An Overview of British Labour
In the run-up to the 1979 General Election, the Financial Times asked why anyone would vote for the Tories when the Labour Prime Minister, James Callaghan, was leading “as good a conservative government as we are likely to get”. A critic from the Left might say much the same about Gordon Brown. Callaghan had abandoned Labour’s traditional economic strategy and adopted the very monetarist doctrine which the Tory Party would later unleash to devastating effect. Brown, meanwhile, alongside maintaining the Government’s commitment to deregulation and privatization, has also emphatically pushed the line of maintaining economic stability – that is, keeping public sector wages down and the minimum wage to below even the European Decency Threshold (supported by the Government’s own Low Pay Unit) of two-thirds of median earnings while doing nothing to, say, stop corporate executives and the City of London from dishing out billions of pounds in annual bonuses or wealthy corporations from exploiting tax loopholes and our laissez-faire approach to financial regulation.
Since 1997, Labour has always come under criticism for its modest achievements and, more damagingly, its modest goals. Traditionally the Labour Party has been led by similarly cautious men, unwilling to make the case for greater social change. Indeed, the charge has been levelled against the leaders of New Labour that they are only ever really bold when confronting their own supporters in the Labour Party and the trade unions, rolling back the achievements of previous Labour Govenrments, or bending this country to the will of the Bush administration in the US. And while Brown has been confident in welcoming Tory MPs to the Parliamentary Party or reducing union influence at the Labour Party Conference, he has not taken the opportunity to seize control of the policy agenda for the wider democratic Left. Mainstream debate has degenerated even further into a managerial tiff over the details, rather than the broad sweep, of public policy.
Meanwhile, levels of trade union membership, union density in the workplace, strike action etc. remain at historically low levels. Those industrial disputes which do survive the hurdles which British employment legislation presents (below even the rudimentary standards of the International Labour Organisation), remain isolated from the wider labour movement and have been unsuccessful in halting the effective disenfranchisement of the working class. Trade union membership has halved since 1979 to barely 6.5 million members, disproportionately found in the public sector. The current Labour leadership, arguably as a direct consequence of this decline in the industrial and political strength of the unions, has demonstrated that it is unwilling to intervene in the economy beyond the narrow confines of fiscal policy, holding back public expenditure (whether in the Health Service or public sector wages) in order to stave off further interest rate rises.
The current Prime Minister has no personal mandate, either from his Party or the country. Undoubtedly the struggle to win a fourth term in office for Labour will consume, rightly, the leaders of the Government and the trade unions over the next year. But a reshuffle in the names and faces of the powerful will do nothing, in itself, to reverse the obscene inequalities in wealth and power which exist inside Britain, and furthermore between the few rich nations and the destitute majority. The task of the Left must be to make the case for a dramatic assault on the injustices and inequities of this world. In the 1940s, a war-devastated and poverty-stricken country built a Welfare State to tackle the five Giant Evils of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness, uniting progressive opinion behind an affirmation by the State of the primacy of the public need. The Britain of today is a different country in its culture, wealth, economy. But the socialist case for a transformation in the way we live remains as strong as ever, and more possible than before. It can be done.
Well, where to begin?
Firstly, he’s not a monetarist – which measure of money supply is he targeting? You mean something else but the sloppiness is a sign of a poor argument.
Actually, public sector wages haven’t been kept down. For the fiest time in history they have been measured as being higher, on average, than private sector wages.
There was no minimum wage before Labour came into office and can you name which countries have a wage that is higher than the “decency threshold” which is, in any case, a merely arbitrary figure. Perhaps you would also like to say what the level of unemployment in those countries is and ask if the two are related?
UI am not sure why you regard low trade union membership as the fault of the government? Have you ever tried to recruit? The government is never mentioned to me as an issue, the cultural irrelevance of a trade unionism that seems divorced from people’s real concerns (and I means seems – it’s not my argument) is the real issue.
Incidentally, having been through the 1980s, I think the huge fall in unemployment since 1997 is an absolutely massive achievement that has fundamentally transformed the lives of many working class people for the better.
I was unaware the working class had been disenfranchised? Where have they lost the vote? Perhaps, again, you mean something else and are engaging in a sloppy argument?
Has anyone ever suggested that a reshuffle will eliminate poverty?
On the minimum wage, arguably a minimum wage is not a progressive measure but rather what one settles for in the absence of powerful unions that will go to the wire for their workers. For that reason Sweden doesn’t (or didn’t last time I looked) have a minimum wage.
On trade unions, speaking as a trade unionist – current member of the NUT, formerly a member of USDAW for about five years…politics is directly related to trades unionism. The reason the unions aren’t popular is not because they fight the wrong battles but because they lose the important ones. Most workers I’ve ever talked to don’t want to be part of a union because they don’t think a union will do anything. That’s as much the fault of Labour leadership as it is the spinelessness of the union leadership.
Finally, all this talk of sloppy argument is mildly offensive and there’s no call for it. If we want to talk technically about things like disfranchisement, we should remember that the Soviet Union had one of the most democratic constitutions in the world when it was written. Did it work as it said it would on paper? Did it hell. The point is this; not everything does what it says on the tin. People can have the vote whilst being disfranchised – and you clearly know that this is what Dan was driving at. A request for elaboration would be sufficient, no?
Dave.
Adrian,
Well firstly, I didn’t call Brown a monetarist – I was referring to Callaghan, who did presage the adoption of monetarist doctrine by Thatcher before his defeat. The abandonment of monetarism in the early 1980s, after merely one recession and a fifth of manufacturing destroyed, did not alter the submission of the political classes to the dominance of the City over the rest of the British economy though, which was its basic aim.
As to the rest, of course I accept that public sector wages have generally risen faster than in the private sector over the last decade – although incidentally, such a relative statistic could surely be affected by an increase in low-waged work in the private sector? The Government has been extraordinarily enthusiastic in shovelling benefit claimants and the like into employment. Nevertheless, the situation now is that Brown IS keeping wages below inflation, regardless of whether the RPI of the CPI is used to measure it. Are you saying that because Labour initially helped to remedy the exploitation of public servants under the Tories, we should ignore the Government’s current policies? Retrenchment in the public sector would be more palatable if it were not for the reckless tolerance we have towards pay rises for the super-rich.
The minimum wage is great. My family has personally benefited from it. Doesn’t change the fact it’s too low – regardless of other countries’ policies, which is neither here nor there. Although I did enjoy your use of the exact same argument used by the likes of the Tories and the CBI – that a National Minimum Wage would cost jobs – to oppose increasing. Again, the problem of low pay must be considered in context – I readily accept compromises between different economic needs must be made; the question is, why must it always be those most in need who must do without?
I never said alleged low trade union membership was “the fault of the government”. Not once. The word “sloppy” comes to mind. I was mentioning various problems besetting unions in this country, one of which is the restrictive employment laws.
On the question of where fault lies on the low levels of union membership, the decline of heavy industry aside, the most common explanation I have heard from people over why they do not join a union, apart from a general antipathy to the media-stereotype of union bullies, is they don’t feel that a union can improve their conditions. And I believe the anti-union laws, which hamper union activity, are a big part of that impression.
Onto unemployment, again, fantastic. The Isle of Wight, where I live, enjoys official levels of unemployment below the national average – although the number of workless people hiding on incapacity benefit, or simply not collecting Job Seeker’s Allowance, would most likely increase that level. But again, I didn’t argue that Labour hadn’t reduced unemployment…
As to disenfranchisement, it’s interesting that you choose to split hairs over terminology without addressing my general argument. Perhaps you are engaging in a pointless pissing contest?
Dan,
Fair point about monetarism. I misread your piece. And so i apologise for that.
The rest of your rebuttal is rubbish though.
Your argument on the minimum wage reminds me of the trip talked by Redwood about tax cuts increasing tax revenue – so why not abolish tax and raise infinite amounts.
Are you really saying that the higher the level of the minimum wage the more jobs will be created?
Um. No? No I’m not…
I thought I was rather clear. You argued that increasing the minimum wage to a higher level would be disastrous for unemployment. The same was said about its creation, whereas in reality the most that happened was a slowdown in the creation of new jobs.
Moreover, as I thought I explained, I openly accept there may be trade-offs to certain policies. But I also believe that increasing the level of employment is only worth it if people can live on their wages.
Say raising the minimum wage increased unemployment dramatically (although our current official rate of 1.5 million or so out of work is hardly a source of pride). I think that Britain is rich enough to both increase the wages of those in low-paying jobs, and to maintain the unemployed at a reasonable level. The question is one of priorities. Spend billions on Trident and Iraq or on ending poverty and exclusion?
So, actually you accept that the argument that too high a minimum wage leads to higher unemployment. So, you are also using the exact same argument used by the likes of the Tories and the CBI – that a National Minimum Wage would cost jobs – to oppose increasing
That would be a nice point, if you completely disregard the rest of my argument – that the question of the minimum wage, or indeed any other policy, has to be considered in the wider context of society, and the compromises and priorities that form the basis of any socialist government.