Northern Voices: Blue Labour - left wing economics missing in action?

Thursday, 3 September 2026

Blue Labour - left wing economics missing in action?

Blue Labour – left wing economics missing in action?

(Andrew Wallace, 30/08/2026)

In so far as the Blair and Brown governments (1997-2010) attempted to define their political ideas, they attempted a syncretic embrace of market liberal economics and social progressivism. This rightist turn on economics would arguably be compensated in the non-economic realm of cultural liberalism and the meritocratic elevation of equality of opportunity and the proscription of discriminations in regard to race, sex, gender, sexuality and disability. Anthony Giddens (Blair’s in-house sociologist) heralded the new syncretic era in his books Beyond Left and Right (1994) and The Third Way (1998). Arguably it was Blair’s ‘modernising’ rightism that provided the accelerant for the ‘new left’ recourse to identity politics, if only as a sop to placate left wing critics and maintain the performative vacuity of faux progressive radicalism. Thatcherism with enhanced LGTB rights and diversity quotas would inevitably irritate an older cadre of paleo-leftists who preferred the material certitudes of class politics over the distractions of intersectionality.

Blue Labour

The Blue Labour campaign group emerged during the fag end of Brown’s government as a riposte to Giddens’s twin social and economic liberalisms. Founded by academic Maurice Glasman, Blue Labour attempted to promote what it took as the hitherto unrealised sweet spot of British politics, with a settlement that was both economically left wing and aligned to cultural conservatism. As critics of globalisation and market fundamentalism Blue Labour came with intimations of protectionism and sympathy for Brexit. This played out in public as a conspicuous rupture with New Labour (Wintour, 2011). Yet for all disavowals between the respective camps, Glasman aligned with the right-wing factionalists of Labour Together under the direction of Mandelson protégé Morgan McSweeney and future Chief of Staff to Starmer.

Glasman presents a thin-gruelled communitarian critique of the post-war Keynesian welfare state. The top-down statism of old is castigated for its bureaucratic inefficiencies and remoteness from the communities it was ostensibly designed to serve. Whilst there is undoubtedly more than a kernel of truth here there is also a danger such views can also be easily co-opted into a Hayekian narrative of old-fashioned resilience and personal responsibilities (Cooke, 2025). Glasman compounds his belligerence with a generous helping of invective (‘bed wetters’ and ‘lanyard classes’) directed at those Labour rebel MPs with the temerity to contest controversial welfare cuts targeted at disabled claimants (Newman, 2025, Channel 4 news).

Matt Goodwin, the former academic and analysist of national populism also provided an ongoing commentary in the last decade which provided ballast to the Blue Labour narrative. As a persistent critic of Thatcherism he championed the realisation of “what he has long prophesised as the “great realignment” — the potent combination of social conservatism with economic interventionism.” (Rubenstein, 2026). Goodwin repeatedly stressed his anti-Thatcherite worldview:

“He also once described his party’s (Reform) economic plans as an “utterly toxic combination”, explaining that he “cannot stress enough how UNPOPULAR slashing taxes and cutting spending on public services is” in a post on LinkedIn three years ago.” (Devlin, 2026)

Now that Goodwin has formally boarded the Reform UK flotilla his previous support for economic intervention has been replaced by free market boilerplate axioms of low taxation and deregulation and a corresponding populist anti-welfarism (Goodwin, 2025). This is in keeping with the idea that much of the supposed post-Brexit postliberal realignment is fictitious. It is merely the latest re-iteration of neoliberal normalcy with a pivot into cultural protectionism and amelioration of concerns with the sustainability of mass migration.

Cooke, R (2025) ‘Maurice Glasman: Labour’s trump card’

Available at: https://observer.co.uk/news/politics/article/labours-trump-card

(Accessed 31 August 2026)

Devlin, K (2026) ‘Reform by-election candidate said it was ‘insane’ to jail man who said ‘burn asylum hotels’ ’

Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-matt-goodwin-nigel-farage-election-b2920781.html

(Accessed 31 August 2026)

Giddens, A (1994) Beyond Left and Right: The Future of Radical Politics. Cambridge. Polity Press

Giddens, A (1998) The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy. Polity

Goodwin, M (2025) ‘The hard working majority are seen by Labour as second class citizens’

Available at: https://www.gbnews.com/opinion/matthew-goodwin-hard-working-labour-second-class-citizens

(Accessed 31 August 2026)

Newman, C (2025) ‘ “Bed wetting MPs” protecting benefits for “lanyard class” ’