The furore about MPs claiming outrageous expenses and resorting to outright fiddling gets worse by the day. Labour, as the Party in power for the past twelve years presiding over this scandal, is facing electoral meltdown. Naturally the Labour ranks are panicking. Labour appears doomed at the local and European elections on June 4th, and in the general election over the next year. The situation could still be turned around but the unions and rank and file will have to take decisive action and take the Parliamentary Labour Party by the scruff of the neck.

We believe it is wrong for an MP to think they have a job for life, accountable to no-one, and that is the root of the problem. MPs are elected as representatives of the Labour Party. They should be accountable to the Party. It is true the local Parties have emptied out on account of the disappointments and failure of the past few years. The levers are still in the hands of the trade unions to reclaim the Labour Party Their programme must be:

• Democratic reselection of MPs as of right

• Run democratic selection procedures in all constituencies now♦

• Labour movement auditing of Labour MPs’ expenses

• Workers’ MPs on workers’ wages

• Clear out the careerists – socialist policies for Labour

Trotsky said bourgeois democracy is a system where everyone can say what they like as long as big business takes all the important decisions. What happens when workers' representatives speak out against the interests of big business, as they should and must? Corruption is one way that big business gets what it wants in a parliamentary system of government.

We support a crackdown on MPs' scams - of course we do. And some of the more egregious offenders may lie low for a while now till the storm passes. But corruption is an essential oil of bourgeois democracy. And buying off would-be champions of the workers is a thing the ruling class are good at. The gradualist saying "I intend to emancipate the working class one at a time, starting with myself" must be a hundred years old now.

How can Labour face the electorate in a general election within a year with a bunch of disgraced, discredited candidates and the whole Party with its reputation under a cloud? The unions in particular are up in arms. We need to start with a clean slate. All constituency parties and affiliated unions should demand of the National Executive Committee that all candidates are submitted to a reselection now. The NEC should use its power to call an emergency Labour Party Conference to set the terms of the reselection process and the campaign to be waged by a cleansed, revitalised Party. This is our last chance.

Workers' MPs on workers' wages would have the same interests as their constituents. They would not aspire to rise above them, at their expense. We believe there are plenty of people who would want nothing more than to do their best to serve their class. Ann Black, representing Party ranks on the NEC, registered the rank and file's shock at all the MPs on the take while adding "I recognise and appreciate the hundreds of hours of unpaid time put in by volunteers on the ground, most of whom do not even claim expenses for travel, postage and telephone calls."

Socialists elected to Parliament would gladly do the job on a workers wage - providing they have a vision of a better system they are fighting for. The vast majority of the present PLP seem to think capitalism is the only system on offer, so they might as well milk it. Quite often they began with good intentions, but were ground down by the routine and isolation of Parliament. They lacked the backing of an enthusiastic rank and file fired with a determination to change society and a clear socialist perspective. With that we will reclaim the Labour Party for the working class.

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