The opposition to New Labour

Socialiat Alliance supporters in Luton demonstrate to save jobs

Last year, after 20 years active membership, I left the Labour Party to take part in the Socialist Alliance. I did so because I had come to two interdependent conclusions.

First, the cumulative impact of the changes imposed on the Labour Party--in policy, ideology, structure, personnel, funding--has been to transform it into something like the Democratic Party in the US. Labour is now a highly effective servant of big business. It relies on working class votes but provides no representation to that class. Crucially, there are no means available within the party to reverse the damage.

Second, the changing political and social context demands an electoral challenge to the New Labour/Tory consensus. The democratic price of electoral abstention is becoming too high. In the past the internal politics of the Labour Party reliably reflected changes in the political temperature within the working class. At the least, discontent with the Labour leadership, usually when it failed to deliver in government, was mirrored in increased support for left candidates in NEC elections and the like. In the year 2000, however, despite the palpable anti-Blair mood in working class communities, the Labour left's vote receded substantially.

In the annual ballot for the NEC--the party's only remaining national-level democratic exercise--even Tribune editor Mark Seddon, who topped the poll in 1998, was unable to get elected. In a vote conducted at the height of the discontent over the London mayoral stitch-up (spring 2000), only 25 percent of party members bothered to take part. Of those who did take part, more than 45 percent voted for the Blairite celebrity Tony Robinson, presumably on the grounds that he had once done a funny turn in Blackadder. In the highly publicised vote on pensions at last year's party conference a substantial majority of the constituency representatives voted with the government--a complete reversal of their traditional behaviour on social justice issues. These developments defy the left's predictions, and confirm impressionistic evidence of the changing social composition of the party's membership, and, along with it, the social content of Labour Party activism.

Many comrades point to Labour's remaining links to the trade unions and argue that this is the decisive test. Yes, trade unions remain, formally, constituent parts of the Labour Party--a contrast with labour unions in the US. But unions no longer have a vote in the selection of parliamentary candidates and play little role in CLPs. The annual conference and the NEC, where the unions once deployed their political muscle, have been stripped of authority. In practice, the current degree of union participation and influence in the Labour Party differs little from the situation in the Democratic Party in the US--where unions send delegates to conventions, union leaders sit on policy bodies, union money funds election campaigns, and union members, by and large, vote Democrat. Overall the unions are now merely one among a number of organised interest groups lobbying the Labour government--principally from outside the party structures.

The union link

Of course, the significance of the party-union link has never been merely a formal or constitutional one. It was a matter of lived history and a living presence, however contradictory, in working class communities. Today, as an organic phenomenon, the link barely survives. To the extent that political activity takes place at the base of the movement, in workplaces, union branches, trades councils, it does so in opposition to the Labour government and Labour councils.

As a result of a multitude of developments--political, social, cultural--the disconnection between the Labour Party and the working class is now profound and systemic. Are there any means by which this connection can be reforged? If not, what prospects for the Labour left?

Too many on the Labour left see Blairism as merely a conspiracy within the Labour Party. 'New Labour' (or however it may choose to rebrand itself in the future) is the British facet of a global politics--and the political facet of a public culture promoted by global capitalism. The transformation of the Labour Party cannot be separated from other social phenomena: the rise of media power, the professionalisation of politics, the general degradation of democratic discourse and, driving them all, global capital's quest to tame modern democratic societies. A challenge to New Labour also requires a challenge to these trends--a challenge that is stifled by continued party membership.

I've been astonished to hear Labour Party comrades declaring in recent months that '[bourgeois] elections aren't that important'--an ultra-left posture at variance with the Labour left's own traditions. Universal suffrage is not the be-all and end-all of our democratic vision, but it represents a high-water mark in the struggle for human emancipation and the major political conquest of the working class. Significantly, for the managers of global capital, taming the franchise, gutting it of meaning and effect, remains an inescapable priority--hence their interest in New Labour.

In private, many Labour Party leftists will vote for the Socialist Alliance or whatever other alternatives to New Labour are available. They do this partly out of principle, and partly because they know that their own fate within the Labour Party depends to some extent on the impact of electoral pressure applied from outside the party--hence the Labour left's joy at Livingstone's victory. It seems a rather 'do as I say, not as I do' approach to working class communities. Popular cynicism about the efficacy of any kind of democratic or collective action is one of the biggest obstacles socialists face. The evasive formulae being mouthed at the moment on the Labour left can only reinforce that cynicism.

After the election the Labour left will wring its hands about low voter turnouts, but by its own ambivalence and inaction it will bear some responsibility for them. Against that disturbing and imminent eventuality, we are offered the highly speculative argument, unsupported by evidence, that the Labour Party can be 'reclaimed'--at some unspecified time in the future, according to some unspecified political scenario.

Tony Blair's government is fuelling the anger of its supporters on a daily basis. The bombing of Iraq, describing all our comprehensives as 'bog standard', and the failure to stop the jobs massacre in the car and steel industries are simply the latest in a long line of humiliations suffered by Labour's traditional supporters.

Many Labour supporters are looking for a left alternative. The Socialist Alliance and the Scottish Socialist Party are presenting by far the largest radical challenge to New Labour at the ballot box, although some will vote for the Green Party or in Wales for Plaid Cymru.

Many are so disillusioned that they will not vote. The Socialist Alliance must reach out to them and show that our alternative is fundamentally different to that of conventional politicians. We are not out simply to gain votes, although we do want to maximise our turnout on election day to demonstrate how large the socialist opposition to Blair has become. Crucially we want a dynamic socialist campaign that gives confidence to trade unionists, campaigners and militants already fighting back. But many of these people--tube workers, hospital workers, car workers, post office workers--are still Labour Party supporters. What should we be saying to them about their party? Clearly we are saying support the Socialist Alliance, but the Socialist Alliance is not yet strong enough to stand in every seat. So what do we say in areas without a Socialist Alliance candidate?

We should ask them to come and fight for Socialist Alliance candidates in constituencies where we are standing. And in their own constituencies we should ask them to vote for other socialists if such a candidate exists. But if no such socialist candidate, or even a left wing Green Party candidate, exists (and not all of them are left wing by any means), what then? Some on the left argue that we should abstain. The Labour Party, it is said, is a second Tory Party, a pro-business party pure and simple, no different from the US Democratic Party. This is a very serious claim. If the Labour Party has ceased to exist in its traditional form, with no socialist force capable of replacing it, then the British working class has suffered a historic defeat. But is this claim true?

Opposite conclusion

It is understandable that many former Labour Party left wingers should feel inclined to such rhetoric. For many years they thought that the Labour Party was the lone representative of working class interests and that it could be a vehicle for socialism. The realisation that this is not true, forced on them by the defeats of the Labour left since the mid-1980s, has now driven many to the opposite conclusion.

The truth is more complex. The Labour Party has always been defined by two incompatible poles. On the one hand it rests on the organisational and financial support of the trade union leaders. The people who vote for it and who run it are overwhelmingly working class. But politically the Labour Party has always been wedded to the capitalist system. It has sometimes, but not always, accepted that some limitation on the free market is necessary but has never doubted that the capitalist system is inviolable in all essentials. Neither has the Labour Party ever wavered from the view that parliamentary democracy is the only mechanism available to working class people to improve their condition. In short the Labour Party is, as it has always been, a pro-capitalist party supported by the organisations of the working class.

Socialists in the Labour Party have sometimes been able to influence the balance of this contradiction. So at times in its history this contradiction has existed in a more right wing form. At other periods it has existed in a more left wing form. But the parameters have never been breached--a capitalist economy and parliamentary democracy are the outer limits. It is true that Tony Blair occupies one of the more right wing points on this spectrum. But he is not the most right wing Labour leader ever. He has not split the party and joined a Tory government, like Ramsay MacDonald. Nor has he split the party and so kept it out of government for a generation, like David Owen and the other founders of the SDP.

It is true that the policies of the Blair government are more right wing than some of his predecessors. Yet Blair's warmongering in Kosovo and Iraq was matched by Wilson's support for the Vietnam War. And the Callaghan government's IMF austerity programme and attacks on trade unions not only led to a fall in real wages for the only time in British postwar history but also led directly to the election of Margaret Thatcher.

It is also true that business donations to Labour are higher than ever. But Labour cannot do without the £8 million it is asking for from the trade unions. In the last election the majority of the election fund came from the unions. And the Labour Party also relied on the trade union apparatus to run its election campaign on the ground. It will be the same in this election. So the choice for those who do not have a socialist candidate to vote for will be this--either they vote for the open, unashamed representatives of big business, backed by the majority of the capitalist class, overwhelmingly organised on the ground by the local ruling and middle class elites, and under one of the most right wing leaders of its recent history. Or they vote for a party which is certainly pro-capitalist, but is funded and supported by working class people, including the majority of class conscious workers. If we make the wrong decision, a decision contrary to the instincts of the majority of shop stewards and activists in the working class movement, it will not make it easier to win them to the Socialist Alliance in the future.

We have a long game to play here. This general election will be the first time the Socialist Alliance has challenged Labour on a broad though not yet fully national scale. We need to do well, to gather around us the core of a national electoral alternative to New Labour. There are already signs, remarkable so close to an election, that parts of Labour's base including local councillors are coming over to us. But the bulk of the work will still remain to be done in the next five years. A weaker Labour government, still the most likely outcome of the election, will more than ever require a strong Socialist Alliance if we are to avoid a repeat of the 1970s when the right wing gained from disillusionment with Labour.

If we are to continue this vitally important dialogue with Labour supporters then we must be able to say, 'We only called for workers not to vote Labour where there was a socialist alternative.' Where none existed we, with a heavy heart, said, 'Don't let the Tory in--vote Labour but build the socialist alternative so that next time we don't face the same lousy choice.'

Day of action to renationalise the railways

As the political choices narrow, the possibility of suggesting a catch-all voting strategy also narrows. It is important not to give hostages to fortune by allowing Tories to be elected in the name of senseless gestures, and yet it is also vital not to imply support for so much of the wickedness undertaken by New Labour. The trouble with the notion of 'the lesser of two evils' is that you still end up with evil.

Socialists, I think, should vote for the left. Where there is a strong left wing Labour candidate who has not supported the victimisation of asylum seekers or cutting benefits to single parents, they should be supported. Where there is a strong left wing candidate outside of the party, be they Scottish Socialist Party, Socialist Alliance, Green or Socialist Party, they should be backed. But it is also incumbent on them not to stand against each other.

Similarly, where there is a thoroughly vile Tory candidate the opponent with the best chance of removing them should be supported, even if they are Liberal Democrat. And in marginal contests between Labour and the Tories, where only a New Labour candidate is standing, it might, depending on their record, even be worthwhile voting for them. But while the choice of party to back may vary, those who deserve active support does not. Socialists should campaign for socialists. If non-socialists want to be elected they must do their own leg work.

Should we vote in the next election? The first thing to note is that this is a purely academic question. We have already been disenfranchised. Place a cross next to your right wing, neoliberal, corporate-controlled party of choice. What's under discussion here is what we choose to do with our disenfrachisement.

The argument that we should 'vote Labour to keep the Tories out' is not a socialist one. Parliamentary politics, as we know, works like this: each party bids for the tender of leased government from corporate rule which owns the franchise. And New Labour wins its contract from the financial markets with this pitch: 'We can do things for you which the Tories could not and cannot. We can scrap free university education. We'll sedate the unions, privatise underground and air, close schools and hospitals. You won't get any poll tax riots or Orgreaves with us. We can hand more power to unelected business leaders than the right wing ever could.' Of course, no one ever says these actual words, just as no newspaper editor ever actually says to advertisers, 'We'll absolutely fill our paper with shite about how great shopping is. I swear ya! Even if we have to go out and recruit a whole new generation of journalists with no self respect and lose all our good ones.' No one says it because no one has to say it. Institutions select only those individuals who can align their interest with the institution. We call these people 'successful'. They become prime ministers and editors of Newsnight. They are shown respect. They are 'serious people'. My point is this: we may have been told that the phrase 'executive committee of the ruling class' can no longer be used in polite society, but that doesn't change the fact that it's true.

There's another argument against tactically voting Labour. If Labour has your vote it has your approval. Tacit, reluctant, it doesn't matter. It's support for a home secretary who incites racial hatred by talking about refugees 'defecating in shop dooways'. Approval of a prime minister indicted for war crimes at the World Court (by the Indian Council of Jurists), and of the forced starvation of Iraqi children and of terrorist attacks on Baghdad (I could go on). 'No,' runs the argument, 'I don't approve of New Labour, but I'm being tactical.' Well, Robin Cook doesn't approve of Turkish human rights abuses, but he's being tactical too. (He has an oil pipeline to the Caspian Sea at stake.)

To put it another way--Dr Martin Luther King said that if we do not oppose evil we collaborate with it. He didn't say, 'We'd best all vote for LBJ, my friends, or else it's the KKK for us, I fear!' And for good reason.

Parliament isn't democracy, but it's check. No change has ever come from parliament, only from outside. Rights are never granted. They are taken--they are won. Direct action, non-hierarchical, revolutionary, grassroots organisations like Movimento Sem Terra, People's Global Action, Confédération Paysanne and Ya Basta! are able to work together in a global network, precisely because capitalism is trying the same shit everywhere. Pictures taken from outer space reveal that our planet's surface is covered in people who see that parliamentary politics is a fix but still believe deeply in social justice. The possibilities for popular organising and agitation are unprecedented. Or we can keep our sentimental illusions alive down the local church hall.

What is difficult for some people on the left to accept is that the convergence of the two mainstream parties has finally taken place. Like the United States, Britain is now a single ideology state, with two pro big business factions. Because New Labour has the zeal of the converted, it is actually further to the right on a number of issues. As an American proxy, Blair has taken more violent international action outside UN control, all of it illegal, than any Tory postwar government. Regardless of crumbs dropped by New Labour, such as the miserly minimum wage, a vote for Blair is broadly the same as a vote for Hague. The argument of voting as a staging post to socialism won't wash any more and ought to be put to rest. This is a second Tory Party.

The Socialist Alliance offers a principled protest vote, which I can support. The danger is that if it doesn't make significant inroads into the Labour vote it will have raised expectations, then dashed them, serving merely as a palliative. It's the long term goal that is all important. This is to discredit a rotten, monolithic system. Labour voters who have not voted in local, European and devolutionary elections since May 1997 are neither indifferent nor apathetic. They are fed up with lesser of two evilism. Millions of them will strike on election day. Given there is no alternative, I shall join them. The parliamentary game is over--only direct action will support and strengthen the growing worldwide resistance to rapacious global capitalism and add to the justifiable fears of those running it.

We are living in historic times. The media and the pollsters don't understand why massive discontent with New Labour is not benefiting the Tories. The truth is that people are no longer taken in by Tory neoliberal policies. I see this in meetings where parents demand the end to testing and selection in our schools and get clapped, and when people call for rail renationalisation they are cheered.

In the midst of this New Labour is trying to redefine politics by embracing the very market that people hate and recognise as the source of the problem. New Labour is trying to claw back historic gains that working class people have fought for and won such as decent pensions, the NHS and comprehensive education. In this situation it is possible for socialist ideas and policies to make sense to hundreds of thousands of people.

The Socialist Alliance is about going on the offensive. At last we have an opportunity not just to say what we are against, but what we are for. This is a chance to put working class demands on the agenda. Every vote for the Socialist Alliance counts because it will give confidence to everyone who is fighting back, whether they are trying to save jobs, schools or defend asylum seekers.