04.10.2006
Labourism or republicanism
Where next for the fight for working class political representation? Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group looks at the alternatives
On November 11 an 'Organising for Fighting Unions' conference will be held in London. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, calls on all trade unionists concerned about low pay, pensions, privatisation and "political representation" to attend this Respect initiative. The speakers will include John McDonnell MP, George Galloway, Matt Wrack (Fire Brigades Union), and Bob Crow (RMT). We should support this event.
Publicity for the conference calls on workers "to join the discussion about political representation for trade unionists". The fourth point in the model resolution backing the conference says: "There is a debate about political representation for working people - which began with the disaffiliation of the FBU from Labour and the affiliation of the RMT to the Scottish Socialist Party."
At first sight the question of working class representation takes us back 'obviously' to the historic crisis of working class representation at the end of the 19th century. In 1888 trade union activists met at the Trades Union Congress in Bradford to campaign for 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. But the struggle did not end here.
In 1898 the TUC supported working class MPs organising independently of both the Liberal and Tory Parties. In 1900 delegates from socialist organisations, trade unions and trades councils met in London and formed the Labour Representation Committee, which in 1906 became the Labour Party. One of the key ideas was the argument for independent class representation. But this historical parallel with the struggle for class representation does not mean we need to set up the same kind of party now.
In 2003 the Alliance for Workers' Liberty raised the slogan of political representation. It proposed a "Network for working class political representation/Independent Socialist Alliance". It called for a grouping that would "advocate and propagandise in the labour movement for the principle of independent working class political representation". A meeting of SA activists, organised on May 25 2003, says: "The working class needs to re-establish its own independent political representation."
In July 2004, 500 people met at TUC Congress House, and set up the Labour Representation Committee mark two. It was formed by supporters of the Labour Party, trade unionists and socialists to fight for representation within Labour, the unions and parliament. By 2005, four unions - the Communication Workers Union, RMT, FBU, and Bakers Union - were affiliated. However, the orientation of the LRC is not to form an independent working class party, but to reform the Labour Party. Hence its policy statement is called 'The programme for a Real Labour government'.
In 2005 the RMT annual general meeting passed a resolution calling for a conference on working class representation. This move by the RMT was significant. In 1900 it was one of the founding organisations of the Labour Party. With about 70,000 members, the union has become the vanguard of a more militant trade unionism over the last few years. Matters were brought to a head when the RMT was expelled from the Labour Party for using its political funds to support the SSP.
In January this year the conference took place around the theme of the "crisis" in working class representation. The speakers included John McDonnell MP, Colin Fox MSP, John Marek AM and Dave Nellist. Bob Crow, RMT general secretary, speaking from the platform, argued that class representation must be broader than just the party question. The issue of proportional representation and bureaucratic parliamentary red tape was raised by the speaker from the Green Party and John Marek. Crow himself spoke about the need for a national shop stewards movement. Constitutional-legal rights for trade unionists were indicated in the call for a Trade Union Freedom Bill.
Two things become clear from this. First, the active part of the working class, in both the trade union and socialist movement, have recognised a real problem. The working class has no independent political representation. The organised working class has no political voice. Its influence over political decisions is at best minimal and in practice non-existent. The mere fact that the anti-union laws are still in place tells us all we need to know. One hundred years ago it was the Taff Vale dispute and anti-union laws that played a pivotal role in the formation of Labour.
However, we should not assume that the issue of working class representation is the same today or can be satisfied by re-inventing the Labour Party. The crisis of Labourism coincides and connects with a crisis of democracy. The failure of Labour to represent the organised working class goes hand in hand with the failure of parliamentary democracy to represent the people. It should, of course, be remembered that the working class are the majority of 'the people'. The degeneration of the political system is the root of the political problem, not just - or even mainly - the degeneration of the Labour Party.
The Iraq war did not create the crisis of democracy. It did, however, shine a brilliant light on the problem. It is no surprise to find two people who were in different ways at the sharp end of that crisis drawing some similar democratic conclusions. George Galloway pointed to lack of genuine class influence on government. He said: "Every MP who voted for the war did so knowing that their constituents were against it. And most did so knowing it was wrong. This is a crisis in bourgeois democracy. The mask has slipped. We have a chance - if we properly grasp what democracy actually means - of being the movement for democracy in this country. And that's an extremely powerful position to be in for a progressive left movement" (Weekly Worker December 4 2003).
Galloway explained that the parliamentary system "is completely unresponsive in the face of public opinion on a whole range of issues, not simply on the war. Things happen now on the electoral level, on the civil liberties front, across a whole swathe of issues" in the absence of "the democratic counterweight from working people and progressive organisations". He concluded that "any new left movement has to prioritise the concept of democracy and live by it internally and insist on it externally. We need democratic control of the economy, of parliament, of society itself."
Labour MP Clare Short has taken up the same theme. From loyally supporting Blair before the Iraq war she has become a harsh and embittered critic. Her experience from inside government has led her to conclude the system is dangerously undemocratic. On September 14 she announced she would be standing down at the next election. She would campaign for a hung parliament as a means of bringing electoral reform.
Clare Short does not have the political answer. More radical surgery and a different type of party is required. But she is trying to get to grips with the failure of our so-called democracy. On one side she points to the massive centralisation of power in the hands of the prime minister and a few top bureaucrats. On the other side is the weak and unrepresentative parliamentary system, which keeps the working class at arm's length. Government is becoming increasingly authoritarian. Civil liberties are threatened. This is creating better conditions for the growth of the British National Party.
It is no surprise that the road Short is trying to find leads her out of Labour Party. She was denounced as a traitor and immediately threatened with expulsion. It is no good following Short, as she gingerly edges down the democratic road. We need to think out independently where it is going. The case for radical democratic political change and a new type of party go together like a horse and carriage.
The alternatives are sharply polarised between the Labourites and republicans. The Labourites tend to assume, without much thought, that the existing form of political democracy provides an effective mechanism for the representation of the working class. In Labourist ideology, the constitutional monarchist system of democracy provides the best, or at least an adequate, means of class representation. Therefore the problem of working class representation lies solely or mainly with the corruption and degeneration of democracy inside the Labour Party.
This is supported by the myth of Labourism. The political system was designed to concentrate politics into the hands of two major parties. Even in the heyday of the Communist Party, with its mass working class support, it was exceptionally difficult to break into this system. The two-party system perpetuated a myth that the Tories were for business and Labour represented the working class. It was myth that suited the ruling class perfectly. It is good to have a safe alternative that workers can believe represents them. Even when workers no longer believe it, there are many socialists more than ready to keep the idea alive.
The experience of the strike-breaking and imperialist Labour governments from MacDonald and Attlee through to Wilson and Callaghan have shown more than enough times the reality of Labour's support for big business and the state. In this sense Blair and New Labour are no different. The shift in the balance of class forces resulting from the defeat of the miners and the ideological impact of Thatcherism have simply brought home the truth. Blatant and arrogant Blairism, emboldened by the huge powers of the state, have finally destroyed the myth that Labour stands for the working class. This is the significance of the expulsion of the RMT.
Just as the trade unions are divided over supporting a party which attacks them continually, so are Labourites. Rob Sewell, writing for the In Defence of Marxism website, poses the question thus: "Can the Labour Party be reclaimed, as has been argued? Or should socialists form a new party, another Labour Party?" (January 16). He examines the track record of those standing outside Labour and concludes that their results have been "pitiful". In other words, "experience has shown how extraordinarily difficult it is for a left group to break the electoral grip of the Labour Party. There is no room for another Labour Party outside the existing party."
So 'Reclaim the Labour Party' or 'Start another Labour Party' are the main alternatives in the socialist movement - represented on the one side by the Labour Representation Committee and on the other by Respect and the Campaign for a New Workers' Party.
When we see the stage-managed Labour rally, pretending to be a conference, we get a glimpse of how the country is run. But the big picture is not there. It is the one painted by Galloway and Short. Who runs the country and how do they do it? How can working people fight for a democratic system of government so that working class political representation will start to mean something real? In such a system the democratic rights of trade unionists - as, for example, expressed in the Trade Union Freedom Bill - will be written into the constitution.
Working class republicans approach the question of class representation very differently. It is not just the Labour Party that is rotten. It is the political system. The British parliamentary system is a sophisticated means for marginalising and excluding the working class. One manifestation of this is the alienation of 40% of the electorate who do not vote.
Scotland has a few things to teach us. It shows that the party question, political representation and constitutional change are connected. The democratic movement in Scotland grew out of the anti-poll tax struggle. It produced a Scottish parliament and elections by proportional representation. It created favourable conditions for the launch of the Scottish Socialist Party. The final chapter in the struggle for Scotland's democracy is not yet written. Devolution under the crown is not the end of the matter.
In England, the Trotskyist left has not understood the necessity for democratic political change. The dominant ideas of Labourism and economism have so far proved an insurmountable barrier to democratic politics. Many socialists recognise that PR would help in building a party. Unfortunately this is as far as their democratic thinking goes. Reforming the voting system may improve the prospects for becoming a socialist MP. But it is completely inadequate for increasing the political power and influence of the working class. Nothing less than a fully democratic and accountable system will do. Only a democratic, secular republic provides a consistent answer. The republican programme is the sum of all democratic demands, national and local, opposed to the existing constitutional system.
The question of working class political representation therefore takes us back not just to the 1890s, but the 1840s and the Chartist movement. Chartism was both a party of the working class and a mass movement for radical democratic change. In the 1840s universal suffrage was the main demand for working class representation. The Chartist party was defeated. But the struggle continued until the right to vote was won by the suffragette movement in the 1920s. Universal suffrage cannot, however, be considered the final solution to the problem of political democracy in the United Kingdom. The modern equivalent of the Chartist party would be a working class republican party. Today such a party has to be socialist.
A republican socialist party stands for the militant traditions of Chartism and against the liberal reformism of the Labour Party. Labour supports the constitutional monarchy and capitalism. A republican socialist party stands for the opposite. The slogan of a republican socialist party makes it crystal-clear we are not calling for another reformist Labour Party. We are proposing a different kind of party, not a rehash of old Labourism.
Should a republican socialist party be a Marxist party or a socialist unity party? Which kind of party, or even which kind of Marxism, will depend on the circumstances in the working class when the party is formed. But it will have to be formed sooner or later because the objective situation will demand it. Unfortunately, the longer we wait, the worse the situation will get.
Alongside the historical example of the Chartist Party, we have the Scottish Socialist Party as an important reference point. This shows concretely what can be achieved in Britain in today's conditions. Even if the SSP ended tomorrow, it would still be the highest point reached in the struggle for working class representation.
The SSP shows the connection between democratic political change and building a new party. It proves a socialist unity party is possible, even if splits subsequently occur. It shows the benefits of a workers' party with rights for open platforms. It highlights a party breaking from the constitutional monarchy, tentatively beginning to embrace the strategic goal of republicanism, identified in the Declaration of Calton Hill. If the working class in England reached the equivalent level, the whole movement would be stronger, more politicised and more united. The SSP is an example, not a model. It has set a standard that socialists in England must achieve and surpass.
In two weeks time the Socialist Alliance is going to hold its conference. More or less everybody is agreed that the SA has stagnated. It is unsure what political direction to take. The choices are becoming polarised. On one side are those comrades who remain in the grip of Labourite ideology and see the future as following the Socialist Party to a new red-green Labour Party. Against that will be those who want to liquidate the SA, and those who want to campaign for independent working class political representation - independent of the bourgeoisie, independent of the Labour Party, and independent Labour's support for the bourgeois constitutional monarchist state.