01.05.1997

Unite against Blair’s austerity

After the election can the working class chart its own independent course?

As we go to the press, the election is dominated by the pollsters. The only question for the bourgeois media is the final extent of Labour’s victory. Coverage of the Tory campaign focuses on who will be the next leader to replace Major and which front-runners will actually retain their seats.

Yet as Labour prepares for power and the Tories prepare for a humiliating defeat, there is little for the working class to celebrate.

To all intents and purposes the Labour manifesto promises to continue the frontal assault on the working class, winning it the support - blatant or otherwise - of such notables as Richard Branson. The general move to the right in society expressed in Labour’s championing of the Thatcherite agenda has become only too evident. However the accompanying shift to the left of sections of the bourgeoisie not least the Murdoch empire - is of great significance.

This shift cannot be downplayed, reflecting as it does the marginalisation of the left, the crisis of Labourism and the exhaustion of the Tory Party. The support for Labour is not without its qualifications. The Sun, like Socialist Worker, says vote Labour, but promises to be critical. Labour is still by no means the natural party of the bourgeoisie. Yet Blair has certainly succeeded in making it safe for them. Labour’s promises to crack down on spending, on crime and on a revival of trade union militancy are believed.

The austerity to come under Labour should not be underestimated. The latest revelation, if you can call it that, came in a recent joint meeting of the shadow cabinet and Labour’s national executive committee. Blair’s message to the poor, the unemployed, the disadvantaged was stark: “There will be no real-term increases in benefits under the Labour government.” It comes as little surprise that apparently there was no opposition to this proposal to leave millions in grinding poverty from trade union representatives and ‘left wingers’ present (The Guardian April 29).

Both Tory and Labour campaigns have been dominated by Euroscepticism, if not Euro-phobia, and certainly by national chauvinism.

Nevertheless it is clear that no capitalist power in Europe can pursue a ‘go it alone’ policy. The likes of the UK Independence Party and even the Socialist Labour Party, which advocate a national road, have no feasible programme for either the isolated capitalist state, facing powerful trade blocs in an increasingly global market, or a national socialism that wants to halt the tide of economic integration and build socialism in one country, North Korean juche-style.

Integration is European capitalism’s only survival plan. Unless we assert ourselves it will be built on the backs of the working class - the austerity budgets throughout Europe are only a taste of what is to come.

This is fertile soil for rightwing, anti-Europeanism. Chatter amongst the left, most notably the Socialist Party, predicting a Tory Party split over Europe, is way off the mark. This ignores the historic role of the Tory Party and its central place as the natural party of capitalism. In opposition the phobic wing of the Tories will no doubt triumph and exploit opposition to Europe and the austerity that convergence means for all it is worth. Nevertheless we could see the emergence of an even more viciously rightwing chauvinist movement born out of the social base and the likes of the UK Independence Party, the Referendum Party, the British National Party, only with a programme that could win a mass following

The left must not be complacent. Disillusionment with Labour does not inevitably lead to revolutionary organisation and socialism. We must not ignore the dangers of chauvinism infecting our own movement. This paper has long pointed to the reactionary logic of elements of the SLP’s policies. Its national socialist pledge to withdraw from the European Union contains no internationalist perspective to take the world economy, as it has advanced and integrated under capitalism, out of the hands of profit and into the hands of humanity.

A revolutionary internationalist movement must challenge capitalist Europe with a positive alternative for a workers’ Europe. Who but a narrow nationalist would propose that ‘we’ should withdraw from the United Kingdom? Trade union and political organisation throughout Europe should be on the top of our agenda, as we face an increasingly united European bourgeoisie.

Though ‘unity is strength’ is still proudly proclaimed on many union banners, national sectionalism still dogs the working class movement. Clearly Europe will be a major issue confronting the working class under a New Labour government. However another issue which cannot be ignored is the constitution in general, Scotland in particular.

Major’s attempts to boost the Tory vote by playing the unionist card during the election campaign were undoubtedly feeble. The wind was taken from his sails somewhat by Blair’s insulting equation of his proposed Scottish parliament with an English parish council.

The demand for self-determination in Scotland is a question which the class throughout Britain must rally behind, uniting our forces to attack the fundamentally undemocratic British monarchical constitution.

After the general election daunting tasks will face the revolutionary left. But there are significant possibilities as well. It was always clear that the left vote would be squeezed in this election as voters went to the ballot box not on a wave of militancy, not with confidence or enthusiasm for Labour, but desperate to see the Tories out - their only hope of any change.

The working class lacks both confidence and an independent strategy of its own. The revolutionary self-realisation of the class can only be found through a struggle of theory and practice. To overcome the rightwing shift in society the left, crucially the communists, must organise themselves at the highest possible level. This requires renewed effort towards the task of reforging the Communist Party.

Lee-Anne Bates