Say No to the Labour Party - Say goodbye to Ted Grant.

[peaccenicked]

Socialist Appeal and Ken
For those who are sceptical about anything positive arising out of Livingstone's break with the Labour Party, it is fruitful to look at the small section of the left who have a factional, strategic interest in keeping him in the party.

Socialist Appeal is Ted Grant's somewhat sober split from the Militant Tendency in 1991. It believes that Peter Taaffe made a grave sectarian error in trying to establish a "small mass party" outside of the Labour Party. Instead Socialist Appeal comrades have continued to keep their heads down - waiting for an economic meltdown in the hopes that workers will come flooding back into the party.

The last decade for Socialist Appeal has been a quiet one - 'training cadre' and (where its comrades have not themselves been absorbed) struggling to win a small amount of influence among the Labour and trade union left. That is, until Livingstone's 'bolt from a clear blue sky'.

The February and March issues of Socialist Appeal have had a number of telling articles on the topic of Ken's bid for mayor. Of particular interest in the February issue is an uncomfortable article by comrade Ted Grant himself trying to establish a theoretical cover for Socialist Appeal's continued loyalty to Labour.

The bulk of the article is a very ordinary rant about Labour's election victory "marking a fundamental turn" and how New Labour has failed to live up to expectations, etc. The standard Socialist Appeal spin is added. This is that the only way the masses move is through the Labour Party and the unions, and when they do Blair and Mandelson and their coterie will be vomited out of the party. Just like Ramsay MacDonald in the 1930s, you see. The rest of the story is tantalisingly left up to the reader's imagination.

It is worth stopping to examine the supposedly scientific underpinnings of these ideas. The theory "first worked out by our tendency" - apparently it is too advanced for Marx, Luxemburg, Lenin, etc - sees workers as nothing other than trade union members, and trade unions as the moving spirit in the Labour Party. Add to these premises the empirical fact that workers have indeed flooded into the Labour Party before, sprinkle some (un)dialectical materialism and serve to the cadre.

To put sarcasm to one side for the minute, the flaw in the theory is its economistic view of the working class. Class politics for Socialist Appeal is primarily trade union politics combined with a utopian ideal of socialism, where all problems in society are conveniently solved.

This view reduces workers to mere automata obeying the laws of history. It is therefore unsurprising that a class rebellion not directly linked to economic struggle, such as we are beginning to see in London, simply leaves the theory in tatters.

Ted Grant and his follows find themselves in the awkward position of cheer-leading for Livingstone, but unable to support him as an independent. Indeed it is doubtful whether they even imagined that Livingstone could split with the party, as their 'theory' says that it is Blair who will be forced to split.

Comrade Grant's solution is entirely inadequate. Grant tries to put a long-term perspective on the matter - never mind the crisis in the Labour Party; things will go back to normal eventually. Dovetailing neatly with Blair, Dobson and the bourgeois media's propaganda about loony lefts, Grant launches into an attack on "ultra-lefts", meaning the LSA. In my book ultra-leftism is a curable disorder, so why doesn't Ted Grant engage in a proper polemic with the LSA?

Worse still is the demagogic rallying cry for the "industrial front". Apparently the unofficial strike movement is threatening to wrench the unions out of the control of the bureaucracy. Not only that, but the demonstrations in Seattle and against Haider represent a revival of the class struggle, don't they? Anything but join half of London and support Livingstone. The biggest gem is the following quote:

"The fact that Blair referred to Livingstone being backed by 'Trotskyists' in the London Labour Party is significant. It was obviously an attempt to smear Livingstone as a dangerous ultra-left (which is very far from the truth). But nevertheless it also shows that the Labour leaders are aware of the potential for the development of a Marxist tendency inside the Labour Party."

Grant uses the actions of other comrades as a confirmation of his own theory! In all reality Socialist Appeal is of no significance to Blair. It is the London Socialist Alliance which Blair is afraid of. The reason is obvious to anyone not blinded by dogma. There is a real possibility of a split to the left from Labour and no short-term prospect of an expulsion of the right.

Socialist Appeal has chained itself to Labourism and is reduced to impotence when faced with these events. Comrades, there is no shame in rethinking your strategy.

Will Carter

[bolshevik1917]

Things are going well in the Socialist Appeal, we are recruiting faster, branches are growing, thanks for your advice but we are not as short sighted as you.

Anyway heres a good article to answer your point.


Tony Blair was accused recently of being "more Thatcherite than Thatcher". This was the verdict of the Transport Workers' Union after Blair's decision to privatise the defence yards at Faslane, Rosyth and Devonport. With thousands of jobs in jeopardy, this was a privatisation too far.

Blair has stolen the Tories' clothes and has taken the Labour Party far to the right. "The Labour Party is more pro-business, pro-wealth creation, pro-competition than ever before," Gordon Brown stated recently.

In 1997, millions voted Labour after 18 years of rotten Toryism. It was an overwhelming rejection of the Tories and all they stood for. Now, after five years of Labour government, patience is wearing thin. Blair continues with pro-business policies, public services are crumbing while the gap between rich and poor has grown into a canyon.

Blair has also linked up with the extreme right in Europe - Berlusconi and Aznar - to undermine workers' rights. Workers in Britain already have less workplace protection, work the longest hours and have the shortest holidays in Europe. Last year, the official figures for the number of deaths at work rose by 32%. There is even talk of increasing the retirement age to 70!

Blair, Berlusconi and Aznar have called on EU states to introduce "more flexible types of employment contracts", to replace labour laws with "soft regulation" and to increase "the effectiveness of public employment services…by opening this market to the private sector."

Anyone who dares oppose these pro-business policies, especially the trade unions, is denounced as a "wrecker" and a "small c conservative". This is an insult to the millions of public sector workers who are opposed to handing over hospitals to private profiteers. It is the Blairites who are presiding over declining services after years of neglect. They are Conservatives with a big C.

The mood in the unions is beginning to boil over. Last year's Fire Brigades Union conference passed a resolution that called for its political fund to be used only to support organisations and candidates that support union policy. UNISON also passed a motion calling for a review of its political fund. The GMB has decided to cut £2 million to the Labour Party over the next four years, and the CWU and RMT have threatened similar action. Similar discussions will take place at a number of this year's trade union conferences.

The Socialist Alliance in their pamphlet "Whose money is it anyway?" by Matt Wrack, attempts to take up this question. "At a time when the Labour Government is carrying out sweeping attacks on public services the issue of the political fund is a vital one for every trade union member. This pamphlet, which argues for the democratisation of the trade union political funds so that union members' interests can be effectively represented, is presented as a contribution to the debate," states the pamphlet.

Who can oppose the "democratisation" of union funds, any more than "democratisation" of the trade unions - or "democratisation" of the Labour Party for that matter? The members of the union must be able to decide the policy of the union, its priorities and how its money is to be spent.

The pamphlet goes on to explain that the Labour Party was set up in 1900 by the trade unions as the political expression of the working class in Parliament. Ever since the House of Lords' ruling in 1909, the ruling class has repeatedly attempted to stop or undermine this trade union funding of the Labour Party, the latest being the Thatcher legislation on political funds.

And why was this? Clearly, the ruling class did not want the unions financing their own party, to represent the interests of working people. They regarded the Labour Party as a potential danger to themselves and their system, especially in times of social crisis.

Unfortunately, Matt Wrack's analysis skips over 90 years of Labour history from the Trade Union Act of 1913 to today's Blairite control of the Labour Party. In that 90-year period, the party has repeatedly swung to the left and swung to the right, has filled up and emptied out. After the highpoint of the left under Tony Benn, the last 20 years has witnessed an emptying out of the workers' organisations and a sharp swing to the right at the top of the movement, not only in Britain but internationally. This reflected the period of relative "boom", and the weakening of the class struggle. It was epitomised by the victories of Thatcher in Britain and Reagan in the United States.

This shift to the right also reflected itself in the victory of "New Realism", social partnership or class collaboration within the trade unions. In the Labour Party it resulted in the victory of Blairism. The Blairites are in reality Tories that have infiltrated and taken over the tops of the party. But we should remember that this is nothing new. We just have to recall the role of Ramsay MacDonald.

More recently, the 1964-70 Wilson Labour Government carried through an incomes policy and attempted to introduce anti-trade union legislation. This created widespread opposition within the labour movement. In South Wales miners' lodges threatened to disaffiliate from the Labour Party. These policies led to defeat in 1970, and prepared a sharp swing to the left.

The same process took place in 1974-79, where the pro-business policies of the Wilson-Callaghan Labour government pushed the unions into opposition. This was to culminate in the Winter of Discontent. The defeat of 1979 again pushed the Labour Party dramatically to the left.

Events decide. Events fill out the ranks of the movement, and experience pushes them to the left. An absence of such events, along with the lack of any lead from the left - who lack a programme and a perspective - leads in the opposite direction. If the perspective before us was one lacking in the events necessary to shake up the entire movement, then maybe Blair could complete his "Project" - to wreck the Labour Party. But does anyone seriously propose such a perspective?

"So the Blair 'Project' can be viewed as an attempt to reverse the decision of 1900, that working people needed a separate political organisation to represent their interests. Indeed, Tony Blair has stated that he regrets that the split between Labour and the Liberals took place. The Blair Revolution is the process not of modernising the Labour Party but of taking it back a hundred years," states the Socialist Alliance pamphlet.

It goes on to say that "all this creates a dilemma for the Blairites. They wish to distance themselves from the unions but unfortunately the unions continue to be a major source of funding for the party."

Unfortunately the author is missing the point. The "Project" to destroy the Labour Party has ground to a halt - not because of the lack of alternative money, but the opposition from the Labour movement. The cracks in the Parliamentary Party are a reflection of the deep-seated opposition that exists to Blair's policies. The "Project" is even now unravelling.

It is to be welcomed that Wrack, unlike others on the ultra-left, argues against the unions disaffiliating from the Labour Party. He also says people should stay in and fight. However, he is trying to face in different directions, and reduces the struggle against Blairism to a question of how the unions should spend their money.

"The present political funding of New Labour by the unions means trade unionists are paying huge amounts of money to Labour in order to be ignored." Bro. Wrack says we could better spend the money in fighting privatisation. However, when has the fight against privatisation been a problem of finance? The problem has been the lack of willingness on the part of the union leaders to effectively lead such a struggle.

In any case, to cut back the financial support for Labour is not going to defeat Blairism. Blair wants to break the union link. He has considered state financing as an alternative. A fight against Blairism can only be a political struggle within the Labour Party. After all, who put Blair into the leadership in the first place? The bulk of the unions supported Blair. The trade union leaders still support him.

"Unfortunately, the union representatives on Labour's National Executive have been some of the most loyal Blairites going," states the pamphlet. "What is the point of electing trade union delegates onto Labour's executive if they subsequently ignore the policies of their own union at every opportunity?" But surely that is the point! If they are not representing the members they should be removed and replaced with representatives who will.

When opposition to PFI was raised on the NEC, most, if not all, of the union representatives supported Blair. It is the union leaders who keep Blair in power, not the members' money! In UNISON, it is well-known that the political fund - APF - rather than fighting for union policy in the Labour Party, is a way of bringing Blairite policies into UNISON. And whose responsibility is that?

The trade unions control 50% of the vote at Labour's Annual Conference. They have a massive influence and say in the party. Yet the trade union leaders have allowed Blair get away with murder! They have given him a free hand. It is time we put a stop to this!

The logic of the Socialist Alliance's argument, despite any protestations to the contrary, would be disaffiliation. This would mean running away from a fight the unions easily have the power to win.

The attempt by the Alliance to defeat the Tory policies of New Labour by standing in elections is a blind alley. The last 100 years have proved that you cannot influence the Labour Party from outside. It has been tried repeatedly and failed.

The key to the Labour Party is the trade unions. The Labour Party was founded to represent the working class, but it has been hijacked by a bunch of middle-class Tories. It is about time the unions reclaimed the party they created.

A trade union-led campaign to reclaim the party as has been raised by Bob Crow and Mick Rix (see below) would find a big echo. The left unions have a responsibility to launch such an initiative. They must convene a conference open to all trade unionists to organise reclaiming the party. This would become the focal point around which the mounting opposition to Blairism inside the movement could rally, and provide a real means to defeat Blair inside the party. The unions should sign up their members to Labour not to support Blair but to stop privatisation, to renationalise the railways, to protect the NHS. Union delegates should flood ward branches, CLPs, conferences and executives to defend union policy and fight to reclaim the party.

That means a struggle for an alternative programme to the pro-business polices of Blair. It means a fight for an alternative socialist programme, based upon the end of PFI and PPP.

Demand your union takes up the fight! Join with us in the struggle to defeat Blairism and reclaim the labour movement for socialist policies!

Don't play into Blair's hands! Don't contract out - contract in!
No more privatisation. Hands off the NHS.
Renationalise the railways and other privatised companies.
Trade unionists reclaim Labour. Defeat Blairism!
For workers' MPs on workers' wages.
Fight for socialist policies!
Socialist Appeal Editorial Board

May 2002

See also:

For militancy and democracy - the struggle inside the T&GWU by Peter Black. (June 14, 2002)
Britain - Who are the Real Wreckers? (February 20, 2002)
On the mass organisations - Letter to the Russian Marxists by Ted Grant. (April 26, 1999)
[Back to In Defence of Marxism] [Back to Britain and Ireland]

Addendum:
From The Guardian, May 1, 2002:

Give us back our party
By Bob Crow and Mick Rix

Alienation from the political process is running deep, but nowhere deeper than among the working class. It was abstention among Labour's most committed voters that sent the turnout plummeting at the last general election. It is apathy that ploughs the furrow where the far right plants the seed, as we have just seen in France and as we may discover when votes are counted after tomorrow's local elections.

Evidence is accumulating that those with the most to hope for from democracy are being turned off the fastest. We have a responsibility to act before voting becomes as middle class as croquet. It is an issue that New Labour, for all its pollsters, psephologists and PR gurus, seems reluctant to address. It is unlikely that gimmicks to make voting easier (it has never been very hard) are going to make much difference.

We believe that it is time the Labour party was reclaimed for labour, that it learned once more to listen to the voice of the class it enfranchised. Yes, we have a Labour government with a vast majority in the House of Commons. Yet five years on, 15 trade union leaders had to gather, as we did in London last weekend, to demand that Britain meets its obligations under the International Labour Convention and repeal the legislation which allows the prime minister to boast that he presides over trade union laws which are "the most restrictive in the western world".

In Britain, solidarity action is unlawful, and even the right to strike is hedged about with hurdles and qualifications. The effect of such restrictions is to make tackling inequality and injustice even harder. The general public does not gain from legally enfeebled trade unions, but bad employers do. And it has now been proved beyond doubt that if trade unions are driven out of politics - New Labour's maximum programme - there is no alternative means of representing working-class concerns to hand.

Democratic trade unionism is much more than a sectional interest: it is a rampart in defence of human rights and public decency in a way which, to be frank, neither Bernie Ecclestone or Lakshmi Mittal are ever likely to be. A PM who is fond of invoking the "international community" for his foreign adventures should be ashamed of being in breach of international conventions to which Britain has signed up. We are not suggesting that Britain be threatened with armed attack because of New Labour's defiance of the international community's agreed labour standards - fortunately, there are other ways to make Britain a decent world citizen.

Trade unions are still potentially decisive in shaping Labour policy. The party is still our representation committee - if we choose to make it so. OK, we don't write cheques for £125,000 and expect the PM to write a letter on our behalf by return. That deluxe service is reserved for business leaders. But our representatives are there when policy is debated, have votes when votes are counted and are embedded in the life of the party at every level.

All that is required is the will to use that influence democratically. For example, Tribune editor Mark Seddon presented a motion to the last meeting of Labour's national executive calling for a halt to moves to privatise public services. The motion expressed the opinions of millions of trade unionists and ordinary voters. It also expressed the policy of almost every union affiliate to the Labour party. Yet the great majority of trade union representatives attending the meeting sheepishly voted the way ministers wanted and prevented the motion's adoption. Had they done otherwise, it would have helped send a clear message to government that our opposition to the privatisation of the NHS is more than just rhetorical.

Likewise, at the party's annual conference, we can make policy if we want to, the more so since our opposition to privatisation and our support for a better deal for trade unions and employees in the workplace are shared by many and probably most party members, who prefer Labour's traditions to the embrace of suspect business leaders. If we have a government that is more Berlusconi than Bevin, it is only because we tolerate it.

Now that New Labour has found out the hard way the corrupting consequences of inviting the right into their political parlour, there could be no better time for the unions to play a more open, and proud, part in Labour's policy debates. Were that to happen, millions more people might decide to make a choice in the polling booths - because they would feel they had one.

Bob Crow is general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport union; Mick Rix is general secretary of the traindrivers' union

[sypher]

I'd like to thank both of you for your articles. I now have a foot to stand on in my arguement: Labor party is not a socialist one

[bolshevik1917]

Of course its not a socialist party, its a capitalist reformist party. Like it or not though that where the trade unions are, and untill they arent we will be there too.

Dont think we are tied up in party work, 99% of our time is spent as an independant organisation spreading the ideas of marxism. The thing is when things start to move we are in the party ready to put forward revolutionary ideas. All the people in the sects meanwhile, are on the outside looking in.

If you choose to reject Labour/the unions then who do you join?

SWP?
SSP?
WRP?
SPGB?
CPGB?
SA?
RSP?
SL?
CPS?

There are literally thousands of sects, none will ever make an impact!

[bolshevik1917]

As Marx said in the Communist Manifesto when discussing the relationship between the revolutionaries and the working class as a whole,

"The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mold the proletarian movement."

Communists are a part of the workers movement, we have a right to organise because we represent highest interests of the working class.

The workers like it or not are arranged in their traditional mass organisations, so that is where we must look. Most workers are not revolutionaries, they would like to see reforms improvements to their living standards etc.

And why not? The money, and technological level exists even under capitalism to give everyone an excellent standard of living and a short working day. Reforms improve peoples standard of living.

As Marxists we must not be scared to fight for these reforms ALONGSIDE to workers, always explaining that under capitalism the scope for reforms is always limited, and that during a slump the bourgeois will always try to take back the concessions they have made, in order to maintain their profits. They might not listen - but if you struggle with them they will respect you, and you are their first port of call when they have questions about what is going on.

Explain to me how this works when you are nowhere to be seen when the battles are being waged, but only pop up to tell workers all about the revolution and how you think they should fight for it?

Marxists around the world base themselves on the methods of dialectical materialism - which is a philosophy for analysing development.

The shift to the left in the unions, which represents the workers begining to reclaim their mass organisations, is begining to build up momentum. The 'new-left' union leaders are all either from Labour or considering joining. The earthquakes in the unions in the election of these leftwingers came as a total surprise to the dilatante 'have-a-go socialists' who had written off the workers long ago. The Marxists maintained their faith in the workers inspite of the defeats, inspite of the ebb in the movement etc.

We have to look at the movement dialectically, not as it is (or appears to be), but at the internal processes. The Labour Party is still in the grip of the Blairites, we should not exaggerate the significance of the recent conference, but we should not ignore it - it is the begining of a process.

The events in society, national and international will have their effect on the Labour Party, it will be pushed back to the left - Blair and his clique thrown out on his arse. And this process will be led from the trade unions.

The task of all serious Marxists is to win people to the banner of Marxism, probably mainly through open work at this stage, for the great events which will confront us.

[Marxman]

I'm currently reading "History of British Trotskyism."

Ted Grant's the man! Damn Healy and all his stooges, damn the disillusioned 4th International!

[peaccenicked]

I still cant believe that genuine socialists think the Labour party is the right place to be. It is not where the workers are, and if anything it is losing its working class
base and trade unions should withdraw all funding from it.
If you say everything is a sect outside the labour party
and stay in a sect inside the labour party. You are just blind.
It clearly does not make sense to tell workers to vote for a pro capitalist party and not to vote for a socialist one. It is the height of non sense.
The labour party is conservative through and through
and making anti capitalist speeches for a pro capitalist party is equivalent to trying to dupe the working class.
It is criminal for socialists to be so niave.
The tactic of deep entryism is a mistake it leads the working class and its militants up the garden path and perpetuates the deadening two party system that needs to be broken.
Comrades let us put an end to the fraud of labourism and support candidates who are actually socialists and not the willing hostages of the Thatcherite Blair.
Rob Crowe and Mick Rix seem completely lost since there rift with Scargill but the Socialist Alliance and the SSP are looking like the only realistic chance of a mass socialist party. Transforming the increasingly bureaucratic and rightward moving new labour party is a sick joke that all inteligent socialists should scoff at.
Do any of you understand Lenin's criticism of economism because none of you have answered me on that point?

(Edited by peaccenicked at 10:26 am on Oct. 26, 2002)

[bolshevik1917]

"It clearly does not make sense to tell workers to vote for a pro capitalist party and not to vote for a socialist one. It is the height of non sense."

Fistly, if Labour are not in power then the Tories will be, then we would just have the same sort of government without the trade unions.

Secondly, we do not just "tell workers to vote/join Labour" we do not 'tell' workers anything. We work in our organisation to educate people into the ideas of Marxism, as the majority of workers are in trade unions we work in trade unions, as the trade unions work in the labour party so do we.

Untill this changes we will stick to our programme.

Tell me, when Taffe withdrew from the labour party to 'progress' why did he take 5000 comrades with him, and ten years later only have 300 left??

"the Socialist Alliance and the SSP are looking like the only realistic chance of a mass socialist party."

Rubbish! have you read any of these guys materials, complete reformists, populists, oppurtunists, they are not marxist, not revolutionary, and not relivant!

[Marxman]

I respect Ted Grant completely. What he has done to Marxism, is unprecedented.

[peaccenicked]

''Firstly, if Labour are not in power then the Tories will be, then we would just have the same sort of government without the trade unions.''

This is silly. We have the dictatorship of the capitalist class. The labour government is worse some ways than the tories because it carries out the dictatorship of the capitalist class in the name of labour. To uphold the two party system as given is not to recognise the fraud of bourgeois parlimentary democracy but to practice it.
No principled socialist should have any truck with this fraud.

The trade union struggle is much narrower than the class struggle, the social struggle is for the end of all oppression and not merely those which are economic.
The fact that trade unions are involved with the Labour party is nothing to celebrate, it is like celebrating class collaboration, it is a bad indication of class consciouness.
If you really want to educate the working class, tell them
that you think it is in their best interests to not to fund the labour party.
Workers are paying money to their class enemies.
To support political funding of the Labour party is anti working class in principle.

So when it comes to it, the unprincipled opportunists are in the labour party upholding a horrible fraud on the working class. The principled thing to do is to form an alliance with principled socialists who want have nothing to do with this outright scam which has nothing to do with marxism or ''working with trade unionists''.

At the TUC conference before Blair came into power.
Workers who came to fringe meetings criticised revolutionaries for ''rocking the boat'' and giving the tories a chance. At the TUC after Blair came to power, workers came to fringe meetings to criticise revolutionaries for ''rocking the boat'' and give the Tories
a chance to get back in power.

How long should put up with right wing blackmail from Tories in a labour dress.
It is not good enough to have ''correct perspectives''.
One needs to be honest and principled to gain the real trust of the advanced layers of working class who are ditching labourism branch by branch.





(Edited by peaccenicked at 1:47 am on Oct. 28, 2002)

[El Che]

Elementary my dear watson. Especialy if you consider that the labor goverment is actualy right of center by international standarts. It is both shocking and sad that such a party should recieve money (!) from trade unions. It is a twisted world indeed when things are such as they are.

Not to say that the left shouldn`t at times compromise. This is not my position at all, but there should be limits. True socialists or leftists in general are only worthy of that name if they stay within the confines of those limits. The "labor" party is clearly out of bounds, even a blind man can see that. If the alternative is worse then thats the way it must be. "Democracy is the system of goverment that ensures society has the goverment it deserves" or something to that effect. Perhaps things need to get worse before they can get better, perhaps they wont get ever get better, but one thing is for sure the kind of philosophy behind the labour party and "useful voting" we will go nowhere, I`d rather stand my ground come hell or high water.

[peaccenicked]

Too right comrade. The question is bringing out all the contradictions on the brit left.
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/439/union_funds.html

(Edited by peaccenicked at 2:03 am on Oct. 28, 2002)


(Edited by peaccenicked at 2:12 am on Oct. 28, 2002)