Old Ghosts
I wrote the following 'comment' piece for the Guardian newspaper - almost ten years ago now.
As I recall I timed the article to coincide with the TUC Congress 2002 - which is held at the beginning of September each year.
I made the arrangement with the deputy editor of the comment pages - a woman journalist whose name I forget now.
But the day before the piece was due to be published - she called to let me know that it wouldn't be appearing after all.
The article had been pulled by the editor of the comment pages - a dreary old 'leftie' named Seamus Milne - who still writes for the paper to this day.
Ten years on I have to laugh at what has become of these tribunes of the people - including one Derek Simpson and his left wing chums - not to mention Derek's £500,000 'golden goodbye'.
Old Ghosts and the New ‘Left’
As the TUC gathers for its annual congress in Blackpool, all the signs suggest that the trade union movement is on the march again, only this time the brothers are led by a more militant breed of general secretary, one less inclined to cuddle up to old chums in the Labour Party.
Derek Simpson of Amicus, is the latest ‘left wing’ leader to join Mick Rix (Aslef), Bob Crow (RMT), Billy Hayes (CWU) and Mark Serwotka (PCS), determined to put the interests of union members first. Not before time, some would say, as the labour movement has too proud a history simply to end up as lickspittles for the Labour Party.
Unions may be marching to a different drum, but comparisons with the 1970’s are overblown. For much of its history, communists provided the intellectual and organisational strength of the British trade union movement. In the 70’s, Marxism was the driving force and provided the ideological cement for those convinced that socialism and state intervention would triumph ultimately over capitalism and competition.
Different parties and groups vied for supremacy of the labour movement, some inside the Labour Party and others outside, splits and schisms were common. Communists tended to punch well above their weight through well-known figures like Scottish miners’ leader Michael McGahey, before the Communist Party of Great Britain split into two main factions.
The Euro communists (the new left) favoured modernisation and a more inclusive style of politics: emphasising individual as well as collective rights, one member one vote (OMOV) and democratic alliances built on popular public support. In the opposite corner, the Stalinists or Tankies believed that trade unions and the organised working class were the key to change: an industrial vanguard with the muscle to lead the masses down a British road to socialism.
A number of Trotskyite groups such as Militant, SWP (Socialist Workers Party) and the IMG (International Marxist Group) were prominent as well, especially during strikes and disputes, but the traditional ‘left’ despised and regarded them as undisciplined, dangerous adventurers.
Arguably, the most powerful group were a handful of right-wing union barons: old-fashioned power brokers not political ideologues; Labour loyalists from the engineering, electricians and GMB unions provided the backbone of resistance to the ‘left’. Resolutely anti-communist, anti-Trot and anti-Marxist, they rescued Labour leaders time and again by using their block votes at TUC and Labour conferences.
Out of this incredible melting pot comes today’s union movement. Thirty years on militancy is on the rise, but in the intervening period UK politics have changed beyond recognition, and for the very simple reason that 1970’s style socialism is as dead as a Dodo.
Two unrelated but cathartic events settled things conclusively. First, the miners’ strike of 1984/85 proved that industrial muscle, on its own, was no match for the forces of the state. Second, the economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union, in the late 1980’s precipitated by Mikhail Gorbachev’s democratic reforms: glasnost and perestroika.
The miners’ strike showed the limits on union power in a modern democracy, and the Soviet Union’s demise confirmed the hegemony of global capitalism. In both cases, the traditional left was dealt a savage blow from which it never recovered: the notion of informed consent triumphed and with it the importance of winning the hearts and minds of people as individuals. The political initiative passed to the Euro communists whose analysis paved the way for New Labour.
So, most modern union leaders are ‘leftwing’ in a relative sense only, the result of Labour’s conversion to social democracy under Tony Blair. Anyone waiting for Gordon Brown to restore the old order had better not hold their breath. The Iron Chancellor is the high priest of New Labour’s economic policy: market forces and private finance are king and no one in the Labour Party is making a coherent case to the contrary.
Instead of socialism, New Labour’s big idea is capitalism with a human face and the odd dash of social justice thrown in for good measure. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are both closer politically to American Democrats like Bill Clinton and Al Gore, than Labour leaders of yesteryear. New Labour is the real deal and there’s no going back under Gordon Brown, or anyone else.
The old ‘left’ has all but disappeared, even old ‘right-wing’ Labour loyalists like Roy Hattersly have been transformed into ‘lefties’ by simply standing still, politically speaking. So too, have many union leaders: suddenly old-fashioned power brokers like the GMB’s John Edmonds are on the left because the union world has turned upside down.
Yet, when it comes to telling a democratically elected government how to run the country, the unions have an enormous credibility gap, oblivious seemingly to a glaring democratic deficit: typically 10% or so of union members bother to vote in union leadership elections. Union leaders facing election have every reason to escalate disputes into angry confrontations, but industrial action is no way to rebuild vital public services: desperate, vulnerable people will be the victims if the FBU and fire fighters decide to strike.
Trade unions portray themselves as modern, democratic organisations reflecting the diversity of their members. And so they should be: 99% of trade unionists are not members of any political party and vote broadly the same way as the rest of the population. Yet, in their role as equal opportunity employers, trade unions routinely discriminate against fellow Scots despite the proud claim that we’re all Jock Tamson’s Bairns.
In the new Scotland something remarkable has happened: unions have become Labour-only closed-shops. Important public institutions, partners in devolution, yet the movement can’t produce one non-Labour figure of any standing: the SNP, Scottish Socialists, Greens and even Labour’s Lib Dem coalition partners are completely absent from its commissioned ranks.
Scotland’s Parliament is a mixed economy of political views and representation: why not the unions? Just when fresh thinking and new blood is required, the unions are overrun with uninspiring clones and greasy pole climbers. And the return of the left does not necessarily herald radical and innovative thinking about the nature of union democracy.
Ironically, a Tory government was responsible for the last big leap forward in modern union democracy, imposing compulsory pre-strike ballots and leadership elections in the 1980’s. At that time, left and right wing unions stuck their heads in the sand and a hostile government was allowed to portray itself as standing up for the rights of ordinary members.
The recent success of the union ‘left’ is a part of a backlash against New Labour. Observers across the political spectrum are entitled to a brief moment of Schadenfreude at the sight of the elderly relatives finally taking their revenge. But the real issue is what lessons have been learned, if any, about representing the views of ordinary members?
The new kids on the block dislike the present Labour leadership, regarding themselves as proper or real socialists. Maybe they are, but despite the fact that few ordinary union members share such views, left and right union bosses continue to use them, equally ruthlessly, as cannon fodder in the fight for control of the Labour Party.
So far, the new left just look like old ghosts from the past.
Mark A. Irvine
September 2002
