Jeremy Corbyn
Blaenau Gwent and Bromley (The Morning Star)
Despite his by-election set-back David Cameron was all over the Sunday papers with his confident air that the middle England supporters will go back to the Tories and he will be in number 10 in three years time.
New Labour on the other hand seems to have swallowed the conventional political observer’s analysis and is contesting Cameron on the personality circuit and photo opportunity.
Blair offers a vision of the future that implies New Labour has not gone far enough, with the public clamouring for more PFI’s, the contracting out of public services, lectures about fecklessness and support for George Bush.
There are those in the Labour Party that fondly cling to the idea that Gordon Brown is a closet Leftie and merely hamstrung by his glamorous neighbour. Surely the record of private finance in the public sector which is so expensive, the plans for a new assault on civil liberties through the anti terror legislation, the massive waste of £16 billion on the planned ID cards, and now £26 billion on a new Trident nuclear weapons system tell us more fundamental thinking is needed.
Last week the only thing that Bromley and Blaenau Gwent have in common was demonstrated; New Labour is very unpopular.
The loyalty of ordinary people who have put their faith in the Labour Party for years has been tested to destruction. In all elections for the past fifty years the basic Labour vote of many millions has remained loyal and supported the party. Even in the defeat of 1983, the working class vote supported the Party. The last local elections saw a worse result in many parts of the country than the 1983 defeat, yet somehow the New Labour apparatchiks seem to be allowed to dismiss it as “mid term blues”.
A serious analysis of the Labour Party and its operations is needed. In the pre New Labour era, the Party always had a large number of activists who were prepared to work for election victories and be active on the Party’s cause in their communities. Some constituencies still do, but many are almost moribund.
In the desperate times of the early 1990s to remove the Tory Government the Party accepted any and every change in its rules and policies thrust upon it by New Labour.
The new Clause Four was pushed through in 1994 but its foundations lay in Neil Kinnock’s “Aims and Values” document of 1988. The new Clause Four was accompanied by a whole range of new structures, including policy forums, large parliamentary representation on the National Executive, reduction of the role of Conference and frequent imposition of candidates on local Parties.
The end result of the centralisation of Party policy making and control is that many members feel disenfranchised, and believe that their voice and vote count for little in the great scheme of deciding policy. Disillusionment is the result.
Since 1997 the achievements of the Government have been the Minimum Wage, Human Rights Act, and huge investments in health and education. The Tax Credit system has been of huge benefit to millions of poor people and the emphasis on pre school opportunities has meant a real change in the lives of many.
These things all command widespread support and appreciation.
What is so damaging is what I term the “three pillars of new New Labour”.
Firstly, the obsession with the private sector and the market and belief that the role of the public sector is to apportion contracts and devise regulations rather than directly employ and operate. Thus we have expensive and ineffective PFI’s for hospitals ands schools, rip off water companies, feather bedded rail operators that make huge profits, massive computer consultancies for every Government department, and hospitals being forced to refer patients to the private sector in the name of spurious “choice”.
The second pillar is that in 1997 no one expected that the biggest problem the Government would face would be international. New Labour was always close to US thinking but the approach of Blair to Bush after September 11th 2001 was extraordinary. Effectively he handed our foreign policy to the Neo Cons. The result was death and mayhem in Afghanistan, the carnage of Iraq, the threats to Iran and now an unbelievable plan to waste £26 billions on Trident have come about.
The third pillar is murky area of rights and liberties. The passage of the Human Rights Act was a good step forward with the incorporation of the European Convention into UK law. The so called repeal of the discredited Prevention of Terrorism Act was replaced by something worse in 2000. After September 2001 the political imperative of a Government being seen to do something took over, and we have had a series of illiberal acts that can detain for long periods without charge, and that allow executive orders to tag individuals. Essentially the common thread of the Anti terrorist laws which come from the US, and through them via the UN committee on counter terrorism, is the influence of unaccountable and almost unquestionable security services.
But all this has met with surprisingly large opposition in many campaigns, the most notable being the Stop the War Coalition.
There are many reasons to be very angry about the current state of politics and the direction that New Labour is trying to take us. Staying at home and shouting at the television will not change anything; only making the aggrieved viewer hoarse.
On July 22nd the Labour Representation Conference provides an opportunity to seriously discuss and debate these issues at the Congress Centre. The LRC was founded and deliberately named so as it was the original foundation of the political voice of the movement in 1901.
The LRC provides a space for the debate. More importantly it provides the scope for organisation and action.
The enormous lobby for the public sector last week (organised by the LRC) showed that it can mobilise in the Unions and the users of public services. If New Labour’s response is merely to assert that the public want more privatisation and that the war in Iraq is necessary, then we are all the losers.
At one level it means the enormous loss of electoral support as both by-elections and the local elections showed. This paves the way for the Tories and their agenda. However history and the growth of racism across Europe shows something far more insidious and dangerous. The failure of social democracy to provide work and social security through housing and opportunities has created a breeding ground for fascism and intolerance. The growth of the far right in Germany and central Europe is alarming. Equally alarming is the rise of the BNP in this country.
Socialism is a way of life and a set of values of inclusion, sharing and respect. If all New Labour can offer is markets and war, then it is hardly surprising that loyal supporters stay home.
