22.07.1999
‘Time bomb’
In politics, as in nature, everything produces its equal and opposite reaction. Tony Blair’s constitutional revolution from above is no exception.
Initially the constitutional revolution elicited nothing much from the Tories - except idiotic prattle and dumb rage. The party of Thatcher which energetically smashed the once mighty NUM after a year-long civil war in the mining communities and pit villages, the party that systematically rolled back the welfare state and created a destitute generation, the party of endless privatisation, job insecurity and globalised capital crassly celebrated the static virtues of Britain’s supposed ‘uninterrupted’ thousand years of constitutional history. (Ignoring the separate linguistic, cultural and royal histories in the British Isles, the 1066, 1642, 1688 and other revolutionary ruptures and the elementary fact that Britain was only united politically in the 18th century.)
Behind the Tory nonsense there was, of course, Tory sense. Abolition of hereditary peers, devolution, the Lab-Lib politics of coalition and the possibility of PR for Westminster elections effectively rob the Tories of their divine right to govern the whole country through a minority of votes and the unelected House of Lords. The spectre of permanent marginalisation haunts them.
The Tories could, and did, say ‘no’ to every innovation emanating from Downing Street - Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, Lords reform, London mayor, etc. That hardly constitutes a viable strategy. In recognition, albeit driven more by blind instinct than grand vision, William Hague is beginning to hone a programme. However, what is noticeable is that the Tories are not so much readying themselves for government in 2001 or 2002. They are readying themselves to wreck Blair’s constitutional revolution through a reactionary revolt. That might well mean another term in opposition, but New Labour will have been fatally wounded. In other words Hague’s programme is negative, not hegemonic.
A number of often contradictory elements are being put together. Saving the pound and opposition to a federal European Union, English nationalism and fuelling resentment of Scotland and Wales, foxhunting and saving the House of Lords, siding with the Ulster Unionists and agitation for an intransigent plan B. Potentially a lethal parliamentary and extra-parliamentary arsenal.
Evidently the Tories’ stance on Europe does not coincide with the long-term interests of the biggest and most dynamic sectors of capital. Fear of the future does however resonate with the least competitive companies and, perhaps more to the point, a mass of atomised voters epitomised by the four million readers of The Sun.
Party and class never neatly nor automatically fit. New Labour is a complex hybrid. Politically it serves finance capital; sociologically it is staffed by middle class career politicians; electorally it relies on the proletariat in the ballot box. Trade union influence has shrunk qualitatively. The Tories appear to have abandoned their historic alignment with big capital in favour of an English version of Poujadism. Before our eyes they are metamorphosing from the preferred party of the bourgeoisie into a rightwing English nationalist party. Obviously such transformations, by New Labour and the Tories alike, are premised on the disappearance of the workers as a political class (albeit in Britain as the subaltern pole of Labourism). Today the working class exists as wage slaves, but not as the bearer of a social alternative to capitalism.
We in Britain are surely in the midst of something unequalled since the death of the great Liberal Party and the rise of Labour in the first quarter of the 20th century. Whether the present forms endure or quickly pass away is another matter entirely - the class struggle will decide.
Beating the English nationalist drum is Hague’s answer to devolution in Scotland and Wales - since it was established as a statelet in 1920 Northern Ireland has caused no agonising over the so-called West Lothian question. There are 163 Tory MPs - all English seats. None in Scotland or Wales. Naturally Hague claims to be discouraging English nationalism. An opposite intention is transparent. He yearns for a bigoted English backlash. Hague’s speech to the Centre for Policy Studies (see p8) was a bid to capture what he called “an emerging English consciousness” and fuel resentment against Scotland on the basis of per capita expenditure and the right of Scottish and Welsh MPs - he was silent on Northern Ireland - to vote on English matters. Hague’s slogan is “English votes on English laws” (The Guardian July 16).
The fact that Wales and England share the same legal system is a minor detail. As is Hague’s inability to take the logical step and advocate an English parliament within a federal monarchy system (a Liberal Democrat proposal). The cardinal point is the crude invocation of English nationalism in order to undo Blair’s constitutional revolution.
Foxhunting is foxhunting is foxhunting ... for simpletons. Needless to say, the threat to countryside liberties posed by ending hunting by dogs is a smokescreen. The real issue is the unelected House of Lords and the constitutional “time bomb” primed by Hague. Ominously The Daily Telegraph urges an “ermine revolt” in order to “uphold the constitution”. All government legislation should be blocked using the Lords: crucially Blair’s disenfranchisement of “several hundred of their number” - “one of the most autocratic bills in recent history” (June 29). The Tories explicitly link foxhunting and the House of Lords and have taken to the streets in huge numbers. Last year’s 250,000-strong Countryside Alliance demonstration in London saw the government quickly backtrack on foxhunting and then compromise on 90 hereditary peers.
Blair’s promise on the BBC’s July 8 ‘Question Time’ to ban hunting with dogs “as soon as we possibly can” - ie, after the completion of the first stage of the House of Lords reform - is sure to provoke a parliamentary and extra-parliamentary storm. Hague will do his utmost to maximise the destructive impact of his militant minority (Journalists have foolishly interpreted Blair’s move as an attempt to appease Labour’s “traditional” core voters. In reality it is hegemonic. Seventy percent of the adult population, including traditional Tories, reportedly support a ban.)
Ulster is key to the success of any Tory revolt. Northern Ireland is the United Kingdom’s main weak link and therefore the main weak link in Blair’s constitutional revolution. For nearly three decades Britain’s inability to rule the Six Counties in the old way and the refusal of the nationalist masses to be ruled in the old way was a festering ulcer on the Elizabethan monarchy system. There is no longer a revolutionary situation, but the counterrevolutionary situation is precarious. Northern Ireland remains a cockpit of crisis, as testified by Blair’s inability to strike a deal on his June 30 deadline and the subsequent serio-comic collapse of the Northern Ireland assembly on July 15 - for a few surreal minutes the province had an exclusively nationalist executive.
If the June 10 European Union election debacle signalled the end of the Blair honeymoon, failure to put in place the Northern Ireland executive leaves the whole New Labour project vulnerable.
For all practical purposes the bipartisanship which for 30 years broadly characterised the relationship between the Tory and Labour front benches has been scuppered by Hague. The line of contradiction no longer runs between the British state and the nationalist minority in Northern Ireland. Now things in Britain have bifurcated at the top. The Tories have moved against Blair’s reformist solution in Northern Ireland. The opposition, like the devil, is in the detail.
Blair pushed for Sinn Féin ministers before IRA decommissioning (in their absence decommissioning is already undergoing a slippage away from May 2000). Hague and his media auxiliaries in contrast instinctively sided with Trimble - not as first minister, but as leader of the Ulster Unionists. Sinn Féin must “be excluded from the executive”, Hague insisted, while the IRA remains “fully armed” (The Daily Telegraph July 5). Against the letter and the grain of the Good Friday deal he also agitates for an end to prisoner releases. The Daily Telegraph editorial recognises that under such circumstances it would be necessary to revert to solving the problem vi et armis:
“Army patrols should be brought back, the emergency powers act restored in full” and “measures should be taken to facilitate the conviction of terrorist leaders, including forensic admission of telephone intercepts and the testimony of anonymous informers” (July 19).
Such a plan B is obviously unworkable as a consensus settlement. Neither the SDLP nor the Ahern government in Dublin could accept it. As to the IRA, it has proved beyond a shadow of doubt that it can withstand anything the British state can politically afford to throw against it - internment, SAS assassinations, criminalisation, etc. The Tory plan B is not an alternative to Blair’s stalled plan A. Once more it is a cynical wrecking device.
The old Conservative and Unionist Party lives again in the alliance cemented between Hague and David Trimble. It should not be assumed, however, that there exists a deep-seated affinity between the two men. Hague is a grammar school Tory in the non-aristocratic mould of Heath and Thatcher. A conventional career politician from head to toe. Trimble is an Ulster zealot. He entered politics with the Vanguard party in 1973 - its firebrand leader, William Craig, notoriously told supporters that “our duty is to liquidate the enemy”. Trimble himself was actively involved in the semi-insurrectionary 1974 Ulster workers’ strike which brought down the Sunningdale power-sharing executive. Having joined the Ulster Unionist Party in 1977, he was elected leader 13 years later as a hardline replacement for the ‘moderate’ James Molyneux.
The English Tories have no love of Trimble’s party, whose rasping talk of British citizenship, the queen and the union are simply codewords for the protestant ascendancy. Ulster’s loyalty is loyalty to Ulster alone. But in the search for a weapon Tory eyes naturally light upon the unionists. With unionist disloyalty the Tories hope to break New Labour.
Ireland’s right to self-determination has again been denied and remains the central, unresolved, contradiction. But partition post-1998 eschews gerrymandering and overt discrimination. More than that, Blair aims to win the consent, if not the active support, of the catholic-nationalist population. Each concession given to, or wrested by, the minority increases the pressure on the majority. The Ulster Unionists find themselves with little room for manoeuvre. In front of them is the Paisleyite DUP, waiting to steal their base in the event of a ‘surrender’ to IRA gunmen. At their back is the British-Irish Agreement, which redefines the union with Great Britain and necessitates an historic compromise with Irish nationalism. Either way, a disloyal ‘no’ majority amongst the majority British-Irish is now in place. Perfect - for Hague.
Formal negotiations over the Northern Ireland executive have been delayed till October or even November. But the next big hurdle, and therefore the next Tory opportunity, is likely to be RUC reform under the auspices of a Blairised Chris Patten. The Hague Tories could yet find themselves a ready-made armed wing if the RUC were to be radically reformed (disbanded in unionist-speak) as part of the attempt to appease Catholics. Mass resignations, passive mutiny, uniformed protest demonstrations are all on the cards.
A constitutional collision between the Hague Tories and New Labour ought to provide an opening for mass activity. With the right programme rapid advances can be made. Yet most comrades on the left are blissfully mired in economism (bourgeois politics of the working class). The constitution hardly exists for them as a serious political issue. Thankfully we communists hold to a different approach. Where Blair remakes the constitutional monarchy from above, the CPGB says the workers must fight to remake it from below as a federal republic (as advocated by Marx, Engels and Lenin). Not only must Scotland and Wales have sovereign parliaments, able to freely exercise the right of self-determination up to separation; England too should have its republican parliament. As to Ireland, we are for unity, independence and democracy with full rights for the protestant - British-Irish - minority, including the right to separate.
Without such a communist minimum programme there can be no working class political independence nor self-liberation.
Jack Conrad