For the first time in my life, I probably will not vote Labour, when it comes to the European Parliament elections, next week. I will vote for whichever party has the clearest “Stop Brexit” position, and which has the best chance of winning in the constituency. According to the data and analysis provided by Remain United that looks likely to be the Liberals, unless something significant changes between now, and a week today. It will stick in the craw, but the risk of voting, in these elections, for any party not clearly committed to stopping Brexit is just too great.
The reasons that Marxists support the Labour Party, as the Workers Party, have been set out by me, in this blog many times. The Labour Party is the Workers' Party. Most Workers' Parties, like the Labour Party itself, are, in fact bourgeois, as are other workers' organisations, such as trades unions. They are necessarily bourgeois, because, as Marx describes, being determines consciousness, and the working-class, like everyone else exists within the context of a bourgeois society, and its ideas are conditioned by its everyday existence and experience within that bourgeois society. As Engels describes, in relation to the election of Workers Parties, in the context of parliamentary democracies, their success is a measure of the political maturity of the working-class, and nothing more. Marxists do not fetishise elections, nor do they fetishise voting for what amounts to one bourgeois party rather than another bourgeois party in those elections.
Marxists support the Workers Party, in part, precisely because it is a bourgeois party. In other words, workers form bourgeois organisations, such as trades unions, cooperatives, and political parties, as a defensive response to the repeated attacks on their interests that occur naturally under capitalism. So, how on Earth are they to go beyond such purely defensive responses that remain within the confines of bourgeois ideology, unless Marxists stand alongside them, every step of the way, and illustrate, in action and in ideas, why it is necessary to go beyond those bourgeois solutions. We support the Workers Parties because we are not sectarians, we do not expect the workers to already be socialists as a condition for supporting them, and insist on standing aside from them for fear of infecting our own purity as a result of such contact. Our basic position is to stick with the workers and their mass organisations, however reactionary, at any one time, they might be. For example, when the British electricians and plumbers union, the EETPU, became a reactionary, anti-communist, authoritarian witch-hunting regime, under its General Secretary, Eric Chapple, Marxists did not abandon workers to their fate, within that union, but continued to work alongside them, to try to democratise and radicalise the union, to overturn the power of the right-wing leadership.
But, nor do we fetishise the working-class itself either. The working-class is the agent of social change under capitalism. It is the means by which capitalism will be transcended, and socialism arise to take its place. But, that is by no means inevitable nor automatic. It requires the working-class, itself, to become conscious of its own role in history, and to then actively begin to make that history. That is precisely why Marxists' role is to assist the working-class in arriving at that level of consciousness, and begin to actively make its own history. That cannot be achieved if Marxists put themselves in the position, not of mentors of the working-class, but merely its cheerleaders, or worse simply seeking approval from workers, which means tailing the working-class, and whatever set of ideas it may have adopted at the particular time. When Marxists take up positions as trades union militants, it is not because we believe that workers' interests can at all be effectively defended or promoted by them, but that a) unless workers, at a minimum, attempt to organise to defend their interests, they will have no chance of creating the means of actually promoting their own interests, and b) in taking up those positions, and being the best fighters for the working-class, in those constrained conditions, we hope to earn the right to a hearing from the workers, so as to convince them of the need to go beyond those bourgeois solutions. But, there are times when Marxists, in those positions, have to stand down from them, rather than be the instrument for the implementation of reactionary ideas.
Again, when we support the idea of the workers creating their own cooperatives, so that the division between capital and labour is dissolved in practice, it is not because we believe that these cooperatives, within the confines of a capitalist mode of production, are a solution to their problems, or an end in themselves. We support the creation of worker owned cooperatives, because they demonstrate, in practice, that workers do not need capitalists; they demonstrate that workers both by hand and by brain, both those that labour in production, and those that labour by organising and coordinating, and managing that labour, already perform all of the necessary functions to run production and society, and that the capitalists, and their extremely well remunerated agents, are now simply unnecessary, just as, once capitalist farmers arose, the role of landlords in agriculture became irrelevant and parasitic.
And, the same is true with the Workers Party. We do not at all accept that the bourgeois ideas of the Workers Party are a solution to the workers problems or an adequate means of promoting workers' interests. We are always seeking to improve the ideas of the Workers Party, to move its programme in a more adequate direction, and thereby, at least in the realm of ideas, to move the consciousness of the working-class itself, in a more socialist direction. In 1979. for example, I, along with other Marxists in the Labour Party, called for a vote for Labour in the General Election, but not on the basis of Labour's official programme. We sought to mobilise Labour activists, trades unionists, CLP's and LP branches around a Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory. I argued for a similar campaign in 2010, and, in the EU Referendum, in 2016, I argued that we needed a Socialist Campaign for Europe, along similar lines.
I have also argued that we needed something similar for these European Parliament elections. Its not that there are not enough LP members that support an international socialist position in relation to Europe. Around 90% of LP members oppose Brexit. The majority of them do not want to simply offer workers the old Blair-right version of the EU, but want to adopt the same kind of progressive social-democratic agenda they rallied behind as part of the Corbyn surge, to be carried forward into our approach to Europe. Every indication is that the 75% of Labour voters, particularly all of the new young Labour voters that Labour pulled in in 2017, also support that progressive, internationalist, outward looking approach. We have a number of campaigns such as Love Socialism, Hate Brexit that reflect that. Yet, the fact is that when it comes to the vote next week, what voters will actually be confronted with is a Labour Party that has selected its candidates on a thoroughly undemocratic basis, whereby, on the one hand, old Blair-right MEP's have simply been put back up for election, and on the other hand, we have Stalinist hacks from within the party machine having been appointed as candidates where vacancies arose.
We have a situation, whereby it is impossible to run an effective alternative socialist campaign for Labour in these elections, and where Labour's own programme for the elections is reactionary. If this were simply a General Election, local council elections, or even a European parliament election, under any other conditions, I would argue the need to vote Labour, but prepare to fight. But, it isn't. This election is more like a General Election in which the two main parties were more or less agreed on cancelling all future elections, because what we have is a common position between the leadership of both main parties to push through with Brexit. In a General Election, if the Labour Party is elected on an inadequate programme, it is still possible for socialists to work to highlight that fact, and to use it to mobilise the more advanced sections of the labour movement to change it. That does not apply with Brexit. If Britain is taken out of Europe, it prevents any such action. Britain would be out for at least a generation. Moreover, the reactionary consequences of such a decision, would begin immediately, and in themselves would put workers in a weaker position from which to fight back.
For all of the insane pipe dreams of the Lexiters, the immediate beneficiary of Brexit will be Farage. But Farage is merely an advance scout for the same political strand within the right-wing of the Tory Party. At the start of this year, I predicted that May would call a snap General Election in February, on the basis of having once again made a sharp rightward turn to adopt a No Deal Brexit position. More correctly, I said that if she did not do that, she would be mad. In fact, in the intervening period, May has shown just what a totally incompetent politician she is. She failed to make that turn and call an election, which she would have had every chance of winning, whilst the Liberals were still in obscurity, and Labour was seen as a confused and dissembling outfit with no clear position on Brexit, and its leadership seen as merely a bunch of Brexit supporting also rans. May has failed repeatedly to get her deal approved, but also failed to respond to her failure. The result is that the Tory Party has seen the vast bulk of its support transfer directly to Farage and his Brexit company.
The 34% support for Farage's Brexit company, is comprised almost entirely of Tory Leave voters. Put that together with the 12% remaining support for the Tories, and May, had she made a right turn, to promote a No Deal Brexit, and called an election on that basis, could have expected to have picked up around 40% of the vote, having perhaps lost 5-6% of the current 12%, who would not stomach such a No Deal position. But, with the rest of the population faced with supporting a Labour Party that itself appears committed to pushing through Brexit, it would have lost a large chunk of the support it obtained in 2017, as its members became demoralised, and its voters either sat on their hands, or switched their allegiance to the Liberals, Greens, Chukas, or to Plaid and the SNP. It would have been enough for May to get a clear parliamentary majority and push through her Brexit agenda.
Now the decision for May looks set to be made for her. The Tory Right are set to remove her, and they will then make that turn, and call that election. Corbyn's Labour, in the meantime, has disgraced itself with the class collaborationist talks it has undertaken with the government, and which Barry Gardiner correctly described, when he said that Labour were “bailing out the government”. Its terrible position has merely acted to facilitate Farage.
The upcoming European Parliament elections have, thereby, been turned into a proxy for a referendum on EU membership. In any such referendum, I would vote to remain in the EU, whatever position the Labour Party itself took on that issue. Consequently, it is only rational, in this vote, to do the same, and to vote for that party which most clearly represents opposition to Brexit, and has best chance of winning. As Remain United said, had Labour adopted a clear Stop Brexit position, then that party would have been Labour. But it hasn't.
Indeed, the Labour leadership has done everything possible to undermine the party adopting such a position, including fudging the already fudged conference decision from 2018. What is more, the main representative of the rank and file of the party, Momentum, and its representatives on the NEC, also failed to ensure that the leadership was held to account, and the party policy, and wishes of the members enforced. The reason the leadership has been able to do that is that time and again, Momentum, and its Chief Executive, Jon Lansman, have pulled back from pushing through the democratic reforms required to vest power in the hands of the party membership. Its ironic that Lansman, a prominent member, in the 1980's, of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, which campaigned for the mandatory reselection of MP's, has time and again, refused to campaign for it now, at a time, when the Left is preeminent within the party, whilst the PLP is overwhelmingly dominated by right-wing, Blair-right, and soft left MP's, hostile to Corbyn and the party membership, and waiting at every opportunity to overthrow him, and attempt to regain control of the party for themselves.
Had the last three and a half years been used to really democratise the party, to introduce mandatory reselection of MP's, including for MEP's, we would not have the position we have today. Nor would we have a position where the campaign for the European elections can be conducted essentially on a centralised basis, leaving no room for a more adequate socialist campaign for those elections to be organised, based on the grass roots membership. Labour's membership, and its electorate are overwhelmingly opposed to Brexit. In line with the party's insane triangulating policy of constructive ambiguity that is being used to try to claim both that Labour is committed to another referendum (but only on a Tory deal), and so is not a pro-Brexit party, whilst, at the same time, claiming that Labour is a pro-Brexit Party, and is seeking to achieve its own, impossible Brexit. No wonder only 13% of voters think that Labour has a clear position.
In the 2017 General Election, it is clear that many people came to Labour because they wanted to oppose the Tories hard Brexit. They saw Labour as the best means of opposing that, and also the possibility that Labour, in the process, would stop Brexit altogether. That is obvious both from the fact that around 90% of party members want to stop Brexit, and 75% of Labour voters want to stop Brexit. Yet, the Tories and other Brexiteers have used every opportunity to claim that, because Labour fought the 2017 election on the basis that it would “respect the referendum vote”, this meant that 85% of voters in 2017, backed parties that support Brexit! That is an insane and totally duplicitous conclusion.
But, it is a powerful piece of propaganda for the Brexiteers to use. There is no doubt that no matter how much Labour tries to be constructively ambiguous in its propaganda for the EU elections, whatever vote share it gets will be touted, by the Brextremists, as a vote for Brexit, in the same way. It will not be, because there will be many Labour voters, who will hold their nose, and vote Labour despite its pro-Brexit position, trying to convince themselves that Labour is committed to another referendum and so on. And, yet, the Brexiters will have some point, because the truth remains that no matter how much we know that the Labour Party, as defined by its members, is an anti-Brexit Party, the truth will still be that the Labour leadership have shown, by all their actions, that they are pro-Brexit, and prepared to ride roughshod over the wishes of members and voters to try to push through that agenda.
The EU Parliament elections will be a proxy for another referendum. It is necessary to maximise the anti-Brexit vote in those elections, in order to deny the reactionary Brexiters the propaganda tool they desire. Farage's Brexit company is on 34%, and the Tory media continually present this as though it were a majority. It clearly is not. It is only a third of the potential electorate. Even adding in the rest of the Tory vote (much of which is now actually Tory Remainers, not Leavers), and the handful of votes going to UKIP, it remains a minority. And, just as the Tory vote has collapsed into the Brexit company, so Labour's vote is increasingly collapsing into the Liberals, Greens, SNP and Plaid. Most of Labour's vote will be comprised of Remainers who do not switch their vote, but the Brextremists will try to claim that Labour's vote is a vote for a Brexit supporting party. We should not give them that opportunity.
It would have been better had Labour called off its class collaborationist talks with the Tories, and come out some time ago to clearly oppose Brexit. Then the anti-Brexit vote could have been mobilised behind Labour, and on the basis of carrying a progressive social-democratic agenda into Europe itself. Labour has failed to do that. So, for now, it is necessary, in these elections, to vote for the anti-Brexit parties with the best chance of winning seats, which appears to be Liberals in England, Plaid in Wales, and SNP in Scotland.
Socialists should continue to fight to hold the Labour leadership to account, and to push forward with the required democratic reforms. We need to organise for a recall conference to establish a clear, internationalist, anti-Brexit position, and demand that the leadership fight for it, or get out of the way. A tactical vote for another bourgeois party in these elections other than the Labour Party, to stop Brexit, is a very small price to pay. If we stop Brexit, we can then continue to transform the Labour Party, and make it more adequate to our needs. Then we can be in a position to take on all of these other bourgeois parties from a stronger position.
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