Labour, the left and the local elections: Waking the dead - PR9

“The results are not great,” said Labour’s Chief Whip, Geoff Hoon, after the May local elections. Don’t you just love British understatement?

Labour was hammered in the elections. The Tories now have overall control of 65 councils – Labour holds office in 18. It lost 12 councils to the Tories on a day that has been dubbed Labour’s “Mayday Massacre”.

In terms of the popular vote the story is one of catastrophic Labour collapse. It received just 24% of the total vote. Even the Liberal Democrats, a party no one believes can ever form a government, scored higher with 25%. Labour’s electoral support, as well as its active membership base, is shrivelling fast. It makes the humiliation suffered under Michael Foot in the 1983 general election look like a respectable showing.

Even where Labour had a (relatively) good chance of winning – in the London Mayoral election – they managed to blow it. Ken Livingstone, the come-back kid of London politics, lost to Boris Johnson. This Tory buffoon and TV personality with a penchant for racist remarks, is a class warrior determined to attack working class Londoners, ravage their services and carry on making the City the home of choice for every corrupt and lazy billionaire on the planet. Yet this man beat Ken Livingstone.

A week after the elections the Observer ran an on-line opinion poll to assess the scale of Brown’s unpopularity. Less than a quarter of the 5,000 people surveyed thought Brown was fit to lead the government. Only one in five felt he was doing a good job and 43% felt the Tories’ David Cameron should be Prime Minister.

In a symbolic but revealing denouement to this saga of self-destruction, the incoming General Secretary of the Labour Party, City-slicker David Pitt-Watson, announced he would not be taking the job. In March 2008 he was “thrilled” to have been chosen for the post by the National Executive. On 2 May 2008, the day after the election debacle, he said he wasn’t taking it.

The symbolism of this about-turn is that it suggests Brown’s Labour has lost the confidence of the British ruling class. David Pitt-Watson was Brown’s preferred candidate for the General Secretaryship, touted by the New Labour clique as the man to sort out the party’s troubled finances, and won the post at the expense of Mike Griffiths of Unite. Brown had chosen a City high financier, the Chair of Hermes Equity Ownership Services, a major share handling firm, over a trade unionist. This was a clear statement by Brown of where New Labour’s loyalty lies – with capital not the unions.

Now that Labour is in trouble its fickle support amongst the bosses is draining away. Mr Pitt-Watson will go on to live a happy and fulfilling life dealing shares in the City’s casino economy. Brown, in the meantime, is sinking faster than a weighted corpse. Which brings us back to Hoon’s “the results were not great” comment. The results were utterly disastrous for Labour. Eric Pickles, the Tory Local Government Shadow Secretary with a name to savour, was much nearer to the truth when he said, “the ship of state is heading towards the rocks.” Pickles is spot on, Labour is heading for a hiding and the Tories, once a party considering political euthanasia under Iain Duncan Smith, is now happily planning to form the next government.

Explanations

The explanation offered by most commentators in the media is that Brown committed a series of errors, starting with the parlour dance over whether or not there would be an early election last autumn and ending with his misjudged and mistimed abolition of the 10p starting tax rate.

Brown and his closest allies counter this by arguing that voters are feeling the pinch as the economic situation has worsened, the local elections were an expression of discontent at the economic situation and, despite mistakes, the ship of state can get back on course. Hazel Blears, Labour’s Local Government Secretary said: “What we hear tonight we will, of course, take extremely seriously . . . But I do think the economy is difficult for people, they are feeling the pinch – mortgages, fuel prices, all of that – and inevitably, who are you going to blame, you are going to blame the government.” Or to put it another way, what we hear tonight is a load of moaning by an ungrateful electorate and we will ignore it and hope that the economy bucks up.

Of course Brown’s mistakes since taking over from Blair and the downturn in the economy have cost Labour support. But both the pundits and the Brown loyalists are ignoring the underlying factors eroding Labour’s voting base, factors that had come into play before Brown had even become Prime Minister.

Brown succeeded Blair on Blair’s terms. That’s why he got in unopposed. The party leadership did not intend to break from New Labour, as some in the labour movement thought, when Blair left. It meant to carry on as New Labour with the primary architect of that project from the early 1990s, Gordon Brown, at last at the helm.

Brown is a continuation of Blair and the New Labour project was well tarnished before he took over. By the time he left office, thanks to the Iraq war, his relentless pursuit of neoliberal economic policies, the privatisation mania and a whole raft of policies ranging from the demonisation and criminalisation of youth through to his determined maintenance of the Tory anti-trade union laws, Blair was one of the most unpopular Labour leaders in history. The fact that over 200,000 members have left the party since 1997 underlines this fact.

At the last election the decline of the Labour vote – largely expressed through mass abstentions rather than through a switch to the Tories – was already under way. The May results were a continuation of this trend with Labour’s working class base expressing its disgust at the party’s betrayal. Indeed the all-out attack on public sector pay that Brown launched almost as soon as he took office probably hastened this process amongst a section of Labour’s most loyal supporters.

In London Livingstone could not escape the consequences of disaffection with New Labour. Since being taken back into the Blair fold he has combined acceptable reform projects with making London a city that welcomes the mega-rich. He was content to oversee the part-privatisation of the underground, urge the crossing of RMT picket lines, support Sir Ian Blair’s cover up of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and generally present himself as a big fan of the City of London’s brand of ruthless finance capitalism.

Livingstone’s “left of New Labour” image and the threat of Tory rightist Johnson did buck the trend. The mayoral race led to an increase in the Labour vote in a number of Greater London Assembly constituencies both in absolute and percentage terms (45% compared to 36% in 2004). Brent and Harrow actually went back to Labour, while in London North East the Labour majority doubled to 28,000. But these gains were swamped by the Tory turn-out in the outer boroughs.

Brown can take little solace from this phenomenon. Outside London Labour’s defeats can be further explained by their attacks on both the low paid and public sector workforce. This section of the New Labour coalition had, to an extent, held up during the last two general elections because it benefited from reforms like working family tax credits for low income families and the minimum wage, and had enjoyed a improvement in its standard of living. Under the impact of rising prices, the 10p tax fiasco and the public sector pay cuts, these groups decided that if Brown was prepared to abandon them then they would abandon Brown.

Labour’s electoral crisis is not just the product of the combination of short term mistakes by Brown and the economic pinch. These factors merely illuminated the decline that was already taking place. The decline stems from Labour’s 10 year long commitment to neoliberal capitalism and from the eventual realisation by many loyalists that Brown was a dull version of Blair not an alternative to him.

After 10 years in the political wilderness, the Tory Party now looks a better bet for the ruling class and could win the next election. Thanks Tony. Thanks Gordon. We are the ones who will pay the price of your decision to shaft your supporters and thereby give the kiss of life to the Tory cadaver.

New Labour has revived a party stuffed to the brim with smooth-talking toffs who are wetting themselves at the thought of getting into office. Once their feet are under the Whitehall desks they will unleash further attacks on the workers and poor, on asylum seekers and migrant workers and on black and Asian communities.

Their policies will be a continuation of Blair and Brown’s neo-liberalism, but with an even greater commitment to tax cuts that will inevitably roll back some of the tax credits and other reforms of the past 10 years. The real possibility of a Tory victory, and popularity among sections of traditional Labour support, means Brown will hold back from calling an election until the very last minute. He will try to rebuild Labour’s standing and hope that he can ride out the economic storm.

Brown’s mini “Queen’s speech” following the elections demonstrates that he will offer some reforms to try and shore up his failing support: to the unions (rights for agency workers); to the poor (re-looking at taxes); and to the better off sections of the working class (help for first time home buyers). He hopes this will be enough to keep the union leaders on board so that they will bankroll the election campaign that few bosses will now be willing to fund.

But none of this signals a radical change. Brown will pursue the fundamental programme of New Labourism: imposing a wage cut on public sector workers, extending privatisation in the NHS, education and public services, offering bosses low taxes and legislation to keep the British workforce cheap and flexible, and continuing to act as US imperialism’s side-kick in the Middle East.

Union fightback

This does present activists, especially in the public sector unions, with an opportunity to build on the anger that exists over pay. On 24 April teachers, lecturers, civil servants and some sections of the local government workforce went on strike. A ballot of local government workers has now been called by Unison. Teachers in the NUT and college lecturers in UCU are discussing further action.

It’s a good time to build a determined and united public sector campaign over pay. If the union leaders were to issue the go-ahead for creating public sector alliances in every town and city in preparation for a series of strikes over pay there would, on the evidence of the response to 24 April, be a massive take-up. And if the unions in dispute started to step up their action from limited strikes to all out, then Labour’s pay freeze could be broken.

Building such resistance should be the number one priority for activists. And it should take place not just in the public sector, but across the unions which are facing attacks as a result of the economic downturn. The rank and file should take the lead so we can begin to turn the tables on the bosses and New Labour, regardless of the impact this may have on Labour’s standing in the opinion polls.

This resistance should also be built in the campaigns to defend asylum seekers and migrant workers, in the fight against the fascist threat and in the movements to block attacks on civil liberties through the “anti-terrorist” laws and ID cards.

But between now and the next election the leaders of the major unions, in particular those of the giants in the movement, Unite and Unison, will work flat out to stop any such revolt developing. They will use the threat of a possible Tory government as their ace kicker, as we say in poker circles, as an argument against rocking the boat and doing anything to weaken the Labour government any further.

Flying in the face of the central fact – that Labour deserves its unpopularity thanks to its relentless attacks on the working class – the union leaders will bully thousands of workers into accepting that they have the prime responsibility for saving Brown’s skin. And their strategy for rescuing Brown will to stop us from fighting him.

Unison under Dave Prentis is ferociously pro-Labour. It is cleansing its ranks of opposition activists via a series of witch hunts. It is blocking any action to defend the NHS which it feels may embarrass the Labour government. And it only allows industrial action to take place when it is under the tight control of the bureaucracy. All of these negative aspects of the union will be intensified in the run-up to an election, to keep members in check and guarantee that Brown is saved from a fight over the pay freeze.

Unite, led by Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson, was recently formed by the merger of Amicus and the TGWU. Its leadership may try and wrap up its policies in more radical tin foil, but the result will be exactly the same. There will be a huge campaign to deter action and defend Brown. The Tory bogeyman will be wheeled out to frighten anyone thinking of going into an all-out conflict with Brown.

We already have the template for the way these “left wingers” will operate. In Liverpool Tony Woodley promised the workers of the threatened Rolls Royce plant full support in their campaign to save their jobs at a big demo on the issue in the city. He even told everyone that ­Gordon Brown was going to help. Within three days of the demo and within two of meeting with Brown to discuss the issue, the Unite leadership told the Rolls Royce workers that nothing could be done to save jobs and that the union was no longer backing the campaign. The plant will close and the workers will be thrown on the dole. Even limited action to stop the closure was blocked by the union “on legal advice”.

Unite activists received a bulletin one week telling them to support the campaign to save Rolls Royce jobs. The next they received one calling on activists to help Rolls Royce workers find new jobs somewhere else. And in that week New Labour lost the support of several hundred more working class voters. This all happened before the election meltdown. Now that meltdown has happened, the campaign to keep members in line until after the next election “to keep the Tories out” will go into overdrive. Yet every lost job and every disillusioned union member is another lost vote. This truth escapes the bureaucrats.

So how will they sell this line? They kept things in check under Blair by promising everyone the earth once Brown got in. Now they will promise the same “once the Tories have been defeated”. They will extract enough promises from Brown to make this line credible amongst members and then dress these promises up into a manifesto for socialism come the next election. This is a re-run of what the union leaders did with the “Warwick agreement” – the promises made by Labour to the unions before the last election. In the months ahead we will get Warwick Two, with the promise that, like Godfather Two, the sequel will be better than the original. Except in this instance it will be more a case of Free Willy Two – a beached whale rather than Al Pacino.

A recent bulletin to activists in Unite analysing the local elections put it like this:

“The Labour Party is still the best option for working people . . . Labour and Gordon Brown made mistakes over the 10p tax rate. But they listened and they acted. Now millions of working people across the country will benefit. Our challenge now is to ensure they do more to reconnect with Labour voters, because that is the way to reconnect with the electorate.”

Actually our challenge is to beat back the attacks – like the pay freeze – that Brown is waging against us. Defeat for Brown on this will help the labour movement go forward far more than a policy parlour dance and a peace pact up to the general election.

The more radical leaders of the smaller unions, especially the rail union, the RMT, and Civil Service union, the PCS, won’t toe this line. But nor will they risk an all out confrontation with the bureaucratic overlords in Unison and Unite. The left union leaders stick fast to the belief that whatever their differences with the other union leaders they cannot go it alone. They sell this to their members by pointing out that back in the 1980s not even the miners were able to win on their own. How much less of a chance do they stand over twenty years – and several defeats – later?

They insist that they cannot alter this situation because they cannot “interfere” in the affairs of the other unions. The message becomes: apply what limited pressure we can but wait for changes to happen in the other unions rather than risk a rupture with them now.

Of course the lefts like Crow in the RMT and Serwotka in the PCS will do things on their own, including waging limited local and even national strikes. But they will not risk the wrath of the TUC by embarking on an all out struggle and posing the need for the TUC to back them. Still less will they consider openly criticising the mainstream bureaucrats and mobilising their own rank and file to win over the rank and file of other unions to a militant counter-strategy. As such the left leaders will remain peripheral in the run up to the election, as the major unions shape the agenda and ensure that Labour’s electoral boat is not rocked by mass action.

A very serious shift in the economy could disrupt the plans of the bureaucrats to keep us all in the cattle pen until after the election and it could summon sufficient rank and file pressure on the radical leaders to risk launching an all out struggle in defence of pay or jobs. Without such an external shock the current balance of forces in the labour movement favours the big guns of conservative and timid officialdom. It will help them maintain control under the slogan, “Hold back to keep the Tories out”. The level of rank and file organisation needed to successfully challenge this simply does not exist in any of the major unions.

Labour’s left

Nor is the Labour left in any position to offer a challenge to Brown that could rally mass support in the unions and really shake things up in the way that Benn’s deputy leadership challenge did in the early 1980s. John McDonnell could not get enough support from MPs to mount a leadership challenge to Brown last year. With so many MPs looking anxiously at their slender majorities he would probably get even less support for a challenge now. More importantly, he does not have a significant base amongst the activists – in the party or the unions – to be able to shake things up. The membership of the Labour Party is in sharp decline. So too is that of its left. The Labour Representation Committee (LRC), which McDonnell heads, has rightly opened itself up to non-party members (though wrongly, as long as they don’t stand against Labour) to try and build up wider support for its renewal project. But there are no signs that this is transforming the LRC into a significant player.

John McDonnell’s own response to the local elections was relatively muted. He said:

“After the serious rejection of New Labour at the polls last week assurances that the Government is listening are simply not going to be enough to restore any sense of belief in the Labour Party. What is needed is a radical change of political direction. We have to demonstrate that change by introducing a new policy programme that specifically and very concretely addresses peoples’ concerns raised on the doorstep. This May manifesto petition is launched so that all our supporters can have a say in pressing for the changes we need. We believe that Labour can win back the support of our people by adopting a new 2008 May Manifesto.”

He outlined the manifesto which included a series of worthy reforms. But will issuing a manifesto really change much? No. It will not be read or taken up by more than a handful of dutiful supporters. McDonnell did not issue a call to arms. He did not say: “Brown is following on from Blair. He is leading us to disaster and I intend to call a national meeting of all activists to discuss waging a fight to the finish with these traitors in our midst who have single-handedly saved the Tories and restored their electoral credibility. I will ask every union conference to back my challenge to the leadership of Brown in the next few months. I declare war on New Labour” . . . or words to that effect!

That is, he did not outline a course of action that could rally people to a fight now. He posed it all as a “policy” change – and this misses the point. Brown will change policies as and when it suits. What he will not do is change New Labour’s fundamental line.

This brings us to the question of what course of action the far left should take to build an alternative to New Labour and prevent the return of the Tory undead.

Sat 04, October 2008 @ 13:20