It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, August 12, 2024
TRI NATIONAL BORDERLANDS
Pantanal waterway project would destroy a ‘paradise on Earth’, scientists warn
The South American wetland, which falls within Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, would be vulnerable to biome loss and increased wildfires‘
Dozens of scientists are sounding the alarm that carving a commercial waterway through the world’s largest wetlands could spell the “end of an entire biome”, and leave hundreds of thousands of hectares of land to be devastated by wildfires.
The Pantanal wetland – which falls within Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, covering an area almost half the size of Germany – is facing the proposed construction of a commercial waterway, as well as the expansion of industrial farming and spread of intense wildfires. A cohort of 40 scientists say the waterway development represents an existential threat to the ecosystem: reducing the floodplain, increasing the risk of fires and transforming the area into a landscape that could more easily be farmed.
Prof Karl M Wantzen, an ecologist from the University of Tours, and Unesco chair for river culture, said the wetland “is a real paradise on Earth. Nowhere else will you see so many hyacinth macaws, jaguars, swamp deer, anacondas, caymans, more than 300 fish species, 500 bird species, 2,500 species of water plants … All of that is at risk.”
The Brazilian government wants to develop the upper 435 miles (700km) of the Paraguay River into the Paraguay-Paraná hidrovia (waterway). In 2022 and 2023, preliminary licences were issued for the construction of port facilities within the Pantanal.
“If the hidrovia project goes ahead, navigation of large train barges in the Pantanal, with dredging in critical reaches of the Paraguay River, will probably mean the end of the Pantanal as we know it,” said Pierre Girard from the Federal University of Mato Grosso and Pantanal Research Center. “Reducing the annually flooded area, [coupled] with climate change and increased pressure on land use in the biome will increase the risks of destructive fires like the catastrophic ones seen in 2020 [when nearly a fifth of the area burned].”
In 2024, fires were the worst on record, with nearly 1.5m hectares (3.7m acres) burning across the Brazilian Pantanal by early August. Since 1985, the Pantanal has lost about 80% of its surface water – more than any other biome in Brazil. If the waterway goes ahead it is likely to further shrink the wetland, making it even more dry and vulnerable to wildfires such as those seen in 2020.
The upper section of the Paraguay River is sinuous and shallow. Making it navigable for 50-metre barges would mean extensive dredging, fixing of riverbanks and construction of ports. This would permanently alter the natural cycle of flooding and shrink the wetland area, researchers warned. Wantzen and Girard are two of more than 40 scientists who wrote a paper, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, arguing that the waterway must not be expanded into the wetlands.
Wantzen, the lead author, said he and his colleagues published it because “I really want the world to know what’s happening. I wanted to gather people to spell out what the current situation is. It would be a senseless tragedy.” View image in fullscreenSmoke from wildfires rises into the air in the Pantanal, in Corumba, Mato Grosso do Sul state, Brazil, June 2024. By early August nearly 1.5m ha had burned. Photograph: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
Dredging this area would result in “severe degradation of the globally outstanding biological and cultural diversity of the Pantanal”, the paper warned. The wetland is also home to Indigenous peoples whose livelihoods would be threatened. The paper said railways would be a more reliable and less disruptive way to transport goods.
The growth of industrial soya bean farming has driven demand for a commercial waterway to transport goods from areas of production in Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia to the coastal seaports in Uruguay and Argentina. Barges would also carry sugar, corn, cement, iron and manganese. The markets for these goods is North America, Europe and Asia.
The argument for creating the waterway is that barges would be faster and cheaper than transporting these goods by truck. Due to the climate emergency and reduced flooding, even with dredging, scientists believe the water level in the river would be too low to allow navigation.
“Humanity is crazy, destroying everything it can and at high speed,” said Mario Friedlander, who works in wildlife observation tourism and photography in Mato Grosso. “The operation of the waterway in the Pantanal is yet another serious attack against a place that is powerful in nature, but completely unprotected.”
Friedlander said that agricultural expansion had been one of the main developments destroying the area. He said: “We have so many fronts of destruction here, that I no longer know where to start the defence”
Responding to concerns raised by the scientists, the Brazilian Ministry for Ports and Airports said the paper contained “opinions” without “scientific elements to support them”.
Britain: Thousands mobilise to face down fascist rioters
Thousands of anti-fascists mobilised to face down fascist groups threatening immigration lawyers and mosques in cities across Britain on August 7. This followed widespread fascist rioting on August 4, which included attacks on the lodgings of asylum seekers, mosques, and Black people and Asians, who in some cases were pulled from their cars and beaten.
The rioting, organised by followers of English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), mobilised mainly middle-aged white men, as well as some younger bystanders. This sudden outbreak of racist violence followed the deluge of anti-immigrant and Islamophobic statements by leaders of the right of the Conservative Party (particularly former Home Secretary Suella Braverman) and Nigel Farage, founder and leader of the hard right Reform UK party. They denounce the pro-Palestinian demonstrations as “hate marches”.
The immediate cause of the rioting was misinformation spread on social media about the identity of the 17-year-old man accused of stabbing three young girls to death in a frenzied attack in the seaside resort of Southport on July 29. The alleged perpetrator, named as Axel Rudakubana, was neither an immigrant nor born outside Britain, yet his foreign-sounding name was enough to set social media sites claiming he was a Muslim and illegal immigrant. This triggered widespread rioting, which must have been planned in advance.
Far-right alliances
What was the background to this apparently sudden eruption of fascist violence? It came just three weeks after the British general election in which Labour won a huge majority (410 seats against a disastrous 121 for the Conservatives). In Britain’s bizarre first-past-the-post system, Reform UK won only 5 seats on the basis of 14% of the vote. But they did get into parliament for the first time, and came second in more than 90 seats, most of them Labour. Farage said: “We’re coming for Labour in the next election.”
Reform UK and the Tory right relay the Islamophobic anti-immigrant message, focussing especially on the thousands of refugees who cross the English Channel each year in small boats. In fact this represents only a small fraction of the immigrants to Britain, most of whom are accepted to study or work in the National Health Service and other sectors short of labour.
Farage and Robinson do a double act in which Reform UK appeals across class lines while Robinson’s EDL appeals more to poor whites, especially youngsters, on the so-called “sink housing estates” — hopeless de-industrialised areas where the labour movement now hardly exists. Obviously there is an overlap: some of the rioters vote for Farage and riot with Robinson.
The size of the far right and fascist movements in Britain is a result of years of failure by Labour and Conservative governments to do anything to overcome child poverty, the poverty of single-parent households who have to choose between buying food or heating their houses, the collapsing health service, and vicious cuts to public services demanded by the central government of local authorities. Austerity after the victory of the Conservative-Liberal coalition in 2011 has transparently made the rich much richer and driven the poor into insufferable poverty. The riots reflect the ability of the de facto propaganda alliance that stretches from the Tory right and Reform UK to the fascists to mobilise on the basis of an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim agenda.
Since 2017, the Conservatives have promised a ‘levelling up’ policy of prioritising investment to bring poor areas in the north of Britain more into line with the more prosperous South East. The result of this promise was nothing. In post-industrial towns in the north and Midlands, many have deserted Labour and feel let down by the Conservatives.
But there is something dangerous in the fascist-led mobs who marauded through cities on August 4 – the existence of a “lumpen” culture of male drunkenness, violence, homophobia, misogyny and racist violence. Some very young men get dragged into this culture, in which the typical form of political activity is rioting and violence. In Britain, as is typical of these movements, Reform UK has managed to merge lumpen working class people and sections of the “patriotic” right-wing middle class: it is a typical fascist alliance.
Anti-fascist resistance
The new Labour government, elected by just 21% of those entitled to vote, has a huge majority but is in reality a weak government. Its leader Keir Starmer has purged the left and imposed right-wing discipline on his MPs – at least for the moment. His ministers took to the airwaves on August 8 to praise the police for holding back the fascists, but ignored the much more significant anti-fascist mobilisations. London mayor Sadiq Khan praised both.
The most publicised anti-fascist mobilisation was in the North East London district of Walthamstow, a truly multicultural area in which alliances between socialist organisations and Muslims have been developed over the years, ranging from the Gulf War to racism and, most recently, Palestine. Some of the thousands of people assembled to defend the local Community Advice Centre, which has a legal arm to help asylum seekers, waved Palestinian flags.
In the progressive seaside town of Brighton, home to a large LGBTIQ+ community, police had to protect a small group of fascists when they were besieged by hundreds of anti-fascist demonstrators. It was a similar situation in Bristol. Around the country, socialist, anti-fascist, labour movement and Muslim community groups mobilised.
But there were worrying signs. The progressive city of Liverpool witnessed a significant fascist mobilisation, and it seems that most of them were locals. Racist poison has also spread to Ireland, which has witnessed successive nights of young rioters clashing with police in Belfast.
Starmer’s Labour
The response of Starmer and the new Labour government has been to rely on police repression. Thousands of police have been deployed where fascist mobs might be assembling, and the courts have responded to government requests for rapid action by sending people to jail for up to three years for crimes such as throwing a brick, which in other circumstances might be considered relatively minor.
The Conservative government of the past 14 years passed several laws that gave police extensive powers to ban demonstrations and arrest people for even planning a direct action that might cause disruption. The fact this kind of legislation might be used against the far right should not blind us to the fact that it might be used against radical direct action groups. In July, five Just Stop Oil protestors were given four and five-year sentences for blocking the London Ring Road M25 motorway. For the moment public order laws have not been used to ban pro-Palestine demonstrations, but they could be if the police judge they might lead to public disorder.
Before the general election, Labour criticised the Conservatives for not doing enough to stop immigrant boats from France. Instead of setting up safe, legal routes for asylum seekers and refugees, they promised the formation of a new “command” to police the borders.
The new Labour government promises the poor and disadvantaged precisely nothing. Finance minister Rachel Reeves’ defence of absurd spending limits means there is no new money coming forward to help the NHS, Social Care for the elderly, urgently needed house building or child poverty. Simmering resentment in poor white communities is likely to lead to new racist outbursts. The fascists are not about to give up after one evening of humiliation.
Militant left
One thing is obvious. Whereas there is a party of the radical right, there is no electoral party of the militant left. Part of the responsibility for this lies with socialist organisations wedded to propaganda routinism and reluctant to give up a modicum of independence to build a broad socialist front.
It also lies with those left Labour MPs, holding on like grim death to their Labour Party membership, who are sometimes used as punch bags by the leadership, sometimes paraded as domesticated followers by the ruthless Labour machine. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected as an independent after his expulsion from the party, has failed to move towards building a new mass socialist alternative.
Four other independents were elected in areas with a large Muslim population, mainly on an anti-Gaza war platform. The raw material exists — in the hundreds who have been expelled and the thousands who have resigned from Labour in disgust — to form a new left-wing political formation on a national scale. While the hard right is mobilising in parliament and on the streets, the left is dithering.
The response of Starmer and justice minister Shabana Mahmood is to rely on police repression to suppress the fascists. Already hundreds of rioters have been charged, and a few have given up to three years’ imprisonment. Starmer promises an “army” of police ready to defend public order. These may intimidate a few fascists but will never work in the long term.
Those mobilised by the far right have a deep sense of resentment towards “elites”, a catch-all term which includes, according to circumstances, people with government jobs, people who live in London, left-wing teachers, university workers, media workers, and, of course, members of ethnic minorities they claim are given privileged treatment in houses, jobs and benefits. They are victims of the classic extreme right divide and rule, and a Labour government which does nothing for them will soon be a victim of their attacks.
Farage has promised a hard-right government by 2029. The Conservative Party is in decay, not only because of political divisions but because it is dying out — it is reckoned that 1.4 million of its members will die before the next election in 2029. The Grim Reaper will also come for 200,000 Labour voters, but they will probably be more rapidly replaced than the Conservatives who are deeply unpopular with the young. The result of this Conservative upheaval is that already some are calling for a merger with Reform UK. A survey showed 50% of the membership are in favour of such a merger.
The left in Britain has to get its act together and prepare for a united electoral intervention. Until that happens the radical vote will get split between Labour and the not-very-radical Green Party. In terms of the extreme right offensive, it is time for the British left to get its act together. Anti-fascist activism is no substitute for a mass socialist alternative. It is later than many socialists think. You do not need a weather forecaster to know which way the wind blows.
Paul Mason: ‘How we can defeat the new fascism in the wake of Britain’s January 6’
Paul Mason AUGUST 9,2024
Photo: Martin Suker/Shutterstock
The riots that followed the Southport murders were not just driven by racism and Islamophobia. They were conceived, both in the minds of the rioters and those inciting them, as a political challenge to the Labour government that was elected on 4th July.
So this is our equivalent of America’s January 6th: a challenge to our values, to the rule of law and to the legitimacy of Labour’s project of national renewal and social cohesion.
While the government has done the right thing – centralising the public order response and mobilising the criminal justice system to deliver swift, tough, sentencing – as a party and a movement we, too, need to adapt.
‘Today’s fascism is networked and global’
This is not the fascism my generation had to confront in the 1970s and 80s. That was a hierarchical, nationalist and largely powerless movement – easily contained by mass, community mobilisations as at Lewisham in 1977, and by big counter-cultural events like the ANL carnivals.
Today’s fascism is networked and global. While the small fascist parties pose a threat, and need to be monitored, far more important are the “influencers”, whose calls to action and racist content can be sent viral by the algorithms of social media, or even their deliberate promotion by Elon Musk. Their targets change by the week; their methods mutate fast; and their actions are boosted by foreign powers, like Russia, and by far right movements in foreign countries.
The challenge for policing is obvious: in the riots of the past, the target of the rioters were either the police themselves, or a government policy or building. The target of fascist rioters is individual people of colour, Uber drivers, minority-owned shops and, of course, Mosques.
That means the public order policing tactics taught to other forces by the Met have to change, and rapidly. Simply dispersing rioters and arresting them later leaves them free to inflict terror on members of the public – a terror which leaves BAME friends and colleagues justifiably apprehensive as they go about their everyday lives.
‘Reform surge driven by racism, ‘anti-politics’ sentiment and exasperation at economic insecurity’
I am hopeful that the swift, tough sentencing – including for those casually inciting arson and murder online – will have a rapid impact. Because it was sparked by viral information, the quicker the tears, regrets and four-year prison sentences of the rioters also go viral, the quicker this might end.
But we need to face an unpalatable fact. If 7% of the British public think these riots are justified (according to YouGov), that’s close to four million people. Most of those people will never riot, but we know that the Reform surge at the election was driven by a mixture of racism, “anti-politics” sentiment and exasperation at the economic insecurity working class communities face.
What’s triggered this – beyond all the individual flashpoints – is the sudden realisation by the racist minority of the population that they’ve lost the only government that was ever going to sympathise with their prejudice, and there is almost no route back.
The new fascism is fuelled not just by prejudice but by a theory: that migration is a form of “invasion”, that we, the “woke liberals” are its collaborators, that a shadowy global elite is trying to wipe out the white race, and that it will all end with an ethnic civil war.
That’s why it is so dangerous for the richest and man in the world to broadcast to his 300m followers that “civil war is inevitable”.
‘We are unwilling combatants in an information war’
Networked fascism calls for a different kind of resistance. The problem in your town may not lie in the small local branch of Patriotic Alternative, or a “football lads” group. It may lie with the scattered followers of a far-right influencer living in Thailand, or an anonymous channel run from Russia, who we only find out about when they leave their bedrooms and torch a law firm.
We are, in short, unwilling combatants in an information war that few of us know how to fight.
In response, we need the government to move swiftly on information legislation. The Online Safety Act is weak: but the biggest problem is that it’s still not been fully enacted. I want to see the government bring its full provisions into force immediately, ending the consultation process. It should demand that Twitter and other platforms take measures to mitigate the distribution of incitement, disinformation and hate speech. There are, in the end, large fines and even criminal sanctions if they refuse.
On top of this we need to centralise the intelligence response. Remarkably, there is no body in Whitehall with the job of linking what the police see, what MI5 and GCHQ see, and what specialist anti-racist NGOs monitor – in a way that can predict and disrupt the violence. And the Tories left us without a counter-extremism strategy, or the money to pay for it.
Politically, many of the counter-demos called for this weekend are organised by groups that have no chance, on their own, of uniting all communities and faiths. We need a big, national, cross-party umbrella campaign as soon as possible. But that’s no reason to stay inactive: we need, as a party, to stand with those who want to peacefully protect the refugee hotels and places of worship.
We can defeat the fascists – not just with tough law enforcement and community solidarity, but by making Britain a “militant democracy”: a democracy armed in its own self defence. And of course by the speedy delivery of the economic, climate and social justice we campaigned for at the election.
Paul Mason
Paul Mason is a journalist, filmmaker and author of books including How To Stop Fascism: History, Ideology, Resistance. He is a former BBC journalist and a Labour activist.@paulmasonnews
‘Rioters don’t represent public frustrations, but the community clean-up does’
Jonathan Brash
9th August, 2024
Photo: Arty Inc/Shutterstock
The riots in Hartlepool, like those across the country, have shocked and appalled us all. The violent thugs who attacked local businesses, set cars alight, and intimidated residents in their own homes have absolutely no justification for their behaviour. None whatsoever.
The police have responded admirably, continuing to make arrests, and the courts are fast-tracking cases to ensure that those responsible are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I completely support the tough and uncompromising stance taken by the Prime Minister and Home Secretary.
The scenes we witnessed in Hartlepool do not represent our town, our people, or our values.
‘Clean-up after riot was the true face of Hartlepool’
The morning after the riot, I spoke with victims, including the owners of a butcher shop on Murray Street that has been in business for 40 years. Their windows were smashed, and they described how the owner stood guard through the night, terrified that the thugs would break in and gain access to the knives that are the tools of his trade. This was an act of remarkable courage in defence of his community.
As I walked through the debris at 7 a.m., council workers were already on the scene, beginning the clean-up. Volunteers soon followed with litter pickers and sweeping brushes. Local community groups, like our Salaam Centre, opened their doors, providing teas and coffees for anyone in need. Residents arrived with donations to help the local businesses that had been targeted.
This was the true face of Hartlepool on display – our values of community and togetherness shining brightly in response to lawless thuggery. We are the many; they are the few.
‘Only appropriate response to riots is the full force of the law’
Some national politicians, in a desperate search for their latest grift, want to portray these riots as the inevitable consequence of the frustrations felt by the so-called “silent majority.” This is utter rubbish. The majority wants nothing to do with these thugs.
Of course, it is right to acknowledge that we need an open, calm, and constructive conversation about asylum and immigration. The systems underpinning both are hopelessly broken after 14 years of Conservative chaos and mismanagement. We need to discuss the socio-economic impact on different communities. We need greater transparency to counteract the lies being spread on social media. We must listen to people’s genuine concerns and, where possible, address them.
But none of that – none of it – can be in response to these riots. The only appropriate response to violent thuggery is the full force of the law. As I write this, the first sentence has just been handed down for one of those arrested in Hartlepool, and the public’s reaction has been overwhelming: ‘Good riddance.’
Moreover, if we are to have a national conversation about asylum and immigration, we must also confront the challenges posed by social media and the normalisation of racist bigotry that too often finds a home in the dark recesses of Facebook groups or X comment threads. Lies and misinformation spread like wildfire, disgusting racial abuse has become commonplace, and the far right uses these platforms to organise and mobilise.
‘What happens online can spill over onto our streets’
Online deindividuation, a by-product of the anonymity too often afforded by social media, promotes and spreads hate in a way that has become a threat to our national security. A crime is a crime, wherever it happens, and we must ensure that the law applies everywhere. Online anonymity must end so that people are held accountable for their criminal actions, regardless of where they commit them.
Because, as we saw in Hartlepool, what happens online can spill over onto our streets. The riots in Hartlepool began with a march, a march organised online and one that deliberately passed by our town’s two mosques and ended in an area with a significant Muslim population. This was no coincidence.
Hartlepool’s Muslim community is extraordinary. They donate to local charities, contribute to our town’s business sector, and work to foster positive connections across our diverse communities. Yet, they feel threatened. They feel scared.
‘Populism, polarisation and post-truth’
One of the worst legacies of the last 14 years (and it is a competitive list) has been the weaponisation of division in politics, what Moises Naím refers to as populism, polarisation, and post-truth. Setting communities against one another through the spread of lies and misinformation, all to secure power and influence.
We’ve seen it from successive Tory Home Secretaries, and most recently, from Nigel Farage, caught red-handed and forced to admit that his claims about the “truth being withheld from us” over Southport were nothing more than him parroting the nonsense of Andrew Tate.
Resisting this division must now become the central mission of the new Labour government and all right-minded people. We must focus on bringing communities together, not pushing them apart. We must deal in facts, not lies. We must recognize that we are always stronger when we are united. The people of Hartlepool have shown that this is possible – now we must make it a reality for everyone in our country.
The achievements of Labour in office have been assessed often enough. But what about the long years of Opposition?
Out of power, a Party may only occasionally succeed in securing a change in government policy. It may try to hold the government to account – not easy in a poorly resourced Parliament entirely dominated by the government’s majority. It can try to look like a future government – increasingly difficult the longer it is out of office. Labour in Opposition especially have sought to change the Party as much as its policies.
Laying the foundations
Labour first became the Official Opposition in November 1922 when it came second to the Tories in that month’s election. Clynes, the leader who got them there, was immediately deposed by his own MPs and replaced by MacDonald, astonishingly the only time in the Party’s history that an incumbent has been defeated in a leadership challenge. Many involved would regret this move in the years that followed.
The 1920s saw the organisational strengthening of the Party – the supremacy of its Conference, the growth of individual membership, the clarification of its relations with the left outside the Party. These were arguably all issues that shifted the internal focus away from Labour’s patchy performance in government.
But in the 1930s, after the divisive defection of MacDonald to a coalition National Government with the Tories, the Party began to lay the policy foundations for its entry into government in 1940 and its ground-breaking majority administration of 1945. Paradoxically, this was done in conditions where the left was weak and even marginal to some of the key debates.
The undoubted achievements of the 1945-51 Labour government in terms of full employment, public ownership, the NHS and much more make the subsequent thirteen years in Opposition all the more disorienting. Whereas failure can be a spur, these successes unleashed an existential debate in the Party. Had its reforming mission largely been achieved so that the future priority should be consolidation? Or had only the foundations been laid and should much greater socialist advances be proposed?
The debate raged for over ten years. As in the 1980s and 1990s, each successive electoral defeat strengthened the Party’s right, which argued that voters were increasingly unsympathetic to radical policies. And as in the 1980s, the right wing offensive focused on rewriting the Party’s foundational commitment to common ownership.
Only the premature death of right wing leader Gaitskell and his replacement by Wilson, who largely fudged the issue, put an end to this internal battle. Yet it is worth noting that Wilson’s general election victory in 1964 was on a smaller share of the vote and with fewer votes than the Party received when it was voted out in 1951.
The reward for dire performances
Labour’s electoral defeat six years later again came as a shock – a victory had looked so probable that many bookmakers had stopped taking bets on one. But in retrospect it was the pay-off for Labour’s dire performance in government from 1964 to 1970, which was the cause of severe disillusionment among many traditional voters.
While Wilson remained Party leader, much of the opposition to the 1970-4 Heath government came from the trade unions. Their new militancy destroyed the government’s attempts to legally shackle them and effectively forced first a U-turn and then an electoral defeat on the Tories.
This extra-parliamentary radicalism was expressed within Labour’s leading echelons primarily by Tony Benn. He also played a pivotal role in forestalling a damaging split over the issue of European Community membership, by proposing a referendum on the subject should Labour regain office. The nature of the radical political times determined a leftward shift in Labour policy – even the right wing Shadow Chancellor Denis Healey said he would “squeeze property speculators until the pips squeak.”
Of course, these aspirations would be shamelessly betrayed once Labour returned to government. The imposition of austerity cuts and the abandonment of much of Labour’s post-war economic approach during the 1974 to 1979 period in office led inevitably not just to disgust among Labour supporters. It also fostered a real determination across the movement to impose new forms of accountability over the Party’s largely right wing MPs, including an electoral college to choose the Party leader and the mandatory reselection of MPs.
18 years in Opposition
Labour’s next stint in Opposition lasted 18 years from 1979 to 1997. Its long duration has often been simplistically explained by the Party’s failure to adapt to the new realities of free market economics and rampant individualism unleashed by Thatcher. This mis-reading of the political mood was supposedly expressed by the heavy defeat that the Party under Foot suffered in 1983.
But just as Corbyn’s radicalism decades later would be undermined by a concerted campaign of sabotage from within the parliamentary Party, so Foot’s defeat was caused to a significant degree by the defection of over a score of Labour MPs to the new Social Democratic Party founded in 1981. Although it retained few seats following the 1983 election, the new party, in alliance with the Liberals, did much damage to the Labour vote, while the Tory vote also fell compared to 1979.
It would be false to say that the future of Britain had already been decided before this point. It was not until the mid-1980s, and in particular the historic defeat of the year-long miners’ strike in 1985, that Thatcherism could really be said to have triumphed.
Sadly, there’s little sense of these fundamental developments in the authors’ account of this period. The 1983 defeat is excessively attributed to a poor Labour election campaign, although in reality the fate of Foot’s vacillating leadership had already been decided.
His replacement by Neil Kinnock, is conventionally hailed as putting the Party on the road to electability. In fact Kinnock did no such thing, preferring to prioritise feuds with the left and pursuing an authoritarian style to mask his insecurity and ineptitude in the job as leader. The result was a failure to defeat the Tories even after their internal trauma of removing Thatcher as Prime Minister.
Obviously, overturning Thatcher’s huge majority in 1987 was always going to be difficult. But as we have previously argued on Labour Hub, “the lesson Labour’s leadership drew from the 1987 general election defeat was the need to replace the values of social solidarity and collectivism with a Thatcherite commitment to individualism, consumerism and the market – even though within a few years the economic downturn would make these ideas look hollow.”
You won’t find much of this in the account of Garnett et al, who seem to swallow the New Labour narrative that the modernisation and further centralisation – not to mention Thatcherization – of the Party paved the way for the Blair landslide of 1997. What is often forgotten about this moment is the sea change in the electorate, who despite the timidity of Labour’s manifesto, were in the mood for real change. A Gallup poll showed that 86% of voters believed that taxes would go up under Labour – yet still voted for them. 72% of voters in May 1997 wanted an income tax increase to fund better education and public services. 74% wanted no further privatisations. 58% wanted wealth redistribution. Voters were clearly to the left of the Party leadership. Does this feel familiar?
After New Labour
The ups and downs of the last 14 years make Labour’s latest spell in Opposition the strangest. Usually, after losing two consecutive elections, Labour moves to the right. That this did not happen in 2015 was due in no small part to Labour’s electoral wipeout in Scotland at the hands of the SNP, which was some way to the left of Labour on many issues. Jereny Corbyn’s victory in the 2015 leadership contest was an even firmer statement of intent by Party members than their election in 2010 of Ed Miliband, who had opposed New Labour’s war in Iraq, and who defeated against all odds his more right wing and much better-funded Blairite brother.
The early radicalism of Ed Miliband was largely thwarted by New Labour remnants in the Shadow Cabinet, the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Party bureaucracy, making Labour’s pitch to the electorate in 2015 incoherent. Jeremy Corbyn’s subsequent election as leader was dismissed by the Party’s right as “summer madness” but the mood in the grassroots was very different. As the authors rightly note, Party membership atrophied under New Labour. Two years into Corbyn’s tenure, membership soared to 560,000, making Labour the largest left wing party in Europe.
But like Miliband before him, who was also elected with the support of only a minority of MPs, Corbyn faced relentless sabotage from the Party’s right. The unelected Lord Mandelson declared openly: “I work every single day to bring forward the end of his tenure in office.” This destabilisation included coordinated mass resignations from the Shadow Cabinet , a new leadership challenge in 2016 and bureaucratic obstruction during the 2017 general election campaign itself.
Despite this, Labour’s share of the vote rose ten percentage points, the highest increase in a single election since 1945 and one that deprived Prime Minister May of her majority. “Labour’s 2017 manifesto,” say the authors “ will go down in the annals of history as among its most famous… It returned the party to its ideological norm.”
Labour’s strong performance in 2017 should have given the Corbyn leadership a breathing space and an opportunity to reset. “I underestimated him,” confessed Mandelson afterwards – but he didn’t stop the sabotage. Yet this was only one factor that contributed to Labour’s defeat in 2019. Others include the new Tory trajectory under the populist ‘boosterism’ of Johnson, the irresolvable pressure inside the Party over Brexit and the adoption of a ‘one more heave’ approach in leading circles after 2017, rather than drawing all the lessons from what was, after all, still a defeat.
Weighing these factors, the authors follow the line of much recent literature in downplaying the sabotage and talking up the supposed Brexit betrayal. But if these are the only takeaways from the 2019 debacle, they leave us ill-equipped to develop future strategy for the left.
The book has little to say about the most recent – and for many members, the most traumatic – period. Keir Starmer won the leadership on a false prospectus and, like Neil Kinnock before him, went out of his way to demonise the left, demoralise the grassroots and dilute the Party’s policies.
The left could respond with the kneejerk accusation of ‘traitor’. Or it could draw hope from the growing influence of the trade unions, social movements and alternative media to map out an alternative programme for the Party, in the certain knowledge that a more radical approach has overwhelming popular support.
UK
Labour and the unions: reasons to be (cautiously) cheerful
By Jeff Slee
AUGUST 11, 2024
The first month of this Labour government has gone better than trades unions had expected.
Unions have welcomed the government’s commitment to introduce an Employment Rights Bill, to repeal the Tories’ Strikes (Minimum Services) Act, and Angela Rayner’s and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds’ instruction to government departments not to use that law.
Unions have also welcomed the government’s agreement of a 22% pay rise for junior doctors to settle their long-running dispute, which the British Medical Association is recommending its members to accept in a referendum; the 5.5% rise for teachers and NHS staff as recommended by their pay review bodies; the steps towards bringing the core of the national rail network back together in public ownership; and the talks with the train drivers’ union ASLEF to settle the ongoing dispute over train drivers’ pay and conditions.
The Employment Rights Bill has not yet been published, but the King’s Speech and other government announcements indicate that it will put into law Labour’s ‘New Deal for Working People’, which was agreed between the Labour leadership and affiliated unions in May. The final version of the New Deal for Working People promised less than earlier versions and includes many points which will be open to consultation with bosses – which is why Unite refused to endorse it in May. However, Unite did welcome the King’s Speech, saying it was “packed full of measures which will begin transforming the UK for the better [and] shows why Britain needs a Labour government.”
There are many welcome definite commitments in the New Deal. Unions will be keen to see these in the Bill when it is published, and stuck to by the Front Bench in Parliament. Among commitments which will remove restrictions on unions are the repeal of the Trade Union Act 2016, which required unions to pass thresholds of 50% turnout and 40% voting Yes in industrial action ballots; the right to use electronic (online) balloting instead of postal balloting in industrial action ballots and union elections; making it easier for unions to get Recognition (the right to collective bargaining over pay and conditions); and giving unions the right of access to workplaces to recruit and organise.
Commitments that will improve the lot of workers at work include making the minimum wage take into account the cost of living and covering workers aged 18 to 20; giving workers the right of protection against unfair dismissal from Day One instead of the current two years; parental leave and sick pay rights from Day One in work; ending “fire and rehire”; and banning “exploitative” zero-hour contracts, although we wait to see what this means in practice.
Unions will keep a close eye on what is in the Bill, and argue against giving way to the bosses’ lobbying on those points up for consultation. But they should also be preparing to use the new rights they will – hopefully – get when this becomes law.
One of the main reasons the union movement has been unable to grow over the last forty years is that bosses often stop them getting into workplaces to speak to workers directly, and use dodgy tactics to stop unions getting Recognition even when those unions have gained enough support to have a ballot for Recognition. When the GMB recently narrowly lost a recognition ballot at Amazon Coventry (by 49.5% to 50.5%), they had to do all their campaigning outside the factory gates because Amazon would not allow them on site.
Furthermore, unions have on many occasions suspected bosses of fiddling employment lists before Recognition ballots. The new law should change this. Unions should be preparing campaigns to get into unorganised workplaces and companies, and getting together so they work in co-operation – not competition – on this.
There is a lot for unions to do. Workers’ real pay is no higher now than it was in 2007, according to Office for National Statistics figures. Yet companies are making big profits.
The economy now should be a good place for unions to grow in and to win real improvements for workers over pay and conditions. There is a general shortage of workers which by the law of supply and demand should favour the working class. Unions should be able grow their membership, which has not significantly risen for many years, and union density (the percentage of employees who are in a union) which continues to fall. In autumn 2022 union density was just 22.3%, down from 23.1% a year before, according to the government’s Labour Force Survey (Labour Research, July 2023). Union density is much higher in the public sector (48.6% in 2022) than the private sector (12.0%).
What is the outlook for unions under the Labour government? If it carries out its promises of the last month – especially over the Employment Rights Bill – then the goodwill that generates will mean most unions won’t want to be disruptive towards the government. Public sector workers will, rightly, want their real pay to increase after years of austerity and real pay cuts – not only for the sakes of themselves and their families, but also to stop the loss of workers to better-paid private sector jobs and the pressure on the public sector this produces.
While pay rises for health workers and teachers are welcome, other public sector workers will also be looking for real pay rises this year. And those in the public sector are acutely aware that the services they provide were getting worse under the Tory government.
My experience of canvassing during the election was that the strongest support for Labour – indeed the only enthusiasm for Labour – was from workers in health and education who hope this government will tackle the problems those sectors have. If the government does not give the public sector the funds needed to do this, then I expect that hope to turn to bitterness – which will put pressure on the public sector unions to challenge the government.
The government should use its budget on October 30th to raise taxes on the rich, and use these to invest in the public sector. Public sector workers won’t want to wait for Labour’s promised growth – even if this happens – to generate the increased funding they need
We will see which side the government takes if a stronger and more confident union movement fights for better pay, conditions, jobs and workers’ rights in the private sector, and bosses respond with complaints and threats of closing their businesses or moving them abroad.
Jeff Slee is a retired rail worker and former RMT National Executive Committee member.
Today Left Foot Forward Among leave voters, Farage has a popularity rating of -4.
A new poll for YouGov makes worrying reading for Nigel Farage, after it found that Brexit voters, for the first time ever, have a negative view of the Reform UK leader.
Farage, who has usually enjoyed support among leave voters, has seen his popularity plummet after being elected as Clacton’s MP. He has regularly faced accusations of not giving a toss about his constituency after flying off to the U.S. to show his support for Donald Trump after an assassination attempt on the Republican nominee for President.
Farage has also been accused of stoking tensions and fanning the flames of division following violent far-right riots in towns and cities across the UK, which were fuelled by Islamophobic and anti-immigrant sentiment.
The riots occurred after the killing of three young girls in Southport. Within hours of the horrific attack, the far-right were spreading misinformation about the identity of the attacker, claiming that he had arrived in the UK via a small boat with a number of far-right social media accounts claiming that the attacker was Muslim, a migrant, refugee or foreigner.
The knifeman was later revealed to be Cardiff-born Axel Rudakubana.
Farage posted a video online speculating on the background of the alleged killer shortly after the knife attack took place last week. He also falsely claimed that “some reports suggest he was known to the security services” and later on admitted that he had shared misinformation spread by the likes of Andrew Tate.
The YouGov poll found that the net popularity of Farage has plummeted to -27 among 2024 Conservative Party voters, dropping 17 points since July.
Among leave voters, Farage has a popularity rating of -4. Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
View image in fullscreenSmoke from wildfires rises into the air in the Pantanal, in Corumba, Mato Grosso do Sul state, Brazil, June 2024. By early August nearly 1.5m ha had burned. Photograph: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
