SPECULATION AT the top of the Labour Party about how long Blair can last
has focussed attention on the succession. Union leaders who have argued for
staying in the Labour Party – grouped around the Labour Representation
Committee (see article below) – have argued that now is the time for ‘one last
heave’ to reclaim the Labour Party and get rid of Blair.
Although it is extremely doubtful they have the ability to achieve their
stated aim of ‘reclaiming’ or ‘refounding’ the Labour Party, behind their
argument is the contention that Gordon Brown would make a better ‘Old Labour’
leader of the party. Yet, it appears that they have had their job done for
them by their arch-enemy Peter Mandelson, who announced on TV this week that
Brown is the best successor to Blair.
Coming from this veteran member of the ‘project’, such a statement shows
that to install Brown in Blair’s place would make no difference whatever to
the direction and policies of New Labour. Blairism would become Brownism
overnight without a blink of an eye.
The leader of unions still affiliated to the Labour Party are continually
caught between a rock and a hard place of their own making. Their members have
no trust in the Labour Party that their unions donate huge cash sums to.
That’s why, under pressure, the GMB union has this week declined to give
anything to Labour’s general election fund. When asked to donate £774,000 to
the party’s election campaign, the union said it would only sponsor individual
MPs who supported the aims of the GMB. The union talked of a ‘watershed’
moment approaching.
When they are being attacked day in and day out by Labour politicians, many
union members question why their union should have any relationship with a
party that advocates a programme and policies that defends the interests of
big business.
Everyday, workers in the public sector are coming into collision with New
Labour politicians who are trying to undermine their wages and conditions and
in the case of Ken Livingstone urged people to cross tubeworkers’ picket
lines.
The conclusion increasingly being drawn is that there is no point in trying
to reclaim Labour; the possibilities for doing so no longer exist. As an
organisation to take forward the interests of working people, the Labour Party
is long gone and finished.
Clear alternative needed
ORDINARY UNION members will wonder then why their leaders spend so much
time trying to reclaim Labour, when they should be making a decisive break in
order to better defend them from the continuing attacks Labour is lining up.
The expulsion of the RMT railworkers’ union from Labour and the disaffiliation
of the Fire Brigades Union are the first hesitant steps of the unions breaking
the link with Labour and towards the formation of a new mass party to
represent working people.
But a clear alternative also needs to be posed that will enthuse and
inspire working people. An opportunity to begin that process was unfortunately
lost at the RMT conference last week.
There, a resolution from Bristol RMT calling for a conference to build "a
national conference of trade unions and representative organisations of
working-class communities and political organisations to discuss political
representation for workers" was derailed by an amendment, supported by RMT
leader Bob Crow, supporting the work of the LRC in "rescuing the Labour
Party".
As the report below shows the LRC is comparable to the band on the Titanic,
playing on to keep passengers’ spirits up.
Instead of trying to reclaim Labour, the best union activists now need to
increase the pressure from below on their union leaders to make the break and
for a genuine working-class political alternative to Labour to be forged.
In particular there needs to be a co-ordinated push for clear statements
from their executives and for resolutions at next year’s union conferences
about breaking from Labour and initiating a union-based conference, like that
described in the RMT resolution. Such a clear approach will more effectively
utilise union members in beginning the process of establishing a new mass
party of the working class.
