Meet the new boss...
Britain's Labour Party will almost certainly win the General Election on May 1st, after eighteen years of Tory government. The working class may soon face a Labour government firmly committed to deepening the austerity offensive of the Conservatives against working people. Rod Marshall says the key question is how to fight back -both now and once Labour is elected. Successive Tory governments have cut state investment in manufacturing and funded the privatisation of state run industry with revenue from north sea oil. This strategy has led to a curious series of mini boom-and-bust cycles, with the service sector as the motor force. Consumer-led booms that have centred on very narrow upper layers in society, misnamed the 'middle classes".
Margaret Thatcher was originally swept into office in 1979 promising pure monetarist economics. But although the most progressive aspects of the welfare state have been viciously attacked, and higher unemployment used as a weapon against worker militancy, public debt has actually increased massively. This is due to the increasing costs of high unemployment, the threat of combativity from the working class and the vested interests of capital in certain of the state funded apparatuses (civil service, defence etc.).
Affluent middle managers, in common with their bosses in the City (London's financial district), are suddenly very welcoming of the notion of a Labour administration. This is a state of affairs that has not been seen since the 1960. Dominant layers of the Bourgeoisie see Labour as the party now best able to manage capitalism in Britain.
While important layers of the British bourgeoisie in the 1970s favoured economic isolation from Europe, this position has now been largely reversed. The European bourgeoisie's plan for a trade bloc to protect profits and to try to find new markets is now supported by many bosses in Britain, some of whom are connected to multi-national corporations that already trade across Europe.
Traditional British industry, which the Tory governments have deliberately destroyed, is no longer the isolationist bulwark it once was. So the Tory party, dominated by a combination of neo-liberal free market advocates and nationalist xenophobes, is now decidedly out of step with the dominant views of its own capitalist class. Labour, on the other hand, has no such qualms about European Economic Union, and is much less hostile to the proposed single European currency, the Euro. New Labour
Bourgeois willingness to try a Labour government is also motivated by a rightward shift in Labour policies, reflecting both the determination of successive party leaders to make Labour a credible alternative for the upper classes, and a historic decline in the combatitivity of the working class in the 18 years since Labour was last in government.
After Labour left office in 1979, the resulting internal struggles briefly allowed an upturn in the fortunes of the Labour Left, with Tony Benn as its virtual leader in parliament. Benn was narrowly defeated in the election of Labour's Deputy Leader in 1981. Unfortunately, "Bennism" focused too much on internal Labour Party struggles. When it came to fighting the Tory offensive against key sectors of the working class, such as in the Miners strike of 1984-85, the Bennite Left played only a limited role in mobilising solidarity action.
The early and mid-1980s saw a series of working class defeats. Meanwhile, after inspiring struggles in Lambeth and Liverpool, the resistance of Labour-dominated How to vote on May 1s office. The election candidates to the left of Labour in the election allow for these issues to be raised and it is to be hoped that the election campaigns by the SLP. Socialist Party and SSA candidates will involve a broad campaign against the bourgeoisie's austerity programme. That is why socialists should back these pro-working class candidates, particularly where they have a reasonable base in the workers movement, as a vehicle for uniting working class activity during the election campaign and beyond.
None of these candidates are likely to succeed electorally but this is not the reason why they are standing and it would be wrong to argue for a vote for or against these parties on this basis. Indeed, it is crucial that these election campaigns do not conform to the electoralist politics of the pro-capitalist parties. Pressure should be put on left Labour candidates not to do so either.
The election campaigns of socialist
Britain local and municipal Councils to Government funding cuts gave way to a "dented shield"
policy of token resistance. The forlorn hope of a future Labour government increasingly became the sole salvation, in the eyes of many party members.
This "dented shield" approach only became the dominant left Labour strategy for local government after a wave of defeats of workers in struggle, and the shift to the right in the working class that followed. This shift to the right was reflected in the Labour Party, and culminated in the massive defeat of the
Benn-Heffer ticket for the Labour leadership in 1987.
This signalled the defeat of left-reformist socialism as a serious alternative to rightist social democracy within the Labour Party. In many respects the Labour Party reverted back to its normal, moderate, pre-1979 state. But the bosses still did not favour the Labour Party for government when it came to the 1987 election. On the surface, this "back to normal' phase lasted until the party's third successive defeat at the Polls in 1992. Under the surface, Labour Party policy continued to shift gradually rightwards.
During the Poll Tax' struggle, the Bennite Labour Left once again showed themselves to be ineffective mobilisers, and the struggle candidates both inside and outside of the Labour Party should be the beginning, along with the March for Social Justice and European Marches, of a broad coalition of workers and the oppressed that is fighting the pro-capitalist consensus of Labour and the Tories.
Once Labour is in government there is a real prospect that this movement can grow and become much more significant and this is the main reason why workers in Britain should look forward to the Tories being booted out of government on May 1st. May Day 1997 in Britain will hopefully mark the start of what will become, in time, a new stage of worker militancy - what is crucial is that the left in the unions and the social movements unite now to make sure that this happens. * The author is a member of the Editorial Board of Socialist Outlook, published monthly by British supporters of the Fourth International. He is a Senior Lecturer ne soca Sciences Division, Buckingham
April 1997 #287 7 7
The prospect, however forlorn, of better policies from Labour, has often been used as a block on working class activity. Rod Marshall argues that, with the election of Labour almost a forgone conclusion, it is time to concentrate on how to deal with Labour in
The prospect, however forlorn, of better policies from Labour, has often been used as a block on working class activity. Rod Marshall argues that, with the election of Labour almost a forgone conclusion, it is time to concentrate on how to deal with Labour in
* Britain at left candie