‘Anneliese Dodds’s Principled Resignation Should Be a Warning for Keir Starmer’

Despite the global implications of the horrible car crash meeting in the Oval Office last week and how President Donald Trump and his Deputy JD Vance piled into President Volodymyr Zelensky, there would have been some relief among Labour‘s media managers.

Only hours before, the Cabinet had suffered its first voluntary resignation as Anneliese Dodds stood down as International Development Secretary because of the biggest overseas aid cuts in history. It quickly lost its top billing on the news rounds — but make no mistake, this is a big deal. 

Labour’s hard right bureaucrats will have been doubly delighted, not only did the resignation get muffled by the bullies in the White House, but another member of the ‘soft left’ has this time removed themselves from high office, leaving a vacancy that can be filled by a safer and sounder pair of hands.

Because for the Labour First fixers, the tiny faction of old guard right wingers who now boss the party, there is only one thing worse than the hard left and that’s a soft left, who are viewed as the gateway drug to the likes of Jeremy Corbyn.

It’s why Louise Haig was dropped so quickly and savagely from the transport post for a historic event she’d been completely transparent about. And is why there are regular briefings against Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham.  

One even stated recently that Miliband was by far and away the most effective member of the Cabinet, and that’s why they didn’t want him to succeed — both because he offered an alternative to the left of them and because they were highly sceptical of the political value of any net zero goals. The cynicism is off the Richter scale.

Dodds is one of the most unusual frontline politicians I’ve ever come across. To an almost unique extent, she seems devoid of the ego and hubris that goes with so many of her colleagues. It’s as disarming as it is refreshing. As is the fact that she resigned on the basis of political principle.  

She takes with her not just her dignity and self-respect but the admiration of many across the country. She’s replaced by the more compliant Baroness Jenny Chapman who helped run Keir Starmer’s leadership election. 

On the day of her resignation over 130 aid and development organisations sent  a letter to the Prime Minister bitterly making the case against the overseas aid spending cuts.  This is a big and strong community in British politics, a constituency that can be mobilised in favour of progressive politics. 

But one that is enthusiastically alienated by the Labour machine who now seem intent on shedding any hint of progressive ideas and intent, witness the number of people from the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and radicals of no party who around discussions of a progressive alliance worry that Labour simply isn’t progressive anymore.

An agenda dominated by cuts, deregulation, and kicking down on migrants and asylum seekers makes it a hard one to argue against just now.

Dodds could be described as the soft end of the soft left. But this is still the heart and soul of the Labour Party membership, people who want a new social democratic settlement that makes the country more equal, democratic and sustainable — but understands that electoral pragmatism must kick in. In essence the soft left is about winning but for a purpose. 

In an important essay last year in Renewal, the journal of social democracy, John Denham the former Labour minister, outlined three key aspects that define the soft left. 

First, is a critique of capitalism and an understanding of the need to create an economy that works for the common good.

Second, an understanding of the state and how our democratic system can be reshaped so that power can be exercised more effectively in contemporary society.  

And third, how do we understand the changing electoral and civil society landscape and what this means for the exercise of power and our approach to winning elections and on what terms? 

If we add in an overriding commitment to sustainability and net zero goals, combined with intrinsic backing for proportional representation to make the political system more plural and to disperse power, then the contours of a modern soft left politics become evident. 

As I write these words the image of the late Robin Cook jumps to the forefront of my mind — someone who embodied the instincts for social and climate justice brought about by deeper democracy within the context of electoral reality. 

While events blew the Dodds resignation off the front pages the impact will continue to ricochet around, not least as a Prime Minister more concerned with global issues could see domestic affairs deteriorate given any spending cuts and tax rises imposed if the assessment of the Office of Budget Responsibility on 26 March determines the Government has broken its own fiscal rules.

In this context, of ever more paranoid central control but deep disillusionment across the party and the country, space will open up for a politics that is about power for a purpose.

To seize the moment, the old and tired language of the soft left, as opposed to the hard left, must be junked as must any tribal notions that Labour and Labour alone can address the multiple national global crises we face — not least the incessant rise of national populism. 

It’s going to take a Popular Front to win a future that is fit for humanity.  At least we know whose side Dodds is on.