07.07.2004

Political voice

LRC coordinating committee and Communication Workers Union EC member Maria Exall spoke to the Weekly Worker

What’s the significance of today’s conference?
Previously there have been Socialist Campaign Group conferences, gathering of the left of the Labour Party. What makes this one very different is that it is not just a talking shop about policy: it is actually about organising the left in the Labour Party and, very importantly, organising on the principle of labour representation.

The involvement of trade unions in supporting and - crucially - in the organising committee for this conference meant them working with people in the CLPs and the left networks. This is very significant. That really hasn’t happened much before in the Labour Party.

But isn’t there a problem with some of the major unions not being involved?
Absolutely. At the beginning, we had hoped that we would get formal support from some of the big four unions. What we actually have got is people at a rank and file level from those four big unions who are interested in the LRC. That fight will happen in those unions in the coming year.

Whilst it is a disappointment that the big four are not involved at this point, I don’t think that it’s very surprising, given where the Labour Party is at the moment. In a sense, it is a backhanded compliment. People recognise that the left getting its act together and organising properly will change the party, and some of the people in the union leaderships are pursuing a ‘steady as she goes’ strategy - backing the Blair leadership, but wanting to bargain and haggle with it on their own agenda.

While this type of collective action from the unions should be welcomed, the reality is that if they allowed more input from the rank and file into what they take to the National Policy Forum, there would be a massive clash. At the moment what you have is the big four negotiating for certain gains - and it’s a good step them coming together and pressurising the Labour leadership. 

They have 50% of the votes at conference, they can put minority reports - all of that’s important. But the key is that the rank and file of the unions work with people in the CLPs. That’s the way you will get concessions out of the Labour leadership on policy.

By separating themselves off from the organised left in the party, they may have maintained a certain degree of control, but they undoubtedly have lost some of the power they could have tapped into by aligning themselves with the constituencies.

So do you have to have the support of the big four for the Labour leadership to sit up and take notice?
Yes. People forget that, despite the talking down of the trade union link by the Blairites, the unions still have a lot of power in the party. All of the undemocratic changes in Labour, ‘Partnership into power’, a lot of the bad policy decisions that have been made have been agreed of the trade union leaderships. So if the trade unions had actually stood up for the policies they formally agree on, we wouldn’t have had to put up with a lot of the Blairite crap we have had for the last seven years.
That’s why I welcome unions working together. But what having a lot of rank and file trade unionists at this event demonstrates - and there are 20 reps from my union here - is that the bureaucracy have to take account what the rank and file are saying. Those delegates actually represent majority opinions of the membership in their unions.

Part of what we’re trying to do in the LRC is re-establish the idea that labour representation means having a Labour Party that in some way represents what ordinary trade unionists and CLPers actually want. There’s been a problem in unions such as my own where lots of people feel that Labour doesn’t just not represent their views any more: it’s actually attacking them.
The good thing about the LRC is that it focuses their anger in the right direction. It recognises that affiliation is there and that link will continue - but we want that link to actually mean something concrete and progressive.

Is it really possible to reclaim the Labour Party?
I think the distinction made by Mick Rix at the beginning of the conference, when he spoke of rebuilding the Labour Party rather than reclaiming it, is the key one. We’ve seen constituency and women’s organisation in the party hollowed out; lots of Labour members have left over the war - we have a huge job to rebuild trust in organisation and a huge job to reconstruct the organisation itself. The FBU speaker here explained that it is a sad but not surprising fact that so many in his unions are deeply hostile to Labour because of the way they were treated in their strike; we must rebuild their relationship with Labour and the fundamental reason why they should have that relationship.
As unions we need a political voice and that needs to come through the official labour movement and be reflected in a labour party. Given where we are now, we need to reinvent the wheel on this question.

It really is a matter of rebuilding rather than reclaiming.