Internal pages
|
Labour Party
|
Latest International NewsLatest British NewsLatest Trade Union NewsWellred featured books
Send us reports!Send us your letters, articles or workplace and trade union reports! Please get in touch and wherever possible we will publish submitted articles on our website or in our monthly paper Socialist Appeal. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
We are making available to our readers an appeal by the Labour
Representation Committee on the issue of internal party democracy. On Sunday
Labour Party conference kicks off. If Brown's proposals are accepted it appears
that from next year CLPs and affiliates will no longer have the right to take
resolutions to Party conference.
Floods, Foot and Mouth and hundreds of thousands of public
sector workers balloting for industrial action over pay, not perhaps the sort
of run up to the party conference that Gordon Brown had hoped for. But can we be
confident that Labour can beat the Tories in a "snap" election, and just
as importantly is there any evidence that Brown will be more convincing to
working class voters who have stayed at home in droves in the past period?
The establishment of the Labour Party to give a political voice to the trade union movement was a historic achievement. Even today, after more than a decade during which the Party has been firmly in the grip of Blairite, pro-capitalist interlopers, the link between the unions and the Party remains.
Gordon Brown and senior Labour Party officials
have greeted the defection to Labour's parliamentary ranks of Tory MP Quentin
Davies with joy. But what sort of person are they actually getting?
From more than 10 years the Blairites have attacked the democratic structures of the Labour party and reduced the democratic rights of party members to an absolute minimum. This was part of their campaign to shift the party to the right and turn it into a Tory party mark two. But today there is a growing backlash against Blairism but an urgent need to reestablish the accountability of the leadership.
A recent poll of Labour Party members, published
in the Sunday Times shows why the New Labour clique around Gordon Brown were determined to keep
left challenger John McDonnell off the ballot paper.
Thanks
to the sabotage of some 300-odd members of the Parliamentary Labour Party,
ordinary Labour Party members and affiliates, who were expecting a leadership
election, ended up with no election and a "one member, no vote" imposed
candidate. The task now is to strengthen the left in preparation for future
battles.
The lie peddled by the entire establishment, from the mass media to the universities and schools; from the Tories to Lib Dems, is New Labour's line that the left made Labour unelectable in the 1980s. Special venom is reserved for the Militant Tendency and the National Union of Mineworkers led by Arthur Scargill.
The Reverend Tony Blair has announced his departure from the pulpit of the Trimdon Labour Club, Sedgefield. Ten years ago millions of workers hoped that the party would introduce fundamental change after two decades of Tory misrule. They were disappointed. For the working class, the departure of Blair is a blessing. He has become even more hated than Thatcher. The task now is to finish off Blairism, and the reaction pro-capitalist creed associated with New Labour.
Last week's elections confirmed the damage that Blairism has done to the Labour Party. Far from being the man who "wins elections" as the Blairites boasted in the past, Blair has become a liability. After ten years he has thrown away the 1997 victory. Now is the time to draw lessons from this whole experience and fight to change the leadership of the Labour Party.
On friday PCS, the civil servants trade union, published the results of a survey of candidates in the upcoming local elections. The results showed support for the unions demands, exposing the Blairite leadership as out of touch with the views of the Labour Party rank-and-file. Tommorow 200,000 civil servants will take strike action to defend jobs and protect public services.
