03.10.1996

SWP follows move right

Around the left

There can be doubt that society as a whole has moved, and is moving, to the right. The feeling that capitalism is here to stay is all pervasive. This bleak outlook is challenged only by an extreme minority of ‘professional’ Marxists, whose influence within the working class is negligible.

This is, in many ways, the secret of Tony Blair’s success, looking forward as he is to occupying Number 10 in the very near future. New Labour, Blairism and ‘social-ism’ has tapped into this right-moving consciousness with some skill - riding on the back of ‘there is no alternative’ despair. From the viewpoint of an ambitious bourgeois politician who wants to get the Tories out at any price, moving the Labour Party to the right - quickly - makes perfect sense.

Yet this fairly obvious truth still manages to elude some on the revolutionary left. The most baffled are the Socialist Workers Party, who seem to regard Tony Blair’s strategy as an exercise in irrationality, which breaks all the rules of the game. This stunned bafflement can be seen in Socialist Worker and Socialist Review, both of which attempt to hide from reality.

Socialist Worker believes that “on a whole range of issues - the minimum wage, the role of trade unions, pensions, renationalisation, the NHS - the vast majority of people are to the left of Blair”. Therefore, “the key is to draw all these people together into an effective socialist opposition, this side of a general election” (September 28).

This is to be done by launching a national petition, which is proudly splashed all over the front page. The petition states:

“We are angry at recent statements from Labour Party leaders which suggest a Labour government will continue many Tory policies ... We call for the Labour Party to repudiate all these statements. We commit ourselves to fight any attempt by Labour - in opposition or office - to pursue policies based on them.”

This is an incredible position for the SWP to take. The formation of the SLP is living proof that Blair’s appeal to the middle class and ‘Middle England’ is pushing many workers to the left - even if it is in a highly subjective, unfocused and contradictory way.

Yet the SWP wants to push these very same workers back to the right, by calling upon them to vote Labour and fight for the ‘soul’ of the Labour Party, which is the aim of the petition. “Blair is well to the right of the majority of people in Britain,” says Socialist Review (October). Unfortunately, the SWP is moving rightwards as well, unable to resist the gravitational pull of New Labour.

Don Preston