23.05.1996

Councillor’s struggle for change

Peter Clee is a full-time worker at Wallasey Unemployed Centre on Merseyside and has recently been re-elected as Labour councillor for Seacombe ward with one of the biggest majorities in the North-West. Peter Manson spoke to him

Can you tell me about your work in Wallasey?

We set up near the Job Centre deliberately, to provide a service for the unemployed. Seacombe itself has one of the highest rates of unemployment on Merseyside, but we are not just involved with the unemployed. We act as a focal point for all sorts of workers’ campaigns locally. Our work in the Spillers strike was a classic, giving all the help we could to the women workers. At the moment we are up to our necks in the docks dispute, and we have been very active in campaigns against the Criminal Justice Act and the Job Seekers Allowance.

How much is the size of your majority a reflection on your own work locally?

I think my own vote is an element, although of course the Tory vote has just about vanished. My attitude is it’s not just about campaigning for two weeks: you are elected for four years. The council staff often say how they hear things from me before they get any official word. But I don’t like being called ‘councillor’ - I don’t want the money; I’m not interested in the junketing.

This may sound like parochialism, but I became involved in working class struggles because I wanted to help people I know. In Wallasey we not only have heavy unemployment, but more than our fair share of social problems. In Seacombe the problems of housing and the environment are incredible: factories are pumping out pollution next to where people have to live.

This imbalance needs to be addressed. As socialists, we aim to provide services for people who need them.

You say that you don’t want to sound parochial, but doesn’t your local work amount to chipping away at the tiny tip of a huge iceberg? And can the Labour Party provide the means for the kind of socialist change you’re talking about?

I agree it’s not just about Seacombe. But I got involved in the Labour Party because I wanted to solve practical problems quickly. I work as part of a group - and they’re not all in the Labour Party, I hasten to add. I’m not happy with the direction of ‘new’ Labour, to put it mildly. I am not a rightwinger and I wasn’t happy with the dropping of clause four. Once the party was of the left, although I’m not sure it ever had the kind of ‘purity’ some like to make out. But it was the only one with any kind of credibility - the only party that could get things done.

Today it’s dominated by white, middle class, middle-aged men, with no idea of working class problems. An awful lot don’t have any background in the trade unions, for instance. I was elected to the council for the first time eight years ago, but if I was gone I would be replaced by someone happy just to jog along. I suppose I was prevailed upon to stay in for that reason.

But couldn’t conscientious individual work be done just as well by a Liberal or a Green?

Again, I agree: a large part of my work is individual. But the Greens are not electable - and they’re not tied up with the interests of working class people.

And Labour?

Well, you’re right. Ten years ago I would have stood for half an hour trying to persuade somebody why they should be with Labour, but today I find it hard to passionately advocate joining the party. Blair doesn’t know what it’s like to be poor or unemployed, how to pay the gas bill. But you have to struggle to change things - keep your head down and do what you can.

You must have given some thought to the SLP?

Like lots of others, I have considered switching to the SLP. But I’m not happy with Scargill’s leadership. Just as Labour is the party of Blair, the SLP is the party of Scargill. He had his constitution drawn up by a barrister, specifically to exclude groups like Militant Labour and the SWP.

Exercising such control made me uncomfortable. I don’t think the SLP is the ‘genuine article’ that it’s made out to be.

You sound as though you’re saying the SLP is too Labourite, so you’ll stay with Labour.

Put it this way. At the last election we voted out Baroness Chalker and elected a Labour MP for the first time in Wallasey. But this is still a marginal seat and we don’t want to risk splitting the vote.

We call that the politics of the lesser evil. Surely the point is we need to break with the capitalist parties and, despite its obvious shortcomings, the SLP has taken that first step.

I’m not disagreeing with anything you say. I’m not sure I’ll still be in the Labour Party in two years’ time. A year or so into the Labour government there will be a lot of people like me forced to make a decision.

Believe me, I’m not interested in office. I am a socialist and I know you can’t mess about with capitalism. At the very top of the Labour Party they recognise that capitalism is ‘here to stay’ and think all they can do is make things fairer and better. But you can’t make things fairer and better under capitalism.

Equally with internationalism. It’s good to campaign against the Asylum Bill, but it’s capitalism that divides us.

I am not alone. Many local councillors are saying similar things. I am aware that there is an opportunity to make a break now with the SLP and we could be missing out if we leave it for a couple of years. But for the moment we are staying in, fighting to change things.

If we leave, the question is, ‘Where do we go?’ I’ve thought about the SLP, and about Militant Labour and the SWP as well. I’m not altogether happy with any of them.

I’m not sure where I will be in two years’ time.