THE BALANCE SHEET OF THATCHERISM left in Britain. Firstly, no one with. | political result is a breaking up of
By John Ross
In December 1981 the results of two elections symbolised key features of the political situation in Britain, However, at first glance they appeared to point in opposite directions.
The first was the Crosby parliamentary by-election. The newly formed Social Democratic Party (SDP) won a massive victory. Even more significant in a period of rising hostility to the Tory government of Thatcher, the traditional party of the working class, the Labour Party, received a humiliating 9.5 percent of the vote.
Later in December the result of the Presidential elections of the National Union of Miners (NUM) was
The left-wing candidate Arthur Scargill, who, of all trade union leaders, has probably come under the strongest attack from the capitalist press, achieved a landslide victory, getting over 70 percent
During the same month, in one of the most serious industrial fightbacks for a long period, and after years of defeat, the British Leyland workers at Longbridge in Birmingham staged a four-week strike against productivity attacks--an event that clearly indicated a rising combativity in important sections of the working class. after a prolonged period of setbacks and its significance as an indicator was confirmed by other events that will be gone into below.
How can this combination of events be accounted for? How is it possible to explain a coming together of revival of trade-union struggles after serious economic setbacks suffered by the working class in the last period, and at the same time a string of major SDP-Liberal election victories and Labour setbacks? To explain the combination of all these events-not ripping individual ones out of their context but seeing their overall development and dynamic-must be the test of any serious analy sis of the political situation in Britain today (1).
These SDP gains and Labour loses cannot be accounted for by any facile explanation on the theme of 'the middle classes deserting' which are sometimes to be heard on the 12 he slightest knowledge of the coun ry's class composition could believ that only 9. 5 percent of the population were working class even in a normally safe Tory constituency such as Crosby. Even leaving this aside, however, the Crosby election result was in fact no exception. SDP- Liberal electoral alliance has averaged 45 percent in the three Parliamentary by-elections in which
It has won nearly half the municipal council seat elections contested since its formation. Furthermore, in July 1981 the SDP came within a tiny margin of winning the normally ultra-safe Labour seat in the massively working class constituency of Warrington.
THE HISTORIC CHARACTER OF
THE CLASSES IN BRITAIN
In reality the present situation becomes readily understandable when the basic historical features of the two main classes in British society are taken into account.
The British ruling class exists in a totally proletarianised country, facing the oldest and probably the most powerful trade-union movement in the world. It is socially and economically extremely weak compared to its working-class
This ruling class, however, has an unbroken 300 year continuity of capitalist state institutions and dominates one of the historically most right-wing labour bureaucracies in the world. The ruling class is therefore politically very strong in relation to the working class.
The working class, in contrast, is socially and organisationally powerful--with over 11 million trade union members for example. But with an unbroken 130 year history of mass reformism, and domination by British imperialism, politically it is very weak in comparison to the ruling class.
It is this contrast-- a socially and economically weak but politically very strong ruling class, and a socially and organisationally strong but politically extremely weak working class--that has dominated the development of British politics since the rise of British imperialism in the mid-19th century (2). This contradiction continues to work itself out and to determine the political situation today. Its present
- the historical two-party system in Britain.
In this article, we will look at one side of this process, that of the new developments in the ruling class and their meaning for the working class. THE ECONOMIC FAILURE OF THE
THATCHER GOVERNMENT
The immediate context for the crisis and the impending end of the two-party system in Britain is the failure of the Thatcher government. This administration began with an integrated economic and political plan for solving the problems confronting the ruling class. omically the policy was to launch an extreme deflationist monetary policy with the aim of pushing up unemployment rapidly to a point above even that dictated by the international recession. This line was supported initially, but for different reasons, by all the three major sections that make up British big capital--banking capital, the old sections of industrial capital that are based on foreign investment and home sales, and the modern industrial sectors built up between the first and second world wars which are heavily based on exports.
Banking capital welcomed the high exchange rate of the pound, high interest rates, and decontrol over investing abroad. Bank profits under Thatcher reached an all time record high, and Barclay's became at least temporarily the largest bank in the world, overtaking even its American rivals.
Industrial capital initially supported Thatcher because it was calculated that a spiraling of unemployment would cause a dramatic and permanent shift in the relationship of forces between labour and capital and a sharp increase in productivity. As a result Britain would be in a better position vis-a-vis its rivals in the next world economic upturn. For this reason industrial capital was prepared to accept the short-term risks and problems entailed by Thatcher's policies--cutbacks in output, bankruptcies of smaller firms, and contraction of the internal market.
Politically the aim of the Thatcher offensive was to increase its electoral support inside the working Iclass, and force through its reac-
tionary policies by 'outflanking Labour from below'--that is, hammering away on the themes of 'fighting state bureaucracy', the evils of trade unions, the problems supposedly created by Black immigrants, and the need for 'law and order'.
This strategy was used quite successfully in the period leading up to the May 1979 election itself. In South-East England and the West Midlands, attracted both by the promise of lower taxation and Tory demagogy of the type outlined, significant sections of skilled workers voted Conservative.
Thatcher's policy, however, has since suffered crucial defeats on both the economic and political
Economically it is clear that, thanks in particular to the deflationary policies of Reagan in the United States, any world economic upturn will be far smaller and later in coming than foreseen by British industrial capital. Consequently, the deep downturn in the British economy will last far longer and be deeper, than they had anticipated.
the decline in British manufacturing output under Thatcher was more rapid than even in the period at the beginning of the 1929 slump.
More significantly still, despite the economic downturn, and despite some undoubted gains for the employers, the recession did not succeed in breaking the resistance of the working class to anything like the degree required for Thatcher's strategy to succeed.
Profits of British industry rose by 10% between the second and third quarters of 1981 compared to a 0.5% increase in gross domestic product; real family income has fallen 52% since the high point reached in 197980; and days lost in strikes fell to around 4 million in 1981 compared to 12 million in 1980. But these gains are still totally inadequate for the needs of British capital, as significant working-class resistance has not been crushed. The defeat of workers in British Leyland in November, when a national paystrike move was sabotaged by the trade-union bureaucracy, was resisted by a very large proportion of the workers and a big majority of the shop stewards. It was followed almost immediately by the four-week strike at the British Leyland Longbridge plant against the company productivity attack. Scargill's massive victory in the election for president of the NUM was followed by the executive and delegates rejecting a 9. 1 percent pay offer from the National Coal Board. At Fords in January 1982 the company wage offer was only accepted by the smallest Imargin, despite a huge campaign in its favour by the union leadership. The government's declared 4 percent wage limit in the public sector was broken almost before it was announced by an offer of 7 percent to the local government manual workers. Strike struggles are being waged over productivity and pay by the train-drivers union and are threatened by the miners.
Meanwhile on the economic field, the inflation-feeding Public Sector Borrowing Requirement is higher than even under the Labour government; and there is little, or no, likelihood of the government achieving its target of reducing the annual rate of price increases to under 10
Working-class and tradeunionist resistance to the government has risen and not fallen in the last months--as shown by British Leyland, Fords, the train drivers, and the miners.
Under these conditions two things are clear about the economic policy of the Thatcher government. ly, in a recession significantly deeper and more prolonged than was foreseen by industrial capital, it has not succeeded in breaking the resistance of the working class to anything like the extent anticipated. Moreover, big industrial capital is facing huge problems of sagging sales, lack of markets, massive repayments to banks owing to high interest rates, and problems in exporting due to the high exchange rate of the pound. It is therefore clear that any attempt to carry through the original Thatcher project simply by increasing unemployment would result in such a decline of production, accompanied by, say, five million unemployed in real terms (four million on the official figures), that it would cause profound longterm structural damage to the economy and threaten to create an uncontrollable situation on the political level. Under these circumstances industrial capital is demanding, and Thatcher has already started to a small degree, some reflation of the economy to increase output.
But this upturn is not sufficient, nor is it designed, to cut unemployment. The industrial bourgeoisie seeks an increase in output and sales, and therefore profits, and not a reduction in the number of jobless. On the contrary, unless this creates dangerous political consequences, the more out of work the better, as far as industrial capital is concerned, because this intimidates those who are employed. To increase output without increasing employment is the goal of the most powerful sections of capital today and of forces such as the Heath wing of the Tory Party--regardless of their rhetoric about 'concern for the jobless'.
The way to attempt to achieve this policy is through an upturn in production, accompanied by a simultaneous massive productivity and speed-up drive, which will have the effect of increasing the rate of exploitation and keeping up the level of unemployment. This is why the ruling class today is accompanying its attacks on the wages front with precisely such a productivity offensive, and why working-class struggles, as in British Leyland, Ford, and the railways, have developed in defensive actions
GAINS THREATENED
The failure of the Thatcher government to crush completely working-class resistance through unemployment interrelates with this new turn required by industrial capital to constitute the second key economic failure of the government.
The point is that precisely because the Thatcher government has failed to break the working class during the downturn there is no guarantee that whatever economic gains have been made will be maintained during any upturn--even one limited in
While unemployment will not fall, nevertheless in any upturr those workers who have jobs will find that there will be a cut in shorttime working. They will see that there are longer order books and production runs, that the management will be keener to produce products for sale, and that it will have less stocks of unsold goods.
In short, regardless of developments on the political field--which can affect the pace of this--the relationship of forces will tend to move a bit more in favour of labour.
Even if today direct working class struggles are at a lower level than for some time this is not guaranteed to last. Today struggles are essentially defensive ones against productive and de facto wage cuts. But even a limited economic upturn can alter this.
What is possible was shown most graphically in British Leyland and Fords. The workers in British Leyland, especially those in its largest plant at Longbridge, have suffered an almost uninterrupted series of major defeats for several years. The company mounted a well-planned offensive that had not only a general but a specific aim in Longbridge. It was intended to prepare the way for introducing the new model the Metro - the one really attractive, and therefore potentially profitable, part of the British Leyland car range and one of the keys to its financial future. This is produced at the Longbridge plant--hence the particularly severe assault by the employers there prior to the introduction of the model.
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The company was aided in this attack by the policy of the Communist-Party-dominated factory leader-
On the best 'Eurocommunist model, the CP leaders had adopted an utterly bankrupt (literally as well as metaphorically) policy of collaborating with the company to make British Leyland profit-
In some other factories in the company in contrast, notably at its other big assembly plant at Cowley, there was a more militant factory
Therefore, for example whereas in Longbridge Communist Party, senior shop steward Derek showed up again. Halewood voted decisively against the company proposal, and came out on strike. Dagenham accepted the offer.
But what was most significant this time was the closeness of the result. As in British Leyland, the national trade-union bureaucracy accepted the company offer and put its full weight behind forcing it through. that the margin was extremely nar-
These struggles, show processes occurring in important sections of
Despite at times severe setbacks, the essential core
1981. Prior to the 1979 election Thatcher took 'law and order' and cries of alarm about Blacks and immigrants as one of her theme
So the 'Black riots', as the popular press massively portrayed the events of last year, should have been the perfect chance for the 'get tough' Tory brigade.
Indeed at the technical level the government did make significant advances in repression. first time the use of plastic stun bullets, riot trucks, etc, was authorised in Britain (after being long is use in the North of Ireland). But of factory and trade-union leaderships politically the events were disasterRobinson was successfully victimisremain intact and have begun to under- ous for the government. ed by the company, in Cowley a management offensive against deputy senior shop steward Alan Thornett has been successfully resisted.
Leyland's 1981 wage offer was among other things designed precise. ly to set different groups of workers
It offered a low increase in the basic rate of pay, which is all that most workers would
But it left space for bigger money payments for productivity and output--which the Longbridge workwere told that they had the chance for. Despite this, however, there was initially huge opposition by the workers to the pay deal (around 95 percent voted against at mined campaign by the national union bureaucracy, and a feeble line by the Communist Party in Longbridge, finally forced through acceptance of the company offer. Cowley, however, the offer was
What happened at Longbride, however, when the management attempted to implement the first part of the productivity measures was the immediate outbreak of a four-week strike. Coming just before Christmas, this action indicated a real militant mood among the workers. The strike ended in a draw, but for the first time for a long period the Longbridge workers had waged a major struggle against the famous productivity 'plan' of company chairman Edwardes.
A somewhat similar development occured in the Ford motor company. Here again, a great unevenness among the factory leaderships has existed. The Merseyside Halewood plant has historically had a militant leadership and a strong bargaining position inside the company. In contrast, the London Dagenham factory had a Communist Party-dominated leadership and a history of severe defeats. During the company's productivity offensive in the last years Halewood has waged significant successful struggles, while Dagenham suffered defeats.
In the case of this year's pay ofIfer, therefore, such unevenness
14 go an important recomposition. There is a rising temper of hatred and resentment against the policies of the employers and the Thatcher
All that has been missing is the workers feeling that they
Even a small sign of economic upturn, and resulting shift in the relation of forces between the workers and capital, could start important sections of the working class thinking that the time has come to fight to defend themselves and perhaps to regain some of what they have lost in the last two years.
The signs of any upturn in trade-union militancy are therefore particularly ominous for the bourgeoisie
They show that despite Thatcher's savage attacks the workers, ability to fight back on the trade-union level, which is rooted in their social and organisational strength, has by no means been de-
Without some important new moves in other fields, therefore, Thatcher's launching even a limited economic upturn could lead to the working class blowing up economic gains made by capital in the last period and to the emergence of the elements of political crisis.
Thus it is quite clear that the economic policies of Thatcher have both reached a total impasse and failed as a policy for the bourgeoisie. The key sections of industrial capital are obviously distancing themselves from Thatcher and her policies. This is reflected by the actions of the Heath wing of the Tory Party, which has started some 'Parliamentary rebellions' and by the backing that is being given to the SDP-Liberals.
THE POLITICAL FAILURE OF THAT CHERISM On the political field, as opposed to the economic, the situation for the bourgeoisie is, however, not so bleak. It is true that Thatcher herself, and in a more fundamental sense, the Tory Party have undoubtedly failed. The real political kiss of death was put on her policies by the major Ighetto explosions of the summer of of massive unemployment had so antagonised the population that a majority considered the government's economic doctrines and policies in significant part responsible for the
A not insignificant number of people actually expressed sympathy for the 'rioters'. The official Scarman enquiry into the events was forced to make verbal criticisms of the police--while of course supporting them overall and preparing the way for future repression.
The ruling class was not particularly scared by ghetto explosions in themselves. But it was seriously concerned that the Thatcher government could not mobilise public opinion against them. It was furthermore concerned that such violent protests, the most explosive in Britain since the second world war, might spread to wider sections of the population-above all the labour movement. combination created the general spectre that Thatcher's policies might lead to uncontrollable social confla-
In addition to this political disaster the government has also suffered another set of serious problems. the North of Ireland the campaign in support of the H-Block hunger strikers undermined the authority of the reformist political leadership of the Nationalist population and shook political stability in the neocolonial South of Ireland. Opposition to British nuclear arms also reached an unprecedentedly high level, with some of the largest antiwar demonstrations
Most unacceptably of all for the ruling class, however, the effects of the Thatcher government's policies were fueling a major radicalisation of the cadres of the Labour Party. The product of this, 'Bennism', has become famous and has been the subject of other articles (3). sequence of this for the ruling class was, however, clear. It meant that the Labour Party appeared too unstable, and therefore weak, a force to be allowed to form a government I by itself. This deprived the ruling
class of its normal alternative government under the British two-party
Having an unstable Labour bound, in conditions of social crisis, to smash herself on this political disillusioned.
The real goal of the SDP-Liberals, system. Party as the only alternative to the failing Thatcher government was obviously too dangerous for the ruling class. Something therefore had to be done about it.
Both the problem and the solution was foreseeable. Traditions of respect for bourgeois state institutions, of racism, lack of real solidarity with particularly oppressed layers of the working class, have been driven deep into the British working class and its labour movement by British imperialism and the reformist bureaucracy that the latter created This is what Thatcher placed her bets obstacle. This she is duly doing-as did Edward Heath in a different way in 1970-74. Hence the risk of a dangerous situation for the ruling class.
But the same elements of the situation that create the problem create the obvious line of attempted solution for the ruling class.
That is, to create another capitalist party, preferably one with a more left-wing image--which is not the one of the hated Tories, or of the historical rump the Liberals had become--but nonetheless a party that carries out the political line of the bourgeoisie. Then, the very identification by aided by the Heath section of the Tory Party, is to change the entire political structure in Britain, smashing the existing twaparty system, through instituting a system of proportional representation in elections. Because the Labour Party has never received 50 percent of the vote in Britain, and can never get near it with its present reformist line, this will allow the Labour bureaucracy to fight for the line inside the working class that there are 'only two alternatives'. The first is 'remaining permanently in opposition'. The second is accepting a coalition government with the SDP--justified on on.
But there is one tradition which is makes 'the Tories' the central enemy, Tories'.
even deeper and more profound than these. This is that for almost two centuries the majority of the working class in Britain has regarded the
Tory Party as the enemy. The working class built up its first embryonic organisations in struggle against the
Tory governments during and following the wars against the French revolution. It rioted against a Tory government to secure the passage of the first electoral reform act of 1832.|
After briefly moving towards class independence under Chartism, it then moved in its majority to support the Liberals against the Tories during the whole second half of the nineteenth century. Finally, when the working class had succeeded in establishing the Labour Party as a mass electoral force after 1918, it once again found the Tory Party as its major Parliamentary opponent.
The identification of the Tory Party as the most central historical enemy by the working class is, from the point of view of revolutionary socialism, one of the most basic problems which must be overcome. It is the Labour bureaucracy, not the Conservative Party, which is the backbone of the political system of British imperialism and the capitalist class. From the point of view of Thatcher, however, it is an insurmountable obstacle. The Tory Party, since the Labour movement became a mass force, can rule by fear and as a result of huge defeats of the working ing class--as it did after the first world war in general and after 1926 and the defeat of the General Strike, in particular. It can govern in a period of major prosperity through concessions to the masses that isolate the vanguard of the working class politically-- as it did from 1951-64. But it cannot win the bulk of the working class to any stable historical allegiance or support for 'the Tories'. No matter what short-term gains she made on other particular issues Thatcher was always which the mass of the working class and which creates such problems for the Thatcher government-- would work in favour of the ruling class.
Educated for decades by the bureaucracy to regard not capitalism but the Conservative Party as the enemy, the working class is left open to a massive attack on the Labour Party by the SDP.
This is in fact precisely what is occurring in Britain, and it explains the apparently contradictory elements of the present political situation in Britain that we outlined at the beginring of this article. The reality is that because the British working class is socially and economically so strong but politically so weak, a large section of those workers who are wrecking the economic and political policies of Thatcher can, and will, vote for the SDP. What the rise of that party represents above all is not the shift of the 'middle classes', but the total political failure of the historical political perspectives put forward by Labourist reformism in the 80 years of its existence. Refusing to engage in a real struggle with capital, confining itself to a struggle with the 'Conservative enemy', the Labour bureaucracy has opened itself, and the working class movement, to huge political blows from a capitalist party and the ruling class.
Furthermore, this process is not nearly finished. The aim of the SDP and Liberals is not particularly an SDP- Liberal government after the next election. Both they and the ruling class calculate that no single party and in particular, no single party of the capitalist class, is strong enough to govern Britain by itself against the present labour movement. Without a fundamental change in the political system, an SDP- Liberal government would be just another capitalist administration. Its popularity would wane rapidly, leaving a potentially leftwing Labour Party to rally the the grounds of 'keeping out the
Such a government would of course be a catastrophe for the Labour movement. The Labour Party would have to take the chief responsibilities for policing the austerity policies that such a government would be based on and its vote would drop even below its present historically low levels.
It is precisely such a Labour-SDP coalition government, however, that is the sole political perspective of core sections of the Labour bureaucracy. Ex-party leader Callaghan has already publicly floated the idea. It is in fact the policy of a powerful wing within the trade-union bureaucracy--that of the Duffy-Boyd leadership of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (AUEW) and Frank Chapple of the Electricians
Union (EPTU). Others will doubtless be won over in due course. Naturally, they will declare their distaste for the 'traitors' of the SDP, but explain that at all costs the Tories and Thatcher must be kept out of government.
Whether the bourgeoisie itself will opt for such a government depends on a whole series of questions that are not at all decided yet. This could be an extremely useful option if there is an increase in working-class struggles, and if a direct alliance with the bureaucracy seems useful to halt them. But who the bourgeoisie will favour to form the next government also depends on a whole series of international, economic, and other political questions which are not yet answered. It depends on the working class and not just the bourgeoisie. Furthermore, before this type of government could emerge as a credible possibility, it would take something like a civil war in the Labour Party. So it is not immediately on the agenda and will not be until other political goals are achieved.
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However, even before the ruling class has to decide what governmental option it wants to fight at, and after, the next election, creation of the SDP gives the ruling class a
It is not the Tory Party but the
SDP that is today the central tactical political instrument for the bourgeoisie. The SDP is its chief tool for altering the relationships of forces in has no workable answer whatever. The positive part of the situation, the politicisation of an important minority of the working class under the impact of the crisis, must be the subject of
• whole number of important advantages in the workers movement, strengthIt gives the Labour and trade union bureaucracy a powerful boost in its attempt to swing the labour movement to the right. The SDP's electoral gains are used to justily a majot witch-hunt against the left inside the Labour Party, while policies are moved once again further to the right under guise of 'avoiding extremism'. If the next government should be an SDP- Liberal, SDP-LiberalTory, or even purely Tory government, then right wing Labour policies will be 'justified' on the basis of the need to 'detach the SDP from the Tories', or to 'prevent the SDP forming a coalition with the Tories that will keep them in power' etc. By Sergio Rodriquez eningthe power of the labour bureaucracy in general and its most rightwing sections in particular, and finally for confronting and defeating the entire working class. Quite independently of who forms the next government--which is an entirely secondary question in comparison with the longer-term perspective--the cornerstone of the bourgeoisie's political policy is the SDP and the introduction of proportional representation to consolidate this party's existence. This is a basic fact which must be grasped in British politics today.
To this attack, which will finally reshape British politics from top to bottom, the Labour bureaucracy another article. 1. The most influential collection of such essentially one-sided leftwing assessments is The Forward March of Labour Halted?, London. Verso, 1981.
For an analysis of this see J. Ross J. Ross, "British Politics in the 1980g'' in International Vol. 6, no. 1 3. See A, Freeman, Benn and British Socialism in International Vol. 6, no. 3 the