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Decision time is coming

In the second of three articles, ROBERT GRIFFITHS looks at the prospects for the labour movement reclaiming its mass party

Since the early 20th century, the Labour Party has been the mass electoral party of the labour movement in Britain. As Lenin pointed out, it was unique in that it included in its membership millions of trade unionists.

Its class base and broad popular appeal have enabled it to win elections, form governments and introduce far-reaching reforms in the interests of workers and the people generally.

Labour's federal structure with its affiliated trade unions and working-class composition have helped to ensure the existence of a significant socialist, as well as the predominant social democratic, trend within the party.

Not surprisingly, generations of working people have seen Labour as the main repository of their aspirations for a better life and a fairer, more humane society.

That's why for decades the Communist Party has urged the labour movement to turn left and help secure a "Labour government of a new type," one whose policies would open the road to socialism in Britain.

But while Labour governments have sometimes changed economic, social and political conditions for the better, they have never challenged the foundations of capitalism and imperialism.

The social democratic trend in the party has always refused to pursue a strategy for taking state power and using it to replace capitalism with socialism.

After its first term in office, the new Labour trend led by Tony Blair openly pursued a neoliberal agenda on behalf of monopoly capital and the state apparatus which serves its interests.

This agenda included dismantling the trade union and class basis of the Labour Party to make it completely safe for big business.

Thus the most recent edition of the Communist Party's programme, Britain's Road to Socialism (2011), reflects the change in the balance of forces inside the Labour Party as well as the diversification of the left.

 

It projects the need for mass campaigning and a militant extra-parliamentary movement to secure the election of a "left-wing government at Westminster, based on a socialist, Labour, communist and progressive majority at the polls."

This would mark the culmination of the first stage in the revolutionary process in Britain, complemented by the election of left governments in Wales and Scotland based on a similar anti-monopoly alliance of forces led by the labour movement.

It would help to prepare the transition to the next stage in the struggle for socialism, in which a mass movement and its left government would challenge the economic and state power of the monopoly capitalist class.

However, the question posed by recent developments is whether the Labour Party can in future be a vehicle for far-reaching or fundamental change.

More specifically, is the labour movement able and willing to reclaim the Labour Party or, failing that, to re-establish its own mass party of labour?

While the union-led alliance between socialists and social democrats actually defeated new Labour's preferred candidate in the 2010 Labour leadership election, it did not go on to finish off the faction and its policies.

Some social democrats have moved leftwards, but more - especially in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and shadow cabinet - have moved back to the right in alliance with the new Labourites.

Meanwhile, the socialist trend in the PLP and the constituency parties has not grown significantly stronger.

The trade union surrender at the March 2014 conference, where they backed extensive "reforms" to the party-union link, indicates that most unions have neither the political understanding nor the will to fight to reclaim the Labour Party.

This situation is unlikely to change before the June 2015 general election, although two of the biggest unions - Unite and the GMB - have embarked on a strategy of recruiting their members to join and become active in their LP organisations.

Indeed, Unite general secretary Len McCluskey has warned that the party might lose the election if it continues to advocate an austerity programme instead of enthusing and mobilising its core working-class supporters with bolder, more progressive policies.

Certainly, the period up to and immediately following the election could demonstrate conclusively whether or not Labour can be reclaimed as the mass electoral party of the labour movement.

That's because workers, their trade unions, socialists and communists will be confronted with stark choices about the way forward.

First, Labour's election manifesto will reveal whether any surviving trade union influence has produced a programme with policies for the millions and not the millionaires.

Will it, for example, contain commitments in favour of public ownership, progressive taxation, public-sector housing, price controls and additional rights for workers and their trade unions?

Will Labour move away from austerity, privatisation and the renewal of nuclear weapons?

If the answer is Yes, it will indicate that the battle to reclaim the party can possibly be won, reinforced by an upsurge in enthusiasm and determination to implement such policies in the face of what would be ferocious ruling class opposition.

 

This year's May Day celebrations should mark the beginning of an all-out offensive by trade unions and the Labour left to win back the party to social democracy, if not to socialism, and to see this represented in Labour's general election manifesto.

It is the duty of the whole trade union movement and the left, including non-affiliated unions and the Communist Party, to assist this struggle in every practical way.

Should no such initiative be taken - or fail to make substantial headway and no such policies appear in the manifesto - Labour will disappoint rather than enthuse many supporters, either losing the election or subsequently governing with neoliberal policies.

Under these conditions, the labour movement and the left will have no option but to take the necessary steps to re-establish a mass party of labour.

It could be argued that trade unions not prepared to fight to reclaim the party to which they are affiliated are even less likely to leave it to undertake a much more politically advanced task.

This will no doubt be the case with many of the 15 unions currently affiliated to the Labour Party.

But sticking with a party which no longer represents working-class interests - and where the prospects of it doing so have all but vanished - is a recipe for permanent defeat and despair.

It may well be the case that the initial moves towards re-establishing a labour party will have to come from a minority of unions, including non-affiliated ones.

The vital necessity is for the forces involved to include at least one or two of the big battalions of the labour movement.

This scenario might not be as distant as it once appeared. In March and April this year, McCluskey warned that his members might disaffiliate the union and help form a new workers' party if Labour doesn't reject austerity and adopt a pro-worker election manifesto.

Other unions currently outside the Labour Party might also be prepared to consider participating in such a project.

 

Robert Griffiths is general secretary of the Communist Party of Britain.

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