It seems to me that Owen Jones (Labour would save the NHS – but it won’t save Labour, 1 December) holds the same attitude he deprecates in the Labour party and the left in general: that those, so to speak, natural Labour voters who are being tempted by Ukip are not very bright people asking to be manipulated by the first demagogue that comes along. We need to recognise that meeting the expectations of those disgruntled voters, as of those who don’t vote because they don’t think it worth the trouble, is not a matter of strategy but of humility on the part of those of us on the left in secure financial circumstances – which includes most of the parliamentary Labour party. It is high time Labour became what the label says: the party of labour. Not forgetting that, in this day and age, this means the party of the precariously employed, the spuriously self-employed, and the downright unemployed – in other words, the just about managing … not to drown.
Joan-Lluis Marfany
Southport, Merseyside
• I was saddened to read Owen Jones suggesting that Labour counter Ukip by conceding on concerns on immigration. He is right to say that Labour needs to reconnect with disaffected voters, but this can be done by offering a vision of socialism to believe in, rather than a kind of Ukip-lite. Focusing working-class anger on an even more marginalised group has been the default tactic of the ruling class for centuries: in 1863 desperately poor Irish workers rioted in New York against the threat of labour competition from freed slaves coming north; in 1919 riots occurred in Liverpool against black seamen. A principled answer that all workers make common cause was right then and is right now. Of course the pressure of austerity can force individuals into scapegoating – but for most a positive vision will trump division and hate.
Ruth Knox
Liverpool
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