Labour Party members and affiliated trade unionists will be
waking up to the grim news today (Thursday) that Gordon Brown, the so-called
"architect of New Labour" will become the next leader of the Labour Party and
therefore Prime Minister without any form of election taking place. The only
other candidate, John McDonnell, will be kept off the ballot paper by virtue of
failing to have got the nominations of 45 Labour MPs. Having built up the
leadership election over the last few weeks (complete with websites and
souvenir merchandise!) the Labour Party organisation is now presenting us with
a leadership "election"… without an election. Having spent the last ten years
bombing and invading countries on the pretext that they had undemocratic
leaders, we are now being offered a leader who no one has voted for!
Who is to blame? Many will now be asking this question and
discussing what should be done about it. Certainly no blame should be attached
to John McDonnell and the john4leader campaign. They have spent the last 10
months going to party members, branches, GCs, conferences and to affiliated
organisations, raising the issues and listening to what the rank and file have
to say. Meanwhile the Brown camp continued to speak just to the people they
think mattered – the City of London,
the CBI and the newspaper barons.
There was clearly a mood growing not only inside the Labour
Party but especially inside the trade unions for a clear challenge to Brown
once Blair handed in his cards. This was reflected in the support John
McDonnell got from union executives and Broad Lefts as well as from many
branches and councils. Unions such as ASLEF, the FBU and the RMT came out
clearly in support of John McDonnell. The problem with the FBU and RMT is that
they are not affiliated to the Labour Party. They broke with the Labour Party,
angered at the way Blair had treated them. But their place should be inside the
Labour Party, fighting for a Left leadership. One alarming recent development
for the right-wing leadership of the Labour Party must have been the fact that
Unison in Scotland
had come out in support of John McDonnell. This must have set the alarm bells
ringing, and surely must have added to the efforts to stop John getting the
required MPs nominations.
The fact is that during this period the MPs have remained
aloof and out of touch. Just as they have – barring a few rebellions where the
government had to rely on the Tories to get things through – supported without
a whimper the neo-conservative agenda of Blair and the New Labour project. The
rule of leadership nominations only being valid if you get a certain percentage
of MPs nominations was brought in to stop the rank and file having any real say
in who they could vote for in a leadership election. It is a disgrace that
there is no means for GCs or affiliated organisations to nominate irrespective
of the MPs. So much for One Member One Vote – we now have been given One Member
No Vote or rather One Chancellor One Vote.
All that we are left with now is a non-contest for the
meaningless position of Deputy Leader. There is nothing politically to separate
the six candidates for this mighty office – it is like going into a shop and
having just the choice of a range of identical T-shirts decked out in different
shades of blue. Some trade unionists have pushed forward the name of John
Cruddas – who has come from a union background – as a good choice. But although
he is raising important organisational questions there is no difference between
him and the rest on the real political issues. This election has been turned
into some sort of beauty contest where we get to choose which candidate has the
best personality. It is hardly the stuff of serious politics.
After last weekend when Brown debated with McDonnell and the
stop-McDonnell-candidate Meacher – who pulled out on Tuesday – the party
machine spun into action with a vengeance to ensure that MPs did not nominate
McDonnell. Yet Brown had said that he welcomed a contest.
Well, it appears not. For months the Brown camp had been
agonising over what to do about the challenge from the Left. If they blocked
the nomination, Brown ran the risk of being seen as a leader who no one had
voted for – which is what has now happened. But if they let McDonnell onto the
ballot paper they faced the even greater risk of having to debate with the Left
at hustings meetings, on the TV and in the pages of the press for the best part
of a month. It was clearly decided that the Brown camp could not cope with
that. The idea of having to defend the right-wing policies of the Blair years
under pressure was just too much for them.
It is particularly ironic that John McDonnell was standing
on a position of supporting democratically decided party policies whereas Brown
would be standing on a position of ignoring them. They also feared how much of
a vote McDonnell might actually get in the ballot. Although there was little
fear of losing the vote, the Brown camp had been made aware that McDonnell
enjoyed more support inside the party ranks than they would wish to admit to.
Some had even raised the possibility of McDonnell getting a majority of votes
from the trade union section of the electoral college. This would have left
Brown somewhat weakened and also would have nailed the New Labour project once
and for all as being a dead loss. So McDonnell had to be kept off, hence the
nobbling of MPs to put self-interest before the interests of the movement.
So where do we go from here? The last ten months cannot be
rewound or wiped away. John McDonnell has laid down a marker that the Left in
the Labour Party are fighting back. This needs to be built on, particularly
inside the unions. It is especially regrettable that the Trade Union leaders
proved to be so reticent in converting the stated support of their
organisations for McDonnell into practical action – not least with regards to
those Labour MPs they sponsor. Had the likes of the TGWU, Amicus and Unison
gone to their MPs and demanded that they support the candidate who best
reflected their union policies and aims then McDonnell would have shot past the
45 barrier. But they did not. In reality many of the Trade Union leaders are
wedded to the idea of a "sweetheart deal" with Brown and are no doubt most
relieved today to not have to decide between Brown and McDonnell.
So the fight must go on and what has been achieved must be
built on. A campaign must be launched to look at the role of those who
represent Labour in parliament. They must be called to account and made to
explain why they have denied party members and trade unionists a clear vote and
a clear choice. MPs can be selected and they can also be deselected. The trade
unions – even on their own ‑ have it within their power to start the process of
replacing those who sit at Westminster with the sole aim of advancing their
careers with people who will stand up for those who elected them in the first
place.
The Brown premiership will be a continuation of the same
downward spiral that has characterised the Blair years – a decade of Tory
policies, lost votes and disillusionment. The last three elections were won for
Labour on the basis that most people thought less of the Tories than they did of
Labour. So although the Labour vote fell, the Tory vote fell more.
The real danger is now that the Labour vote will pass the
Tory one on the way down ushering in a Tory government come the next election.
This will be a government set to take its revenge on organised labour and the
working class for the humiliation of three election defeats. It seems that
things can only get worse.
Therefore the key question can be postponed no longer. We
need to reclaim our organisations and our party from the Blair/Brown clique and
the army of ex-SDP careerists who have sustained it. We need a party armed with
a fighting leadership, acting in the interests of the working class, and a
socialist programme that will address the real issues facing people today. Over
the next few months those inside the john4leader campaign, the LRC and the
Campaign Group as well as the many party members and trade unionists who are
feeling rather angry today, need to sit down and discuss how the campaign
should now proceed and what measures should now be taken. The supporters of
Marxism fully intend to contribute to this discussion.
The fact that John McDonnell has failed to get the MPs
nominations is not the end of the campaign. Gordon Brown is being sold to many
in the labour movement as somehow better than Blair. This has been used by some
of the key trade union leaders of this country to push the idea that Brown will
"look after" the interests of working people. Nothing could be further from the
truth. Brown will continue from where Blair has left off.
Because of this, any illusions that may still exist in Brown
will disappear in the coming months. This will leave a gaping hole in the
labour and trade union movement. Labour Party activists, trade union members
and loyal Labour voters will be asking themselves why the massive vote of 1997
has been allowed to dwindle to the point where the Tories could get in.
In these conditions a strong left wing in the Labour Party
would become a point of reference. The campaign generated around John McDonnell
could become the basis for building such a left. Although support for John has
been minimal in the Parliamentary Labour Party, that is not the case within the
wider movement. If he had been allowed to stand the real strength of the left
would have become apparent, especially inside the ranks of the trade unions.
Therefore, rather than allowing oneself to become
disheartened, now is the time to step up the campaign around John McDonnell
with a view to preparing for the future developments inside the Labour Party.
The task is to build support in every constituency and ward, in every union, to
campaign for Labour MPs who reflect the interests of the people who campaign
for them and who elect them.
Blairism is finished and the events in the coming period
will put the last nails in its coffin. But we have to prepare for the future.
The Tories have come back many times after periods of Labour government. It
happened in 1970 with Heath and in 1979 with Thatcher. The workers paid a heavy
price as a consequence. But so long as we do not learn the lessons of those
experiences we will repeat the same mistakes. The role of the Left in the
Labour Party is to organise support, change the policies and the leadership of
the party, so that we can put an end to this seemingly never-ending cycle.
