Reform without change? HOW, when the world is changing, can we ensure that our power and privileges stay the same? This was the question placed at the centre of the recent crop of elections in Western Europe by the political and economic establishments there. In all four countries where elections took place - legislative elections in Britain and Italy and regional elections in
France and Germany - the votes took place against a background of talk about, on the one hand, constitutional and electoral reform, and on the other about strong government, realignment around a new centre or coalitions, all conceived as means of ensuring that any reforms leave the existing power structures intact.
At the same time there was a striking absence of any discussion of the big questions, such as the collapse of the economies of Eastern Europe, chronic long-term unemployment in the West, the continuing economic and social disaster in much of the Third World, or the menace to long term economic prospects posed by growing trade frictions between the US,
Europe and Japan. Unfortunately the parties based on the labour movement, mesmerized by the prospect of entry into, or the hope of holding onto government office, have opted to present themselves as a reliable partner in
"preserving stability" thus becoming complicit in the stifling of fundamental debate.
Part of the price paid for the left's dereliction of duty has been the alarming rise of far right forces offering xenophobic anti-establishment rhetoric.
In this and subsequent issues of International Viewpoint we will be publishing articles looking at the crisis of Europe's existing institutions and raising the debate on possible strategies for the left.*
BRITAIN The debacle of new realiem NINE years of right-wing reform of the British Labour Party under the leadership of Neil Kinnock ended in spectacular defeat in the elections of April 9, 1992. An election which Labour could clearly have won ended with the Tories retaining an absolute majority of 21 seats. This result was a shock to everyone - the Tories themselves had thought they were staring defeat in the face. During the pre-election period the stock market fell dramatically; after the result the speculators literally danced for joy.
ALAN THORNETT — April 15, A S before, the Tories did not win
La majority of the votes, although their share of the vote held up. As before, 58% of the electorate voted against them, but, as before, the unjust first-past-the-post electoral system gave the Tories power.
This result is a disaster for the working class and has implications for the left throughout Europe. The Tory government which had smashed up the unions, increased social divisions, introduced massive privatizations, reduced education and the health service to a shambles, deepened the economic crisis and put millions out of work, has been returned to office. They will claim they have a new mandate to continue their policies.
For millions of people, the election result is not just a matter of political interest; it will have an immediate effect on their job prospects. More schools and hospitals will opt out of the state system and become businesses while rail and coal mining face privatization.
This was an absolutely crucial election. Strike struggles in Britain are at a 100 year low and the loss of confidence has made the Tory anti-union laws extremely effective. This has been reinforced by the depth of the recession and the sharp rise in unemployment. Under these conditions, even the election of a right-wing Labour government, or put the other way round, the defeat of the Tories, would have raised morale and combativity.
However, it was precisely the right wing policies of Kinnockism that deprived Labour of victory. Everything they have done to the labour movement over the past nine years, from witch-hunting militants to supporting the employers and the government, was done in the name of winning this election. The last election in 1987, they clai-
1992 med, was just a stepping stone to victory in this one. They have failed
The reason for the result that confounded the opinion polls must be sought in the last few days of the campaign. There was a late swing to the Tories and a polarization between the two main parties that squeezed the Liberal Democrats and produced a huge turnout of voters. With the help of the rightwing press, the Tories succeeded in bringing about an anti-Labour mobilization by sections of the middle class and better off workers.
But this is only part of the answer. Why were they able to get this last minute swing? Why was Labour's vote so brittle? And why was the right-wing press so effective?
Labour's policy contradictions
The answer to such questions lies in the programme on which Labour stood. After years of adapting to the Tories they had no distinct policies on which to fight the election. In many areas of policy it was hard to tell the difference and where there were differences they were very small.
Worse than that, their policies were shot through with contradictions. They proposed some minimal development of public services in health and education but could not explain where the money would come from since they were neither prepared to significantly increase taxation of the rich nor cut arms expenditure - the obvious sources of the money.
They were equally incoherent on the economy. They claimed they could get Britain out of recession but could not say how. They claimed there would be no increase in interest rates, but proclaimed their loyalty to the European Exchange Rate Mechanism 3 (ERM), which would, precisely, force them
April 27, 1992 •
BRITAIN to raise interest rates to maintain the level of sterling. They claimed they would promote investment in industry out of growth in the economy, but could not explain how or when such growth would come about.
They were in confusion about electoral reform - they brought the issue up late in the campaign to attract votes from the Liberal Democrats, but when Kinnock was asked to explain his own views on the subject on television he refused to answer. In another TV interview, Kinnock could not explain why he supported unilateral nuclear disarmament when the USSR still existed and was in favour of keeping nuclear arms now that the "Soviet threat" had collapsed.
It was inconsistencies such as these that in the end gave credibility to the anti-Labour campaign of the rightwing press. They were not the result merely of faulty campaign presentation but were built into the fabric of Kinnockism and "new realism", which had swept the labour movement for the past ten years.
Sharp decline in activism
The role of the Labour and trade union leaders in helping defeat a series of major strikes in the 1980s, most importantly the miners' strike of 1984/85, led to a catastrophic weakening of the whole movement and allowed the introduction of far-reaching and
Nationalist loses in West Belfast BITTER disappointment hung over the Falls Road in the heart of nationalist West Belfast as the election results were announced. Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, lost the Westminster parliamentary seat he had held since 1983 as result of tactical voting by pro-Unionists in the Shankill district of the constituency. The seat was taken by Joe Hendron of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) on his third attempt.
Sinn Fein were fighting the election in difficult circumstances. Candidates were presented in 14 of the 17 constituencies in the North of Ireland. Richard McAuley, Sinn Fein press officer, explained that they were not standing in the other three not because they lacked members but because it was too dangerous to be known as a Sinn Fein supporter — at least one Sinn Fein election worker was killed during the campaign.
The refusal by the British and Irish governments and the other political parties to involve Sinn Fein in the talks taking place under the Anglo-Irish agreement - and the desire to see an end to the war which has gone on for over twenty years — mean that there is pressure among nationalists to vote SDLP because it is involved in the "peace process". This was reflected in the results throughout the Six Counties where a 30,000 rise in total votes for the SDLP pushed Sinn Fein into third place, bringing down its overall percentage from 11.7% to 10%. The only change in the overall result was the SDLP increase from 3 to 4 MPs with the Unionists holding the remaining 13.
The Sinn Fein campaign focused on the demand for "an inclusive dialogue leading to peace" and the record of Gerry Adams and the Sinn Fein councillors throughout the North as good community representatives. But without a mobilization of the nationalist community such as we saw during the hunger strikes the likelihood is that the defeat suffered by the loss of Adams' seat, despite the maintaining of the vote in absolute terms, will not be easy to reverse. - Philomena O'Malley* now me marc freng and effective anti-union laws.
Strikes were presented by the new realists as an electoral liability, although in fact Labour's support was at its strongest in the 80s during strike waves. The net result has been a loss of four million members by the unions and a sharp decline in activism. Tens of thousands of activists have left the Labour Party.
Despite all this, the working class has remained capable of struggle, as was shown by the anti-poll tax movement which brought down Thatcher. However even here the Labour leaders opposed the non-payment movement. Now there are millions of young people, and the poorest and most oppressed, who have never been in a union and do not see them as relevant to their problems.
All this is not to say that Labour cannot win. They could have won this election. But for this it would have been necessary to go on the offensive with a programme which was coherent, inspired their supporters and ripped the Tories apart.
The swing to Labour was biggest in areas which have most felt the impact of the recession and specific Tory attacks. Tory marginals fell to Labour in the North West, the Midlands and London, all areas hard hit by recession, unemployment, poverty and cutbacks in services.
Labour victories in Birmingham North4 workers faced with the destruction of their fields and Selly Oak showed Longbridge car industry turning back to Labour. In the mining areas of Nottingham, the savaging of the local coal industry enabled Labour to make gains.
In most areas where there were strong lett wing campaigns, Labour candidates did better. Leading left-wingers Jeremy Corbyn, Dennis Skinner and Bernie Grant all did much better than average.
At the same time, Terry Fields and Dave Nellist, former Labour MPs expelled from the party for their association with the leftwing Militant Tendency got respectable votes - 5,952 for the former and 10,551 for the latter. Scottish Militant Labour candidate Tommy Sheridan got over 6,000 votes in a constituency in Glasgow, pushing the Tory into third place.
As everyone said, the Tories conducted a poor campaign. They were defending an appalling record in the middle of a recession. But they were able nonetheless to attack Labour, exploiting the contradictions in their platform. They raised their own policies starkly and polarized the vote. They even did this on the issue of Scotland where they stridently denounced both independence or devolution. The result was a polarized vote, a mobilization of loyalists and a slight swing to the Tories, despite the massive anti-Tory feeling sweeping Scotland in recent months, which still exists.
Now they are back in office with a far worse economic situation than that which confronted Thatcher in 1987, a crisis which they intend to resolve at the expense of the working class.
Inside the Labour movement as a whole, and especially in the new realist dominated trade unions, the immediate reaction is likely to be one of scepticism and demoralization. Workers under attack will most likely feel that the balance of forces in society has moved against them once more.
How things will develop in the long-term is less clear. The employers' offensive at the level of the workplace has been gathering pace over the past two years. Participatory techniques linked to de-unionization, loss of bargaining rights and the introduction of individual contracts are spreading rapidly throughout industry. Working conditions are deteriorating, the pace of work speeded up and union rights lost.
The reaction to this will come, but with the Tories re-elected it will come under the most difficult conditions. There is now, however, no other way. The argument of waiting for a Labour government is no longer credible; those under immediate attack will have to fight or go under. Crunch approaching in Scotland
The most immediate repercussions of the election, however, will be in Scotland, where the political situation is completely different from in England and Wales. In Scotland the mass of the working class
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voted Labour hoping for a devolved Scottish parliament as Labour had promised, as a move towards independence.
Now there is bitter resentment as they see they are going to be ruled by a London- based Tory government which few in Scotland support. The likely result will be increased support for independence and for the Scottish National Party. A massive demonstration in Edinburgh within 48 hours of the declaration of the results showed that the struggle of the Scottish people for self- determination will now be at the centre of
British political life.
Leaders turn towards coalition
The defeat has thrown the Labour leadership into profound crisis. Three days after the election Neil Kinnock resigned as leader. Both contenders for the post, John
Smith and Brian Gould, are at least as rightwing as Kinnock. Indeed, John Smith, the likely winner, is even further to the right.
The conclusion he will draw is that Kinnock's rightward move did not go far enough. Support may be given to electoral reform, but as a move towards coalition politics rather than in order to make the system fairer.
It is already being argued that sociological changes make it impossible for Labour ever to win again, and that the working class is too small a base to build a popular majority. This argument will undoubtedly find its echoes on the left; it should be resisted.
From a purely factual point of view it is untrue. Britain remains an overwhelmingly working class country; more than that, recent surveys show that at least 80% regard themselves as working class. In some inner-city constituencies there has been an influx of "yuppified" middle class voters and high house prices have pushed out the traditional working class. But such local changes had only a marginal effect on the overall outcome of the election.
The left will have to reject such arguments and the pro-coalition orientation they underpin and set their own agenda. It is not yet clear whether the left-wing Campaign Group of MPs will stand candidates for the leadership.
Such a challenge could play a very important role in rallying the movement and putting leftwing arguments at the centre of the debate on the defeat.
However any candidate has to have the endorsement of 55 MPs which would be very difficult for the Campaign Group to achieve. While the issue of electoral reform has to be addressed, this should be as part of a radical programme of demands for a future election which includes opposition to coalition politics. *