All eyes on Ken as Blair’s gang tightens grip
The Livingstone challenge for London Mayor, based as it is on huge support of Londoners, offers the best opportunity yet to deal a serious blow against Blairism and start to regenerate the left.
As the official Labour mayor he would have the possibility of regenerating the left inside and outside of the Party. If he was excluded and stood as an independent he would have the possibility of organising a serious new initiative to the left of Labour with his position as Mayor at the core of it.
Either option would provide a much needed breakthrough since, the Livingstone challenge aside, the forward march of Blairism has been relentless.
This year’s Labour Party conference was a good example. It could hardly have been more dominated by Blair or the forces of the left more invisible. There are good things happening, like the continuing success of the Grassroots Alliance in wining positions on the executive, but the impact of this on the evolution of the party is marginal at best.
New Labour strategists seen to have already concluded that they are going to win the next election in two years time – and barring major developments such as severe economic crisis they are probably right.
Blair therefore not only attacked the Tories, who are an easy target, but began laying the groundwork for the next stage of his project for the Labour Party.
The class war, he proclaimed, was over: and he was now going to declare war on "the conservatives of the right and of the left" who are standing in the way of New Labour "modernisation".
It was clear enough who he was talking about: teachers who are opposing performance related pay, those who are opposing privatisation in its many forms, and those who are opposing the "modernisers" inside the LP.
But he went well beyond the theme he has pushed since he abolished Clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution (which was supposed to heal the spilt between Labour and Liberalism at the turn of the century): he called on the "one nation" section of the Tory Party to join New Labour! Blair even named Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine, in particular, calling on them to join.
Since then Blair has formed a new, and unprecedented, campaigning alliance with Clarke and Heseltine (and Charles Kennedy, new leader of the Liberal Democrats) in favour of the EU. The alliance is in favour of entry into the single currency "when the time is right" – which in reality is when they judge they can win a referendum on it.
Former Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath, Heseltine and Clarke appeared on a high profile platform with Blair, Brown and Cook to say how much they agreed with Tony on all things European - a key success for the Prime Minister in his quest to reshape British politics still further .
It is clear that the political gap between these "one-nation Tories" and Blair is minuscule compared with the gulf which exists between them and the Tory leadership. The formation of this alliance has severely exacerbated the deep divide inside the Tory Party which is now verging on a formal split.
The depth of these divisions came out clearly enough at the Tory Party conference, which again moved the Party move sharply to the right. Xenophobia ruled the day, as the main themes were to defend fox hunting, defend the pound, and, when Margaret Thatcher arrived at it, defend Chilean dictator Pinochet!
Thatcher was treated to a heroine’s welcome and cheered to the rafters when she told a fringe meeting that all bad things came from Europe and all good things came from the English speaking nations. Norman Tebbit was able to get up at the conference and say that he felt more at home in the party today than for a very long time.
In reality the Tory Party is being torn apart both by the success of Blairism in colonising the middle ground of British politics, and by its own long-standing divisions over Europe. The result is that the one-nation Tories no longer find the Tory Party habitable and feel much closer to Blair and New Labour. What Blair says today about the EU is what they have been saying about it for years.
Blair followed the Labour Party conference with a Cabinet reshuffle which ranked amongst his most audacious moves yet. Nothing could have shown his confidence more than the decision to bring Mandleson back after only 10 months out of the government and make him a minister.
At the same time he cleaned out most of the surviving remnants of old Labour in the cabinet (such as they were) and established a team modelled almost entirely in his own image. He feels no need to compromise with anyone – and he doesn’t. There have only been the most muted protests at his actions from within the Labour Party, and most of the media have strongly approved of his changes, including his resurrection of Mandleson.
And the situation inside the Labour Party is set to get worse for the left, unless a breakthrough can be made with the Livingstone challenge or in fighting the possible deselection of left MPs.
Next year the Labour Party is to be reorganised at the constituency level
There is reportedly a "hit-list" of key members of the Campaign Group which the Blairites intend to target for removal in the reselection process which has just completed its first stage at local level.
While it seems so far that all local constituencies have reselected their sitting MPs - including members of the Campaign Group, this is not the final hurdle. They then have to be endorsed by the National Executive.
Since the Executive’s decision will be based on political criteria [i.e. loyalty to the Blairite project] the expectation is that some of them, most likely the key players in the Campaign Group, will be de-selected. What the response will be from either deselected MPs or their supporters remains to be tested out. There is still a significant and active left in the Labour Party but it is greatly weakened and much of it passive.
And it will not end there. Next year the party is to be reorganised at constituency level, which is the level where the left has traditionally been at its strongest and the level at which the link with the unions has been closest. Local trade unions have had the right to send delegates to local general management committees of the Labour Party. This is what the left has long referred to as the "open valve" between the party and the unions.
Under the rubric of 21st Century Party, this along with local democracy is to be severely neutered. Local committees are to meet once every three months instead of once every month, and their decision-making powers severely limited.
The meetings will cease to be delegate based, and instead will be open to all members, bring an end to representative democracy in the LP.
The stated motivation for this is clear in the consultation document: "Our primary duty as a party is to ensure that we stand candidates and that as far as possible every elector has the opportunity to vote Labour". No comment on what these candidates will do when they are elected, as the Blair steamroller continues to remake the party as an electoral machine.
This is probably the biggest single "reform" which Blair will have carried out since he started to transform the Labour Party, certainly as far as its effects on the rank and file members is concerned.
And potentially there could be significant opposition to it. Unfortunately there will be difficult to channel this effectively, because on the basis of consultation on the changes the NEC will already have implemented its own proposed reforms!
In the run up to June 2000 the consultation will primarily take the form of seeking completed questionnaires from individual party members. This will then be reported to the July NEC who may well then propose rule changes commensurate with this. By the time the proposals get to next year’s conference, delegates will be presented with an effective fait accompli.
Blair’s end-game is to reshape the Labour Party into the first party of the British bourgeoisie. But he has another objective as well. That is to ensure that when the long downturn in the level of strike struggles ends in Britain, any new radicalisation which emerges will not easily find expression inside the Party.
To begin to reverse this, the left needs a victory. There is a lot hanging on the Livingstone challenge and the support it has amongst the electorate in London.