Where Left for Labour? Politics, the State and Social Democracy Post-New Labour

This paper will examine the challenges facing Labour (and the centre-left more broadly) across three related areas as it seeks election in 2015. The first looks at the political challenges facing Labour as a political organisation and an office-seeking party. This section will examine how Labour sought to reform party structures and democracy, including its relationship with the trade unions. The second section will explore the extent to which Labour offers a coherent approach to the role of the state in the market and in the provision of public services. Finally, the paper will assess whether Labour has broken with the ideology of New Labour as part of a broader reconfiguration of contemporary social-democratic politics. It will argue that, while much attention has been given to a break with New Labour, Labour’s direction of travel is better placed within the broader currents of reformist European social-democratic politics since the 1970s.