Bottling Clacton

There have been many lows during Labour's election campaign. It started off with accusations of egregious seat-stitching and racism, levelled off with a saying-the-quiet-part-out-loud moment, and ended up offending Bangladeshi Britons by pledging to deport refugees from that country. These are examples of what we've come to expect from the "changed" Labour Party because that's what the party does when the right wing are in charge. What no one was prepared for was their abandonment of the campaign in Clacton, where Nigel Farage is standing. The Graun article has to be seen to be believed.

Labour's candidate, Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, was told to leave Clacton and instructed to campaign in a West Midlands target seat. There is also some suggestion his social media content, which includes him meeting Farage face-to-face and picking up complements for A1 sartorial choices, has upset party bosses. Only Keir Starmer is allowed to go viral, apparently. And how this looks is appalling. Not only is it bad enough that Labour have effectively disappeared another prominent black activist (albeit one of very recent providence), they're leaving the seat wide open for Farage. It means Labour cannot capitalise on the C4 News's racist reveal of the local Reform campaign, or do anything that might make his campaign wobble.

Let's be fair to Labour. Regardless of what one might think of their politics, as many of its candidates have run disciplined and active campaigns, they've basically carried a bungling leadership that has made life harder for them. It's fortunate that knowing oblivion awaits the Tories, the press and broadcast media are applying zero pressure and asking Starmer and co. next to no tricky questions. The two leaders' head-to-heads, the one on Wednesday evening and the other a few weeks ago did not jump the tracks of permissible debate. And so Labour have coasted, knowing that no matter what they do the election is in the bag. The Clacton decision is a product of this arrogant mindset.

Using the resources argument when the party is swimming in super rich cash is pure excuse. Running away from Farage is another episode in Starmer's political cowardice. Time and again, the leadership have never looked so comfortable when attacking and lecturing the left for purported infantile politics and being more concerned with protest than power. But when it comes to an argument with the right, it's capitulation after capitulation. On Rwanda specifically, Labour's opposition owes more to bean counting than politics. They have kept the framing of asylum as a problem, have refused to concede refugees any sort of personhood, and have framed it as a waste of taxpayers' cash and not the gut wrenching outrage it is. Quite happy to tell millions of the party's previous voters they're wrong, actually taking a lead and making the sorts of pro-asylum pro-immigration points Starmer himself used when he ran for leader is too much hard work, and risks alienating the reactionary bloc the Labour right want to appeal to. They want to appeal to them because the costs are lower, and the after politics rewards are better. No one has got wealthy from challenging and defeating divide-and-rule politics.

This is why they don't want to take on Farage. Fielding a young, energetic, and charismatic black candidate was, from the apparat's point of view, a mistake to begin with. Owusu-Nepaul's selection was a challenge to right wing racist voters to the seat. To have him campaign and, presumably, putting out anti-racist, anti-Farage literature, to persuade Reform-leaning punters that they're wrong and he offers a better politics was at odds with Labour's appeasement efforts. And so the effort had to be guillotined.

Except no right winger in Clacton is going to thank Labour for folding up their campaign. But what it does do is tell the party's loyal support that it is more serious fighting the left and other parties in closer political proximity than the far right. That racism and xenophobia is something to adapt to, not reject and challenge. And that it cannot be relied upon to act as a bulwark against the hard right Tory turn we might see following the election. The wider left and not a few Labour-friendly centrists are appalled as well. But it's too late now. Labour's traditional standing among minority ethnicity communities has been further jeopardised by ducking what, in this instance, might have been a doomed fight with Farage. But the politics of taking part were vital. Bottling Clacton will cost Labour a lot more in the medium to long run than any savings made from this stupid, venal, and short-sighted decision.

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