August 16, 2010
The Case for the Expulsion of Alan Milburn (Or, Why Tribalism Rules OK)
Tribalism gets a bad press. It usually carries negative connotations, implies irrational partisan bickering, and is used to cast disdain on opponents (internal or external).
Which is a shame, because tribalism is an important and usually indispensable part of politics. We’d all do better to recall that it has its virtues as well as vices, even if they are often born of necessity.
First, let’s recall what politics is: competition between two or more groups attempting to secure outcomes which the other side not only opposes, but frequently thinks are morally wrong. Sure, some politics is more consensual; where everyone agrees about what must be achieved, but groups disagree about how to bring it about. But that is the exception, not the rule.
As a result the left clusters into various groups – the Labour Party, the Green Party, the pre-2010 Liberal Democrat Party, etc – who amongst other things aim to oppose the perceived morally unacceptable policies of (most especially) the Tory Party. The same works for the right, who have the BNP, UKIP and Conservative parties to oppose the left, and usually Labour specifically.
Of course, being part of a political tribe carries a price. It means having to support – or at least be associated with – policies one may not agree with. Grassroots members of the Labour Party know this better than anyone, right now. Those who did not support Tony’s Murderous Mesopotamian Adventure, the assault on civil liberties, or the continuation of market-orientated Thatcherite reforms know that being of the Party isn’t always easy-riding. And there’s no denying that tribalism can lead to irrationality, pettiness and poor decision making.
But those who have stuck with the Labour tribe will largely have done so because they think that the Labour Party still offers the best way of opposing Conservative policy, and offering a realistic alternative. Much of the motivation lies in believing that much Tory policy is immoral, and wanting to stop it or reverse it. The organised Labour tribe offers a possibility for achieving that. Political tribalism is, therefore, an ineradicable part of politics. It should in turn be welcomed insofar as it allows us all to organise on a mass – albeit imperfect – scale, to advance rival moral ends.
Which brings me to the case of Alan Milburn, ex Labour MP and arch-Blairite, who has taken a job advising the Coalition on social mobility.
Clegg and Cameron have been gleefully dolling-out rhetoric about overcoming tribalism and working together. Which is all to be rejected, for the simple reason that it’s dishonest. Appointing Milburn was a stunt designed, in part, to undermine Labour during slow-news August.
More importantly, Cameron and Clegg are currently doing a very good job of squatting in the centre ground of British politics, inherited from New Labour. The rhetoric of non-partisan anti-tribalism works well here, because the whole gambit is to be a political offering of “something for everyone”. Whilst this is electorally clever, it also covers up the extent to which the so-called “centre” of British politics has been decidedly the centre right ever since Blair decided to sit there from 1994 onwards.
So when Milburn decides to advise the Coalition, he’s not engaging in anti-tribalist non-partisanship. Quite the opposite. He’s joining their tribe; the centre-right face of a now dominant Tory Party, which currently holds power instead of a Labour Government.*
And on those grounds, Alan Milburn should be ejected from the Labour Party.
Then again, as Hopi Sen points out (and Gabby Hinsliff bemoans) there’s no need to get hysterical about this. Screaming for Milburn’s blood will only inflame a bored media in the middle of the silly-season. So Labour should wait a few weeks for the agenda to have firmly moved on – and then give Milburn the boot. Honest, virtuous, decent tribalism demands it. And while they’re at it, get rid of Frank Field too.
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*Because as I’ve said previously, the Lib Dems are so invisible in this government you’d be hard pressed to know it’s a coalition at all.
Here’s one I wrote earlier « Though Cowards Flinch said,
August 16, 2010 at 5:43 pm
[...] for Labour Uncut about the vainglorious and deluded Alan Milburn. It’s not as good as Paul Sagar’s, but then I was only given 300 words to play with (I cheated a [...]
NemesisTheWarlock said,
August 17, 2010 at 1:27 am
Without tribalism, Labour would have suffered annihilation, not simply defeat. As it is, millions of people who consider themselves leftwingers voted for a Government of warmongering, anti-civil-liberty tools who had just transferred colossal amounts of public wealth to the banks with almost no conditions on what they did with it, and generally spent 13 years selling out the principles on which they had been elected.
Tribalism is evil.
How Not to Run a Campaign Event « Bad Conscience said,
August 17, 2010 at 10:09 am
[...] team and the Progress types. But when I questioned the view that it was “ridiculous” to attack Alan Milburn’s decision to help the Tories, a portly man apparently in charge of the conversation responded by addressing [...]
David Jones said,
August 17, 2010 at 12:26 pm
If the Tories are ‘squatting’ in the middle ground – or occupying it, or comfortably luxuriating in it – then in what way would Milburn now be betraying his recent past and in what way would their policies seem to be immoral by him?
Rob said,
August 17, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Anyone who thinks that tribalism is a blight on the face of democratic politics, and inclines to righteous wailing about how it drags people into supporting vile policies, should a) observe that most of those whining about it are usually rightwing shits and b) try imagining a democratic politics without political parties generating coherent policy programmes and generating governing coalitions. Twats.
David Jones said,
August 17, 2010 at 2:55 pm
‘try imagining a democratic politics without political parties’
Ummmmmmm. Athens.
Mark said,
August 17, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Labour stinks of dogshit and so do all of its supporters.
Anyway Rob… I don’t think it’s difficult to imagine democratic politics without parties – as long as we can imagine a new electorate.Party politics is just branding for an electorate to lazy to find anything out about the people they are voting for.
So we could either, if we could be bothered, be represented by genuine wise men or probably, given the technology available, vote directly on all matters ourselves.
But then again I like killing people, so fuck it. Let’s stick with the tribalism.
Paul Sagar said,
August 17, 2010 at 11:24 pm
David,
Anybody with a modicum of knowledge about a) ancient Athenian democray, b) modern representative mass democracy and c) the vast, enormous and astonishing differences between them – and indeed the intellectual, technological and cultural worlds they were/are located in – would know better than to offer that as a reply to Rob…
Rob said,
August 18, 2010 at 2:52 pm
I particularly enjoy the irony of people who can’t be bothered to remember the difference between ‘to’ and ‘too’ making remarks about the incompetence and laziness of the electorate. This irony might be lessened if making that kind of remark as a response to a claim about the importance of political parties didn’t itself epitomise laziness and incompetence. Mark, have you thought about how you would hold a parliament of representatives with their own individual programmes to account? Perhaps you have a carefully worked out theory of what would count as having failed to live up to their mandate when, without any established bodies to force legislation through, no-one could actually do anything. I very much doubt so. I repeat, twats.
Mark said,
August 18, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Yes, that’s a fair point Rob. The idea that political parties might be contrary to some ‘general will’, that it might be disadvantageous to society for us to organise ourselves in such a way, is obviously something only a lazy idiot could conceive of.
Wouldn’t it be possible for the electorate to see how their representative voted, see how they conducted themself, look at the arguments they made and decide whether or not they were a reasonable representative? Frankly, if you think one of the advantages of the current party political system is that it provides us with a significant degree of accountability, I think you’re insane. Not so long ago, a party which took us into a massively unpopular war went on to win a massive victory in the next election (after being voted for by about 20% of the electorate). People just can’t bring themselves to vote for another colour – they might be prepared to vote for another person.
Is it impossible for you to conceive of people reaching agreement without political parties, blackmail, bribes, promises of patronage ?
That says rather more about you than us twats.
*I’m of the firm opinion that the one important service that standardised English spelling provides is the ability to identify nob-ends who love to jump on other people’s mistakes.*
Rob said,
August 19, 2010 at 11:28 am
Mark,
I’m defending the importance of attachment to party, not the current party system, which anyway you appear to be confusing with the current electoral system. However, for arguments sake, let’s take a political system which has weaker party identification and discipline than ours: that of the US. It is considerably more corrupt, wasteful, and unjust than ours, and quite plausibly it is all of those things partly because the absence of strong party identification and strong party discipline generates the kind of coordination problems that allow pork-barrelling and the like. More than that, I think there is quite probably a case to be made that the weakness of the US party system has some kind of causal relationship to its plutocracy. If you want to prevent capital from seizing control of the political process, you need to organise en masse: you’re not going to outbid it, so you have to be able to mobilise enough people on the street and knocking on doors. Leftists opposing political party, I suspect, are volunteering to sign their own death warrants as effective political actors. That’s why I think people whining about tribalism are twats: because I’ve actually thought about it and the evidence suggests they’re willfully ignoring and carrying on anyway. In fact, your comment about the standardisation of English spelling is really quite revealing about exactly what you haven’t understood here: what you miss is that it’s a solution to a coordination problem, exactly like political parties are.
Mark said,
August 19, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Yes, quite plausibly greater corruption in the US is caused by lack of strong party identification, though equally plausibly not. Whichever, it’s rather a long way from plausibly probable to unimaginable twats, isn’t it?
“If you want to prevent capital from seizing control of the political process, you need to organise en masse”
I don’t see that political parties have necessarily been a means for the masses to protect themselves from capitalists and I’m not sure how capital would pervert the political process if we live in a principled, mass participation but non-party system. As a matter of interest, given the importance of service industries to modern economies do the owners of human capital (individuals) hold enough power to outweigh cigar smoking types?
Basically, what you’re missing, is the fact that English spelling is an imperfect solution to a coordination problem – it’s a hodge podge mess that doesn’t make any phonetic sense – and that in theory there might be a better solution (such as phonetic spelling or perhaps accepting alternative spellings which can be understood.)
Party political tribalism might be one possible solution to the problem of governing a nation, but it doesn’t follow that it is the only or best one.
The following statement gets to the heart of where you’re going wrong:
“That’s why I think people whining about tribalism are twats: because I’ve actually thought about it and the evidence suggests they’re willfully ignoring and carrying on anyway.”
People who have the temerity to disagree with the wonderful evidence of your thoughts, that you’ve actually thought about, must be twats. OK then.
Personally I’m still not convinced that cultural factors other than strength of devotion to some particular party don’t have something to do with corruption etc.
Rob said,
August 20, 2010 at 8:40 am
Actually, Mark, I find it depressingly easy to imagine the twats that whine about tribalism and thanks to you, I don’t need to anyway.
Tribalism matters only in centrist politics « The Daily Soapbox said,
August 24, 2010 at 6:01 pm
[...] Sagar has written a new post stressing the uses of tribalism. And whilst I don’t think the argument is without merit — on the contrary — but I [...]