In the mid-1990s, excepting this or that struggle, there was a general ebb on the industrial front. In 1994, a record low of 280,000 days were lost through strike action, and one fifth of those were accounted for by the signal workers’ dispute. It was the lowest figure since records began 100 years previous. On the surface, it appeared that things could not get much worse. However these figures, which were triumphantly brandished by the faint-hearts as conclusive “proof that the working class had lost its will to fight, gave a one-sided and misleading picture of the real position. What they failed to show was the growing anger, bitterness and frustration that were steadily accumulating on the shop floor.
In general terms, it is true the class struggle remained subdued. But the reason for this was not that the workers were satisfied, but that they were being constantly frustrated and held back by those who ought to have given a lead. Lacking any viable alternative, the workers were keeping their heads down. A layer even took early voluntary redundancy to get out before matters got any worse. Nevertheless, by early 1995, the mood had already started to pick up. In March and April the figures were registering twice as many days lost through strikes as in the same period of 1994. But even this only tells us part of the story. Out of the 494 strike ballots recorded by the TUC in the first six months of the year, 324 produced a “yes” vote, but most fell short of industrial action. Either a deal had been struck or the ballot was subject to a legal challenge or bogged down in legal difficulties.
This lack of open struggle by the workers inevitably reflected itself within the Labour Party. The Party had emptied out and the right-wing trade union leaders, especially Sir Ken Jackson, gave their whole-hearted support to Tony Blair. But Blair wanted to go much further than his right-wing predecessors. He had a special “Project” aimed at abolishing Clause Four (the Party’s commitment to socialism) and ultimately to transform the Labour Party into a capitalist Party – a Tory Party mark two. This “Project” had the complete backing of the ruling class, which had long detested the potentially dangerous socialist aims of the Labour Party. Although Clause Four was turned into a dead letter by Labour’s right wing, it remained a source of attraction and a point of reference for the rank and file especially in times of capitalist crisis.
The collapse of Stalinism in Eastern Europe and Russia further complicated matters, acting as the signal for an unprecedented ideological offensive by the representatives of capital against the ideas of socialism, Marxism, revolution and any trace of opposition to the “market economy”. The Stalinists and Left reformists, who had had illusions in the Soviet Bureaucracy, were demoralised and disoriented. On the other hand, the right-wingers were jubilant. Further encouraged by the bourgeois offensive against the ideas of socialism, Blair was determined to destroy the original class basis and socialist ideology of the Labour Party. However, despite everything, his plans to abolish Clause Four provoked upheavals within the labour movement. In a speech strikingly reminiscent of that of Hugh Gaitskell’s, the right-wing Labour leader who attempted unsuccessfully to abolish Clause Four in the late 1950s, Blair threw down the gauntlet to the movement:
“This is a modern Party living in an age of change,” he told the October 1994 Labour Party Conference. “It requires a modern constitution that says what we are in terms the public cannot misunderstand and the Tories cannot misrepresent,” “Parties that do not change die, and this Party is a living movement not a historical monument.”
When Blair consulted Prescott, who had in the past boasted of his socialist and trade union roots, the latter acquiesced without a whimper. Arthur Scargill correctly described Blair’s intention to scrap Clause Four as a “declaration of war.” But instead of mobilising the Left to resist the Blairite offensive, he walked out of the Party in a fit of pique the following year. This action was most welcome to the leadership, since it facilitated their task while simultaneously reducing Arthur Scargill to a position of complete political impotence. His attempt to form an alternative to Labour (the Socialist Labour Party) ended in ignominious shipwreck, like all the other efforts of the sectarian groups outside the Labour Party.
Despite his haste to “reform” the Labour Party out of existence, Blair met with unexpectedly stiff resistance. He was forced to tack and manoeuvre, talking of the need to “modernise” the “old-fashioned” Clause Four, and bring its language “up to date”, rather than abolish it directly. He argued that Labour needed to place “our old principles in a modern context”. How “reasonable” this all sounded! Who could possibly object? Many supposed Lefts even went along with this insidious nonsense, falling into the trap set by the leadership by accepting that Clause Four really was out of date and should be changed. They failed to understand that Blair’s real intention was not the modernisation of Clause Four, but its abolition. The idea of socialism, the challenge to the market economy, had to be buried once and for all.
Tony Blair’s arguments were not new. Every revisionist trend in the history of the movement, starting with Eduard Bernstein, always couched their revisionist ideas in terms of “modernisation”. But to the horror of the “modernisers”, wherever debates were held within the Labour Party, it was clear that the overwhelming majority of active Party members favoured the retention of Clause Four as originally set out. Whereas the middle class “trendy lefts” were prepared to capitulate on Clause Four, the working class members and especially the trade unionists stood firm. As a matter of fact, there was precious little support for the Blairite position in the Labour movement. Clause Four had appeared on everyone’s membership card since 1959, after Gaitskell’s abortive attack. It expressed the basic historic aims of the Party, and the workers instinctively understood the need to defend it. One of the few unions to carry out a consultation in every one of its regions was the public sector union Unison. The results found that “there is widespread support for the continued principle of common or public ownership to be retained. A number of regions feel that the current Clause Four best expresses that commitment…” It also revealed that the attack on Clause Four “was also felt to be a diversion from the more important task of campaigning and taking on the Tories.” This reflected the real feelings of the rank and file.
Faced with this groundswell of opposition to Blair, the Labour leader used every dirty trick in the book to get his way. Firstly, the Blairites, these great “democrats”, rigged the so-called debate by refusing to allow amendments to their proposed changes. Members were faced with the choice: take it or leave it. Secondly, Blair made the Clause Four issue a vote of confidence in his leadership, and threatened to resign as leader if he was defeated. Again, the Party machine went into full swing behind Blair. Of course, in this attack on the basic socialist principles of the Party, he had the unanimous support of the capitalist media. In ordinary Party meetings where an open debate over the issue was held, members voted conclusively to keep Clause Four, but in the national ballot of members, where the issues were not discussed, a majority were cajoled into voting for Blair’s changes. Given the weakness of the Lefts, many of whom were confused on the issue, the massive press campaign and the full use of the Party’s national machine, this result was not a total surprise. In addition, the special spring Conference was held before the trade union conference season to prevent the union rank and file discussing the question and mandating their delegations. The whole episode constituted a gigantic manoeuvre by the Blairites.
Gradually, by a combination of chicanery, manoeuvres and misrepresentation, the leadership overcame the initial resistance of the rank and file. At the special Conference in the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, where, ironically, the original Clause Four had been adopted in February 1918, a significant minority, above all in the trade unions, defended the socialist Constitution of the Party. Although Blair managed to get a 65 per cent vote in favour of his proposals, his support in the trade union delegations was very weak. While 90 per cent of constituency delegates voted for the NEC proposals (after their arms had been twisted), they only attracted 54.6 per cent of the union votes. This would have fallen below 50 per cent had the MSF delegation voted in line with its conference mandate.
After the Blairites’ victory, the capitalist press crowed loudly that “Old Labour is dead” gloated The Independent, “Blair buries socialism”, trumpeted The Sunday Times, and Blair “buries the past” chipped in The Observer. The Independent described the new text as “the boldest attempt undertaken by the post war Labour Party to embrace a dynamic market economy.” Keir Hardie must have been turning in his grave. This was a victory for the middle class Blairite carpetbaggers who had infiltrated the Party, as well as the right-wing apparatus. It was a setback for the rank and file, but what could be changed by a conference, could also be reversed by a conference. Those who spoke of the death of Old Labour spoke too soon.