Labour Pains? Abort! posted by Richard Seymour

Let's just remind ourselves of the three existential facts which define our existence today: George W Bush is a pompous, trigger-happy trollope; Tony Blair is a cocky little shit who lied us into a war; the Labour Party supports both of these men.

Did you hear that correctly? Shall we walk through it again?

At the Labour Party conference, Tony Blair earned seven minutes of genuine standing applause from a party whose members, we were told, couldn't stand him. It didn't end with Tony Blair either:

"They gave health minister John Reid a standing ovation when he told them he wanted for the NHS exactly what Margaret Thatcher had wanted.

They got up again for the despicable David Blunkett when he banged on about crime and asylum seekers.

It seemed that no violation of labour movement traditions, from any cabinet minister, could stop them clapping."

"Party fixers or small numbers of hardcore Blairites could not have bullied all these delegates to their feet. Their applause was genuine."

( Judy Cox , Socialist Worker, 11th October, 2003)

In the minutiae of detail, too, the Labour activists aligned themselves with Tony Blair. As Nick Cohen bitterly reports:

"Activists from constituency Labour parties usually backed Blair by a majority of three-to-one. The majority never fell below two-to-one, however contentious the issue. From now on when the whips confront a rebellious Labour backbencher, they will be able to tell him he isn't standing up for his local party workers but flying in the face of their express wishes." ( Nick Cohen , The Observer, October 12th, 2003).

The Stop the War Coalition can justifiably claim to have co-represented the largest protest movement in British history. It was a mass, popular movement which had the potential to revitalise British politics. Yet, it "barely found an echo on the conference floor" (Cox). The party of the organised working class, of the trade unions and the people, not only did not represent most of the organised working class (the trade unions largely opposed the war), but it openly defied the verdict of the people on both the war and their leader.

The unions, in fact, are partially responsible for the absence of a debate on Iraq, but how many members protested this? How many registered any kind of disenchantment at all? So far it seems that the only strategy the anti-Blairites in the Labour Party have is to put Gordon Brown in charge. As the slogan goes: "If the answer is Gordon Brown, you're asking the wrong question".

The explanation for this stunning and appalling state of affairs may be rooted in the haemorrhaging of grassroots membership, the demoralisation of the Labour left, the disintegration of is institutional forms, the remaining trauma of eighteen years in the wilderness, the lack of an viable electoral alternative... Yet all of this may be reduced to one simple fact. The Labour Party no longer has either the desire or the ability to attract the kind of membership capable of pulling it in a different direction.

So where does that leave us? Shall we go down with the ship like heroic little rats? Shall we try to 'reclaim' the ship? Or shall we pitch ourselves overboard and swim to HMS Chucky Egg?

The Liberal Democrats have been the most immediate and obvious beneficiaries of the degeneration of the Labour Party. Yet, this cannot last. Charles Kennedy would certainly like to appeal to disaffected Labour voters, but he'd also like to swipe a few Tories (come to that, I'd like to swipe a few Tories too). His party's opposition to the war was decidedly unprincipled, and it shows in the fudging, shirking unconvincing answers given to interviewers around conference time. The Lib Dems will happily privatise whatever New Labour hasn't gotten around to, as they demonstrated in Sheffield and Liverpool. They have been known to dabble in racism when the mood takes them, as Yasmin Alibhai-Brown avers in the Independent (13 October 2003). Above all, they represent the precise political tradition that the Labour Party was created to supplant as the main party of the working class vote. The Liberal resurgence would be the exact zenith of Blairism, and would probably create excellent conditions for a succession of Lib-Lab pacts.

But it is most unlikely that the Liberal Democrats can sustain their Clintonite triangulation in the face of serious scrutiny.

So, are we consigned to a future of desperately trying to plaster over the cracks in Labour's creaky old vessel? I really don't think so. This political energy which we saw spill out onto the streets like so much steam will not dissipate overnight. It needs a new piston to drive, and not some crappy old Skoda piston from HMS Chucky Egg. It requires a new political alternative. So far, neither the Greens nor the new-comer Socialist Alliance have been able to do it. Only the SSP in Scotland looks like it might. So, we need a new political alternative that orients itself not only on street politics and trade unionism, but on the national theatre of electoral politics. George Monbiot's idea of creating a new electoral party or coalition with Greens, socialists, antiwar activitists, anarchists and anticapitalists working together is therefore an excellent one. The Green Party should be ashamed to have so quickly distanced themselves from such an important development. (Yes, yes, yes, many of the policies sound like those of the Green Party, but most of these activists aren't about to join the Green Party are they?) We desperately need an open-ended, political alliance that can channel anti-New Labour sentiment without succumbing to sectarianism or electoral dogma. It must make use of the placard as much as the ballot box. It must approach those unions considering a break with Labour, and sell them a credible alternative.

We desperately need to build this now. We have months, not years, and if we neglect this task and hope to 'reclaim the Labour Party' then we will lose this moment. Angry working class voters may pitch their lot with the Lib Dems, but they cannot hold any loyalty for any sustained period. Their vote has dropped back to 23% already. Alternatively, some may succumb to the serenading of the BNP, who'll offer the chance to kick a few immigrants around. We have an inspiring new tradition of street radicalism and a revival of trade unionism that needs expression in elections as much as elsewhere. The alternative is unthinkable.

Because, frankly, if all we can have is Jack Straw, Gordon Brown and David Blunkett, I might just pitch myself overboard.