Wreckers or Builders: A History of Labour MEPs 1979-1999 by Anita Pollack
John Harper, £20
The European Parliamentary Labour Party has been a microcosm of the wider Labour movement over the past 30 years with all its successes and failures. Here Anita Pollack, herself a former MEP (1989-99), tells the story of the first 20 years. With direct elections in 1979 the sequence was 17, 32, 45, 62 and 29 as the EPLP rowed the higher and higher tides of Tory mid-term unpopularity before being stranded by the consequences of victory. Since then, things can only get better; with 19 and 13 MEPs in 2004 and 2009 respectively. Without proportional representation, introduced for the 1999 elections, the number of Labour MEPs could have been counted on the fingers of one hand (with a couple of fingers to spare).
The first intake was split between the pros and the antis with the former in the majority. By 1984 Labour had moved from burying its head in the sand to standing on it and the manifesto promised “immediate withdrawal” following a Labour victory. The result was de-selections and departures as two MEPs were shown the door by their Euro-CLPs, one fled to the clammy embrace of David Owen’s SDP and a batch descended on the House of Commons.
The consequence was a solid anti-European majority that met prior to the AGM and voted to select who would run on the anti-European ticket which they all dutifully voted for in the best democratic centralist traditions of the party – the Communist Party, that is. For some MEPs that’s who the party with a definite article referred to. But, in the best sectarian traditions, they managed to narrowly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory within a mere 18 months or so.
The Little Englander tendency – ably abetted by the Scots and the Welsh – hounded the pragmatists with their version of the 12 articles of the Independent Labour Party demanded of the Third International In 1920 requesting their adherence to the principle of withdrawal. It began to resemble the nursery rhyme, “Bigger fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em, while little fleas have lesser fleas, and so on ad infinitum” with Campaign and Tribune groups meeting before the Broad Left that met before the EPLP. Thus, by 1987, the right and Tribune left combined to put the EPLP back on its feet, only to be undone 12 months later as one member, now in the Tory Party, demonstrated his flexible principles by reversing his vote for the second year running and one former MP ignored a direct appeal from Neil Kinnock.
In 1989 the situation was reversed yet again as new MEPs, further departures to Westminster and the de-selection of Les Huckfield shifted the balance once more. This gave four years of stability as the EPLP stopped looking inward and began to become a force within the Socialist group. Even prior to this individual MEPs, such as Gordon Adam on energy, Ken Collins on the environment and Michael McGowan on development had shone as individuals, but now the EPLP as a whole, led by Carole Tongue, Alan Donnelly and Ken Coates, began to make an impact. All too much of a betrayal for the Campaign group who finally colluded with the old right to oust the Tribunites. As one said, justifying his vote: “The danger is that showing Europe can be used by the left may confuse party members.”
It could get personal. On a visit to Sweden a note was left on a public notice board for one gay MEP that his “Aids test result was ready”. On the other side, one visiting senior MP recited a much quoted poem he entitled: “The decline and fall of the Labour movement in south east Wales, 1929 to 1984” that started, “Aneurin Bevan, Michael Foot…”
Labour’s 1992 defeat only boosted the number of MEPs elected two years later to 62 – and that gave the EPLP on its own three of the Parliament’s 20 committee chairs and had Pauline Green leading the Socialist group unchallenged for five years. Not that there was not trouble from time to time. Tony Blair’s promise to remove Clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution led to an infamous advert on the front page of The Guardian signed by 32, a majority, entitled “Labour MEPs Defend Clause 4”. The ad appeared on the morning of Blair’s first visit to Brussels as Labour leader, completely overshadowing any positive press coverage it might have engendered. Some claimed not to have known what they were signing. Thirty-six signed a letter to The Guardian the following day backing the leader. Seven penitenti signed both. One, Christine Oddy, even changed her mind for a second time and wrote disavowing her signature on the initial letter to The Guardian. Some claimed it was this that triggered the introduction of PR for the 1999 Euro elections. It wasn’t. It was the EPLP AGM decision of 1997 when an attempt to bring the EPLP standing orders into line with the PLP and include a section stating that members would “do nothing that brings the party into disrepute” was rejected.
The new Labour Prime Minister had had enough; PR it was to be. This decision had two consequences. First, in 1999 the imposition of PR saved Labour seats – well, New Labour seats. (It also enabled the beginning of the purge of pro-European Tory MEPs). A straight read through of the results would have given Labour only about 17 MEPs on the basis of first past the post, but they would have included a number of Campaign group members. As it was the 29 included only six of the 32 that signed The Guardian ad and three of these were penitenti, while 21 of the 36 letter writers returned, five went to the House of Lords and two became MPs. Nothing in the period 1994-99 better correlated with who was to be re-elected than who signed what in January 1995.
Second, it helped to fracture British politics. Despite strong urging to apportion seats in 3 to 5 seat regions the party decision was to stick with traditional regions that varied from 3 to 11 seats. Without this blatantly absurd choice, no new party would have broken through into the European Parliament, not UKIP in 1999, not the Greens in 2004, and not the neo-Nazi BNP in 2009. This has proved extremely costly for Labour. One could argue that it did more to put Nick Griffin on Question Time than the BBC.
Anita Pollack has served the EPLP well. She promises a further volume to bring it all up to date. To be constructively critical, maybe next time there should be less cosmetic surgery and a stronger story line – warts and all and some bad guys and gals. One MEP rewriting history is fine, but not four score! l
Glyn Ford – who bears some responsibility for all of the above
