POLITICS AFTER BLAIR
The “Politics After Blair” conference organised by the Morning Star was a very interesting event. It was reasonably well attended, with usually between 150 and 200 in the hall, but lots of people seemed to be there for only one or two sessions, so the overall attendance was higher than that.
There were some very positive aspects to the conference, not least of which was genuine and real commitment to allowing debate and contributions from the floor. This was especially true of the fascinating session about the peace movement, where the panellists (Andrew Murray from the Stop the War Coalition, Kate Hudson from CND, and Alan MacKinnon from Scottish CND) did not lead off with speeches, but just responded to debate and questions from the delegates. Alan was able to report of the extraordinary success of Scottish CND, in achieving the rejection of Trident by almost all parts of Scottish civic society, including an overwhelming vote in Hollyrood.
The continued weight of influence of the Morning Star was also clear from the fact that Jon Cruddas, John McDonnell, Ken Livingston were on the platform, as well as Matt Wrack of the FBU, Bob Crow of the RMT and Tony Benn. Sometimes at left conferences, the “celebrity” speakers are there to play the roll of ornaments enhancing the prestige of the organisers. But the conference saw fraternal disagreements running through it about the attitude that socialists should take to the Labour Party, and the practical tasks for building the left.
The session on Social Equality and Multiculturalism became a bit muddled, partly because it tried to cover too much ground, and was not able to adequately deal with genuine controversies that became apparent, for example with Salma Yacoob from the platform and the SWP’s Sean Doherty from the floor defending faith schools against the mood of the meeting. The question of the break up of the UK, and Gordon Brown’s defence of the British union should also have generated debate, and the CP do not yet seem to have grasped the importance of this issue.
Bob Crow put the cat among the pigeons with a very forthright rejection of the idea that the Labour Party could be reclaimed, and both he and Matt Wrack pointed out that there is no appetite in their unions for re-affiliating. Jon Cruddas, true to form, gave an extremely perceptive analysis of how New Labour is failing its working class supporters, and John McDonnell acknowledged the unprecedented weakness of the Labour left, but was sceptical that an electoral alternative could be built.
The call for a new party to the left of Labour was explicitly raised by Bob Crow, and echoed by the SWP’s Nick Wrack speaking from the floor. Speaking for the Communist Party, both Star editor John Haylett and General Secretary Robert Griffiths acknowledged that New Labour is right wing to an unprecedented degree, and that the fact that McDonald failed to get on the ballot for leadership was a major defeat.
However, rather than believing that a new mass party of the working class can be built in the present circumstances, the CP are proposing deepening and strengthening the processes by which the trade unions develop political ideas in opposition to neo-liberalism. For example a think tank or foundation, funded by the unions but with the participation of the socialist left, for promoting public ownership. This idea was warmly received by Matt Wrack.
The significance of the CP’s current position is that they are uniquely situated to act as a bridge between the trade union left, the Labour Party left, and the non-sectarian left outside the Labour Party. Although the Labour Left have been crushingly defeated over McDonnell there is going to be no collective exodus from the Labour Party, and despite some excellent localised electoral results for Respect, the far left outside the Labour Party are clearly unable to attract the four and half million votes that Labour have lost since 1997, neither is Respect nor the CNWP attractive to militants and activists used to the democratic norms of the movement. Given this impasse where the left both inside and outside the Labour party are extremely weak, neither side are going to convince the other to join them.
But what we do have is a developing political opposition from the trade unions, leading the way in ideological opposition to private equity, PFI, promoting equal rights for Agency and migrant workers, etc. If a new mass party is to be founded only the trade unions have the prestige, personnel and finance to do so, but it cannot happen until they conclude they have exhausted their options with the Labour Party. The role of socialists is to encourage the unions to put the value of their special relationship with the Labour party to the test, and draw the necessary conclusions.
It is also worth mentioning that the atmosphere was very friendly and welcoming, and perhaps surprisingly the age profile of the delegates was not noticeably older than for equivalent events organised by the Trotskyist left. I had a chat with CP general secretary Rob Griffiths afterwards who said this is the first of many such events they hope to be putting on – which is good news. It was also interesting to see a meeting where the SWP were not in control or ideologically dominant, but where they felt it worth making an intervention - Sean Doherty, Nick Wrack and Pete Holborrow attended, although it was odd they introduced themselves as being from Respect rather than the SWP.
“Sean Doherty, Nick Wrack and Pete Holborrow attended, although it was odd they introduced themselves as being from Respect rather than the SWP”
Andy you can’t stop the little digs can you? They said they were from Respect because they are, the meeting was about the building the left after Labour and they want to build Respect, you’ve put that Kate Hudson was from CND, and that Andrew Murray was from STWC both are members of the Communist party too, I see you don’t take a little swipe at them by qualifying your comments for them…jeez…
Comment by noel — 17 June, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
Interesting report - made me think Andy’s moving in the direction of joining the CPB! Doesn’t mean he’s a bad person! And comrades Sean, Nick and Peter introducing themselves as Respect rather than SWP is interesting and worth-reporting. I still find it jarring and a bit dishonest, why not say ‘Respect and SWP’. They’re not ashamed of the SWP are they? It does come across of old-fashioned ‘frontism’. There’s a defence that can be made, but indignation doesn’t make it. Ooh, wonder what the Weekly Worker report will be like.
Comment by Matthew — 17 June, 2007 @ 3:10 pm
“Sean Doherty from the floor defending faith schools”….
I’m constantly amazed at how the SWP argue this line nowadays.
While I can accept that the current distribution of faith schools doesn’t reflect the population nowadays, this is no reason for accepting them in principle.
It’s a recipe for religious ghettoisation, even if they have to accept a quota from other denominations.
Working class kids from Irish catholic backgrounds probably derived some benefits from the development of Catholic education in Britain during the 19thC, but times have changed since then.
The only consistent position is to end all state funding for religious schools.
If religious people want to use the premises for Sunday Schools, they can hire them. There’s no need for all-in religious schools.
Unfortunately, the whole thing has become so entrenched in the British education system, that even union activists like Sean aren’t prepared to fight this consistently and often come up with spurious ‘anti-racist’ arguments for defending religious schooling.
In this case, it’s obviously an attempt by the SWP to keep onboard elements in ‘Respect’ who are behind the position.
Comment by Alex Nichols — 17 June, 2007 @ 3:30 pm
“I still find it jarring and a bit dishonest, why not say ‘Respect and SWP’.”
There there to represent Respect that’s why! As I said usual double standards as I’m sure Kate and Andrew didn’t introduce themselves as CND/STWC and The Communist Party…not that I’d care either way
Comment by noel — 17 June, 2007 @ 4:00 pm
Noel, your sheer brass neck in being affronted by Andy pointing out a dishonest trick which SWP members use almost constantly is entertaining, in a slightly depressing way.
The SWP members introduced themselves as Respect because they felt it was more useful to them to have as few people in the audience as possible know that they were SWP members. At least they all claimed to be from the same broad organisation, which is more than they usually do. The last public meeting I was at which had a substantial SWP presence saw seven SWP members speak from the floor, claiming to be from seven different campaigns, fronts and broad groups. None of them mentioned the SWP, nor did the SWP platform speaker.
The crazy thing about it was that the meeting only had 40 people at it, a good 30 of whom were longstanding left activists who knew exactly who everyone was. By the time the fifth SWP speaker got up and claimed to be from some other campaign they were met with howls of laughter.
Comment by Mark P — 17 June, 2007 @ 9:06 pm
“The SWP members introduced themselves as Respect because they felt it was more useful to them to have as few people in the audience as possible know that they were SWP members”
Mark don’t be an idiot the people at the meeting would have known those comrades were in the SWP as well, if it was a mainly CP meeting we’re hardly going to be talking about an audience full of teenagers who don’t know people on the left, I would imagine the average age would have been pushing 50 if not more.
The problem with the more sectarian amongst you is you cannot except that Defend Council Housing, STWC, Respect, LMHR, UAF etc are genuine united fronts and therefore being good revolutionaries we put the priorities of building them before building our party as we will grow if they do, not the other way around.
Comment by noel — 17 June, 2007 @ 11:25 pm
Noel, this may come as a shock to you if you live inside the closed world of the SWP, but very few of the people assembled together at a Morning Star meeting are going to have any clue who Sean Doherty, Nick Wrack or Paul Holborrow are.
A few Communist Party of Britain apparatchiks will know them personally. A few more people who go to a lot of public meetings around the left will recognise them by the language they use and arguments they make or will have enough knowledge of Respect to assume that they were SWP. A handful more might think that Holborrow guy looks a bit familiar from something thirty years ago. The vast majority of the 150 to 200 people at such an event won’t have a clue who they are and will have been succesfully deceived.
At the meeting I was talking about above, the entire attendance consisted of about forty people. Perhaps fifteen were SWP members. Another fifteen were either longstanding independent activists or members of other left groups. These thirty people all knew each other’s faces - this is a much smaller city than London and the non-SWP activists were in the middle of ongoing discussions about a left unity initiative with these same SWP members. For that reason, for once, a significant majority of people in the room were aware of the deception. Even then, the ten or so people the SWP were serious about trying to win over would not have been aware that the speakers from seven different groups who had just broadly agreed with each other were actually members of the same small political party.
I understand very well why the SWP adopt this approach. It has nothing to do with being deluded enough to think that claiming to be from seven different organisations at a pubic meeting is somehow putting building these seven different organisations first. Instead it is about giving their views a spurious broad, non-partisan, gloss. This isn’t a small revolutionary socialist party saying that we should all do something. It’s a whole range of unconnected, ordinary decent activists from all these different groups and backgrounds saying it. It is an attempt to gain a false credibility for their views by presenting themselves differently.
The problem with this utter dishonesty, isn’t just a moral one about deceiving people. It’s that in the long run it destroys trust and makes everyone more cynical.
Comment by Mark P — 18 June, 2007 @ 12:08 am
Noel, it is not a dig at the SWP, and I didn’t say it was dishonest, just odd.
I actually do think that most people in the meeting would have known that although they introduced themselves as from Respect they were in the SWP, though Mark P is correct that most comrades probably don’t know them as individuals. If they did know them as individuals they might assume that Nick Wrack was still in the socialist party, after all he as the last ediitor of the Militant under that banner, which would be a good reason for him to say he is in the SWP now.
The odd thing is that most comrades at such a meeting have a lot more time for the SWP, especially comrades like Sean and Paul, than they do for Respect. So to say “i am from the SWP, and I support Respect”, is actually a lot more credible.
In terms of the Morning Star meeting, most comrades made their political affiliation clear. Speakers from the floor identified themselves as from the CP if they were, or from other organisations. Many at the meeting were in the Labour Party.
Comment by Andy — 18 June, 2007 @ 10:24 am
I blame the SWP for the terrible weather we’ve been having.Sneaky,underhanded swine ;-).
Sounds like an interesting meeting by the way.Anything concrete likely to come out of it ?
Comment by rob j — 18 June, 2007 @ 2:49 pm
I think that the suggestion of a trade union sponsored policy foundation, or think tank, may become a reality, initially perhaps from those unions already affiliated to the LRC.
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