THE COUNSEL OF DISPAIR

Bryce Edwards of the Democracy Project says that the left needs to get used to the idea of forming a government with New Zealand First. Edwards, and former left wing commentator Chris Trotter, think that the left’s only path to power is to contort itself into a shape acceptable to a party that has spent decades undermining the very constituencies Labour and the Greens claim to represent. Far from rescuing the left, such a strategy would extinguish what remains of its credibility.

 

THE SUGGESTION from commentators Bryce Edwards and Chris Trotter that Labour and the Greens must resign themselves to governing with New Zealand First is not a strategy. It is not a 'sensible' and 'pragmatic' reading of the situation that Edwards suggest it is. In fact, it is an admission of political exhaustion. It assumes that the left has no capacity to rebuild its own base, no confidence in its own ideas, and no belief that class politics still matters in a country where inequality has become the defining feature of everyday life. To accept this logic is to accept permanent retreat. A Labour–Green–NZ First arrangement would not only be incoherent; it would foreclose the possibility of a credible left-wing government for years to come. Given that Chris Trotter bid farewell to the left a couple of years ago, this probably would not concern him — indeed, he'd probably be delighted. But Bryce Edwards should know better.

The fundamental problem is that New Zealand First is structurally incompatible with any project aimed at redistributing wealth, strengthening workers’ rights, or confronting the power of capital. Its political identity is built on cultural conservatism and economic nationalism, not on class solidarity or social transformation. It has consistently opposed measures that would shift power toward labour, regulate landlords, or challenge corporate interests. Any government dependent on New Zealand First would be forced to abandon the very policies that could materially improve the lives of working people. The left would enter such a coalition already defeated, having traded away its core commitments before even taking office.

This is where class politics becomes unavoidable. The crisis facing Labour and the Greens is not simply one of messaging or personality. It is a crisis of political orientation. For years, Labour has tried to straddle a shrinking middle ground, offering technocratic management instead of confronting the structural drivers of inequality. The Greens, meanwhile, have struggled to reconcile their radical instincts with the compromises of coalition politics. And getting stuck in the quagmire of identity politics hasn't helped either. In the process, both parties have drifted away from the working-class voters who once formed the backbone of the left. These voters have not disappeared; they have been abandoned. That's why some 900,000 folk no longer vote. 

The result is a political vacuum that the right has filled with narratives about crime, cultural grievance, and individual responsibility. When the left refuses to articulate a class-based analysis of why life is getting harder—why rents are unaffordable, why wages stagnate, why public services crumble—it leaves people with no explanation except the ones offered by its opponents. A coalition with New Zealand First would deepen this vacuum. It would signal that Labour and the Greens have no intention of challenging the economic status quo, no interest in rebuilding working-class power, and no vision beyond clinging to office.

Edwards and Trotter present their argument as hard-headed realism, but it is grounded in a profound pessimism about the electorate. They assume that left-wing ideas are inherently unpopular, that voters are immovable, and that the only path to power is to chase the centre wherever it drifts. But the centre is not a natural phenomenon; political leadership shapes it. When the left retreats, the centre shifts right. When the left advances with clarity and conviction, the centre moves with it. The idea that Labour and the Greens must contort themselves to fit the preferences of Winston Peters is a refusal to engage with this basic political reality.

A credible left project must start from the recognition that class inequality is not an abstract issue but the lived experience of millions. It must speak directly to renters trapped in an exploitative housing market, to workers whose wages no longer cover basic needs, to young people locked out of the future, and to communities bearing the brunt of climate change. It must offer policies that redistribute wealth, democratise the economy, and invest in public goods. And it must do so unapologetically, without diluting its message to appease a party that has spent decades attacking the very constituencies the left claims to represent.

A Labour–Green–NZ First government would be incapable of delivering such a programme. It would be paralysed by internal contradictions, forced into endless compromises that would alienate its base while achieving little. The right would spend the next three years attacking it as incoherent and directionless, and voters would agree. By the time the next election arrived, the left would be punished not only for its failures but for its lack of conviction. This is not a path back to power; it is a path to irrelevance.

The alternative is not easy, but it is the only one with any chance of success: abandon centrism and campaign on a clear, class-rooted left platform. This means confronting inequality head-on, offering transformative climate policy, rebuilding public services, and restoring the idea that politics can materially improve people’s lives. It means rejecting the fatalism that underpins the Edwards–Trotter argument and recognising that political momentum is built, not inherited.

The left cannot save itself by surrendering its identity. It can only save itself by offering a vision bold enough to inspire those who have stopped believing that politics can change anything at all. A coalition with New Zealand First would extinguish that possibility. A renewed commitment to class politics is the only way to revive it.