Labour's first six months in office

When the "mood music" stops...

By Julie Hyland

Following Labour's debacle over European Monetary Union, a swathe of press articles appeared questioning the government's ability to overcome its present crisis and pondering the broader problems which it had revealed.

This is quite a turnaround. For the last six months the media had hailed Blair as the most significant politician on the world arena, crediting him with the Midas touch. His victory was seen as the spearhead of a political shift throughout Europe that has seen the election of the PDS-led Olive Tree coalition in Italy and Jospin's Socialist Party in France -- producing a majority of social democratic governments on the Continent after almost two decades of Conservative dominance.

It was claimed that these new governments represented the wave of the future. In its October 13 lead article, Newsweek magazine enthused that, "Blair and Jospin are men with whom voters can be comfortable during times of great change....they offer mood music carefully tuned to the times".

Blair felt confident enough to pronounce Labour's election victory as the beginning of a new "century of the radicals" at this year's party conference.

No differences

It has taken less than half a year to prove what more serious commentators already knew -- "mood music" is not a viable basis for a government.

It was one thing to make the pop song "Things can only get better" into Labour's anthem during the general election. Then, Labour was running against an extremely unpopular and deeply divided Major government. The Tories not only faced broad hostility from the working class but the desertion of millions of their former supporters. Moreover, big business and the City, frustrated at the government's impotence, embraced Labour as the party it could now "do business with".

"Sound-bites" were a means of covering over the absence of any real differences between the parties, and of hiding the fact that none of them had a viable solution to the intractable problems facing British capitalism.

Any serious discussion over policies was proscribed during the campaign. All the main parties had a vested interest in this. Over the previous 18 years the gap between rich and poor had grown to such an extent that the income of the richest 10% of the population equalled that of the poorest 50%. One in every three children were now living in poverty. In 1997, wages began to fall for the first time since the 1930s. Yet Tory, Liberal and Labour campaigns alike defended the very market economy and "business culture" which had produced such yawning social inequality.

Blair has tried to manage government in the same way he ran the election. Every public audience has been carefully vetted; even the Labour Party conference was a stage-managed and ticket-only affair. Newspaper editors have devoted pages trying to decipher what Blair's latest one-liner on foreign affairs, social policy, etc. actually means.

As soon as it has had to move beyond jargon, however, the government has come a cropper. The real world is subject to its own laws which no amount of "spin" can suspend. New Labour's contradictory briefings and hesitancy over EMU provoked a bout of nervousness in ruling circles. Spin-doctors' heads were demanded and Blair was urged to be more cautious in his reliance on media support to formulate policy.

No stable social base

Such warnings are useless, as they confuse cause and effect. New Labour's reliance on the media is dictated by the lack of any stable social basis for its rule.

Media commentators, and much of the petty-bourgeois radical groups, had interpreted the government's 179 seat majority as proof of its strength and durability. These worshippers of parliamentary arithmetic never bother to probe the social relations which such statistics are only ever a distorted and partial expression of.

This approach is bound up with their political strategy. They argue that the government should not be treated with hostility as it is the expression of "popular will". Rather, the aim must be to make it more "responsive" through applying pressure, friendly criticism, etc.

Such an avenue is completely bankrupt. In the past Labour could claim, with some justification, to have popular support. Built by the working class, Labour's programme of social reformism held that capitalism could be made to provide for workers' needs through a combination of national economic regulation, increased taxes and state intervention.

Whilst production was still mainly organised along national lines, and the world economy was expanding, such policies appeared to produce results. For this reason the Labour Party and the trade unions were able to rest on the active support of millions of working people.

The last two decades have fundamentally altered this. The reformist programme has proven powerless in the face of globally organised production. Huge transnational corporations (TNC's) have emerged which scour the globe for the cheapest labour, raw materials and lowest taxes.

The Labour Party has publicly acknowledged the bankruptcy of their previous strategy in face of these changes. So have the trade unions. Today, both see their task as developing a partnership with the TNC's to ensure Britain's competitiveness on the world market. They work to create the best business environment by providing a cheap and flexible workforce and eliminating "costly" corporate taxes which in the past funded such vital programmes as health, education and social provisions.

This is what now determines Labour's programme in government. It has introduced workfare for the under 25s and intends to end universal pensions. It has kept Tory spending targets involving £500 million in benefit cuts and is strengthening the powers of the police. Less money has been allocated to health and education than under John Major. Student maintenance grants are to be abolished and university tuition fees introduced.

Labour has only kept its promises to big business. Monetary policy was handed over directly to the Bank of England and business taxes were cut by 2%, making Britain the lowest tax area for industry in Europe. The devolution referendums in Scotland and Wales were aimed at cutting public spending by dividing workers along national lines.

Similarly, the trade unions now openly function as partners of the bosses' organisation, the Confederation of British Industry. They have supported all the government's measures, including workfare and means-testing and are now offering to act as managers for insurance schemes, following Labour's privatisation of all social provision.

Regime of crisis

The New Labour government is a regime of crisis. Its task -- like that of its European counter-parts -- is to impose deeply unpopular measures against the mass of the population. Yet the last weeks have shown that Labour, like the Tories, has no coherent strategy. This would create major problems under any circumstances but the beginnings of a world slump are taking shape that will have a devastating impact on Britain.

So far, the government has been able to rely on a large reservoir of good will and positive media propaganda, but there are definite limits to this. It is simply not possible to convince people that they are well-fed when they are starving.

Blair's efforts at developing cross-party support, and clamp down on any dissent within his own party indicates that he is conscious of the government's vulnerability. None of the main parties can any longer rely on their so-called "natural constituencies" for support.

This is fuelling fears in ruling class circles. In a review of a recent book on class divisions in Britain The Economist wrote: "although class politics in Britain probably ought to be dead, it is not. Indeed it could yet intensify. If, for example, the electoral system were to be reformed and the British party system in consequence fragmented, it is easy to imagine the birth of quite unpleasant class parties -- a populist anti-rich workers' party and a right wing stuff-the-poor party, for example."

Need for a new party

A deep schism has opened up between the working class and its traditional organisations. In the next period millions will come into open conflict with the Labour government and its trade union backers. This will develop as part of an international upsurge in the class struggle.

It would be dangerous to believe, however, that militant action alone can resolve the problems working people confront. As long as workers and youth do not make a conscious break with the programme of national reformism, and remain politically tied to the bureaucracy, right wing populist forces may be able to monopolise the growing social and political discontent.

The working class must urgently turn to the construction of its own party. Not the "populist anti-rich party" referred to cynically by The Economist, but a genuine socialist party based on reviving all the progressive, humanitarian and scientific principles and traditions of the Marxist movement.

The Socialist Equality Party was formed for this purpose. It is based on four fundamental principles:

The political independence of the working class

The SEP provides a political means for uniting the working class against the capitalist system and its three parties of big business.

Workers must reject the demand that they make sacrifices for "the nation". No one should be deprived of decent health and education, or any other aspect of social and cultural life, in order to boost corporate profits.

The unprecedented global integration of economic life makes it possible to satisfy all of humanity's requirements. It is the system of competing nation states and the private ownership of the means of production which prevents the equitable distribution of wealth and resources for the benefit of all.

This economic system must be changed, replacing the government of big business by a workers' government. The outcome of a conscious, socialist movement of the working class, such a government would reorganise all aspects of economic life to satisfy the interests of the broad mass of the people. It would guarantee decent and secure employment, health care, education and housing for all, end class privilege and create genuine social and economic equality.

A socialist alternative to the New Labour government can only be built on this programe..

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