position in the world depend in part on our EU membership. UKIP can of course claim it will do all three of these things and more, but as a party likely to have only 5 or 6 MPs after May, it will never have to implement them or deal with any of their consequences. Labour faces a much tougher challenge, attempting to balance its own sincere belief that immigration is overall a net positive for Britain with a desire not to neglect widely-held public concerns.

My best guess as to why Danczuk was vague on his exact proposals is simple. If he had a clear solution to the conundrum I just outlined, he would make it plain - even if his solutions were unpopular in the party, we already know has no problem speaking truth to power with the leadership and can trust he would bring them forth. He also stated in his Mail piece that “As a Labour MP with the biggest immigration caseload in the North West I certainly know about the benefits of immigration, about how it has enriched our country”, presumably implying that he doesn’t want Labour to go full-hilt UKIP and pull up the drawbridge entirely.

I have therefore concluded that he has no better idea on how Labour should actually approach immigration, and so is instead just grasping at the straw of mostly just “addressing” the issue. That's fine. But if it's the case, I resent him presenting himself as the only enlightened one and doing down a party leader who is doing his best to navigate a difficult issue that has no clear solutions, especially when we are weeks from an election that will dictate the life chances of millions of struggling people in our country. Put up or shut up, Simon.