John McDonnell Leadership challenge
Martin Wicks
Left wing Labour MP John McDonnell has declared he will stand against Gordon
Brown for Labour leader when Blair departs. You would imagine that given his
record of campaigning for the trades unions and opposing the whole Blairite
agenda that the affiliated unions would obiously support John McDonnell’s. Can
they really support Brown who is driving the government’s neo-liberal agenda,
privatising public services and destroying public sector jobs?The experience
of 9 years of a right wing Blair government has driven vast numbers of members
out of the Labour Party. So much so that most local parties are empty shells.
Having promised to create a party of one million members Blair has merely
succeeded in halving the membership. Many socialists will view the question of
who takes over from Blair with indifference, not least because either Brown or
any candidate supported by Blair’s clique will continue with the neo-liberal
‘free market’ programme of the current government.
John is appealing to people to return to the party to take part in the
campaign. It remains to be seen how many do, but it will probably not be that
many since nobody believes that he stands a chance of getting anywhere near
winning. However, it would be a mistake if socialists in the affiliated unions
took the view that the change of leadership is of no consequence. So long as
the unions remain affiliated to Labour then we should demand that instead of
collaborating with the Blair/Brown leadership they should argue for a
fundamental change of political direction. To support Brown (as ‘the only
serious candidate’) or to sit on their hands and passively await his
‘coronation’ would be a grave disservice to union members who are daily being
attacked by this government.
The affiliated unions should oppose any attempt to rig a ‘smooth transition’
from Blair to Brown. In the first instance they should insist on a democratic
process in which a discussion takes place on policy questions. Secondly, if
any of the trade union critics of the government accept a ‘coronation’ of
Brown then union members could only draw the conclusion that their criticism
of government policy was mere hot air. Brown was one of the authors of PFI and
is the main driver of privatisation throughout the public sector.
John McDonnell’s campaign for the leadership of the Labour Party should be
seen as a welcome (if somewhat belated) challenge against the whole political
programme of ‘Blairism’. One does not have to be a Labour Party member to
support the campaign. Any member of an affiliated union has the right to
demand that their union declare its support for McDonnell. We should not watch
with disinterest if the union leaders line up behind Brown.
Writing on the Labour Representation Committee conference which agreed to
support his candidature John McDonnell talked of the choice which should be
presented to party members in the leadership election:
• between promoting public services or continued privatisation.
• between free education or trust schools and tuition fees.
• between increasing the state pension and restoring the link with earnings or
forcing more people onto the means test.
• between allowing councils to build council houses once again or high rents,
escalating housing costs, homelessness and overcrowding.
• between energy from green power sources, conservation, and British clean
coal or the costs and risks of nuclear power.
• between promoting civil liberties and trade union rights or reactionary
incursions into the right of free speech, assembly and trial.
• between a government committed to peace, withdrawal from Iraq and nuclear
disarmament or backing Bush's wars and wasting £24 billion on Trident.
With the exception of the question of nuclear power the unions are
fundamentally in conflict with this government’s policy. What sense would it
make to support a candidate who would continue with the policies which the
unions are opposed to and for which their members are paying a heavy price?
Campaigning for the affiliated unions to support McDonnell is necessary to
challenge the conciliators of New Labour at the top of the unions, who have
given the Blair government an easy ride.
The latest example of union leaders facing both ways – criticising the policy
of the government but acting as if they were friends of the working class –
was the GMB Congress. The Congress took some positive decisions, including
breaking with the ‘partnership’ agenda so beloved on New Labour. Yet when
Blair spoke he was given a standing ovation by many delegates, whilst the top
table uttered kind words about this reactionary ‘free market’ fanatic whose
government is privatising across the public sector and supporting a right wing
Republican President in the international arena. You cannot stand up for union
members and stand up for Blair.
Many union leaders will no doubt say that John McDonnell is not a ‘serious
candidate’. If they can find a more serious one then let them. But this is not
the basis of their relectance to support him. They do not want to oppose the
leadership of New Labour. Do they seriously believe that their powers of
persuasion can miraculously transform New Labour into a union friendly party?
This is self-delusion. Even Brendan Barber has said that a ‘fundamental change
of direction’ from New Labour’s agenda is necessary. Pretending that the New
Labour leaders are our friends is at complete variance with nine years
experience. Year after year the unions have won policy at Labour’s conference,
defeating the privatisation agenda. But, of course, the government has simply
ignored those votes. Good arguments will not convince people who are
ideologically committed to privatisation that they must abandon the entire
rationale of their policy.
Perhaps the calculation of some union leaders is that if they support a
candidate against Brown this will burn bridges with him and mean they have no
‘influence’ with him. Such ‘influence’ is nothing more than self-delusion. The
government has given away a few crumbs, but it’s overall political direction
is fundamentally opposed to the interests of union members and the working
class in general. Union leaders may see such an approach as ‘realism’. In
reality it is the worst opportunism.
It is the collaboration with the government which the union leaders have for
the most part carried out, which has allowed it to get away with a programme
of abandonment of the welfare state, privatisation of public services, and
support for a right wing republican administration in the USA on the
international level.
In return for the Warwick Agreement the major union leaders have effectively
agreed to restrain their members in order not to ‘risk’ the prospects of a
fourth term for Labour. That has meant compromise in the pension dispute,
abandoning the new generation of workers who will be on worse terms and
conditions of service than existing staff, and failing miserably to develop
any serious campaign against the government’s fracturing of the NHS and
opening up of it to big business.
Writing on his blog CWU leader Billy Hayes wrote:
“Problems of disengagement from Labour are linked to the Government’s support
for Bush’s foreign policy, and the neo-liberal attacks on the welfare state.
Change the policies and make our Party worth joining again.”
Billy has been one of the most vociferous proponents of the ‘stay in and
fight’ line amongst the trade union leaders. It will be interesting to see,
especially since the CWU is affiliated to the Labour Representation Committee,
whether he seeks to win the CWU to supporting John McDonnell’s campaign. So
far he has remained silent. But all of the union leaders are being put to the
test now because the camapign for the leadership of the party puts them on the
spot.
Of course, the campaign has a very difficult job on its hands for it has to
win the support of 44 Labour MPs in order for John to become a candidate. It
is questionable as to whether such a large number can be pressured to openly
support a campaign for a break with the political direction of New Labour. If
it fails to get John on the ballot then even those such as Labour Briefing,
which hangs doggedly to work in the Labour Party, may well draw the conclusion
they have resisted to draw for so long, the need to build a socialist
alternative to New Labour. That is the expressed view of Graham Bash, one of
its leading lights.
“If there were simply a coronation of Brown - without even an attempt to mount
a left challenge - this would be yet another nail, possibly a final nail, in
the coffin of not only the Labour left, but also the Labour Party as a class
party. John’s brave attempt to raise the banner of core Labour and socialist
values is either the beginning of the fightback or, if it makes little impact,
the beginning of the end for the Labour Party itself.”
Whatever the outcome, socialists in the affiliated unions should not allow
their union leaders to talk out of both sides of their mouths, criticising the
government but failing to seriously organise a struggle against it.
Supporting John McDonnell’s campaign does not mean agreeing with the
perspective of ‘winning back Labour’, it simply means that we do not allow the
union leaders to go unchallenged should they propose to support Brown or some
other creature of the Blairites. If they support the line of ‘staying in and
fighting’ let them show us they are serious about fighting the government. If
they were serious about overturning the politics of Blair they would have
organised a candidate themselves. As it is John McDonnell offers the only
chance within the Labour Party of challenging the political agenda for which
our members are paying such a high cost. Brown is as much as enemy of the
labour movement as Blair is.
http://www.john4leader.org.uk
August 2006
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