This article is from the November issue of Total Politics
I often hear from left-leaning Labour activists that they stay in their party in order to reclaim it from the right-wing Blairites who have controlled its direction for the past 20 or so years. But back to what mythical past do these activists hark?
The Labour Party was on the wrong side (from the point of view of the working class) of nearly every struggle in the last hundred years, from the First World War to the general strike, from the miners’ strike to the anti-poll tax campaign, on to Ed Miliband’s denunciation of strike action, while negotiations are ongoing, and call for Labour MPs to cross picket lines.
Even the post-war settlement that produced the NHS, council housing and (at least the attempt at) full employment was, in reality, a cross-party consensus aimed at preventing more revolutionary change.
For 30 years after the war, the relative power of capital versus labour, union militancy, employment, housing and growth were almost the same whichever party was in power.
In the three decades since Thatcher came to power a similar consensus has held, whether Labour or Conservative ministers were in government.
During 13 years of Labour Party governance we got a minimum wage and some partial devolution for Scotland, Wales and London, but no real return of power to local councils, no constitutional reform at Westminster, no Lords reform, no PR, no relaxation in union laws or shift in the balance of control of the economy from private corporations and treasury bureaucrats to ordinary workers and citizens.
The sad truth is that there never was a ‘Golden Age of Labour’ to which it can be returned.
It has been, and always will be, a party of capitalism and the establishment.
Alasdair blogs at Bright Green, brightgreenscotland.org
Comments
George Hathaway / October 29 2011 5:24pm
As Tony Benn has said, Labour has never been a socialist party but there have always been socialists in it; it remains the main voice for working class people in Britain, and there is always going to be scope for a 'shift to the left' due to the number of activists who want to see it move in that direction (such as myself).
Clr Ralph Baldwin / October 29 2011 11:00pm
Can Jon Cruddas MP (as one example), interesting chap tell Left from Right, anti- or pro-establishment?
This guy is an “adviser” to the undemocratic think tank that Patricia Hewitt claimed on Channel Four was where businesses could lobby politicians to make policy. Jon shares his adviser role with real Lefties like George Osborne MP the current Chancellor. I know what you are going to say now…that’s the man I would trust to protect public service jobs and the interests of the Unions!
That’s were policy gets made without bothering with the public, and where banks and other big businesses get to pay for “research”.
According to Andrew Rawnsley who interviewed Jon Cruddas (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/sep/29/jon-cruddas-interview) Cruddas likes to share his special moments thinking and talking with Tories when he goes fishing with his good friend Tory MP Charles Walker.
According to the Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-457904/Real-Labour-candidate-exploits-expenses-loophole-to-Notting-Hill.html) Jon Cruddas has got himself a lovely patch in Notting Hill. He has developed his views towards more open democracy by defying a three line whip and voting with many Tories on Europe as well (http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/10/24/up-to-10-labour-mps-could-defy-eu-whip/).
Establishment? Yep, certainly looks like it. Not sure that's what Labour voters and radical members were hoping for though and its amazing how Labour initially begun to be radical and about swung after its first term, sounds to me as though they simply realized how much money there was in becoming pro-establishment, pro-capitalism and against modernization and democracy.
allan68 / November 07 2011 3:58pm
The article would be more accurate, but less provocative, if it merely stated that Labour has never been a socialist party defined in the narrow sense of wanting to nationalise the commanding heights of the economy and declare and forcibly implement a fundamental shift in power relations in favour of working people and their families. To argue that Labour has always been a party of capitalism (and always will be – slightly pessimistic outlook) has force only if you focus on Labour’s economic objectives when in power as opposed to its ‘social agenda’. Labour Chancellors have always only wanted to run the market economy with greater effectiveness than their Conservative counterparts. Away from economics Labour has always pursued distinctive social policies and has always been prepared to spend Government revenue in a more redistributionist, social democratic way than the Conservatives. Crudely speaking if the Conservatives had won in 1997 or 2001 Britain would not have received the substantial catch up monies which have so improved the nations’ schools and hospitals; the Overseas Aid budget would still be a national shame; paternity pay would be a strange custom indulged in by those effeminate Europeans; and basic human rights would still be mostly confined to those in mixed gender marriages. Not exactly the dictatorship of the proletariat but a ‘golden age’ at least for those who benefitted from these changes.
Kramekosum / November 14 2011 1:38am
allan68 - interesting comment but you do the Labour 'movement' a great disservice. Even Crosland & Gaitskell were not socialists and arguably created the pre-cursor to Blair. Because of Nu Labor's move to the right we have ended up with a far less libertarian and more unequal society(see Gini figures). The neo-thatcherite agenda pursued by Blair/Brown has been a disgusting sycophantic aping of the joke that is 'America'. The logic follows as such - Centrist governments(Nu Labor) and Right wing oppositions = drift to Right. Right wing governments and Left wing opposition = stay in Centre. Blair's destruction of the Old Labour Party + the subsequent collapse of real conservatism has left a massive soulless void! This is how we have ended up well to the right of Thatcher and how executive pay is so stratospheric. The evil Mrs T would not have been associated with feckless idiots like Goodwin & Hornby... As for "paternity pay would be a strange custom indulged in by those effeminate Europeans; and basic human rights would still be mostly confined to those in mixed gender marriages." Please grow up!? The rabid Tories had already been dwindling well B4 1997. You can't stereotype them as if it is still 1984; they have openly gay activists, writers, MPs(black ones too) and voters...! We are in thrall to the "Banks" and at the mercy of the fractional reserve system. The majority of the population including red-brick university graduates are blissfully ignorant of the economics. None of the political parties is doing anything about the perverted economic system. The likes of Cruddas + also the Blue Labour/ Red Tory clubs should be applauded for trying to see things differently. Amen