If these words are translated into deeds, they could provide the starting point for the transformation of the Labour Party. But truth is always concrete, as Hegel said and Lenin often repeated. Words are never enough. It is necessary to mobilise the rank and file of the trade union movement to carry this out. This would not be at all difficult in the present climate. There are probably no more than 100,000 members in the Labour Party at the present time. If the trade unions were to send just 50 members into every constituency Party, this would be sufficient to trigger the reselection process of sitting MPs. The Labour MPs would be called to account by the people who elected them. This is called democracy!
This idea was raised in a public meeting by left Labour MP John MacDonald, when in reply to a FBU member, he said: “You say you are disgusted with the government minister Nick Raynsford and feel someone should stand against him at the next election. Well, Mr Raynsford polled some 20,000 votes in the last general election. How long will it take you to win over in excess of 20,000 people in this one constituency? However, only 50 FBU activists need to join his Party to take it over!” In fact, Raynsford obtained some 60 per cent of the vote in Greenwich and Woolwich, and had a 13,500 majority over the Conservatives, his closest rival. In contrast, the Socialist Alliance candidate polled a mere 481 votes (1.5 per cent), while the Scargill’s SLP managed to scrape a miserable 352 votes (1.1 per cent).
Already there have been moves to deselect Blairites in some local parties. For instance, in the London seat of Bethnal Green and Bow, Oona King, the Labour MP and parliamentary aide at the DTI, narrowly survived the first stage of an attempt to deselect her. Only after one branch was excluded on a technicality was King’s survival assured. Incidentally, she received the backing of five affiliated trade unions. In this case, the trade unions saved a Blairite from possible deselection. The unions need to ensure that their delegates follow union policy and vote only for those candidates that do likewise. The call must go out, not to contract out, but to contract in! It is time the trade unions took back the Labour Party for the working class.
The movement to reclaim the Labour Party needs a bold strategy. Just as the right-wing Blairites were organised to hijack the Party, so the unions must get organised to take it back. The call of Derek Simpson, Tony Woodley and others, to flood the Party with trade unionists must be taken up seriously. It should be concretised by the launching of a “300 Club”. Every union should agree to sign up 300 members to the Labour Party in each Constituency. On the basis of the rules, which stipulate One Member One Vote, every potential Labour candidate will be judged by the policies they support. Obviously, the trade unionists would cast their vote for those most closely associated with union policies.
In the past trade unionists were given a special rate of £3 per year to join, but this has now risen to £12. This step was a disincentive for trade unionists to join the Labour Party, while the middle-class elements were being welcomed with open arms. The unions could immediately reinstate the original scheme. They should use the political fund to subsidise the membership fees of those who wish to join the Labour Party. In this way, the union’s financial contribution to the Party is not reduced. The money would be well spent in providing thousands of members for the Labour Party. Above all, it would allow ordinary trade unionists to participate actively in the Party, determine its policies and decide who runs it.
The FBU recently donated £12,000 to the Labour Party. This could have been used to help hundreds of FBU members join the Party, a number of whom could have joined John Prescott’s Party in Hull East, or maybe Nick Raynsford’s Party in Greenwich and Woolwich. This would encourage those MPs either to follow policies in the interests of working people or else consider some alternative career. Together with other trade union members, they could decide the best candidate to represent these seats at the general election. On this basis, there would be hundreds of Labour MPs falling over themselves to support pro-union policies!
The trade unions have come full circle. It was they who created the Labour Party. Now it is their job to purge it of closet Tories and careerists and reclaim the Party. The time is ripe to challenge Blairism. If this is not done, the outlook for Labour and the working class will be grim. Despite everything, Blair has not and will not succeed in turning the Labour Party into a copy of the US Democrats. Therefore, at a certain point, the ruling class will move to split the Labour Party, as they did with the SDP in 1981-2, making use of the services of the Blairites, who have never been interested in the Labour Party, except as a vehicle for their personal careers. As the Party is pushed to the left, the ruling class will decide that it cannot any longer serve its purpose and attempt to destroy it.
Mr. Blair has no future in the Labour Party. He is only a member of it by accident. In the end he will be forced out. Maybe he will simply leave for an extremely high-paid job in the world of business or diplomacy. But he could also travel a similar path to Ramsay MacDonald in 1931. Such a scenario would serve to propel the Labour movement far to the left, and open the way for the adoption of radical socialist policies. The dominant tendency will be the left wing both within the trade unions and the Labour Party. Under such conditions the Marxist tendency would play an increasingly important role. On the basis of the crisis of British capitalism, and the great events that are about to unfold, genuine Marxism would once again become an important trend in the British Labour movement and in the working class generally.