14.03.1996

Anti-worker agenda spelled out

Working class votes should not be wasted on Labour

Last week’s Scottish Labour Party conference in Edinburgh has convinced media pundits and bourgeois political commentators that, whether the activists like it or not, Scottish Labour is fully integrated into the Blair/Prescott vision of ‘new Labour for a new Britain’.

Despite a few dissidents waving red flags and Dennis Canavan’s one-man campaign against “the stifling of democratic debate ... and policy being announced from on high”, the overwhelming majority of delegates were prepared to accept the notion of a general election victory at any price.

Blair played the role of the statesmanlike heir-apparent, not expecting to be adored by party members or the people, but craving respect for his ‘honesty and integrity’. The thrust of his speech was to lower expectations by constructing a general election manifesto based on what “we can honestly achieve ... There will be nothing in our manifesto that I do not believe a Labour government will be able to bring about.” He has already instructed his shadow cabinet to identify cuts they would make in current (Tory) levels of public expenditure.

However that does not include the scrapping of the Trident nuclear project, which Tony sees as indispensable, although conference voted to ditch it. We know who’ll win that argument!

George Robertson, shadow Scottish secretary, was forced to admit that spending priorities will change but the amount of money spent by a Labour Scottish Office would remain the same - “We are to find alternatives inside the existing budgets.”

These comments came in the same week as Scotland’s many Labour councils were imposing massive council tax increases and savage cuts in jobs and services.

Where do Blair and Robertson’s comments leave Labour’s local government spokesperson John McAllion? In his speech he praised “the new alliance between [Labour] councillors, local government workers and ordinary people. Together they have the Tories on the run and together they can build a completely new era for local government.”

Ordinary people had a different alliance in mind last Tuesday when council meetings were disrupted throughout Scotland. This was part of the Scottish Socialist Alliance campaign to organise ordinary people to fight Labour and Tory cuts.

In the spirit of ‘no promises’, the question about whether there would be adequate funding for quality services in local government under a Labour government went unanswered.

John Prescott was at the conference to keep any anti-Blair elements happy. His role was to play to any ‘left’ credentials he may still have with his audience. Despite giving his own ‘vision’ of Blair’s ‘stakeholder society’, the highlight of his speech was a joke at the expense of New Labour guru and spin doctor-in-chief Peter Mandelson. As in last year’s clause four debate, Prescott is still used by the Labour Party leadership to keep the ‘left’ in check.

In the run up to the conference a motion was submitted specifically criticising Gordon Brown and his version of workfare. However this was composited into a motion opposing “any element of compulsion” in Labour’s jobs and training package for young people. The motion was passed but party managers insisted that this vote was not a snub to Gordon Brown, as his scheme consisted of no compulsion. Instead they insisted that a 40% benefit cut for those that did not take part amounted to “encouragement”, not compulsion!

This conference was another indication that any trace of ‘parliamentary socialism’ has been eradicated from the Labour Party’s political agenda. It is now unambiguously the champion of the free market - stakeholder or otherwise.

It is time for those who consider themselves socialists or revolutionaries to face up to the facts. This includes those elements within the Scottish Socialist Alliance who support the idea of “maximising the anti-Tory vote ... not standing candidates in any Tory marginal seats nor standing against candidates in other parties with a clear socialist record.”

Attempting to ensure the victory of any Labour candidate is a waste of effort. Instead a mass, fighting, independent, working class party has to be built now, that will put the needs of the people above the interests of big business and international capitalism.

Nick Clarke