What is happening to Labour?

What is happening to the Labour Party? News today that members of the public registering as individual supporters could be given the vote in leadership elections and at Party conference is an outrage. It makes a mockery of all those people, like me, who have religiously paid our annual subscriptions for membership of a political organization. It makes a travesty of those members of trade unions who have, over the years, consistently supported the Party by paying the political levy.

Peter Hain, the architect to the plan says the plans “… are designed to give Labour the chance to leapfrog the other parties and become a new party for a new political age.” So, the late 1990s we had the “New” Labour project – and that failed, and now we are going to have the “Squeaky clean, very New” Labour Party and guess what folks … it will fail too.

Those in favour of this approach argue it is because union affiliated membership has halved over the years and this will give ordinary working people a ‘say’ in the running of the Party. How short is the human memory? Last Saturday, 500,000 angry people marched through London calling for this Tory government to bring an end to the cuts. These people are our life-blood, our electorate – and many were students, pensioners, trade unionists and socialists – we cannot dismiss them so readily.

Hain goes on to say “If unions could rebuild their membership, they would speak with a stronger voice in society. Despite improved union recognition rights under Labour, they have been unable to do so.”

This is a fundamental bending of the truth. Since the May elections, trade union membership has dramatically increased and continues to grow. Daily, workers are recognizing they need the protection of working together under a trade union banner to protect their jobs, their pay and their rights. With each new member coming through the door, Labour has the chance of a new recruit. The fact the Party has been unable to attract large numbers of supporters says more about how we present Labour to the public than the demise of unionism.

Miliband has argued “The Tory-led government and its current alliance of power with the Liberal democrats does not change my belief that there is a progressive majority in this country.”

I confess I am not so sure. I think at the moment, many people are far more right-leaning than he gives credit for and in his naiveté, assumes Labour is on a roller coaster ride to sudden electoral victory. Well, we thought we would win under Kinnock and we failed. We should have won under Foot and we collapsed totally. The historical evidence tells us the British people are far more conservative. The right have long argued Labour is the natural party of opposition and the Tories, the natural party of power. It should be the job of Labour to reverse this, by educating and informing the electorate about socialist ideals and principles.

Giving a vote to members of MumsNet (however worthwhile the organization) is not the answer, nor is the notion of allowing floating voters who, on a whim, call themselves Labour supporters the opportunity to change policy. I have canvassed on doors before now and heard Labour supporters call for the return of hanging, tough immigration restraint and the castration of paedophiles. Do we truly want this kind of influx into our party?

Miliband must stamp on this report and throw it out. There can be no place for these principles in our great Party and should be shunned at all costs. If we fail, we might as well say goodbye to all vestiges of being a socialist party.

Instead, we should be helping to build trade unions and party branches so they become an effective resistance to this government’s uncaring, right-wing ideology. We should be a political vanguard pushing the cause of socialism on every front.

Above all, we must never lose our dedication to socialism and the trade union movement.