“A fledgling Lib Lab pact is being forged”, declared Mary Riddell in the Daily Telegraph, 17 January.
Exaggeration, no doubt. But Ed Miliband is trying to push the Labour Party into accepting a Lib-Lab coalition as its goal.
Accepting that goal would mean resisting all moves to swing Labour left, away from neo-liberal policies acceptable to the Lib Dems. It would block off the possibility of a government that will legislate for workers’ rights and reverse what the Tories are doing now, rather than building on it as Blair built on Thatcher.
The unions and the Labour left, so far silent about Miliband’s tentative Lib-Labism, should speak out sharply against it.
On 15 January, Ed Miliband told the Fabian Society: “Thousands of [Lib Dems] have joined us since the election... There are many Liberal Democrats who have decided to stay and fight for the progressive soul of their party... We do not doubt that they hold sincere views and we will co-operate, where we can in Parliament and outside, with those that want to fight the direction of this government. It is our duty to work with progressives everywhere...” (Ed Miliband, speech to the Fabian Society, 15 January).
In December, “speaking at his first monthly conference as opposition leader, Mr Miliband offered Liberal Democrats an offer to participate in the party policy review... The Labour leader is working with Richard Grayson, a former director of policy for the Liberal Democrats, in the policy review...” (politics.co.uk, 13 December).
Douglas Alexander, Labour front-bencher for Work and Pensions, 23 December, followed up by cajoling the Lib Dems to work with him to soften (not reverse) the coalition government’s benefit cuts. “I have written today to Lib Dem ministers offering immediate talks in the New Year on Privy Council terms to work together to make the government’s welfare policies fairer” (23 December).
Remember what Ed Miliband said when standing for election as Labour leader! “In the end you’ve got to have some principles... In the talks I had with the Lib Dems they were actually hawks on the deficit. They were the ones saying — quite contrary to their position at the election — ‘we’ve got to cut now, we’ve got to cut deeply’” (Ed Miliband, interview with politics.co.uk, 10 September).
