All roads lead to Rome? The rise of the Labour left and socialist politics

Simon Hardy examines the politics behind the Labour left and offers some critical thoughts on the way forward

There is a new movement and a new mood in British politics. The impossible has happened and a genuine left wing candidate has got on the ballot paper for the Labour leadership. But not only that, he has received support from the majority of the trade union movement, as well as a swelling number of Labour party members and supporters. Jeremy Corbyn’s moment – and by extension, our moment – has come.

Thousands of people have joined Labour to vote for him. The huge rallies across the country – the largest seen in generations – show how serious this development is. Corbyn is a symbol for the hopes of many dispossessed Labour members that their party can become left wing again, that it can stand up more for working people. After the erosion of party democracy under Kinnock and the trauma of the Blair years, many felt that it was impossible for a significant left to re-emerge in Labour. Now it seems that the doubts have been cast aside.

Inevitably for a group of cowards and careerists, the Labour bureaucracy is running scared. The current interim leadership around the hopeless Harriet Harman is searching through the new supporters and members to weed out trouble makers. Harman is a supposed feminist who ordered her party to vote to make thousands of people – including many women – much poorer in the recent cuts to tax credits – she hugely discredited her party in the eyes of many and dealt a terrible blow to the “moderate” candidate Andy Burnham by forcing him to abstain on the vote for the cuts.

It was a close run thing to get Corbyn onto the ballot. He secured 35 nominations with apparently only a few minutes to spare before the deadline. Many of those that nominated him said they did not support him but wanted him in the race because it was important to hear all sides in the debate.

But as the momentum of Corbyn’s campaign began to accelerate, they had second thoughts. Corbyn went from plucky outsider, standing to prove a point, to potential winner. In June bookies first had him down at 100/1 to win. By late July he was at 4/5 and was favourite. The excitment generated its own logic – people were signing up at first to give him a chance to get a decent vote, after a month of campaigning the chances of victory loomed closer. By then, people were supporting him because he might win, because they wanted to see a change and because the mainstream media was telling them not to do it.

The Labour party establishment went into meltdown. Rumours of a post election coup were leaked to the press, Labour MPs briefed against Corbyn, saying they would not serve under him and that he would destroy the party if elected. Ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened into the maelstrom with a brutal and borderline psychopathic comment that “people who say their heart is with Corbyn, get a transplant”. Coming from a man branded by millions as a heartless war criminal, all such a comment could do was boost Corbyn’s support even further. Finally, a chance for revenge against the kind of politics that made the Blair years such a nightmare.

What has been revealed for those of us who became active under the Blair government is that, despite every awful thing that Labour has done and no matter how much the Parliamentarty party moves to the right – there are still thousands of people out there who see Labour as their party, as the left wing party in Britain.

With Corbyn doing so well, it is not a surprise people are so excited – and they are right to be. This is an explosion of left wing feeling and it is shaking up the complacent British establishment. Nevertheless, there are serious obstacles and barriers in the way of what Corbyn wants to achieve.

The limits of “gradualism”

Given the serious long term crisis of our economic system, Corbyn’s overall economic programme is not particularly radical. Beyond nationalisation of rail and energy, the argument is for a return to economic growth fuelled by a “National Investment Bank” that would direct money to industry and skills to kick start the economy. This is straight out of the manual of John Maynard Keynes who argued that in times of economic slump the government can increase economic demand through more expenditure, which begins to create a virtuous circle of more jobs, higher wages and improved tax returns.

Many in Left Unity would find that proposal, while clearly preferable to the current austerity agenda of the Conservatives, to be woefully inadequate.

Of course many people look to the post war Clement Attlee government as proof of what can be done – but then the British capitalists wanted to restructure and rebuild the economy along those lines to restore Britain to profitability. The post war boom was fuelled by Britain’s role as an imperial power and huge investment from rebuilding the bombed out cities across the country. The result was near full employment until the 1970s and shallow recessions, but this was only possible due to the global economic boom – when 1973 hit the entire system went into crisis and the capitalists began to look far more favourably on the philosophies of monetarism and neoliberalism.

In short, such an economic model is simply not possible in the current situation. It would require significantly more far reaching structural reforms to the economy than is currently being proposed. The Labour party can’t and won’t go much further because it is too wedded to the establishment interests of the ruling elites in the country. This leads us onto the next contradiction.

“A very British coup”

Given what has happened in Greece with the capitulation of the Syriza leadership around Alexis Tsipras, a number of question are raised about any left wing party and left wing leader. Syriza was elected on an anti-austerity mandate but its strategy of “honest negotiations” with the EU leaders and financiers meant it could not stand up to the underhand and dishonest moves by the capitalists to defeat the left. If Corbyn was elected and began to implement the more radical forms of his programme then there is no doubt that significant and powerful forces within the upper echelons of British society would move against him.

The Labour left has no answer to the problem of what to do if the bosses wage an economic and underhand war against them. In a recent interview with Novara Media when asked what he would do about capital flight and an attack on the pound by hostile capitalists, Corbyn replied “We’ve got to say ‘hang on, we live in a democracy’ and if the people of this country vote for an economic strategy which is about redistribution of wealth…then that’s that.” Unfortunately the powers-that-be are far less respectful of democratic niceties of the most passionate advocates of the Labour Party.

In short you would need capital controls, nationalisation of banks and major corporations and a policy of opening up the secret inner workings of business so we can investigate the full scale of corruption and secret dealings across banking and the wider economy. There is little chance that the rich and powerful would simply let a left Labour party do these things because they won a vote in an election. After all, for the 1%, democracy is a show for the masses whilst they get on with the real business of running the world.

If Tsipras, as a left reformist, couldn’t succeed in Greece, then the same can be said of a left run Labour party. A reformist, parliamentary approach cannot win – it is hamstrung by its privileging of parliament as the site of struggle and is unprepared to countenance a rupture with capitalism and capitalist politics when the time comes. As such supporting the challenge of the Labour left and helping to promote its victory is essential, but there must also be a challenge to the Labour left on its strategy.

But a Corbyn led Labour party would not only be attacked by enemies from without but also from within.

Can Labour be reclaimed?

Despite many policy differences, the left Labour organisations like Red Labour and the Labour Representation Committee, as well as the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, all have one thing in common. As they see it, they want to return the Labour Party to its roots, more social democratic, more left wing, more responsive to the needs of the poor and working people.

The problem is that the historical record does not back up their own arguments. Since it entered parliament the Labour Party’s track record was one of constantly bending the knee to the interests of the rich. From failing to undertake significant Constitutional reform to not backing the 1926 General Strike orthe 1984-85 Miners strike, combined with the kind of policies that left millions unemployed and in poverty in the early 1930s, to supporting the slaughter of the First World War, Second World War and the Vietnam War, the Labour party has always represented the ultimate interests of the rich in preserving their system.

Whilst the 1% naturally prefer the Tory party as the best representatives of the ruling bosses in this country, there is a significant parts of the capitalists that favour the Labour party – it is a better party to do business with after all. You know the Labour party will always cut a deal that keeps discontent down whilst maintaining the system as it is.

As a result, because the Labour party is such an integral part of maintaining the rule of the rich and powerful, it is infiltrated from top to bottom with careerists, professional politicians and representatives of vested interests. Currently represented by the right wing Blairites and the Progress “Party within a party” pressure group, it is also wedded to the kind of piecemeal and don’t-rock-the-boat liberalism that dominates so much of its thinking.

The other side to this coin is that the Labour party is also the ‘go to’ party for trade unionists and working people. Millions still see it as their party, even if the party recently has been so hateful and bastardised by its love of big business over all things. This contradiction means the Labour party straddles the biggest divide in our country, between the rich and the poorest, between those with everything and those with nothing.

What does all this point to? That the Labour right will not tolerate a left led Labour party for long. If Corbyn wins there will have already revealed plans for a quick onslaught by the right to get his win annulled on a technicality. Cooler heads might prevail and give Corbyn a chance to form a shadow cabinet, but all the while they will be briefing against him and seeking to undermine his authority any chance they can.

An open split by the right is a distinct possibility, after all they did it in the 1980s to form the Social Democrat party that fused with the Liberals shortly afterwards. but what is more likely is significant pressure being brought on the Labour left to bend the knee and maintain party unity. This is what happened at the Bishops Stortford conference in 1981 when the Labour right and prominent Trade Union leaders put pressure on Tony Benn to quit his campaign to democratise the Labour party. Faced with a possible greater split of the party, Benn acquiesced and demobilised the left of the party.

The Labour party cannot be “reclaimed” because it was never the property of the masses in the first place. It was a creature of the Trade Union leaders and their express interests around ensuring a better deal for workers from within the capitalist system. The revolt of the party rank and file against the Blairites and careerists has been a long time coming but it won’t be allowed to take control of the party for long.

Building a movement

A notable shift in the language of the Jeremy For Leader campaign is that it started off as something that was supposed to help build the social movements and resistance to the cuts. It’s principle organisers initially thought that it was going to be a protest style campaign, and as such it could help build protests outside the party. But as the campaign took off and Corbyn looked like he had a chance of coming second or even winning – a certain triangulation took place. The language of the campaign softened and became slightly vaguer, the focus went to massive rallies to build support and sign up new members and supporters.

It would be churlish to criticise a campaign for party leader for doing things that you have to do if you want to win. But if Corbyn is to have any hope of being an effective leader then his leadership – and his bid for leadership – needs to be about a lot more than the Labour party. In a New Statesman article, and repeated in a speech at a massive London rally, left wing Labour member Owen Jones said that the first task of “this new movement” after Jeremy Corbyn was elected was to launch “the mother of all voter registration drives” (link) It seems doubtful that the key task for a left Labour party in 2015 is a voter registration drive when the welfare state is being decimated and the NHS is being privatised.

But this is an example of how the Labour left sees the party, as the natural representatives of those in struggle. The vision is that the Labour party is the parliamentary expression of the workers movement – you vote for them and they do the politics for you. Clearly, Corbyn is better than most in that he supports strikes and goes on regular protests, but he is a dying breed – an activist MP. The Labour party’s gravitational pull is towards parliamentarianism, towards electoralism and getting councillors and MPs elected. This is why the Labour party, even when it was far more left wing in the past, was always an essential part of demobilising protests. That is not Corbyn’s vision of Labour but the pull of the traditional halls and institutions of British state and compromise are a powerful force on a parliamentary party.

Socialists have historically always been critical of this approach – because parliament is not the real place for power in this country. Real power is taken by the masses in action, mobilised and fighting to empower themselves, not by elected representatives in the rotten palace of Westminster. The Labour party is absolutely to the core of its philosophy is about parliament and MPs – that is why we need a new kind of working class, socialist party that has fundamentally different priorities.

Where now?

Corbyn looks set to win the election. This will be a moment that will go down in history for both the Labour party and the wider left and working class movement. But Corbyn’s win will be only the beginning – there will be a titanic clash both inside and outside Labour over the future of the party – a struggle that will rage across the trade unions as well as inside the Constituency branches.

The possible re-emergence of a stronger explicitly left reformist force in the Labour party raises serious questions for an organisation like Left Unity. Originally conceived as a ‘broad left’ party, if most reformists and quite a few revolutionary socialists are looking to Labour as the best chance to get progressive politics back into the British mainstream – what place does Left Unity have in that process?

Many socialists will want to be in Labour to have that fight out – and that is entirely understandable. But the perspective of what can be achieved has to be clear otherwise a defeat could lead to demoralisation and defeat. A Corbyn win will either unleash a dynamic that will lead to a split (whether the right or left find themselves outside of the Labour party is a question that will only be answered by the coming struggle) or the left will capitulate and preserve party unity in the face of a right wing counter-attack.

In either case the opportunities for a revived socialist left are very strong – as long as a critical political distance is maintained against an explicitly parliamentary strategy and the entire left does not completely collapse into the Labour party – after all, that is simply an extension of the argument made by the Labour left – that it is only in and through the party that real power can be gained.

If there is a short, sharp struggle then a realignment of wider socialist forces with the left of Labour is a real possibility. If there is a longer struggle through the party, branch by branch and conference by conference then support for those struggling inside the party will be very important – as will building an extra parliamentary movement with class struggle politics that isn’t entirely wedded to the Labour.

A party like Left Unity needs to have a non-sectarian approach to this new movement and find ways of relating to it that takes us forward in the project of ultimately building a socialist party. We have a small contribution to make to that – but we have to be clear ourselves what our arguments are and what our own specific contribution is in this context. Before the arguments were far simpler – now the emergence of such a movement forces us all to decide what kind of socialists we want to be and how we want to do politics.