The RMT’s conference mandated the union leadership to hold a conference on working class political representation and today’s event was the sequel to a similar one three years ago. It was attended by about 120 people. The clash with the demonstration against the mass murder in Gaza was just one of those bits of bad luck that can happen when you organise an event like this and Bob Crow made it plain that both he and the union fully supported the demo.
There was much to agree with in Bob’s opening remarks in which he was careful to distinguish between the union’s view and his own. Here are some of the edited highlights.
Yes said Bob – it is a talking shop but sometimes we need to talk. True but it was one of a rare sort of conference at which there were no documents, no agenda, no time limits on speakers and no clear indication given as to what would happen next.
Labour is an easy target for a verbal kicking and Bob was the first of many speakers to yield to the temptation. Observing that if what now constitutes New Labour were to set itself up as a political party today it would be unlikely to find any trade union in the country to affiliate to it. Its move to the right has left working class people with three neo-liberal parties to vote for. His union was one of those which made the break from the Liberal Party to establish Labour but it is now obvious that it can’t be reformed or reclaimed.
Expressing a personal view Bob said that there now has to be a new working class political party but that he is unwilling to put a figure on how long this may take. Surveying the audience he noted that some of the people in the room had been in and out of more parties than Amy Winehouse (boom boom!). It would have been easy to make a cynical joke at this point but he commented that these have all been attempts to set up a party to represent the working class and were part of the process. He rebutted the idea that simply because these efforts had failed we are unable to do anything in the future.
Still speaking for himself Bob said that what was needed was a people’s charter – something that would set out a list of demands for working class people and could be used to bring politics into people’s homes rather than the BBC / New Labour message that when you lose your job there is nothing you can do about it. On a practical note he quipped that if the left can’t work together on something as modest as a charter it’s unlikely to be able to pull together in a party.
The fiery RMT leader was scathing about Progressive London. He didn’t seem too upset that the union that represents the city’s rail and tube workers was not considered to be sufficiently progressive to get an invite – unlike well known radicals Lembit Opik and Harriet Harman. “I hope they tell the people who go to it that saying that you should cross picket lines isn’t progressive”. Heaven only knows what’s behind that quip.
He closed by saying that it should be possible to generate unity and solidarity by starting to work together around the charter and that this could be a step towards creating a political party.
Next up was the man who has helped redline the profile of the Prison Officers Association Brian Caton. He is still obviously peeved at the chicanery which saw his union’s resolution at TUC calling for a strike defeated and did no try and hide it. Describing himself as a long term Labour Party member he told the audience that he does not intend to be for much longer and that Labour’s response to what is happening in Palestine have turned him against the party more than anything else it has done. He made an unusual statement for a union leader calling for rank and file trade union members to hold their leaders to account.
Brian seemed to throw his weight behind the idea of a new left political formation. Taking as an example the fact that only forty Labour MPs opposed Jack Straw’s decision to restrict still further the rights of POA members he said that it is no longer a workers’ party but that one is needed. As part of this process he will be inviting a range of left parties to speak at a meeting at the POA conference so that delegates can hear what they have to say.
Since one of the points under discussion was the idea of a people’s charter Mary Davis spoke from the top table about the history of the Chartists and that neglected aspect of the revolutionary tradition in Britain.
Brendan Barber (General Secretary of the TUC you’ll be forgiven for forgetting) is a man who rarely rouses strong passions probably even in Mrs Barber. Patrick Sikorski of the RMT seems to have it in for the man he described as “a tea boy made good”. In defence of tea boys I’ve always found them a lot more useful than Barber but Patrick had made the mistake of watching early morning TV, a thing which should make most people cross. Barber’s programme for the defence of the working class is to give the banks more money. Patrick was right to complain about lack of leadership.
The Socialist Party participated in a constructive and positive way. Six or seven times by my reckoning. This is a personal hangup but I have never really understood the need on the British left for several representatives of an organisation to say more or less exactly the same thing over and over again in the space of a couple of hours. It hints at a fear of the spontaneous. Anyway the SP is all for joint work and suggested standing 14 or 15 candidates against the most obnoxious Labour ministers. Dave Nellist pointed out that his organisation, Respect, Michael Lavallette and others have points of support scattered across the country which show that it is possible to have a credible electoral challenge to Labour. He added to this by saying that it would be more attractive if the left candidates were standing under a common name with backing from unions like the RMT.
Biggest surprise of the day for me was to be in agreement with two speakers from Workers Liberty. One of them pointed out that when the BNP stand in elections it’s not enough to say “don’t vote Nazi”. We need to be able to offer something to vote for.
John McDonnell gave a pretty optimistic account of the process which has brought a diverse group of people into a working relationship with each other. The RMT, POA, FBU and PCS have all begun to question the issue of political representation and are working together in a trade union co-ordinating group. In John’s view a process of collaboration and coalition is emerging which may lead to a new political formation. It turns out that this is even under discussion in the Labour Representation Committee. Not unwisely John feels that you have to proceed at the pace at which you can bring the bulk of people with you. He added that the discussion around these issues has become less confrontational and more sophisticated.
Speaking for Respect Nick Wrack agreed with everything that Bob Crow had said. In fact it overlaps with Nick’s article from the current Respect paper. In the face of a major capitalist crisis the left is weaker and more fragmented than ever before. The scale of the electoral challenge it is offering has reduced a lot since 1997. If you cast your mind back you’ll remember that the Socialist Alliance stood 90+ candidates. Nick said forcefully (he’s still trying to get the hang of “subtly”) that he would like to be in the same party as John McDonnell, Dave Nellist and Bob Crow because for him the most important thing is to have an organisation that fights capitalism. A condition for this is developing a strategy for fighting and putting the minor differences to one side. There are European elections coming up later this year and at the moment there is not a left challenge. We should try to have one and we should try to have a joint left slate in the next general election. This process could be helped by leaders of the PCS,RMT and FBU calling a conference on working class political representation. In
the meantime the charter is what we choose to make of it as a thing for making propaganda against capitalism and organising activity.
Other important elements of the discussion included things like the use of direct action to defend working class people. John McDonnell feels that this will become increasingly important in coming months. An axis of debate was the connection between a new party and levels of struggle in society and the working class. Crudely put some felt that we need to get cracking with the job of putting the framework for a party in place, others felt that the priority is to rebuild class consciousness and levels of struggle as a precondition for a new organisation.
The conference’s weaknesses were those of the British left and unions in early 2009. My judgement was that there was much to be positive about. The dialogue between the strands of opinion present was friendly, open minded and unpolemical. An awareness that there is a huge capitalist crisis to which the left’s response has not been good seems to have focused the concentration of many in Respect, The Socialist Party and other organisations. The new ingredient in the mix is that some union leaderships are now starting to engage with the process.
Liam redux 
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