Editorial, Workers Power 387, October, 2021<\/i><\/p>\n
KEIR STARMER\u2019S first annual conference as Leader started from the assertion that \u2018Labour is back in business\u2019 \u2013 the business of serving Britain\u2019s ruling class.<\/p>\n
Brighton Conference Centre witnessed Keir Starmer, completing his counter-revolution against the heritage of Jeremy Corbyn, and party chair David Evans, amending the rulebook to make it easier for him to get rid of the membership who had dared elect the veteran tribune of the left as leader.<\/p>\n
As The Independent observed, Starmer\u2019s overriding goal in 2021 is \u2018to lock the party\u2019s left wing out of power for good.\u2019<\/p>\n
And, although the trade unions blocked his attempt to restore an electoral college that would put the membership in a minority in any future leadership election, he did win the big prize. His Blair-era general secretary, David Evans, was confirmed in office by 57% to 43% of the votes. Last minute amendments to the party constitution give him authorisation to continue to \u201creshape the party\u201d by purging it of anyone who rocks the boat.<\/p>\n
A six-month \u2018probationary\u2019 period during which new members can be \u2018rejected for any reason which the general secretary sees fit\u2019<\/p>\n
Yet on several issues \u2013 Palestine, the nationalisation of the power companies, the national minimum wage \u2013 conference voted for policies opposed by the leadership. However, Starmer immediately made it clear he will not implement them. In short, Labour was back to turning its \u2018sovereign\u2019 conference into a rally, whose main purpose is giving embarrassing choreographed standing ovations to the dear leader and his entourage.<\/p>\n
There were other hiccups too. Andy McDonald resigned from shadow cabinet, because he said the Labour leader\u2019s office \u2018instructed me to go into a meeting to argue against a national minimum wage of \u00a315 an hour and against statutory sick pay at the living wage\u2019. And the Bakers‘ Union BFAWU, whose president Ian Hodson had recently received an \u201cauto-expulsion\u201d letter from Labour HQ, recalled their conference delegates and revoked their 119-year affiliation to the party.<\/p>\n
The left in Labour need to ask themselves hard questions. Why did Corbynism fail to get beyond its highpoint of 2017 in terms of policies and democratic reforms? Why did Team Corbyn in both the Leader’s Office and Momentum do so little to fight the fake antisemitism smears and the expulsion of loyal rank and file supporters? Why did defeat at the polls in 2019 result in such a rapid and total collapse of the Corbyn movement? And why have the Socialist Campaign Group and Momentum failed to coordinate resistance over the last eighteen months?<\/p>\n
The answer to these questions lies in the left\u2019s belief that it is vital to preserve Labour as a \u2018broad church\u2019 in order to win an election that will then see a government enact \u2018socialist\u2019 policies. Corbyn and McDonnell\u2019s dependence on the right explains why they would not allow the members to deselect right wing MPs and councillors, despite their open sabotage of Labour\u2019s chances in 2017 and 2019. It also explains why they did not carry out constitutional changes that would have put the MPs and the national and regional apparatus under the control of the rank and file.<\/p>\n
The Labour right showed no corresponding loyalty to a left leader or commitment today to keeping the party a broad church. The trouble is that most of the left in Labour and the affiliated unions see no alternative to Corbynism, just as the older among them saw no alternative to Bennism in the 1980s. Both movements saw parliamentarism and winning elections as the only road to what they regard as socialism.<\/p>\n
They do not see the class struggle \u2013 in the workplaces, in the communities, on the streets \u2013 as the party\u2019s prime arena, but rather as an auxiliary to the electoral contests, at best. But socialism will not come through parliament \u2013 only a revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist class will open the road to building socialism, saving the planet, ending racism, liberating women, stopping future imperialist wars.<\/p>\n
Ken Loach suggests refounding \u2018a broad, inclusive, independent labour movement that unites those both in and outside the Labour party.\u2019 But forming a Labour Party mark two, if it sees winning power through elections but without decisive union support, is a waste of time. It was tried with Scargill\u2019s Socialist Labour Party, the Socialist Alliance and Left Unity. The fight against Starmerism in the party and affiliated unions cannot be circumvented; it has to be finished.<\/p>\n
We still need to fight for the legitimate policies the 2021 conference passed as well as those embodied in the Corbyn era manifestos. If that means being expelled by Evans, so be it. All socialists need to act in solidarity with the struggles being waged by different unions against unemployment and low pay, plus the movements against climate change and for refugees\u2019 rights. These can all be rallying points for the left.<\/p>\n
Finally, the left really needs an open debate on strategy, reformism or revolutionary politics, and what sort of political organisation the working class needs \u2013 an electoral machine or a party of class struggle.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Editorial, Workers Power 387, October, 2021 KEIR STARMER\u2019S first annual conference as Leader started from the assertion that \u2018Labour is back in business\u2019 \u2013 the business of serving Britain\u2019s ruling class. Brighton Conference Centre witnessed Keir Starmer, completing his counter-revolution against the heritage of Jeremy Corbyn, and party chair David Evans, amending the rulebook to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7724,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[104,144,343,88],"class_list":["post-4640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-uncategorized","tag-archive","tag-britain","tag-labour-party","tag-reformism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7724"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4640"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7863,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4640\/revisions\/7863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}