The Labour Representation Committee (LRC) held its first rally last
night at this year’s Labour Party Conference in Brighton attended by
some 250 activists. This successful event marks an important milestone
in the challenge to Blairism and the campaign to reclaim the Labour
Party. The enthusiasm of the meeting demonstrated not only that the
Labour left is alive and kicking, but the groundswell of opposition to
the Iraq war has given it further impetus to carry its campaign into
the ranks of the party and the trade unions.
The rally was chaired by John McDonnell MP, the secretary of the
LRC, and featured a host of speakers from the Labour and trade union
movement. These included veteran leftwinger Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn
MP, Michael Meacher MP, Alan Simpson MP, Alice Mahon MP, Mark Seddon
and Christine Shawcroft from Labour’s National Executive, Tony Woodley
(General Secretary, Transport and General Workers’ Union), Kevin Curran
(General Secretary, GMB), Mark Serwotka (General Secretary, PCS), Gerry
Doherty (General Secretary, TSSA), Kat Fletcher (President, NUS) and
others. The speakers also included Alan Woods who spoke for the Hands Off Venezuela campaign.
While many contributions took up the question of the Iraq War and
the anti-war composite resolution that were being debated the next day,
the platform covered a wide range of issues. Mark Serwotka dealt in
detail with the government’s scandalous attack on civil servants and
the announcement to sack over 100,000 workers. “The civil service has
experienced more measures of privatisation under this Blair government
than under Thatcher and Major”, declared Mark. “Some 20,000 workers are
looking to be transferred to the private sector. On 12th July the
Chancellor announced 104,000 job losses, crippling redundancies with an
end to redundancy agreements, pensions, etc.” The tactics of Blair and
Brown were, “the biggest attack on the public sector I have ever seen”,
he said. “The government is disgracefully refusing to negotiate.” Mark
explained the union had called a strike ballot and called for
solidarity from other unions in the face of this onslaught.
Tony Woodley explained that the unity of the trade union movement
over the last year had been “a huge step forward.” The unions were
working together for the first time in many years and concessions had
been won for workers’ rights in the next Labour government. However, he
said much more needed to be done, especially “the repeal of Labour’s
anti-union laws”, which have blocked workers defending their rights.
“We have a lot more to do to reclaim our party and its values.”
However, when Woodley was challenged from the floor about his
position on the resolution being presented to Labour Party conference
calling for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, he temporised,
saying that although the T&GWU delegation had voted to support the
resolution, certain things were taking place “behind closed doors”
which would “have to be taken on board.”
The conduct of the leaders of the “BigFour” unions on this question,
which has let the Labour Party leadership off the hook, aroused a lot
of anger among rank-and-file delegates.
The theme of trade union rights was taken up by John Hendy QC, who
said British workers had fewer trade union rights than most other
countries, including South Africa. He quoted Blair from early 1997 that
Britain had the “most restrictive laws in the western world.” While
they had won the case of Friction Dynamic workers at an employment
tribunal, they were still unemployed and had received no compensation.
John went on to point out the dramatic decline in the number of workers
now covered by collective agreements, down from 84% in 1979 to 35.9%
today – less than half. “With the hands of the union tied by red tape
of the law, they cannot defend or protect their workers, and this is
one of the reasons for the decline in membership”, he said.
Michael Meacher concentrated his contribution on the Iraq war. In
answer to Blair’s so-called apology of the previous day, he said: “With
35,000 dead in Iraq, the question was not whether you apologised for
the faulty evidence. He massaged the evidence in the government’s case
for war.” Blair had taken the decision to invade Iraq, “a year before
the war without any consultation with Parliament or the electorate.” He
went on: “Blair says Iraq is the crucible of international terrorism
and that we need to fight it to the end. But the insurgency today,
which is continually getting worse, is due to the occupation. There
will be no peace in Iraq until the withdrawal of troops, both American
and British.” In conclusion Michael said that there has been a colossal
centralisation of power under Blair. “It is our party and our country
and we want it back.”
“We need a sense of our strength”, stated Jeremy Corbyn. “We need to
be inspired by the two million people who marched against the war
February last year.” He said Blair wanted to invite the interim Iraqi
Prime Minister Allawi to speak at the Conference. I wrote to him
advising him not to. If he wanted to invite someone with democratic
credentials, he could have invited Hugo Chavez!”
The veteran Tony Benn, who was in fine form, summed up the Rally.
“For me the most important question is: Who runs the world? It is the
people with money and power. In Britain, we don’t have a prime
minister, we have a king!” This concentration of power and the
manipulation of events mean that there has been a complete loss of
trust, growing cynicism, which opens the way for the hard right. Things
may seem very bad in the party, “but if we can survive Ramsay
MacDonald, we can survive New Labour,” he said. “I urge people to stay
and fight in the Labour Party.” “Of course, if you want to leave you
have plenty of choice”, he said with a wry smile, “I’ve a list of 20
socialist parties you can join. I got it off the internet.” The point
was not missed by the audience, who gave Tony Benn a rapturous
response. It was a fitting end to a very successful rally and augurs
well for the future of the LRC. The task now remains to take the
socialist alternative to Blairism into the trade unions and labour
movement generally
Report by Rob Sewell,
September 29, 2004
