BEFORE the dust has even settled after the Tories’ surprise and shocking victory on Thursday, the New Labour mandarins are gloating over Labour’s defeat — and warning that only a return to their right-wing neoliberalism will save the party from oblivion. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. Ed Miliband’s shift back to the centre-left, although far from complete, was necessary and vital after the defeat in 2010, when New Labour was finally bereft of ideas and deserted by 5 million disillusioned working-class voters. 

There was a clamour for a return to working-class values, not just from trade unionists who have played and hopefully will continue to play a major role in the Labour Party they created over 100 years ago, but also from the Labour Party rank and file in constituency Labour Parties up and down the country who were enthused to go and out in their droves and campaign for a Labour victory in 2015 in a way unimaginable in 2010.

We found Labour’s message on the doorstep this time was well received: tackling inequality, scrapping the bedroom tax, reversing the Tories’ privatisation of our NHS, banning zero-hours contracts, raising living standards for the many and ending tax privileges for the super-rich. Right up to polling day the strategy appeared to be working — just. Everyone expected a hung Parliament but a defeat for the Con-Dem coalition and every likelihood of a minority Labour government. In the end it was not to be. A last-minute switch in voters’ confidence ensured an astonishing reversal of fortunes after a barrage of right-wing hysteria in our un-free press. 

Only the day before, one Tory-supporting tabloid resurrected the photo of Ed eating a bacon sandwich and yelled at its readers that this meant he couldn’t be trusted with the economy. Never before have we seen such a united front of TV and press engaged in full-scale character assassination of a Labour leader and parroting the lie that Labour’s profligate overspending for 13 years wrecked the economy. 

Nor have we seen such a concerted attempt by the media to avoid any criticism or analysis of the coalition government’s five-year record, or any real examination of what’s in store for the next five. Attacking Labour was the only story to be had.

While Labour’s moderate return to centre-left values was succeeding with the electorate in 2015, New Labour’s record in office from 1997-2010 haunted us wherever we went. Voters welcomed Labour’s pledge to reverse the NHS and Social Care Act and end the Tories’ mad privatisation drive, but they pointed out it was Tony Blair’s government that had begun the privatisation process. Many voters deserted Labour over the Iraq war and some have still not been won back.

Time and again, the Tories lambasted New Labour’s handling of the economy and New Labour former minister Liam Byrne’s crass and senseless “There’s no money left” note.While Ed Miliband did steer away from New Labour’s obsession with the rich and super-rich, the shift back to the centre left was far from complete. Right-wing economic orthodoxy still prevailed under his leadership, championed of course by Brownite Ed Balls as shadow chancellor.

“Austerity-lite” was the watchword and, if elected, Miliband’s government would have implemented further hefty spending cuts — including welfare cuts and further public-sector pay restraint. Indeed Balls seemed to make a virtue out of capping child benefit, which hits even the poorest families reliant of foodbanks. The commitment to eradicate the deficit within the life of the next parliament would have been a massive and totally unnecessary restraint on a Labour government’s ability to address the pressing needs of working people already hammered by five years of Tory austerity.

And there’s the rub. Labour’s commitment to austerity spending cuts — albeit less dramatic than the Tories and preferable to George Osborne’s promise of £30 billion cuts to come — meant it was difficult to blame unequivocally the Tories’ harsh economic record over the last five years, especially as Labour had been at pains to vote with the Con-Dem government for many of the cuts. The Tories were simply let off the hook. No mention of the massive spending cuts on local authorities (50 per cent or more for Labour-controlled cities like Sheffield and Manchester) or even the £20bn spending cuts on the NHS under the coalition government. No mention of the appalling cuts in pay and pensions for public-sector workers or the swingeing welfare benefit cuts that made the very poorest pay the heaviest price for a crisis not of their making.

Because Labour offered no credible alternative to austerity, it failed to offer that bold alternative vision of jobs and sustainable growth which the trade unions had been calling for. Surely this would have been the best way to tackle the deficit and regenerate the economy at the same time. Instead of a Labour landslide, we were settling for a hard-won fight to gain a hung parliament.

Yet anti-austerity messages were actually proving popular, for example in Scotland where the SNP swept the board (we may doubt SNP’s claims but the message was clear enough to the voters). Lord Mandelson can lecture all he wants that only a return to New Labour will save the party, but they can’t have their cake and eat it. New Labour won the recent election for leader of the Scottish Labour Party. But Jim Murphy, who is New Labour through and through, could not have done a worse job in winning back Scottish voters to Labour, losing all but one seat to the SNP. Some advertisement for a switch to the right.

The problem Ed Miliband always faced as leader was that he was surrounded by New Labour acolytes, both in central office and in his shadow cabinet — and many of them whispered unrelentingly against him in briefings to the press. Most of the Parliamentary Labour Party had voted for brother David, an arch-Blairite.

In spite of this, Ed actually did a brilliant job in uniting the party behind him, gently distancing himself from New Labour and reconnecting with the party membership and the trade unions. But he still succumbed to that pressure — always there from New Labour — to take on the unions. 

Unite was stung by the attacks over Falkirk when we did absolutely nothing wrong, and we had to swallow hard to accept the Collins Review  — and take quite a bit of flak from our members. We had quite a job to push Labour to even commit to reverse the coalition government’s attacks on workers’ rights.

In the election campaign, Labour was silent on trade union rights and failed to make any issue out of the Tories’ terrible pledge to further restrict union rights, let alone their appalling promise to scrap the Human Rights Act.Labour’s unexpectedly bitter defeat last Thursday was not Ed Miliband’s fault.

Indeed he stood up to the character assassination admirably and almost single-handedly fought Labour’s cause day after day. The anti-Labour hysteria in the press took its toll but the legacy of New Labour meant our centre-left vision of a fairer society remained unclear, and at times confused and contradictory. A lurch back to the centre-right under New Labour would spell unmitigated disaster for the party and for politics in general.

Unfortunately many of the names being touted for Ed Miliband’s successor represent a shift rightwards to a greater or lesser extent. Where is that bold and visionary future Labour leader who can articulate a modern vision of real Labour values? No more austerity. Use the public sector as the motor for recovery and for a fairer society. Build a million new council houses. Invest in our infrastructure. Defend our public services and reverse the privatisation of our NHS, our schools, our railways. End exploitative labour practices and reintroduce sectoral collective bargaining with a fairer settlement for trade union and workers’ rights.  Tackle the environmental crisis by investing in renewable energy, insulation and public transport — and create 1 million green jobs in the process. Stand up for manufacturing and lead the way with public procurement and government backing for training and research. We need someone who can inspire the electorate with a genuinely redistributive, mixed economy with a clear message of hope for working people. Please apply now before it’s too late. 

• Martin Mayer is a member of the Labour Party national executive committee and union Unite.