Alan Thornett reports on a meeting organised by Medway Trades Council at which he was one of the speakers.
I spoke on behalf of Respect at an interesting and well-attended and well organised meeting of the Medway Trades Council in Rochester on Tuesday night, which was around the theme of the crisis of working class representation. The other speakers were John Rees from the Left List, Hannah Sell from the CNWP, and Gary Heather from the Labour Representation Committee and the CWU union Executive Committee.
Amongst the trade union delegates present there were supporters of various political organisations. There were several supporters of the SWP, several supporters of the Socialist Party and at least one member of the CPB. There were also several LP members who were critical of New Labour and a prospective LP local candidate who put the mainstream (Brownite) point of view.
It was a very good discussion. John Rees spoke first, making a generally supportable contribution on the general political situation, the economic crisis, and the political character of new Labour. He rightly extended solidarity to those battling away to win the Labour Party back for the left but regarded it to be a mistaken aspiration.
Gary Feather said that while he was not there to defend New Labour, reclaiming Labour for the left was a viable proposition, particularly given the continued link with the unions – which was the most important factor as far he was concerned.
I said that the problem with the link was that the form that it had taken under New Labour was a part of the problem. New Labour had given absolutely nothing to the trade unions, more-or-less as a point of principle, yet the unions continued to bank-roll New Labour to the tune of about 90% of its income. This was an issue which had emerged in various ways in this years round of trade union conferences.
Hannah Sell put the CNWP position on all this – that New Labour is now a straightforward party of big business and therefore we need a new mass party of the working class. What she didn’t explain, however, is exactly how this is advanced by an endless propaganda campaign for such a party which does not result in any concrete steps to bring it to fruition. She argued that, depending on how you count it, it took the Labour Party 40 years to come into being – though she was not advocating that the CNWP should go on for that long before it makes a move.
Most speakers from the floor wanted a new party of some kind – though there were different views of the form it should take. In the course of this the Labour Party perspective candidate made a robust, though rather disingenuous, defence of new Labour, saying that it had done some good things such as the minimum wage and maternity rights. Myself, John Rees and others argued that unless that was set against their appalling wider record it made no sense. Numerous vivid accounts of the true record of the betrayals of new Labour were recounted to the meeting.
Another strand in the debate was electoral politics. I argued that while we should not seek to build electoralist parties, participation in the electoral field was essential if such parties were to win wide appeal. Several floor speakers argued that there are plenty of other things people could do and that maybe we should de-prioritise elections.
John Rees did not support that point of view but his emphasis on fighting elections was far less than many of his speeches in the past. In fact he did not put forward any kind of project for electoral work – which was a bit of a gap in his contribution. There was no mention of Respect, or the Left List, or even Left Alternative.
I argued that while Respect was a modest initiative its strength was that it was the only left party to break into Westminster since the 1940s and it was the only left party which is a genuine contender in several constituencies for Westminster seats in the next general election. However, Respect does not see itself as the answer to the crisis of working class representation but hopefully, along with others, a part of the answer.
Liam redux 
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