06.02.1997

Left must enter pre-election fray

Europe is becoming the issue, but is there an alternative to Labour-Tory austerity promises?

“Pre-election tension”, Betty Boothroyd acknowledged, gripped the House last week. Though speculation over the date of the general election inevitably still continues there is no doubt that we are now into the full swing of the campaign.

Gripped is perhaps a strong word for the rather sad Punch and Judy slanging match that took place between Blair and Major. Major is “weak, weak, weak” declaimed Blair. ‘Well you’re weaker than I am’ was Major’s riposte.

As has become customary, Labour has moved firmly onto Tory ground, even attempting to steal a march in sacred territory by accusing the Tories of being spend-thrift. This election even more than others is being run as an elaborate marketing campaign US-style rather than with any ideological or political debate. In terms of big ideas, Major’s share-match society is just the latest ad slogan, hardly gripping the imagination of a population or rallying it to the cause of making ‘our’ nation great again.

Nevertheless, the fact that the latest slanging match centred around the question of European integration is indicative. Labour and the Tories are certainly playing into the same goal over Europe, but it is the issue that is dominating the campaign and will dominate the life of the future government as monetary union becomes a concrete reality that must be faced one way or another in just two years’ time.

Robin Cook this week moved Labour further down the Euro-very-careful line by announcing that there was only a 50-50 chance of Britain joining monetary union in 1999 and that 2002 seemed a more feasible date, putting him to the sceptical side of Kenneth Clarke. The difference is that Labour remains in essence united on an issue which once cleaved the party. In an about face, it is now the Tories that are riven throughout on the question of Europe.

It may have been the fragility of the Tories on this issue that prompted the president of Toyota in Japan to enter the fray on Europe. There is no doubt that instability on the question is not good for business; Labour at least promises a united approach to Europe though one that will not be trouble free, but wrought with the stresses and strains that drag the nation states of Europe painfully together.

Toyota’s president announced that his company could pull out of Britain if it did not join a single currency. 40% of foreign investment into Europe is in Britain, which provides an attractive bridgehead to companies into Europe - the world’s biggest single market. The benefits which Britain provides would to a large extent be outweighed if it was to remain a small outpost on the edge of an integrating European economy. At the moment the flexible labour which has often been quoted means that companies can exit Britain as quickly as they entered, as evidenced by Ford at Halewood.

Britain in reality, as everyone knows, cannot afford to maintain its national economy in isolation from Europe and in competition with the powerful trade blocs formed around the US and Japan, however much European integration under the hegemony of Germany may not be an attractive prospect. It is a dilemma which is posed for all nation states in Europe, of how to maintain their national competitiveness whilst being able to compete in the world of these trade blocs. Isolation is not in the long run feasible.

The dynamics of capitalism which bring the economy together into ever bigger and more powerful units actually runs counter to the nation state. But while economies unite to survive, the scramble for profits also sees the intensification of competition between monopolies and states.

It is a fundamental strategic problem which will not go away under a Labour government however united it may be on the issue. Capitalism in decline is throwing every state into more and more desperate moves. Austerity measures in the cause of integration have already been seen not only in Britain and the less powerful states, but also in France and Germany. These, as is well understood, are just the tip of the iceberg.

Gordon Brown has promised that the “Treasury black hole” that he is forecasted to enter will be filled by more crackdowns on the working class, not on increasing income tax on the top 10% - their profits will remain safe in Labour hands. Following the Tories again dot and comma he announced that there would be “no blank cheques” and public sector workers could expect no more than the graduated 3.3% pay ‘increase’ now under consideration by the Tories.

Gordon is secure in the view that workers have no alternative but to vote Labour, even if it is identical to the Tories. Much of the left in this country, the Socialist Workers Party and Workers Power to name but two, are bolstering this view in the working class.

The class cannot halt this tide until it finds its own political expression. The Socialist Labour Party, given its stance on Europe, is in a good position to bring together much of the discontent that is beginning to be expressed. The SLP’s policy on Europe as discussed in last week’s Weekly Worker takes an isolationist stance more common to the Tory right than working class internationalism. It is the task of all partisans of the working class to shape this break from the Labour Party so that it can be an expression not only of leftwing reformism but of revolution.

This election campaign will be a difficult one for the SLP and for the whole of the left given the desire for a change of government even if Labour offers to change little. Much work needs to be done in the SLP now after the resignation of its general secretary, Patrick Sikorski, to ensure that this is an energetic, imaginative, and revolutionary campaign. Above all, leftwing organisations must maximise our forces in this election against the austerity governments promised by both Labour and Tory and put forward a positive vision of the future.

Helen Ellis