Labour Party: blood on their hands! - Labour always a racist

[Conghaileach]

Labour Party: Blood on their hands!

The war against Iraq has ended and the occupation has started. The excuse for war that Iraq was an immediate threat to the ‘democratic world’ was a calculated lie. No weapons of mass destruction have been used or found. The Iraqi army collapsed in the space of three weeks. Tony Blair and his Labour supporters are liars. The US/British Coalition managed to kill at least 1,250 Iraqi civilians, injuring more than 5,000. They used depleted uranium weapons and cluster bombs that will continue to kill and maim Iraqi children for years to come. Just like Afghanistan, which has descended into crime-ridden repression, ruled by warlords, Iraq will be governed in the interests of the USA and Britain, not in the interests of its people. Civilian areas are existing without basic utilities, clean water, or medical services. Already protesters are being shot on the streets. Meanwhile the spoils of war are what matters to the Coalition; massive ‘reconstruction’ contracts are being handed to US and British companies, and the oil fields are guarded by Coalition troops.

No one ever doubted that the juggernaut of US/British armed forces would win this one-sided war. We argued that it would be an illegal bloody war to establish global domination for the imperialists. Tony Blair is not an aberration or an interloper who has taken over the Labour Party. The Labour Party has always been a war party: it has always been prepared to kill innocent people to advance the interests of British imperialism. The war against Iraq was nothing new.

Britain’s imperialist interests
In the lead up to the 1999 war against Yugoslavia, the then Labour Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, declared that ‘nowhere in the world is so far away that it is not relevant to our security interests.’ The Iraq war, the 100th overseas military campaign by British armed forces since World War II, was equally in pursuit of British strategic interests. The British ruling class was defending its overseas assets and oil interests, second only to those of the USA, and the global financial role of the City of London. British imperialism used its alliance with the US to raise its global status relative to that of France and Germany, and to force them to defer to it within the European Union. Imperialism is at the heart of Labour’s strategy.

Labour: always a racist, imperialist party
Left Labour MP George Galloway tells us that this Labour government’s foreign policy is ‘far from Labour’. This is a complete lie. Labour has always been prepared to use military power to defend British imperialism.

Between 1964 and 1970, Labour:
• Unconditionally supported the US onslaught on Vietnam;
• Defended apartheid South Africa, blocking all attempts to impose sanctions in the UN;
• Sent troops into Ireland in 1969;
• Tortured suspected freedom fighters in Aden.


Between 1974 and 1979, Labour:
• Continued to defend apartheid South Africa in the UN;
• Supported the Shah of Iran as he faced a mass popular uprising;
• Began selling Hawk aircraft to Indonesia during the genocidal war against East Timor;
• Ran a ruthless torture regime against Republican prisoners in the North of Ireland.

Throughout this period Labour has been a Zionist party. Its 1944 conference called for the expulsion of the Palestinian people to make way for a Zionist state. In a cynical ploy it recently begged the US to publish its ‘road map’ for Palestine to show its support for a Palestinian state. It has not said a word about the escalating slaughter of Palestinians.

Break with Labour! Build a mass anti-imperialist movement!
What has been striking about this war is the strength of opposition by ordinary people in Britain and across the world. Yet the opposition was a complete failure. The largest political demonstration ever against war failed to have any impact. Why? It is very simple. When it came to the crunch the likes of Galloway, Robin Cook, Corbyn and the rest of the Labour left wanted to have their cake and eat it. They want to criticise the Blair government but remain in the racist, imperialist Labour Party. Crime after crime against oppressed people across the world and against workers and oppressed people in Britain has gone unchallenged because these Labour Lefts are phonies. They are no opposition at all.


And what about the Stop the War Coalition, led by the Socialist Workers Party. They led the movement into the arms of Labour. They put any no-hoper or has-been from the Labour Party, or even from the Liberal Democrats, at the top of their list of speakers at every demonstration. Why? Because they don’t mean it either. They are more committed to the survival of the Labour Party than to the victory of the working class and oppressed. Make no mistake; without these Labour fakers and their left supporters at the head of the movement, we could have stopped Blair and we could have stopped the war. Blair and the Labour leadership knew this. Now you know what is necessary. We have to destroy the Labour Party and its left supporters to stand a chance of building a democratic and grassroots movement in Britain which rejects the whole rotten system of imperialism and puts the interests of the working class, the poor and the oppressed first.

End the occupation of Iraq!
Victory to the Intifada! Hands off the Middle East!
Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite to destroy imperialism!


For further information about Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and its activities, phone 020 78371688, or write to FRFI, BCM Box 5909, London WC1N 3XX or e-mail [email protected] Visit our website at www.revolutionarycommunist.com

[GCusack]

I think the war in Iraq needed to happen to get rid of Suddam. I know thats odd because the West put him in power but, and my uncle who is from Bahgdad has seen first hand Suddams violence, he was a dictator and needed to be removed!

[bolshevik1917]

Ciaran, that is the biggest load of ultra-left sectarian trype I have ever seen. The author has a very selective memory and has no understanding of the class nature of the Labour party and trade unions.

I think the fact that it is SWP propoganda just about sums it up..

[bolshevik1917]

"For socialism and peace"?

The British Labour Party and war in historical perspective

By Barbara Humphries

The Blair government's policy of supporting the US led invasion of Iraq has received unprecedented opposition, both from activists in the anti-war movement and from within the ranks of the Labour Party. Even with the current regime in the Party where democracy is stifled, branches fail to meet and where activists are often disenfranchised, the Parliamentary Labour has been split down the middle. This reflects the mood within the constituencies and within the trade union movement. The labour movement is opposed to this war which is being carried out by a Labour Government.

The campaign for peace and opposition to militarism has deep roots within the Labour Party. When Labour launched its 1935 manifesto on foreign policy it was entitled "For Socialism and Peace". This manifesto, however, united party activists who had very different concepts about how this was to be achieved. Some Labour Party members were pacifists - this included the one time leader George Lansbury. There was a very large peace wing including Christian Socialists and the Co-operative Movement. Britain was then the world's foremost imperialist power and jingoistic flag waving was rampant on the part of the establishment. The Women's Co-operative Guild had a banner "No to militarism in our schools".

A wing of the party represented in the 1930s by the left-wing Socialist League called for a general strike world wide to stop any war from breaking out. This policy had been that of the Socialist International, abandoned in 1914 when the German Social Democratic Party had voted for war credits in the German Reichstag. The result of this vote was that the leadership of all the main European socialist parties ended up supporting their governments in the 1914-1918 war, which was imperialist on all sides and in which millions were slaughtered. The anti-war opposition in all countries was confined to a minority of socialists as even trade union leaders supported their government's war efforts. Only after four years of war was action against the war supported on a large scale. This developed into revolutionary movements of the working class across Europe, including the Russian revolution of 1917. In Britain dockworkers refused to load arms on to a boat called the 'Jolly George' which were to be used against the newly formed socialist government in Russia. They had the full support of the British labour movement. A conference was called endorsing a general strike if the British government did not end its support for the overthrow of the soviet government. This was critical in changing British foreign policy at the time.

However the majority view in the Labour Party was that peace could be achieved through collective security, by the League of Nations, the forerunner of the United Nations. This reflected a desire to never go to war again. Unfortunately the League of Nations was unable to prevent the rise of fascism in Italy, Spain and Germany - events which were to lead to the Second World War. Some of the Tories (the so-called appeasers) were to regard Hitler and Mussolini as allies in the fight against Bolshevism! Hence the League of Nations failed to stop the Second World War.

In 1945 Labour was elected to power with an overall majority for the first time. Its domestic programme included nationalization and the introduction of the National Health Service. This was widely popular, including with the ranks of the armed forces. Labour supporters expected that foreign policy would include collective security with all the major players in the war against Nazism on board - including the Soviet Union, which had played a large role in the defeat of fascism - under the auspices of the United Nations.

Foreign policy under the Labour Government however was to take a different turn. Ernest Bevin, a right-wing former leader of the Transport and General Workers Union was unexpectedly appointed by Prime Minister Attlee as Foreign Secretary. It soon became clear that he was supporting the new concerns of the US government in 'containing communism.'

The first casualty was Greece. In Greece a communist led popular resistance movement had effectively fought the Nazi occupation of their country. But when the Nazis had been defeated British troops were ordered to carry out a policy of imposing an unpopular king and pro-capitalist government upon the Greek people. This was the first war of the Cold War era. It had been Winston Churchill's policy and Labour left-wingers were dismayed to find a Labour Government continuing with the same policy. British troops, who had formerly fought alongside the Greek resistance movement now behaved in Greece like an army of occupation. Labour opponents of this policy pointed out that the government of Greece supported by "Bevin - the kingmaker" had executed over 490 resistance fighters and another 1,300 faced trial. Furthermore the continuing war against the Greek people was costing millions of pounds, which the British Government could not afford if it was to fulfil its domestic manifesto promises. Finally when British troops were pulled out of Greece their place was taken by US troops to ensure the success of the counter-revolution. Greek workers were faced with poverty and dictatorship for decades.

The 1945-51 Labour Government met with opposition to its foreign policy. Conscription, introduced by the government in peacetime was opposed by 85 MPs. A hard core "Keep Left Group" including Michael Foot campaigned for British independence from US foreign policy which was increasingly leading to war-mongering against the Soviet Union by the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. The complete economic bankruptcy of Britain after the Second World War had left it dependent upon US loans, which were conditional on supporting US foreign policy! 20 Labour MPs had voted against the terms of these loans, and a further 40 abstained. They did not have the support of the Labour Party conference however, as the trades union block vote was stitched up by Labour right-wingers in the 1940s.

The US had become the world's foremost imperialist power but sought an ally in Europe. As the so-called "iron-curtain" descended, hysterical anti-communism became rife in the US affecting all sections of society. Fears were expressed about the potential success of the Communist parties, not only in Eastern Europe, but also through the ballot box in Italy and France. Open support for a left wing coalition of socialists and communists in Italy by Labour MPs sent in the form of a telegram to the Italian socialist Nenni was to lead to expulsion from the Party for a number of Labour MPs. The Marshall Plan, which made aid dependent on political support further sealed the borders of Europe between east and west. In 1948 NATO was formally established. Finally the Labour Government sent British troops into Korea in support of US foreign policy.

Labour lost to the Tories in 1951 and remained out of office until 1964. During the 1950s the Cold War continued. Opposition to the use of nuclear weapons continued with the formation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958. Opposition to militarism and nuclear weapons continued in the Labour Party. In 1964 Labour was elected again, led by Harold Wilson with a small majority. The effects of Labour's opposition to US foreign policy soon made itself felt when the Prime Minister told the American president Lyndon Johnson that he could not send British troops to support the US war in Vietnam. This was due to opposition from the Labour Party and the British public. Not one battalion could be sent! Washington was annoyed - it believed that the presence of British troops added international credibility as well as efficiency and effectiveness. In his book "America and the British Labour Party- the special relationship at work" Peter Jones wrote: "Faced with the problem of managing potentially irate back bench supporters, particularly in the context of leading a government with a wafer thin majority, Harold Wilson found himself in something of a dilemma. He became torn between a desire to support America in return for its financial support for sterling and a desire to bring about a settlement to the conflict through negotiation and mediation". As the war in Vietnam continued opposition to the conduct of the war grew both on the streets of Britain and within the Labour Party. The American ambassador to London had to report that the pressure on Wilson came not just from the Left but from Labour moderates and from the public as well. Nevertheless Wilson appeased the American government in return for support for sterling by buying the Polaris submarine and agreeing a "world role for the US".

As the Labour Party moved to the left in the 1970s and 1980s, (particularly as a result of the electoral defeat in 1979) it also adopted a foreign policy which was hostile to the deployment of US nuclear weapons on British soil. In 1983 there were accusations that the Party's election manifesto commitments would have undermined NATO. Some of the Labour leadership refused to support the manifesto. Others had already left the Party and formed the Social Democratic Party. They were the real splitters of the movement. The Labour Party was defeated again in the 1983 general election.

But the end of the Cold War after 1990 did not bring the war mongering on the part of the US to an end. The first Gulf War of 1991 ended the brief post-Cold War peace. This war supported by the Labour leadership was opposed by a large number of activists, many of whom resigned from the Party. Since 1997 the Labour Government has been involved in four wars - Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and now Iraq. But the policies of the government have been deeply unpopular and the campaign against the war-mongering of the prime minister will continue both on the streets and within the labour movement, including the Labour Party.

[Invader Zim]

Labours full of shit and lie's i most certanly not vote for them but i think the guy who wrote that as bolshevik1917 said has a selective memory... they must have done one good thing... ummmm.... errrrr.... I will be back when i think of one.

[bolshevik1917]

Saying something is 'full of shit and lies' wont earn you much respect.

The LP is a social democratic reformist party built by the trade unions. It is not revolutionary or Marxist, but a mass reformist party.

However, so was the SDF in Russia where the bolsheviks were once a fraction inside.

Social democratic parties swing left and right, depending on the conditions of capital. As we have been in a boom for a few years the LP was allowed to swing far to the right and pave the way for the Blairites.

However, we can already see that the right wing beurocracy in the LP's days are numbered. A new left will emmerge, it already has in the TUC, and will combat and defeat Blair.

Of course, this will not turn Labour into a Marxist or revolutionary party, just a very big left reformist party. And when there is a left reformist party that size, active youth and advanced workers stop looking to sects (if they ever did in the first place) like the SWP for answers (answers they do not and cannot provide)

The LP fills up with new 'lefts' open to all left wing ideas, that is why we need Marxists inside the party and the unions.

The SWP and parties like them are ultra lefts who critiscise from the sidelines of the Labour movement, they are oppurtunistic and have been ignored by the working class for years, and they will continue to be for years to come yet.

[peaccenicked]

Bolshevik1917 Defending the long bloody record of Her Majestys Labour governments by pointing to fragments of the Labour party opposed to war is nothing but shameful.

[Sandanista]

Sorry but Labour have always been an imperialist party.

I could say ur being militant sectarian by not making the break and joining the SWP.

[bolshevik1917]

Labour have always been an imperialist party??

There is nothing sectarian about staying about staying in the mass organisations, why the SWP theyr just a nother sect, a nobody..

A small history lesson for you

How the British Labour Party was formed

This is the first of a series of articles on the history of the British Labour Party. These articles will help workers and youth to get a greater understanding of what the Labour Party is and what the attitude of Marxists to it should be.

In February 1900, 129 delegates met in a hall in Farringdon Street, London. They represented 65 trade unions, and three socialist organizations - the Independent Labour Party, the Social Democratic Federation and the Fabian Society. As they made their way through the crowded streets they were not noticed by City workers, but they had come to found the Labour Party.

Fifty years on the Labour Party published a golden jubilee pamphlet entitled "Marching on". It reaffirmed the principles upon which the movement had been founded. It read:

"We reaffirm our belief that the earth's resources should be employed in the service of the community and that this can be assured only if it is the community which commands their employment. Only in this way can we avert the pitiless paradox of unused resources and unsatisfied needs; of unemployed millions living in need of the very things they themselves could produce; the unemployed coalminer in need of coal; the unemployed weaver in need of clothes; the hungry farmworker, the ill-shod shoemaker, the homeless builder. Where human needs exist and where the resources of labour, raw materials and equipment required to satisfy those needs also exist, we believe that no intermediate interest, whether it be commercial profit or bureaucratic power, should stand between the two."

The "New Labour" leadership want to rewrite the history of the Labour Party because it is in conflict with the Blair project. Blair wants to change the Labour Party into a radical liberal party like the American Democratic Party. He regards the separation of Labour from the Liberal Party at the beginning of the century as a mistake.

However the history of the Party clearly illustrates that Labour was set up as the party of the working class in this country, with the trades union movement as a bedrock. From the adoption of Clause 4, in 1918 the Party had a socialist constitution which reflected the aspirations of the membership of the Party. It was its class roots and socialist vision which motivated the commitment of thousands of working people to build the Party, into what became the major vehicle for change in Britain in the twentieth century. Within twenty years of its foundation Labour had become the main opposition party, replacing the Liberals, and four years later had formed a minority government. The 1945 Labour Government led the reconstruction of Britain after the Second World War, with a programme of selective nationalisation and the establishment of the welfare state.

The Labour Representation Committee, which was to become the Labour Party was set up by the Trades Union Congress in 1900, as a means of securing trades union representation in Parliament. This was after two decades of class struggle in which trades unions had successfully organised unskilled workers, changing the face of the TUC from a body which represented respectable skilled working men defending their relatively privileged status in the economy to an organisation which was coming into conflict with the capitalist class.

Trades unions which had operated like friendly societies were being outnumbered by those which organised strikes and picket lines. At the same time there had been a reawakening of socialist ideas, which had laid dormant in Europe since the 1840s. Political parties such as the Social Democratic Federation attracted thousands of members. Demonstrations and mass meetings not seen since the days of the Chartists took place in the 1880s. In this situation the TUC general council was coming under pressure to break their alliance with the Liberal Party. The franchise was gradually being extended to working class people, so that the two main capitalist parties - the Liberals and Tories - had to appeal to working class voters for the first time. This had led to concessions such as legislation upholding the right to picket peacefully in industrial disputes.

By the end of the nineteenth century the economic conditions for an independent labour party had ripened in Britain. The economy was increasingly controlled by monopolies. This meant the beginning of a massive concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and increasing division and conflict between capitalists and workers. It was revealed that only two-fifths of the national cake was consumed by wage earners. A quarter of the population lived in poverty. At the same time the heyday of British capitalism was drawing to an end. British industry now competed with Germany, France and America for markets and raw materials and investment abroad. Victorian expansion and unbridled prosperity for industry was over - the economy was faced with one crisis after another. From 1889-1913 real wages declined by 10%. This was the economic background to the political upheavals.

The ruling class had grown used to the craft unions of the mid nineteenth century economic boom. These unions of skilled respectable men had few quarrels with the bosses. They sought to better themselves by using their skills to restrict entry to the union, in order to maintain wages and in setting up Friendly Societies. These men, like Broadhurst who was secretary of the TUC, supported the Liberal Party.

The political climate was changed in 1886, when John Burns and Henry Hyndman, two leaders of the recently formed Marxist Social Democratic Federation, began organising the unemployed. They led demonstrations of 75,000 people through the West End of London. to oppose factory closures. Attacks by police with batons on demonstrators brought about rioting, in which several people were killed. The ruling class horrified by broken windows in London's West End, believed that a war had broken out between the haves and have-nots. The poor were now regarded as a menace and a threat, no longer "the deserving poor" of Victorian England. The class struggle had begun in earnest.

John Burns, together with socialist trades unionist Tom Mann, organised the Eight Hour League with the aim of reducing unemployment. This campaign rapidly gained support amongst the unskilled workers and was adopted by the London Trades Council as a means of reducing unemployment and giving the worker more time for his family.

Sections of workers, like the Ayrshire miners who had been committed to supporting the Liberal Party and had the tactic of restricting the output of coal in times of recession, now took up the campaign for the 8 hour day.

Increasingly employers were using the unemployed to break strikes and enforce wage cuts. The unskilled workers were particularly vulnerable as "they could be replaced by a hungry fellow from anywhere". Scottish miners were threatened that union members would be replaced by the Glasgow unemployed. One miner who was recruited to socialism was called Keir Hardie.

From the "Eight Hour League", Mann and Burns went on to organise the unskilled workers, such as the dockers and the gasmen, the ones whom craft unions had left out in the cold. Deskilling was also to take place in industries such as engineering and shipbuilding and skilled workers had the task of organising the unskilled and semiskilled in their industry.

There was a basis now for industrial or even general unions, rather than unions based on skills and crafts. Methods of organisation had to be different. Membership was liable to fluctuation. During the 1890s for instance, only 3% of dockers were unionised. Membership was difficult to sustain through slumps. The use of unemployed workers to break strikes inevitably brought the trade unions into conflict with picketing and property laws.

During the 1880s the main unions of unskilled workers were formed. The gasworkers led by Will Thorne won the 8 hour day. Some women workers were organised - the matchgirls of Bryant and May whose atrocious working conditions became famous world wide. Women in the East End were consistently being disfigured by the use of phosphorous in the match industry. As far as the ruling class were concerned these people were an "underclass" - at the fringes of humanity. But the early socialists took up their cause and attempted to organise them into the trades union movement.

Inroads were made into the organisation of agricultural workers, "railway servants", as they were then called, and textile workers. All this was overshadowed by the dock strike of 1889. The dockers, one of the most exploited sections of the working class, went on strike for six pence an hour - the "dockers' tanner" [old English slang for the sixpenny piece] as it became known.

Oppressed for years by a system of casual labour, by which the employers hired and fired at will, the dockers came out and demonstrated through the streets of London for their rights. They carried red flags, and stinking fish heads to show what they had to live on. Their victory was gained from the support they received from the labour movement in this country and internationally. It is in struggles like these that the Labour Party had its roots. There was nothing "respectable" or Blairite about it at all.

The rise of the unskilled unions raised the need for a party of labour. Their tactics were completely different to the old craft unions. They could not restrict entry to the trade, but they relied up on strikes and picketing. The use of scabs was backed up with police and sometimes army protection. This caused widespread violence in industrial disputes, arrests and jail sentences for trades unionists. That is how the battles of the new unions became political.

There were conflicts with the law and the state. Not since the days of the Chartists in the early part of the nineteenth century had the issue of political power been so sharply posed, or had society been so polarised along class lines. Increasingly socialists linked the trades union struggles with their political goals of changing society. The call for an independent party of labour was campaigned for within the trades union movement. Engels wrote the following to the Labour Standard in 1881:

"…the time is rapidly approaching when the working class of this country will claim… its full share of representation in Parliament... the working class will have understood that the struggle for high wages, and short hours, and the whole action of the trades unions as carried on now, is not an end in itself but a means towards the end, the abolition of the wages system altogether."

The setting up of an independent Party of labour was opposed by the old guard of the TUC, those who like Broadhurst represented the craft workers, the labour aristocracy and who wanted to maintain links with the Liberals. They declared that the time was not ripe!

But the campaign was maintained. Some socialists from groups like the Social Democratic Federation were also reluctant to support a party of labour on the grounds that it would be limited to labour representation in Parliament and would not be socialist! Others, like Engels believed that a party based on the labour movement would inevitably move towards the adoption of socialist policies as the parties of capitalism, and what they stood for, became discredited.

Finally in 1899 the Trades Union Congress voted to set up an independent Labour Representation Committee. After a decade of attacks upon the trades union movement and little support from the Liberal Party it was time to act independently. At the beginning this Labour Representation Committee did not gain the affiliation of the whole trades union movement. But that was set to change at a later stage.

Also middle class reformers in the main did not give their wholehearted support to the Labour Representation Committee at this stage. They still had hopes that the Liberal Party would carry out social reforms, modernising British society and overcoming the growing gulf between labour and capital, whilst leaving capitalism intact.

It was only later that they jumped on the bandwagon, when the Labour Party was clearly posed to replace the Liberals as the opposition to the Tories in Britain., and the labour movement looked like a better bet for carrying out social reforms. The same can be said of the "socialist think-tank" - the Fabian Society - whose "socialism from the top downwards approach" had also led them to consider the possibility of influencing the Liberal Party before the founding conference of the Labour Representation Committee.

Without the trades union affiliation therefore, the Labour Party would not have existed.

So what of the socialist groups which had existed before the Labour Party? The aforementioned Social Democratic Federation had been in existence for over fifteen years. It is important to note that the term Social Democrat meant Marxist in those days. The model Social Democratic party was the German Social Democratic Party, which was based on Marxism. It, however, was soon to abandon its commitment to Marxism. As a result socialists then tended to abandon the term "social-democrat", in favour of "socialist" or "Marxist". (The term Social Democrat was later to be used by a group of Labour MPs who left the Labour Party, attempting to split it in the 1980s, and who did not have the courage to openly call themselves Liberals or Conservatives!)

However the Marxism of the Social Democratic Federation was like that of the German Social Democratic Party. They believed that socialism was inevitable. The movement would continue to grow and the majority of the population would see the light. Hyndman, a conservative who had converted to Marxism, did not see the connection between militant trades unionism and socialism, on one occasion condemning strikes as a waste of time because they left the capitalist system intact.

The activities of party members however drew them into practical politics - some into trades unionism, others into the municipal socialism of school boards and health boards. But they did not see this activity as raising workers' consciousness.

Tom Mann and William Morris eventually left the SDF because of its political sectarianism. William Morris went on to set up another organisation called the Socialist League. Nevertheless the SDF gained a sizeable following with 43 branches in London alone. It popularised the spread of socialist ideas through propaganda and won recruits to Marxism who were later to play a role in the foundation of the Labour Party, but it failed to make the breakthrough of becoming a mass party and forming an alternative to the Liberals and Tories. A party was needed which had links with the trades unions and which would challenge the Liberals and Tories in the parliamentary arena. By the 1890s the SDF was declining in favour of the Independent Labour Party.

The Independent Labour Party had more success in the North of England. It was founded in Bradford in 1892. It had the backing of Bradford Trades Council and was formed in the wake of the defeat of a strike at the Manningham mills which had involved 5,000 people against the local mill owners.

The trades union movement had suffered declining membership and attacks during the 1890s. Unemployment in shipbuilding rose to 20% and in Hull in 1891 1,000 scabs recruited by the employers broke a shipping strike under the protection of police, troops and gunboats. Of the towns magistrates, four were shipowners, and nineteen others had shares in major shipping companies.

This was how blatantly the forces of the state were arranged against labour. Many of these employers were Liberals as well as Conservatives showing that the trades union movement could have little confidence in the representatives of these capitalist parties.

Scab organisations like the National Association of Free Labour were set up to recruit strikebreakers on a national scale. The trades unions were becoming more in need of political representation, which strengthened the case of those who argued for the Trades Union Congress to launch a party of labour.

As well as the ILP, the Scottish Labour Party added its voice to this campaign. This party had the backing of the Scottish miners recruited after a long strike in Ayrshire in 1886-87. The first independent Labour MPs, like Keir Hardie were elected to Parliament. Advice given to the first ILP MPs was as follows: "A working man in Parliament should go to the House of Commons in his workday clothes… he should address the speaker on labour questions, and give his utterance to the same sentiments, in the same language and in the same manner that he is accustomed to utter his sentiments, and address the president of the local radical club. Above all he should remember that ALL THE CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERALS ARE JOINED TOGETHER IN THE INTEREST OF CAPITAL AGAINST LABOUR"

The first leaflet published by the Labour Representation Committee was written by Ramsay Macdonald who was later, as prime minister to betray the labour movement. However, in an article entitled "Why trade unionists should support the Labour Representation Committee", he said "Trade unions are being constantly threatened by attempts made in Courts of Law to undermine their legal basis, and at any moment the existence of organised labour may be put in jeopardy by the decision of a Bench of Judges".

Trusts were combining against the interests of labour and war would ensue. In Parliament politicians of both parties (Tories and Liberals) were active on the Employers' Parliamentary Council. Labour had to combine politically to fight this.

The use of the law against the Society of Railway Servants in the Taff Vale Judgement vindicated these founders of the movement and brought more affiliations of trades unionists to the LRC, or the Labour Party as it became known in 1906.

Electoral gains were made for Labour in the 1906 election. However in spite of the class aims of the Labour Party deals were done between Labour MPs and the Liberal Government. Labour was to replace the Liberal Party decisively as the main opposition only after 1918.

During these early years the British ruling class did everything in its power to destroy two minority Labour governments in 1924 and 1931. However the tide of history could not be held back for ever and Labour finally achieved a landslide victory in 1945.

After nearly a century the Labour Party is still in existence. It has remained throughout that time a classic "united front" of socialists, social-democrats and trades unionists. It has helped to perpetutate the reality of class politics by maintaining, for most of this time, electoral opposition to the party of British capitalism - the Conservatives. It has been capable of winning elections without alliances, and has achieved much in the way of carrying out reforms which have benefitted working class people. The 1945 Labour Government was instrumental in implementing the welfare state.

For all these reasons it would be wrong for the links between the trades union movement and the Labour Party to be broken and it would equally be wrong for socialists now to leave the Labour Party. As many times in the past, the left wing of the party will be revived and strengthened as workers draw lessons from their own experiences and turn to the Labour Party.

Of course the Labour Party has not carried out the socialist transformation of society. Its leadership has always tried to work within the confines of capitalism. But socialists should soberly reflect on the fact that no other "party" in this country has done so either and that attempts to build socialist "sects" on the fringes of the movement outside of the party have failed again and again, whereas socialists within the Party have been successful on more than one occasion in changing party policy and gaining support. That is the lesson of the past 100 years.

[peaccenicked]

"Of course the Labour Party has not carried out the socialist transformation of society. Its leadership has always tried to work within the confines of capitalism. But socialists should soberly reflect on the fact that no other "party" in this country has done so either and that attempts to build socialist "sects" on the fringes of the movement outside of the party have failed again and again, whereas socialists within the Party have been successful on more than one occasion in changing party policy and gaining support. That is the lesson of the past 100 years. ''
Complete Bullshit.
The ritual acceptence of the undemocratic imperialist labour party is the biggest enemy of the working class. Calling anything outside the Labour party sectarianism is not only crass sectarianism., But a vile defence of the mechanisms in place in Britain to crush working class resistence and murder workers internationally.
The dropping of clause four has prepared the way for new labour to be a champion of neo-liberalism and the neo fascism of the US state.
Anybody in the Labour party now is up to their necks in iraqi/afghani blood and on the road to having thousands of more deaths on their conscience. To call themseves Marxists is nothing but a sick joke. Neither history or dialectics vindicates being party to the mass murdering crimes of Blair and Bush.

[Invader Zim]

Quote: from bolshevik1917 on 6:51 pm on May 19, 2003
Saying something is 'full of shit and lies' wont earn you much respect.

The LP is a social democratic reformist party built by the trade unions. It is not revolutionary or Marxist, but a mass reformist party.



You dont actually believe that do you. Since the formation of New labvour they have become more conservative that the actual tory party, any fool can see this. They are not even democratic any more since they crushed the largest ever parlimentary rebellion. Also they are refusing to set up a referendum regarding the euro question.

They are becoming more right wing and dictatorial all the time.

[Socialsmo o Muerte]

This is true..

The only way you can not know that is if you don't know the "New Labour" manifesto and proposals.

They haven't become more conservative than the Tories though. They have taken the place of the Tories on the political line and the Tories have just shifted more right. However, proposals like scrapping tuition fees from the Tories are showing just how fragmented the political scene is coming. It's hard right now to put any party anywhere on the line.

In the past, Labour have been great. As some of you have touched upon. The reforms of the 30's and 40's brought us our Welfare State and it would've continued today had it not been for the transformation of Labour into New Labour.

As someone pointed out, the opening article on this post is insanely biased. Making it virtually invalid.

[Conghaileach]

Compare the Labour party in England ("New" Labour) to the Labour party in Wales ("Classic" Labour). There is quite a difference between the two.

As for the original post, maybe I should start all these discussions with the disclaimer, "the views of the author are not necessarily those of the poster".

[Socialsmo o Muerte]

They're nto actually separate parties though are they?

Rather, they are factions and wings within the Labour Party. Or am I wrong?

[Conghaileach]

It is the same party, but since devolution the Labour parties in Scotland and Wales act more on national issues in their areas. In a way they have a sort of autonomy, but they're still part of the British Labour Party, with Tony Blair as its head.

[Socialsmo o Muerte]

Ahh I see. Gotcha