Anyone who doubted the wider implication for civil liberties of Blair’s
‘anti-terror’ legislation need look no further than the Labour Party Conference
in Brighton. 82-year-old Walter Wolfgang, who fled Nazi Germany in 1937, was
roughly manhandled out of the hall by a pair of heavies because he had the
barefaced temerity to shout out “nonsense” when Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
defended the continued criminal occupation of Iraq.
The violent scene, pictured on the front page of the morning papers and
TV news programmes, has caused widespread revulsion and anger around the
country. Labour left activist Steve Forrest was also ejected for the crime of
trying to defend Mr Wolfgang from the thugs who had grabbed him by the shirt
collar.
When the pop music and the glitz of the stage and the fancy lighting
are stripped away we see the real, ugly face of Blairism. Even the music has
turned and slapped them in the face. Blair chose Sham 69’s The Kids are United as the theme for his ‘entrance’ this year. The
band later made a surprise appearance on BBC’s Newsnight to perform a specially written version of the song,
dedicated to Mr Wolfgang, including the refrain “bring them home, don’t leave
them there…” clearly referring to the troops in Iraq. No doubt, they can expect
a visit from the authorities soon.
For the Blairite control freaks, conferences are an annoyance, barely
tolerated, which must be stage-managed from beginning to end. No dissent must
be allowed. The tiny clique around Blair and co, who like to think they hold
the Labour Party in a vice-like grip are, in reality, completely isolated. They
have no support in the ranks of the party or the trade unions. While Blair and
Brown have been stealing the headlines with pledges to abolish public sector
pensions and privatise the NHS, conference delegates have been defeating them,
voting against each reactionary pledge, not to mention overwhelmingly voting to
restore the right to take secondary strike action. ‘No matter,’ the arrogant
leaders and their entourages assure their friends in the City of London and the
boardrooms, ‘we have no intention of listening to conference decisions!’
Resolutions? Votes? Blair and co take no notice; they brush aside these
democratic trivialities. As for hecklers, you have been warned, you will be
grabbed by the scruff of your neck, thrown from the hall, and have your
credentials withdrawn.
Mr Wolfgang is a lifelong party member who joined before Blair was
born. It is scandalous enough that not even this level of dissent can be
tolerated by the Blairites. Even more outrageous is the fact that when Mr
Wolfgang attempted to re-enter the conference he was prevented from doing so –
under section 44 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act! So, if we were in any
doubt exactly what Charles Clarke and co mean by ‘fomenting hatred’ now we
know, it extends to pensioners politely heckling a government minister in order
to express a view held by the majority of the population.
However the Blairites have been shocked to discover that they cannot
behave in this way and then try to hide behind ‘anti-terrorism’ laws. Following
days after 73-year-old Sylvia Hardy was jailed for refusing to pay her council
tax, this looks more and more like a war on pensioners than on terrorists.
Their repressive legislation is in reality a war on the population, it is a
threat to even the limited democracy we currently enjoy, and it is a threat to
the labour movement.
When Blair was forced to apologise for this outrage he said more than
he intended:
"I think it is a bit of a leap [to evoke a wider civil liberties
debate]," he told the BBC’s Today programme. "I have just been
through an election campaign when people had the chance to criticise me.” The
implication is clear – you had your chance to ‘criticise’ in the election – and
millions did, Labour only secured 35 percent of the vote – but now you should
shut up and do as you are told. What arrogance! This is not the first time we
have seen Blair’s Bonapartist tendencies. He is completely divorced from the
real world; he inhabits a cocoon stuffed with yes-men and sycophants.
Despicably, defending his anti-terrorism legislation, he continued,
"when people do something like go onto the tube or a bus and kill innocent
people then the public expects me to act on that". How must the family of
Jean Charles de Menezes, making an emotional visit to the scene of his brutal
execution in Stockwell tube station in south London, have felt hearing
this? They will rightly demand ‘action’ against those responsible; action like
stopping shoot-to-kill, and scrapping their repressive laws that have done
nothing to prevent terrorism, but have already killed an innocent man.
Now anti-terrorism is even used as an excuse to bully an old age
pensioner. The threat posed by this so-called ‘war on terror’ to our democratic
rights is clear. The entire labour movement needs to take the struggle for
civil liberties in general, and for democracy inside the labour movement,
seriously. Neither is safe in the hands of the arrogant bullies we saw in Brighton.
Blair has reached the end of the road. He might like to go on and on,
just as his heroine Thatcher wanted to. His project to transform the Labour
Party into another Liberal or US Democrat Party, whilst it went a long way,
ultimately failed. Now all he has to lean on for support inside the party are
thugs and bureaucrats. New Labour is old hat. The struggle for socialist
policies inside the British labour movement must include a struggle inside the
Labour Party in the next period. Battles are being prepared on the industrial
front and the political. The attacks being prepared on pensions and the health
service will not go unanswered. Linked to the fight against the erosion of our
civil liberties, a new period is being prepared in British society and inside
the labour movement. Blair and co think they have the Labour Party all sewn up.
It is already beginning to burst at the seams.
