13 years ago Blair announced the abolition of Clause 4 part 4 of Labour’s constitution.
Arthur Scargill formed the Socialist Labour Party – but wouldn’t let Dave Nellist join (Socialist Party / expelled Labour MP), and snubbed Tommy Sheridan and others out right from the start (Scottish Socialist Alliance / Scottish Militant Labour).
Dave Nellist went on to chair the Socialist Alliance in England – joined by almost all the left, including the Socialist Workers Party, and standing over 100 candidates in the 2001 General Election under the banner People Not Profit.
Tommy Sheridan went on to lead the Scottish Socialist Party, whose unity across the Scottish left, including some trade union affiliation, gained them 6 seats in Holyrood and accompanying campaigns against Trident and the council tax and for free school meals and public transport.
But in England the Socialist Party moved out of the Socialist Alliance, in self-fulfilling fear of an SWP take-over, and the SWP duly took it over, closed it down and formed the electoral party, Respect, which gained George Galloway as an MP and a number of councillors notably in East London. The SP started their own Campaign for a New Workers Party and Tommy Sheridan left the SSP, forming his new party, together with the SWP and CWI in Scotland, called Solidarity – and the three way split between the SLP, SSP and Solidarity ensured that almost all the left seats were lost in Scotland in May 2007.
Meanwhile the Greens were themselves reduced to two MSPs in Scotland, though a larger number of councillors in England and Wales; and the left wing presence within the party (including at leadership level) has not prevented the party standing against other left candidates locally.
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The history of the left in this country since Blair became Labour leader and abolished Clause 4 – the only remnant of aspiration to socialism the Party had – makes the Life of Brian look positive.
And while some left trade union leaders have indicated support for left-of-labour alternatives, and indeed the unions are the front line of opposition to privatisation, mostly they have remained loyally wedded to Labour. (This is despite Blair's obvious wish that they should have disappeared from view altogether.)
Now Bush and Blair have gone. (Eventually.) (Though Blair's overpaid and redundant ghost still disgracefully haunts the Middle East - to no practical purpose whatsoever.) His new Clause 4 remains gibberish that no-one could possibly remember from the day of the back of the envelope on which it was drafted. People continue to die in Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine – and as a result of poverty, war, starvation, disease here and across the world – thanks to Bush and Blair’s greedy widening of the gap between rich and poor.
Brown’s accession may seem to have staunched the flow of “old labour” out of the party (if you forget his responsibility for handing control of the economy to the Bank of England, legalising PFI, providing unlimited war chests for Blair’s imperial adventures).
Some say Labour’s membership is even growing (though any such growth would more likely be due to John McDonnell’s campaign against war and privatisation).
But rank and file action against Brown’s public sector parsimony – including his appalling siding with the bosses against the posties and bringing Mandelson back to continue the process of euro-privatisation – could still lead to a year of discontent before the next Westminster election - after he lost his nerve 18 months ago and didn’t call the snap election (that’s an election where the two main parties get out their policies and go “snap”).
I have argued for left involvement in elections, as a platform for socialist opposition, and as part of campaigning (not a substitute for it). But the ups and downs of the last decade, particularly in Scotland, leave lessons we still need to absorb.
Seeking “power” and building up “leadership”, in a system that is not of our choosing, puts socialists under pressures of the unaccountable mass media and bourgeois parliamentary institutions. Should we stop standing in such elections?
Meanwhile, a broad anti-war movement seems too dilute to form a political party. Should we stop just “stopping the war” – a war we haven’t stopped – when we still face the class war?
These are difficult questions. But it may be time to try to develop an understanding across the left, industrially and electorally, in the interests of the environment and equality, about how we could work together, in and out of elections, against consumer capitalism, inhumane imperialism, and all the warmongers who are still running this country.
It may be time to define for ourselves a new way of working (yes, reclaim that word “new” so discredited by Blair and Brown) – so as to demonstrate unity in action – in campaigns against the war and nuclear proliferation, against racism and deportations, against cuts and privatisation – and so as to develop our arguments through debate – to create a framework of policy and action that is environmentally and socially just, inclusive, peaceful, pluralist, tolerant, and one that does not rely either on “leaders” or small sectarian advantage when there is a far bigger common objective that could be shared between us all.
It matters less what organisation we are in than what we are willing to do – together.
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