Blair’s Third Term

This year has seen the re-election of New Labour to an ‘historic’ third term in power. Blair claims a mandate to govern, however more people stayed at home on polling day than voted for them. With just 36% of the popular vote they are the most unpopular party to form a government since the Reform Act of 1832 and their 166 majority was slashed to 66 seats.

When they first came to power in 1997, many working class people expected a real change after 18 disastrous years of Tory rule. The reality was very different – from the outset, New Labour has proved itself to be an openly capitalist party, putting the interests of big business ahead of those of ordinary working people. The Iraq war has been perhaps the most obvious example of Blair’s arrogance as he clung to the coat-tails of Bush in the face of mass opposition.

The 3^rd term will only see a continuation of the attacks on the living standards of workers and youth. Blair will stick rigidly to his neo-liberal agenda in the mistaken belief that ‘the market’ is the best way to run everything; as a result privatisation in its many guises will be a central part of New Labour’s policies for this term. Whether through the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), Foundation Hospitals or City Academies in the education sector, this allows big business to make mega profits to the detriment of vital public services. It also allows a driving down of pay and conditions for workers in these services. For example City Academies, which Blair plans to build 200 of by 2010, allow wealthy individuals to set curricula and entrance conditions and pick the governors of a secondary school for less than 10% of the cost to build it. The rest, as well as the running costs, are then stumped up by the taxpayer.

The 3^rd term will also see Blair preside over further destruction of British industry, in fact during the election campaign the closure of the Rover plant in Birmingham was announced with the loss of more than 5000 jobs. The government did nothing to save these jobs; instead it was only socialists who called for the immediate nationalisation of Rover. The replacement of these jobs with so-called ‘McJobs’ – casualised, low paid and un-unionised – again serves the interest of companies who seek to exploit this labour. Also on the agenda for this parliament is the introduction of ID cards, which is part of the ongoing erosion of civil liberties by New Labour, something which disproportionately affects young people, those from ethnic groups and immigrants.

Blair’s 3^rd term will also almost certainly be his last; it now seems a question of when and not if Brown will replace him as Prime Minister. Some, including many trade union leaders look to this as a chance for a return to traditional ‘Old Labour’ values. However, Brown has overseen the entire economic policy of the New Labour project and any differences with Blair are of style not substance. Workers and youth will experience the same attacks whoever is in No. 10.

New Labour’s first two terms also show the potential for how to defeat these attacks. In the first part of this year the threat of a united, cross-union, public sector strike forced a significant climb-down by the government over ‘reform’ to public sector pensions. However, New Labour will come back with these attacks in one form or another and workers must be prepared to take action to defeat them. In fact it is only united, militant action, utilising the mighty power of the working class that can defeat the neo-liberal agenda of Blair and Co. Unfortunately most of the trade union leaders who can call such action remain wedded to the Labour Party, and many of the unions still pay large sums of their members’ money in affiliation fees. The repeated attacks on workers and the continuation of the Tories’ repressive anti-union legislation beg the question: why do the unions continue to ‘feed the mouth that bites them?’

Some union leaders claim support for New Labour is necessary to stop the Tories from getting in and this was the line trotted out repeatedly by Labour Party leaders during the election campaign. In fact many people, especially older workers who remember the Thatcher era, turned out reluctantly to vote Labour for this very reason. The Liberal Democrats also picked up extra seats mostly by playing on a phoney ‘radical’ image; however their opposition to the Iraq war faded once it became an accomplished fact and where they have power in local councils they have participated in the same cuts and attacks as Labour. The policy of ‘lesser-evilism’ only leads workers up the blind alley of supporting a party that does not stand in their interests, what is needed instead is a new mass workers’ party with the support of the trade unions.

Currently no mass, left-of-Labour alternative exists. The Socialist Party stood in around 20 seats, picking up some very credible votes. Supported by Socialist Students members and others we took our programme to people on the streets and on the doorsteps talking to working class and young people about the issues that affect them. Workers respected the fact that we fight for what we believe in all year round and not just at election time. This is in marked contrast to the main parties who ran the campaign largely in the media and were afraid to talk to ‘real people’ knowing the response they’d get. George Galloway’s Respect Party also picked up some good results, foremost of all Galloway winning the constituency of Bethnal and Bow Green in London. Some workers looked to them as an alternative but Respect does not have a socialist programme and approaches the Muslim community on a religious rather than a class basis. This is a risky tactic and care must be taken not to exacerbate divisions between the working class along ethnic lines, especially in the current political climate.

What is needed is a mass party that can win the support of the working class and youth by fighting on a platform that stands up for them. Such a party, based among the trade unions, can provide not just an electoral alternative capable of defeating New Labour but also a focal point to unite and give strength to future struggles of working people against privatisation, war and all the other horrors of the capitalist system.