Chasing the mirage of progressive Labour

In the wake of Labour’s July 2024 landslide, commentators from both left and liberal-centrist perspectives celebrated the victory as a corrective to Conservative austerity and extremism. Rachel Reeves’ recent Guardian op-ed praised wage growth, job creation, and trade deals, yet omitted the party’s regressive policies: cuts to disability benefits, corporate-friendly taxation, militarism abroad and persecution of activists at home.

Labour today is a Rorschach blot upon which observers of various ideological stripes project their hopes, fears, prejudices and delusions. Right-wing pundits exaggerate its radicalism, while liberal commentators rationalize compromises as tactical or necessary. Historical precedent—from Ramsay MacDonald’s 1931 austerity to Blair’s neoliberal turn—demonstrates a pattern: electoral hope in Labour often empowers centrism and its excesses – especially in the realms of war and imperialism – while undermining transformative politics. The repeated support for “critical votes” from large elements of the left exemplifies what Lauren Berlant terms “cruel optimism”: attachment to a political project that undermines well-being.

‘Chasing the mirage of progressive Labour’ combines historical analysis, political critique and cultural theory to challenge the assumption that replacing Conservatives with a centrist Labour government constitutes progress. It argues that meaningful change requires organizing beyond electoral pragmatism, offering the reader an historically informed and incisive perspective on the party, left-liberal complicity and the limits of centrist politics.