THE TORIES drubbing in the Euro-elections showed the depths of their unpopularity; sections of the middle class and better off sections of the working class are feeling the effects of recession, the attack on the welfare state and job insecurity, and abandoning the Tories in droves. bour's victory was a victory by default, a protest vote against the government, and not a positive vote in favour of anything. There was precious little in Labour's campaign to vote for. This is Labour's Achilles Back-slapping congratulations at Walworth Road don't add up to a real conviction that Labour can win a genCrusade If Labour is going to wage a crusade to actually throw out the Tories it has to have an alternative set of policies for full employment, defence of the welfare state and trade union rights - in other words, a programme to rollback the effects of 15 year of Thatcherism.
Instead of preparing this, the Labour leadership election is preparing the opposite.
Those in power in the Labour Party are preparing to anoint Tony Blair in the hope that image and style will carry them through, and that the Tories will just remain unpopular until the general election.
Last week's televised Panorama debate between the three main candidates showed they had agreed in advance not to display any differences among themselves on policy.
The argument that there are no significant or detectable political differences between Blair, Beckett and Prescott is a very strong one - a nuance here, an inflection there. But this surface appearance is not the whole story.
Whatever the formal policy differences between them, the election of Blair - one of the key 'modernisers' in the party - would signify a political shift.
Blair had been the most explicit *about the need to break Labour's links with the unions; only last Thursday he was telling the TGWU that it would be wrong to repeal much of the Tories' anti-union legislation.
Blair most perfectly represents the trend which wants to break Labour from being a social democratic party based on the workers movement. Socialist Outlook's position is therefore for the defeat of Tony Blair.
Pitch for the left Last week Margaret Beckett made a pitch for left and trade union votes by arguing that all Tory union legislation might have to be scrapped. At a future stage Prescott could do the Sallie.
Given the transferable vote system, and the lack of any really significant political differences between Prescott and Beckett, it doesn't much matter who people vote for as their Will it be back to the future? Neither Beckett nor Prescott offered any real left wing alternative to John Smith second choice. ernisers'. first choice in the election - so long as they don't transfer to Blair as their Wing for.
As reported opposite, Socialist Outlook fought hard for a left candidate to be put up at the Socialist Campaign Group Network conference lat weekend. This resulted in Ken Livingstone's initial decision to stand.
Whether or not a left candidate • wage. stood any chance of winning was not the point; the point was to have a campaigning focus for a left alternative to the 'new realists' and 'modThis was shown to be the case. As Livingstone explains in the interview on page 6, his 'shining moment' in the media gave him air-time to publicise the case for radical policies such as cutting military spending and others. progressive taxation of the rich.
Even now, whether or not there is a candidate backed by the Socialist Campaign Group, the election in the unions and the Labour Party gives socialists the opportunity to argue the policies that Labour should be fightKey to those is defence of the welfare state; serious action against unemployment including a 35-hour week with no loss of pay; restoration of the right to strike and all other trade union rights; and a national minimum Struggles Most of all socialists should demand of all the candidates in the leadership election that they come out in support of workers in struggle.
The real challenge to the Tories' attacks is being taken up by the rail workers, by postal workers fighting privatisation, by college lecturers and Where do Prescott and Beckett, both backed by different sections of the left, and doubtless glad to have that support, stand on that question?