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Blair’s last election
New Labour celebrations after its election win were muted
and short-lived. Within hours, MPs and commentators were calling for prime
minister, Tony Blair, to resign. His government’s prosecution of the war in
Iraq, and attacks on public services and civil liberties, have turned the tide
against his neo-liberal government. PETER TAAFFE analyses the result and
political developments in Britain.
THE NEW LABOUR government of Tony Blair has been returned in
the general election for a ‘record’ third Labour term. Margaret Thatcher also
won three elections but is now so discredited that even Tory leader Michael
Howard distanced himself from her regime early in the campaign. The outcome of
this contest is hardly a ringing endorsement of the ‘New Labour project’, as the
government’s majority collapsed from 166 to 66, with its percentage of the
popular vote, 36%, the lowest of any governing party in history: the most
unpopular party to form a government since the 1832 Reform Act.
Despite this, Blair claimed that he has a mandate to govern,
which is not borne out by the facts. For the first time, a majority government
in Britain has been elected by fewer people than those who could not be bothered
to vote: 36% voted for New Labour, while 39% of the electorate did not make it
to the polling station. Only 21% of the 44 million electorate supported New
Labour – another record in British electoral history. This is worse, for
instance, than Harold Wilson’s Labour government of 1974, which scored 39% of
the vote and 28% of the electorate.
The Tories, on the other hand, flat-lined, gaining seats
but, with 32.3% of the vote, this is just a 0.6% increase on their disastrous
showing in 2001. Howard says he is going to resign and already has "something of
the goodnight about him". (Andrew Rawnsley, Observer) In the popular vote,
Labour scored roughly 9.5 million to the 8.75 million for the Tories. Support
for the Tories slumped amongst women, for instance, with only 27% supporting the
Tories, even compared to 33% in 2001. The only age group in which the
Conservatives led was amongst the over-65s, with 42% of them voting for the
Tories.
Nevertheless, in London we saw a swing from Labour to the
Tories of roughly 3%, with eleven seats captured from Labour. This probably
reflects the disgruntlement of Londoners on a whole series of issues, from
dissatisfaction at the high cost of living, even compared to other parts of the
country, the stress arising from the dilapidated transport system, opposition to
the war, and support which the Tories garnered in their dirty campaign of
vilification against immigrants.
As a by-product of the ‘nasty party’s’ anti-immigrant
campaign, the British National Party recorded its best vote, an average of 4.3%
in a general election. In parts of London, such as Barking in East London, it
achieved its highest share of the vote in a parliamentary election, 16.9%,
beating the Liberal Democrats into third place, and losing out to the
second-placed Tories by just 27 votes. In neighbouring Dagenham, it notched up
9%.
Respect
ON THE LEFT, the Respect party of George Galloway,
successful in Tower Hamlets in ousting the Blairite apologist, Oona King, won an
average of 6.9% of the vote in what John Curtis in The Independent, in a
one-sided way, described as: "The best performance by a far-left party in
British electoral history".
If this were the case, it would be a cause for celebration
for all of those on the left looking for an alternative to discredited New
Labour and the fake radicalism of the Liberal Democrats. Unfortunately, despite
the success of Respect, it is too narrowly based, gaining support from Muslims –
many, if not mostly, workers outraged at Blair’s support for the war – but not
from other non-Muslim sections of the working class, even in Tower Hamlets
itself, where George Galloway was elected.
After his election, George Galloway was quoted in The
Guardian as promising that he "would step down for a Bengali" after one term as
an MP. Why not for a socialist or a good working-class fighter and, if the best
candidate is a Bengali worker, who now have a sizeable presence in the
constituency, all well and good? Was Oona King a better fighter for the workers
of Tower Hamlets because she happened to be black? Is David Lammy, the black
Blairite MP for Tottenham, a champion of the working class, black or white, in
his area or generally? To merely pose this question shows how wrong and short
sighted it is to choose fighters for the left and socialism mainly on an ethnic
basis.
Some of the most oppressed sections of the working class
come from the ethnic communities and it is the responsibility of socialists to
reach them and win them to our ideas. But given the current character of many
working-class areas, especially but not exclusively in London, with ethnic
divisions and tensions, it is crucial that this should be done with care. By
concentrating on just one community, even if it is the most alienated and
persecuted, as is undoubtedly the case with Muslims and Asians generally, runs
the risk of separating oneself from other decisive sections of the working
class. With its almost total concentration on Muslim areas in this election –
and with a programme that was not clearly socialist – Respect has unfortunately
made that mistake in the run-up to and during the election. Hopefully, George
Galloway and Respect will learn the lessons of this campaign.
If it remains narrowly focused on one section of the working
class it will not be able to reach out to embrace even those leftward-moving
workers looking to establish the foundations of a new, genuine, mass party of
the working class.
The Socialist Party, in an alliance with the Socialist
Greens – blatantly and shamefully denied any publicity both in the national and
local media – conducted a spirited campaign which touched important sections of
the working class and young people, even where they were not convinced to vote
for us at this stage, and established a foothold in a number of important
constituencies (see The Socialist, 6 May 2005).
A ‘presidential’ election
MOST SIGNIFICANTLY, THE Iraq war probably accounted for the
majority of the 1.1 million votes lost by Labour between 2001 and this election.
There was an element of a class split in this, with many of those working-class
people voting Labour, while disagreeing with Blair on the war, motivated on more
‘bread-and-butter’ issues and particularly fearful of any return of the dreaded
Tories, while a layer of radical middle-class people were indignant and voted
against Blair, precisely because of the war. The relentless pounding away on the
theme of ‘don’t allow Howard in by the backdoor’ – which begs the question of
who left the backdoor open in the first place – had an effect on certain
sections of the working class and others who, otherwise, would have been
prepared to desert Labour and look for a more radical option. There is no longer
a stable core vote for Labour, as New Labour imagined. The older generation,
steeped in the tradition of what the Labour Party once was, at bottom a
working-class party, and with painful memories of the Tories, still turned out
to ‘stop the Tories’. The new generation, which has experienced ‘Labour’ through
Blairism, is searching for more radical alternatives.
In reality, as even the tabloid press has commented, none of
the establishment parties "can be completely happy" (Daily Mirror). One Labour
MP commented to Andrew Grice of The Independent: "The worrying thing is that
people don’t want any of us". This is the essence of Britain’s 2005 general
election. For the three main establishment parties – New Labour, Liberals and
the Tories – it was a ‘non-ideological’ contest between different management
teams for control of ‘Great Britain plc’. The differences between the parties
were minimal, highlighted by the fact that the tax proposals – a subject of
heated ‘debate’ – amounted to a £4 billion difference between the spending plans
of Labour and the Tories, a "piffling amount", according to a Financial Times
correspondent, and amounting to about 1% of total public expenditure.
All pretence of collective leadership during the campaign
was brushed aside by the leaders of all the parties as the election became a
contest between virtual ‘presidential’ candidates. This was personified by Blair
who adopted a more ‘humble’ posture but, even after his electoral setback, the
day after the election in Downing Street, still uttered the phrase: ‘I, we, the
government…’ A 1930s German semi-dictator, Von Schleicher, once stated: ‘First
comes me, then comes my horse, then comes parliament’.
This aspect of Blair’s regime, increasingly an ‘elected
dictatorship’, was evident in his personal decision, without real debate and
agreement from the cabinet, to back Bush’s war in Iraq, as was also his
government’s attack on democratic rights and civil liberties. It was this which
helped to motivate the assault on Blair personally, both before and during the
election, by an array of bourgeois commentators, such as the founder of The
Independent newspaper, Andreas Whittam Smith. There is undoubtedly an element of
Watergate in the way that Blair personally took the decision to support the
invasion of Iraq and then drove it through in the teeth of mass opposition. When
the US president, Richard Nixon, carried on the Vietnam war, after having
promised that he would end it when he was elected in 1968, decisive sections of
the American ruling class moved to impeach him over the Watergate break-in which
forced his resignation. The revelations of the Attorney General’s contradictory
‘advice’ on the ‘illegality’ of the Iraq war highlighted how out of control
Blair was from his cabinet and from parliament which, in theory, controls the
government, as well as from the mass of the British people.
When a government displays such tendencies it sets the alarm
bells ringing around the strategists of capitalism. They fear that Blair, having
blundered into one war, could drag them into an even worse foreign adventure, if
that could be imagined, than the disaster in Iraq. All of this, of course,
threatens ‘democratic’ government. Yet the possessing classes can quite easily
reconcile themselves to this government maintaining Thatcher’s vicious and
undemocratic anti-union laws, but if it threatens to endanger their position
will get short shrift. After the Suez adventure in 1956, the then Tory prime
minister, Anthony Eden, was widely discredited and was compelled to resign on
the grounds of ‘ill health’. The Iraq war was Blair’s Suez, part-payment for
this crime being made in the election, with the rest to be paid later when his
usefulness to big business and capitalism is finished.
FT backs New Labour
NOTWITHSTANDING THE WAR, the majority of capitalists –
reflected in the stance of the media – were prepared to extend their support to
Blair in this election. Not just the ‘dirty digger’, Rupert Murdoch, through the
columns of The Sun, but the august Times, the Economist (reluctantly – ‘No
Alternative (Alas)’) and, most importantly, the Financial Times, weighed in
behind Blair and New Labour. The reasons for the Financial Times’ support are
revealing: "The very vigour of the debate about things that do not matter much
underlines the extent of cross-party consensus about things that do. The economy
and business are at the epicentre of this new alignment. It shows that Britain
has moved well beyond the old left-right disagreements about the economy, profit
and the role of the market. All the main parties support the policy framework
behind the sustained growth and stability of the past decade. Indeed, both the
Conservatives and Labour had a hand in creating it. In other words, Britain no
longer has a ‘business party’ and an ‘anti-business party’. Try as some might to
point up the ideological distance between the parties, in fact, the gap between
Michael Howard’s Conservative and Tony Blair’s Labour Party is smaller than the
one at the last US presidential election between Republicans and Democrats". (3
May)
This brutal assessment by the organ of finance capital on
the class character of New Labour, ‘unremittingly’ a big-business party, is in
sharp contrast to the forlorn hankering of sections of the Labour ‘left’ for
Labour to return to its roots as a working-class party at its base. This was
highlighted in the election by the sad sight of Tony Benn explaining in The
Guardian that, in desperation, New Labour spin doctors had drafted him in to
convince wavering people to continue to support New Labour. He asserted that
this was an indication that Labour ‘was beginning to change’ and heralded its
return to its socialist roots. Similar claims have been made by left MPs
returned in this election.
It is true that the cutting back of Blair’s majority in the
Commons opens up greater scope for Commons rebellions on, for instance, the
issue of identity cards. There is speculation, for instance, that if in the last
parliament there had been a left-wing ‘wedge’ similar to that which has been
returned to the Commons now, then issues like foundation hospitals and tuition
fees would have been defeated. This leaves out of the account the fact that not
just the Blairites but the alleged ‘Brownites’ eventually came to heel and
supported the government over these measures. Gordon Brown, who was the real
‘victor’ in this election and is undoubtedly Blair’s replacement as prime
minister after he is forced to resign – the timing of which is the only
uncertain factor in the equation – supported Blair and Blairism on all decisive
issues. Indeed, without the support of Brown, Blair may have suffered an even
more serious setback in this election.
It is, however, stretching credulity to argue that if Blair
had gone before the election, Labour would have lost no seats, as Labour MP
Frank Dobson said. Brown, in the process of propping up Blair, has sullied his
‘radical’ credentials. As Blair floundered over his support for the war, Brown
rode in behind him and declared that he would have supported the invasion. He
has been as ‘unremitting’ in the pursuit of New Labour on, for instance,
privatisation, the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and support for the
‘market’. His radicalism amounts merely to verbally seducing the left,
occasionally, by showing ‘a little bit of his left ankle’.
What’s left?
MOREOVER, THE PERFORMANCE of ‘left’ MPs in the election
campaign does not indicate a firmness of intention or character when confronting
right-wing New Labour. For instance, Neil Gerrard, erstwhile left MP for
Walthamstow, astonished teachers in a debate in his constituency involving the
Socialist Party candidate where he came out in favour of New Labour projects
such as PFI, specifically for a local hospital, Whipps Cross, and the setting up
of educational ‘academies’, one of which had been previously defeated in a
successful campaign involving the Socialist Party. Left-wing MP, Jeremy Corbyn,
in his local election manifesto, praised the government for investment in his
area and singled out Patricia Hewitt for praise. Tell that to the Rover workers
who were made redundant while she stood aside like Pontius Pilate and did
nothing!
In the election campaign itself the mistake of those, like
Tony Benn and other left MPs who still cling to the party, was illustrated in
the defection of Brian Sedgemore to the Liberals, one of their number previously
in the Campaign Group of MPs and under-secretary to Tony Benn in the Labour
government of 1974-79. This was a move towards the right, but one conditioned by
the failure of left MPs and of trade union leaders, some of them in the ‘awkward
squad’, who offer no alternative and still cling to New Labour. Before and
during the election, the trade union leaders continued to pour their members’
money into the coffers of New Labour.
One such union is the Transport and General Workers’ Union,
led by Tony Woodley, who was anything but ‘awkward’ in relation to New Labour
during the Rover crisis, which meant he let down his own members. Blair
unbelievably declared at the height of the crisis that ‘nothing could be done’.
Yet the Heath government of 1972, a Tory government, in a similar crisis with
Rolls Royce, nationalised the company in 24 hours. It is a measure of the
capitalist character of this government, to the right of the Heath government of
the 1970s, that it would not entertain for a moment such a ‘confiscatory’
conception. It was left to Dave Nellist, the candidate for the Socialist Party
in Coventry North-East, to call for the workers of Rover to storm the plant and
occupy it. Even Mark Seddon, on the Tribunite left of the Labour Party,
suggested that the Rover workers should consider an occupation and ‘work to
rule’, as did the Upper Clyde ship-workers (UCS) when their shipyards were
threatened with closure in the early 1970s. Tony Woodley, subsequently, in an
article in The Guardian, proposed partial state ownership of important
industries that were facing closure. This was only after the Rover workers had
reluctantly acquiesced to the closure and, under the direction of their leaders,
looked towards increased redundancy payments.
The closure of this industry is a metaphor of what has
happened to British capitalism as a whole under the stewardship of both Labour
and Tory governments. One million jobs in manufacturing industry have been lost
in the last ten years as the short-sighted and greedy British capitalists have
relocated abroad, to China, Eastern Europe, etc, and the government has done
nothing about this. Those displaced from industry in the past have sometimes
found re-employment, but on the basis of drastically reduced wages in McJobs,
with worse wages and conditions. This is the fate awaiting the Rover workers on
the basis of diseased British capitalism. Little wonder that the now retired
leader of the UCS workers, Jimmy Reid, in a letter to The Guardian, wrote: "The
demise of the last British owned mass production car company happened on their
[New Labour’s] watch; in the middle of an election in which New Labour boasts it
has put an end to slumps. The word went out. Hush it up. Get it off the front
pages. And union leaders duly obliged. Shame on them". (18 April)
Britain’s low-wage economy
ALL THIS HAS taken place at a time of Brown’s alleged
economic fireworks, when the Iron Chancellor has supposedly ironed out all the
contradictions of capitalism, eliminating booms and slumps. In reality,
Britain’s ‘spectacular’ economic development under Brown and Blair is a chimera.
From 1996-2003, gross domestic product per person grew by 2.4% a year, the same
average rate as from 1982-96. It is true that the growth of the economy, both
under Brown and the previous Tory chancellor, Kenneth Clarke, has not been as
volatile as in previous periods. However, this is largely due to the 1990s boom
which, in turn, has been sustained by a combination of neo-liberal policies
involving attacks on the share of the wealth created by the working class, as
well as low interest rates. This, in turn, has fuelled a consumer boom which is
now coming to an end, as indicated by the worst sales in the retail sector for
13 years in April. Moreover, Britain’s performance only looks reasonable in
comparison to the disastrous economic stagnation of France, Italy and, on the
domestic front, Germany as well. Even in output per hour, when Britain is
compared, France is 25% higher, the US is 16% higher, and Germany 8% higher. The
reason for this lower productivity is "less capital invested per worker,
businesses are less innovative and workers are less skilled". (The Economist)
An additional factor, perhaps the most important in the case
of Britain, is the driving down of wages. This is now a low-wage economy, which
has been achieved by weakening the trade unions. The chronic underinvestment
arising from this is reflected in the trade deficit, which was £3.3 billion in
February. It has oscillated around this figure for a considerable period of
time, but diminished slightly, recently, largely because imports dropped by
1.5%. This, however, probably indicates a contraction of consumer spending which
has been the main engine of growth in the British economy under Brown.
On top of this is that it is "clear beyond doubt" (The
Independent) that the housing market has begun to stall badly. House prices,
according to the Halifax Bank, did not rise at all in April. When a similar
situation occurred in the Netherlands – not a collapse in house prices but a
stagnation – this ushered in a serious economic crisis from which the
Netherlands is still blighted and which has led to a wholesale assault on the
wages, conditions, etc, of workers.
Answering his economic critics, Brown has claimed that
economic growth will reach 3-3.5% this year. But this is highly problematical,
given the developments in the world economy where the unsustainable twin
deficits of the US, together with the rise of protectionism and the stagnation
in the housing market in the US as well, could precipitate a serious recession
which would have world ramifications.
The US Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan is attempting a
slow ‘deflation’ of the economy by small incremental increases of interest rates
over a period. This is bound to dissuade US consumers from continuing to borrow,
which will reinforce the already recessionary trends in the economy. The extent
to which the rest of the world is dependent on the US consumer to buy their
exports is indicated by the fact that the trade deficit in the US is running at
roughly £32 billion a month.
Gordon Brown’s nemesis
THE SAME DILEMMAS confronting the US, on a smaller scale,
exercise Brown in his ‘management’ of the British economy. The pound is
overvalued, hitting British exports and contributing to the yawning trade
deficit, which will be compounded if Brown is compelled to engage in another
‘hike’ in UK interest rates. This would attract ‘hot money’ from the global
speculators, but drive up the value of the pound even more. At the same time,
inflation is on the rise, raising the spectre for Britain of a return to the
‘stagflation’ – a stagnant economy and rising prices – of the 1960s and 1970s.
It is not an accident that capitalist commentators drew a comparison with the
election and that of 1992. That was ‘an election to lose’, as subsequent events,
particularly ‘Black Wednesday’, demonstrated.
Economic nemesis could confront this government in the
not-too-distant future. Brown, it seems, regularly jokes that ‘there are two
kinds of chancellor: those who fail and those who get out in time’. The refusal
of Blair to quickly cede power to Brown, which is draining away from Blair in
any case, could result, as noted by William Keegan, economics correspondent of
the Observer and keen Brownite, in Brown’s popularity being severely undermined
even before he takes over the ‘poisoned chalice’, the prime ministership, from
Blair.
The fate, however, of the luminaries of New Labour is
secondary to the impact the deterioration of British capitalism, which they have
done little or nothing to arrest, means for the fate of millions of
working-class people in Britain. The collapse of manufacturing industry has
continued apace, as we have seen, but so also has the retooling of Britain’s
shrunken industrial base, which has atrophied under New Labour as under the
Tories. For instance, Britain’s spending on research and development, at 1.9% of
gross domestic product (GDP), seriously lags behind that of France, Germany,
Japan and the US. The parasitic character of modern capitalism, including
British capitalism, is shown with its concentration on the ‘casino’ aspect of
speculation in currencies – the colossal financial pyramid of hedge funds, for
instance – and in tax swindles carried out by the rich and stashed away in
secret accounts. This, in turn, means that the historical role of capitalism in
developing the productive forces, its only real historical justification, has
been abandoned.
This shift of wealth and resources from the poor to the rich
was the ‘best-kept secret’ of this recent election. Only the Liberal Democrats
half-heartedly proposed a ten pence increase to 50p in the pound for those
earning over £100,000. They are now, after the election, preparing to drop this.
This proposal was treated with scorn by Blair and Brown, and yet the ‘tax
avoidance’ measures of the rich are one of the greatest acts of robbery ever
carried out by the ruling class in Britain. Firstly, high income taxes of 83%
were reduced to 40% and corporation tax from 52% to 30%. This has not prevented
massive frauds undertaken by an army of accountancy firms salting away the loot
of the rich in offshore islands. A staggering $11.5 trillion dollars (£6
trillion) of the world’s money is hidden in this fashion in Jersey, Guernsey and
the Isle of Man. If taxed, this loot could raise global revenues of £255 billion
a year which, if used properly, as even the London Evening Standard concedes,
"would help to alleviate poverty in Africa and developing countries". Britain
alone is losing an estimated £100 billion of tax revenue annually, which again
the Standard concedes "means ordinary people are paying much more than they need
be".
Company profits have roughly doubled every eight years, but
the taxes of the rich certainly have not. Inland Revenue statistics show that
the UK income tax take of £48.8 billion for 1989-90 rose to £123.7 billion for
2004-05, while for the same period – after taking account of record company
profits – the take from corporations rose only from £21.5 billion to £32.4
billion, which did not even keep pace with inflation. The total corporate share
of tax in the UK has dropped from 11.5% in 1997-98 to 7.7% in 2003-04 – under
the Blair/Brown management of British capitalism – which is less than 2.5% of
Britain’s GDP, the lowest ever. Since 1997, the richest 1,000 people have seen
their wealth increase from £99 billion to £250 billion. According to the
Standard, "More than 65,000 rich individuals live in Britain but pay little or
no tax". The capitalist accountancy firms have coined it in this situation and,
particularly, from privatisation of state assets: "PFI alone has yielded more
than £500 million in fees for big accountancy practices".
Classes on collision course
THIS HAS CONTRIBUTED to the maintenance, and deepening even,
of the stark class chasm, notwithstanding the blandishments of New Labour that
it was overcoming this divide. For instance, the difference in life expectancy
between the poorest and most affluent parts of the country has grown to eleven
years and is now more pronounced than in Victorian times, according to
researchers quoted in The Independent. During the election campaign a report
appeared that demonstrated that ‘social mobility’ – the movement of the working
class into higher education and higher income jobs – has virtually stagnated
under New Labour and is way behind the trends in other capitalist economies.
Three million children live in families who are poor, some
of them extremely so. Only the Socialist Party and other forces on the left
attempted to articulate the demands of this forgotten section of the population.
This was one of the main reasons why a huge 39% of the population abstained once
more from the ‘political process’. The turnout was boosted by a mere 2% compared
to the 2001 election. This was probably due to the massive increase in postal
voting, from two million in 2001 to six million in this election, accompanied by
many examples of fraud. Also many students, crippled by tuition fees, others
outraged by the Iraq war, and deprived and suffering sections of the population,
who abstained in the 2001 election, were motivated to vote in opposition to
Blair this time. The scandal of postal voting contributed to the disengagement
from the ‘political process’ of millions, as did the absence of canvassing by
New Labour – they were hardly able to show their face on the doorstep – and the
virtually complete ‘media election’ conducted by the three capitalist parties.
The main reason, however, there was not a complete rout for
Blair and Brown was the relatively ‘benign’ economic situation, with
unemployment at a 28-year low, at least officially. True, millions can only get
by now through longer hours because of low wages. But, as yet, the bottom has
not completely fallen out of the British economy. This can all change, long
before New Labour is forced to go back for a ‘mandate’. At the same time,
Blair’s promise, as well as Brown, to pursue an ‘unremittingly New Labour’
agenda means further clashes with the trade unions and the working class. This
does not necessarily require the government to go back for approval from
parliament. ‘Primary legislation’ has already been passed on privatisation, PFI,
etc. Ministers can just use parliamentary ‘instruments’ to carry out their
programme. Therefore, the lefts’ claim that they can hold the whip hand in the
new parliament is not the case. It will take more than parliamentary and verbal
posturing to stop the Blairite neo-liberal onslaught on the rights and
conditions of the working class.
The pensions battle – postponed by the semi-retreat of New
Labour just before the election – will be renewed with vigour. The appointment
of ‘hard man’ David Blunkett is likely to have an incendiary effect on
public-sector workers, in particular, who face a drastic extension of their
working lives. Local government workers could be compelled to take industrial
action very soon if the government proceeds with its plans on pensions. Nurses
at their conference during the election also warned of industrial action if they
were attacked on the pension front. The issue of low pay will be resurrected now
that the election is out of the way. The crisis in housing, particularly in the
major conurbations and cities, can also become a burning issue. House
repossessions increased by 35% in the last year. The determination of the
government to pursue the establishment of ‘academies’ can also provoke a big
movement of resistance, as was the case before the election. And then there is
the case of council tax, which is now almost as unpopular as the poll tax was.
This will be compounded by the revaluation of property which will mean further
burdens on the working class.
Therefore, if one takes the likely stormy economic scenario,
together with the determination of New Labour to pursue its neo-liberal agenda,
this means that the relative tranquillity of the two New Labour governments can
be shattered in the coming period. As Marxists have always pointed out,
elections are only a moment, a snapshot of reality. This election was more of a
moment than the previous two. They do not alter the underlying processes which,
in Britain, are leading to a big collision between the classes. This will be
decisive in shaping the political outlook of the working class, in particular,
and its reflection in the change in the political scenario.
Proportional representation
BLAIR’S SUPPORT FOR the Iraq war and the low turnout in the
election have brought the issue of proportional representation back onto the
agenda. After years of advocating strong centralising governments, some
capitalist commentators have become latter-day converts to ‘weak government’,
which they argue can constrain ‘over-mighty’ leaders like Blair. The Liberal
Democrats are keen advocates for the obvious reason that they will probably
gain. With its huge parliamentary majority, the New Labour government rejected a
deal with the Liberals on this issue in 1997. Most Tories, it seems, also remain
opposed. But if they continue to stagnate electorally then even they could
change their position.
Socialism Today supports the introduction of proportional
representation, but in its most democratic form which would allow the
representation of small parties, as in the elections to the Scottish Parliament,
with the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP). A switch to the Alternative Vote
System, with the stipulation that parties can only be elected if, through
transfers, they are elected with a high percentage of votes, is inherently
undemocratic and should be opposed.
Both the Labour Party and the Tories face post-election
turmoil. Because of their shrunken base – their memberships are either old
(Tories) or demoralised (New Labour) – this will be concentrated at the top.
Howard, backed by most of the Tory tops and toffs, has had a little taste of
rank-and-file ‘democracy’ and now wishes to dispense with it. The decision on
the new leader should now be taken by MPs, they say. Michael Heseltine is
magnanimous and states that the ‘members’ can be ‘consulted’, as long as the MPs
have the final say. This has a certain logic because, after all, the essence of
capitalist democracy is that the people can say what they like so long as big
business decides. Therefore, why not apply the same rules to the traditional
capitalist party!
Blair, on the other hand, faces insistent demands that he
should go sooner rather than later. He is clearly a ‘lame duck’ prime minister
who threatens to become a ‘dead duck’. Brown will, however, ride to his rescue
as he did in the election campaign. As Benjamin Franklin said: ‘We must indeed
all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately’.
Brown does not want to take over a party riven with
divisions, or with the left and others claiming that they forced Blair out. It
is not certain that this time he will be able to prop up Blair, particularly if
big economic and social events develop. Blair will attempt to stay for 18
months, until after a European referendum, if it ever takes place. If the French
reject the European referendum, however, all bets are off.
New workers’ party
UP TO NOW, a decisive step towards a new mass workers’ party
has not taken place in Britain, apart from in Scotland with the formation of the
SSP which, because of internal conflict on secondary issues, unfortunately, went
back electorally in this election (see box). The task of forming a new mass
party, or at least the beginnings of such a party, is more difficult because of
the differences and the sizes of the population, amongst other things, in
Scotland compared to England and Wales. But it is not an accident that in
Germany, for instance, the first faltering steps towards a new party, the
Electoral Alternative – Work and Social Justice (WASG), albeit not specifically
socialist, has been established in advance of Britain. Yet here the issue has
been under discussion for a much longer time.
There are both objective and subjective reasons for the
delay in Britain in establishing a new party compared to Germany or, for that
matter, the formation of Rifondazione Comunista (RC) in Italy at the beginning
of the 1990s. There is a different economic scenario. Germany is experiencing a
much more profound economic crisis, with features of what took place in Britain
under Thatcherism but, this time, pursued by ‘Schröderism’, by the SPD
Chancellor of the Red-Green coalition in Germany. At the same time, the official
left, both within the Labour Party and the trade unions, has lacked the
political perspective, and the decisiveness which would go with this, to step
outside the shell of what remains of the Labour Party. Even the ‘most extreme’
lefts, such as Alan Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South, have urged that
"the movement will have to stand together… It’s important not to be rolling off
in fragments". (Morning Star, 28 April)
He was countered by RMT general secretary, Bob Crow, at a
rally he shared with Alan Simpson. Bob Crow said that despite the "excellent
work done by Mr Simpson and others like him in the Labour Party, the party can’t
be changed. We need a new party to represent working men and women… The sooner
we all realise the sooner we can pick up the pieces and move on". (Morning Star)
Similar statements have been made by Bob Crow and other left
figures in the past but their words have not been matched by deeds. The RMT in
Scotland supported the first steps towards a new workers’ party in the decision
to affiliate and financially support the SSP. In England and Wales, however, the
union leaders are ambivalent, and even give the impression that in some way the
Labour Party can be salvaged. The RMT is reported to be taking out legal action
against Labour, because it has been ‘expelled’. Will the real RMT and the real
Bob Crow please stand up? To cling to the Labour Party in circumstances where it
can no longer be reformed into a vehicle for working-class struggle and then
refuse to draw the obvious conclusions is to let down millions of workers in
Britain who are looking for a lead, including members of the RMT.
In this election the New Labour machine propounded the
theory, once more, of the ‘lesser evil’. If it is on the ropes in the next
election, as it is likely to be, it will again trundle out this ‘theory’. In the
election after that, whether it is in opposition or in government, the same
arguments will be used. In the meantime, the New Labour leaders will continue to
fervently defend capitalism, thereby betraying the hopes and aspirations of
working-class people.
The ‘lesser evil’ argument was also used by the Lib-Labs
within the Liberal Party in the late 19th century. But then the recognition that
the Liberal Party could no longer be even a partial vehicle for the aspirations
of the trade unions led to a new generation of workers – most of them from
families with a Lib-Lab tradition – to make a decisive break. They heaved the
new Labour Party up on their shoulders. The new generation of workers,
environmentalists and young people, in particular, faces the same challenge
today. Before this election even New Labour admitted that three million former
Labour voters were so disaffected that they were threatening to not support them
in the election. Labour, as we have seen, did lose a million votes compared to
the last election. But, on a mass scale, these disenfranchised potential
supporters of a new mass formation had nowhere to go and, therefore, either
abstained or supported the Liberal Democrats, a regression politically back to
the pre-Labour Party of the 19th century. Some supported Respect or the
Socialist Party.
Not just in elections, but in the much more important
battles in between, these three million and many more must be offered a mass
pole of attraction. The left can take the first steps towards this by beginning
the process of once more seriously setting about organising the framework,
through discussion and debate, of a new left formation. In order that this does
not run into the sand, the lessons of the failures of the Socialist Labour
Party, the Socialist Alliance, and the obvious weaknesses of Respect, have to be
absorbed. A new party including socialists, left and radical environmentalists,
socialist greens, disaffected trade unionists and others, can be drawn into a
discussion and debate on the need for such a new formation. No time must be
lost.
The election of Matt Wrack to displace the discredited Andy
Gilchrist as the new general secretary of the Fire Brigades’ Union on the very
day after the general election betokens a new mood amongst workers and a change
in the industrial and political situation which will take place in Britain.
Genuine forces of the left and socialists must do everything to build on such
steps forward to politically rearm the trade unions with combative leaderships
and to extend this into the political sphere with the beginnings of a new mass
workers’ party. This can advance the interests of the British working class much
more decisively than anything we have seen from the establishment capitalist
parties in this election.
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