WHATEVER the outcome on the proposed rule changes at Labour Party conference, the implications of Blair's project for the party will not go away.
If the proposals are defeated he will no doubt try again next year. If they are passed it is likely that he will try to build on this victory.
He may put forward further proposals to curtail the accountability of the government to the movement, possibly severing the unionparty link completely and moving towards state funding of parties to release him from the need to raise money from the unions.
Blair is absolutly committed to making Labour the main party of British capitalism in the place of the Tories. This demands the ties to the unions as the basic organisations of the working class are loosened as much as possible, if not completely broken. The current tameness of the unions is no protection against this assault.
The precise mechanisms he will use are not known, but the project is clear.
What we have seen so far of the Labour government is but a foretaste. The victories on the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly (even with limited powers) are to be welcomed, as is the restoration of trade union rights at GCHQ (albeit witn a no-strike clause).
But the overall picture is clear. There will be pay restraint for the public sector, no change to the anti-union laws and no reprieve on funding of the NHS or local council services.
An 'ethical foreign policy will mean at best only cosmetic change, furtherance of the "peace process' is intended to end the fight for Irish self-determination.
'Welfare to Work' type schemes mean replacing current workers with government-lunded ones at lower rates. There will be no let-up on unemoloyment or the saueeze on benefits. We will be faced with rapid moves to a single European currency that has at its centre a stability pact perpetuating the limits on state spending. All this with glossy phrases about "partnership', 'fairness', 'flexibility' and a 'New Britain'.
As long as the Labour Party has ties with the unions it will not replace the Tories for Britain's bosses as the most reliable party of British capitalism, although they might prefer it at particular times like the last election.
Not safe enough Both Blair and the bosses recognise that the Labour Party is not a completely safe pair of hands for capitalism as long as there is the risk of working class discontent being reflected through its structures and calling a Labour government to account.
Since its formation the Labour Party has lived a contradiction -while being organisationally independent of the bosses' parties (both Tory and Liberal/Liberal Democrat) it has not been politically independent, pursuing capitalist policies, even if under the cover of the old Clause IV and claims to socialism.
Even so, the fact that the British working class had its 'own' party was positive in comparison to those countries like the U.S. where the choice is between two explicitly capitalist parties.
Blair now wants to resolve that contradiction by scrapping the input that the organised working class has into the Party.
The trade unions have also always had an ambivalent approach to the Labour Party. While it was the unions that decided to found the Labour Party, this was based on an extension of the 'negotiation within capitalism' ideology of the unions. Union leaders have done their best to ensure that the aspirations of their rank and file are reUnion chiefs like Edmonds are Blair's "Partners" without power flected as little as possible in the policy of the party, and been more than happy most of the time to leave policy-making to the Party leadership.
Only on rare occasions, such as during the last years of the Callaghan government and for a few years afterwards, has this not been true. Despite the odd groan, the union leaderships have fully assisted Kinnock, Smith and now Blair in overturning democratic and policy changes that went against the interests of the ruling class. That they were often ignoring their own union's policy made little difference.
Those same union leaders have, of course, constantly sold their Blair's attitude is shown more by his insistence on 'flexibility' and his lecture to the TUC than the limited concessions on offer. members out on the industrial front too. The rightward drift in the La-. bour Party and unions over recent years have fed off each other. The TUC has its own 'modernisation' programme in parallel with Blair's.
Too often the Left has seen the fight for union democracy and accountability and to turn them into combative organisations separate from the fight in the Labour Party.
Many CLP activists have seen the unions as something they canLeft (or not so left) General Secretaries. When things go wrong they have often railed against "the unions" rather than recognise that tensions exist within them and the need to organise against the bureaucracy.
The flip side of this is a syndicalism that concentrates on disputes and ignores 'politics', which equally lets the bureaucrats off the hook for what they are doing in our name.
Most General Secretaries have. done their utmost to minimise opposition to the 'Partnership in Power' rule changes. Some in unions whose conferences opposed the changes outright are still working to get their delegations to endorse them. This is the scale of the problem we face.
They reason that the Labour government is going to offer something on union recognition and a minimum wage, so they shouldn't antagonise Blair by opposing the rule changes.
But Blair's attitude is shown more by his insistence on 'flexibility' and his lecture to the TUC than the extremely limited concessions on offer.
Moreover, the adoption of Partnership in Power' will make it very difficult for the unions to influence Party policy in the future, making it a very short-sighted deal.
Thus any strategy for working class representation has to address not only what is happening to the Labour Party, but also the way in which the major unions are tied into the same basic social democratic politics.
The union leaderships must be called to account for the road the Labour Party has gone down. They are just as responsible for it as Blair.
Counter attack
The counter-attack that needs to be launched against pro-capitalist policies in the labour movement has to be across both the Labour Party arid Trade Unions, but also beyond. It must encompass the disputes that both bureaucracies are committed to selling out or undermining and the campaigns that they ignore or pay lip service to, such as around racism and defence of the welfare state and the environment. The fight within the structures of the labour movement has to link up with these if it is to have any chance of success in pushing back the bureaucrats' offensive.
For the moment, whether or not and carry out working class interests.
For this reason Socialist Outlook supported the September 13 conference called by the Network of Socialist Groups and attended by 150 people that discussed not only opposition to 'Partnership in Power', but also the tasks of the Left after Brighton.
Unlike some, we do not think the adoption of the rule changes would just be a 'swing of the pendulum' which could easily swing back. These changes are more fundamental than that.
Nor should the Left write off the unions, either in terms of opposition to the rule changes (where the battle will continue within union delegations right up to the vote at Party conference) or in terms of a future link up.
That is why the presence of union representatives on the platform on the 13th was important (even though some cried off for good or bad reasons. The recall conference on November 1 has to be built among both CLP and trade union activists.
While the proposed changes are far-reaching, their adoption would not represent Armageddon in the sense that the Left should immediately give up all thought of work in the Party. A long fight lies ahead, not as 'business as usual, but to step up the battle for working class independence.
That fight is initially in the Labour Party, around basic working class demands. But there may come a point, in the not-too-distant future, when the Left has to declare that there is little future to the fight in the Labour Party, whether or not it has changed its fundamental class character, and address the question of building an alternative. 'Party of Labour'.
The extent to which forces are built up now, across the labour movement. to fight the hureauc. racy, will determine the success of such a decision should it have to be taken.
The fate of the SLP shows that to be successful such a new party must have organised forces on the ground in advance of leaving the Labour Party.
It will also have to be integrated into the fightback that occurs in the class against the Labour government if it is to reflect a more generalised discontent than simply that of the currently organised Left.
Harry Sloan looks at the record of the first four months of Blair government. "WHERE does a gorilla sit in the cinema?" "Anywhere he bloody wants!" The same could have been true of the new government.
Backed by the biggest Parliamentary majority since the 1930s, riding high on the good will of millions who celebrated the demise of the Tories, and able to ignore the absurd antics of a broken and demoralised Tory opposition and its