Lockdowns and dissent – where is the Labour party?

The vaccine rollout has effectively bureaucratised the Covid-19 crisis. Pandemic? File under “282,381 new vaccinations registered in the UK yesterday”. Also file under “journey back towards normality”. Jabs in arms = freedoms back.

But what freedoms matter to Britons, and under what conditions? Most are looking forward to seeing their friends and family again, going to pubs, restaurants and concerts, and having the right to travel restored.

A majority of the British public also favours making the freedom to go to the pub or to travel conditional upon a vaccine passport. Far fewer of us would put the right to protest high up on a “shopping list” of what we are allowed to do post-lockdown – a majority supports a ban on all political protest for the duration of the Covid restrictions.

The politics of protest have had a profound effect on British history, most notably in the way they crystallised the vast social changes of the 19^th and early 20^th century. But in England especially, there is less of a sense that the streets are the ultimate political authority than there is in, for example, France. Violent struggle didn’t just mark the year 1789 but happened repeatedly throughout the 19^th century, occasionally forcing regime change. The drama and imagery of the barricades, and violent protests rolling through the streets of Paris are a strong feature of the French imagination.

That may also explain why England’s radical tradition has focused far more on winning parliamentary representation than on spontaneous revolutionary actions. It is remarkable that during the past year, the liberal-left has been silent on both counts, both on the stymieing of the institution of Parliament and on the banning of the freedom of assembly and association for long periods.

Without an effective opposition, the government has had it all its own way in reshaping our perception of personal security, public space, and civil liberties to secure consent for its Covid-19 policies – compliance generated by fear and arbitrary enforcement.

In place of an opposition drawing on its rich dissenting tradition, we have had a Labour party that sticks only to meaningless bromides.

If only, the left’s argument goes, the government could perfect just the right amount of economic support, the right level of sick pay, the right amount of computer software to facilitate home learning, then lockdowns might be effected according to socially just principles. The fundamental political questions at stake are effectively parked off stage.

But if the events that unfolded on Clapham Common over the weekend – which highlighted the appalling state of our civil liberties, state overreach and abuse of power which have flourished under these bad laws – do not force the Labour leadership into a change of emphasis, then what is the point of their party?