Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 18:51:16 -0400
Subject: M-I: Tony Benn MP on Blair's plans to destroy Labour Party 
From: jschulman-AT-juno.com (Jason A Schulman)


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 16:56:16 GMT
From: Chris Croome <chris-AT-atomism.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Tony Benn MP on Blair's plans to destroy Labour Party democracy

Hi

The following is an interview with Tony Benn MP about
Blair's plans to destroy Labour Party democracy at the
annual conference next week.

There is more information about Blair and co's plans, the so
called "Partnership In Power" proposals, in the October
issue of Labour Left Briefing:

http://www.labounet.org.uk/llb/1997/october/index.html


   PiP will not suppress the downtroddens' voice

   Alistair Ward interviewed Tony
   Benn MP about Partnership In
   Power (PiP) and its effect if
   passed

   Q: What is Partnership Into Power (PiP)? What
   does it represent?

     A: It's part of a strategy, worked out some
     time ago, for the creation of a new political
     party called New Labour. It is openly
     admitted that it is a new party. The strategy
     has been unfolding with the abandonment of
     Clause IV, which was about a democratic
     commitment to control economic power.
     Then came the Road to the Manifesto
     which enables plebiscites. This is a
     top-down approach. The leader or
     leadership works out something and then
     you can say "yes" or "no" to it, but you
     can't use the vote to put forward what you
     want. Then the manifesto which deliberately
     didn't promise very much. Soon after the
     election there was a whole series of moves
     to broaden the base of New Labour to
     include other parties. Mrs Thatcher was
     asked to No. 10 to advise on Europe.
     Heseltine was appointed to the Millennium
     Commission. Mellor was appointed to the
     football task force. Liberals were brought
     onto the Cabinet Consultative Committee
     (with Ashdown speaking about the
     possibility of a coalition). Then you have the
     PiP which is designed to establish a much
     firmer control at the top. Increasingly,
     Conference will be a highly structured
     American Convention, where ministers will
     make statements and there will be a
     structured response. The Constituencies will
     not be allowed to choose the candidates for
     the NEC because there will be a filtering
     process. The idea is to establish a top-down
     party, very much on the American model.

     Clinton was re-elected by adopting the
     policies of Newt Gingrich. Only one in five
     Americans voted for him. Eight out of ten
     Americans didn't register, didn't vote, or
     voted against him. In Europe the same thing
     is happening. Control is to be handed to a
     Central Bank, which won't be elected. In
     China the leaders have recently said they
     have got to be competitive. Market forces
     will mean mass unemployment in China. The
     Asian tiger economies have authoritarian
     political leaderships in order to open the
     way for global market forces to operate.

     The whole strategy is yet to be completed.
     If there is resistance to cuts in the welfare
     state, neglect of pensions and so on, there
     will be, inevitably, some response. At that
     stage the British establishment will call
     explicitly for a formal coalition. The situation
     is very similar to 1931. The Labour Party
     has gone along with this because it wanted
     to defeat the Tories, but I don't think the
     Labour Party itself has changed very much.
     What has happened is that unemployment,
     legislation and huge media campaigns have
     demoralised the trade union movement and
     others. People now increasingly are moving
     into single issue campaigns: civil liberties,
     pensions, environment, women's rights,
     anti-racism. In every country you will find
     similar movements. I recently had an
     invitation to go to San Francisco for a
     conference organised by trade unions about
     privatisation in the North American free
     trade area. It brought in people from all
     over Latin America. We must establish
     closer links with people in other countries.
     The Internet is very useful for that purpose.
     It is a sort of modern version of the
     soapbox.

   Q: What are the consequence that will
   eventually follow PiP?

     A: A coalition. First informal and then
     formal, combined with very tough Party
     disciplinary measures. If trade unions are
     won over to PiP next year or soon after
     two things will happen. One is the state
     funding of political parties. This will cut the
     unions completely from the Labour Party.
     Second is proportional representation. It
     has surfaced for the European elections. As
     far as I can make out, Euro-constituencies
     will still be allowed to choose their
     candidates but when all the candidates have
     been chosen, the leadership will decide
     who's at the top of the list. So"difficult"
     people will be left at the bottom of the list.
     Links are being built up in the European
     Parliament between socialists and greens. I
     read that this has led to a statement from
     Party HQ that links of that kind would lead
     to disciplinary action. Compare this with the
     links with the Liberals, which are now
     formalised, even though they fought against
     Labour candidates because they are, dare I
     say it, a powerful anti-socialist force. The
     Liberals are admitted to the inner councils
     whereas the green movement, which has a
     socialist element, is to be excluded.

     In once sense, it's the end of the Labour
     Party if PiP is carried. On the other hand,
     you can't stop dissent, debate, discussion,
     campaigning, and therefore I think that the
     life of the Party will go on but in a way that
     isn't directly connected to the Parliamentary
     leadership. It may be that in the end, as with
     MacDonald or George Brown or Roy
     Jenkins, that it is the leadership who move
     off. It would be a terrible tragedy if the
     response was to leave and move into
     sectarian politics. Arthur made a mistake.
     The Socialist Alliance got it wrong. There
     are too many socialist parties and not
     enough socialists. If people leave the
     Labour Party they are contributing to the
     process of handing it over to New Labour.
     If left MPs left the Labour Party it would
     delight the leadership. I'm getting hundreds
     of letters saying "I've just left the Labour
     Party. I voted Labour for certain things
     which haven't happened". Some may go
     into sectarian parties, but there is another,
     more threatening possibility that if people
     become absolutely disillusioned and feel that
     their votes on May 1st led to nothing, a
     swing to the right will occur. I do not believe
     that a New Labour enterprise, using the
     machinery of the Party, with the money of
     the Party, could really be able to prevent the
     Labour Party from performing its historic
     functions. The desires for jobs, homes,
     education, rights and racial equality are
     going to be there and will be expressed. I
     am an optimist.'

     If you look at the world today you see
     appalling problems of despair, poverty and
     ill health. If there is a global market it just
     doesn't work. We must not allow a sense of
     doom to persuade us that there is no
     alternative. That was Mrs Thatche's most
     dangerous phrase. If we were to believe
     that now we would surrender everything to
     the establishment because people wouldn't
     try. People will have to try, but they'll only
     try if they think there'll be success. It's
     rather like rebuilding the Party from the
     bottom up as we did in the 19th and early
     20th centuries.'

     This is not the end of the Labour Party, but
     the attempt to use the Labour Party as a
     foundation for building something new. You
     can't separate yourself from your roots. It's
     like a tree deciding to cut its roots and just
     grow upwards. The tree will collapse as
     we saw with the SDP. Many SDP ideas are
     reappearing through New Labour and
     there's always been a desire by the British
     establishment to build a party that had no
     links with the labour movement, no socialist
     convictions, no pride or knowledge of its
     history.

   Q: If these changes to the Labour Party
   democracy go through, you're suggesting that
   they can be reversed?

     A: Everything can be reversed. If you look
     at high hopes in 1985, look what happened
     to them. It's very easy, particularly if you're
     young, to think "oh well, this is the end". If
     the Conference loses its vitality, which I
     think it may do, then life will begin on the
     fringes. I've always thought for a long time
     that the fringe is in some ways more
     interesting than Conference. Maybe that's
     where the resolutions will be passed; you
     can't stop resolutions being passed at fringe
     meetings. But I'm not suggesting a new
     party/

     Roy Hattersley has just written a book
     called Fifty Years On. On its last page he
     says "the prophets of New Labour
     succeeded where the Militant Tendency had
     failed, they took over and established a
     political party and recreated it in their own
     image. The panache with which they
     operated was breathtaking. And they
     created an election machine which fought a
     brilliant, single-minded campaign, but the
     ideas which had inspired a century of
     democratic socialism were ruthlessly
     discredited". I wouldn't want to be
     separated from the man who wrote that,
     even though in many ways, when he was
     with Neil Kinnock, he pioneered some of
     the changes that have led to New Labour.
     But he's not a part of New Labour, and
     neither am I.

     The only circumstances in which it is
     possible to imagine a new political formation
     would be if two things occur. A formal
     coalition and proportional representation.
     Proportional representation would
     undoubtedly restructure the British political
     system. But even so I wouldn't want to find
     socialists fighting each other in separate
     socialist parties. I see the Labour Party
     standing against the coalition Government as
     it did during the 30s and that led to the
     landslide.

   Q: That's almost like arguing for Real
   Labour candidates.

     A: Well yes, I don't like these phrases
     "new", "old", "real". I am a member of the
     Labour Party! I joined it in 1943 and I
     would like to die in it. There is a very strong
     cultural and historical attachment to Labour,
     which I feel very strongly. I'd be very sorry
     as far as Members of Parliament are
     concerned. I don't think it's going to be
     possible to vote for things you don't believe
     in -- particularly those which weren't in the
     manifesto like tuition fees or cuts in single
     parent allowance or some complete
     restructuring of the welfare state.

     Pressure can be brought -- and historically
     has been brought -- from within the Labour
     Party upon the Labour Government. That
     process lit a very important flame which is
     still burning. There are lots of people about
     who if they thought there was a chance of
     things being done would pour back into the
     Party with commitment -- unlike some of
     the New Labour recruits who join on a
     direct debit basis. I don't think many of
     them are likely to remain if things go wrong.
     They didn't join with commitment. Some of
     this new membership will fade away when
     the going gets rough, which it will. So this
     story is by no means over.




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