Seize the chance
JEREMY CORBYN explains why the Labour Party needs a real leadership contest
MICHAEL Meacher gave a sincere and ringing endorsement to John McDonnell's bid to become a Labour leadership candidate on Monday evening at a packed press conference in Parliament.
John welcomed this support and acknowledged the very strong support from other members of Michael's team, pointing out that unity between the two camps would provide enough nominating Labour MPs to take John over the absurdly high threshold of 44 nominations in order to get his name on the ballot paper.
The media reported this quite fully, accompanied by the usual cynical comments in the Guardian and quotes from various "news analysts" concerning John's candidacy and fitness to lead the party.
John announced last July that his constituency party was supporting his bid to be a leadership candidate. Since then, he has produced a raft of policy papers and travelled in England, Scotland and Wales to meet party members and trade unionists.
His message has been that, to be successful, Labour needs to change and reconnect with both its core supporters and the aspirations for social justice of a generation of young voters who have been alienated by new Labour.
But, instead of reporting this interesting campaign, the mainstream broadcast and print media have obsessed themselves with talking up the possibilities of candidacy from within the Cabinet or among ex-Cabinet ministers. While John Reid, Charles Clarke, David Miliband and Alan Johnson have all been advanced by the media as potential contenders, they have generally refused even to mention John's name, showing an inability to seriously report the political life of the Labour Party and the labour movement in this country.
On Sunday night, at the end of a Fabian conference held at the Institute of Education, Gordon Brown stood uncomfortably in debate with Michael and John.
Brown essentially promised more of the same. His core message was that globalisation and market forces are too powerful to control and, therefore, we have to live within them.
He then went on to attack John's social policies as being too expensive, unaffordable and, therefore, in his view, electorally damaging to Labour.
The key issue of Iraq and foreign policy eventually emerged. John is one of the few people who have a clear record of opposition to the Iraq war and to the development of a new generation of nuclear missiles through the Trident submarine system.
Clearly, most of the Brownite Fabian audience didn't want to hear this particular part of the debate. They remained strangely silent when the Chancellor attempted to defend the invasion of Iraq and the disaster since, whose death toll is now edging ominously close to three-quarters of a million, with up to 150 people a day dying in bomb attacks.
Brown's well-oiled campaign machine has arranged a nationwide tour which is meant to lead to his coronation at the end of June.
Nominations for the Labour leadership among MPs close tomorrow afternoon and Labour MPs have it in their hands to ensure that there is a serious mature debate in the party. If not, we face becoming ridiculed as a party afraid of discussion, member participation and open debate.
I strongly support John for a number of reasons.
He has a clear record of supporting peace rather than US neocon foreign policy. This is in tune with the majority of British public opinion. John's opposition to the Trident nuclear missile system is well known and also in line with British public opinion.
The introduction of the national minimum wage is one of the great achievements of the Labour government, but the rate is too low. John's call for a £7 per hour minimum is in line with trade union opinion and has general public support.
The Tory governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major curtailed trade union rights and, while the Labour government has restored the legal right to be in a trade union, our legal position still falls well short of International Labour Organisation standards.
John's backing for the Trade Union Freedom Bill has huge support among trade unionists who are seriously trying to defend jobs, living standards and working conditions.
'Labour MPs have it in their hands to ensure that there is a serious mature debate in the party. If not, we face becoming ridiculed.'
Apart from Iraq, the biggest concern among Labour voters is about the use of private finance in the public services, where private finance initiatives and public-private partnership deals have cost large numbers of jobs and saddled the National Health Service and education services with enormous debt for the next three decades. The loss of a 100,000 Civil Service jobs has meant a very big increase in the number of contractors undertaking public work, with consultants creaming off taxpayers' money while adding little to the efficiency of services.
A leadership debate will allow these huge concerns to be aired and allow Brown to explain why he is so keen on the business model in the running of public services, rather than making public employment the benchmark for others to follow.
Parliament exists to question and control what the executive does. It has fallen well short in terms of defending civil liberties in Britain.
Since 2001, the security services have been granted creeping powers to enable people to be detained on suspicion of terrorist activities and secret courts have been introduced through the Special Immigration Appeals Process. In Parliament, a small number of us, including John McDonnell, have stood resolutely against these plans in order to defend traditional civil liberties and the independence of the judiciary.
The labour movement exists to promote the interests of working people through trade unions and the political aspirations of socialists through parliamentary and other political activity.
The idea that something so important as the leadership of the Labour Party should be uncontested would have been unthinkable in any other but the age of new Labour and media spin, which seems incapable of encouraging serious debate.
A campaign over the next six weeks where all these issues can be thrashed out in public will make the entire labour movement stronger and more relevant to a generation which has become cynical after years of "me too" politics.
I hope that ordinary Labour Party members, those in affiliated socialist and co-operative organisations and millions of trade unionists who pay the political levy to the Labour Party will get their chance to express their opinion and their hopes for the future.
Jeremy Corbyn is Labour MP for Islington North. He can be contacted at corbynj@parliament.uk
