photo: Paul Mattsson
#KeepCorbyn
The next few
months will decide the fate of the Labour Party.
Although he claims to be 'as radical as Jeremy', the leadership challenger Owen
Smith is in reality the candidate of all those with a vested interest in
keeping the Labour Party a safe, New Labour-style version of the Tories.
The stakes
couldn't be higher. Labour was set up 116 years ago by trade unionists, socialists,
women suffrage campaigners, the working class co-operative movement, and
others, as 'our party'.
But over the
course of 20 years under the leadership of Blair, Brown and Miliband it was
completely transformed into another party of big business and the 1% capitalist
elite.
Jeremy
Corbyn's unexpected victory in last summer's leadership election created an
opening to roll back the New Labour transformation. His anti-austerity message,
and support for trade union rights, free education, council housing etc,
changed the terms of political debate.
Even Tory
prime ministers are now forced to speak of 'working class families struggling
to get by' from the steps of Downing Street!
But because Jeremy
Corbyn's victory offered the hope of change, a showdown with the capitalist
establishment and their representatives within the Labour Party was inevitable.
And now, as the
Socialist warned from the outset, the two-parties-in-one are in a desperate
fight for control of the Labour Party brand.
The
immediate task is to mobilise for Jeremy Corbyn's re-election. But also to
organise to ensure that this time victory is consolidated by remaking Labour as
a working class, socialist party that really can be the voice of the 99%.
Labour
at the crossroads
The Labour
Party right-wing were never going to accept Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.
Standing behind them are the capitalist establishment, the 1% elite, who have
benefitted enormously from the transformation of Labour into Tony Blair's New
Labour and the domination of political debate by pro-market ideas which that
allowed.
It was not
for nothing that the former Tory deputy prime minister Geoffrey Howe said of
Margaret Thatcher that "her real triumph was to have transformed not just
one party but two", with New Labour's embrace of capitalism.
While for
example, average household incomes have only just returned to the levels at the
start of the 'great recession' in 2008, the richest 1,000 people in Britain
have more than doubled their wealth to £547 billion in the same period. The New
Labour era was good for the elite.
The Labour
right have shown how ruthless they are prepared to be to defend the interests
of their establishment backers. Only the protests of thousands of Labour
members and trade unionists secured a narrow majority on the party's national
executive committee (NEC) to stop Jeremy being effectively excluded from the
ballot paper.
But this
attempted coup having failed, the right went on to plan B and limited the
franchise compared to last summer's election, after Jeremy and other supporters
had literally 'left the room'.
Also, for
the first time since world war two, all regular party meetings have been closed
down, removing the chance for ordinary party members to hold anti-Corbyn MPs
and councillors to account.
Angela
Eagle's Wallasey constituency party has been suspended and the election of new,
left-wing officers of the Brighton & Hove District Labour Party, the
biggest local party unit, annulled.
Meetings
necessary
Local
parties should defy these edicts and continue meeting, or #Keep Corbyn meetings
should be organised independently, including by trade union branches - and
involving Corbyn supporters inside and outside the Labour Party.
After all,
the dictatorial rule-or-ruin approach of the Labour apparatus in this battle
gives a glimpse of the type of regime that will operate if Owen Smith were to
win.
The idea
that the social movement developing around Jeremy Corbyn could conduct an
effective struggle within the confines of the Labour Party in the event that he
is unseated from the leadership is utopian.
By the same
token, it is clear that if Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected this time his victory
must be properly consolidated. This means taking on the main bases of
establishment Labour, in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), the national
party apparatus, and locally, the big majority of Labour's 7,000 councillors.
Challenging
the latter will be vital to show in practice what an anti-austerity party
really is, in contrast to the actions of the Labour right.
It does not
mean a party voting for cuts! The fact is that Labour councils this year will
be sacking three times the number of workers who are losing their jobs from the
collapse of BHS, denounced by MPs as 'the unacceptable face of capitalism'.
If Jeremy
Corbyn is re-elected he must organise for Labour councils to defy the Tories,
including refusing to implement the new Housing and Planning Act, with local
parties pressing councillors who refuse to fight to resign. The situation where
council Labour groups and not the members decide council policy must be
reversed.
Inclusive
structure
The national
structures of the Labour Party would also need to be opened out and
democratised. To mobilise the maximum possible support, there should be a
return to the founding structures of the Labour Party which involved separate
socialist political parties coalescing with the trade unions and social
movements like women's suffrage campaigners and the co-operative movement.
That federal
approach applied to today would mean allowing political parties like the
Socialist Party and others involved in the Trade Unionist and Socialist
Coalition (TUSC), and anti-austerity Greens, to affiliate to Labour as the
Co-op Party still does.
While
mandatory re-selection would allow local parties to replace their MPs at the
next general election, more decisive action would need to be taken before then
to bring the parliamentary party into line.
MPs should
have the Labour whip only if they agree to accept the renewed mandate for
Corbyn and his anti-austerity, anti-war policies.
It is
necessary to take on the forces in Labour defending the capitalist
establishment, not seek 'unity' around their agenda.
Their
attempted coup has shown that if there was a Corbyn-led Labour government they
would play a similar role to those parliamentarians who joined Syriza as it
overtook Pasok, the Greek equivalents of New Labour, but who were then to the
fore in pushing for it to capitulate before the interests of capitalism.
A party of
struggle with fewer MPs but a fighting socialist programme, would have a bigger
impact in defence of the working class than a party with a couple of hundred
MPs but which accepts the policies demanded by capitalism.
Winning new
support it could regain the seats that may be temporarily held by anti-Corbyn
MPs and go on to win a general election.
The
right-wing have moved against Jeremy Corbyn and the most important question now
is how the social movement that has begun to mobilise in his defence can be
organised for the battles to come.
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