12.06.1997

Crisis of expectations

Has a ‘crisis of expectations’ been created by Blair’s landslide majority? Dave Osler of the Socialist Labour Party presents his case

Labour’s landslide election victory confronts the revolutionary left in Britain with an entirely new political situation. Reaching conclusions in the ‘crisis of expectations’ debate is central to our common task of hammering out strategy and tactics for the coming period.

It also raises related issues. Is Labour still a bourgeois workers’ party? And is it now desirable - or more to the point, even possible - to put ‘demands’ on the Blair government?

Moreover, the outcome of the discussion will be central to sober evaluation of the Socialist Labour Party’s prospects. If there is to be an onset of disillusion within Labour’s electoral base, the SLP - as Britain’s party of recomposition - can reasonably expect to be a prime beneficiary.

As far as can be ascertained, the Communist Party of Great Britain accepts that Labour is still a bourgeois workers’ party. Perhaps comrades can clarify this through an explicit statement on this point.

Comrade Jack Conrad’s article (‘Blair’s government and our perspectives’, Weekly Worker May 8) implies that this dialectical definition of Labour was correct at the time that Lenin advanced it.

He goes on to state that, over time, “the bourgeois pole of the contradictory equation has become increasingly dominant”. Finally, he concludes that with the current proposals for changes to the Labour Party constitution, “what has been quantitative looks set to become qualitative”.

The only possible reading is that the transition to an outright bourgeois party remains incomplete. Let us now turn to comrade Mark Fischer (‘Opening up the post-election debate’ Weekly Worker June 5), who berates the Socialist Party’s “confusion” on this matter. He appears none too certain himself.

“A thorough dissection of the category of ‘bourgeois workers’ party’ is called for. Such an examination - or perhaps autopsy [my emphasis - DO] - would scrutinise the changing relation between the two sides of the definition, how they have interacted with each other, the dialectical relationship between form and essence.”

Comrade Lee-Anne Bates even makes favourable mention of the “limited” slogan “Labour, Tory both the same” (‘What sort of crisis?’ Weekly Worker May 22).

Clarity on the class nature of the current party of government is no small matter. Important consequences flow from it. For instance, it has been almost universal Marxist practice to call for a vote for a bourgeois workers’ party where revolutionary forces are too weak to stand.

The sheer weight of working class support for New Labour and the much diminished - but still not sundered - organic links to the trade union bureaucracy indicate that Labour remains at this point in time a bourgeois workers’ party. The Socialist Party/Militant is therefore wrong to argue that Labour has become an outright capitalist party.

The remaining entryist groups might take this as vindication of their strategy. Not so. Conrad’s formulations in this respect are correct. New Labour is so far along the trajectory to becoming an outright bourgeois party that the change is unstoppable.

From a Trotskyist standpoint, there is an evident parallel with what is happening in the former degenerate workers’ states in eastern Europe. Although full operation of the law of value has yet to come into effect - leading to questionable categorisations such as ‘moribund workers’ states’ - the restorationist dynamic is obvious, and again unstoppable.

While scarcely a pithy formulation, a term such as ‘bourgeois workers’ party in transition to bourgeois party’ is needed. It would apply not only to New Labour but more generally to describe Second International outfits in Spain, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

All of this leads to more general points about the nature of reformism in our current period. Conrad argues: “We are neither in, nor are we heading towards, conditions whereby the system can readily make concessions. On the contrary, capital accumulation necessitates a continuation and intensification of the Thatcherite counterreformation against the tattered remnants of the social democratic settlement.”

This is true at a generalised level, and represents a phenomenon characterised by the former Militant Tendency as ‘reformism without reforms’. But there is always a certain leeway for virtually cost-free populism. Countervailing tendencies are evident.

New Labour has bitten no bullets. The issues that swept the party into office - popular desire for significant additional funding for the NHS and education, full employment - have notably not been addressed. Yet Labour has promised, or already undertaken, limited progressive measures.

These include the minimum wage, a right to union recognition and the return of unions to GCHQ, job creation through the windfall tax, a human rights dimension to foreign policy, the landmines ban, a London-wide elected authority, referenda on Scottish and Welsh devolution and proportional representation, an independent food safety agency, criminalisation of racially motivated violence, abolition of the ‘primary purpose’ rule, implementation of the European working time directive, abolition of compulsory competitive tendering and reduction in school class sizes through the abolition of the assisted places scheme.

Milksops, one and all. These reforms are limited, partial, hidebound by caveats, and a watered- down version of what even Labour’s mid-80s soft left would have seen as adequate. Yet reforms they unmistakably are. What we have is rather ‘reformism with tiny reforms’. This can only fuel, well, expectations.

Fischer asks rhetorically: “Has the system been paralysed by the demands of the workers?” (‘Crisis? What crisis?’ Weekly Worker May 22). The straight answer is simple. No. But to pose the question in such a fashion is to state the problem in the wrong way. Just because there ain’t a crisis, doesn’t mean there ain’t expectations.

To revert to autotrot-speak, the ‘crisis of expectations’ argument is almost always accompanied by the ‘honeymoon period’ clause. Even in the crudest version of the theory, the ‘crisis’ is not expected to kick in for some time.

Marxists devise intermediate perspectives on the likely dynamics of the class struggle in the short and medium term. For those not blessed with the foresight of either Ted Grant or Russell Grant, this inevitably has to be by way of a best guess.

The bulk of the working class is so far happy with what New Labour has done in office. Blair has clocked up the highest approval ratings ever seen for a prime minister. To paraphrase the election anthem, things can only get ... worse.

An additional factor - in need of deeper analysis - is the conjunctural economic outlook. Most bourgeois commentators do not expect the relatively rosy picture to last much longer. When factory closures start coming thick and fast in the manner of the early-90s, matters will be focused somewhat more sharply. “There is no mechanical or automatic relationship between the class struggle and the coloration of a bourgeois government,” argues Conrad. Again true.

But if the working class does not - through a combination of spontaneity and socialist agitation - demand more than New Labour is willing to deliver, the outlook is bleak for the far left. It will mean that the net effect of the Thatcherite project and Labour modernisation has been to bring about a prolonged period of class quiescence.

This can never be definitively excluded. Contrary to the perpetual ‘strike wave round the corner’ perspective of the SWP, periods of relative class peace can endure for decades, even where unions have a past track record of militancy. The post-war history of Japan, in the face of the most horrendous exploitation of the proletariat, is only one example.

But - and Socialist Party comrade Phil Hearse makes the point eloquently (‘New government, new perspectives’ Weekly Worker May 15) - in the concrete circumstances of the class struggle in Britain in 1997, the coloration of our own particular bourgeois government is an important matter.

The outing of the Tories is the most significant morale booster the labour movement has received since the seventies, as will be apparent to anyone who has attended this year’s round of trade union conferences.

This is not to say that reflex reactions are the most appropriate. Putting ‘demands’ on Labour - both in office and in opposition - has long been a staple Trotskyist tactic, and moreover a correct one for most of the Labour Party’s history.

Marxists have, throughout this century, been able to utilise the wider constituency and trade union lefts as a means of advancing both minimum and transitional programme objectives. The Communist Party, both through de facto entryism and ideological hegemony over the Labour left, has been a major beneficiary.

Many groups still take this tack, especially in agitational material. Consider these banner headlines from two left papers that are polar opposites on many questions. ‘After the landslide ... now make Labour deliver!’ argues Socialist Action. ‘After Blair’s landslide ... force Labour to meet our needs!’ demands Worker Power.

Crucially, such organisational mechanisms as were available to push demands inside the Labour Party during the Bennite period are no longer in place. Neither group - nor any other leftist formation inside or outside Labour - has any leverage at all. Even the reformist left is atomised and without cohesive political expression.

One corollary of the ‘bourgeois workers’ party in transition’ understanding is that such slogans are now obsolete. Demands on Labour can be no more than abstract agitation, which is not to say that they cannot retain a certain value. But it is clearly self-defeating to build a perspective on attempting to organise a genuine political fight for them.

Just as entry work in the Labour Party was correct in the early 80s, the late 90s demand open socialist organisation. This has presently taken the form of a plurality of political currents, including the SLP, the Socialist Party and the Scottish Socialist Alliance.

My own hope - my own expectation, come to that - is that all three are components of a future united socialist party, alongside one or more splits from the existing Labour left, representing a qualitative deepening of the recomposition process in the British labour movement.

The SLP leadership should, at the very least, reconsider its refusal to reach an electoral understanding with the Socialist Party. Imagine Livingstone, Corbyn, Nellist, Sheridan, and Scargill on the same ticket in the 2002 general election, under a party-list PR system with a viable chance of being elected. Now there’s a thought.