Britain deserves better than Labour

Salman Shaheen looks at the decisions taken at the weekend’s Labour Party national policy forum

In a speech marking 20 years since he gutted the Labour party of its founding principles and sold the working class people it was supposed to represent to the ravages of the free market, Tony Blair this week warned Ed Miliband against turning the party back to the left.

There’s little chance of that.

Labour’s national policy forum stuck to the mantra we’ve come to expect over the last year: that austerity is inevitable. That the cuts must come, come what may. Ed Balls’ suggestion that “tough decisions” would have to be made following the coalition’s “failure to balance the books” can only imply he thinks the Tories didn’t go far enough. An attempt to get the party to abandon its commitment to Tory spending plans was heavily defeated.

Any illusion that returning a Labour government next year will spell the end of austerity died on the floor of that policy forum. Labour, as it has been for more than 20 years, is marching to the Tory tune. The party has failed at every turn to provide an effective opposition to the coalition’s assault on the poor and the vulnerable. It will offer little in power.

Labour has made a virtue of so-called ‘big ideas’ that do not cost big bucks. But the reality is the reforms it wants to introduce are piddling next to the scale of vital economic reforms necessary to tackle the cost of living crisis Miliband talks so much about, let alone go any way to addressing the deep structural inequalities in British society.

Plans to freeze energy bills and allow the public sector to bid to run rail franchises will not address the fundamental flaws in these industries that could only ever be run as monopolies in private hands, delivering the worst possible deal for consumers and workers. The only answer is to bring them back into public ownership, and that is Left Unity’s policy. They are public services, they should serve the people. Up to 90% of people agree. But Labour will not go anywhere near such a wildly popular policy. Why? Because it has been captured by the interests of big business every bit as much as the state it wishes to preside over and the status quo it wants to inherit from the Tories.

Labour has learnt nothing since Blair. It has forgotten its purpose. Turned its back on principles in favour of power.

Britain deserves better alright.


11 comments

11 responses to “Britain deserves better than Labour”

  1. Roy Smart says:

    So who do I vote for next year, if not Labour? If by chance there is a LU candidate in my constituency and I vote for them, there is a good chance the Tories may end up staying in power. This is why the ‘first past the post’ system in its current form is so wrong!

  2. John Smith Cohen says:

    And also, they are butchers and warmongers…

  3. John Penney says:

    So suppose you DO vote for them – and with the reluctant, holding the nose, additional votes of millions more voters , Labour gets back into office – maybe with the Lib Dems as coalition partners once again. What will change compared to a Tory victory ? OK the privatisation drive might slow down a little. Will the NHS be de-privatised ? Nope. Will Labour restore benefits to pre Coalition levels ? Nope. Will Labour try and sneak in signing up to the toxic Transatlantic Trade and Investment Treaty ? Yes they will. Will Labour seriously get to grips with the huge corporate and superrich tax avoidance ? Nope. Will Labour be just as servile in backing every US/NATO foreign military adventure ? Yep. Will Labour restore trades union bargaining rights ? Nope. Will NewLabour reverse ANY of the the cuts made under the austerity Offensive, and stop deepening the Austerity Offensive ? Nope. and, Nope.

    Face it Roy, NewLabour are now a corrupt, nepotism -infested, fully neoliberal capitalist Party . Time to let them collapse into the irrelevance of Greece’s PASOK party. It simply makes no real difference anymore whether it is the Tory neoliberals or the NewLabour neoliberals who are in office – the POWER is firmly in the hands of the capitalist superrich class and their corporate minions. Time to build Left Unity as a new radical socialist party.

  4. John Pearson says:

    Salman’s case that we as a society deserve better than Labour is absolutely solid.

    However, his statement stops short of outlining an alternative for voters in the 2015 general election.

    I think the alternative is set out in the successful resolution no. 27 of our 29 March Policy Conference :

    “Left Unity should open discussions with other left groups, coalitions and parties to avoid electoral clashes and move towards electoral pacts –with the initial aim of creating the largest ever left challenge in the 2015 General Election”.

    I understand that our Party Executive Committee is meeting this weekend and I very much hope that it will make decisions on taking forward that resolution as a matter of urgency.

    At the very least, we should enter discussions with TUSC on creating an anti-austerity bloc for the general election. Indeed, it is my view that the Green Party, under its present leadership, is displaying credentials on opposition to austerity; anti-racism and anti-xenophobia; and on social solidarity, that means that it would be perfectly principled for us to approach the Green Party too.

    Roy is correct in my view, in drawing attention to the impediment that Britain’s archaic ‘first-past-the-post’ presents to a socialist party in challenging both the incumbency and the fake opposition in a Westminster election. I wholeheartedly support his view that FPTP must be got rid of and I look forward to a future LU Conference discussing a programme for democratic renewal that would include support for STV, as well as demands for annual parliamentary and local authority elections, and for all paid elected representatives receiving no more than the average wage.

    But in 2015, we are going to have FPTP and in this context John Penney’s arguments are the ones we will need to rehearse when we encounter the view, (which we will), that a vote for LU, or for the anti-austerity bloc, might let the Tories back in.

  5. David Melvin says:

    I agree with Salman that Britain deserves better than Labour. There is a clear democratic deficit when the three main parties contesting next years election see no alternative to continued austerity. The Green party, with the opinion polls now give 8% level with the Liberal Democrats, are consistently the only major party opposing austerity; and in Liverpool and Manchester were the main opposition to Labour in the recent local elections. John Pearson reminds us of the necessity of the LU Executive Committee to consider resolution no. 27. I would have no problem supporting most Green candidates; but TUSC? In the Manchester local election TUSC opposed the Greens in 10 wards, in 7 their vote was only in double figures and the same was repeated throughout the country. The Greens are credible in the areas where they have put in the work. Are TUSC a credible organisation to have an anti austerity pact with? I doubt it.

  6. Steve Wallis says:

    I agree that Labour would not be much different from the ConDems if it wins the next general election, but to give a more balanced view, let me state how Labour could make a significant difference without spending much money.

    Many Left Unity members, including me, have campaigned against the bedroom tax. As it happens, Ed Miliband committed Labour to abolishing it the day after I questioned Harriet Harman on it (asking her whether she would call on Labour councillors not to evict non-payers) on Question Time. [Harman actually made strong arguments in the programme, and the Sunday People had predicted Labour would take such a step at the start of the month, so I don’t claim much responsibility for the policy shift, but I possibly brought the announcement forward from the party conference (or Andrew Marr show on the eve of the conference), which I suspect Miliband would have preferred to make the announcement.]

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/sep/20/labour-abolishing-bedroom-tax

    As many of you will be aware, the Liberal Democrats have now adopted a policy in which they don’t call for total abolition, but it’s significantly better than the current situation: “social tenants living in properties that are too large for their needs would only lose their housing benefit if they refuse an alternative property. Disabled people would also be exempted entirely” (text from the article below):

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/17/nick-clegg-defends-bedroom-tax-policy-shift

    There is also the issue of tax credits subsidising low-paying employers. Increasing the minimum wage (perhaps to the level of the living wage) may slightly increase the cost of employing people in the public sector but they could make up for that in the private sector (by decreasing subsidies and getting more tax).

    In the long term, Labour could go the way of the likes of Pasok, particularly if there is an economic crisis on a similar scale to Greece’s that exposes the inadequacy of capitalist solutions, but I do think that realistically it will be necessary for the masses to experience at least one more Labour government before they fully lose their illusions in Labour. Some recent opinion polls have shown them several percent ahead of the Tories. Labour’s strategists aren’t totally stupid and their manifesto will have the odd carrot to encourage people to vote for them rather than the Tories – although often just as a “least bad” option.

    This leads on to our election strategy. I completely agree with John Pearson’s points about the undemocratic nature of first-past-the-post and the need for a form of proportional representation (preferably single transferable vote). However, there is one aspect of FPTP that can actually act in our favour while we have to put up with it – we can stand in a “safe Labour seat” where there is no chance of a Tory (or Lib Dem – not that we need to worry about them after all their betrayals of voters) getting in. [Occasionally, as has happened with George Galloway for instance, a left party can win such a seat, so it isn’t actually “safe”; it may be unlikely for LU to win a seat at the next general election but I think we should approach it from the point of view of trying to do so, rather than just publicising our party, recruiting and building the movement.]

    I cannot really see the point in standing in a marginal seat, even for those of us who take the position that it wouldn’t make any real difference whether Labour or the Tories get in – our vote would inevitably be squeezed and it could lead to serious demoralisation. We are not planning to stand in anything like a majority of seats anyway (I presume).

    If we get blamed for the Tories getting in again (particularly on their own or in coalition with UKIP), that could hurt our chances of making an electoral breakthrough for many years (as happened with Ralph Nader in the USA although it was the “hanging chads” fiasco with a refusal to provide the time and people to count the ballots by hand in Florida that made the difference in the end between George W Bush coming to power and Al Gore winning).

    I also agree with John Pearson about involving the Green Party as well as TUSC in discussions around uniting for the 2015 general election. I strongly suspect that they will want to retain their own name (they have 7-8% support in opinion polls after all which is roughly equal to that of the Lib Dems), but we should avoid standing against each other. Some people claimed that we wouldn’t be able to come to an agreement with the Greens at the local elections since they have a strategy of standing paper candidates everywhere they are not campaigning, but that was certainly not the case in 2014 (and parliamentary elections require a £500 deposit).

  7. Rupert Mallin says:

    Salman is absolutely right. However, I don’t think the disillusionment with Labour will occur without concerted attempts to unite Left Unity and TUSC for the 2015 general election. More importantly than this is to challenge the notion that Labour can anymore represent the working class. Owen Jones,the key writer and speaker against austerity and war, is the most important cheer leader for Ed Miliband’s Labour Party. Owen Jones owes it to the people to tell us how Labour can be transformed for the first time in its history into a socialist organisation. Yes, Owen Jones is on our side against austerity and war, but how does he square the circle with Labour? Couldn’t Left Unity (and TUSC, perhaps) set up some national fraternal debates with Owen Jones? For all of us it would be a marvellous opportunity to debate this central issue.

    • I’ve spoken to Owen about this before, I think he’s fairly sceptical of the prospects of uniting a left outside of Labour. Curiously he’s more hopeful of the chances of pulling Labour to the left from within, which to me seems an even more difficult task than uniting a left outside of it. I hope he succeeds, nonetheless, and I do think a strong left outside Labour, challening right-wing Labour MPs at the ballot box, can help the left within Labour to win their case.

  8. John Pearson says:

    In response to some of the points made by Steve Wallis. Whilst I agree that it might be difficult for Miliband to get away with reneging on the pledge to abolish the Bedroom Tax, it would not be so difficult in relation to the other pledges which Steve cites. I think we have a duty to working class voters to remind them of previous cases of Labour reneging on pledges to abolish Tory impositions.

    One very relevant example is that of the Jobseekers Act 1995, which replaced Unemployment Benefit by Jobseekers Allowance and set down the foundation for the sanctions regime which we are now seeing in the full bloom of its vicious intent.

    As many comrades who have been delegates to Trades Councils will remember well, prior to the 1997 general election, the then shadow Employment Minister, Ian McCartney, gave a unequivocal pledge to the TUC that a future Labour Government would repeal the legislation. Of course they did no such thing, but instead played a substantial role in ratcheting up the attacks on unemployed workers through the conditionality and sanctions regime.

    The Labour Party betrays the working class and has done consistently throughout its existence and this is the message that we need to get across, rather than succumbing to ‘lesser evil’ calculations.

    In short we need a approach to electoral work that is built upon the fundamental principles set out in the successful resolution no. 25 of our March 2014 Policy Conference. Firstly we will approach such work on the basis that we have no interests separate from the interests of the working class. Considering whether Left Unity might get electorally squeezed when standing in a marginal seat sounds very much like the admission of a separate interest to me. Secondly, we will stand candidates only in areas where “a political base of support exists within the community”. If we have built such a base of support within a constituency but then we were to decide not to stand for another reason, i.e. that it is a marginal seat, this does not sound like putting the interests of the working class first to my reckoning.

    Finally of course, our Policy Conference resolutions on electoral strategy contain no mandate to the National Council that it shall take into consideration the question of the marginality of seats.

  9. Steve Wallis says:

    John Pearson quotes “resolution no. 25 of our March 2014 Policy Conference” in saying that our electoral policy should have the basis that “we have no interests separate from the interests of the working class”. Personally, I’m not keen on emphasising “the working class”, which means different things to different people, and different socialist organisations have different definitions of “the middle class” (does it include middle managers or self-employed people for example).

    I was very pleased that the definition of “socialism” in the successful Left Platform (as amended by Camden branch to include the ending of capitalism) passed at our founding conference (see http://leftunity.org/founding-conference-decisions-1/) didn’t mention class:

    “3. We are socialist because our aim is to end capitalism. We will pursue a society where the meeting of human needs is paramount, not one which is driven by the quest for private profit and the enrichment of a few. The natural wealth, and the means of production, distribution and exchange will be owned in common and democratically run by and for the people as a whole, rather than being owned and controlled by a small minority to enrich themselves. The reversal of the gains made in this direction after 1945 has been catastrophic and underlines the urgency of halting and reversing the neo-liberal onslaught.”

    As far as I’m concerned, our primary aim must be to achieve socialism, and “the interests of the working class” must be based on that too (although the latter does suggest disenfranchising the middle class – I welcome John’s support for a government elected by proportional representation via single transferable vote which I think should be part of a socialist society, as well as democratic control from below of industry and services). I don’t think it’d be good as far as achieving socialism is concerned or indeed in “the interests of the working class” for there to be an outright Tory majority or a Tory-UKIP coalition after the next general election.

    On 19 May this year, “Mr Miliband said it was a ‘scandal’ that there were five million people in work who ‘can’t make ends meet’. Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have already said they want a rise in the minimum wage.” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27465459).

    From that article, it seems that Labour will wait until much nearer the election time to make a specific pledge on the minimum wage, but they have to promise something! The ConDems have actually raised the income tax threshold to over £10,000, something both coalition parties will be trumpeting in the election campaign (particularly the Lib Dems since it was one of their few manifesto commitments they actually kept). This sounds better for the poor than it really is, since workers above that threshold receive a bigger reduction in tax than those taken out of tax altogether. The mantra of “making work pay” is part of the Tories’ strategy of demonising unemployed people of course (but even Nick Clegg spoke out against Tory plans to make another massive attack on welfare earlier in the year).

    I note John’s point that “our Policy Conference resolutions on electoral strategy contain no mandate to the National Council that it shall take into consideration the question of the marginality of seats.” Is it up to the NC to decide where we stand, rather than regional committees or local branches? It is the branches that decide in which areas we do most of our activities, and which members we promote as potential candidates.

  10. Edward Leonard says:

    The Labour Party sold out long before Blair. However, he went even further and turned the party into another Tory party.
    As much as I agree with your policies I can’t see you ever getting elected in a UK election. That is why, as a Scot, I will be voting yes in the Scottish referendum. The prospect of a Tory UKIP coalition
    or right wing Labour government after the general does not appeal to me.
    The population of England have made it clear, for many years, that they want right wing government. Therefore, with sadness, I feel that Scotland will have a better chance of creating a fairer society by becoming independent.


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