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Editorial: It’s time Respect reclaimed some disgruntled Labour activists
These are grim times indeed for any socialists still hoping for a chance to “reclaim the Labour Party” from the clutches of Bomber Blair. Last month’s dire party conference in Brighton exhibited all of the well-worn symptoms of New Labour’s irreversible and terminal decline as any form of voice for working people. But it also brought fresh confirmation that – despite the fervent hopes of spineless backbenchers and weak-kneed union bureaucrats – no significant change of course will take place when Gordon Brown takes over the helm. First the malaise: the gutted Blairite parody of a conference, the last vestige of the heyday of left Labour activism, is weaker and less relevant than ever. The party itself is halved in membership from the peak before the 1997 election, with more disgruntled members still leaving in droves: the rush for the exit will have been increased further by the high-profile bully-boy tactics in seeking to gag veteran CND campaigner Walter Wolfgang, which eventually produced only a belated and mealy-mouthed apology. Many of those still nominally in the party have effectively switched off from any engagement with it: constituency parties struggle to mobilise even a skeleton crew for election campaigns, while a third of CLPs sent no delegates to this year’s conference. Other CLPs were ‘represented’ by tame Blairite stooges installed by regional officers. Two thirds of Labour MPs stayed away. The hall was emptier than any time in recent memory. The rot was clearly revealed by the card vote on UNISON’s motion opposing the “creeping” (more accurately galloping) privatisation of the NHS: while almost 100 percent of union votes supported the motion, just 47 percent of constituency votes backed the unions in fighting this most controversial of New Labour policies. The motion was carried, as were three other motions challenging key planks in New Labour policy – with calls for new laws to legalise secondary strike action, a rejection of the drive to privatise council housing, and opposition to any increase in the retirement age for public sector workers. In each case the trade unions have emerged as the unlikely torch-bearers for causes which previously would have been led by the Labour left. Even as they cast their votes in what everyone saw as an empty gesture of protest, the union leaders – whose block votes and political funds have created and sustained Blair and New Labour – reminded us that they were themselves simply going through a ritual with little serious intent: the T&G for example mobilised its card vote in support of secondary strike action, while merrily selling out their own members in the Gate Gourmet dispute. But T&G leader Tony Woodley was not the only one to flunk the Gate Gourmet test: Gordon Brown’s low-key speech to this year’s TUC, at which he pointedly refused to give any support to the union cause against a classically vicious employer, summed up his message to all and sundry – that he is no more sympathetic to Old Labour or trade union issues than the man he is expected to replace. The union leaders must also carry some of the blame for this political impasse. Their weakness encourages Blair’s hard line. UNISON’s political challenge to NHS privatisation, for example – following a similar motion passed by the TUC – was a stable door-locking exercise: their Brighton motion, which calls for the policies to be “reviewed”, has no connection to any action, or threat of action on the ground to force a halt to the privatisation process. But while a gesture could at least be made through the four dissident motions, the Party’s refusal, yet again, to permit a debate or a vote on the issue of the war and the occupation of Iraq underlined the complete contempt Blair’s team has for rank and file party activists, trade unionists – and anyone who disagrees with them. This point could have been more effectively drummed home had the Stop the War march, which on the Saturday prior to the conference mobilised 100,000 to call for withdrawal of troops from Iraq, gone through the middle of Brighton rather than London. The continued decline and degeneration of New Labour will not necessarily catapult recruits to build Respect as a left wing alternative: it is necessary to fight to win many demoralised Labour supporters and convince them that a serious new party can be built from the significant but limited base that Respect has so far managed to establish. As union leaders pack up their left speeches, roll up their banners and breathe easier feeling that the heat is now off after the end of this year’s round of annual conferences, Respect must offer union members and campaigners a fighting programme, and take on the battle to fill the ground abdicated by Blair and Brown, and become the new voice speaking up for working people and the oppressed, and mobilising them to fight back.