The call by Hoon and Hewitt for a secret ballot on Brown’s leadership BBC News can be seen as nothing more than an attempt to ensure a Tory Victory at the General Election. Either consciously or unconsciously they are acting as Tory agents inside the LP. They and the other uber Blairites around them should be ditched immediately. I’m not talking about the kind of witchhunt that such people and Kinnock initiated against socialists in the Party in the 1980’s, only that CLP’s should root out such people from any positions of authority in the Party, and remove them.
As a socialist I have severe criticisms of Brown’s leadership of the LP. Indeed, I have severe criticism of the Labour Party’s overall programme. But, I am a consistent democrat. My job as a Marxist is to do what Marx and Engels advised, to win the battle of democracy inside the working class, and the starting point for that is to win the battle inside the Workers Party itself, for the ideas I believe in. Gordon Brown was elected by the LP according to its rules and Constitution. I may think that those rules and Constitution are inadequate, but until such time as I and others can persuade the working class, and its representatives inside the LP to change that, I have to accept those rules as they stand. I think that the current programme of the LP is inadequate, and as I have said elsewhere, although I accept that the LP will fight the election on that Programme, I do not see that that prevents socialists like myself putting forward for consideration a series of other socialist policies we believe the LP and the working class should adopt, provided we do not attempt to pass those policies off as being the policies of the LP itself. See:Why We Need A Socialist Campaign For A Labour Victory.
But, Hoon and Hewitt are not saying that they are prepared to accept the LP’s elected leaders and programme, whilst putting forward an alternative. On the contrary, their call for a secret ballot of MP’s is highly unconstitutional, and an affront to ordinary members of the Party who would be disenfranchised in such a vote. Nor are they putting forward any alternative policies to those pursued by Brown. Their position is just a dishonest manoeuvre whose intent is solely destructive. According to news reports Tessa Jowell was canvassed to join this rebellion following her recent comments attacking Brown’s “class war” politics of attacking Cameron in his “Playing Fields of Eton” comment. Jowell, has had the good sense to recognise a dead horse when she sees one. But, Jowell is one of those uber Blairites whose motivation here is based solely on looking to her political career not to any political principle. No doubt if she thought the rebellion had any chance of success her position would be different, as would that of others in that gang.
All of this tendency goes back to Kinnock, and the train of events he set in motion in the 1980’s. Many on the “Left” of that time went along with his attacks on the Militant and others in the Party, because they believed that it was necessary for the LP to present a more acceptable face to the electorate, to not rock the boat and so on. Of course, the antics of the Militant and others inside the LP at the time made it easy for them to accept such a course of action. But, today ordinary workers inside the LP must see where that has led. It is time for ordinary working class LP members to stand up and be counted, and for the Trade Unions to back them up. Whilst there is time before the election we need to clear out the uber Blairite MP’s and candidates, and all the other dead wood. We need to follow up the attacks on the Tories, with the elaboration of a more working class oriented programme that is based not on the idea put forward by the Blairites of some cross class approach to win the votes of disgruntled Tories, but which is based on winning the votes of ordinary working class and middle class people by a positive programme that defends their interests against the attacks of Capital. The basic idea has to be – “Make The Bosses Pay”.
In that way, not only can Labour win the next election, but we can begin to rebuild the party itself, alongside rebuilding the Trade Unions, Co-operatives, and other Labour Movement bodies.
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