How strange that the Labour Party devoted only one day to their special conference at Wembley in January, because we were told that what happened there was little short of a fundamental change in the history of the human race, not to say the entire solar system.
What they actually did, amid scenes of confusion and error such as only an organisation like the Labour Party could stage manage, was to change the method of electing their leader. Let us be clear; they did nothing about really fundamental matters such as the abolition of the principle of leadership or about changing their nature as an alternative administration for British capitalism. But this did not lessen the gloom of the losers nor the joy of the winners of the vote. Tony Benn, customarily out of touch, predicted that the result of the conference would actually strengthen Labour unity.
No one could be blamed if, amid all this uproar, they overlooked what had actually happened. Unless (or perhaps until would be a more accurate word) they reverse the Wembley decision at a future conference, the Labour Party leader will now be elected by a college in which the largest vote will be allocated to the affiliated trade unions. It is difficult to understand how this can be construed by any reasonable person as making Labour a more democratic party. The unions are hardly famous for being effectively democratic: “It is true that the block vote is suspect”, said Railwaymen's leader Syd Weighell, “I know because I’ve got one in my hand”.
It is even more difficult to understand why the followers of Benn were so pleased at the vote or his opponents so upset. It is very possible that neither has got what they expect. In the past (remember the great days of Arthur Deakin, Tom Williamson, Bill Carron, the very mention of whose names was likely to send desperate lefties into a paroxysm of rage?) the unions habitually applied their block votes to crush the “left wing” at Labour conferences. In those days, we were often told by earnest lefties that the road to greater democracy for Labour was the restriction of trade union power in the party.
None of this history seems to have affected Benn, who was still busy, amid the wreckage of Wembley, thinking up more loony ideas. In his time he has dreamed up few loonier notions than his demand that members of the Labour Party National Executive Committee should be required to swear loyalty to the decisions of their Annual Conference. Fortunately for Benn, the Labour Party and their NEC, he was persuaded to drop the plan; fortunately not just for Benn’s future but in the same way as the poacher is fortunate to miss putting his foot into the open jaws of the mantrap.
For what did Benn think he was about? To begin with, it was cleared up a long time ago that the Labour Party aims to get power to run British capitalism and it will not be deflected in this by conference resolutions cooked up by hysterical lefties and passed by punch drunk members at the seaside. Harold Wilson, to give only one example, was certainly clear on the matter:
At an all-day meeting of the NEC during the Whitsun recess of 1973, the opportunity was taken late in the evening, when many members had left, to force a snap vote on an outlandish proposal to commit the party to nationalise 25 of the biggest 100 companies. It was carried by 7 votes to 6. The following morning I issued a statement indicating that the decision was inoperative. It would meet a “veto”. In saying this I was relying on the constitution of the party as drafted by Sidney Webb in 1918, and still in force. In the event little more was heard of the proposal. (Final Term: The Labour Government 1974- 1974-6)
Of course Wilson was quite correct; if the interests of British capitalism demand something a Labour government will try to do it. If those interests demand a declaration of war, or the killing of workers in some other country, or an all-out attack on working class living standards (as always seems to happen with especial force whenever there is a Labour government in this country); then Labour will try to do all those things whatever the membership may want.
Then there is the embarrassing matter of a member of the Labour Party declaring their loyalty to anything. What next? Will ordinary members of the party be required to affirm their allegiance to Labour policy? Anyone who has spent any time arguing the case for socialism with them is impressed with the fact that very few members of the Labour Party know what their party stands for. And quite a few of those who try to guess about Labour “principles” find that in fact they are declaring loyalty to Tory Policies.
This is perfectly appropriate, since there is no basic difference between these two parties of capitalism. Benn’s loyalty oath was not the first of his loony ideas to backfire upon him. But if we can get back for a moment to that reasonable person who should be judging Labour policies against their experience. Why, we must ask, should anyone bother to try to make Labour a more democratic party (always supposing that that was what happened at Wembley?)
Democracy, although it is an essential for useful working class organisation to carry on the class struggle, and in particular for the propagation of socialist ideas, should not be taken as an end in itself. Many capitalist states are run on lines of parliamentary democracy, which does not prevent the workers there suffering the full brunt of the everyday problems of capitalism nor that same “democratic” state sometimes imposing undemocratic measures.
And every so often the workers in those states use their democratic freedom to vote themselves another dose of capitalism. In other words they vote for their own enslavement to wage labour; in freedom they vote against their own freedom.
For in fact capitalism cannot be democratic. When its interests so demand, a ruling class will move to crush organisations like trade unions or even political parties—and they can be thwarted in this only by a consciously democratic working class. Capitalism could not function through an open administration, where all information is freely available and no socially effective decisions are taken in secret.
All the parties of capitalism mirror these facts. They all have their leaders (which is what Labour’s current row is all about) and leaders are not there to be democratic. Their job is to receive and to process in secret a lot of information, to lead in the formulation of policy which is then handed down to the rank and file to implement. Often, this process does not reach the rank and file; it becomes the policy of a capitalist government which is not seen as being any concern of the grass roots members. Labour is deeply imbued with this nature and it will need changes far beyond their Wembley agenda—fundamental changes—before they can lay claim to being a democratic party.
And that brings us to the most important question of all. As their exposure in the media begins to rival that of Prince Charles, where does the Labour Party go from here? The Gang of Three have proved how highly principled they are by staying on in the party until they could be sure that a centre party offered them something better. And who will lead this party, if and when it is formed? (There are some formidable obstacles in the way of any new party aiming to take power over a capitalist state—to begin with money. One estimate is that it would cost at least £2 million just to set the thing up let alone to start campaigning.) Both Owen and Williams are said to fancy their chances as leader and already the public relations men are on the scene, talking about images and presentation and voter appeal. It is certain that any new party will be no freer of internal feuding, back stabbing and manoeuvring than any other.
This situation will be made more complicated if the centre party is flavoured by the threatened leavening of a few unusually confused Tories. What with Jenkins and Owen the so-called social democrats have their share of genteel drawing room class without a lot of public school Tories muscling in on their act. Marooned among these troublous waters there may be a few members of the Labour Party who survive by clinging wistfully to their conviction that sometime, somewhere, their party once stood for socialism. Their notion of what this means is at best hazy, compounded of state capitalism, charity and nostalgia. If such people exist they need to stop wallowing in those cold and prospectless seas. Now is the time for some clear, consistent mental navigation. There is much historical evidence by which they can set their course and all of it points the way out of the sordid, opportunist mess which is the politics of capitalism.
Ivan
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