File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9705, message 75


Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 02:26:51 -0700
From: knightrose <knightrose-AT-geocities.com>
Subject: M-I: re: Labour and Politics again!


Sometimes I wonder what kind of fantasy world people are living in.  It
really would be useful for comrades to study the actual history of the
Labour Party.  have a look at what they have really done in practice,
not at some idealised version of what comrades feel they should have
done or maybe could do if just given the right push.

Let’s go back to Labour in 1914 - joined the War Coalition, helped send
millions to fight and hundreds of thousands to their death.  Opposed
strikes and helped smash them.  Then let’s look at the first Labour
Government - not in office very long, it is true, but they still managed
to play a decisive role in defending British imperialism - bombing
indigenous peoples from aeroplanes in this case!  1939 - supported yet
another war, spent the war opposing working class militancy.  1945 -
massive majority - introduced the Welfare State (in agreement with the
other boureois parties, of course), send troops in to break the London
Dockers Strike (within two weeks of gaining office).  They maintained
rationing for long after the war.  Why?  So they could build up capital
at the expense of consumption.  Nationalised failing industries to prop
up capital - and in the process gave out millions in compensation to
former owners  .... and who paid for that?  Went ahead with the
programme to build the British Atom Bomb.  Then we have to jump to the
1960s and a time I actually remember first hand.  More money spent on
nuclear weapons.  Wages freezes, attacks on the rights of workers to
organise.  Anti-immigration laws.  The 1970s?  Upgrading Britain’s
nuclear ‘deterent’ (that sounds a bit like a theme, doesn’t it?).  More
pay freezes, cuts in the social wage - education, health.  Troops used
to break strikes.  

And that’s just a sample.  It doesn’t sound much like a party of the
working class to me.  Nor does it sound like it moved rightward after
the collapse of the soviet bloc.  It sounds more like a case of a party
on the side of British capital.  And that is exactly what the ruling
class in this country think too.  Which is why they were so keen to
support Blair in the recent election.  What was notable was the lack of
opposition from the media to Blair.  The Tory Sun backed him (Rupert
Murdoch), the others basically kept their mouths shut.

The ruling class knows it needs a new act that can impose austerity on
the class, dismantle the welfare state as we know it, achieve closer
integration with the EU and possibly move into a single currency.  They
know damn well that Labour are in the position to deliver just that.

I suppose I’ll be told that it is necessary to be in the Labour party to
be active and to have influence.  Well, I have not found that to be the
case.  I’ve been active in my union and have helped instigate industrial
action.  I was active in the anti-poll tax movement and set up our local
group, I took an active part in anti-motorway work and helped set up our
local anti-JSA group.  In none of these cases did not being in the
Labour party hinder.  In fact the reverse is true.  During the Poll Tax
struggle we were infested with people from Militant who took every
opportunity to tell people to join Labour.  Nobody did - instead they
just bored the backsides of people and drove many away.  After all, they
could see that it was the local Labour state that was implementing the
Poll Tax and taking people to court for non-payment.  Standing up and
saying that labour were just the same as the Tories met with
considerable approval.  

What I do find is that people who are in the Labour party spend too much
time on ‘resolutionary’ politics - arguing away within the party, while
meanwhile the class struggle goes on outside - unfortunately they are
too busy to have any involvement in it.  Moreover, their commitment to
‘realism’ or ‘entyism’ stops them being truly outspoken!

As to the SLP, all I can say is that I know little of it.  I know that
some of its members are playing useful parts in JSA work and Dockers
Support work.  However, I’ve also heard disturbing rumours of expulsions
and anti-democratic practice, but they are just rumours.  From what I’ve
said, though, I see little to gain from them.  Their is no ‘old’ labour
to go back to! 

Serious revolutionaries should not be wasting their time in Labour - it
has taken too many already and turned them into wasted cynics.

Harry Roberts

--------------------------------------------
Subversion Home Page including texts on the German Revolution and
"Labouring in Vain, Why Labour is Not a Socialist Party"
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8195
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