A Lesson For The Left From Turkey
In Britain, those on the left and centre lost hope on December 12th. We witnessed Labour and the other progressive parties in our country fail to win for the forth election in a row. For many of us, this result has been particularly bitter.
We will leave the European Union at the end of this month and our country is headed on a right-wing path,. The reasons for this loss are many, although the media focused principally on Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, and the left-wing politics that he has espoused. Nevertheless, the truth of the matter is that the leading cause of the defeat is our electoral system.
The problem is in Britain has a two-party electoral system under first-past-the-post. This would be fine, but we have multiples parties now vying for power, especially on the left and centre of the political compass. The Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Green Party. In many seats, we saw divided votes, with progressive candidates missing out on seats by hundreds of votes.
This is why I bring up the lesson of Turkey. I know compromise has become a dirty word, but I believe it is the only way forward. The Turkish liberals and left has demonstrated this with surprising success. They led an impressive campaigning exercise, which was followed up by an electoral alliance which allowed impressive gains in the local elections of 2019.
This can be seen particular, the campaign of Ekrem Imamoğlu from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), who managed to demonstrate this most clearly with his campaign of positivity and listening which he dubbed as “the language of love”. It avoided direct attacks on the government in Ankara and President Erdoğan. On top of this, he managed to unite both disillusioned right-wingers who previously had voted for the right-wing ruling party and Kurds who would usually have voted for their own left-wing candidate.
This came in spite of a media environment where the ruling party’s narrative dominated in both state and private media. This can be seen in the United Kingdom too. A study at the University of Loughborough during the election revealed that press media representation of the ruling Conservative Party was generally positive, whereas representation of the Labour Party was overwhelmingly negative. This compounded the challenges the left and centrist parties already faced as a result of the electoral system.These challenges are not exclusive to just Britain and Turkey, they affect progressive and centrist parties throughout the world from Brazil to Australia.
To combat these challenges we need united broad coalitions from the left to centre is the only way forward, with common goals. Secondly let’s practice “the language of love”. We need to have real conversations, whether on the doorsteps or in the streets, not as keyboard warriors. I know it is not as easy, I have done political canvassing before, but conversations face-to-face and the art of listening can change hearts and minds far more than a post on social media. My final point is rather than wallow in our echo chambers in a shroud of resignation, let’s move forward with hope and create the change we want with actions not just words.
