30.11.2006

Dead ducks and Labour pains

Entitled 'New Labour after Blair - can it be shifted left or is a new workers' party needed?' this meeting illustrated that the Socialist Party has a deeply problematic stance in relation to the Labour Party. Lawrence Parker reports

The session was a debate between Clive Heemskerk of the SP and Andrew Fisher of Labour Briefing. Heemskerk essentially outlined the facets of his organisation's theory that the Labour Party has now undergone a qualitative transformation into a bourgeois party (making it barren territory for socialists). This rested on a number of factors: the "ideological shift" away from public ownership (the repeal of clause four); the ending of the party's "federal character"; the "diminished" role of the trade unions; and the downgrading of party conferences.

Sensibly, comrade Heemskerk was careful to state there had been no 'golden age' and that Labour had previously had pro-capitalist policies and leaders before Tony Blair. But, of course, the SP has in practice been trying to re-invent Labourism through its Campaign for a New Workers' Party, so Heemskerk was forced to state that during Militant's tenure in Liverpool in the 1980s the Labour Party was more of a "workers' parliament". So no 'golden age', but a good few 'golden moments'.

However, he made no mention of the CNWP (although SP members did so from the floor), talking only about "campaigning for new workers' parties" in general - as if the idea was still at the floating stage. This reticence shows that the SP leadership is well aware that the CNWP has made little headway since being launched in March. Why trumpet what could be a dead duck?

Although comrade Heemskerk said the SP thought that John McDonnell could not win his fight to become Labour leader, it "supported" and "welcomed" the campaign and was "preparing to offer more practical support". But the SP cannot really explain the emergence of McDonnell. To simply call him a bourgeois politician (despite the deep flaws in McDonnell's politics) is an evasion. The SP wants to have its cake and eat it through this "practical support", only highlighting the inadequacy of its theory. McDonnell's problematic campaign (in terms of politics and outcome) is the product of a Labour Party where the bourgeois pole is in the overwhelming ascendancy, but which for all that remains a bourgeois workers' party.

Andrew Fisher spoke minimally but skilfully. He agreed there had been no golden age of Labour: Blair is not the first Labour prime minister to carry out an imperialist foreign policy. Similarly, he had no intention of regaling his audience with the sins of New Labour in power: he had 20 minutes to fill after all. He boiled down his continued membership of Labour into two points: the party's ongoing attachment to the trade unions; and that "it was the most viable route into power" (what kind of "power" this would be was left unexplained and the SP did not seem that interested in exploring it either).

Comrade Fisher also made the rather cutting observation that, while it was true that those mobilised by the anti-war movement in 2003 had not joined Labour, they had not exactly flocked into Respect or the SP either (and certainly not the CNWP, we might add).

Of course, we then had a whole host of SP members lining up to tell Andrew how shocking the Labour Party is, how its structures had diminished in their area, about the perfidy of Blair and company, and so on (I noticed the look of bemusement on his face as this was proceeding). Star of the show was Jackie Bury from Medway SP, a young comrade who told him that, as Fisher was a Labour Party member, she and her mates would not "smile at him in the street" because "we fucking hate youse". Cue delirious whoops of joy from the assembled SP faithful. As Andrew pointed out in his summing-up, this deluge of rhetorical waffle was pretty pointless, as he had not actually defended New Labour's record or the state of his party.

More interesting was a comrade from Brighton SP who floated the idea that the John McDonnell campaign could be seen as a "test" of his party's assessment of the Labour left. I also thought he was on solid ground in debunking McDonnell's ridiculous assertions that he would win the leadership - McDonnell faces a struggle to get on the ballot paper, never mind win. But what of this "test", if the campaign manages to at least reactivate the Labour left?

I do not, however, get the feeling that the SP leadership wants any sort of "test" of its politically illiterate theory. Its understanding of the Labour Party emanates from being witch-hunted by Kinnock and co in the 1980s. As such it is the raison d'être of a sect. Not the most amenable area for a scientific test, I would suggest.