The IMF, sensing its certain victory, and knowing well how important it was to humiliate the government in the eyes of its socialist supporters, stuck firm. Though the health charges were only peanuts in the context of total government spending – some £8 million+ – it insisted on them. The Labour ministers surrendered. A great portrait of them with their hands in the air should be unveiled at Labour Party headquarters and dedicated to all those who suppress their socialist opinions so that the next Labour government can do the ‘little things’. ibid. ch6
How far they have come, these Labourites, from the hopes of their origins! How mean and miserable are their aspirations compared even with what their most right-wing supporters were saying thirty or forty years ago!
… This huge slippage in aims, aspirations and policies is a warning of what is to come. At no time since the war has Labour called the tune in politics. Throughout, it has responded to events, shamefacedly shuffled off what it now calls the ‘baggage’ of its heritage, and settled for a new society which, in all but the faces on the government front bench, is largely indistinguishable from the old one. ibid.
The decline in Labour’s aspirations and the weakness of its policies become, by this token, positive advantages. People say (without even realising how cynical they sound) that ‘if Labour promises a little, it won’t sell out.’ They stress again and again that they will be satisfied with ‘just a little’. They denounce their few socialist critics as saboteurs of practical and possible reform.
At the root of all these arguments is the notion that the political spring which waters society is parliament; that political measures, reformist or reactionary, all flow from parliament and therefore nothing can be done to emancipate labour unless parliament is won for Labour. If Labour is elected, laws and measures flow from parliament which are friendly to labour. If Labour loses, those laws and measures will be hostile to labour. It follows that everything must be subordinated to securing a Labour government. ibid.
There is absolutely nothing inevitable about reforms under a Labour government. From the moment the votes are counted and a Labour government is declared in office, a huge war is launched on that government by the class with economic power. The war takes many different forms: investment strikes by the holders of capital, a run on sterling organised by the treasurers of multinational companies, violent campaigns in the media, rebellions by the military, the police and the judiciary. There have been plenty of examples of all of these since 1946: the runs on sterling in 1966 and 1975 changed the whole course of the Labour governments then recently elected; the judges staged a revolt over comprehensive schools and over trade union blacking in 1976; the media campaigned viciously against Harold Wilson in 1967; the military in Northern Ireland refused orders from a Labour government in 1974. ibid.
By the same token, the great agitation against the poll tax in early 1990 was constantly cut down and insulted by leading Labour politicians. The enormous demonstration of 31 March, which was attacked by the police and which refused to dissolve under the attack, was assailed on all sides in parliament, most of all by Labour. In the council chambers, local Labour politicians developed an acute form of political schizophrenia. On the one hand they explained that they were against the poll tax, that the poll tax was unfair, monstrous, the worst attack on the poor since the days of Wat Tyler. On the other, they called on their supporters to pay the tax, and threatened them with bailiffs, fines and even prison if they refused to do so. Gradually, the schizophrenia wore off. The councillors became first and foremost, unconditionally and militantly, collectors of the tax rather than opponents of it. A chasm opened up between those who wanted to fight the tax by not paying it, and the leaders of the party who opposed the tax but suppressed their opposition in their determination not to rock the Labour Party boat on its voyage to the next general election.
As Rosa Luxemburg predicted nearly a hundred years ago, the Labour leaders thus became not just milder and meeker fighters for the same aim, but ferocious opponents of all fighters. ibid.
Since the chief field of operations for Benn’s supporters was the Labour Party, and since the Labour Party plainly could not win an election without trimming its sails to fit the winds of defeat and stealing the right-wing clothes of the new SDP, there was suddenly nowhere for them to go. Many smartly changed their spots, and snuggled comfortably under the wing of the new leader, Neil Kinnock, who at once marched them off sharply to the right. Many others dropped out of politics altogether. Pretty well the only survivor was Tony Benn himself, who kept up his spirit and his socialism by abandoning any further ministerial ambition and, while still sticking to the Labour Party, turning his attentions more and more to stoking the fire down below. ibid.
This is more than can be said for Geoffrey Robinson, Blair’s first Paymaster General, who has now been found to have been a beneficiary of the generous crook Robert Maxwell – to the tune of £200,000, no less, the cheque which Robinson just cannot find. Robinson’s connections with the accountants Arthur Andersen, which raised funds for New Labour, have been exposed in a recent book by Tom Bower, just in time for the Enron scandal. Enron went bust last year in a spectacular bankruptcy caused by various imaginative accounting devices dreamed up by Andersen. From 1994 to 1996 Andersen’s sister company employed Patricia Hewitt, a rising star in New Labour, and cooperated generously with New Labour before and after the 1997 election. Its main aim in life – to remove the ban on it imposed by the former Tory government because of its dishonesty over the DeLorean scandal – was achieved within seven months of New Labour coming to office. Paul Foot, article ‘Corruption: Dirty Business’
On the other hand, almost the first act of the New Labour government was to erase from its programme one of the few outright commitments in it – to ban tobacco advertising. Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One motor racing billionaire, objected to the ban for the very good reason that by far the biggest beneficiary of tobacco advertising was Formula One motor racing. Ecclestone was a Tory. Why should such a brash tycoon have any influence on a Labour government? Answer – he had given £1 million to the Labour Party. A meeting was held in Downing Street and the outcome was obvious. It was plainly grotesque to continue with a policy that would damage so bountiful a benefactor. The policy was ‘revised’. Tobacco advertising on Formula One cars was permitted. Then someone accused the prime minister of corruption, so the Labour Party gave the money back to the millionaire. Its policy had changed for nothing. ibid.
Almost everywhere, however, that excitement is muted by a feeling of unease at the price Labour has paid to achieve this winning position. This unease is not confined to the increasing band of socialists who have been flung out of the Labour Party; nor to the hundreds of Labour Party socialists who have signed the open letter denouncing Labour’s retreats. Almost any socialist must be worried by the grim, determined effort of the leadership to wipe every vestige of socialism from the party’s programme. A former commitment to get rid of nuclear weapons, which were ostensibly there to deter an enemy, has been replaced by an almost maniacal determination to keep those weapons when there is no enemy to deter. Former commitments to repeal all anti-trade union laws and to take back into public ownership the monopolies Thatcher privatised have been replaced by half-promises to restore some union privileges, and to buy 2 per cent in British Telecom (provided the Tories don’t sell off another batch, as they plan to do).
After retreats like this, isn’t it true, as one socialist said at a conference fringe meeting, ‘that there really isn’t any difference between Labour policies and Tory ones?’ Paul Foot, article November 1991, ‘Will Labour Make a Difference?’
The differences in the conferences reflect the fundamental difference between the two organisations. The Tory Party is financed by banks and big business. Its economic strategy is to protect profits and its ideology is based therefore on the most relentless legal and moral disciplines for those who do the work. The Labour Party came into being to represent trade unions in parliament. The unions still have the decisive vote on policy, on the National Executive and on finance. The difference between the parties is in the class base of their origins and their support. Employers vote Tory; workers vote Labour. Of course individuals from each section cross over to the other side, but the class differential between the parties is plain for all to see. ibid.
Lots of other radical policies were chucked into the bin on the same basis. Commitments to get rid of most of the Tory trade union laws were watered down. So were the promises to take back into public ownership all those utilities and public services which the Tories had privatised. In a Gadarene stampede to appease floating voters in the middle of the road, anything which smacked of socialist anger against the Stock Exchange or any other citadel of modern capitalism was wiped out of Labour’s language ...
We lost socialist policies by the score. We also lost countless opportunities to organise and fight even for the policies which were left. The miners’ great struggle in 1984-5 was left high and dry by the Labour and trade union leaders. Why? Because, it was argued, ‘this was not the way to get Labour returned.’ Exactly the same argument was used when hospital workers exploded in rage in early 1988, or when the ambulance workers went on strike soon afterwards, or indeed in every dispute since the last general election. ‘Don’t rock the boat,’ was the cry. ‘Labour will make things better for everyone.’ How does that argument look now? We went to bed in those early hours of 10 April reflecting that the boat had hardly been rocked at all. There’d been hardly a strike or a major demonstration for more than a year. Yet the unrocked boat was lying in ruins at the bottom of the sea ...
There is another common feature to all these demands – passivity ...
Tens of thousands of socialists have held their breath and bitten their lips rather than speak out in protest as the Labour leaders continued on their promised march to parliamentary power. After Black Friday, 10 April, every one of them is disappointed and indignant. Their disappointment is useless. But their indignation can still stop the Tories – if it is channelled into real resistance, and into a socialist organisation which bases itself on that resistance, and can therefore hold out the prospect of real change. Paul Foot, article May 1992, ‘Why Labour Lost’
Does this mean that the Labour leaders have lost their lust for office? Not at all.
For the trappings of power, for the appearance of power, for the deference which comes naturally to any Secretary of State, the Smith brigade are as hungry as ever. What terrifies them is the responsibility of office. Paul Foot, article 7th November 1992, ‘Hungry for Power’
‘Don’t rock the boat, and wait for Labour to storm back into office in 1996 (or 1997).’ That’s the convenient and easy message which seems to have been the favourite at trade union conferences this summer, and will certainly be the tune of the new Labour leader and the conference which elects him.
Precisely the same attitudes and advice prevailed in Labour when it was last riding high in the polls, after the poll tax demonstration in 1990. Such fantastic gains were made in the council elections a week or two later – and in by-elections right across Britain – that almost everyone reckoned it a near certainty that Labour would win in 1992. The only danger was the activities of the ‘wild men’, or, to use Neil Kinnock’s favourite term of abuse, ‘the headbangers’. Kinnock and his team made it their main aim in life to life to squash the left, especially in the constituencies. Labour policy shifted further and further to the right. There was universal silence and acquiescence ... and Labour lost the election ...
This is not only a matter for shop stewards and trade unionists. In the Labour councils too there are all sorts of ways in which the Tories can be counted out. The councils have huge sums of money piled up from the sale of council houses. The Tories forbid them to spend that money. They should refuse to obey the Tories and spend it. If they are surcharged they should refuse to cooperate, resign their chairs and go into majority opposition. They should make the councils unmanageable rather than accept any longer the diktats of a government which has plainly lost the support of the people.
Labour councillor should resign from all the new government quangos, the development corporations, enterprise agencies, city challenges and all the rest of the business speak nonsense whereby the capitalists have sought to undermine democracy in the urban areas. Up to now Labour representatives have played along; they should call a halt and let the quangos stew in their own juice.