What We Think

Time For A New Workers’ Party

TONY BLAIR may claim he is not the ‘wobbling’ kind. But the long shadow
of the Iraq occupation, the hostage crisis and Labour’s majority being
reduced to less than 30 seats at a general election were likely to leave
Blair, his ministers and Labour MPs wriggling uncomfortably in their
Labour conference seats this week.

A vast array of Blairites, Brownites, union leaders and media
commentators have sought Blair’s ear to advise him on how to overcome
public cynicism for Labour to win a third general election. However, none
of them have an answer to their biggest problem, which is that Blair’s
party is not trusted and millions of disillusioned voters have deserted
Labour, never to return.

The impact of the hostage crisis surrounding Kenneth Bigley, with
Blair’s unwillingness and inability to do anything, is the eye of the
permanent hurricane of Iraq that engulfs Blair. His refusal to apologise,
even though he conceded he was ‘wrong’, has intensified the huge anger
against him and the feeling that he should be held to account.

As Brian Reade observed in the Daily Mirror, Blair is more than happy
to apologise for other government’s mistakes – from the potato famine in
Ireland to Bloody Sunday and the Guildford Four – but won’t apologise for
his own, no matter how damning and conclusive the evidence against him is.

Yet, even if the motion on Iraq is debated and passed at Labour Party
conference – limply calling for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq
without directly criticising Blair – Blair won’t change course and will
continue to doggedly uphold the interests of George Bush’s imperialist
clique.

Similarly, union leaders may get resolutions passed at Brighton which
are mildly critical. But, the chances of the government changing its
pro-big business stance – under Blair, Brown or anyone else – is as
unlikely as the Countryside Alliance merging with the League against Cruel
Sports.

Market forces

UNION LEADERS believed they had extracted some concessions from Blair
through the Warwick agreement, at Labour’s national policy forum in July.
But those limited ‘promises’ look increasingly threadbare just weeks after
being pulled out of the wardrobe.

Even on rail renationalisation – a policy supported by two-thirds of
the public and 75% of Labour voters, and one that could win some support
back for Labour – the government didn’t even want it on the agenda and
blatantly said they would ignore the conference decision.

Agreements made at Warwick on pensions and the two-tier workforce are
already being subverted by the government. Blair’s government are doing
everything possible to assist capitalism’s rapacious market forces through
opting out of cutting workers’ hours and cutting public spending.

The leaders of the main unions are crying foul and threatening
industrial action over pensions and public-sector attacks but
simultaneously cling to the wreckage of the Labour Party hoping they may
influence Labour’s election programme.

However, Blair and his followers have spelt out their directions and
intentions for a third term very plainly to the union leaders. Stephen
Byers has advised Blair to be like Thatcher and go on and on. And that
means continuing neo-Thatcherite policies of more privatisation, more
attacks on workers’ rights and living conditions and continuing to ignore
the wishes and needs of anyone but big business.

One million manufacturing jobs have been lost under Labour since 1997
and thousands more are under threat. Yet, the government says in true
Thatcherite vein that you can’t buck market forces.

Union leaders claim that if Labour changed course and pursued the
policies agreed at Warwick and the TUC it could win back millions of
voters to Labour. But even if such policies were forced through Labour’s
conference, Blair, Brown and the rest have stitched up Labour’s
decision-making so tightly there is no chance of them going in the
manifesto let alone being acted upon.

If the union leaders genuinely want a party to campaign for decent
pensions, shorter working hours, an end to discrimination in the
workforce, massive investment in public services and manufacturing and
renationalisation of rail – to name a few policies – then they can only
achieve that by breaking from Labour and beginning the process of
establishing a new mass party. Such a party could win the support of the
disillusioned millions who have deserted Labour and the millions of
workers who have been looking for a Left alternative to Labour for some
time.