Labour should imitate Scholz, says Mandelson
Coalition of liberals, social democrats and greens can win Starmer next election, Labour grandee suggests
LABOUR could achieve a “governing coalition of social democrats, liberals and greens” at the next election by emulating Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, Peter Mandelson has said.
The Labour grandee, and one of the architects of New Labour, said the party could achieve victory without any need for a formal pact with other parties. It comes following last week’s by-election results in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton which saw en-masse tactical voting against the Tories.
Writing in The Spectator, Lord Mandelson said that like Mr Scholz, the Labour leader is an “unflashy performer” who was seen as “dull and uninspiring”, but the German chancellor could be seen as a “template” for victory at the next election.
He praised Mr Scholz for putting together a “governing coalition of social democrats, liberals and greens”.
“A template for Keir Starmer? In principle, yes,” he added.
“At the moment, too many voters have no clear idea of who Starmer is. He needs to define himself before his opponents do it for him.”
It comes after he told LBC last night that he would like to see a commitment to “at least examining voting reform” in the next Labour manifesto.
He told Andrew Marr that he was “detecting a shift” towards supporting electoral reform within the party, as well as among trade unions who blocked proposals to support it at previous Labour Party conferences.
Lord Mandelson warned that the party should not engage in “horse trading” on the issue when in negotiations with the Liberal Democrats following the general election, and should set up clearly where it stands on the policy so the public know what they vote for.
He added in his article that he felt both Labour and the Lib Dems have a “very good chance of wiping out the Conservatives’ parliamentary majority next time, whether Johnson remains leader or not”.
Echoing the words of Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, who said that voters can “work out for themselves” how to vote the Tories out tactically, he said that “no formal pact” is needed for “widespread tactical voting to favour” Labour. His comments came as Lib Dem sources suggested to the New Statesman that the party’s price for a coalition with the Labour Party following the next election would be electoral reform, but without a referendum.
This suggestion was dismissed by senior Lib Dem sources, who said: “We don’t recognise this at all – none of that is being discussed here. Our focus is on getting as many Liberal Democrat MPS elected as possible.”
Lord Mandelson is one of several members of the New Labour old guard who have recently been giving Sir Keir Starmer advice on the direction of his leadership. Last year, he told The Telegraph that Tony Blair is among those advising the now-labour leader.
Sir Keir Starmer has struggled to get himself heard and was not even able to have his weekly outing at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday. By convention, in the absence of Boris Johnson at the Nato summit in Madrid, the floor was left to the two deputies, Dominic Raab and Angela Rayner.
The Labour leader might well have used the spare time to begin rewriting his party’s policies, having jettisoned the contents of the 2019 election manifesto with the aim of “starting from scratch”. After two years in the job it might seem somewhat tardy of him to recognise that the last Labour manifesto bombed with the voters, though at the time Sir Keir was happy to campaign both to fulfil its pledges and install Jeremy Corbyn in No10.
Nonetheless, a manifesto is a platform for government, so if a party loses an election it needs to build another. Yet as Sir Tony Blair observed ahead of his “Future for Britain” conference, there is a gaping hole where there should be a plan and we are more than halfway through the parliament.
The Left are lining up to take pot shots at Sir Keir if he waters down such policies as raising income tax on those earning more than £80,000 a year. They sense that the revamp will mean a tack to the centre ground, especially if Sir Tony has anything to do with it.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives are busily ditching their own manifesto promises on taxes and defence spending, deepening the party divide. Many MPS would like to see a reassertion of Tory principles and fear that a revived Opposition will outflank them on a range of fiscal and social policies. Labour is not the only party that would benefit from a mid-term reboot.