A democratic political party needs an ideology. This should not be a fanatical one, a single issue, nor a religious obsession, but rather a long-lasting foundational assumption for leaders, members, and voters of that party, acting as a unifier, a driving force, a direction of travel, and as a policy frame and anchor. Without such an ideology, a political party becomes a mere collection of policies and people, subject to change at whim.
The Conservative Party ideology is capitalism
The Conservative Party and other right-wing parties do have an ideology, which they pursue with constancy. That ideological stance, shared with Reform UK, is capitalism. With its associated neo-liberal agenda, this economic frame largely benefits business and the owners of capital, but disbenefits labour and the population at large.
Some of the ideas underlying capitalism are:
- the profit-orientated private sector works more efficiently and cost-effectively than state-run enterprises;
- business needs supporting and encouraging with the lowest possible taxes;
- regulations about everything, from the media and DEI to the environment and product standards, should be abolished, neutered, defunded, or minimised, to allow business to operate and flourish without constraint;
- labour needs to be kept in its place with minimal pay and rights, consistent with retaining key staff with generous pay;
- a large state sector is organically flabby and over-staffed with unnecessary bureaucrats and rules, operating too many regulations which hamper and constrain business; and
- a small state sector requires fewer and lower taxes to sustain it.
In office for much of the last 45 years, the Conservative Party privatised much of the previously state-run economy. The UK has long been a mixed economy, but the nature of that mixture has, as a result, moved decisively towards a mainly privatised economy. Few outposts of state-run or non-private enterprises remain, such as local government, the Bank of England, the BBC, the NHS, the immigration service, law courts, and some institutions and charities.
Capitalism encompasses further attitudes:
- people should keep more of their own money by paying less tax, becoming more inclined to work hard and less dependent on state support;
- an antipathy towards a higher-tax social democracy European model;
- a preference for independent UK sovereignty, to permit the strongest version of capitalism possible;
- hostility towards immigration (including asylum), with its consequential prospect of a dilution of ‘Englishness’, whiteness and Christianity; and
- a visceral hatred for the drive towards net zero, implying as it does a downgrading of the privately-run fossil fuel market which is owned and run by many Tory and Reform donors.
Austerity and deregulation
Successive Tory governments implemented a harsh austerity programme by cutting welfare and public services, designed to reduce the size of the state and the need for taxes to support it; and implemented a hard Brexit, designed in part to free business from regulation by a state-run, administrative, democratic enterprise. These were foundational reforms, in the sense that they profoundly changed the way the country was run and the lives of the population.
But Britain now is a relatively poorer and more divided country than it was in 1979, when Margaret Thatcher first became Prime Minister. Vital public services, local government, international development, and the arts lack funding. Economic growth rates, manufacturing industries, and new start-ups have declined, as have our armed forces and security services. Public confidence in the police has declined. The justice system is not fit for purpose. Young people face financial difficulties, while both inequality and regional disparities continue.
The Tories, following their ideology, changed Britain profoundly.
The state of Labour
Labour secured a large House of Commons majority at the 2024 general election. But it didn’t hit the ground running with well-prepared plans to secure a major reversal in Britain’s declining fortunes and create the change on which they had campaigned. The government is now criticised by its own supporters for lacking direction (i.e. having no fundamental ideology or purpose), managing the process of government on a survival basis and just weathering the usual storms related to budgets, programmes, and personnel.
The Labour Party, as its founding ideology, sought to protect and advance the working classes against exploitation by capitalism.
Labour now embraces a mixed economy (the main ingredient of which derives from Tory ideology), with benefits shared between capitalists and working classes as the best way to improve living standards for the population at large. It has therefore moved on from its strong founding ideology of automatic opposition to the unfairness of capitalism, embodied in Clause IV of its founding constitution, which commits to democratic socialism and common ownership.
A new direction and ideology for Labour – social democracy
There is no current functioning ideological opposition to capitalism. Communism and pure versions of socialism were discredited by the Soviet, Chinese, and Cuban experience.
New Statesman editor, Tom McTague, proposes an alternative:
“The Epstein files are a reminder of the guiding purpose of social democracy itself…to democratise economic power through the ballot box. And today, we can even add to this mission a new and even more existential goal: to save liberal democracy from oligarchic authoritarianism. The Labour Party must return to its original mission, namely, to exert political control over the market to protect the interests of ordinary people. In a world of global capital, tax havens, multinational corporations – and the shadow world of power brokers revealed in the Epstein files – the purpose of social democracy should be obvious.”
Following McTague, social democracy should become the new Labour ideology. This is for two reasons.
Firstly, the UK’s current democracy is seriously under threat from extremely well-funded MAGA-style far-right forces, based on Hungary’s illiberal democracy, as has recently occurred in the USA. There, democracy has been undermined by the Republican Party and its wealthy supporters, through corruption of the political, media, and business systems.
“At every level, ever since the Reagan Revolution, the heart of Republican policies has been the naked corruption of our American political and economic systems” (Thom Hartmann).
The outcome is what we are seeing today under the Trump Presidency – a destroyed democracy, a hollowed-out middle class, and extraordinary cruelty deployed by ICE. Medicare, other benefits, and state-provided services are denied to those needing them most, while obscene wealth is accumulated by those few benefiting from the corruption. The country is not being governed by the principles in the US Constitution but has been hijacked by the few at the expense of the many.
A real social democracy would ensure that power remained with the people.
Secondly, social democracy benefits the majority, as opposed to capitalism which favours the strong over the weak. It offers fairness, a barrier against corruption, and the prospect of “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. The mainly social democratic countries of Scandinavia feature very strongly at the top of most international indices of democracy as well as those of associated happiness, well-being, tolerance, and absence of corruption.
Moving forward
There are still three and a half years to the next election, giving the Labour government time to make or initiate some fundamental reforms which can begin the transformation to a successful social democracy. For example:
1. Democratic reforms (as advocated by, for example, Open Britain)
The current Elections Bill is insufficiently ambitious. Additions should include:
- Proportional Representation;
- a much stronger and more powerful Election Commission;
- replacing the House of Lords with a smaller elected chamber;
- reforming the media landscape by establishing a media regulator with strong powers; and
- prohibiting large political donations and associated lobbying and bribery.
2. Reverse Brexit (as advocated by Ian Dunt).
There is now widespread understanding that Brexit inflicted huge damage on the UK with no benefits. Given the turn towards autocracy in the USA and the bellicosity of Russia, Britain badly needs nearby, reliable allies and trading partners. Democratic evidence is required to prove that the country does indeed want to rejoin the EU. This should be achieved with a new referendum, now.
In the absence of that, Labour should propose to rejoin the EU in the next Labour Party manifesto. In the meantime, it should align the UK with EU rules, policies, and procedures, so that a transition back into membership could be best facilitated immediately after the next election.
3. Reform taxation (as advocated by Tax Justice UK).
There are many aspects of the tax system which provide wrong incentives, are unfair, and leave loopholes. The biggest corrections needed are:
- to equalise tax rates on income and capital;
- to raise tax rates on very high incomes and unearned incomes; and
- to reform council tax bands based on property value.
These reforms would contribute to the policy objectives of lowering inequality, raising additional revenue, and incentivising business activity and growth.
There is much other work to do too, to make social democracy the working ideology at the heart of the Labour Party’s mission.
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