Though Cowards Flinch

During an interview, in a recent book by Rowenna Davis, Jon Cruddas MP describes himself as a socialist, but not a progressive. This chimes with the recent set of political ideas, called blue labour for brevity, which notes that not everything to do with change is necessarily a force for good.

Indeed, when we imagine a world where far right politics are at large, we can all concur that change is not necessarily good. In the early nineties, Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, described the party’s first “modernising” (which seems to mean anyone afraid of having an anti-Semitic image) leader John Bean as a true nationalist “always part of the progressive movement drivng [sic] nationalism forward to electoral success”.

When it comes to the BNP, some on the conservative right (such as Dan Hannan) will always try to suggest that given their protectionist economic views, they are left wing. John Bean, who Nick Griffin looks up to every bit as much as Le Pen in France, described himself as an anti-capitalist and in response to the reactionary BNP leader John Tyndall’s anti-Semitism, said that to blame the Jews for the world’s problems was to forget “gentile involvement” in “the drive for world government”.

When someone like Hannan suggested that the BNP were on the far left economically, the left itself would counter that by saying protectionism isn’t necessarily left wing, and neither is anti-capitalism, for that matter. In fact what define the fascist BNP as right wing are their appeals to a conservative imagery, and such reactionary categories as nationhood, race and family. But though many on the left rightly champion alternative family lifestyles, multi-ethnicity and internationalism, few are pro-actively against those former categories. Moreover, non-progressive socialism actively campaigns for more emphasis on family, flag and faith.

Serious question: Blue Labour is a million miles away from the crass, fascism of the BNP, but if those things that once defined the BNP as right wing can be incorporated into non-progressive socialist politics, what does this do to the political category “far right”?

Both Ed and David Miliband have begun their rhetorical repositioning for the leadership campaign. The by-line of the Guardian article on Brother David reads, “Former foreign secretary woos the party’s left…” but the reality is probably more accurately exposed by Paul Waugh’s summary over at the Evening Standard. David Miliband has set himself up as the ‘clean hands’ candidate – nodding to the past, nodding to the thousands of activists who had to watch dumbfounded as Labour waddled from mistake to disaster and so on.

Meanwhile, brother Ed has turned to rather naive-sounding guff about New Labour not having a sense of mission, but falling into the mindset of ‘technocratic caretakers’. His pitch is that Labour needs to hook up once more with the core vote, but that New Labour ‘asked the hard questions’ – that something can be saved. Some people seem to think that Brother Ed is appealing to the working class, and he picks out ‘real world’ examples, saying that we should prefer the realities visited upon people instead of abstract economics.

The harsh reality, of course, is both were cabinet ministers (one under Blair and both under Brown). They aren’t reformers, and a latter-day conversion towards Labour members having a greater say is opportunistic in the extreme. When we see concrete proposals on this ‘having a say’ bit, I’ll be sure to return to it, but the ‘feel’ of their speech is that there may be institutional adjustments and gasping policy announcements and lots of talk about ‘renewal’ but that very little will change. This is virtually inevitable if Brothers Ed and David don’t move beyond Blair – and I don’t think they will or can even imagine how to.

Just as interesting as those who have thrown their hat into the ring is who has not.

Jon Cruddas has ruled himself out of the leadership race, which probably removes the only chance the soft Left ever had at influencing the thing, beyond gushing pronouncements in favour of Ed Miliband, who is viewed as the more Left of the two brothers. Wannabe softie, James Purnell, is pushing the same line as Cruddas at the moment; re-connect with the vote (among C2 voters), move slowly, re-energise the Party. This seems to be standard for the so-called centre Left; thus too pressure group Compass’ post-election statement. Evidently Neal Lawson and the rest of that self-admiring cohort don’t think they’ve done enough damage with their urgings to vote ‘tactically’ for the Lib-Dems, to keep out the Tories.

All of this talk about renewal and reconnecting etc, from the centre-Left, is meant to fill the bloody great hole where actually doing something fits in. Around the world, indefinite strikes have been pronounced – here at home, workers (often against the wishes of their trades unions) are gearing up to fight the incoming cuts, whether from private business or the public sector…and meanwhile the lions of centre-left socialism are doing little but mewl in the press. Which is exactly what I and others expect, so that at least is gratifying.

A centre-Left candidate may yet emerge, of course. In the meantime, those who have been casting rather silly aspersions at John McDonnell’s potential candidacy find themselves in the unenviable position of wanting ‘a clean break from the policies and practices of the New Labour era’ while opposing the only leadership candidate likely to achieve it. Former MP Bob Clay’s article on the subject departs from reality entirely, with a mention of Michael Meacher as a more likely candidate (Meacher got three endorsements and crumbled at the 2007 debate).

McDonnell ran in 2007 and though he failed to get enough endorsements, his campaign was like a fresh wind through the often sterile internal debates of the Labour Party. Even a Cruddas candidacy, though more likely to gain enough nominations, would not necessarily provoke this – Cruddas is, after all, basically a Blairite, and support for him would still place the  soft Left in contradiction to themselves – wanting a change from New Labour, a return to an older form of social democracy, while supporting a candidate who wants nothing of the sort. We’re spared making this argument because Cruddas isn’t running. His own reasoning (if such banalities deserve the title) can be read here.

This makes the attacks against John McDonnell seem all the more surreal. Without an alternative candidate of even basic Left credentials, McDonnell is the natural choice for any socialist remaining in Labour. What all the arguments against McDonnell clearly miss, of course, is the chance that a McDonnell candidacy gives the LRC – a group based around members, union branches and CLPs – to get a foothold in Labour around the country, to kick off real debate and to set up mini-groups of supporters who can deepen and broaden LRC support by campaign activities. Only this long game offers a glimmer of hope for the Left; otherwise they should get out of Labour and stay out.

Key among campaign priorities before the election demanded the full attention of every activist was the People’s Charter, which is solid Left stuff that appeals far beyond the narrow confines of the Labour Representation Committee. This is the sort of thing which could get off the ground, certainly in time for conference in the autumn. What plenty of the nay-sayers also neglect to note is that there are several McDonnell supporters running as the Left candidates for leadership of different unions. Paul Holmes, interviewed here, is a key one, over at UNISON.

This is a chance to energise and mobilise the whole Left – both its union and party elements. Meanwhile those people saying that John McDonnell is hostile to or likely to alienate the unions because of his opposition to union bureaucratisation need to catch themselves on. McDonnell is the only candidate who, as leader, would have any intention of mobilising parliamentary and extra-parliamentary elements of the movement to slam dunk the Trade Union Freedom Bill.

Whatever platitudes we get from the soft-Left, that fear of extra-parliamentary action will always keep them bottled up – that is why we need a candidate like McDonnell. The other regular rebels – like Jeremy Corbyn – will likely fall into line behind McDonnell, especially with the unanimous backing from the LRC’s National Committee put firmly on record, in the aftermath of Saturday’s conference, sponsored by the LRC, whatever remains of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy and various unions.

If McDonnell doesn’t win, then Labourites face years of a Tory government whose best friends are the Labour leadership, as under Thatcher and Kinnock, when everything possible was done by the Labour heirarchy to smother mass activism and militancy, in fear that it could damage the credentials of the Party to lead ‘the nation’. Then, I guarantee you, that space outside of Labour for a Left party, which people are saying has closed or is closing, will be blasted wide open in no time at all. Tomorrow’s article concerns just that.

Forty Labour MPs have put their name to a document which lays out five key areas in which the government is deviating from the wishes of most Labour members, and calls for the restoration of party democracy as a means to ensuring that the voice of its members is heard in future. The signatories range from the MPs of the LRC and the Campaign Group to Compass and a couple of unaffiliated people added in.

The key recommendations are as follows:

A. The recession should be tackled not with cuts in essential public spending, but by massive public investment in house-building, infrastructure and the de-carbonisation of the economy.

B. Banks should be split up with their casino investment arms hived off. Publicly-owned retail banks should be required to meet new social and community objectives and support manufacturing, with lending to businesses and homeowners restored to 2007 levels. Pay and bonuses should be tightly regulated.

C. A clean break must be made with market fundamentalism – deregulation and privatisation. Public provision should be expanded – in health care, education, housing, pensions, energy and transport. Royal Mail must remain wholly in the public sector.

D. In the face of huge and unacceptable growth of inequality, a big redistribution programme must swing resources away from the rich to provide sizeable increases in pensions, the minimum wage, the lowest benefit levels, and to fund job creation and improved public services. Union rights must be restored – it is in economic crisis that workers are most in need of that protection.

E. To achieve the 80% carbon emission reduction target by 2050, renewable sources of energy should be promoted on a far bigger scale, industry (including airlines) should be required to reduce its climate change emissions by at least 3% per year, household carbon allowances should be introduced, and the UK targets should be fully met by domestic action and not by carbon offsetting abroad.

We also believe that if Labour is to revive its membership in numbers and activity, it must fully restore its internal democratic procedures so that the voice of its individual and affiliated members is listened to and taken account of. This process has begun with the adoption of all-member voting rights for the National Policy Forum.

But we believe that several further reforms are needed, in particular to restore to the elected NEC full supervision and control over the party’s operation and finances, to introduce a charter of members’ rights and a Party Ombudsman to enforce them, and to renew for all party employees the core civil service values of impartiality, integrity, honesty and objectivity in the development of party policy and selection of party candidates.

I broadly agree with all of this, though it’s easy to quibble over language. It’s easier still to say that it doesn’t go nearly far enough. The type of state-led banking sector advocated by B, when tied to the increase in state-operated enterprises, is almost guaranteed to go disastrously wrong – taking the UK back to China c1980, where loans were used, via bureaucratic planning, to ‘support community objectives and support manufacturing’ such as the agricultural communes and heavy industry in the northern rustbelt. These were the least efficient parts of the Chinese economy.

Let’s be absolutely clear; there is nothing here which directly and finally challenges capitalism. However, there’s no point calling for the maximum programme when one has to fight even for the minimum programme to get a hearing, so I’m content with what is said, particularly about wealth redistribution and the restoration of trades union rights. These two things alone would go a long way towards strengthening the labour movement and provide the means to halt and reverse the fragmentation of working class power.

Reorganising how finance capital works in the UK involves reaching out to other labour movements internationally, so breaking up banks and attempting to impose a new settlement (think of it as Bretton-Woods II perhaps, though I’m not a Keynesian or neo-Keynesian) would have benefits in terms of providing impetus towards the construction of a network of globally planned, democratic, interdependent economies the premise of which is not the accumulation of wealth by the individual and its transformation into structural advantage for the individual.

What concerns me most about this document, as fabulous as it is to see Labour figures who have previously attacked each other lining up behind it, is that I think it is essentially hollow. What happens when it is ignored? This is something these forty MPs need to sit down and work out with each other, as representatives of whatever passes for the Labour Left these days. They need to get their CLPs involved with the discussion, and various Labour-orientated membership based groups like the LRC, Compass and so on.

If the government ignores the document entirely, and carries on its merry way, and no response is forthcoming from ‘the Left’ (however broad), especially one geared towards actually creating a coherent plan for government on the basis of these tenets, then it sends a very bad signal to the Labour activists and politically interested Labour voters on the Left.

In those circumstances it would instead provide a barometer of the ability of the government to use the Left as a figleaf for its less popular policies, like privatisation, because Gordon Brown et al are safe in the knowledge that on the doorstep the key line for activists is, “I know they voted for that, but us members didn’t support it. Plenty of Labour MPs didn’t support it. Our local guys didn’t support it.”

Wording about a members’ charter, and an ombudsman to enforce them, hides from the core problems; declining numbers of activists, the inability of the membership to rein in the Parliamentary Labour Party, the ability of the union leadership to throw their New Labour cronies a rope every single National Conference through rigidly whipped delegates (and as a side note, the impotence of conference anyway), the damage that Labour in government does to the reputation of the Party and how this is only even partially salvaged by the continuing unpopularity of the Tories.

Simply put, I’d have signed the document too, if it was put in front of me – but a signature on a piece of paper doesn’t mean anything. Building associative links between CLPs and the internal Left-wing campaigning organisations can flesh it out, so I wait with baited breath to see Step 2.

See also A Very Public Sociologist for another Labour outsider’s take.

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