British Labour Party

["Steve Painter and Rose McCann" <spainter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Bob Gould responds to Nigel Irritable on the British Labour Party
conference.

When discussing the British Labour Party conference or any other political
event, it's useful to have the facts.

Nigel is a member of a group that, as the Militant tendency, spent several
decades of effective agitation inside the Labour Party, linked to an
external group as well. Since leaving the Labour Party, the former Militant
groups have become like the reformed drunk of the left on the Labour Party
question, defining it as a bourgeois party from the time of their break with
it.

This leads Nigel to put a spin on events at the BLP conference that have an
unreal quality.

For Nigel, and others who share similar views, it's now original sin for
socialists to have anything to do with Labourism. If the British bourgeois
media are any guide, British ruling class might wish more people held this
view, as the papers are full of commentary on the reverses suffered by Blair
at the BLP conference, particularly the 40 per cent vote against the
imperialist drive to war in Iraq and the near 50 per cent vote from the
trade union bloc against Blair's war plans.

>From the point of view of the bloodthirsty British ruling class such a
massive opposition within the official structures of the British Labour
movement to the war plans of British imperialism is an enormous obstacle.

Tariq Ali's piece on the London protest, posted on this list a few days ago,
crisply, succintly and entertainingly illustrates the case for a united
front, involving the labour movement and Labour Party forces, to build a
mass movement against Blair's war plans.

I attach a few paragraphs describing what actually happened at the BLP
conference on the Iraq war.

For the full text of this article by Kris Lawrie and Fred Weston go to
http://www.marxist.com/Europe/blair_pfi_defeat.html


"The second controversial motion was the one on Iraq. It was clear that the
Labour leadership were panicking about they way things might go. They
withdrew their own motion before it went to discussion and vote, because
they thought it would be defeated. Instead they put forward a watered down
alternative, which implied that any action would first have to seek UN
approval. This was eventually adopted by 60 per cent to 40 per cent. The
press have characterised this as a tactical withdrawal. It in fact shows
their weakness when the Blairite leadership cannot get support for its own
motion on the war.

"A motion unconditionally opposing the war was put forward and discussed.
This argued that military action would increase the suffering of the Iraqi
people, and worsen the instability in the Middle East. Alice Mahon MP of the
left Campaign Group, made the point that "this isn't going to be a war about
weapons of mass destruction. It will be the first war waged about oil, waged
by the world's biggest oil consumer."

"Conference delegate Eileen Sinclair (Cunningham South), said that the US
would go in and bomb everything, creating more misery, and she pointed out
that "the Iraqi people themselves, with the pressure of the world behind
them, must depose Saddam Hussein - not us with bombs."

"Despite the fact that this motion was defeated 40.2 per cent to 59.8 per
cent the Blairites can draw little consolation from such a narrow vote. 40
per cent in favour of the motion, shows that there is widespread opposition
to the war in the British labour and trade union movements.

"However, the vote against the war was even higher among trade union
delegates, 48 per cent of whom voted against. This compared to 32 per cent
among party delegates. This is no accident, and is fully understandable. In
the past the right wing of the Labour Party could count on the their friends
at the tops of the major trade unions for support. An example of this was
Sir Ken Jackson, the recently ousted general secretary of the AEEU (now
called Amicus, the engineering workers' union). One by one these old
right-wingers are being ousted. A new more militant layer is coming to the
fore and this is being reflected at every level of the trade union movement.
As we predicted, this is now having an effect within the Labour Party
itself. It is in the workplaces that workers are feeling the pinch. The
process of radicalisation inevitably starts inside the trade unions. But
this inevitably had to spill over into the Labour Party itself. There is an
organic link between the trade unions and the Labour Party. The party could
not remain immune to this process. Already there is opposition in the party
branches. As trade union activists draw the conclusion from their struggles
that they must get involved politically they will start to fill out the
party branches and on this basis opposition will also be strengthened in the
constituencies."

Bob Gould



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