It's not only socialists who are taking a stand: Kidderminster Hospital campaigners will fight their local seat against sitting Labour MP BEWULEY La PORTS Kiwani HOSPI put suc- never been merely a formal cinctly, there is or constitutional one. It was longer any a matter of lived history and meaningful sense a living presence, however in which this contradictory, Labour party, as a living class communities.
formation, can be Today, as an organic phedescribed as "the mass party nomenon, working class". OT "bourgeois workers To the extent that political activity takes place at the Many comrades point to base of the movement, in Labour's remaining links to workplaces, union branches, the trade unions and argue trades councils, it does so in that this is the decisive test. opposition Yes, trade unions remain, government and formally, constituent parts of councils. the Labour Party - a contrast In the foreseeable future, with labour unions in the any re-awakening of working class political consciousness But unions no longer have is more likely to take the a vote in the selection of par- form of disaffiliation liamentary candidates and Labour and support for left role in CLPs; alternatives than a concerted annual conference and the effort to flex what's left of NEC, where the unions once trade union muscle through deployed their political mus- the structures of the Labour stripped of party. As a result of a multitude of the current developments, degree of union participation social, cultural, the disconand influence in the Labour nection between the Labour party differs little from the party and the working class situation in the Democratic is now profound and sysparty in the USA - where temic.
send delegates to there any conventions, union leaders which the connection can be sit on policy bodies, union reforged? If money funds election cam- prospects for left?' paigns ana union memoers. by and large, vote Democrat. es, Overall, the unions are now merely one among a number left of organised interest groups lobbying the Labour government - principally from out- motions through the policy forums, etc. do occasionally cide ine party sauctures. Of course, the significance yield positive results. of the party-union link has these results are too meagre TER to affect the overall trend of development. As a result the Labour left finds itself chasing an everin working receding horizon:
ground on which it is fightpolicy, the link barely democracy) is being dragged Never further to the right. Too many on the Labour left see Blairism as merely a conspiracy within Party, Labour" (or however it may to the Labour choose to rebrand itself in the future) is the facet of a global politics -and the political facet of a public culture promoted by global capitalism. The transformation of the from Labour party cannot be separated from other, intimately related, social phenomena: the symbiosis between the professional political caste and the media, the elevation of the managerial prerogative above all other considerpolitical, ations, the spread of popular cynicism, the general degradation democratic discourse and driving all, global capital's quest to Time societies. challenge to New also requires a challenge to these trends - a challenge means by that is stifled by continued party membership.
not, The Labour left also ought the Labour to take stock of its own performance over the years. The the valiant Grassroots efforts of Labour failed to become anything activists to other than a place to negotiuse the existing ate slates for the NEC, NPF, system, to push etc. After the bright hopes of 1998, its non-nertormance will only have hastened the But exit of yet more activists from the party.
MPs as individuals, but in the SCG as a collective force, an alternative leadership of the movement. At a time when the huge vacuum on the left of British politics has been acknowledged even by academics and media pundits, the Labour left is unable to project a message outside an ever decreasing circle. Ah, but there 1s Ken Livingstone waiting in the wings. It's disheartening to watch comrades pin such hopes on the campaign to readmit Ken to the Party. It's just and reasonable demand, but what does it really amount to? Since his election as mayor, the Livingstone has gone LO great lengths to reposition himself on two critical policy areas - economic globalisation and 'law and order'. The one-time champion of the national manufacturing sector has reinvented himself the "New yet again as a booster for global finance capital and a friend of the City. has toured British New York with Mayor Giuliani, backed comprehensive DNA testing, more cops on the beat, and a tougher line with "anarchists". He has also refused to lift a finger for the besieged people of Hackney, where a Labour-Tory coalition is wreaking havoc on public services. As Livingstone himself has made clear, he has no intention of "leading" the Labour left anywhere. of I've been astonished to hear Labour party comrades declaring in recent months them that "(bourgeois) elections aren't that important" - an ultra-left posture profoundly at variance with the Labour modern left's own traditions. demo- cratic the be-all and end-all of our Universal suttrage i not democratic vision, but it represents a high-water mark in the struggle for human emancipation, and the major political conquest of the working class. Significantly, for the managers of global capital, taming the franchise, gutting it of meaning and effect, remains an inescapable prihas ority - hence their interest in At the coming general election, Labour will seek a second term on the basis of jam tomorrow for public services (peppered by privatisation) and strychnine today for
and trade More than 1,000 tenants unionists joined the Defend Housing lobby of Parliament and rally on January 24. are determined not to be taken governments new proposals for "arm's length" housing companies. We've got them on the run over stock transfers ... let's keep up the pressure! HOUSING Sund Outlook Alistairs billey Holya