Editorial
Blair counts cost of capital error
Ken Livingstone's break with the Labour Party to stand as an independent candidate for Mayor of London represents the most important left split in Labour since the second world war.
His landslide victory is a body blow to Tony Blair and his "New Labour" Government. Blair has lost control of his capital city and a potentially powerful alternative power base to his left has been established.
Livingstone's challenge, the current crisis in manufacturing industry and New Labour's relentless pursuit of Tory policies have reduced Blair to his lowest standing in the polls since he came to office.
However, there are few signs that Ken Livingstone will use his victory to fight for a socialist alternative. Although he gained 55% of the vote, including second preferences, putting him way ahead of the competition, this was achieved despite a generally weak, rightwards moving and populist campaign, which avoided using the word socialist.
He therefore failed to maximise his working class vote as shown by the relatively low turn out for such an important and well publicised election of between 33% and 38%.
Now he is assembling a cross-party administration including rotating the deputy mayorship amongst all four parties in the assembly and making statements to calm the fears of the City of London and big business. He is backing off from a confrontation with the government over its unpopular plans to privatise the underground system - a key divide in the election.
On the other hand he remains a loose cannon, for example, his statement that, "capitalism kills" did not go down well in the City or Downing Street. His clear expression of support for Ford workers, encouraging them to fight for their jobs is to be welcomed. The potential for confrontation between him and new Labour remains high.
Labour should easily have won the mayor election in London, traditionally a Labour stronghold, as well as 11 of the 14 constituency seats in the election to the Greater London Assembly (GLA, based on the 1997 results). But instead they won only six constituency seats. In three of these the fall in Labour's share of the vote was more than 15%.
The number of members was increased by the votes Labour obtained in the GLA top-up list, which brought its total to nine seats, equalling that of the Tories. Labour's overall drop in voter share ranged between 10% and 25%.
This dismal picture for Labour was replicated in local elections across the country where they lost nearly 600 seats, while the Tories gained nearly 600. However, contrary to impression given by swingometers, the Tory vote did not significantly increase. It was the traditional Labour voters who stayed at home in disgust.
Where the result counted more, such as in the Romsey by-election, there was a high turnout of Labour voters who clearly voted tactically for the Liberal Democrats in order to keep the Tories out. This desire to keep out the Tories, even in a south coast rural Tory area, will probably be repeated in a General Election, to the overall benefit of Labour.
In some parts of the country many voted for a left alternative if they had the opportunity. Independent left and far-left candidates, did very well in these election. The Socialist Party won another Councillor in Coventry - their third, while others received 17% in Newcastle or 30% in Merseyside.
Independent campaigners against the closure of the hospital in the small Midland town of Kidderminster, who last year won 8 seats, this year won 11 out of 15 contested seats, bringing their total to nearly half of the town council, and making them the largest group on the council!
In London, the emergence of a left alternative in the form of the London Socialist Alliance (LSA) made a real difference to the voting pattern.
In the individual constituency section, where there was an average decline of the Labour vote of 15%, the Green Party and the London Socialist Alliance (LSA) received about the same percentage when added together. Despite our criticisms of the Green Party, it is clear that the majority of those who vote for it do so from the left.
In the North East Constituency, Labour was 25% down on 1997, while the combined LSA /Green vote was 22.6%, with the Green Party achieving 15.6% and the LSA 7.O%,. In Lambeth & Southwark, Labour's candidate got 38% of the votes - 21% down, while the Greens achieved 13.1%, LSA 6.2%, and the Communist League 0.53.
London wide, the constituency vote for the Greens and the socialist left totalled 270,000 people (17%), while in the Mayoral vote only 223,000 voted for Frank Dobson - most of Labours traditional vote went to Livingstone of course.
Many traditional Labour voters did not stay at home, but for the first time came out and voted for parties to the left of Labour and of Ken Livingstone.
The message for Blair is clear. Those who voted Labour at the General Election wanted to see a reversal of the attacks of the Tory years, not a continuation. But Blair is not listening. Downing Street spin doctors made clear there will be no change of policy - just new packaging.
Blair and his advisors know that most of this core vote will rally to Labour in a General Election to keep out the Tories. Nevertheless these elections mark the first signs of what could become a significant vote for a left wing alternative to Labour: the challenge before the organisations of the far left is how to follow up on these positive signs whether at local or at national level.