Editorial - Blair's team dig in under fire at Brighton -
Not listening, hearing or caring!
Brighton this year saw Labour’s first crisis conference since Tony Blair’s overwhelming vic tory in the General Election. This time Conference took place in the context of a sharp fall in new Labour’s position in the opinion polls, with the Tories edging into the lead.
But Conference ended to the sounds of a poll revival - despite the leadership being defeated for the first time in the six years since Blair was leader, on the question of pensions, rail safety and pollution.
How was this turn round achieved?.
Blair’s speech attempted to parry the criticism that he was "not listening", which had become so damaging during the fuel protests. He admitted that errors had been made over the Dome and over the 75p rise for pensioners.
However he certainly did not concede anything of sub stance — particularly on the issue of restoring the link between the state pensions and average earnings, which was broken under Thatcher and is now the key demand of the pensioners movement. He counterposed the anger over fuel duties to frustration over the need for more investment in education, the NHS, the police and public transport.
The core of his message was that the job of government was to choose between competing good causes. "It’s not an arrogant government that chooses priorities. It is an irresponsible government that fails to choose".
BLAIR’S ATTACK on the Tories centres not at all the question of substantive policy disagreements but rather the fact that Hague and his team are portrayed as insubstantial and opportunist.
Of course that attack is accurate — both in terms of the weakness of the Conservatives today, but also because on policy after policy it is increasingly difficult to see any difference between the two parties. But that is not how the rhetoric reads.
For many people, as workers and as users, a key issue on which there is anger and frustration with new Labour’s policies is on the question of privatisation — whether hidden under the label of PFI, PPP or some other acronym. But this is not defended anywhere in Blair’s speech, because this is not the face he needs to pre sent when poll ratings are so vulnerable.
We are told instead "The NHS *as the greatest achievement of the post war Labour government. It was based on a single clear and enduring value: that health-care should be based on need, not ability to pay …
"The Labour Party will never abandon what was one of the greatest civilising acts of emancipation this country has ever known."
What about prescription charges and charges for dental and optical work? What about the increasing number of Labour voters who are told they have the choice of waiting interminable lengths of time for pain relieving operations — or paying to have them instantly?
We are told "If people want me to go out and exploit the asylum issue for reasons of race, then vote for the other man.
Tell that to the refugees imprisoned in places like Oakington detention centre, opened by this government. Tell that to the thousands struggling to survive on vouchers meted out to asylum seekers, to those forcibly dispersed away from places where there is at least some community support for people fleeing persecution at home.
So what we have in the end is an admission that mistakes have been made - but a ruthless determination to carry on in the same direction.
And the opinion polls demonstrate that this strategy is having some success. Of course part of that is because the Tories are such an unattractive option.
At the conference itself, the key debate was on the issue of pensions. The pensioners movement has managed to rally broad support for its platform The demand to restore the link with earnings is a demand for a decent standard of living for this section of the working class.. But what came increasingly into focus was the means by which this standard of living should be achieved The demand for restoration of the link is in practice a campaign for universalism, against means-testing and for progressive taxation.
In opposing this position the leadership and their lackeys put forward two main arguments. The first - which again is not at all confined to the question of pensions - is that current government practice is "targeting" the people who really need help - the poorest.
The other point they make is that while restoration of the link could be afforded today, this would not be the case in the years to come. Obviously this is part of the campaign for a second term — "The large majority we won was never a reason to do the job quickly: but to do it properly".
These two arguments are based on Blair’s desire to cuddle up to Middle England and therefore to refuse to support progressive taxation. The left needs to refute this reactionary nonsense and make the call for taxing the rich and big business a key part of our armoury.
The resolution was watered down so that restoration of the link was only one of the things that could be considered.
This, it seemed, would have been acceptable to Blair — but Gordon Brown, on his return from Prague, insisted that there should be no compromise.
For the trade union leaders, it is easier to challenge the government on social issues like pensions, where they are not called on do anything more than make left speeches, than on the day to day questions facing their members at work.
And the fact that retiring UNISON chief Rodney Bickerstaffe is about to take over from Jack Jones as chair of the national Pensioners Forum must have had some effect on his eventual stance in refusing to remit the resolution.
The breakdown of the vote was highly significant: 84% of the unions voted for the resolution but only 36% of CLP delegates.
This indicates an unparalleled weakness of the left in the constituencies - a complete turn around from the days when the CLPs opposed the platform time and time again and the union bureaucrats came to the leadership’s rescue.
We should also bear in mind that over 60 CLPs did not bother to fork out the exorbitant cost of sending delegates to this conference, at which decisions would be so roundly ignored.
The other predicted row the leadership wished to avoid was on the barbaric system of vouchers for asylum seekers.
It was positive that conference delegates voted for this, along with pensions, to be one of the four contemporary resolutions that were on the agenda.
It seems clear that the massive campaign against vouchers mounted by the Campaign to Defend Asylum Seekers has had an impact here as well as at the TUC.
However - despite the rumours that the particularly pernicious practice of refusing change to those paying for goods by voucher might be dropped - TGWU General Secretary Bill Morris agreed to remit the motion in exchange for a promise of a "review" of the whole system of vouchers.
This was no concession at all from the platform: they had already made the same promise at July’s National Policy Forum.
In any event there is nothing useful that could come from a review — the whole system is discriminatory and rotten to the core. The campaign for abolition needs to be stepped up inside and outside the Labour Party - and Morris must pay a price for letting the leadership off the hook.
In overall terms, Gordon Brown made clear the leadership’s contempt for conference. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, he said
"It is not for a few composite motions to decide the policy of the government and the country. It is for the whole country and I am listening to the whole country". Blair made similar comments, making clear that for the government, the Labour Party is now seen as only one interest group amongst many. They are riding roughshod over even their most senile supporters.
The task for the left inside and outside the Labour Party is to step up joint campaigning against the reactionary policies of New Labour.