TONY Blair has thrown down the gauntlet. Ditching Clause Four is By Ellen Moore IN A COUNTERBLAST to the patronising and wooden 'Blair' video promoting abolition of Clause 4 comes a production by Ken Loach for the Defend Clause 4 Campaign.
This is the contemporary case for common ownership. It shows that those advocating common ownership are the modernisers, they have the modern answers to the economic and social chaos caused by the free market, Loach told Socialist Outlook.
Produced in just over two weeks with BECTU members donating their time free to ensure a quality product the video is now available from the Campaign.
A collective discussion involving young people from an East End youth projett, a Welsh miner who remembers coal nationalisation, a victimised miner sacked after the 1984-85 strike, a young nurse from Guy's Hospital, Alan Pottage from the RMT NEC. Doreen Cameron from NATHE and Seumas Milne among others.
Each of them addresses the real experiences of life in 1990s his big power play. He is attempting a profound shift in the politics of the Labour Party.
It is a key division in the labour movement. Blair has Britain and present the arguments for common ownership as a modern solution. Tim Lang and Ben Fine, economists debate the relevance of common ownership to protectino the environment, addressing Issues of equality and delivering full employment.
Finally a financial lournalist from the Sunday Telegraph derides the idea that business is interested in social justice, that it is compatible with the market or that changing Clause 4 will have any particular effect on the way they vote.
He says 'Blair might change Clause 4, we agree with that: but It's Irrelevant. What we are primarily interested in is profit.
The video launch takes place on the same day as the Blair Roadshow in London - with the campaign raising the issue of its distribution with Walworth Road.
As one of Ken's colleagues al Parallax films said, Perhaps Blair and the Labour Part would like to distribute the video wnict/las been made as a contribution to the "full and trank" discussion.* • Video available £5 (Cheques to 'Defend Clause 4'), 2 Hudderstield Rd, Barnsley $70 2LS. mobilised all the resources at his disposal - from the Walworth Road apparatus to the Guardian front page - to make the change. That's how important he thinks it is. We must approach the debate with the same seriousness.
Over the past decade the Labour Party leadership have shown themselves to be incapable of providing a coherent answer to the Tories. Kinnock and his cohorts buckled under the right-wing offensive. They had nothing to put in the place of Thatcher's cynical populist demagogy of tax-cuts, jingoism and get-rich-quick.
This ideological capitulation reflects something deeper. Reformist parties all over Europe are going through a crisis, the capitalist system is unable to deliver any reforms of significance. More than this, it is demanding austerity in every country.
The crumbs from the table have been getting smaller and fewer - now there's no sustenance left. Parties that have fed from this table are going hungry.
Baire arack on Clause Four is one of che brides? attempts to resolve this crisis.
He is trying to reverse the working class nature of the Labour Party. He wants to change its very identity. While the Party has never been a socialist party, and Clause Four is not a programme for socialism, the Clause does give voice to a completely different type of society.
Blair wants it out because it challenges capitalism. He wants to remove all reference to socialism from British politics. This is why we must defend it.
Careerist
In this he is articulating the politics of a new layer in the labour movement - a careerist management layer of charcoal-suited mobile-phone-carrying media stars who live in a small tightly-sealed world of North London café bars.
They can only advance themselves at the expense of the traditional leaders of the labour movement. This is why such big public divisions have emerged - Blair's project necessitates a break eral Secretary Tom Sawyer at its meeting on Saturday 18 February to discuss Clause 4. pression of support for Clause 4, though it took no formal vote.
Sawyer in exasperation said, shouted from the back. Blair doesn't want to change that!' with the trade union leadership's role in labour politics. This is the sub-text beneath the war of words. Thus Blair's dilemma: how to establish a party of a new type while having to rely on the support of those who are set to lose out from the changes. Dumping the trade unions is going to be a long drawn-out process. Changing the Labour Party against the wishes of the membership is going to be similarly fraught with difficulties. The stage is set for a protracted struggle in the labour movement. Already the depth of the opposition to Blair's attack indicates the strength and potential of the movement that can be built to oppose capitalist austerity, whether it's implemented by Blair or by It is vital that socialists make this battle their overriding priority in the next year.
It's the way they tell 'em THE COMMITTEE of the Northern Region UNISON Affiliated Political Fund was graced with the presence of Labour Party GenThe meeting, in the heart of Blair country, was unanimous in its ex"But Clause 4 is written in legalistic language and that's why Tony wants to change it", to which someone "So is the anti-trade union legislation - and