Unite to stop Blair's reactionary roller coaster
Blair's `honeymoon' is well and truly over, at least in one important sense. Many now realise that the programme he stood on in the election was for real, not some disguise to be discarded to reveal a government determined to redress the damage done by 18 years of Tory rule. What remains for Blair is `presentation'. The honeymoon with the media is also long over.
What remains absent of course is sustained resistance by sections of the working class to Blair's programme. While the long heroic disputes (Dockers, Magnet, Hillingdon and Critchley labels) continue and there have been protests by lone parents and disabled groups, we are a long way from a fightback by the unions to the relentless attacks on working and living conditions. By and large, the union leaders are proving Blair's most reliable supporters, despite the occasional whimper of disapproval. They still hope that the White Paper on "Rights At Work" will deliver something they can claim repays their loyalty.
Serious discontent has been shown elsewhere in the movement, however. The magnificent revolt by 61 Labour MPs in December against the cut in lone parent benefit was only disappointing in that not enough had the nerve to vote against and defeat the measure.
The news that Labour Party members, both activists who have stuck it out through hard times to see Labour elected and newer members who thought they would lend their weight (and money) to getting rid of the hated Tories, are leaving in disgust should come as no great surprise.
The rapid expulsion of Ken Coates and Hugh Kerr is an omen of things to come. They had known for some time that Blair would attempt to exclude those MEPs who are not abject loyalists as Party candidates for the Euro-election in 1999. The introduction of a system of proportional representation for the election in Britain for the first time provides him a golden opportunity, since the number of Labour MEPs is likely to fall by at least 20.
Straw has compounded this by decreeing that the election will be by the `closed list' system, allowing neither Party members nor the electorate any say in either who is on the Party list or in what order they would be elected.
Even before the run-in they and two other MEPs had with the Labour hierarchy in October over the right to criticise the `closed list' system they knew they were extremely unlikely to be allowed to stand with any hope of being elected. Their disaffection with and criticism of the programme being carried out by Blair in Britain (and the likelihood that the manifesto for the Euro-elections would reflect this) made it almost a certainty.
As Ken Coates explains, they did not apply to join the Green Party as the spin doctors claim, but they should have foreseen that their actions would leave them wide open to expulsion, given the leadership was looking for any opportunity.
We wholeheartedly blame the Labour Party hierarchy for the policies and undemocratic practices that created this situation, and support Coates and Kerr in their protests against these. It is unfortunate therefore that they have been rather tacticly inept in the way they have proceeded and have thrown away an opportunity to fight within the Labour Party against Blair's policies.
They did not discuss any of their actions with other Left Labour Party activists - or even, apparently, Left MEPs or MPs. This could have provided for a coordinated fightback, rather than two individuals being forced out. Their letter to Euro-constituency Party members, rather than being part of such a discussion, provided ammunition for the bureaucracy because of the way it mooted standing protest candidates against Labour.
It is inevitable the different individuals, currents and left groups will make different tactical decisions about how to fight the Blairite tide most effectively. It is inevitable that some will have stronger stomachs than others, while others will carry on battling in the structures out of habit long after there is any point to it.
However it does seem that Coates and Kerr decided on a course of action as individuals rather than attempting to achieve a common approach by the Labour and Trade Union Left. In doing so they have weakened the fight against the `closed list' system in the Labour Party and confused many who oppose the policies they detest. They have made it extremely difficult to defend them as individuals within the party.
Despite these problems our main energies will of course be devoted to the sharpest possible criticism of the Blair clique - on questions both of democracy and policies. We welcome many of the points made by Ken Coates in the interview overleaf in particular his call for activists in the Labour party to organise and his assertion that there needs to be strong networking between those fighting inside and outside the Labour party.
Arthur Scargill, when he decided to form the Socialist Labour Party, also acted primarily as an individual and failed to consult more widely across the Left. While it was not inevitable that the SLP became the bureaucratic monstrosity its recent conference shows it has become, the seeds were sown at this initial stage.
As Socialist Outlook argued at the time, to launch a new party in such a dictatorial manner, when the majority of class conscious workers were crying out for Labour to defeat the Tories in the general election, and the class struggle was still at a very low ebb, was a big mistake.
Socialist Outlook supporters fully share the anger and frustration with Blair's policies of Coates and Kerr and those who joined the SLP. We disagree, however, with the impatience this frustration has produced among both groups. Neither has really attempted to map out a strategy for the Left, let alone the wider class, to fight back against Blair.
The SLP put all its eggs in the basket of standing candidates in the general election, while the emphasis from Coates and Kerr has been on the Euro-elections. Coates may say that his re-election is not the issue in this paper and other publications of the left. His letter to The Guardian calling for extra-parliamentary action in defence of the excluded was undoubtedly welcome. However this will not be the main dynamic of what has happened. Similarly, while the Left MPs will vote against Blair's most outrageous policies in Parliament, they have not put forward any strategy that could broaden the opposition and actually <B>defeat these policies.
Socialist Outlook believes the debate on how to resist the Labour government's policies needs to be brought out in the open, encompassing all areas of the movement, rather than be driven by responding to the actions of individuals. The latter can only lead to confusion and demoralisation among activists rather than a strengthening of the fightback.
Over the next months we hope to print a series of articles in our paper representing a series of different viewpoints on how to begin to achieve these goals.
We need a strategy that involves a fight across the labour movement: in the Labour Party and unions, at all levels, against those carrying out or refusing to fight Blair's policies. It must be one that can reach out to new forces coming into activity, be it in opposition to tuition fees or to the attacks on disabled people. It means building democratic organisations prepared to link up with, encourage, and give a lead to, those prepared to struggle.
Unlike the comrades who are now known as Socialist Perpectives we did not feel the formation of the SLP was correct, but we warmly welcome the politics encompassed in their statement. As well as analysing the Blair project they call for unity in action amongst all those prepared to fight it. Such a call, which echoes that made the recent Socialist Alliances Conference needs to be met with the warmest possible response by the whole left. The absence of such calls for unity - and practical organisation towards them have been the biggest failure of the isolationist SLP.
The left will continue to disagree about many things - but we cannot allow this to prevent the most effective possible resistance to the Blair roller coaster.