|
May 12th 2000 |
Labour's Running Scared |
LAST WEEK’S elections delivered a decisive
blow against New Labour’s pro-big business policies. Ken Livingstone’s victory,
the Socialist Party winning a third council seat in Coventry and the excellent results for
socialists standing in London’s elections show that working-class voters are
increasingly looking for an alternative to the Left of Labour. |
|
Looking for an alternative to Labour Socialist success panics Labour in Coventry Left lessons in London elections Putting
socialists on the map in Carlisle Analysis: our results and analysis Labour’s
meltdown is Left opportunity: special feature |
|
Northern Ireland:Why the IRA shifted on armsTHIS TIME there can be
no doubt that the latest IRA statement on decommissioning is indeed a “seismic
shift”. Peter Hadden, Belfast |
|
THE
BEGINNING of the trade union conference season and the battle over the selection of
Labour's London mayoral candidate has opened up the whole issue of trade union support for
the Labour Party. Bill Mullins asks: Will the unions break
with Labour? |
LAST WEEK’S elections delivered a decisive blow against New Labour’s pro-big business policies. Ken Livingstone’s victory, the Socialist Party winning a third council seat in Coventry and the excellent results for socialists standing in London’s elections show that working-class voters are increasingly looking for an alternative to the Left of Labour.
Particularly significant was the stunning victory of Rob Windsor becoming the third Socialist Party councillor in Coventry, polling 1,182 votes. Socialist Party candidates in Merseyside, Carlisle and other areas also achieved tremendous votes.
In London’s elections, Ken Livingstone won a decisive victory with over three-quarters of a million votes. Left candidates and Socialists standing in the Assembly elections received over 80,000, including the Socialist Party’s Ian Page, who received just under 4,000 votes in Greenwich and Lewisham - 4.2%.
Until now Labour basked complacently in the belief that it had the next election in the bag. The Tories were seen as discredited and Labour believed there would be no real opposition to it. Now Labour, incredibly, says it begins its “ fight back” but who are they fighting back against?
Labour’s fight back consists of attacking the weakest sections of society and favouring the rich. New Labour say they intend to continue privatising the tube and air traffic control, following their electoral drubbing. Chancellor Brown’s response to is to offer more tax relief for big business and harder crackdowns on benefit claimants.
After this year’s meltdown, Home Secretary Jack Straw breathtakingly suggested millions of Labour’s voters didn’t vote because the Tories were an “ineffective opposition”. It’s true most voters won’t look to the discredited Tories for an alternative to New Labour - their humiliation in Romsey showed that. What does William Hague offer but more intolerance, more racism and more crackdowns on working-class people?
But if Labour are confident that their problems are only the “ineffective Tories” why are they running scared?
The local elections show the potential for a new mass party of the working class to be established. The Socialist Party will strive to ensure working-class people have a Left and socialist alternative to vote for in elections. But we’ll also be campaigning alongside working-class people to start a fight back and win support for fighting socialist policies, to ensure that Labour’s anti- working-class policies are defeated.
NEW LABOUR received a decisive drubbing at last week’s local elections, while the Socialist Party celebrated successes, including the election of a third councillor in Coventry.
All the major parties suffered setbacks. Ken Livingstone’s stand, the performance of socialist candidates and our own party’s results shows an increasing number of voters are looking for a more left-wing alternative to New Labour.
New Labour’s pro big-business policies were emphatically rejected by many of those who had voted for them at the 1997 election. While the Tories and Liberals made some gains, they also suffered defeats; hardly a ringing endorsement given the unpopularity of New Labour.
The Socialist Party now has all three councillors in St Michael’s ward in Coventry. Rob Windsor joined Dave Nellist and Karen McKay on the council after winning 1,182 votes to his Labour rival’s 1,071.
This leaves the party well placed to make a very strong challenge against Labour in the city at the general election.
Throughout England and Wales our candidates got higher numerical and percentage votes than when they last stood in elections.
ONE IMMEDIATE consequence of the Socialist Party’s success in Coventry was a split in the Labour Group. Labour lost nine of the 18 seats being contested in the council elections - one to the Socialist Party, one to the Lib Dems and seven to the Tories.
The Labour vote plummeted everywhere. In St Michael’s, the Labour Party spent a lot of time trying to stop the Socialist ‘threat’ and seemed less concerned that the Tories would be taking seats elsewhere in the city. The Labour Party drove round St Michael’s, saying: “vote Labour your working-class candidate” perhaps the first time the phrase has ever been heard under New Labour.
Now the new Labour group leadership which has been elected argues that Labour spent too much on grand projects and more money should be spent on basic services and helping the underprivileged. This change in Labour’s image is clearly because of the pressure that’s been put on them from the Socialist Party.
We had a number of council workers who voted for us for the first time, cheesed off with the conditions being imposed upon them by the council, just like any Tory or other employer would.
This result is undoubtedly a recognition of the work already done by Socialist Party councillors Dave Nellist and Karen McKay. Now we have consolidated this, showing that we’re about more than being just a protest vote.
Immediately, newly elected councillor Rob Windsor will be taking up the issue of student tuition fees, demanding a meeting with the vice-chancellor of the university about the threat made by the university to many students who are having difficulty paying their fees.
CONTRARY TO to earlier opinion poll indications, the turnout in the London mayoral elections and Greater London Assembly (GLA) elections was less than 34%.
Jim Horton
Ken Livingstone’s candidature was expected to boost turnout, but while he still scored a stunning victory, support for him waned as he adorned the mantle of London populism.
Although Labour’s vote plummeted, there was not a massive rise in the Tory vote. Instead, Left and Green candidates attracted good votes, with three Green Party members elected to the 25-member assembly.
In the constituency section for the assembly, from which 14 assembly members were elected, the total Left vote was 47,066, with the majority of this, 46,530 votes, 2.93%, going to the London Socialist Alliance (LSA). Independent candidates supporting Ken Livingstone polled a further 24,499.
Unfortunately, matters were complicated for the GLA top-up list. Four Left groups competed for the remaining eleven places on the assembly. In total, Left groups polled 66,013 votes (3.9%), but this was split between the LSA, the Campaign Against Tube Privatisation (CATP), Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party (SLP) and the Communist Party of Britain. In addition Peter Tatchell, standing as an independent received over 22,000 votes, bringing the total Left vote on the top-up list to 5.33% - this failure to achieve left unity meant the squandering of an opportunity to get a socialist elected onto the assembly.
With reservations the Socialist Party recommended support for the LSA because of its broad socialist programme, while sympathising with those workers who would want to vote for the CATP because it represented a group of militant workers taking a stand against New Labour. But this situation should never have arisen.
We argued for a joint slate between what we regarded as the two more important left groups, the LSA and CATP. The CATP, whose campaign was endorsed by the RMT London Underground Regional Council, rejected this, insisting on standing on the narrow platform of opposition to tube privatisation.
As part of the LSA we then argued that the LSA should support the CATP top-up list and concentrate on campaigning in the constituencies, where support for a broad socialist programme could be best built. No other group within the LSA supported this, with the unfortunate result that the LSA stood against the CATP.
We believe the assembly election results justify the position we adopted. The LSA did better in the constituencies, achieving up to 7% of the vote, than in the top-up list.
However, while the LSA managed to poll an important 27,073 votes for the top-up list, this unfortunately represented just 1.6% of the total votes cast. The CATP polled 17,401 votes, 1.0%. In two constituencies the CATP polled more votes for the top-up list than the LSA.
The LSA would now be in a much stronger position to unite the Left together had it just stood in the constituencies: it would still have obtained its good constituency vote while being seen to be supporting Left unity and workers fighting to defend their conditions of work and jobs.
Despite its fragmented character the total Left vote is a positive development which now needs to be built upon.
ON 4 May we celebrated getting 24.5% of the vote (305) in Botcherby ward in Carlisle in our first election campaign.
Paul Wilcox (Candidate), Craig Johnston (Election Agent), Louise Van Der Hoeven (Branch Secretary)
On election day we had 60 placards all over the ward. On the main road into Carlisle you would come across the sign saying welcome to Carlisle and beside it was a placard saying Vote Socialist.
We also noticed some Labour posters were coming down towards the end of the election and ours were going up. We leafleted over 2,500 homes with six different leaflets on issues such as pensions, council housing and the NHS. We canvassed three-quarters of the ward and got 600 promises, we gave out over 200 vote Socialist stickers to local kids on the estates and got a higher percentage of votes than 14 other mainstream candidates in other wards in the city.
Last year people didn’t have a choice. This year we gave them an alternative a working-class, socialist alternative. But it does not stop after elections, we are now launching a defend council housing campaign.
At the election count one of New Labour’s workers said brashly that we had only got 305 votes. We replied to him that “it has taken you over 100 years to achieve over 400 votes it’s taken us four weeks to get over 300. We have only just begun”.
SOCIALIST PARTY members stood as candidates in the English local elections and the Greater London Assembly elections and received creditable votes, given the limited resources and lack of media coverage our party has. While the biggest success was undoubtedly winning another council seat in Coventry, all our candidates put in strong performances and increased their votes on previous occasions when we had stood. We outline the results below and give comparison with other votes, where the information has been received.
Northern
Newcastle Byker:
Bill Hopwood (Socialist Party *) 266 votes (16.6%)
Other votes: Labour 910, Liberal 166, Tory 162.
Carlisle Botcheby:
Paul Wilcox (Socialist Party) 305 (24.5%)
Other votes: Labour 484, Tory 456.
Yorkshire
Hull Southcotes: (two seats)
Keith Ellis (Socialist Party) 98 votes (4.2%)
Labour 767/669, Lib Dem 260/202, Tory 210
Doncaster Thorne and Moorends
Mary Jackson (Socialist Party) 147 votes (5%)
Rotherham Aston
Paul Marshall (Socialist Party) 172 votes (7.8%)
Labour 1,244, Tory 456, Lib Dem 326.
Sheffield Manor
Alistair Tice (Socialist Party) 106 votes (7.3%)
Labour 964, Lib Dem 243, Tory 143.
Sheffield Park
Terry Wykes (Socialist Party) 31 votes (1.2%)
Labour 1,030, Lib Dem 1,373, Tory 67.
Sheffield Castle
Rebecca Fryer (Socialist Party) 41 votes (2.4%)
Labour 1,130, Lib Dem 314, Tory 149.
Barnsley Wombwell North
Angie Waller (Socialist Party) 68 votes (2.9%)
Labour 1,079, Independent 384, Lib Dem 258, Tory 166.
Wakefield East Moor
Mick Griffiths (Socialist Party) 220 votes (8%)
Labour 1,503, Tory 716, Lib Dem 392.
Huddersfield Almondsbury
Jo Hayley (Socialist Party) 74 votes.
Bradford University
Sajjad Shah (Socialist Party) 98 votes (2%)
Leeds City and Holdbeck
Dave Jones (Socialist Party)
Merseyside
Sefton Netherton/Orrell
Pete Glover (Socialist Party) 416 ( 30%; compared to last election 218)
West Midlands
Tipton Green
Ian Barton (Socialist Party) 68 votes
Birmingham Erdington
Joe Foster (Socialist Party) 95 votes
Birmingham Longbridge
Clive Walder (Socialist Party) 89 votes
Coventry St Michael’s
Rob Windsor (Socialist Party) 1.182 votes - elected
Labour 1,071
Coventry Willenhall
Becky Tustain (Socialist Party) 380 votes
Coventry Longford
Martin Reynolds (Socialist Party) 242 votes
Coventry Westwood
Ella Manley (Socialist Party) 292 votes
Coventry Waverly
Mark Power (Socialist Party) 262 votes
Coventry Upper Stoke
Sam Ashby (Socialist Party) 144 votes
Coventry Henley
Martha Young (Socialist Alliance) 438 votes
Stoke
Jim Cessford(Socialist Party) 112 votes (5%)
Tory 793, Labour 707, Labour 694 (Independents won nine seats in Stoke)
Eastern
Stevenage
Mark Pickersgill (Socialist Party) 32 (3%)
Basildon Langdon Hills
Dave Murray (Socialist Party) 37
* In 1999 the governmentís electoral registration officer, backed up by a parliamentary committee, ruled that the Socialist Party could not use its own name in elections because of the existence of a smaller party of the same name that rarely stood in elections. After campaigning against the decision the Socialist Party reluctantly registered as Socialist Alternative for elections.
In Coventry the party registered as Socialist Alternative (Nellist). Despite the ban on us using our own name all our election literature goes out as Socialist Party material.
Greater London Assembly (GLA) elections.
In Greenwich and Lewisham, Socialist Party councillor Ian Page, standing for the Socialist Alliance got 3,981 votes (4.2%) the third highest vote of any London Socialist Alliance candidate.
In the constituency section of the GLA elections the London Socialist Alliance received 46,530 votes (3.14%). In the top-up vote for the party lists the LSA got 27,073 (1.63%). The Campaign against Tube Privatisation received 17,041 votes (1.02%).
If the there had been a joint list between the two campaigns (as the Socialist party argued inside the LSA) then they would have received at least over 3% and possibly more given that a joint campaign could have been more effective.
As things stood if all the votes of campaigns to the left of Labour were added together (excluding the Green) then that comes to 88,515 votes or 5.3%, enough to have got a member of the GLA elected.
WHEN TONY Blair first made
plans for a London Mayor, the last thing he envisaged was the election of Ken Livingstone.
He had in mind a figurehead and direct representative of big business, or at least a loyal
Blairite Labour Party member. Livingstone's victory is a massive humiliation for the
government, as JUDY BEISHON explains. |
NEW LABOUR sent out one million leaflets urging Labour voters to support Labour candidate Frank Dobson. The Sun, the Mirror, and the London Evening Standard urged their readers not to support Livingstone. But, despite all this, Dobson ended up in third place, with only a third of the votes of Livingstone, and half of the votes of Tory candidate, Stephen Norris.
This was Labour's worst election result in London since 1982. 46% of Labour voters deserted Labour to support Livingstone, who gained his spectacular victory with no party apparatus campaigning for him.
Towards the end of the election campaign, Labour knew their fight for the Mayor's position was hopeless, but expected to gain a good majority in the London Assembly. This hope was shattered with the election of only nine Labour Assembly members, the same number as the Tories.
Labour also suffered a major setback in the local elections held in many parts of England, losing 573 council seats. They lost towns and cities that have been Labour strongholds up to now, such as Oldham and Hartlepool. Most voters stayed at home; only 30% of the electorate voted; reflecting widespread disgust at Labour.
There were experiments in some areas to increase turnout by using new voting methods, such as increased postal voting and supermarket or mobile polling booths. Turnout increased in these areas, but these methods will not be able to reverse the massive degree of cynicism towards the main political parties which fuels voter abstention.
Growing
anger
THE GOVERNMENT’S recent attempts to increase its popularity by announcing more money for the NHS and plans for a further small increase for pensioners (£2 per week) were not enough to inspire people to go out and vote Labour. Instead, there is a strong and growing distrust of the government, and great anger towards Labour councils, fuelled by the many anti-working class measures Labour has taken locally and nationally.
Having made concessions on the NHS and pensions, Labour continued its attacks on the welfare state by announcing that benefits for unemployed men over 60 years old will no longer be automatic. And there is no let up in their plans to privatise parts of air traffic control and London Underground.
The government is also failing at present to offer hope to the tens of thousands of Rover and Ford car workers and workers of car industry suppliers whose jobs are threatened. A warning was sent to Blair with the cutting of Labour's majority on Birmingham council from 36 seats to 15 seats. He will be forced to heed this warning and offer public money to potential business bidders who promise to continue some production at the car plants. But given worldwide over-capacity in the car industry, Phoenix’s takeover deal with BMW will invariably mean asset stripping and major job losses. The only way to safeguard all workers' jobs is to nationalise the car plants, which is far from being on Blair's agenda at present.
Labour
recriminations
THE ELECTION debacle for Labour, particularly in London, has led to unease amongst Labour leaders on the party 'reforms' that Blair has pushed through in recent years. The small number of activists remaining in the party have been repelled by the leadership’s ‘control freakery’ in Wales, over the selection of Euro MPs, and in fixing Frank Dobson’s selection as London Mayoral candidate.
The leadership has felt compelled to propose changes to selection methods, and a slowing of pace of other 'reforms' such as the abolition of area General Committees. It is inevitable that there will be further recrimination and increasing turmoil among Labour leaders following their electoral slump.
However, this does not mean that the stance of Labour will shift to the Left. The party bases itself entirely on pro-market policies, and although Blair has expressed some minor regrets about his heavy-handed style, he has also said that his biggest mistake was not giving Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown a cabinet seat.
The
Tories
INCREDIBLY, JACK Straw resorted to blaming the feebleness of Tory opposition for Labour's losses. He is suggesting that it would be better to have a more right-wing reactionary Tory Party in order to scare Labour voters to the polling booths regardless of Labour policy!
Tory leader William Hague partly obliged him by outdoing Labour's anti-asylum seeker and anti-crime rhetoric. This clearly played a role in getting out a section of the Tory vote in some areas. But the main reason the Tories gained around 600 seats in the local elections was general disgust with Labour and abstention of traditional Labour voters.
This was also the case with the Tories' performance in the London elections, where the turnout was only 33%. Tory candidate for Mayor, Norris, also increased his vote by distancing himself from the Tory leadership and by portraying himself as a champion of civil liberties.
A better indication of the Tory's standing was shown in their trouncing by the Liberals in the Romsey parliamentary by-election. Here the turnout was 60%, in a seat that has historically been a safe Tory area. Yet, here former Tory and Labour voters voted Liberal in order to kick the Tories out.
No Tory opposition leader in 100 years has presided over a worse result in one of their party's own seats. It is a major defeat, and one which would have put Hague's party leadership on the line if it were not for their election results elsewhere.
It shows that the Tories are still far from achieving victory in the next general election.
The general perception is still that fear of a Tory comeback is likely to see Labour returned but with a reduced majority at the general election. However, given the degree of anger against Labour and the potential of economic recession along with other potential problems for the government, it couldn’t be excluded that a hung Parliament, with no party in majority, could result.
Left
and Green vote
ONE INDICATION of the disenchantment with the three main parties was the size of the Green vote in London. They received 10% of the vote in the constituencies, and 11% of the vote for the top-up seats, gaining them three Assembly seats. They were aided in this achievement by Ken Livingstone's call on people to vote Green for the Assembly.
The four left lists that stood for the top-up seats and Peter Tatchell standing as an independent received 5.33% of the vote in total, with the London Socialist Alliance getting 1.63% (27,073 votes), and the Campaign Against Tube Privatisation 1.05% (17,401 votes).
The London Socialist Alliance also received 2.93% in the constituencies (46,530 votes), with Socialist Party member Ian Page receiving 3,981 of those votes in Greenwich and Lewisham.
These are good votes for the Left at this stage, but they strongly reinforce the argument of the Socialist Party for a united Left list. A united list and a well-organised campaign would have achieved a vote greater than that of the fascist BNP (who received 2.87%), and would have achieved the 5% needed to gain an Assembly seat.
The mass disillusionment with Labour, combined with an increasing interest in voting for Socialist candidates - the Socialist Party gained a third councillor in Coventry - and an anti-capitalist mood amongst a section of young people, reveal clearly the need for a new mass workers party.
New
workers’ party
KEN LIVINGSTONE is in a strong position, with the authority gained by 776,427 votes, to initiate a conference of trade unionists and all others interested in forming the beginnings of such a party.
Unfortunately, he is showing no inclination to take this opportunity. He has distanced himself from socialist ideas, preferring to portray himself as a London populist who will stick up for Londoners and work well with all the main political parties and with big business.
A BBC opinion poll showed that the main reason people voted for him was because they believe he will stand up for London, with a second reason being his ability to stand up to the main party leaders. His policies, or lack of them, were not a significant factor, not surprisingly as he tried to avoid policy statements.
If he had introduced left-wing measures into his election programme, he would have inspired many working-class people in London and the numbers turning out to vote would have been much greater.
Nevertheless, people will be expecting him to continue his fight against partial tube privatisation, to intervene against job losses at Fords in Dagenham, and to speak out against future government attacks. There are also hopes that transport will improve.
Although most Londoners don't believe the Mayor can make much difference to anything, Livingstone will only be able to retain the popularity he has now if he moves into opposition to the pro-capitalist position of Labour. At present, he is still asking for restoration of Labour Party membership.
When the economy moves into recession with a resulting escalation in job losses and other hardships, and even greater hatred of Labour, Ken Livingstone's support will fall if he maintains allegiance to Labour.
However, no matter what Livingstone does in future, his present act of standing against Labour and gaining the support he has, marks the start of a new period. Trade unionists will increasingly question and challenge the funding of the Labour Party by their unions, and inevitably, at some stage, there will be concrete moves by workers to set up a new party.
THIS TIME there can be
no doubt that the latest IRA statement on decommissioning is indeed a “seismic
shift”.
Peter Hadden, Belfast
The agreement to open arms dumps for regular inspection by third parties is a long way from the “not a bullet, not an ounce’ slogans that once adorned walls all over areas like West Belfast but which have now largely disappeared.
The statement, like everything that has emerged in the peace process, is ambiguous in places. But the promise to open a number of dumps means - no matter how the IRA present it - that the weapons in these dumps will effectively have been decommissioned.
The further promise, “to begin a process that will completely and verifiably put IRA arms beyond use” albeit with the proviso that there exists a political process “with the potential to remove the causes of the conflict” is a also major shift.
Those who still argue that this is a trick, a sophisticated ruse to fool the unionists and the British government into allowing republicans into the corridors of power, and that the weapons will be held for future use, have an unwarranted faith in the republican leadership and have missed the point entirely.
In truth the Adams-McGuinness leadership long ago decided to travel an exclusively political road. They correctly understood that the armed struggle had not succeeded and would not succeed.
However, instead of looking for an alternative method of struggle, or embracing socialist ideas which might have opened roads to the Protestant working class, they took an opposite course. They accepted the overtures of the US, British and Irish establishment and moved decisively to the right.
The delay and difficulty in moving on the arms issue was mainly due to opposition within the IRA, and the danger of a split. But by now the vast majority of republicans have had to accept that the idea of a return to “war” is not an option. Even most of those who argue against decommissioning advocate a “rust in peace” solution not a new military campaign.
David Trimble has to convince the Unionist Council that this IRA offer is “for real” before the Assembly can be reconvened. He has lost ground to the “no” camp within his own party and only just survived the recent leadership challenge.
However it is likely that he will carry the day, probably with a more comfortable majority than in the leadership vote. All but the most bigoted sections of unionism are coming to realise that for the IRA the war really is over.
They can see that the prize of decommissioning in return for what are secondary concessions on policing, demilitarisation and equality - much of which will come no matter whether the Assembly is there or not - is too great to miss.
It is also clear that the Paisleyite “no” camp have no alternative. Trimble can argue with effect that his strategy has forced concessions from the IRA, while that of Paisley would more likely mean IRA guns being brought into use, not put beyond use.
ALL THIS means that the Assembly will probably be back in place from 22 May and that it is not likely to topple in the short term. If this happens the reaction of most people will be relief that the peace process has not collapsed. However there will be little euphoria and few illusions that a lasting solution is any closer.
The power-sharing arrangement institutionalises sectarianism. These main parties, while co-operating at the top, will continue to whip up sectarianism on the ground in order to maintain their electoral support.
Their ongoing domination will reinforce sectarianism and lay the basis for renewed, probably worse, violence at a later stage.
The experience of the Assembly in the few weeks that it was running also revealed its cumbersome, undemocratic structure. The various sectarian checks and balances woven into its structure are liable to lead to paralysis. To break this paralysis, decisions are liable to be taken by ministerial dictat.
This already happened when Sinn Fein’s Bairbre De Brun decided to close the Jubilee Maternity unit. The health committee, with its unionist majority, opposed this decision as did the Assembly but the decision still stood, and has been implemented.
The real advantage of the Assembly is that it can make the task of creating a socialist alternative to the sectarian parties easier. The new ministers will be responsible for health, education, roads, the environment, low pay and other key areas.
Their right-wing, pro-market policies will inevitably cost them support in orking-class areas. That means that a space for the building of a new working-class party, capable of uniting Catholics and Protestants around the idea of a socialist solution, can begin to emerge.
THE
BEGINNING of the trade union conference season and the battle over the selection of
Labour's London mayoral candidate has opened up the whole issue of trade union support for
the Labour Party. Bill Mullins asks… |
NOT ALL unions balloted their members in the London mayor selection contest but around 80% of union members balloted voted for Livingstone (see box)
Most trade unionists who voted for Livingstone whilst he was still in the Labour Party voted for him in the election itself. This is a conscious vote against New Labour by tens of thousand of trade unionists.
Labour's historical grip over the trade unions is beginning to loosen. It demonstrates that the issue is beginning to take hold in the unions and could become even more viable if a credible alternative on the left appears.
Funding
TRADE UNION leaders have agreed to double their donation to Labour's general election campaign fund. In 1997 the unions donated £6 million of Labour's £26 million spending. For the next election they have promised a staggering £13 million. They have also agreed to increase annual subscriptions from £1 million to £2 million.
Individual unions like UNISON spend £1.5 million per year on the Labour Party, others such as the engineering union AEEU and the TGWU donate nearly as much. Smaller unions like the CWU hands over £500,000 per year. Now they have threatened to hold back their promised increase of £100,000 unless New Labour abandon their plans to allow privatisation of the Post Office by the back door.
From 1979 to 1997 the unions paid over £200 million to the Labour Party. In that 18-year period, whilst the Tories were in power, the unions told their members to wait patiently until Labour won the election. The leaders held back their members from industrial action again and again.
Now after nearly three years of New Labour, trade union members are increasingly asking: "What are we getting for our money?"
Ian Aitken in the Guardian examines the relationship between New Labour and the unions with an article entitled: “New Labour may not like us but it needs our money”.
After saying strikes to save the Rover jobs are ruled out, he says: “So the unions are effectively reduced to pleading with the government to do something - anything, they know not what - to prevent the remorseless process of cost-cutting at the expense of their members' livelihoods…" "If we can't rely on the Labour government to protect our most vital interests... namely the jobs of our members... why do we give them all that money?"
Compare this attitude to the Blairites, who not long after the general election, leaked to the press that New Labour was about to dump its links with the trade unions. Stephen Byers let reporters know that this was Tony Blair's thinking.
Now Roger Lyons, the general secretary of MSF and chair of "Trade Unions for a Labour Victory” is wined and dined at Chequers. He was reported to be “thoroughly impressed with the contents of the wine cellar”.
Membership
LABOUR PARTY membership is plummeting as the mainly middle class who joined after the election are jumping ship. Membership has fallen from 405,000 to 378,000 since 1997. This figure will fall even further as disillusionment with the government develops. One-third of Labour Party constituencies are refusing to send a delegate to this year's party conference as it is seen as a stage-managed conference. “Never mind” said one spin doctor, this gives more seats for the corporate sponsors”.
Protests
THE RAIL union RMT London council has censured its deputy general secretary Vernon Hince, for releasing private letters to the press from Livingstone addressed to him as chairman of the Labour Party.
The 28,000-strong London construction branch of the AEEU has called for members to withhold their political contributions to the Labour Party because of the stitch-up for the mayoral election.
Resolutions to the CWU conference, initiated by Socialist Party members, calling for the union's political fund to be changed, will be debated next month. They call on the fund not to be wholly tied to the Labour Party. Similar resolutions have been ruled out of order in UNISON, so afraid are the leadership of rocking the boat for New Labour.
The RMT will be discussing similar resolutions. This is particularly shocking for the union leadership, given the role railworkers played in the founding of the Labour Party.
RMT branches in London have donated hundreds of pounds to support anti-privatisation candidates in the elections despite this being in conflict with the union rulebook.
But this issue is still at its early stage. The FBU, whose general secretary Jim Cameron was widely quoted at last year's TUC conference as being in favour of breaking with New Labour, has recently ordered his London region to reclaim their £3000 donation to Livingstone’s campaign.
Three years ago the same union resolved to open up the political fund to other candidates supporting the union's policies but then reversed this at the next conference.
At local level the debate is beginning to take place on the need for the unions to have a new political voice. And it is clear that this will not be easily stopped.
As the general election approaches the union leaderships will be desperate to get the union's members behind New Labour. They will argue against opening up the debate for a new workers' party “when all efforts should be to keep out the Tories”.
But this mantra is beginning to have less and less effect. In the public sector, workers are faced every day with hard-faced employers in the councils and in the health service.
Managers are encouraged by New Labour councils to “take on the unions”. The governments “best value” contracts for council services are already causing widespread resentment, even though it only began last month.
Privatisation continues with a vengeance under New Labour. Public sector workers see little difference between the New Labour Party and the Tories.
Under these conditions, active trade unionists will demand that their union does not blindly give its loyalty to a party whose leaders have opposite and conflicting interests with the mass of trade unions Britain today.
Socialists
SOCIALISTS IN the unions will have to put themselves at the head of developments which lead to a break from Labour – now an openly pro-capitalist party – and begin the task of creating a new mass working-class political alternative.
However the union's leaderships will defend tenaciously their cosy links with New Labour whose outlook and ideology they share. So the breaking of the unions' link with Labour will not be a straight process or happen in one swift break.
At first there could be an tendency to loosen the link or donate less to Labour and use the union's political funds for other purposes or parties. In Spain unions ended their affiliation to PSOE in the 1980s but this did not see the creation of a new workers' party. Instead they adopted a 'neutral' or 'non-political' stance.
In Britain socialists will argue that a break from Labour must be to give a political voice to the disenfranchised millions of ordinary workers and trade unionists who have been let down by New Labour.
That means a campaign will have to be launched throughout the unions, whose aim would be to effectively disaffiliate from Labour and to begin the real process of building a new mass workers' party.