Livingstone campaign key to fighting New Labour
KEN LIVINGSTONE’S campaign to become London’s mayor has created the biggest crisis new Labour has faced since it came to office.
Blair has spared nothing to stop Livingstone. The electoral college was rigged against him, and some of the unions which support him have been cynically barred from voting. Yet every move against him has only increased Livingstone’s support.
Everywhere people have had the chance to vote Livingstone has swept the board, whether in the consultative ballot of Labour Party members in Tooting where he scored 66.4% (with Dobson at 23%) or the TGWU ballot where he won 85% (with Dobson third at 6.9%).
The outcome, due in mid-February, is too close to call.
Livingstone commands a staggering 63% support a the London electorate, which looks back positively on the GLC and with hostility to the way it was abolished.
It is this mindboggling level of support, which holds firm whether Livingstone stands as the Labour Party candidate or as an independent, which is at the root of Blair’s problem. To exclude Livingstone from the list of nominees Blair not only risked a split in the Labour Party but faced the nightmare of Livingstone winning the mayorship on an independent ticket.
True, Livingstone has insisted that he will not stand as an independent, but ultimately there is nothing to stop him. So Blair’s nightmare goes on. It’s a unique situation. For the first time in years the left has the right-wing over a barrel and can watch them squirm.
It is an opportunity which places a huge responsibility on Ken Livingstone, since, although it has been created by a conjuncture of political circumstances, he holds the unique position at the centre of it. Therefore what is posed is not simply whether he will be mayor or not.
Representation
There is a crisis of labour representation and an urgent need to reorganise the left into a more effective force – inside and outside of the LP.
For the left the outcome will ultimately be judged on whether the campaign had contributed significantly to resolving these issues; whether it had begun to drag the left out of the decline it has suffered since the mid-1980s, and whether it had start to shape up a political alternative to Blairism.
Big opportunities are rare in politics, particularly for the left, and if they are missed it can be a long wait for the next one
The Livingstone campaign is a rallying point for socialists in the Labour Party who are hostile to the way new Labour has taken over where the Tories left off, and angry at the way Livingstone has been treated in the course of the campaign.
It is a national phenomenon. It is the broadest coalition of anti-Blairite forces seen since new Labour took control of the Party, and it poses the issue of the future of the Labour Party and the future direction of the government.
But the possibilities in the campaign are different depending on the result. If Livingstone wins the selection and becomes the Labour mayor of London, huge opportunities would open up to revitalise and rebuild the Labour left inside the Labour Party.
But this could only be done on the basis of a big political fight with New Labour. It would mean consciously using the mayorship to present a coherent political alternative to Blair. If this was done, people would start rejoining the LP instead of leaving it, and the balance of forces inside the party will be changed to the benefit of the left.
Alternatively if Livingstone is deprived of the nomination and stands and wins as an independent, as he certainly should – since to lose the vote when he enjoys the massive support has could only happen via a corrupt system – even more dramatic developments are posed.
Dobson and Blair might accuse him of sour grapes, but most voters would see him as a victim of corruption and stand by him.
The scale of what would then be possible would depend on how big the resulting split in the Labour Party was to become – after Livingstone had either been expelled from the party or had resigned.
It is likely to be big. Large numbers are likely to leave in London. It could reach tens of thousands nationally, and the possibility of launching a substantial new party would be posed. In fact with such a following, it is hard to see how the formation of a new party could be avoided.
Bite the bullet
Only the future will tell whether Ken Livingstone is prepared to bite the bullet on either of these alternatives. Defeat could still be snatched from the jaws of victory.
If Livingstone were defeated in the electoral college but failed to run as an independent, the possibilities of campaign would be dissipated and he marginalised as a leader of the left – and if that happened the left would need to stand a candidate against Dobson.
Alternatively he could win the mayorship and then be incorporated, or semi-incorporated, into the Blair project. The pressure on him to do so would be enormous. Or he might maintain his independence but fail to use the position to present a critique of the government and develop a political alternative. Either way the opportunity would be missed.
If these fears exist, this is due, in part at least, to the way he has conducted himself during the campaign. He has been keen to be seen to be looking for an accommodation with Blair.
He has said many times in TV interviews that he agrees with almost everything new Labour is doing, except tube privatisation. What is going on?
Tube privatisation is a very important dividing line, but not on the basis of support for almost everything else New Labour is doing! He has also stressed that he would not only support either of the other candidates if they won the selection, but he ‘would campaign on their behalf’.
And with the issue dear to the selection panel – whether or not he would support a manifesto written by Millbank and with which he did not agree, he has repeatedly said yes!
True he has added the rider that he would support any manifesto ‘agreed by the London members’. This could give him a let-out when the London members are given no vote on it. And he would be right, but it is a rather obscure point to make a major stand on.
Rubber stamp
The Blairites will put the manifesto through the London Board for rubber stamping and will argue that this represents the London membership.
Unfortunately Livingstone has not highlighted the lack of democracy around the adoption of the manifesto and has not called on supporters to make demands around this, again undermining any future break on this issue.
Similarly while he has been correct to concentrate his resources on speaking at meetings for individual Labour Party members, since this is the section of the electoral college in which the vote will be won or lost, he could have done more to reach out to trade unions members.
The campaign is an important opportunity to strengthen the left across the board and all chances should be seized with both hands.
Of course Livingstone is the consummate media performer, and it is a great asset. And his compromising statements could be all bluff designed to tie the selection panel, and Blairism, in knots.
But it was not clever talking which got him onto the ballot paper – it was his mass support. And his supporters support him for his stand he is making, not for his vacillations.
They are supporting him because they want to strike a blow against Blairism, not accommodate to it. He got away with it over the Balkans war because the left itself was split over it, particularly in the LP.
But now is certainly not the time to talk about common ground with the Blairites, it is the time to attack new Labour for its right-wing policies in order to raise the issue of an alternative.
Gamble
Livingstone’s decision to accept the terms of the selection panel, with whatever reservations, rather than declare them unacceptable and stand as an independent, was a gamble which he (or we) may yet regret.
That may have been the best time to split and stand as an independent, since he could rightly say that he was not prepared to submit to a corrupt system.
The only rational reason for not splitting at that point was to judge that he had a very good chance of winning the nomination, which unfortunately was not how it looked at that time.
There is already space opening to the left of Labour for a new left-wing party of the working class for the first time for many years. New Labour is losing support in its traditional heartlands, and amongst its traditional supporters.
These forces , along with those who are leaving the LP in disgust, represent a constituency of people on which a new party can be built. It is an important opportunity, but it will not last for ever.
The Livingstone campaign would represent the best opportunity yet to build a new party with a substantial split from the Labour Party rather than bring together diverse forces.
Others would flock to it, particularly if it was built on an open and democratic basis. The left cannot afford to miss out on such an opportunity if it is going to reshape itself.
Meanwhile there are a few more weeks of campaigning and it is important that all the stops are pulled out.