The idea of the Labour Left

Abstract

This article will challenge the Labour Left’s understanding of itself as a coherent tradition that is ideologically, teleologically and morally distinct from the so-called right of the Party. By analysing the concrete political positions of the three key post-war leaders of the Left—Aneurin Bevan, Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn—I will illustrate that the Left is not as distinct from the Right as it frequently claims to be and, furthermore, that the so-called ‘Left Tradition’ is itself ideologically contradictory. I argue that many of the confusions surrounding the Left/Right binary are rooted more in the use of vague and non-specific language than in concrete policy difference. As such, I propose an alternative method for understanding the Labour Left, one based on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘family resemblances’. This ‘model’ requires one to engage more critically with political language, but in doing so it allows one to understand the Labour Left as a more nuanced and complex phenomenon, one grounded more on reinvention and evolution than rigidity and tradition.