16.05.1996

Live through it

Around the left

One of the most curious ideas which circulates around a large swathe of the revolutionary left in Britain is the conception that the working class needs the experience of a Blairite Labour government - without one, the workers will never develop any sort of socialist consciousness. Invariably, this odd schema likes to masquerade as orthodox Leninism or ‘common sense’ Marxism.

Socialist Worker never deviates from this line, even if it has to tie itself up in knots to do so. It is sunk deep in the ‘vote Labour but’ hole and all it can do is keep digging. After a brief-and-neutral report on the Socialist Labour Party’s founding conference - where we saw a socialist alternative to Labour take its first faltering steps - Socialist Worker sagely concludes: “But even New Labour is not an openly bosses’ party like the Tories ... Labour is a reformist party which cannot deliver reforms” (May 11).

So why should the working class vote for more of the same then? Simple. The workers “will have to live through the experience of a Labour government to be convinced of the need for a socialist alternative”. British workers must be made of stronger stuff than New Zealand workers by the look of it, as the same issue details how the New Zealand Labour Party between 1984 and 1990 “paved the way for a nasty rightwing Tory government that continued where Labour left off ... It continued Labour’s programme, but with an increased viciousness”. Sounds unpleasant - thank god that we in Britain have the “socialist alternative” to look forward to.

Some groups sound positively desperate for a Blair government, and have no time for any alternative. The ‘hard line’ Trotskyist Workers Power intransigently insists: “Force your demands and interests onto Labour ... through an active campaign for a Labour victory” (May, my italics). No Labour government, no socialism?

Workers News adds a novel twist to this. It recently informed us, in all sincerity: “Serious militants in the SLP will also have to resist Stalinist and ultra-left calls for ‘No vote to Labour’, and instead fight for a united front policy” (March-April). According to the Workers International League, those militants who have made the bold decision to ditch Labour and join the SLP ... should campaign for a Labour victory.

WIL, SWP, WP, etc may need a Labour government. The working class does not.

Don Preston