http://themilitant.com/2015/7936/793657.html
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Vol. 79/No. 36 October 12, 2015
Do workers gain from Corbyn
election to head Labour Party?
BY PETE CLIFFORD
MANCHESTER, England — Jeremy Corbyn, a Labour Party Member of Parliament
since 1983 who is well known for what the media calls his “hard left”
views, was elected party leader Sept. 12. Corbyn won 59 percent of the
422,000 votes cast, including the overwhelming bulk of 105,000 newly
registered party supporters who paid £3 ($5) to be able to vote.
In the context of the growing capitalist depression on a world scale and
spreading political instability, Corbyn’s campaign — originally given a
200-to-1 chance of victory by bookmakers — was a reflection of the same
pressures that have produced the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign in
the U.S. and the emergence of leftist political parties like Syriza in
Greece and Podemos in Spain.
The Labour Party was born out of hard-fought class battles at the
beginning of the 20th century. Although the party’s program urged reform
of capitalism’s excesses, its establishment meant that workers, who
previously could only abstain or vote for the parties run directly by
the capitalists — the Liberals and Conservatives — were able to cast a
class vote.
Over the last quarter century, under the impact of blows against working
people and the refusal of the pro-imperialist union leadership to mount
any sustained resistance, Labour has been transformed from a class-based
party to a left-of-center capitalist party, much like the Democrats in
the United States. The election of Corbyn does nothing to change this.
The weight of rank-and-file workers has declined substantially. In 1994,
800,000 affiliated union members voted in the party leadership election.
In 2010 the number was 270,000. This time it was only 71,546.
During the 1990s, Labour Prime Minister Anthony Blair fought to weaken
the weight of trade union leaders in party affairs and push it to the
center in capitalist politics, rebranding it the “New Labour.” He
bolstered the “special relationship” with Washington, including through
massive participation of U.K. armed forces in the Iraq war. Blair’s
course led many individual members to leave the party.
In the course of Corbyn’s campaign, thousands rejoined and new
supporters signed up. Among them were younger people, attracted to his
radical history and verbiage, his pledge of “straight-talking, honest
politics” and record of clashes with Labour’s leadership. Corbyn also
won backing from the officialdom of the main trade unions, who had felt
marginalized.
The decline of the U.K.’s economic and political influence, the
increasing coming apart of the European Union, and the lack of any
meaningful recovery for working people have fueled disenchantment with
the main capitalist parties and interest in both left- and right-wing
radicals.
Corbyn is “the left-wing equivalent of Nigel Farage,” wrote Melanie
Phillips in the London Times. They are both “part of a Europe-wide
revolt against an entire political establishment.” Farage is leader of
the populist UK Independence Party that secured 4 million votes in the
May election. Another precursor to Corbyn was the landslide victory in
Scotland for the Scottish National Party, taking 40 seats from Labour.
In his acceptance speech, Corbyn said his victory reflected that people
were “fed up” with inequality, injustice and poverty. The party reports
that more than 50,000 people have joined since Corbyn’s election.
Corbyn’s platform centers on relaxing government austerity by using the
state to provide stimulus and jobs, opposing NATO membership and use of
British forces in Syria or elsewhere, and an end to Trident, London’s
nuclear-armed submarine program. He told the Labour conference Sept. 29
that he was for “a kinder politics and a more caring society.”
Corbyn is a leader of what’s called the Socialist Campaign Group of
Labour MPs, but went to great length during the campaign to avoid the
word “socialist.” In an interview on the BBC he described Karl Marx as a
“fascinating” philosopher.
“The Labour Party is now a threat to our national security, our economic
security and your family’s security,” Prime Minister and Conservative
Party leader David Cameron said after Corbyn’s victory, sounding themes
sure to mark future election contests. This opinion was echoed by a
number of Labour Party figures who fear losses are coming.
In contrast to the way the union officialdom and radical groups have
responded, Corbyn’s campaign generated little excitement among
rank-and-file workers. Less than half of the 148,000 union members
entitled to vote did so, with just 41,000 voting for Corbyn.
Lee Wallace, a union shop steward at the Tulip pork factory in Ashton,
Manchester, told the Militant he supports Corbyn because “he wants to
return to the founding principles of the Labour Party.”
Tyrone Smart at the same factory expressed a much more prevalent view
among workers. “Labour is not the party it was. It’s no longer for the
working classes,” he said. “It’s hard to see a difference with the
Conservatives.”
Corbyn’s program has nothing to do with a challenge to capitalist rule.
What he calls a “strategy to grow the economy” through “a people’s
quantitative easing” to boost house-building and other infrastructure
projects has backing across a wide spectrum.
“The accusation is widely made that Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters
have moved to the extreme left on economic policy. But this is not
supported by the candidate’s statements or policies,” said an Aug. 23
letter to the Guardian signed by 42 economists. “His opposition to
austerity is actually mainstream economics, even backed by the
conservative IMF [International Monetary Fund]. He aims to boost growth
and prosperity.” Signers ran from David Blanchflower, a former member of
the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, to a number of
self-proclaimed “Marxists.”
Related articles:
CL candidate in Calais: Workers need labor party
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