by Kevin Meagher
Every Labour MP I’ve ever met – every one – has got to where they are in politics by trading on their hatred of Thatcherism. Many affect back stories of hardship to impress selection meetings. The more honest express vicarious regret at what she did to industry/ the north/ working-class communities.
However I fear Parliament’s quite unnecessary recall today will see MPs of all colours – Labour included – at their oleaginous worst. Hyperbole will heap upon cliché in praise of Mrs. Thatcher’s legacy and person. Inevitable, really, given the session is to pay “tribute” to her.
But amid the mawkishness from the government benches, Labour MPs will also get an opportunity to chip in and there are only two contributions, as far as I can see it, they can honestly make.
The first is to issue regret that a former Prime Minister has died and express sympathy for the family. Fair enough, but that doesn’t take long. Poor Ed Miliband finds himself like a comedian with a ten minute act and three minutes’ worth of material. Perhaps he can segue into a riff about her fortitude in foreign affairs, but given her love of dictators and hatred of Nelson Mandela, it’s a delicate subject. Love of freedom? Again, a tricky one given her Shoot to Kill policy in Northern Ireland and the government-backed assassination of solicitor Pat Finucane.
However one thing Ed must avoid is drifting into psychobabble about her complex personality. It doesn’t strike me as particularly useful to ponder why she was kind to a few acolytes and monstrous to so many others. Tony Benn’s memory of her attending Eric Heffer’s funeral and crying over an old political adversary should be filed in the ‘gloriously irrelevant’ folder. All sorts of people blub at funerals; Tony is such a sucker.
Similarly her legacy as the first woman PM is a footnote given Thatcher did so little to advance women in public life and seemed to despise women campaigners, whether they were the desperate mothers of the Hunger Strikers, Women Against Pit Closures of the mothers of the 96 killed at Hillsborough. Not one iota of sympathy was ever offered to these groups – or many others.
Quite simply Margaret Thatcher is the most divisive figure in modern British history. We can rely on Conservative MPs to put the North Koreans to shame in deifying their lost leader, but the second speech Labour MPs can – and should – make today is to critique Thatcher with a passion and insight borne from the disastrous effects of her policies on their constituents. I guess that’s not meant to be the vibe, but it would be an honest response, as veteran Labour MP David Winnick is arguing.
When MPs think Parliament is at its best, the reverse is usually true. Occasions like today are designed to be saccharine and self-indulgent, a mark of just how out of touch the place so often is. Thatcher was a public figure and deserves public analysis and a rounded assessment. While it’s fair enough for Tory MPs in leafy Home Counties seats to simper on about her, Labour MPs from industrial heartlands have a duty to level the account.
The chamber of the House of Commons is the crucible of our national debate. Labour MPs from the North, Scotland, Wales and many other places, should not sit there grinding their teeth to fine dust in disagreement at what they will hear. They should explain why Thatcher was seen as a monster by their constituents and how her decisions wrecked so many lives and communities.
Still, there will, I fear, be a few of the more nakedly ambitious types on the Labour benches who will eye today as an opportunity to gloss their credentials as statesmen-in-waiting. Be warned: Thatcher didn’t respect fawners and your constituents won’t either. Wherever you sit in the Labour tribe, Thatcher was an enemy for good reason.
Or frankly my friends, you’re in the wrong tribe.
Kevin Meagher is associate editor of Labour Uncut