|
|
Britain’s no choice election
The general election campaign has started in earnest. With
so little to choose between the main parties, however, the election is already
marked by vitriolic personal abuse and dirty tricks, as well as the early use of
the immigration race-card. HANNAH SELL writes.
SINCE THE INTRODUCTION of universal suffrage, the gap
between the world of Westminster and the reality of people’s lives has never
been greater. In mid-February, when New Labour launched its election campaign,
the country was seized by a feeling of leaden gloom at the thought of another
three months of election propaganda. Tony Blair has talked about the danger of
the nation ‘sleepwalking into a Conservative victory’, but it is not apathy that
is hanging like a pall over the general election, but alienation from all
mainstream parties.
Far from being apathetic, the working class in Britain
stands on the brink of its biggest conflict with New Labour yet. All local
government unions and the civil servants union (PCS) have voted overwhelming
(from 66% to 87%) for strike action against the government’s onslaught on
pension rights. "Threat of biggest one-day strike since 1926", screamed the
Financial Times. While this may be an exaggeration, it would be the biggest
number of workers involved in simultaneous strike action for over 20 years. As
we go to press, negotiations between the government and public-sector unions are
continuing, and a retreat by the government is possible.
Even if the government makes temporary concessions to
prevent strike action before the general election, it is clear that it is
squaring up for a showdown with public-sector unions. Given the anger and
determination of trade unionists, even the most right-wing union leaders are
under enormous pressure to lead a fight.
But not one whiff of this class conflict has surfaced in the
general election campaign. Never has a general election been so devoid of real
political debate. As a result, the turnout is likely to be even lower than the
historical low of 59% in 2001. According to a Mori poll in February, only 45% of
people were definitely intending to vote, and that this could result in an
actual turnout of 51%. Those who will not vote are overwhelmingly working class,
‘traditional Labour voters’.
Even in 2001, New Labour’s lack of a base in society was
demonstrated when, for the first time ever, there were more people who did not
vote at all than voted for the governing party. If it was to be re-elected with
the same vote share but a 51% turnout, then it would have the endorsement of
fewer than one in five of those eligible to vote. Labour voters would be
outnumbered two to one by non-voters.
New Labour is a severely weakened party and Tony Blair is a
damaged prime minister. The parliamentary fiasco over the anti-terror
legislation (when a majority in the House of Lords forced the government to
backtrack on some of the most authoritarian proposals) further undermined them,
but it is the Iraq war that remains the biggest single event in Blair’s
transformation from ‘Teflon Tony’ to electoral liability. The latest revelation
that the written briefing by the attorney-general, Lord Goldsmith, (the supposed
‘legal basis’ for the war in Iraq) never even existed, has deepened the
perception that Blair cannot be trusted. Opposition to the occupation in Iraq is
now at a higher level than at any stage since the war began. While a feeling of
powerlessness means that this is not, at this stage, reflected in the size of
anti-war demonstrations, it is a major element in the extreme reluctance of many
who voted Labour in the last two elections to do so again.
Discontent with New Labour goes far deeper than opposition
to the war. At root it is an expression of anger at the inequality of Blair’s
Britain, and the neo-liberal policies the government has pursued. The most
recent opinion polls show that almost 60% of people are deeply dissatisfied with
New Labour. However, despite not being in power, 45% of people are also
dissatisfied with Tory leader Michael Howard.
Tories still hated
NEW LABOUR’S GREATEST asset is the deep-seated hatred of the
Tories for the crimes they committed during 18 years in office. Former Home
Secretary Michael Howard is a constant reminder of the Tories’ record in office.
The government is desperately hoping that fear of a Tory victory will increase
Labour support, as workers come out with gritted teeth to stop the Tories
scraping in. This undoubtedly helped New Labour in 2001, when the Tories were
less serious contenders than they are today.
New Labour, however, cannot rely on the anti-Tory vote to
the extent it has done in the past. If the Tories seem to be a real threat, a
section, particularly of older workers, will vote Labour, but there is no
guarantee that this will be enough. There are indications that disillusionment
with the government is so profound amongst sections of the working class that
they no longer see New Labour as being even marginally better than the Tories.
Over pensions, a common proposal from rank-and-file local government trade
unionists has been to strike on election day, on the basis that elections are
‘something the government actually cares about’ and so it would be forced to
listen to their demands. Historically, given the ‘parliamentary illusions’ of
the British working class, such ideas have rarely been raised, and certainly not
at such an early stage of a struggle. However, local government workers are
reflecting the feelings of millions of working-class people, sick of the
identikit policies of the three main parties, who would be happy for the
election campaign to be stopped.
After years of flat-lining the Tories have an Everest to
climb to win the election. The parliamentary arithmetic means that, on the basis
of an even swing to the Tories across the country, they would need a
twelve-point lead to win the election. Impossible as that sounds, it would be
wrong to assume that a Labour victory is guaranteed. Even The Guardian has
started to panic: "Labour can only hope… to spin a delicate majority come May".
In 2001 not a single press commentator believed the Tories could win. This time
is different. While a Labour victory is still most likely, New Labour’s
nightmare of a repeat of 1970 (when Ted Heath defeated Harold Wilson in an
unexpected victory for the Tories) is being mentioned frequently in the press.
Wilson, when asked to explain what went wrong, said that "people could not tell
the difference between Tory and Labour". Today, this is 100 times truer than it
was then. On the basis of a very low turnout, no result can be excluded.
Brown’s Britain
THE TORIES’ LACK of credibility on the economy is a factor
in New Labour’s favour. The Chancellor, Gordon Brown, ludicrously claims that
New Labour has delivered the longest period of economic growth since records
began in 1701! It is true that, unlike the big players in Europe (with
large manufacturing bases seriously affected in recent economic crises), Britain
appears to have escaped the worst ravages of economic stagnation. The low-wage
and sweated labour economy of Britain, together with the City of London’s income
from financial ‘services’, have provided a cushion against unfavourable economic
winds from abroad.
However, this temporary cushion has brought no relief for
big sections of the working class. For the richest in society Britain is truly
booming. The wealth of the top 1% has doubled under New Labour, from £355
billion to £797 billion, according to the Office for National Statistics. (This
is more than the government spent in the last five years on education, the NHS
and housing combined.) The gap between the rich and poor has continued to widen.
Nearly twice as many people have relatively low incomes as 25 years ago. This is
reflected in every aspect of working people’s lives, including how long they
last! Thirty years ago men from poorer backgrounds died 5.5 years before their
more prosperous contemporaries, now the gap is 7.5 years. On top of shorter life
expectancy, illness means that men from poorer backgrounds suffer almost 17
years more ill health than the rich.
Unemployment, nominally at one of its lowest levels ever, is
in reality considerably higher. Since New Labour was elected over one million
manufacturing jobs have been destroyed, and the slaughter continues, with an
estimated 26,000 manufacturing jobs expected to go in the first quarter of 2005
alone. Some jobs have been replaced by lower-paid, insecure, service jobs, but
for a generation of male workers, particularly in the North and Midlands there
have been no replacement jobs. For example, in the former coalfields ravaged by
Thatcher 20 years ago, ‘real’ joblessness among men in 13 former coalfields is
still more than 11%, while official unemployment is only 3.5%.
The weakness of manufacturing is a reflection of the serious
economic and social situation confronting British capitalism. This means that,
whoever wins the election, a diet of increased cuts, privatisation and tax rises
is on the agenda. A foretaste of the reality of the next government was given in
Brown’s budget. Faced with borrowing £34 billion this year alone (Brown
previously predicted borrowing £18bn over the entire economic cycle), Brown was
unable make any ‘giveaway’ worth the name. In 2001 Brown went on a modest
pre-election spending spree, increasing net spending by £3.6 billion. This time,
he has tightened spending by £265 million. Hidden amongst derisory ‘sweeteners’
(such as the one-off £200 council tax rebate for pensioners) to try and secure
the ‘grey vote’, there were even attacks on the working class, including
draconian measures against those on incapacity benefit
It would be wrong to imagine that Brown has taxed the rich
in this budget. The supposed ‘windfall tax’ against the oil companies is
actually only the bringing forward of an existing taxation plan. The UK Offshore
Operators Association declared nonchalantly: "Overall there is no increase in
the tax burden on our industry". With years of cuts in corporation tax and with
BP recording record profits of $16.2 billion for 2004, the money Brown has taken
in taxes is not even a drop of oil in the ocean!
The next government will face a dramatically more difficult
financial situation. Up to now, the British economy and, thereby, the minimal
spending on public services, has been buoyed up by the growth in consumption
which, as in the US and other ‘Anglo-Saxon’ countries, has been a big factor in
sustaining overall economic growth. The housing bubble has been crucial to this,
allowing increased spending with refinancing of mortgages. This has led,
however, to colossal household debt of 140% of annual income, now clearly
unsustainable.
Plan of attack
SOME CAPITALIST EXPERTS hope that this will not result in a
repetition of the housing market collapse of the early 1990s, with a drop in
prices that resulted in repossessions and homelessness. Interest rates are lower
now and they argue that householders may just hang on to property and wait for
‘better times’. But this discounts the likelihood of a serious world economic
crisis, which will severely impact on Britain, as well as the underlying
economic weakness of British capitalism. In addition, the cushion of North Sea
oil is running out, with oil imports exceeding exports in June for the first
time in eleven years. The rising oil price will cut Britain’s economic growth,
which will lead to a rise in unemployment and eventually squeeze profit margins.
This in turn will force big business to resist even the meagre wage increases
being granted at the present time.
Even before a recession, British and world capitalism are
desperate to drastically reduce the working class’s share of the economy to
boost the profitability of big business in order to sustain the economic
merry-go-round. Germany is a terrible warning to the British workers – as
Thatcher’s Britain was to the Germans in the past. Under the whip of the
Schröder government, fast-track Thatcherism is the order of the day, with the
welfare state in tatters, wages reduced to poverty levels, and a savage
lengthening of the working week. While the intensity of attacks vary depending
on the economic situation, any government that accepts the logic of the
capitalist market will follow fundamentally the same policies of privatisation,
lengthening the working week and working life, and destruction of the welfare
state. While the programme of the Tory party takes privatisation of what is left
of the public sector further and faster than New Labour, the differences are
marginal.
The hope of those like Labour ex-deputy leader Roy
Hattersley, that the party will return to social democratic policies – by which
he means the maintenance of a minimal state sector, opposition to wholesale
privatisation and improvements in living standards – is a romantic dream. It is
just as deluded to believe that Brown stands for such a programme. While, to
further his leadership ambitions, Brown may occasionally emphasis the
cigarette-paper-width differences with Blair on this or that issue, he is a
dyed-in-the-wool neo-liberal, who regularly berates the likes of Schröder for
not being sufficiently vigorous in attacks on the working class! Worldwide all
the pro-capitalist parties are moving in the opposite direction to that which
the working class will move in the next period.
The National Health Service (NHS), one of the great
achievements of the 1945 Labour government, will be drastically undermined by
New Labour in a third term. The basic premise of the NHS – free, high-quality
healthcare available to all – is already being rapidly eroded. New Labour is
attempting to dramatically expand privatisation with the introduction of
foundation hospitals and privately-run Direct Treatment Centres. Conditions have
deteriorated as a result. A leaked Department of Health memo has revealed that
cataract operations will each cost the health service £115 more than when
carried out in-house, not least because the surgeons performing it will be paid
£500,000 a year! The Tories will take the process one stage further, allowing
individual patients to use public money, in the form of vouchers, to go to a
private hospital.
On public housing New Labour’s policies are a programme for
outright privatisation. Housing minister, Keith Hill, has already told MPs that
he is ‘tearing up’ tenants’ rights to a decent home if they vote to keep their
council landlords. Even the Labour MP Austin Mitchell described the government’s
policy in the following terms: "Nominally, the councils are being given three
choices: stock transfer (ie privatisation), PFI (ie privatisation) and ALMOs
(arm’s-length management organisation – the first of a two-stage privatisation
process). As this Hobson’s choice demonstrates, Prescott’s purpose is to
privatise housing that councils have taken years to build up".
Despite the lack of an alternative, tenants up and down the
country have voted against privatisation. In Birmingham two-thirds of 88,000
council tenants voted against, forcing the government to exempt the council from
the July deadline. However, there is no mainstream party that shares these
council tenants’ views. The Tories’ policy is identical to New Labour’s and,
while the Liberal Democrats say they want tenants to have the option of
continued council housing, they have voted against it time and again on local
councils. Even the Greens, where they have six councillors on Brighton council,
voted in favour of the ALMO option.
On public-sector pensions all three mainstream parties
support raising the pension age. With their normal attempt to straddle two
horses, the Liberal Democrats argue that the planned public-sector strike could
have been avoided ‘if the government had been prepared to compromise’, but then
proceed to support 90% of the government’s policy.
Despite their fluffy coating, the Liberal Democrats are
further to the right on some issues. For example, they are promising to
privatise areas New Labour has not got round to – prisons and the Royal Mint.
And they have shown their true colours by promising to ban strikes in ‘key
industries’ – trying to take away the one means workers have to defend
themselves.
The left alternative
UNFORTUNATELY, THE VAST majority of workers who want to vote
against neo-liberal policies will literally have no-one to vote for in this
election. As yet, no significant left alternative to New Labour has emerged from
the trade unions. Over the last 18 months the Rail, Maritime and Transport
workers’ union (RMT) has been expelled from New Labour for supporting the
Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), and the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) voted to break
with New Labour, against the recommendation of the union’s leadership. While
these are important steps forward, criminally, the majority of national trade
union leaders, including most of the so-called ‘awkward squad’, expend enormous
energy trying to protect and defend the Labour Party. (Dave Prentis, general
secretary of UNISON, has even attempted to blame the current attacks on
public-sector pensions solely on the Tories who left office eight years ago!)
However just as, in the wake of a bitter conflict with the government,
fire-fighters defied their leaders and broke with New Labour, other sections of
workers will take the same road as they join the mighty battles that are
looming.
Nonetheless, in this election only a relatively small number
of seats will have socialists contesting them. In Scotland the SSP is aiming to
contest every seat. In England and Wales, the Socialist Party is standing 15
candidates, as part of an electoral alliance, the Socialist Green Unity
Coalition, which will provide workers in up to 30 seats with the chance to vote
for socialist ideas. In some other seats it is to be hoped that genuine
anti-cuts and anti-privatisation candidates will stand. In addition, Respect,
led by George Galloway MP and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), will stand in
28 seats, and hopes to get Galloway elected in the Bethnal Green and Bow
constituency.
In the seats Respect contests radical workers and youth will
rightly be pleased to have the chance to vote for candidates to the left of New
Labour, candidates who are opposed to cuts, privatisation and the war in Iraq.
However, it is regrettable that Galloway has missed the opportunity to launch an
open, democratic formation – standing on an explicitly socialist programme –
which would have had the possibility of drawing in anti-capitalist youth, trade
unionists, community campaigners and socialists – using this election to prepare
for a new party of the working class. Unfortunately, Respect has not taken this
route. This represents another missed opportunity, after the Socialist Labour
Party and the Socialist Alliance, on the road to a new formation to represent
the working class. Respect is not a socialist organisation, but primarily an
electoral machine for George Galloway. It aims mainly at the Muslim community,
which, in the wake of the Iraq war, have moved dramatically away from Labour.
However, up until now, Respect has not done this as part of an attempt to win
working-class Muslims to the idea of a new party representing all sections of
the working class, but in an opportunist way, appealing to Muslims simply on the
basis of their religion.
The race-card
GIVEN THE LACK of a mass left alternative to New Labour, it
is not surprising that the central social and economic issues are not dominating
the election campaign. As a result, it is not pensions, pay or the NHS that is
the biggest issue but immigration – with 40% of voters thinking it is important,
and 23% thinking it is the single most important issue.
There are those on the left who will write off the British
working class as a reactionary mass because of the role that immigration is
playing in this election. But this is profoundly mistaken. It is, of course,
true that racist ideas have gained ground under the impact of racist,
anti-immigrant propaganda from New Labour, the Tories and the tabloids.
Immigration is being used consciously by New Labour and the Tories as an
electoral tool. New Labour hopes it can undercut the Tories and the far-right by
stealing their clothes – inevitably, it is having the opposite effect. It is not
for nothing that Nick Griffin, the BNP’s leader, described Labour’s former Home
Secretary David Blunkett as the BNP’s "best recruiting sergeant".
Socialists have to stand firm against this avalanche of
propaganda and defend the rights of asylum seekers and immigrants, including
opposing the detention of asylum seekers, asylum centres, and the prosecution of
asylum seekers without papers, along with all the rest of the government’s
reactionary anti-asylum legislation. At the same time, we have to understand
that a major factor in the fear of increased immigration is the fear of seeing
already over-stretched, under-funded public services overwhelmed. All the
mainstream parties are in favour of privatising and cutting public services, and
the vast majority of the population never hear any major force in society
arguing against the relentless onslaught. At the same time, every mainstream
party, to one degree or another, is attempting to lay the blame for
overstretched resources at the door of asylum seekers and immigrants in general.
The results are inevitable.
In reality, as New Labour’s recent proposals on immigration
quotas makes clear, the government is not opposed to increased immigration.
While it is happy to keep asylum seekers in inhumane conditions in detention
centres, or arbitrarily deport them sometimes to face torture and death in the
countries they fled from, New Labour favours increased immigration – providing
it assists big business, which is what the quotas are designed to do.
The Economist summed up the attitude of a section of the
ruling class when it argued in favour of lifting immigration controls: "The gap
between labour’s rewards in the poor and the rich countries, even for something
as menial as clearing tables, dwarfs the gap between the prices of traded goods
from different parts of the world. The potential gains [to capitalist profits]
from liberalising migration therefore dwarf those from removing barriers to
world trade".
Big business has used globalisation of the economy as a
means to dramatically increase profits. One aspect of this has been moving
production abroad to countries where labour is cheaper. Now they want to try and
globalise labour by encouraging cheaper labour to travel to richer countries and
to drive down wages in those countries. Although a majority of the ruling class
do not advocate the lifting of all immigration controls, they are keen to take
advantage of cheap labour, illegal and legal. Supermarket giant, Tesco, which
recently announced record profits of £3.5 million a day, has been exposed as
relying on suppliers who exploit extremely low-paid, immigrant agricultural
labourers, under the control of brutal gang masters.
The public sector is fundamentally no different. The British
nursing register shows that the number of nurses being certified from Botswana,
Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe – all former
British colonies – has soared since 1999. As a result, more than 60% of nursing
positions remain unfilled in countries such as Ghana and Malawi.
Workers from other countries are being used to plug the
‘skills gap’ in Britain. However, the skills shortages that exist in many parts
of the public sector are a reflection of New Labour’s unwillingness to put the
resources into training and, in particular, to raise public-sector workers’
wages. Forty percent of newly qualified teachers leave teaching within their
first three years in the job as a result of stress and low pay. In London in
particular, the response of New Labour has been to rely on immigrant workers to
plug the gap. The Jamaican government complained that 600 teachers moved abroad
to work in 2004 alone, mainly to Britain and the US. However, the better pay and
conditions are far from luxurious. In one London school immigrant teachers were
housed in Portakabins in the school playground!
As socialists we steadfastly oppose the scapegoating and
fight for the rights of asylum seekers and economic migrants. On quotas, we have
to ask, in whose interests are they being introduced? They are not being
introduced in the interests of the low-paid workers who fill the quotas; nor in
the interests of workers already in Britain who, as The Economist explained,
will face their wages being ‘levelled down’.
Rebuilding the workers’ movement
THE TRADE UNION movement has a critical role to play in
determining to what degree quotas achieve the aims of big business. The trade
unionisation of immigrants is not a new issue for the British working class, but
it will form a vital aspect of both the struggle against low pay and the
struggle against racism in the coming years. If the trade union movement were to
launch a serious struggle against low pay, specifically taking up the rights of
immigrant workers, it would transform the political landscape.
This issue is linked to the need to rebuild the trade union
movement amongst the working class as a whole, particularly in the private
sector. There have recently been a number of strikes threatened in the private
sector, including the possibility of further action by low-paid baggage handlers
at Heathrow Airport. However, only one fifth of private-sector workers are
members of a trade union, and the levels amongst young private-sector workers
are dramatically lower. TUC membership is at its lowest level since 1944, partly
because of objective factors such as the contraction of manufacturing. Some of
it, however, is due to ineffective leadership and policies. On the basis of
their experience of capitalism in the coming years young workers will inevitably
be drawn into struggle and attracted to the unions. But the obstacle of union
leaders, who in many cases are unwilling to lead determined struggle, could be a
seriously complicating factor in the rebuilding of the movement. By contrast,
where a lead is given the union movement grows. It is not coincidence that the
PCS is now one of the fastest growing unions in Europe.
In the short term, a one-day public-sector strike on
pensions, if it goes ahead, would have a major effect in enabling workers to get
a glimpse of their potential power. It would give confidence to the working
class, first and foremost in the public sector, but also in the private sector.
It is extremely important that public-sector unions link their struggle to the
need to defend pensions in the private sector. Over the last few years, more
than half-a-million workers in 380 private-sector companies have been told that
their pensions are gone forever because the owners took a ‘pensions holiday’ and
stopped paying into workers’ pension funds. The fight to defend these workers,
alongside a campaign for a living state pension, has to be a central part of the
public-sector unions’ campaign. But the starting point must be an understanding
that victory will require a determined, militant struggle. A one-day
public-sector strike would be a tremendous beginning – but it would take
preparedness for further action, including longer public-sector strike action,
to secure a victory.
Unfortunately, in general, with the exception of fighting
leaders like Mark Serwotka of PCS, most trade union leaders have been docile and
ineffective in the teeth of the employers’ offensive.
It is an indication of the mood on pensions, which has become a ‘line in
the sand’ for public-sector workers, that even Dave Prentis has been forced to
ballot for a strike in the run-up to the general election. The fact he has been
up for re-election is one reason he has gone so far, but the primary factor is
the mood of UNISON members. Similarly, in the teachers’ union, NUT, the
leadership has been forced to hold a strike ballot after a consultative ballot
gave overwhelming support for strike action, despite it being offered as one of
six different means of prosecuting the campaign, in an effort to confuse!
Whether Tory or Labour the next government will be elected
with an unprecedentedly weak base of support. And post-election, given the
inevitable failures of capitalism and the escalation of attacks on living
conditions, conflict between the new government and the working class is
guaranteed, no matter how hard the trade union bureaucracy try to hold struggle
back. The young people who have been radicalised by the anti-war movement are a
precursor of the wider radicalisation that will take place as workers enter
struggle. Just as in Germany, where a majority now believe that socialism ‘is a
good idea’, socialist ideas will gain strength in Britain. This does not mean
there will be no complications. If, as he is clearly expecting, Brown takes the
leadership of the Labour Party, Hattersley, Prentis and their ilk will declare
that ‘old Labour’ has returned. Temporarily, sections of workers may cling to
the hope that this is true – but reality will very soon smash those fragile
illusions. The growth of socialist ideas will not come primarily as a result of
socialist argumentation (although it plays a crucial role), but as a result of
the brutal experience of the next government, and the reality of 21st century
capitalism.
|