Three crucial elections loomed as delegates gathered for Labour’s conference. All have a vital role in determining the future of the labour movement. The contest to become Labour Party leader had been reduced to a duel between the Miliband brothers. Importantly, Ed Miliband pulled himself away from the New Labour wreckage, while brother David did not.
With the 2010 Trade Union Congress displaying a greater sense of purpose and unity than for a long time, the new leader has been presented with the opportunity to reconstitute what used to be called the labour movement. “New Labour is dead, long live the labour movement” could become a reality.
He will need to say something about repealing anti-trade union laws, be utterly committed to resisting Royal Mail privatisation and rigorous in opposing cuts – the speed of which will bring misery to workers and public service users while threatening the economy.
Those who, in the words of the governor of the Bank of England, “let it slip away” should be made to pay the price. Tax avoidance schemes alone have robbed the country of billions. But whatever Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury says, we know the pain will not be evenly spread.
And Labour’s new leader will need to be better informed about London firefighters threatened with wholesale dismissals if they don’t sign up to worse conditions. It is not good enough to talk about the need “to get around the table” when it was the fire authority’s refusal to do that which provoked the Fire Brigades Union’s strike ballot.
Without doubt, Ed Balls ran the best campaign, landing blows on the Government. Labour has been restricted by Alistair Darling’s pre-general election insistence that cuts on the scale of Margaret Thatcher’s are required in order to reduce the deficit. To Balls’ credit, despite the constant refrains for the need to have a “credible” package for dealing with the deficit, he has carved out a distinct alternative economic policy.
Incidentally, why is it that we allow the language to be hijacked? “Progressive” has been debased to the point of absurdity. And now the only “credibility” that seems to matter is the one that suits the bond markets. It’s a trap we should not fall into. Coalition cuts and mass unemployment is not a credible policy. There are alternatives – even if the bond markets don’t like them.
Nick Clegg’s behaviour is staggering – his about-face on cuts, for example. And his comments that the welfare state is not there to compensate the poor put him beyond the pale. He scores points when talking about civil liberties, mainly because the last Labour Government’s record is less than outstanding in that area.
Those who flirted with the Liberal Democrats at the 2010 general election should now be under no illusions. The Lib Dems are not a party of the left. Being against the Iraq war put them on the right side of that particular argument, but didn’t mean that this party, with its anti-trade union, pro-free market policies were ever a potential partner in a “progressive coalition”.
The second election which matters was to determine Labour’s candidate for the London mayoral contest. Ken Livingstone – my old boss – is ready to fight the cuts and campaign for an alternative vision for London which protects public services and creates jobs rather than destroying them.
May 2012, the date of the mayoral election, may seem a long way off, but there needs to be a relentless campaign from now on. London can be a national prize for Labour. Boris Johnson is already positioning himself as being some sort of champion against the Government but it is a façade. The task is to expose him. The Government cuts are Tory cuts – fashioned, like Boris, on the playing fields of Eton.
The third election is for general secretary of Unite, Britain’s largest union and overwhelmingly the biggest in the private sector. Who leads Unite can have an immediate effect on the labour movement in particular and the country in general.
So far, Len McCluskey, the broad left’s candidate, has secured by far the most branch nominations – more than twice the number of the other candidates combined. He is unambiguous in his defence of the public sector, as cuts bite into vital services, and is vocal in his support of workers fighting attacks on their jobs, pay and pensions.
This puts him at odds with one of his rivals for the job, Les Bayliss, who issued a statement saying there should be no strikes against the cuts and no strikes at all over the Christmas holidays. This won him an unhelpful endorsement from Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World, but within the union is likely to bolster critics who favour McCluskey.
By contrast, the right-wing media have attacked McCluskey for his role in supporting British Airways cabin crew in their epic dispute. Sacked shop steward Jerry Hicks and Gail Cartmail, like McCluskey a Unite assistant general secretary, make up the field.
A win for Len McCluskey, alongside the changing of the guard in the Labour Party, offers the labour movement the best hope for political renewal and the principled leadership we will need in the stormy times ahead.
