In the end, what it really comes down to is what you think the role of ordinary trade unionists should be in the Labour party: should they be active and engaged, or should they exist to be invoked in favour of arguments you’ve already lost?
On the ‘active and engaged’ side of the argument is Ed Miliband, who gives what might be the best speech of his political career today. It’s tempting to think that internal party battles don’t matter in the grand design, because only the committed are paying attention. But come 2015, the only guide people will have to how Ed Miliband will run their schools and their hospitals is how he’s run the Labour party, so what he says today matters a great deal. Fortunately, he’s more than delivered, with a speech that is big, bold and Blairite.
No, I’m wrong: it’s better than a Blairite speech. A Blairite speech would have won the cosmetic battle, retreated from the field, and ultimately lost the war. This speech should be a final settlement that secures the party’s future.
On the other side of the argument you have Unite. That isn’t strictly fair; certainly, you do not have the Unite rank-and-file, most of which did not vote for the Unite leadership, or the overwhelming majority of prospective parliamentary candidates or members of the parliamentary party who simply happen to be members of Unite. When I say ‘on the other side of the argument you have Unite’, what I mean is ‘on the other side of the argument you have a narrow clique around Len McCluskey, and Owen Jones’.
They say they want working-class voices to be heard, but it is not clear exactly whose voices they are willing to hear. Certainly, they do not want the voices of working-class people who support a benefit cap to be heard. They do not want the voices of working-class people who want the budget to be balanced to be heard. They do not want the voices of people who were the first in their families to go to university and have had the temerity to join Labour Students to be heard, and they really do not want working-class politicians like Alan Johnson, Hazel Blears or Caroline Flint to be heard.
What they want to do is speak on behalf of the working class; they don’t even want to ask working people if they want to give their own money to the Labour party. If the Labour party is unable to convince enough individual trade unionists to affiliate that will be a financial catastrophe for the party, but it will not mean that the Labour party has ceased to represent millions of workers. It will mean that the Labour party has stopped taking money from people it is failing to represent.
That doesn’t mean that the party that Ed wants to build will be built without challenges. Primaries are an idea whose time has come; but it’s now down to the Labour party to ensure that the London mayoral race is a choice between genuine heavyweights. Moving to an opt-in system means that those of us who work outside of Westminster will have to become better and greater evangelisers not just for unionising but affiliating. And all that’s after what will certainly be a titanic struggle against the old machines of both left and right. If we’re serious about building an open and organic party, now is the time to fight for it. Ed Miliband has issued the call; let’s, as Milibandites, march.
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Photo: Wirawat Lian-Udom
“they do not want the voices of working-class people who support a benefit
cap to be heard ”
What on earth are you talking about? The working class people who support Tory policies can still vote Tory, and if they are even more right wing than the Tories, they can vote UKIP.
What’s missing is any alternative to plutocracy.
What about members of the working class who don’t want those who suffer redundancy punished with a deliberate delay in benefit so the Tories can attempt to ‘balance the budget’ on the backs of the vulnerable? What about the members of the working class who want a Labour party that opposes zero hour contracts and the privatisation of health and education? It seems to me Progress seem to be enthusiastic as the Lib Dems when it comes to embracing and adopting Tory policy. What about the members of the working class who see a Labour Party rapidly becoming indistinguishable from the blue and yellow monster they’re meant to be opposing?
The unions begat the Labour Party. But, like a tennis mum (or dad), some union leaders feel they must nurture their talented child even after it has grown up. They want to bask in the reflected glory and compensate for their own deficiencies.
But Stephen’s petulant critique of McCluskey is another part of the metaphor. He is at risk of being the stroppy teenager who has not come to terms with the out-of-touch parent (or suave Uncle Tony for that matter) and is only prepared to talk to brother Ed.
I want the voices of people to be heard which are based on facts and evidence not often repeated, and unchallenged lies of politicians and economists who have either not heard of Keynes or pretend that they haven’t, and who practice the baiting of the poor. Most voices of the people are influenced by the un-truths told about welfare and the ‘benefits’ of a balanced budget, not by the real position. Let’s start by telling people how many households get/got housing benefit of over £150,00 a year – it was 4! Let’s tell them that a household budget is not the same as a country’s budget – something proved by Keynes many years ago so why is it being claimed as true? Let’s tell them that most recipients of welfare are in work and that the money ends up in the hands of the 1%anyway. Let’s tell them about the privatisers and rip-off merchants who are contributing to the Tory party.
And what is a balanced budget anyway? Balanced for ever; balanced over a cycle; balanced when it suits a particular small part of the population? It is a good job Winston Churchill didn’t insist on balancing the budget during the Second World War.
USA politics is in a mess – so why are ‘we’ copying any ideas from them, such as Primaries?