Where is Britain Going? A Marxist Analysis of Britain Today - Part 3

This document is a statement on Britain, an analysis which was agreed unanimously at the national conference of Socialist Appeal in April. The statement constitutes an analysis of the deepening social, political and economic crisis of British capitalism. This perspective applies the method of Marxism to these developments, seeking to uncover the trends and processes within, and serves as a guide to action for all those workers and youth who want to struggle for a socialist transformation of society.   

The Outcome of Blairism

The Blair government has served capitalism well. However, after ten years in office, profound disillusionment has set in with Labour's record. Abstentions in elections, especially in working class areas, have increased enormously. After three general election victories for Blair, the varnish is wearing thin on the New Labour government. The rotten stench of sleaze and corruption threatens to engulf the Blair government in much the same way as it engulfed previous Tory administrations. This is an inevitable outcome of 10 years of Blairism, keen to cultivate its big business friends with promises of peerages. More than 55 per cent of people now characterize the government as "very sleazy and disreputable", according to a YouGov poll. In the same survey, 64 per cent said they believe Labour "probably" did offer honours to wealthy businessmen who promised large loans or donations. Despite all the denials, most people no longer believe them.

Blair is expected to announce his resignation from office soon. The final phase of his premiership is proving to be tortuous. Pressures are mounting that he should leave immediately as these last months are turning into a disaster for the Labour Party with local, Scottish and Welsh elections due in May. The whole thing is threatening to unravel as MPs look to their careers put at risk by this fiasco. Ever more voices are heard calling for Blair's early departure. Even Neil Kinnock has been wheeled out to urge Blair to stand down, but to no avail.

The middle class carpetbagger Blair has no interest in the fate of the Labour Party. He feels no loyalty to it. And he has become an electoral liability, as Thatcher was for the Tories in 1990. These wrecking tactics suit the Tories and Big Business very well. Although Blair served them faithfully, the bourgeois will never be reconciled to the Labour Party as long as it retains its links to the trade unions. Their attitude is, as always, "use and discredit." As soon as New Labour shows it is no longer able to keep the unions and the rank and file under control, the bourgeois will pounce on it and use the mass media to hound it from office, making use of the scandals and corruption of the leaders, about which they have known quite a lot for some time.

The end of Blair marks a turning point. There is ferment in British society. There is profound discontent in the working class and also in the middle class, betrayed and sickened by ten years of the broken promises and "reforms" they did not want. A Mori poll found roughly equal numbers of voters ‑ 68 and 69 per cent ‑ expressing dissatisfaction with the prime minister and the government. This is the reason for the low turnout at elections. However, the departure of Blair will not signify a fundamental change in policy. Blair personifies a decade of pro-capitalist policies, which Brown has pledged to maintain. Under present conditions this is a finished recipe for a crisis in the Labour Party.

The natural party of the ruling class remains the Conservative Party. In recent opinion polls, the Tories are seen as having better policies for the economy and the NHS than Labour. But they still have a problem, inasmuch as New Labour has stolen their clothes. The attempt by Cameron to improve the Tories' image by moving closer to New Labour will not necessarily help to win over Labour voters and may lose him the votes of traditional Tory supporters. Nevertheless, the Tories can return to power at a certain stage on the basis of a collapse of Labour's electoral support and massive Labour abstentions.

While the Tories have gone from one crisis to another, they are now being given favourable press by the bourgeois media. Cameron is attempting to refurbish their image and re-position the party, even cynically adopting green policies and indulging in criticisms of big business. To stand any chance of winning the next election - although the Tories are already ahead in the opinion polls ‑ they must reinvent themselves. Their shift to the "centre" ground has won back a layer that voted Liberal Democrat. Their hope is that Labour voters will stay at home and traditional Tory voters will turn out to vote.

In Scotland and Wales

In May, the local elections, as well as the election for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, will confirm this disillusionment with New Labour. Given a low turnout, Labour is widely tipped to lose between two and five assembly seats this May in the Welsh Assembly. Rhodri Morgan, the Assembly leader, is desperately trying to distance himself from the unpopularity of Blair. But he is not certain to succeed. Nevertheless, Welsh Labour will still be the biggest party, but without the majority, it will again turn to coalition to run the Assembly. Since Labour has publicly rejected forming a coalition with the Conservatives, a return to coalition with the Liberal Democrats (as happened in Wales from 2000 to 2003) looks most likely, although Plaid Cymru's deputy assembly leader, Rhodri Glyn Thomas, recently pledged his support for a Labour-Plaid coalition.

There will very likely be big abstentions in working class areas. In Scotland the SNP will pick up the protest votes and could become the biggest party in the Parliament, raising the possibility of an SNP-Liberal Democrat administration. If the SNP does take power, its leader, Alex Salmond, has pledged to introduce a White Paper setting out plans for a referendum on independence within 100 days of forming a coalition government. His most likely partners, the Liberal Democrats, have said they will not accept steps towards independence, but their leaders have confirmed that nothing is ruled out.

This rise in the fortunes of Scottish nationalism is a direct consequence of Blairism and the right wing of the Scottish Labour Party. A section of the youth and disillusioned Labour voters, in despair, may turn towards nationalism. While we must be sensitive to national feelings and aspirations, we must at the same time expose the bankruptcy of nationalism. The attempt to divide the working class on national grounds is entirely reactionary. We must combat the false idea that Scottish independence can solve the problems of the Scottish people. A capitalist independent Scotland would be entirely unviable.

Predictably, the attempt of the so-called Socialist Party and Tommy Sheridan to play with Scottish nationalism has ended in tears. Their attempt to find a short cut to the masses through the creation of the Scottish Socialist Party has blown up in their face. We predicted long ago that such a formation would break apart. Now they are at one another's throats. The attempt to cover their opportunist capitulation to nationalism with the term "socialist" independence for Scotland fools nobody and places them firmly in the camp of petty bourgeois nationalism. They have learned nothing and forgotten everything.

In the recent period the far-right British National Party (BNP) has picked up council seats at the expense of Labour in the West Midlands, Lancashire and Yorkshire, as well as in East London. In last year's May elections they won 32 seats, an increase of 27 on its pre-election position. The reason for these successes is not the growth of fascism, as some in the far left sects maintain, but a protest vote at the New Labour government nationally and the failure of Labour-controlled local councils to tackle the problems facing the local population in areas such as jobs and housing.

The BNP's turn to elections will mean future splits as it tries to reconcile its "respectable" image with its lumpenproletarian following. This far-right party does not pose a national danger at this stage but it is virulent locally, especially in its conduct towards the immigrant population, where it can put down a base. We should assist where possible to mobilize the local labour movement to confront the BNP, as well as explain the real roots of racism.

 The development of a mass fascist or Bonapartist movement in Britain is ruled out for the near future. In any case, such tendencies will most likely emerge from a right wing split in the Tory Party under conditions of extreme crisis. However, the ruling class would only turn to open reaction after a long period of class struggle when all other alternatives have been exhausted. The immediate perspective in Britain is not fascism but a swing to the left and a radicalisation of the working class.

The current political situation represents a huge dilemma for the Brownites, who are waiting in the wings to step into Blair's shoes. If Blair stays on, they reason, Brown will pick up all the odium for the election disasters facing Labour in the May elections. But Brown is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. He is completely identified with Blair, Blairism and the New Labour Project. He will not be able to extricate himself from the air of corruption permeating the government of which he is a long-standing member.

Brown comes from the same stable as Blair. He supports the same bankrupt pro-capitalist policies. He declared his support for Bush, and argued for the right to hold suspects for longer than 28 days without charge. He backed Blair on Iraq and on "reform" (privatisation) in the NHS. Brown has championed PFI. He has also demanded a public sector pay freeze. Writing in the Financial Times (29/8/06) Brown called for a 2% limit on all public-sector pay rises next year. This is an even tighter target than the 2.5% increases in public sector pay (which Brown calls an achievement) for 2006. Phil Woolas, the local government minister, and a leader of the Brown camp, said: "There is no ideological divide between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. It makes sense for Blairites to get behind Gordon in the interest of party unity."

However, Despite Brown's desperate reassurances to big business, they are not at all confident that he will be able to deliver. They are not sure if he can resist the pressures from below, which are building like a volcano ready to explode. They know the Labour government cannot hold back the tide indefinitely - whether led by Blair or Brown ‑ and are looking to the First Eleven, the Tories, to see if they can be pulled into shape before too long.

The Class Character of the Labour Party

Blair has done their dirty work for more than a decade. His original intention was to transform the Labour Party into a bourgeois party, to replace the Tory Party as the main party of British capitalism. Although the process went further than we originally thought, jettisoning Clause 4, destroying internal democracy, reducing the influence of the trade unions, etc., he was unable to finish the project. Above all, he was not able to break the trade union links to the party, which is the channel for working class pressure. Although the process of "bourgeoisifying" the party went quite far under Blair, it never resulted in a qualitative change, as the sects believe. From the bourgeois point of view, this failure was Blair's Achilles' heel.

Even if Blair had succeeded in breaking the trade-union links, it would not have, by itself, changed the class character of the Labour Party. The roots and traditions of the Labour Party go very deep into the working class. Despite Blair, there is a deep-seated loyalty to the Party, built up over generations. That is why not one of the ultra-left splinter groups has succeeded in creating an alternative to Labour, despite the widespread hostility to Blair.

All the attempts to create an alternative outside of the Labour Party have ended in failure. The sects deluded themselves that with the disillusionment in the Blair government they would be able to set themselves up as an alternative. After ten years of Blairism, with its pro-capitalist policies and deep disillusionment in the working class, there was never a better time for the sects' initiatives. But what has been the experience?

After the collapse of Arthur Scargill's SLP, the sects gathered around the Socialist Alliance. But this led nowhere and from there, the different sects went their own separate ways. The SWP set up Respect in a thoroughly opportunist manner. They dressed themselves up as left-reformists and brought George Galloway on board. They trailed after the Muslim vote by making concessions to Islamic fundamentalism. The SWP have even accepted prayers and the separation of the sexes at their meetings and has won the support of the Muslim Association of Britain. Respect, despite its claims to the contrary, is consciously trying to position itself as a "Muslim party", with all its successful candidates last May, not accidentally, being Asian. With this perspective, Respect has no chance whatsoever in making a breakthrough nationally. It is doomed to remain on the fringes and will eventually fade away.

The umbilical cord between the trade unions, the working class and the Labour Party has not been broken. This is the most important fact for future developments. There is enormous discontent in the rank and file of the trade unions and the Labour Party, which is a reflection of the discontent within society, especially in the working class, fed up with the attacks on their living standards and worsening conditions at work. The departure of Blair creates an opening in the situation. A possibility of giving vent to this pent-up discontent.

That is why the Labour apparatchiks and trade union bureaucrats are moving heaven and earth to prevent a genuine left alternative to emerge within the Labour Party. They are desperate to see the coronation of Brown as the next leader. They are doing everything they can to stop John McDonnell getting on the ballot paper. They are trying to stop him getting the necessary 44 nominations from members of the Parliamentary Labour Party to allow him to stand.

The reason for this is clear. They don't necessarily believe that McDonnell will win the leadership. But if he gets sufficient nominations to stand, given the mounting opposition in the ranks, he could get a sizeable vote, which would destroy the myth that left-wing ideas are unpopular. The grip of New Labour on the leadership would be shaken. The pendulum would begin to swing back to the left.

The trade union bureaucracy, especially those entrenched in the big four unions, UNISON, AMICUS, TGWU and the GMB, are under enormous pressure from the Brownites, the Establishment, the careerists and their hangers-on to deliver their votes for Brown. All kinds of deals are being made behind the scenes. Some trade union leaders, such as Derek Simpson, see this as an opportunity to deliver votes to Brown for future favours, whatever they may be. They have no desire to transform the Labour Party. They are more interested in a quiet life and a privileged existence, which (they hope) a Brown victory would help to secure.

The trade union leaders made a deal with Blair in 2004 - the Warwick agreement - to deliver trade union support in the 2005 general election in exchange for a range of union demands. As a result the unions gave Labour £10 million to fight the election. However, two-and-a-half years on, the government has failed to deliver on all its promises. Realizing that Brown needs to raise £40 million to cover the party's debts and be able to fight the next election, the union leaders have drawn up a "Warwick 2", containing much of Warwick 1 and a few extras.

The trade unions have given the Party £8 million a year, some £54 million since 2001. The fall-out from the cash-for-honours saga has caused a dramatic drop in the amount donated to the party by individuals. Labour has to repay its millionaire loans this year to the tune of nearly £10 million. "Now that the market in peerages has collapsed, Labour is dancing to the union's tune", said one leading businessman to The Sunday Telegraph. It is this situation that appeals to the trade union bureaucracy, where they can trade favours with the Brownites.

Whether the trade union leaders can hold the line remains to be seen. They are under pressure from their members who face the constant attacks from private employers, local authorities and government. The ranks are demanding action and the leaders are forced to partially reflect this discontent. Any attempt to continue the discredited policies of Blairism under Brown will not be tolerated and will lead to an explosion of anger and the replacement of the leaders in one union after another. This, in turn, will have an effect inside the Labour Party.

McDonnell's Challenge

The trade union Establishment will stop at nothing and will be pulling out all the tricks to stop McDonnell. They cannot allow McDonnell to upset the cosy relationship they hope to have with Brown. But they are meeting with opposition in their own ranks. Already ASLEF and the broad lefts of TGWU and Amicus have come out in support of McDonnell. An unofficial poll of TUC Congress delegates, conducted by the Electoral Reform Society, revealed massive support for McDonnell in his bid for Labour Party leader. McDonnell polled 59%, Brown 10%, while Alan Johnson scored 8%.

The reason why it would be difficult for him to win is the weight of the parliamentary party against him. The electoral college is made up of one-third from the affiliated trade unions, one-third from the votes of the individual members of the Labour Party, and one-third from the votes of the PLP. The emergence of a "soft-Left" candidate in the person of Michael Meacher is calculated to split the vote and make McDonnell's chance of securing the 44 nominations from the PLP far more difficult.

The main problem is that the Labour Party remains at a very low ebb. Blair has done an effective job in reducing the Party to a skeleton of its former self. Quite a number of local parties have collapsed. The membership base of the Party is now less than 180,000. The active base is far smaller. This is the consequence of more than a decade of Blairism, plus another decade of right-wing control before that.

If McDonnell is excluded, then there will be a bitter feeling amongst the activists in the trade unions and the party, but most of the party activists who rejoined the party to vote would tend to drop out again in disappointment. Temporarily, this can lead to a further mood of disenchantment and apathy on the Left, but such a mood will not last for long.

A victory for Brown, however, would solve nothing. His "honeymoon" period will be extremely short-lived. Brown has promised the bourgeois that he will continue where Blair left off. In reality, he has no other choice. He will be under orders from the bourgeois to resist the pressures from below, especially from the unions. On the other hand, the trade unions will see this as an opportunity to force some concessions. The rank and file will press for action, and the leaders will hope (wrongly) that their backing for Brown will be rewarded. This will bring Brown into conflict with the working class and the trade unions. Brown will face further strike action, especially from civil servants, threatened with wage cuts, increased workloads and huge job losses. Sooner or later the unions will come into semi-opposition or even outright opposition to the government.

Brown will also face difficulties on the international plane. American imperialism will demand proof of loyalty from Brown and his Cabinet. As before, all kinds of pressures will bear down on the government causing splits and divisions within the PLP and even the Cabinet. All kinds of shocks, implicit in the situation nationally and internationally will shake the government from top to bottom. This will be a government of crisis.

There are only another two years or so before the next general election. Brown will end up as unpopular as Blair as Labour's support drains away. This is already taking place. The Guardian/ICM opinion poll in January gave the Tory party 42% of the vote against Labour on 29%, similar to its performance under Michael Foot in 1983. The Liberal Democrats would drop to 17%. The result is the highest that the Conservatives have scored in any ICM poll since July 1992, just after their last general election victory. The result is the 11th month in a row that the Conservatives have led in an ICM/Guardian poll.

As far as the bourgeois is concerned, it is quite possible that Labour has finally exhausted its allotted role in holding back the working class. The bourgeoisie can easily turn on the Labour government, waging a campaign to discredit Brown and boost Cameron. Faced with widespread abstentions and a revival in Tory fortunes, a defeat for Labour at the next election is now a possibility. All the opinion polls make the Tories clear favourites to win the next election. However, to determine electoral arithmetic is very difficult as so many things can happen between now and the election.

We should recall that in 2005 nine and a half million people voted Labour, despite serious reservations, to make sure that the Tories did not win. That is two million less than voted Labour when Kinnock was leader in 1992, and the Tories won. Labour has shed 4 million votes since 1997. In other words, one in three voters who put Labour in office in 1997 did not turn out to support them in May 2005. The number of voters who chose Labour last year was fewer than in any of the elections fought by Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan or Neil Kinnock.

The Tory Party, it is true, has a mountain to climb to recover from the Thatcher years, but this is not impossible, especially with help from the capitalist media. It is not ruled out that they could win, although with a small majority. If that happens, it would lead to a crisis in the Labour Party. The rank and file would blame the right wing for the defeat. Most of the New Labour carpetbaggers would leave the Party, demoralized. On the other hand, the stage would be set for a revival of the industrial struggle. The conditions would be created for a swing to the Left in both the unions and the Labour Party, similar to what happened after Labour's defeats in 1970 and 1979.

The trade unions are keys to this process. After such a defeat, the union leaderships will be under acute pressure to ensure the Party dramatically changes course. All the pent up frustrations will rise to the surface. The rank and file will be demanding change and a left policy. They will demand changes to the party's undemocratic rules. There will be a shift to the left and the crystallisation of a sizeable left reformist current. The process can unfold in sudden crises and leaps. All the contradictions maturing over the last 20 years and more will rise to the surface. This will lead to sudden and sharp changes.

See also: 

Where is Britain Going? A Marxist Analysis of Britain Today - Part 2