Labour has won an historic third term victory in the 2005 General
Election, yet there will be no dancing in the streets, no street
parties, in fact little enthusiasm at all. ‘At least we kept the Tories
out’ is the most widespread view held the day after Labour won its
first ever third consecutive term. The combination of widespread
opposition to the war in Iraq, distrust of Blair, and disillusionment
with the failures of the last two terms of Labour government means that
Labour won the election with the lowest share of the vote, just 36
percent, of any victorious party in history.
As a result Labour’s majority in the House of Commons has been
slashed to 66. This may seem sizeable enough, but remember with a
majority of 161 Blair only squeezed through foundation hospitals (a
form of backdoor privatisation) by fourteen votes, and student tuition
fees by only five first time around. With this reduced majority, and
with many Blairite MPs defeated last night, these policies would never
have been passed. This smaller majority prepares the ground for new
parliamentary rebellions over any further attempts to privatise health
and education, particularly on the basis of pressure from below, of
developing events in society and above all in the trade unions.
In other words for all his post-election talk of a mandate to
continue with a reform of public services, the reality is that despite
winning the election, Blairism is already dead, ‘New’ Labour is done
for, and Blair himself cannot be far behind.
Blair should go, but the urge to replace him with Brown, the
anointed heir according to the media, would mean the merest cosmetic
change. Yet the desire for change inside Labour is precisely what is
reflected in the desire for a change at the top of the party.
The real meaning of this election result is clear. Huge numbers are
disillusioned with Blair and co, are opposed to the war, to the foreign
policy and the home policy being pursued by the Blairites, but the
alternative, a Tory government would be even worse. In other words, not
that Labour is the lesser of two evils, but that the Tories are the
worst.
Despite all the predictable Blairite nonsense about ‘voter
contentment’ and a mandate to continue their ‘reforms’, the collapse
not only of illusions but even of trust in Blair and co as a result of
Iraq, alongside the prospect of yet more privatisation in health,
education etc, and the continuing attack on public sector jobs and
pensions is the real explanation for low turnouts at the polls. Once
again participation in the election was historically low, perhaps up a
fraction on last time, but this was still one of the lowest turnouts on
record, as many Labour voters protested by staying away from the
polling booths.
Of course the Tories enjoyed a certain recovery, as we explained
they would. This was inevitable given the historic lows of 1997 and
2001 (the worst result since 1832). Through their heavy emphasis on
attacking asylum seekers and immigration (reminiscent of Nye Bevan’s
observation that “the Tories, in every election, must have a bogeyman.
If you haven’t got a programme, a bogeyman will do”) they managed to
claw back those Tory voters who switched to the UK Independence Party
in last year’s euro elections. The UKIP was completely unable to repeat
those spectacular gains. The far right saw many of their votes mopped
up by the Tories – and that is precisely why Howard and co swung to the
right – yet that pernicious fascist grouplet the BNP managed to pick up
a few votes in Keighley in the north of England and in Barking in the
south. They represent no real electoral threat, but the labour movement
should nevertheless mobilise to drive them out, and prevent them
becoming a threat to local communities.
The only real electoral impact of these groups has been to push the
Tories further right. As a result Howard managed to secure the ‘Tory
vote’ but not win the election. As the editorial of this month’s
Socialist Appeal explains they will now be looking for a new leader
with Howard quickly resigning. However, they will desperately try to
prevent the blue-rinse rank and file of their party from having too
much of a say in the matter. Behind the scenes deals will be struck to
ensure that either a new leader is appointed, or at least that the
membership is only given a couple of ‘safe’ candidates to choose
between.
The Liberals meanwhile secured their biggest vote in decades, yet
they would never be in a position to win the election. Their gains were
in the main due to a protest vote against the war in Iraq. On paper
(specifically in their manifesto) standing to the left of Blair, they
secured that section of the protest vote that did not simply stay at
home. They scored particularly well in seats with large student
populations such as Leeds North West, Cambridge and Cardiff Central.
Their opposition to student fees as well as the imperialist adventure
in Iraq won them seats from Labour in these areas, and they managed to
come second in many safe Labour seats for the same reason. Yet
ironically they lost some seats to the Tories. This illustrates their
catch 22. By standing to the left of Blair they pick up disillusioned
Labour votes, but by the same token lose those Tory voters who had
supported them as a kind of Tory-lite, a capitalist party with a nicer
face. In reality they are not a third force in British politics but a
fifth wheel. Any shift to the left in the future in Labour will see
these protest votes haemorrhage back to the Labour Party.
In Scotland and Wales neither of the nationalist parties were able
to capitalise on the widespread opposition to the failures of Blair and
co. In Scotland, in particular, the SSP failed to make any progress. In
fact without the key role of their original front man Sheridan they
seem to be losing that small but significant layer of support they had
built up.
As for the other groups, there were a thousand and one candidates on
offer but none of them made any impact – with a couple of exceptions.
Dr. Taylor who scored a spectacular victory standing as an independent
in Wyre Forest in 2001 in defence of the Kidderminster hospital held
the seat again.
Undoubtedly the most high profile exception was the victory of
George Galloway in Bethnal Green and Bow. The prominent expelled Labour
MP, nationally known for his opposition to the war in Iraq, defeated
the Blairite Labour candidate Oona King by 800 votes. Although his
Respect party picked up a few votes in other seats, it was really only
here, thanks to the almost celebrity status enjoyed by Galloway; the
fact that he is an expelled Labour MP; and, according to many press
reports, a certain opportunism toward the large Muslim community in
this area of east London, that they were able to gain from the enormous
antipathy towards Blair and the war in Iraq.
The other highly interesting exception came in the rock solid Labour
seat of Blaenau Gwent. Here the Labour leaders attempted to impose a
Blairite candidate, Maggie Jones, by insisting on an all women
shortlist to select a candidate to replace the left wing MP Llew Smith.
This seat was famously held by Aneurin Bevan, the left wing Labour MP
who introduced the National Health Service during the post second world
war labour government; and the former Labour leader Michael Foot. Local
party members would not accept this imposition from on high and backed
the independent candidature of Labour Welsh assembly member Peter Law.
Even though there is no particular evidence to demonstrate that Law is
left wing (having said that he did stand as an Independent Socialist),
there can be no doubt that for ordinary working people in this safest
of Labour seats this was a straight contest between Old Labour and New
Labour (in almost laboratory conditions since there was no chance of
splitting the vote: the other candidates, Tory, Liberal, Plaid Cymru,
receiving around 3000 voted in total between them) The Blairites were
roundly defeated. A Labour majority of 19,000 was transformed into a
10,000 majority for Peter Law. This adds weight to the argument we
advanced in the last Socialist Appeal that in reality only Labour can
defeat Blair. The real struggle in the next period will be to defeat
the Blairites inside the labour movement – a process already underway
in the unions – and a renewed struggle for socialist policies. This is
where Blair and co will be defeated not at the ballot box.
The election result prevented the Tories getting in, whilst
delivering Blair a sharp slap in the face. Watching the coverage of the
election results, even at the count in Blair’s own constituency in
Sedgefield, the prime minister looked shattered. Perhaps like an old
Roman emperor he is surrounded by too many yes men who have told him
what he wanted to believe. He looked more like a man who had lost than
the recipient of a third term election victory. In addition to the
shock of the result, Blair had to stand and listen to the moving and
dignified speech of Reg Keys, the father of a soldier who died in Iraq.
Mr.Keys stood against Blair in Sedgefield and secured ten percent of
the vote.
With the election over, Blair and co may imagine it is business as
usual. However, if Blair, Brown and co think they can just settle down
to another four or five years in office resting on a growing economy,
continuing to attack our democratic rights whilst allowing the
freeloaders and moneygrabbers to scavenge for profits from the rotting
carcass of our public services they will have another thing coming.
Labour’s third term will prove to be fundamentally different to the
previous two episodes of Labour government. The economic boom of the
last 14 years – based on stress, strain, low pay, credit, debt and the
decimation of British manufacturing – is faltering. The house price
bubble, which has served to falsely inflate consumer spending and prop
up the economy, is reaching its limits.
Simmering discontent in the workplaces is preparing new industrial
explosions. We have already seen renewed militancy in the last two
years or so. As we have always explained, this process does not proceed
in a simple straight line but through all kinds of ebbs and flows. With
100,000 civil servants’ jobs under the axe and the CBI predicting that
22,000 more manufacturing jobs will go by June, the conditions are
being created for big defensive battles by workers under attack. Rather
than face massive strike action, Blair and co postponed their assault
on public sector pensions – a policy which amounted to telling a
million workers that the government would delay scrapping their
pensions until after the workers had voted for them. If they plough
ahead with that attack then massive strike action is what they will
face. Any renewed move in this direction, any further privatisation in
health or education, will be met with a response by the working class.
In this election workers have shown that they don’t want a Tory
government, but they don’t want Blair and co either. There was no voter
apathy or contentment here but widespread protest by not voting, by
voting Liberal, or for other parties, as well as workers voting Labour
whilst holding their nose to keep the Tories out. They will not put up
with another four or five years of Blairite capitalist attacks on jobs
and on public services.
Action on the part of the unions to defend jobs, pensions etc will
find a reflection inside the Labour Party, even in rebellions inside
parliament. With a reduced majority Blair will not have it all his own
way even at the top of the party any more. Sooner or later he will have
to go. He has a nice new house on millionaires’ row waiting for him.
Blair may well have won the election, but Blairism is dead. The
pipedream of converting Labour into a version of the US Democratic
Party, which seduced many of the sectarian groups, as well as the
Labour leaders, has evaporated. The triumph of Blairism was a
consequence of defeat and demoralisation in the labour movement,
leading to a period of inactivity. The right of the movement always
rest on such periods. However, that period is over. Blairism reflects
yesterday, not today and tomorrow.
The Labour leader says he will stay on for a full third term. That
is not likely. As Oscar Wilde put it, “some cause happiness wherever
they go; others, whenever they go.” Yet to replace Blair with Brown
would be only the most minor cosmetic change. The labour movement must
set its sights much higher than this.
Behind the headlines of the 2005 election result we can see the
shift which is taking place in British politics. Conditions determine
consciousness and the changing conditions of the working class are at
the core of the class polarisation of society which will be a
fundamental feature of the next period.
That means developments to the right and the left. There will be a
growth of reaction, of various right wing groups which cannot be
ignored. The Tory Party will move further to the right. However the
fundamental feature will not be this but the movement of the working
class, and the shift to the left in the workers’ organisations, in the
trade unions and, at a certain stage, the Labour Party too.
There is only one force that can defeat Blair – the trade unions and
the party rank and file. It is not in the polling booth but inside the
labour movement that Blair and co must be defeated. What is needed now
is a militant trade union defence of jobs and pensions combined with a
struggle against the Blairites, and for socialist policies inside
Labour.
