26.09.2007

Unions capitulate to Gordon Brown

Graham Bash of Labour Briefing comments on the closing down of the remaining vestiges of Labour Party democracy at the Bournemouth conference

Bournemouth 2007 may well turn out to be a decisive moment in the degeneration of the Labour Party.

The story of this conference will not be Gordon Brown's first speech as leader - though undoubtedly he was more nuanced than Tony Blair and different in tone, pressing certain buttons that he knew would appeal to the unions and Labour's traditional supporters.

But there was no fundamental change of political direction. On the central economic issues, the question was not whether prime minister Brown would break from prime minister Blair - but whether prime minister Brown would break from chancellor Brown. And, of course, he did not. Worse still was his British nationalism with his appalling call for "British jobs for British workers".

This conference was also not about any decisions taken. Apart from a minor victory over Remploy (where disabled workers are fighting against the closure of 41 factories by the department for work and pensions), there were by Tuesday night no decisions of any substance taken, as most resolutions were simply referred to the Labour's national policy forum.

The story of this conference is the decision to close down most of the remaining vestiges of democracy in the party. Above all, conference accepted that there should be no contemporary resolutions to be debated and voted on. The resolutions are to be replaced by so-called 'issues', which will be referred to the national policy forum - a body far less accessible than conference.

The decision to support Gordon Brown's proposals represents the end of the remaining structures of accountability in the party. At a rally organised by the Labour Representation Committee on Tuesday evening, Alan Simpson MP referred to this decision as "irreversible".

This is going to be the future face of conference: muted and tame. It is now nothing more than a toothless convention. This is a fundamental constitutional issue. It reinforces the insulation of the New Labour leadership from the membership and the broader labour movement, whose decisions at party conference have proven to be far wiser than those of the government: be it on the fourth option on council housing, on the index-linking of pensions or the renationalisation of the railways.

The period ahead may see an intensification of struggles: around the defence of the public sector; against low pay; against the growing inequalities in British society and also in the various international struggles. What Brown does not want is a party that can reflect the growing opposition and the movements developing in society against the agenda of the government.

Gordon Brown represents more of a threat to the party than Blair. Certainly in his latter years, Tony Blair had contempt for the party and mostly ignored it, whereas Brown is more of a creature of Labour and, rather than ignore it, has sought to control it more systematically. In order to carry out his agenda, he has to neutralise the party and make it into nothing more than a supporters club. Anything else would represent a threat to the New Labour agenda.

What is remarkable, even by their own standards, has been the craven capitulation of the leaderships of all the major trade unions. They caved in and allowed the party's structures to be closed down. Paul Kenny of the GMB and Tony Woodley of the TGWU brazenly followed up their surrender to Brown with an appearance at the Remploy workers' benefit. They mouthed support for workers in struggle, while at the same time they voted to close down any avenues where that struggle could find expression in the party. They even turned up at the LRC rally, where they faced intense criticism from party members. Woodley's tame excuse for his behaviour was that he did not want to hand power to the Tories - a position which was ridiculed by Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS union.

None of this should be read as a call to leave the Labour Party and make yet another attempt to form a socialist sect. After the experience of the Socialist Labour Party, the Scottish Socialist Party, the Socialist Alliance and Respect (who have all ceased or are in the process of dying), we need another socialist sect like we need a hole in the head.

Instead it is a call for a real, broad-based party of Labour, democratic and accountable in its structures and capable of representing all those that are struggling against New Labour - whether those struggles are in the trade unions or in the environmental, peace and other movements. The labour movement has to find a way of building real working class representation for those struggles.

It is impossible to say how exactly the struggle to achieve this goal will develop - no doubt it is a question that will have to be fought out over the coming period. One thing is sure though: the decisions of the leaderships of the trade unions have fundamentally undermined the capacity of the Labour Party to be a vehicle for working class representation in this country.