Grey deputy for Brown leader |
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Piers Mostyn |
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The Labour leadership succession has been the first substantial chance since the early 1990s for Labour Party and trade union members to challenge the party’s trajectory and address the burning issues of the day. It has been largely a wasted opportunity. First we had Brown’s coronation. And then a lacklustre deputy leadership campaign. All but one of the candidates (Jon Cruddas) have been involved in the central leadership of the party and government - tied hook, line and sinker to the string of reactionary policies associated with a decade of Blairism in power, in particular the criminal war on Iraq. It was largely an exercise in pretending to offer change whilst representing solid continuity, sustained by hot air, hypocrisy and humbug. Barring an unforeseen last minute rank and file revolt, the left in the party will come out of this whole process thoroughly marginalised. 263 Constituency Labour Parties made nominations. Cruddas’s rating as second most popular to Benn, at 67, at first sight shows promise. But 75% of the CLPs nominated candidates who have rubber-stamped a decade of imperialist wars and assaults on public services. With membership figures slumping from (if you believe the spin) 407,000 in 1997 to 177,000 earlier this year. it will be in the unions that any hope of a revival of radicalism in the labour movement lies. But a sober reflection of the state of play in the unions is also necessary. Those backing Benn, Blears, Harman, Hain and Johnson included: GMB, Unity, Usdaw, Aslef, BFAWU, TSSA, UCATT, Unison, and (tragically) the NUM (who backed Hain). These candidates had nothing to offer at the various union hustings other than more of the same. Against that the CWU executive’s backing for their former fellow-bureaucrat Johnson was censured by a militant conference that was also balloting for strike action. And Amicus and TGWU backed Cruddas. The character of the campaign was well captured by a special edition of the BBC’s Question Time programme. The first audience question to the six candidates set the tone: what did they think was the biggest failure of the Labour’s past decade in government? Harriet Harman said the Iraq war, Peter Hain said the lack of affordable housing, Hilary Benn said the failure to tackle yawning inequality, Alan Johnson said the neglect of children in care. This shopping list of betrayal was delivered without any sense of shame. As each candidate was barely half way through their first sentence interlocutor David Dimbleby, to his credit, started interrupting, “but weren’t you part of the government”, “did you object about this at the time?”, “and what have you done about this since 1997?” etc. They had nothing to say. What could they say? Unfortunately Cruddas failed to polarise the issue into a debate over the legacy of the last decade. He tried too hard to avoid being sidelined as a leftie. As the only backbench candidate he combines independence from government, a credible involvement in some real campaigning - against the fascist threat in East London - and a programme (focussed on Iraq, defence of public services, opposition to the renewal of Trident and backing for the Trade Union Freedom bill) that if implemented would involve a break with a decade and a half of New Labour policies. His problem, as he freely admits, is that he supported the war at the time of the invasion and, until recently had little public profile as a radical. Indeed, before election of MP he was a Blair advisor. His candidacy at least ensured there was a debate and raised the flag of left opposition. His vote will be a marker of the state of play in party and unions. But even that will come with qualifications. Most of his supporters were far from visible in support of John McDonnell’s bid for the leadership. Ken Livingstone is a prime example - and Tony “Baldrick” Robinson. And Cruddas himself nominated Brown for leader, signalling that he saw his campaign primarily as vehicle for placing left pressure on Brown - and giving grateful union leaders Simpson and Woodley an easy option to pose as left critics rather than a call for a decisive change. |
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