The
decision to readmit London Mayor Ken Livingstone back into the Labour
Party has came as no surprise to anybody. For months the spin doctors
had been hard at work preparing the ground, silencing the doubters and
generally ensuring that the readmission would go smoothly. On the day
Labour’s ruling body, the NEC, calmly met and after some discussion did
what their master bid, like the Roman Senates of old, and pushed
through the re-admission. Yet the rules are clear – Ken had another
year to go before he could be reconsidered for reinstatement of his
party membership. More to the point he was someone who had been soundly
rubbished by the very people at the top of the party who were now
seeking to bring him back – not least by Mr no-reverse-gear himself,
Tony Blair.
Of
course this decisions rights a wrong which was committed four years
ago. In the lead up to the first election for London Mayor, Ken
Livingstone was the clear choice of the London Labour movement to be
Labour’s candidate. Yet the selection process was rigged by the
Blairites in the party machine to keep him out and stick someone else
in. As a result Livingstone stood as an independent and gained the
support of most of the party rank and file who in effect treated him as
the de-facto Labour candidate, winning the election by a clear
majority. The actual Labour candidate, Frank Dobson, did very badly
despite his high profile as a former government minister.
Four
years down the road with the next election for London Mayor due in
June, things have been looking worse for Labour not better. All the
polls have been predicting that Labour’s candidate this time, Nicky
Gavron, would have done even worse than Dobson. Things have been
looking equally bad for Labour’s slate in the elections for the London
assembly. This prediction was not only a reflection of Livingstone’s
popularity as favourite to be re-elected, it was also a direct
consequence of the declining popularity of the New Labour government
and Blair himself.
Labour
lost loads of seats in the last set of council elections in London and
more recently had a disastrous result in the Brent East parliamentary
by-election, losing to the Lib-Dems. Opposition to the war in Iraq, to
student fees, to council tax rises, to ongoing privatisation, to PPP
and the Underground, foundation hospitals, etc. etc. All this has
eroded Labour’s core support both in the capital and elsewhere. The old
mantra about Blair being a winner has well and truly fallen from grace.
Now
with Blair under attack from all sides, like Custer at Little Big Horn,
the prospect of another bad result come the London Assembly and Mayoral
elections in June (not forgetting the European ones taking place at the
same time) has become a problem he could do without. So what better to
shore up the Labour turnout than by bringing Livingstone back into the
fold. Hence the U-turn. The original selected candidate has ‘decided’
to withdraw and the members are now voting on whether Livingstone
should be the new candidate for Labour – no one else is on the ballot
paper.
All
party members should welcome Livingstone’s readmission to the party.
Indeed all those socialists who have been expelled from the party over
the last period should be allowed back, including George Galloway who
was thrown out on the flimsiest of excuses, a travesty of justice. This
should ensure that come the elections in June party members are not
boycotting the official Labour campaign as they did last time. But we
should be clear. Even with ‘Red Ken’ back in the driving seat, many in
the party rank and file may still not be sufficiently enthused, given
the government’s unpopularity – not least among party members
themselves – to actually go out and campaign. Many voters may still not
go and vote Labour, or possibly just vote for Livingstone, but not for
Labour in the other elections.
Much
will depend on the actual programme Labour fights the election on in
London. Much was made about Livingstone having to declare his loyalty
to the election programme without anyone outlining what that programme
should be. The London Labour Party at its last regional conference at
the end of 2002 voted through a whole series of left wing resolutions.
Are we going to have a programme based on these or something foisted on
us from above? The process used to draw up Labour’s programme for
London must reflect socialist ideas, rooted in the struggle of working
people, if there is to be any real hope of reversing the electoral
decline we have seen over the last few years. Simply just relying on
Good Old Ken to do the trick in getting the votes in will not be
enough. And what is true for London is equally true for the rest of the
country. A third Labour victory at the next general election is no
longer the certainty many once though it was. Only through a socialist
programme alongside a fighting leadership, rather than the pro-big
business bunch we have at present, can a Labour victory be assured and
the hopes of the Tories and the rest be ground to dust.
