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Gordon Brown will now be crowned Labour leader and then Prime Minister on
June 27. There was never going to be a Blairite challenge to Brown (despite
massive media speculation) short of some dramatic and unforeseen
development, even if some of the Blairites did keep their options open.
There is nothing between them other than personal ambition and Brown was in
an unassailable position. It’s goodbye Blair, but Blairism continues.
The central issue for the left, however, is the failure of the Labour left
to raise a challenge  the first time since 1931. Despite campaigning
tirelessly up and down the country for months John McDonnell fell well short
of the 45 nominations he needed from Labour MPs to stand. Michael Meacher’s
hopeless ’centre left’ candidacy collapsed with even less, and most of those
would not transfer to McDonnell.
It is a defeat of historic proportions. Failure to achieve a contest - after
ten years of New Labour’s policies  its war-drive, neo-liberal agenda, and
sleaze  is a disaster. It means that the most right-wing and treacherous
Labour leader since Ramsay MacDonald has been able to replace himself in his
own image without a contest. Compare this with the time when Tony Benn
missed the deputy leadership by a mere 0.5%. The change is staggering.
Brown won a clunking 318 nominations, including the support of several soft
left MPs such as Bob Marshal-Andrews and John Cruddas  who nominated Brown.
It was not even that MPs had to agree with everything John McDonnell said in
order to nominate him. They could have endorsed him to ensure a political
debate and a democratic process.
It was a huge vote of confidence from Labour MPs which will strengthen
Brown’s neo-liberal agenda and undermine potential opposition to his future
actions.
Predictably the Labour left are in denial. The Labour Left Briefing editorial says:
"Socialists outside the party will be quick to claim that this is the end of
the Labour left. We beg to differ". John McDonnell says: "We’re now in a
stronger position to fight for socialist policies than we have been for
years". Geoff Martin says that the campaign has: "dug a solid foundation for
a revitalised left that we can build on in the future". This is whistling in
the wind.
Geoff Martin argues that the problem was amongst Labour MPs, not party
members. Every winnable seat which comes up for selection has a Blairite
parachuted in, he says. Alan Simpson argues that the left was robbed of a
contest by the threshold of 45 nominating MPs. He describes it as a "coup".
Of course Blair has been promoting Blairite MPs, and, of course, the
election rules were not drawn up to help the left. But these things do not
explain Brown 318, McDonnell 27. The fact is a strong grass roots left in
the party would have resulted in more nominations. The left was not even a
factor MPs had to take into account when they decided who to nominate. There
was a no price they had to play for nominating Brown rather than McDonnell.
On the Labour Party NEC, when a motion was moved to reduce the required
number of nominations it got only two votes.
The problem is not just amongst MPs. In fact, after the MPs, it is inside
the Labour party, amongst its declining membership, where the victory of new
Labour has been most complete. Far more complete that amongst the electoral
base of the Labour Party  much of which has been well to the left of Labour
for a long time.
The fact is, the major radicalisations of the past 10 years from Seattle to
the mass anti-war movement have found no detectable echo inside the Labour
Party, all the development have been outside.
Of course Brown was lying when he said he would have welcomed a contest. He
would have welcomed nothing of the sort. McDonnell could have done well in
the unions, where ballots were held, and the last thing he wanted for the
next six weeks was a continuous pressure from the left. That is why Brown
ensured John McDonnell never got on the ballot paper. His claim that his
principles stopped him giving the green light to some McDonnell nominations
is nonsense.
McDonnell’s defeat throws the Labour left into serious crisis. No spin can
hide it. The project of reclaiming the Labour or the idea that the Labour
Party is a fruitful arena for the left to work in have been dealt a
devastating blow.
The only practical proposal John McDonnell makes as a way forward after all
this is a call for people to attend the Labour Representation Committee
conference in October. But what is it going to talk about? It is unlikely to
conclude, as the original LRC did at the start of the 20th century that the
trade unions and the working class needed independent labour representation
in the form of a new political party. It is more likely to say, "carry on
regardless".
And what happened to the awkward squad? Many of them have become the Gordon
Brown squad! John McDonnell failed to win the support of any major union for
his campaign. McDonnell got the support of some smaller unions mostly
outside of the Labour Party. But neither Derek Simpson, Tony Woodley, Dave
Prentis or any of the general secretaries of the big unions were prepared to
back him. They rushed to support Brown - despite the pay freeze, pensions
crisis, and job losses he has imposed on them. They would rather seek crumbs
from his table than back a left candidate.
Woodley and Simpson managed to get both wings of ’Unite’ to support Gordon
Brown, having opposed support for John McDonnell. The TGWU section of
’Unite’ declared itself "proud" to have nominated Brown saying that it will
give him "our full support as Prime Minister in working to tackle social
inequality". Meanwhile Brown was getting set to put the boot into the public
sector unions.
All this has implication for Respect, which should be taking the initiative
to open or re-open a dialogue with those on the left who are currently not
in Respect as to how they see the way forward.
The Morning Star and the CPB are a case in point. They are likely to find it
increasingly difficult to cling to a policy of reclaiming Labour. Apparently
a new discussion has already opened up on this internally in the CPB. The
Morning Star had already called a conference in June on "Politics After
Blair" at which the issue will now be unavoidable.
This also has implications for the RMT-sponsored shop stewards network founding
conference which is taking place on July 7th. The Socialist Party’s Campaign
for a New Workers party has already been promoting a debate around the
crisis of the Labour left.
George Galloway put Respect’s role well in his response to the situation in
Socialist Worker:
"Over the coming weeks we will be seeking to discuss with key figures in the
trade unions, on the left, in the Labour Party and across the progressive
spectrum as a whole what initiatives might be taken to rally and unify our
forces. Respect has aspirations to advance the whole left as well as our
part of it".
He puts it very well. This is exactly the kind of situation Respect was
created to address. But it is a pity he did not think of this over the last
two years when he has opposed most proposals to make Respect more democratic
and accessible to new people. He should have thought about it when he has
refused to be accountable to Respect  like with his appearance on Celebrity
Big Brother where he made Respect look ridiculous in front of the very
people he is now quite rightly in favour of approaching.
He has opposed Respect being built as a political party and not a loose
coalition dominated by the SWP and himself, which leaves little room for the
individual non-aligned activist to function.
The fact is that the obstacles to building a viable left alternative are not
all with those who retain illusions in the Labour Party. There are also
problems in the failure of the left outside of the Labour Party to build a
united and pluralist alternative which can be attractive to them.
Respect must never-the-less rise to this situation. It may not be as well
placed as it should be but there is no other organisation which can play
this role. Its recent election results show that clearly enough.
But Respect needs to be open and flexible in this situation to any new
forces from the Morning Star or the trade union left. It should do whatever
is necessary to ensure that new forces have space to make their influence
felt. If it can do this it could break it out of its current impasse and
open up a new stage of development.
Respect’s task in this process is to turn the tide of politics back towards
the left. Rebuild ideological and practical opposition to the market. Work
with the left in the unions to build an independent pluralist left
alternative alongside the struggle to regenerate the unions and rebuild
trade union strength and organisation.
