15.05.1997

Left expectant after Labour victory

Most of the left in Britain has been jubilant at the Tories’ election defeat and even Labour’s victory. So much so that some publications forgot themselves, and history, and have begun to rewrite it, almost as if all the evils of capitalist society only actually began with the last Tory governments.

Hence: “For eighteen years in Britain they presided over an economy which saw the rich growing richer; which saw millionaires benefit while millions were forced to live on benefit; which saw corruption, arrogance and greed run rampant,” says Scottish Socialist Voice (May 9), as it shouts ‘Cheerio!’ to the Tories. As if such horrors had never been seen under previous Labour or Tory governments.

The front page does go on to point out that the paper is, “if not full of joy, at least full of questions”. This seems to be a common theme on the left, which despite all Blair’s careful attempts at ‘under-promising’ during the election campaign, still stakes everything, almost, on some sort of crisis of expectations. The article concludes: “If Blair now carries on where Major left off, the euphoria surrounding the dumping of the Tories will turn to anger.”

Alan McCombes in the centre pages of Scottish Socialist Voice concludes that the very fact that Labour won a ‘landslide’ victory will give new confidence to the working class and “Socialism, for so long in retreat, is now poised to begin a glorious comeback.”

Scottish Militant Labour’s ‘sister’ organisation, the Socialist Party, is clear that the prospects for the working class depend on the “strength or weakness of the political opposition to Labour”, but again concludes that “The result itself raised people’s expectations” (Socialism Today May 1997).

The more Labour-loyal Socialist Worker, in its ‘After the election, what we think’ article, is even more excited about the future and the prospects for the working class. Quoting Hugo Young from The Guardian, it agrees that Labour’s victory “has given rise to massive hopes and dreams far exceeding what he [Blair] promised” (Socialist Worker May 10). Socialist Review even conjectures that “the clash between people’s expectations and the government’s intentions maybe swift” (editorial, May 1997). Socialist Worker does nevertheless add that “the bright hopes cannot be turned into reality without further struggle” and thus ends with its own programme for action:

“That means fighting around demands such as to reinstate the Liverpool dockers, stop cuts in the fire service or keep a local hospital open.

“It means taking every opportunity to put forward socialist arguments in every workplace, college and local area. By doing so we can hope to build a much bigger socialist alternative.”

Which sounds horribly like business as usual for the Socialist Workers Party. Like the previous issue of The Socialist, mentioned in this column last week, there is no analysis of how the SWP should relate to the Socialist Labour Party or other socialist organisations. Neither of course is there any retrospective criticism of the fact that the SWP did not stand in the election, but preferred to simply call for a Labour “or socialist” vote, despite the fact that it now welcomes the votes cast for other socialist candidates.

It seems tragically true that the left is stubbornly refusing to draw any genuine conclusions from this election, from the transformation of the Labour Party, from the election campaigns of the SLP, SP and SSA. Certainly the SWP and the SP/SML are continuing to compete rather than combine to build their own respective ‘small mass parties’.

Nevertheless it is to be welcomed that in the same paper’s ‘Election roundup’ it actually admits to the existence of other socialist organisations apart from itself: the Socialist Labour Party, the Socialist Party and the Scottish Socialist Alliance. However, its analysis of these campaigns is limited to one brief comment:

“The votes for genuinely socialist candidates are one sign of the audience for socialist ideas. However, hundreds of thousands of those who want real change in society will have voted Labour because of their desire to ditch the Tories” (Socialist Worker May 10).

Given Chris Harman’s article in Socialist Review, you would think that perhaps the SWP might be thinking seriously about its orientation, or present lack of it, to the SLP and the SSA. He chastises small revolutionary groups for historically not relating to new radical mass movements: “Instead of reaching out to work alongside and argue fraternally with those who are just being radicalised, they turn inwards and put all their emphasis on how they disagree with them.” He concludes: “Today’s radicalisation in Europe will lead to a similar process of polarisation in the medium term. It can then lead genuinely revolutionary ideas to find their biggest audience since the mid-1970s - but only if revolutionaries learn very quickly how to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the new movements and their debates, rather than carping from the sidelines about their inadequacies.” Could this be a thickly veiled criticism of the SWP’s own approach?

Harman in his ‘Questions on Marxism’ column in Socialist Worker continues this theme of the immanent, if not already emergent radicalised mass movement, in claiming that the Labour victory represented a class vote against the fat cats and profiteers”, despite its blatantly capitalist-friendly programme. He continues: “This led [the workers], for the moment, to vote Labour and accept some of Tony Blair’s New Labour arguments ... As in 1906, 1918 and 1945 people have voted along class lines, even if they are not yet fully aware of it” (May 10). The SP’s Socialism Today takes a similar view, arguing that New Labour’s rightwing onslaught has been neither here nor there, since

“Labour could have won on almost any programme. It could have won on a radical anti-Tory anti-market, anti-big business programme” (May 1997).

Socialist Worker for a long time has been trying to convince itself that if Labour moved further to the right it was in danger of losing the general election. The further it moved, the louder the warnings came from the SWP. Yet irritatingly for the SWP Labour’s lead in the polls kept rising until it won its massive victory on May 1.

Now that New Labour’s right wing agenda has put it into government, Socialist Worker still wants to see its victory as one for the left. The fact that working class people vote for it seems to be enough to label this a class vote. Never mind whether it is a class in the Marxist sense, as one organised for itself: ie, a revolutionary class.

Socialist Review puts more flesh on this curious thesis: “This vote was a class vote. It was a dramatic rejection of Tory values ... Despite the best efforts of Blair and his publicity machine, many working class people now believe that their time has come.” And apparently

“Socialists have been arguing for some time that there was a political shift to the left going on in British society. The decisiveness of the Labour victory is dramatic evidence of this” (editorial Socialist Review May 1997).

It is true that Socialist Worker has been arguing for some time since the anti-pit closure campaign of 1992 that we are in a new period of class-struggle upturn. It was forced to qualify that characterisation occasionally when campaigns such as the 1992 struggle and notably the signal workers’ dispute, in which it placed much hope, ebbed away.

But to claim New Labour’s victory as evidence of a shift to the left throughout society is surely going too far, even for the SWP. The very fact that Labour was able to sail through its Blairite revolution, without any opposition from the left or any kind of working class mobilisation against it, should perhaps tell them something. Sections of the bourgeoisie have undoubtedly moved to the left in feeling safe with a Labour victory and even promoting it, but this has not happened in the absence of Labour’s move right.

It has become an article of faith for Socialist Worker to offer Labour advice and complain when it does not ‘challenge’ big business or even capitalism itself. So despite the fact that New Labour’s whole campaign has been about assuring the establishment once and for all that Labour is not about to mount the slightest challenge to capitalism, let alone overthrow it, Socialist Worker still complains, eyes to heaven, that “Despite Labour’s landslide the tiny elite who own and control all the wealth in Britain are still very much in control. It is this elite which Labour refuses to challenge.”

Scottish Socialist Voice continues its election analysis with Alan McCombes assessing the significance of the result in Scotland in particular. He confidently predicts that “Without a single Scottish MP to spearhead the battle against devolution, the momentum in favour of constitutional change now appears unstoppable.”

Labour is calling all the shots, it seems, with Alan McCombes seemingly giving up on the power of working class self-activity before the battle has even begun: “It is now highly unlikely that the party’s proposals will be significantly amended. In line with our general position, which is to support any advance towards greater democracy for Scotland, the Scottish Socialist Voice will vigorously support the campaign for a double ‘yes’ vote.” Given that Labour’s referendum is a deliberate attempt to deny the Scottish people genuine democracy, genuine self-determination, it is curious that Scottish Militant Labour and Alan McCombes still insist that saying ‘yes, yes’ to Labour’s sop is the only way to strengthen the class’s battle for democracy.

Alan McCombes continues: “To call for a ‘no’ vote or a boycott means in effect supporting the status quo by default. It would play into the hands of those Labour politicians who secretly hope for an excuse to bury the entire project.” For Alan there is “only one other outcome” if Labour’s referendum falls: “the continuation of the existing system”.

Perhaps in reference to the CPGB’s active boycott campaign for mass civil disobedience against Labour’s sop - not abstentionism: Alan, please note - he adds that “Any political party or individual who aids and abets such an outcome will be regarded for years and even decades to come as a pro-unionist collaborator.”

Socialist Outlook’s editorial also ‘boldly’ takes reformist stageism into a whole new dimension. Wiping a tear from its eye, the front page proudly proclaims: “We’ve dumped the Tories ... now let’s dump their policies.” Having mounted a vigorous (well, by SO standards anyway) campaign to get Labour elected with a massive majority, now it can start to attack them - curious tactics in anyone’s battle.

“But no one can afford long to recover after the election campaign. The fight against Blair’s Tory policies needs to start yesterday and we need to hit the deck running” (Socialist Outlook editorial, May 1997).

Again, having done its best to assure the electorate that it can expect nothing better than Tweedle-dee to replace Tweedle-dum, it is now staking everything on that hoary old ‘crisis of expectations’:

“Most union leaderships will continue to keep their heads down - they can’t remember anything else. Despite this it is likely that expectations of many who voted Labour will spill over into action the leaderships are unable to control.”

After a passing reference to the vote for the Socialist Labour Party being better than the rest of the left, the paper meekly concludes that there will be lots of opportunity to debate strategy: “The left inside and outside the Labour Party desperately needs to engage in these discussions in as open and comradely a way as possible”.

Another organisation which grasps tightly onto the skirt tails of Labour, whilst at the same time keeping a safer distance from it than Socialist Outlook, is Workers Power. Perhaps it is curious then that WP seems even more cock-a-hoop with New Labour’s victory than SO.

“Blair’s victory is our victory: a victory for millions of working class people. You cannot win a landslide unless millions of working class people vote for you. You cannot devastate the historic party of the bosses without raising the hopes and confidence of the working class” (Workers Power editorial, May 1997). Labour’s landslide is apparently a wonderful thing because fear of the Tories will be replaced by “hope and rising expectations”. Despite the fact of course that, as WP points out, Labour has pledged “to do what Labour has always done: govern in the interests of the ruling class”.

Leaving aside Tory landslides and who voted for them, it is those expectations again which give WP so much hope. Strangely enough, WP seems to see its role as raising these expectations and fostering illusions in Labour. Only by campaigning for a Labour victory whilst at the same time organising the working class against every pro-capitalist move Labour makes” could WP “stop the illusions that workers have in Labour turning into demoralisation in the face of its betrayals”. The fight goes on now “to push Labour much much further to begin to meet the needs of those whose votes gave Blair his landslide on May 1”.

All of this is only topped by the untrammelled sect approach of the Spartacist League/Britain’s Workers Hammer. Whilst correctly warning that Labour’s majority will give it confidence to attack the working class, it repeats, undaunted by facts, its already rebutted accusation against the Weekly Worker that it launched a rightwing attack on Scargill in 1984-85 over the question of the ballot (see Weekly Worker January 16 and April 10 1997). This all in the cause of painting all leftwing and revolutionary organisations to the right of Arthur Scargill.

It boldly announces to its sectarian ranks, who presumably are equally unaffected by reality, that the SSA, SP and CPGB are “on the bandwagon for a New Labour government”, whereas

“Scargill spelt out at the Newport East election meeting: ‘We campaign for Socialist Labour and that party only” (Workers Hammer May/June).

Comfortably confining itself to its own little sectarian cesspool, it then is able to conclude for itself that “Most fake-left groups are so tied to Labour that Scargill often has stood to the left of them on key class questions, particularly the miners’ strike and the Russian question. But the SLP’s programme places it firmly in that mould of Labourite parliamentarism. That is precisely the mould we seek to break in order to build a revo1utionary internationalist party of the working class that fights as a tribune of all the oppressed.” But this again is just business as usual for the SL/B.

Helen Ellis