Old Problems With New Politics

There has been much debate recently regarding how those of us on the left want to see the need to change the Labour Party and what models could act as inspiration for this. The re-election of Corbyn and the continuing mutiny in the parliamentary Labour Party makes this question even more urgent. Many on the radical reformist left look to Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece as models of “new politics” and speak in rather vague terms about Labour becoming a “social movement”. Paul Mason (very much the intellectual of choice of this crowd) has even written what is an interesting piece on the need for “new Bevanism”.

That Podemos and Syriza have inspired many is unsurprising. Syriza grew rapidly through it’s engagement with the square occupation movement in Greece in 2011 and grew rapidly at the expense of the established Social Democratic Party PASOK. Podemos is a slightly different story, emerging as genuinely new political force from the Indignados movement which produced a new party with as vibrant and contradictory nature as the movement that produced it. The rapid growth of these movements combined with the wave of enthusiasm from the Occupy movements. This had an energising effect on movements across the world which was much needed in many areas due to the decay of workers movements and the organised left since the collapse of the Soviet Union. What this mood lacked though and what the movements that came out of it lacked is a real understanding of the nature of ruling class power and how to challenge this when the inevitable push back occurred. The fate of Syriza is instructive here. Coming to power on a wave of anti austerity anger from the Greek people and then getting a big victory on the referendum over the latest austerity measure demanded by the EU Tsipras and the leadership of Syriza capitulated. Why was this? It is because despite all the talk of Syriza’s “new politics” they made exactly the same mistakes as so many social democratic parties have made before them. This error lies in the very nature of even the most radical reformist parties. Reformists by their very nature seek change by winning an election and then seeking to find a “compromise” with the ruling class and the state machine. The only times when the ruling class have actually backed down and compromised with Social Democratic governments is when the alternative to that is a potential revolution. In Britain the most obvious example of this is the 1945 Labour government. Why was the Attlee government able to push through radical changes such as the creation of the NHS, Social Security and the nationalisation of key industries? The answer wasn’t that the Labour government of that time had exceptional personnel in it’s leadership (though they certainly had a higher level of able operators than they have since then) it was a reflection of the class struggle at the time. At the end of World War 2 there was a massive mood amongst the working class and large sections of the middle class that fundamental change was needed. Added to this was the strong position of the Soviet Union and the popularity it had gained as a result of it’s key role in destroying the Nazis. The British ruling class at the end of world war 2 were faced with a huge section of the population wanting socialist change, mutinies amongst conscripts in the armed forces, militancy in India from those wanting an end to British rule and a working class returning home from the war having had years of combat experience in the war. The British economy was also in deep trouble, heavily in debt and needing fundamental rebuilding. All of this combined to exert great pressure on the ruling class, so much so that they agreed to the radical reforms of the Labour government with relatively little resistance. If the working class had not been in such a militant a mood, if British capitalism had not been in such dire straits would such reforms have been carried out? The answer has to be no. Without a militant working class which can terrify the ruling class into concession the offering concessions as well as bolstering the nerve of the reformist leaders then all too often capitulation occurs. What happened in Greece was that there is a an angry militant mood within the working class but what was lacking was any real way of that mood being able to pressure or control the actions of the Syriza leaders. What was also lacking was the presence of any revolutionary organisation with the kind of base which could attract people away from Syriza.

The pressure that was exerted on the Syriza leadership will be replicated on an even bigger scale should Labour under Corbyn actually win a general election. The UK may not be in the single currency or even the EU anymore but ruling class pressure (already at frenzied levels with Labour in opposition) would reach a peak not seen since the 1970’s. We have already had threats of army coups, investment strikes and have seen the sheer level of utter falsehoods that the media are prepared to engage in. Whether Corbyn (or whoever leads the party) could withstand this is not merely a question of character but one that concerns the movement and the programme it is fighting on.

In terms of a programme the Labour conference produced some commitments that were welcome. However, as I wrote in my last piece, Labour’s new approach (in reality building off policies pushed by Miliband) based on increased state intervention, borrowing to fund infrastructure projects and an increased state direction over the economy, has since been partially appropriated by the Conservatives. The danger at the moment is that Labour under the Corbyn leadership is falling into a classic reformist trap in that the huge numbers joining Labour and beginning to get mobilised within the party has threatened the control of the open agents of the ruling class over “Her Majesties” opposition has panicked the ruling class into a frenzy. At the same time though the policies put forward by the Corbyn-McDonnell leadership are not radical or populist enough to win over the number of voters needed to actually beat the Conservatives in England and Wales. Scotland is another question and Labour is unlikely to make any inroads in there thanks to a disastrous leadership under Dugdale and the still high level of popularity enjoyed by the SNP. Winning an election in England and Wales is possible but not if they go into it offering a series of policies which in essence amount to little more than tinkering with a neo-liberal capitalist economy and state. This is dangerous as one of the classic flaws of reformism is that it enrages the ruling class without properly inspiring and mobilising mass working class support at the same time they try to accommodate the right wing, openly pro capitalist elements of their own party. There have been tragic occasions in the past where honest reformist socialists have actually demobilised working class movements supporting them in a desperate bid to appease the ruling class.

If Labour is to win at the next election then we revolutionaries who exist within it’s ranks must push for the most radical solutions to the crisis of British capitalism. That means policies but it also means crafting a simple message that every Labour Party member, trade unionist and working class people can repeat in every argument. The most important thing that Labour needs to be doing is framing the Tories for what they are, the party of the 1% and only the 1%. This not going to be done by engaging in arguments about moderate levels of state intervention but by Labour laying out a programme to definitively change the economy, to undo the effects of the last forty years which have tiled everything so hugely in favour of the rich. How to do that? Start off by picking an area which will hurt the Tories. Railway nationalisation is one such area as that has near universal support but Labour needs to do it in a way that shows up the Tories supporting huge state subsidies to private companies. That means working closely with the RMT and ASLEF, it means pinning failures like Southern Rail directly onto Theresa May every chance they get and it means campaigning on the issue hard especially in communter belt areas which depend on unreliable train services. The message needs to be clear. The Tories support wasting huge amounts of public money because their friends profit from it. This message has the benefit of being true and very simple to repeat. The Tories will scream “class war” and “politics of envy” but it will be nearly impossible for them to defend Southern Rail and others without exposing themselves. The other area this is possible is energy. Every working class and middle class household knows they’re being ripped off by the big energy firms and that privatisation of utilities has failed. Rather than fiddling around the edges in energy policy Labour needs to boldly make the case for nationalisation on the grounds both reducing energy bills and moving our energy supply over to renewables. You can’t control what you don’t own so all Corbyn’s talk about small scale energy production coops sounds very nice but that isn’t where 90% of us get our energy from. Make the case for nationalisation, force the Tories to defend a system that nearly everyone hates and knows is ripping them off. Present a national energy plan designed to move away from fossil fuels to cheaper renewables and again force the Tories to defend a system that rips people off and does nothing about climate change. The Tories have to be cast as the party that rips off ordinary people on behalf of the rich. A simple message that needs to be repeated with discipline be every level of the Labour Party every single day. That could reverse the negative opinion polls and put Theresa May’s gang in real trouble.

There is a problem with delivering that message though and that problem lies within the Labour Party itself. Mcdonnell, Corbyn and a few others might be comfortable delivering that message but the great bulk of Labour MP’s are not and will never be. The soft left don’t like the language of class warfare and prepare to talk in blander terms whilst the right are positively appalled by any mention of class as their whole ethos is based on a denial of it’s political primacy. That is why it will take Labour Party members advancing ideas such as these in the face of reluctance or outright opposition from the party hierarchy.

This is where we come back to the problem of how reformists understand power, class and the state. If Labour moves back towards a position similar to the old Alternative Economic Strategy proposed by Tony Benn in the 1970’s then the same forces that lined up to oppose them will do the same today. If you read Benn’s diaries from the 1970’s he outlines very clearly that the state machine is opposed to his plans for increased workers control over industry and that many in the Labour cabinet did as well. In the end Benn was removed from his position as Secretary of State for industry as a result of his plans being anathema to the ruling class and state machine. If we find ourselves in a situation where even the mild plans of McDonnell are being blocked by ruling class pressure and treachery from within a Labour cabinet itself then how do we respond? It must be by mass mobilisations of the working class itself. Demonstrations, strikes occupations, mass meetings and the active development of our own narrative via alternative media must be our response when we are blocked. Merely voting for a government (as Greece shows) is never enough under capitalism. We will only get even the mildest reforms through by terrifying the ruling class into giving ground. We have to be prepared to engage in mass struggle and must build a Labour movement which is prepared to do so otherwise we may end up with our own version of Syriza’s betrayal.