Mandelson's NEC vote confirms
Labour's right wing transformation

By Dave Hyland

Peter Mandelson, Tony Blair's right hand man in the New Labour Party, narrowly failed in his attempt to be elected to its National Executive Committee at the party's conference in Brighton. This has been universally hailed as a "rebuff to Blair" and proof that the old reformist heart of the Labour Party beats as strongly as ever, despite all appearances to the contrary. Neither of these claims are true, as this article hopes to explain.

Mandelson has been demonised over the last few years as a kind of yuppie Svengali by sections of the media and old type reformist Labourites alike. The impression has been created that, behind the backs of the rest of the membership and leadership, he has almost single handedly weaned the Labour Party off its reformist traditions and transformed it into a right wing political vehicle.

This has been quite important for the bourgeoisie. It has played a part in deflecting criticism away from Blair and the rest of the Labour Party, as it has lurched in an ever more reactionary direction. In the image of the "good" and the "bad" policemen, the media have portrayed Blair as the open, honest and even idealistic young leader -- someone who every wing of the party can respect if not necessarily agree with, while Mandelson has been promoted as the unprincipled back stage wheeler-dealer and manipulative propaganda "spin doctor" -- a modern-day Rasputin within the labour movement.

The usefulness of having Mandelson as a "bogeyman" was again in evidence in an interview Ken Livingstone gave to the Newsnight television programme on the evening of the NEC vote. Livingstone, a "left" who won a seat on the NEC, said that despite the sharp differences that exist between the traditional "left" and "right" wingers within the Labour Party, they can all unite in their opposition to the new "yuppie mobile phone" type of politician represented by Mandelson.

There is no doubt that Mandelson has played a central role during the last 12 years in the Labour Party's rapid right wing evolution and that today sees it standing well to the right of the traditional bourgeois parties, the Tories and Liberal Democrats.

But the claim that Mandelson is some alien force who has individually been able to exert some dark influence upon the Labour Party is plainly absurd and fails to explain anything. The labour bureaucracy as a whole have utilised the manipulative media techniques that he learnt while working in television and used them in line with their reactionary political agenda. Far from being a mysterious outsider that has parachuted into the party, Mandelson has impeccable credentials for becoming a leading figure within the Labour Party apparatus.

A brief political biography

Born in 1954, and the grandson of the late Labour Cabinet Minister, Herbert Morrison, Mandelson came from a family steeped in Labour politics. Apparently as a reaction to Labour's support for the US war in Vietnam in the late 1960s and early '70s he drifted into the Young Communist League, selling copies of the Morning Star outside London underground stations.

He has since stated that he was "rescued" from communism when he won a place at St Catherine's College, Oxford. Before starting university, he spent a year working in Tanzania , personally sponsored by the anti-apartheid campaigner and "left " cleric Archbishop Trevor Huddleston. Surrounded by missionaries, he is said to have "nearly got religion", but escaped in time and plunged head first into student politics.

His career then followed a familiar course: a job in the TUC economic department, membership of Lambeth Council during its left wing heyday, a research job at the House of Commons. Mandelson then went to London Weekend Television, where he worked on Brian Walden's programme. Walden was a right wing Labour MP, nicknamed the "bookies MP" because of his consistent support for legislation favourable to the big betting chains. His television programme was based on a series of adversarial interviews with well-known politicians.

From there Mandelson went straight to Labour's Walworth Road HQ in 1985 as Neil Kinnock's choice as director of campaigns and communications. This was shortly after Kinnock had taken over as leader of the Labour Party from Michael Foot. The 1983 General Election had been a debacle for the Labour Party and resulted in a massive 144 seat majority for Thatcher's Tory party. The rapid development of a global economy and sharpening class polarisation in Britain had rendered the Labour Party and TUC's traditional reformist programmes and policies historically bankrupt.

The Labour Party had always pursued its reformist political perspective within the context of support for the capitalist profit system. The self-serving forces that constitute the Labour leadership now saw their only hope of achieving power being carried out by successfully competing for the support of the same social elements that had rallied around Thatcher in two General Elections.

Under Kinnock, the Labour leadership began its quest to completely transform the party's traditional social base. While abandoning the vast majority of the working class and betraying their every struggle, it increasingly appealed to the right wing instincts and self interests of a specific layer of the middle class and well-heeled workers. Mandelson was brought in to assist in this reactionary manoeuvre by organising its propaganda and helping to develop its ideological justification. His arrival coincided with the high profile witch-hunt of the centrist Militant tendency and the expulsion of its leading members from the Labour Party.

The experience of media manipulation that Mandelson undoubtedly brought with him was not the only reason why he was picked for this particular job. More decisive was his entire family political history and the fact that he had been trained from an early age for a career within the Labour apparatus. Once inside, Mandelson quickly became part of the up and coming circle headed by Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. The advantage this younger group had over the older forces within the bureaucracy was that they were not so closely associated with the reformist baggage of the past. This meant that they had greater credibility when advocating Labour's new openly pro-capitalist policies to big business and the middle class.

An integral part of Mandelsons' responsibilities was to deal ruthlessly with even the mildest dissent within the party. As a result he has made plenty of enemies among those whose toes he has trodden on and who feel deeply resentful at what they consider his undue influence.

In 1990, Mandelson ostensibly gave up his job as Labour's chief communications officer in order to become an MP himself. He was given the very safe Labour seat of Hartlepool and became its MP at the 1992 General Election. Two years later he joined the Opposition's Whips office and in 1995 was made shadow minister for the civil service. After playing a key role alongside Gordon Brown during the 1997 General Election campaign, Mandelson was made Minister Without Portfolio. All this time he has continued to carry out his original job on behalf of the Labour bureaucracy as its chief trouble-shooter internally and media propagandist.

Paving the way for a Cabinet post

Although enjoying the close confidence of Tony Blair and more influence in the government than many others, Mandelson is still not a member of the Cabinet. It is difficult even for Blair to justify the elevation to a Cabinet post of somebody with such little real political experience and authority.

For this reason every effort has been made throughout the summer and in the run-up to the party conference to increase Mandelson's public and political credibility. This includes hyping the revelations by former MI5 agent, David Shayler, in the Mail on Sunday that Mandelson had once been the subject of a secret service dossier because of his left wing activities; a television interview with a well-known psychiatrist in which he publicly broke down and cried over his past relationship with his now deceased father; and a well published recent lecture to the Fabian Society entitled "Labour's Next Steps: Tackling Social Exclusion". This lecture, despite its somewhat reformist and radical sounding title, was an elaboration of the Labour government's intention to intensify the social attacks on the poorest sections of the working class and youth on the council estates.

All of this publicity enabled Mandelson to secure 68,023 votes and come runner up in the Constituency section of the NEC elections. Only Blair and Brown have ever been elected to the NEC as first time candidates. Far from being a "rebuff for Blair" or showing that it is "still a reformist party at heart", the high vote for Mandelson only confirms the Labour Party's right wing transformation. It increases his own political authority and paves the way for Blair to make him a Cabinet minister. This is felt necessary because, as the government's honeymoon period comes to an end, the Labour leadership are acutely aware that they are going to need Mandelson's particular "skills" and "expertise" more than ever.

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