Hattersley predicts centrist party ‘fiasco’
A NEW centrist party will “end in fiasco” and be a “classic political misjudgement”, Lord Hattersley has said.
A network of donors and entrepreneurs have reportedly been developing the political party for a year, with access to £50 million in funding.
The Observer said that senior figures from the worlds of business and charity were involved, as well as supporters of both the main parties. The project is reportedly led by Simon Franks, the multi-millionaire philanthropist and founder of Lovefilm, the DVD rental and video streaming service that was acquired by Amazon in 2011.
There is mounting speculation that David Miliband, the former Labour foreign secretary, could return to the front line of British politics to lead a centrist party. However Lord Hattersley, a former Labour deputy leader, who fought against the SDP breakaway from the Labour Party in the Eighties, said that the prospect of Mr Miliband making a return was “just fantasy talk”.
He told Westminster Hour on BBC Radio 4: “All the talk of David coming back – the man on the white horse – is just fantasy talk. It’s newspaper talk. I don’t think there are many people in the Parliamentary Labour Party who take it seriously. It’s a nice romantic idea, but it’s nothing to do with reality.”
John Mcdonnell, the hard-left shadow chancellor, dismissed the idea. He said on Twitter: “That’s a novel idea. A party of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. A party for the few not the many.”
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health and social care secretary, said: “For goodness sake, what a daft waste of time. Anyone putting money into this nonsense would be better off investing in our campaign to restore and rebuild our NHS.”
Lord Hattersley also said that Labour is in a “much more dangerous place” than it was in the Eighties. He said: “Things are much more serious because people who are not ‘real Labour’ as I define it are increasingly in control of the machine… And if it goes on like this the Labour party is in danger of disintegration.”
He warned that de-selecting moderate Labour MPS would cause “mayhem”. He said: “If two or three of those are de-selected, then I think mayhem follows because other members of Parliament will be nervous, other members of Parliament will be resentful and then we start talking again about the disaster of a split and a third party.”
According to the Observer newspaper, a new centre party is in the process of being created that will “break the mould” of British politics. Where have we heard that before? The phrase was used by the SDP in the early Eighties when it sought to challenge an extreme-left Labour Party and a Thatcherite Conservative Party.
For a while, it captured the public’s imagination, in the opinion polls at least. At one point, in early 1982, the SDP had the support of 50 per cent of voters. Then came the Falklands War and the start of an economic recovery, whereupon the country decided that it did not want this new party after all.
The latest incarnation of a centrist party is apparently being supported by a network of entrepreneurs and philanthropists, and funded to the tune of £50 million by donors, including former Labour benefactor, Simon Franks. The idea is for a pro-eu party espousing the politics of both centre Left and Right. It would be a bit like the Blair Labour Party, in others words. Once Brexit is out of the way, however, it sounds more like the Conservative Party that Theresa May spoke of creating when she took office.
Successful new parties are rare beasts in Britain. In the past 120 years, only the Labour Party has developed into a vehicle for power. Hopeful centrists here look to Emmanuel Macron in France for inspiration in creating something from nothing. But both Mr Macron and the SDP founders in 1981 were prepared to leave behind their previous parties and jump into the unknown. Dozens of Labour MPS defected and luminaries like Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams fought and won by-elections to raise the party’s profile. Unless today’s disenchanted politicians are prepared to do the same, all the talk about a new centre party will remain just that: talk.