19.01.2006

Festival of Labourism?

The working class movement needs its own republican socialist party, argues Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group

If the working class is to break the conservative mould of British politics, a republican socialist party is essential. Until this is organised the movement will remain on the defensive, as if bogged down in trench warfare. The stranglehold of bureaucracy and the power of big business will remain beyond control.

This weekend the Rail, Maritime and Transport union has called a conference to discuss the absence of working class political representation. It is more than obvious to many trade unionists that workers are taking a battering from the Labour government. The experience since 1997 has convinced trade union activists that Labour is opposed to their interests. The RMT and Fire Brigades Union are no longer affiliated and other unions are reducing their financial support. Yet the movement lacks the means of mounting an effective political challenge. There is a real space on the left for a working class party. In Scotland this has been filled by the Scottish Socialist Party. In England and to some extent in Wales there is a big hole.

New Labour is unapologetic in its support for capitalism and free markets. It is the main ally of US imperialism. It articulates the values of liberalism or individual freedom. This means the maximum freedom for business and the extension of privatisation into every part of the public sector. Liberalism means freedom for profiteering. It means 'flexibility' for workers, whose pay and conditions are cut and jobs 'outsourced'. Labour supports a raft of anti-working class policies, from the anti-union laws, privatising the NHS, cutting pensions, occupying Iraq and attacking civil liberties.

New Labour is the new Liberal Party. In the 19th century trade unions critically supported the Liberal Party for the same kind of reasons that trade unions leaders support Labour today. In 1888 trade union activists, including Kier Hardie, met at the Trades Union Congress in Bradford to consider how to persuade the unions to set up a working class party. Four years later, with Hardie, Burns and Havelock Wilson elected to parliament, supporters met again in Bradford and set up the Independent Labour Party. At the 1898 TUC a motion was passed in favour of working class MPs organising independently of both the Liberal and Tory parties.

In 1900, 120 delegates from socialist organisations, trade unions and trades councils met in London. They decided to set up the Labour Representation Committee. Seven trade unionists, two members of the ILP, two members of the Social Democratic Federation and one Fabian were elected. With the backing of trade unions 353,000 workers gave their support to the new committee, which soon changed its name to the Labour Party. Forming a new mass party is clearly a lengthy process. In 1918 the party adopted clause four, committing it to the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.

During and after World War II Labour finally established itself as one of the two major governing parties. The Labour government of 1945-50 nationalised a number of industries, set up the NHS and the welfare state, whilst stockpiling nuclear weapons. The essence of Labourism was its support for the existing state and constitution (ie, the constitutional monarchy) as the means for implementing economic reform (nationalisation and Keynesian demand management) and social reform (welfare state). Labourism became the accepted ideology of the working class movement. As a theory of socialism it was based on the practice of economism, or economic reformism.

Just as communists look back for inspiration to the 1917 Russian Revolution, the high point and reference point for Labourism is 1945. As a set of ideas, Labourism can be thought of as the 'British road to socialism'. This is not the same as The British road to socialism - the name of the programme adopted by the 'official' CPGB. Yet there is a real connection. Labourism encompassed the CPGB. The vital role played by the CPGB as a support for Labourism should neither be ignored nor underestimated. The Labour Party and the CPGB fulfilled different functions in representing the working class. The former provided a voice for trade unions in parliament, and the latter organised militant workers in the trade unions with the aim of a socialism inspired by the USSR.

The CPGB's 'broad left' strategy linked the party with the Labour left in the unions and parliament and acted as a counterweight to Labour's liberal right wing. This anchored Labour to a centre-left position in British politics. The British road to socialism gave intellectual and ideological support to a left Labour government in alliance with the CPGB, moving step by practical step to socialism.

The link between Labourism and British Stalinism is there for all to see. Those of us who joined the Socialist Labour Party saw the fusion of these two strands of thought in the politics of Arthur Scargill. It is at least a partial explanation for the politics of the Communist Party of Britain - still on the British road and still fetishistically bound to Labour.

Between 1985 and 1995 the period of Labourism came to an end. The new period began with the defeat suffered by the miners, the National Union of Mineworkers and the trade union movement in 1984-85. It continued as the Thatcher government implemented the policy of privatisation and began dismantling the 1945 welfare state. In 1991 the USSR ended and shortly afterwards the CPGB was liquidated. By 1995 the Labour Party became New Labour and the link with socialism, symbolised by clause four, was abandoned.

Labourism and the British road to socialism came to a dead end. Yet it has 'lived on' as an idea which still weaves its spell. Indeed it is even more dangerous now because it keeps the movement tied to the past. Just as in Russia there are many who hark back to the security of Stalin's USSR, many trade unionists and socialists look back to a mythical golden age of Labourism. It may have gone, but can it be revived? If Blair goes and the trade unions fight back, then surely Labour can be 'reclaimed' and get us back on the British road to socialism. Whilst we entertain this illusion, even George Galloway can hope to be welcomed into the Labour family. Respect will be no more than a temporary distraction for some and a nightmare for others.

Putting the Humpty Dumpty of Labourism back together again is not an option. This is not simply because Labourism depended partly on the CPGB and the existence of the USSR. Now globalisation, privatisation and Europeanisation are changing the working class and the British labour movement. At the same time the United Kingdom is passing through an unprecedented period of constitutional change and instability. Since 1997 the government has set up the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly, intro- duced limited proportional representation, created new constitutional arrangements in Northern Ireland under the Good Friday agreement, and began a partial reform of the House of Lords. In England the Greater London Assembly was set up and the European Convention on Human Rights is incorporated into law.

Constitutional change can have a major influence on political parties. It may facilitate the emergence of new parties and destroy old ones. The extension of the franchise to the working class at the end of the 19th century saw the rise of the Labour Party and the demise of the Liberal Party. Recently the Scottish parliament elected under PR enabled a new party, the SSP, to establish itself in a multi-party system. The political landscape in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has already changed significantly. There is no reason to assume that the period of constitutional change has ended and that a stable structure is now in place.

Constitutional change has given encouragement to a 'Scottish road to socialism' rather than a British road. In England this has only added to the sense of confusion and disorientation. Just as people have not worked out if we are English or British, we have not thought out whether we are now on the 'English road' or some other strategy. It should be no surprise to find that the vacuum of ideas, strategy and party is in England. But there is another factor now in play. This is the 'crisis of democracy'.

The crisis of working class representation is not confined to the party question. It goes much deeper - to the heart of the political system itself. The lack of any genuine democracy in Britain has had the effect of limiting the power and influence of the working class. But now there is a growing crisis of confidence in parliamentary democracy and a dangerous trend of restricting civil liberties.

Socialists have long recognised that the constitutional monarchy is not a democratic system of government. In the last 10 years the failure of Britain's parliamentary democracy has become obvious to a broader section of society. The war in Iraq and the anti-war movement served to highlight this problem. Parliament failed to make the Blair government accountable for its illegal war or the manipulation of public opinion. It showed that the system concentrates too much power into the hands of the prime minister, senior civil servants and the security forces.

The concentration and centralisation of power at the top goes hand in hand with a growing sense of powerlessness and alienation amongst working people. At the 2005 general election 40% did not vote. Of the 60% that did, only 35% voted Labour. This means that 22% of the electorate voted for the government. Yet this translates into an overall parliamentary majority of 68 seats. Parliament has lost credibility as a democratic institution.

This leads us to the conclusion that if we are to deal with the crisis of working class representation we have to address two 'deficits' - the 'party deficit' and the 'democratic deficit'. It is not just that we need any old party. We need a party of a particular kind. We need a party of a different kind. We need a republican socialist party. We can summarise the argument in the following way.

First, the vacuum on the left and the absence of a mass socialist party takes us back to the problem facing the movement in the 1880s and 1890s. Whilst the more conservative forces wanted to maintain the link between trade unions and Liberal Party, socialists such as Keir Hardie fought to form an independent party of the working class. Today the Labour Party without Labourism is the modern equivalent of the Liberal Party. We need to break from New Labour in the spirit of rebellion that informed Keir Hardie and his working class allies.

Second, we should not, however, look back to the 'golden years' of Labour after 1945. Labourism was built on an alliance between liberals and socialists, with Marxists or communists in a separate party. We need a different kind of party for the 21st century. In some circumstances it may be necessary for socialists and communists to organise in separate parties. But it is neither necessary nor desirable in today's circumstances, when the movement is weak and fragmented. A socialist unity party, which unites socialists and communists in one party, would represent an historic break with Labourism. It means breaking socialism from its alliance and dependency on liberalism and reconstituting a more united socialist movement.

Third, we need a republican party. This is a party seriously committed to the fight for a democratic, secular republic. Democracy is absolutely essential for working class self-organisation and self-empowerment. It is essential not only in the trade unions and the party, but as a system of government. In a period of constitutional change and with parliamentary democracy in crisis, the new party must take a lead in fighting for radical democratic change. The new party must represent a break with Labour's economistic and conservative traditions. The new party must win the support of the working class, the only class in society with the potential strength to force through radical democratic change.

Before anybody claims that such a party is impossible, let us point to the example of the Scottish Socialist Party. I do not wish to dwell here on the problems of the SSP. But it is an example of a republican socialist party, even if its republicanism is still underdeveloped. The SSP has occupied the space to the left of Scottish New Labour. It is a party of socialist unity which is open to socialists and Marxists. It has been able to unite the bulk of the left opposition to New Labour in Scotland and begun to win support from trade unions.

The SSP has been helped by constitutional change (Scottish parliament and PR). But more importantly it has made further radical constitutional change a central part of its strategy. This is now emphasised in the Declaration of Calton Hill which begins to identify the SSP more clearly as the republican party of the Scottish working class.

It is in England that the lack of working class representation is painfully obvious. Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party, the second Socialist Alliance (2001-05), Respect, and the Labour Representation Committee have attempted to fill the gap. They cannot succeed no matter how hard they try because they are based on the politics of Labourism. They have either failed already or will do so in the future. It is written in their political DNA. Each of these has been a distraction or barrier to the kind of party we need. They are part of the problem, not the solution.

The RMT conference will not overcome Labourism. But it may help to recognise that we are at the end of the age of Labourism. It belongs in the museum of the past, not in the hopes and aspirations for the future. Nevertheless, the ghost of Labourism will continue to haunt the movement for some time. No doubt its supporters will be heard at the RMT conference. But even if all the king's horses and all the king's men turn up it will not be possible to rebuild Labourism. Yes, it may temporarily raise the hope of a revival. But it will be no more productive or useful than Gordon Brown wrapping himself in the union jack.

This is not to dismiss the RMT conference. On the contrary the optimists amongst us hope it will prove a step forward. That will only be possible if the conference brings a sense of realism.

The divorce of the Labour Party from Labourism and the destruction of the latter is an opportunity for socialism. We now have to find an alternative strategy. In some ways it takes us back to Chartism, an earlier period in working class history, when the workers fought for democratic change. The modest but real success of the SSP shows what progress can be made.

The one bright spot is the relaunch of a new Socialist Alliance. Everybody is convinced it cannot possibly succeed. So it must be the only thing that can! The SA defends the traditional policy of bringing socialists together and promoting non-sectarian cooperation across the socialist movement. But one of the new aims is to campaign for a republican socialist party along the lines of the SSP.

The SA has welcomed this RMT conference and dialogue between trade unionists and socialists. But we will have to see whether it will be a festival of Labourism or the beginning of a new direction.