Tag Archives: Clause 4

Clause 4, Conference 2019

Out with the new, in with the old

David Sherriff says that, while it is right to vote for the old Fabian clause, the task of Marxists must be to win the Labour Party to Marxist socialism

Clause four – rewritten under Tony Blair in 1995 – carries a totemic status for partisans both of the right and left. But while it is correct to support the rule change proposed by Rochford, Southend East, Doncaster Central and Wallasey (which would reinstate the old Fabian 1918 clause four), we need to be far bolder, far more radical about our vision for the future.

Strangely the moving spirit behind the restoration of the old clause four is Socialist Appeal, the British section of the International Marxist Tendency. Its Labour4Clause4 campaign has garnered support from the likes of Ken Loach, the leftwing film director and MPs Karen Lee, Dennis Skinner, Ian Mearns, Chris Williamson, Dan Carden and Ronnie Campbell. Alongside them there are like-minded trade union leaders such as Steve Gillan of the POA, Ian Hodson and Ronnie Draper of the bakers’ union, and Mick Cash and Steve Hedley of RMT.

A bit of history

Our February 1918 conference agreed a new constitution. Clause four (objects) committed the Labour Party to these aims (subsequently amended in 1959):

  1. To organise and maintain in parliament and in the country a political Labour Party.
  2. To cooperate with the general council of the Trades Union Congress, or other kindred organisations, in joint political or other action in harmony with the party constitution and standing orders.
  3. To give effect as far as possible to the principles from time to time approved by the party conference.
  4. To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.
  5. Generally to promote the political, social and economic emancipation of the people, and more particularly of those who depend directly upon their own exertions by hand or by brain for the means of life.
  6. To cooperate with the labour and socialist organisations in the commonwealth overseas with a view to promoting the purposes of the party, and to take common action for the promotion of a higher standard of social and economic life for the working population of the respective countries.
  7. To cooperate with the labour and socialist organisations in other countries and to support the United Nations and its various agencies and other international organisations for the promotion of peace, the adjustment and settlement of international disputes by conciliation or judicial arbitration, the establishment and defence of human rights, and the improvement of the social and economic standards and conditions of work of the people of the world.

These formulations – crucially the fourth – are too often celebrated as being a defining socialist moment. Yet, when first mooted in November 1917 – amidst the slaughter of inter-imperialist war – Sidney Webb, its principle author, Fabian guru and social climber – had no thought, no wish, no intention of promoting genuine socialism. Parliament, the courts, enlightened civil servants and the liberal intelligentsia provided his road to a reformed British empire. Webb wanted a government of magnanimous experts whose decisions would be no more than ratified in elections: even referendums were ruled out as impeding the will of the educated elite.

Top leaders of the Fabian Society – eg, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Annie Besant, Sydney Olivier, HG Wells and George Bernard Shaw – considered themselves social engineers of the highest order, intellectual princes, prophets of the future. The role of these ever so clever people was to slowly, patiently, courteously persuade the great and the good of the benefits of ‘socialism’ … hence their organisation’s chosen name (taken from Quintus Fabius, the Roman general who avoided pitched battles with Hannibal’s superior Carthaginian army and instead pursued a strategy of attrition).

No surprise, Marxists have long considered Fabianism to be the crassest expression of opportunism. Fredrick Engels showed particular contempt for this “well-meaning gang of eddicated middle class folk.”[1] True, he credited them with enough wit to realise the “inevitability of the social revolution.” But the Fabians could not possibly entrust this “gigantic task to the raw proletariat alone.” Engels concluded that “[f]ear of revolution is their guiding principle.”[2]

The real class war was denounced by the Fabian ladies and gentlemen. The underlying social contradiction in society, according to them, was not between labour and capital, but the idle rich and the industrious masses … of all classes. Managers and entrepreneurs provide an invaluable service to society. As long as they honestly paid their taxes, fat profits and fat salaries are fully justified. In other words original Fabianism amounted to nothing more than a form of bourgeois socialism.

The Fabian Society was not only elitist. Their leaders were thorough-going eugenicists too. Friedrich Nietzsche provided a warped inspiration. HG Wells urged the death penalty for those suffering from “genetically transferable diseases”. Defective men, women and children were to be dealt with by the means of a “lethal chamber”.[3]

As for the “swarms of black, and brown, and dirty white and yellow people” who did not match his criteria of intelligence and efficiency: “they will have to go”. It is their “portion to die out and disappear”.[4] With that noble end in mind Shaw demanded that “[e]xtermnation must be put on a scientific basis if it is ever to be carried out humanely and apologetically and well as thoroughly”.[5] Meanwhile, the working class was to be lifted out of their ignorance. The more stubborn sections herded into “human sorting houses” to be trained for work. Those who refused would be packed off to semi-penal detention colonies.

The Fabians were committed pro-imperialists too. According to their Fabianism and empire (1900) tract, Britain needed to get its fair share of the spoils from the division of the world:

The partition of the greater part of the globe among such [great] powers is, as a matter of fact that must be faced, approvingly or deploringly, now only a question of time; and whether England [sic] is to be the centre and nucleus of one of those great powers of the future, or to be cast off by its colonies, ousted from its provinces, and reduced to its old island status, will depend on the ability with which the empire is governed as a whole, and the freedom of its governments and its officials from complicity in private financial interests and from the passions of the newspaper correspondents who describe our enemies as ‘beasts.’[6]

Fabian socialism valued politeness and good manners on all occasions, even in the midst of a voracious imperialist war of conquest. Over the years 1899-1902, as good patriots, the Fabians backed Britain’s war against the Boer republics: the “native races” must be “protected despotically by the empire or abandoned to slavery and extermination.”[7]

The British empire was portrayed as a benevolent bringer of democracy to the white dominions and a saviour of the ‘lower breeds’. The best interests of ‘black, brown and yellow’ peoples lay in being ruled over by young men fresh out from Britain’s public schools. Under their guiding hand they would eventually be led to “adulthood.”[8]

Interestingly, as an aside, the Fabians thought that the South African war demonstrated the “superiority of a militia” system over the professional army.[9] An idea that much of the contemporary left refuses even to contemplate.

Naturally, come the 1914-18 great war, the Fabians did their best to serve the imperial cause. Europe had to be saved from the Junkers and Prussian militarism.

However, as the war dragged on and the corpses piled up, any initial popular enthusiasm turned into discontent. The February 1917 revolution in Russia galvanised the hopes of many. Workers, including those in the munitions industry, took strike action. Demands for a negotiated peace grew and amongst sections of the ruling class there were serious worries that Britain stood on the edge of revolution. Reports came of mutinies in army base camps and the killing of military policemen. June 1917 saw a big labour movement conference in Leeds. Famously delegates called for a national network of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviets on the model of Russia. Then came the October Revolution which shook the whole capitalist world to its very foundations. Bourgeois politicians rushed to make concessions. Hence, Sidney Webb and the drafting of clause four.

By cynical calculation he had three goals in mind.

Firstly, his clause four socialism could be used to divert the considerable rank-and-file sympathy that existed for the Russian Revolution into safe, peaceful and exclusively constitutional channels. Not that that stopped prime minister David Lloyd George from declaring, in his closing speech of the 1918 general election campaign, that the “Labour Party is being run by the extreme pacifist Bolshevik group”.[10]

Secondly, by adopting clause four socialism, the Labour Party could both distinguish itself from the exhausted, divided and rapidly declining Liberal Party and please the trade union bureaucracy. Since the 1890s the TUC had been drawing up various wish lists of what ought to be nationalised: eg, rails, mines, electricity, liquor and land. Clause four socialism also usefully went along with the grain of Britain’s wartime experience. There was steadily expanding state intervention in the economy. Nationalisation was, as a result, widely identified with efficiency, modernisation and beating the Austro-German foe. It therefore appealed to technocratically minded elements amongst the middle classes.

Thirdly, clause four socialism had to be implicitly anti-Marxist. Webb well knew the history of the Social Democratic Party in Germany. And, of course, Karl Marx savaged various passages in its Gotha programme (1875), not least those which declared that every worker should receive a “fair distribution of their proceeds of labour” and that “the proceeds of labour belong undiminished with equal right to all members of society”.[11]

Contradictory and vacuous, seethed Marx. What is fair? What about replacement means of production? What about the expansion of production? What about those unable to work? More than that, Marx explained these and other such woolly formulations as unneeded concessions to the followers of Ferdinand Lassalle. His Workers’ programme (1862) called for “an equal right to the undiminished proceeds of labour”. Obviously Webb wanted to give clause four a distinct Lassallean coloration not out of admiration for Lassalle, but because he wanted to distance the Labour Party from Marxism.

Red ribbon

Almost needless to say, clause four was mainly for show. A red ribbon tied around what was Labourism’s standing programme of social liberalism. In parliament Labour supported Liberal governments and their palliative measures of social reform. Because of its alliance with the Liberal Party, the party even found itself divided over the abolition of the House of Lords and the fight for female suffrage. While a minority – eg, George Lansbury and Keir Hardie – defended the suffragettes and their militant tactics, the majority craved respectability. As Ramsay MacDonald wrote, “The violent methods … are wrong, and in their nature reactionary and anti-social, quite irrespective of vote or no vote.”[12]

Yet, even if it had been put into effect, clause four socialism remains antithetical to working class self-liberation. Capitalism without capitalists does not count amongst our goals. Railways, mines, land, electricity, etc, would pass into the hands of the British empire state.

Capitalist owners might well be bought out – eased into a comfortable retirement. But, as they vacate the field of production, a new class of state-appointed managers and supervisors enters the fray. In terms of the division of labour, they substitute for the capitalists. The mass of the population, meanwhile, remain exploited wage-slaves. They would be subject to same hierarchal chain of command, the same lack of control, the same mind-numbing routine.

Marxism, by contrast, is based on an altogether different perspective. If it is to win its freedom the working class must overthrow the existing state. But – and this is crucial – in so doing the proletariat “abolishes itself as a proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and antagonisms, abolishes also the state as state”.[13]

Capitalist relations of production and the whole bureaucratic state apparatus are swept away. Every sphere of social life sees control exercised from below. All positions of command are elected or chosen by lot and are regularly rotated. Hierarchy is flattened. Alienation is overcome. What is produced and how it is produced radically alters too. Need, not exchange, is the ruling principle. And alone such an association of producers creates the benign conditions which allow for the full development of each and every individual.

Doubtless, the old 1918 clause four resulted from progressive political developments. Opposition to the horrors of World War I and the inspiration provided by the October Revolution have already been mentioned. But there is also the formation of the Socialist International, the world-wide celebration of May Day, the considerable influence of the socialist press, the increased size of trade union membership, the formation of the shop stewards movement and the election of a growing body of Labour MPs. Then there was state intervention and regulation of the economy. Capitalism was widely considered abhorrent, outmoded and doomed. Socialism more and more became the common sense of the organised working class.

By contrast, Fabian socialism meant arguing against unconstitutional methods, slowly expanding the provision of social welfare and persuading all classes of the benefits that would come to the nation, if the commanding heights of the economy were put in state hands. In other words, the Fabians consciously sought to ameliorate the mounting contradictions between labour and capital … and thus put off socialism. Rightly, Lenin denounced Fabianism as the “most consummate expression of opportunism.”[14] And, needless to say, the years 1918-20 witnessed colonial uprisings abroad and a massive strike wave at home.

Revealingly, before 1918, attempts to commit the Labour Party to socialism met with mixed success. The 1900 founding conference rejected the “class war” ultimatum tabled by the Social Democratic Federation.[15] Despite that, conference voted to support the “socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange”. The next year a socialistic motion moved by Bruce Glasier was defeated. In 1903 another socialistic motion fell, this time without debate. Two years later conference passed a motion with the exact same wording. In 1907 the previous endorsement of socialism was overturned at the prompting of … Bruce Glasier. The same conference agreed to set the goal of “socialising the means of production, distribution and exchange”.[16]

The explanation for the seesawing doubtless lies with electoral calculation. While most in the party leadership considered themselves socialists of a kind, they were mortally afraid of losing out in the polls. What appeared acceptable to likely voters – in other words, the popular press – set their limits. So, instead of fearlessly presenting a bold socialist vision and building support on that basis, Sidney Webb, Arthur Henderson, Ramsay MacDonald and co, chased the vagaries of popularity. With the growth of militancy and radicalism, socialist declarations were considered a sure way of adding to Labour’s ranks in parliament.[17] Forming a government being both a means and an end.

Accept

Nevertheless, the Blairising of clause four in 1995 was hugely symbolic – the ground having been laid by the Eurocommunists and their Marxism Today journal. Socialism was declared dead and buried, the working class a shrinking minority. Only if Labour accepted capitalism and reached out to the middle classes would it have a future. Neil Kinnock, John Smith and finally Tony Blair dragged the party ever further to the right. Out went the commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament, out went the commitment to comprehensive education, out went the commitment to full employment, out went the commitment to repeal the Tories’ anti-trade union laws, out went the commitment to “the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange”.

By sacrificing the old clause four in the full glare of publicity, Blair and his New Labour clique sought to appease the establishment, the City, the Murdoch empire, the global plutocracy. Capitalism would be absolutely safe in their hands. A New Labour government could be relied upon to not even pay lip service to a British version of state capitalism. Leftwingers such as Tony Benn, Dennis Skinner, Diane Abbott and Ken Livingstone protested, trade union leaders grumbled, but the April 1995 special conference voted by 65% in favour of Blair’s clause four.

Needless to say, his version is stuffed full of managerial guff and classless nonsense. Just what one would expect from the architect of New Labour. After all, one of Blair’s big ideas was to replace ‘socialism’ with ‘social-ism’. Another was communitarianism. But, of course, the media glowed with admiration. Crucially, Rupert Murdoch agreed to unleash his attack dogs. Within a few months John Major was almost universally derided as a total incompetent, heading a sleaze-mired government.

Riding high in the opinion polls Blair inaugurated a series of internal ‘reforms’. Conference was gutted. No longer could it debate issues, vote on policy or embarrass the leadership in front of the media. Instead the whole thing became a rubber-stamping exercise. Then there were the tightly controlled policy forums, focus groups and the staffing of the party machine with eager young careerists (most on temporary contracts). Blair thereby asserted himself over the national executive committee … considerably reducing its effectiveness in the process.

Calls for a return of the old clause four are perfectly understandable. But having done that, we need to persuade members to adopt something far more radical. This is the formulation championed by LPM.

  1. Labour is the federal party of the working class. We strive to bring all trade unions, cooperatives, socialist societies and leftwing groups and parties under our banner. We believe that unity brings strength.
  2. Labour is committed to replacing the rule of capital with the rule of the working class. Socialism introduces a democratically planned economy, ends the ecologically ruinous cycle of production for the sake of production and moves towards a stateless, classless, moneyless society that embodies the principle, “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”. Alone such benign conditions create the possibility of every individual fully realising their innate potentialities.
  3. Towards that end Labour commits itself to achieving a democratic republic. The standing army, the monarchy, the House of Lords and the state sponsorship of the Church of England must go. We support a single-chamber parliament, proportional representation and annual elections.
  4. Labour seeks to win the active backing of the majority of people and forming a government on this basis.
  5. We shall work with others, in particular in the European Union, in pursuit of the aim of replacing capitalism with working class rule and socialism.

Reclaiming

Real Marxists, not fake Marxists, have never talked of reclaiming Labour. It has never been ours in the sense of being a “political weapon for the workers’ movement”. No, despite the electoral base and trade union affiliations, the Labour Party has been dominated by career politicians and trade union bureaucrats: a distinct social stratum, which in the last analysis serves not the interests of the working class, but the continuation of capitalist exploitation.

Speaking in the context of the need for the newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain to affiliate to the Labour Party, Lenin said this:

… whether or not a party is really a political party of the workers does not depend solely upon a membership of workers, but also upon the men that lead it, and the content of its actions and its political tactics. Only this latter determines whether we really have before us a political party of the proletariat.

Regarded from this – the only correct – point of view, the Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, because, although made up of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that, who act quite in the spirit of the bourgeoisie. It is an organisation of the bourgeoisie, which exists to systematically dupe the workers with the aid of the British Noskes and Scheidemanns [the German social chauvinist murderers of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht – JM].[18]

Despite all the subsequent changes, this assessment remains true. Labour is still a “bourgeois workers’ party”. Of course, once Corbyn was formally announced leader of the Labour Party, on September 12 2015, things became more complex. Labour became a chimera. Instead of a twofold contradiction, we have a threefold contradiction. The left dominates both the top and bottom of the party.

Corbyn is not the equivalent of George Lansbury or Michael Foot – an elementary mistake. They were promoted by the labour and trade union bureaucracy after a severe crisis: namely Ramsay MacDonald’s treachery and James Callaghan’s winter of discontent. Corbyn’s leadership is, in the first instance, the result of an historic accident. The ‘morons’ from the Parliamentary Labour Party lent him their nomination. After that, however, Corbyn owes everything to the mass membership.

That gives us the possibility of attacking the rightwing domination of the middle – not least the councillors and Parliamentary Labour Party – from below and above. No wonder the more astute minds of the bourgeois commentariat can be found expressing profound concern over the prospects of Labour being dominated by leftwing socialists, militant trade unions and Marxists.

Not that Jeremy Corbyn is a Marxist. Politically, he is a run-of-the-mill left reformist, albeit a left reformist with an enduring commitment to workers involved in economic struggles, campaigners for democratic rights and liberation movements in the so-called third world. Inevitably, not least given his Straight Leftist advisors, he is more than prone to compromise with the PLP right and trade union bureaucracy. Indeed his strategy amounts to seeking out allies on the soft right, while attempting to neutralise the hard right. He fears going to war against the right. He therefore seeks to hold back rank and file self-activity against the right. The ‘big idea’ is to concentrate on bread and butter issues, ie, ending austerity.

The result can only but be a series of rotten decisions. We have already seen the tacit backing of Jon Lansman’s bonapartist coup in Momentum, the retreat over Trident renewal and the disgraceful silence that reigns over the ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt.

In other words, it would be fatal for the leftwing majority at a grassroots level to content itself with playing a support role for Corbyn. No, the left needs to fight for its own aims and its own principles

[1].  K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 48, London 2001, p449.

[2].  K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 50, New York 2004, p83.

[3].  D Stone Breeding superman Liverpool 2002, p115.

[4].  HG Wells Anticipations of the reaction of mechanical and scientific progress upon human life and scientific thought London 1902, p317. See – https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19229/19229-h/19229-h.htm.

[5].  GB Shaw quoted in J Carey The intellectuals and the masses London 1992, p63.

[6].  https://archive.org/stream/fabianismempirem00shawuoft/fabianismempirem00shawuoft_djvu.txt.

[7].  https://archive.org/stream/fabianismempirem00shawuoft/fabianismempirem00shawuoft_djvu.txt.

[8].  G Foote The Labour Party’s political thought London 1985, p29-30.

[9].  AM McBriar Fabian socialism and English politics: 1884-1918, Cambridge 1962, p130.

[10].  Quoted in R Miliband Parliamentary socialism London 1973, p64n.

[11].  K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 24, London 1989, p83.

[12].  Socialist Review August 1912 – quoted in R Miliband Parliamentary socialism London 1973, p25n.

[13].  K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 25, London 1987, p267.

[14].  VI Lenin CW Vol 21 Moscow 1977, p261.

[15].  Though it had two guaranteed seats on the LRC’s leading body, the Social Democratic Federation disaffiliated in August 1901.

[16].  See RT McKenzie British political parties London 1963, pp465-71.

[17].  Labour gained 15 seats in the December 1918 general election, making it the fourth largest party in parliament after Bonar Law’s Tories, Lloyd George’s Coalition Liberals and Sinn Féin. It had a total of 57 MPs.

[18].  VI Lenin CW Vol 31, Moscow 1977, pp257-58.

 

Conference 2019, Labour Party conference, Red Pages

Red Pages: Sunday, September 22 2019

SUNDAY 2019 PDFClick to download today’s issue in PDF version here.

How to get rid of Tom Watson
With his much-publicised motion to abolish the position of deputy leader, Momentum’s owner Jon Lansman was trying to pose left – but don’t be fooled

Abolish all private schools?
This demand is not as radical as it sounds – what about, say, those run by cooperatives? Those that are based on a working class, socialist vision of society?

Debate over Clause four: Fight for real socialism!
Despite the fact that the rule change fell far short of what is required, we urged for a vote for it, against the Blairisation of the Labour Party. Sadly, Labour’s NEC kicked the issue into the long grass.

Fast-track expulsions will make the anti-Semitism witchhunt worse
Although a majority of CLP representatives yesterday voted AGAINST a further tightening of Labour’s disciplinary system, the rule change from the NEC was accepted because the affiliates overwhelmingly voted in favour. This will make the witch-hunt much, much worse.

Conference 2019, Democracy and the Labour Party

Clause four: Fight for real socialism!

Clause four, rewritten under Tony Blair in 1995, carries a totemic status for both the right and left. Therefore it was correct to support the rule change that would have reinstated the old Fabian 1918 clause four, striking a blow against the Blairite right. The NEC, however, sensing that this might well have gotten a majority, suggested to set up a ‘working group’ instead – a recipe to kick the issue into the long grass, of course. Jim Kennedy, chair of the Organisation Committee, told the movers: “Rest assured, your voices will be heard” – while telling delegates to vote against. The rule change was supported by a slim majority of CLP delegates (56%), but as over 99% of affiliates (union and socialist societies) voted against, the constitutional amendment fell.

The rule change by Rochford and Southend East, Doncaster Central, and Wallasey (and inspired by Socialist Appeal) falls far short of what is required – leaving most of the existing clause four untouched. For instance, it upholds the current international order by talking about how Labour is “committed to the defence and security of the British people” and “cooperating in European institutions, the United Nations, the Commonwealth and other international bodies” (presumably including Nato).

Frankly, we need to be far more radical about our vision for the future. The old Fabian clause formulations, especially the crucial fourth – “to secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry” – are too often celebrated as being a defining socialist moment. Yet, when first mooted in November 1917 – amidst the slaughter of inter-imperialist war – Sidney Webb, its principle author, had no thought of promoting genuine socialism. He wanted a government of experts, elections existing merely to ratify their enlightened decisions.
Top leaders of the Fabian Society, including HG Wells and George Bernard Shaw, considered themselves social engineers of the highest order. The role of these very clever people was to slowly and courteously persuade the great and the good of the benefits of ‘socialism’.

Naturally, Marxists have always opposed Fabianism. Fredrick Engels showed particular contempt for this “well-meaning gang of eddicated middle class folk”. For them, Engels concluded, “fear of revolution is their guiding principle.”

The working class was to be lifted out of their ignorance – with the unruly sections herded into “human sorting houses” to be trained for work. The Fabians were also ardently pro-imperialists. The British empire was portrayed as a benevolent bringer of democracy and a saviour of the ‘lower breeds’. Naturally, come the 1914-18 great war, the Fabians did their best to serve the imperial cause. Europe had to be saved from the Junkers and Prussian militarism.

But then the October Revolution shook the whole capitalist world to its very foundations. Bourgeois politicians rushed to make concessions. Hence, Sidney Webb cynically calculated that his clause four socialism could be used to divert the considerable rank-and-file sympathy that existed for the Russian Revolution into safe and peaceful constitutional channels. Obviously, clause four socialism had to be implicitly anti-Marxist: the Fabians consciously sought to ameliorate the mounting contradictions between labour and capital … and thus put off socialism.

Nevertheless, the Blairising of clause four in 1995 was hugely symbolic. Socialism was declared dead. By sacrificing the old clause four in the full glare of publicity, Blair and his clique sought to appease the establishment, the City, the Murdoch empire, the global plutocracy. Capitalism would be absolutely safe in their hands.

Riding high in the opinion polls, Blair inaugurated a series of internal ‘reforms’. Conference was gutted. No longer could it debate issues, vote on policy or embarrass the leadership in front of the media. Instead the whole thing became a revolting rubber-stamping exercise.

Demands for a return of the old clause four are perfectly understandable. But why go back to a Fabian past? Instead we should persuade members and affiliates to take up LPM’s implicitly Marxist alternative:

Objectives

1. Labour is the federal party of the working class. We strive to bring all trade unions, cooperatives, socialist societies and leftwing groups and parties under our banner. We believe that unity brings strength.

2. Labour is committed to replacing the rule of capital with the rule of the working class. Socialism introduces a democratically planned economy, ends the ecologically ruinous cycle of production for the sake of production and moves towards a stateless, classless, moneyless society that embodies the principle, “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”. Alone such benign conditions create the possibility for every individual to fully realise their innate potentialities.

3. Towards that end Labour commits itself to achieving a democratic republic. The standing army, the monarchy, the House of Lords and the state sponsorship of the Church of England must go. We support a single- chamber parliament, proportional representation and annual elections.

4. Labour seeks to win the active backing of the majority of people and form a government on this basis.

5. We shall work with others, in particular in the European Union, in pursuit of the aim of replacing capitalism with working class rule and socialism.
__________

Original agreed in 1918 and subsequently amended in 1959

Objects

1. To organise and maintain in parliament and in the country a political Labour Party.

2. To cooperate with the general council of the Trades Union Congress, or other kindred organisations, in joint political or other action in harmony with the party constitution and standing orders.

3. To give effect as far as possible to the principles from time to time approved by the party conference.

4. To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

5. Generally to promote the political, social and economic emancipation of the people, and more particularly of those who depend directly upon their own exertions by hand or by brain for the means of life.

6. To cooperate with the labour and socialist organisations in the commonwealth overseas with a view to promoting the purposes of the party, and to take common action for the promotion of a higher standard of social and economic life for the working population of the respective countries.

7. To cooperate with the labour and socialist organisations in other countries and to support the United Nations and its various agencies and other international organisations for the promotion of peace, the adjustment and settlement of international disputes by conciliation or judicial arbitration, the establishment and defence of human rights, and the improvement of the social and economic standards and conditions of work of the people of the world.
__________

Blairite version agreed in 1995

Aims and values

1. The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that, by the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we achieve alone so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.

2. To these ends we work for:
* a dynamic economy, serving the public interest, in which the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition are joined with the forces of partnership and cooperation to produce the wealth the nation needs and the opportunity for all to work and prosper, with a thriving public sector and high quality services, where those undertakings essential to the common good are either owned by the public or accountable to them;
* a just society, which judges its strength by the condition of the weak as much as the strong, provides security against fear, and justice at work; which nurtures families, promotes equality of opportunity and delivers people from the tyranny of poverty, prejudice and the abuse of power;
* an open democracy, in which government is held to account by the people; decisions are taken as far as practicable by the communities they affect; and where fundamental human rights are guaranteed;
* a healthy environment, which protect, enhance and hold in trust for future generations.

3. Labour is committed to the defence and security of the British people, and to cooperating in European institutions, the United Nations, the Commonwealth and other international bodies to secure peace, freedom, democracy, economic security and environmental protection for all.

4. Labour will work in pursuit of these aims with trade unions, cooperative societies and other affiliated organisations, and also with voluntary organisations, consumer groups and other representative bodies.

5. On the basis of these principles, Labour seeks the trust of the people to govern.

Clause 4, Transform the Labour Party

Clause 4: Why revive a stinking corpse?

Jack Conrad questions the worth of the ‘Labour4Clause4’ campaign being promoted by Socialist Appeal. Instead of fostering illusions in Fabian socialism, surely the task of Marxists is to win the Labour Party to Marxist socialism

(first published in the Weekly Worker)

A hundred years ago this month, the Labour Party adopted its famous clause four – a declaration of aims and principles, which Rob Sewell, editor of Socialist Appeal, tells us committed the party to “the socialist transformation of society”.

Undoubtedly, clause four – rewritten under Tony Blair in 1995 – carries totemic status for partisans both of the right and left. But should the left seek to raise the 1918 corpse from its grave? Or should we audaciously reach out for another future? Socialist Appeal, the British section of the International Marxist Tendency, is fully committed to what is, in fact, an anti-working class tradition. 1)As are Socialist Appeal’s old comrades in the Socialist Party in England and Wales. After the 1991 split in the Militant Tendency, the minority around Ted Grant, Alan Woods and Rob Sewell became Socialist Appeal. The majority – around Peter Taaffe, Tony Mulhearn, Hannah Sell and Dave Nellist – evolved through Militant Labour and became SPEW in 1997. Needless to say, comrade Nellist – former Labour MP for Coventry South East and nowadays national chair of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, insists that the 1918 clause four must be “reinstated” (Coventry Telegraph August 19 2011

It has thrown its weight behind the ‘Labour4Clause4’ campaign and has, so far, gained the backing of Ken Loach, the leftwing film director, MPs Dennis Skinner, Ian Mearns and Ronnie Campbell, and trade union leaders such as Ian Hodson and Ronnie Draper of the bakers’ union, and Steve Hedley of the RMT.

The February 1918 Labour Party conference agreed a new constitution. Clause four (of the party’s objects) committed Labour to these aims (subsequently amended in 1959):

1. To organise and maintain in parliament and in the country a political Labour Party.

2. To cooperate with the general council of the Trades Union Congress, or other kindred organisations, in joint political or other action in harmony with the party constitution and standing orders.

3. To give effect as far as possible to the principles from time to time approved by the party conference.

4. To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

5. Generally to promote the political, social and economic emancipation of the people, and more particularly of those who depend directly upon their own exertions by hand or by brain for the means of life.

6. To cooperate with the labour and socialist organisations in the commonwealth overseas with a view to promoting the purposes of the party, and to take common action for the promotion of a higher standard of social and economic life for the working population of the respective countries.

7. To cooperate with the labour and socialist organisations in other countries and to support the United Nations and its various agencies and other international organisations for the promotion of peace, the adjustment and settlement of international disputes by conciliation or judicial arbitration, the establishment and defence of human rights, and the improvement of the social and economic standards and conditions of work of the people of the world.

As with comrade Sewell, this formulation – crucially its fourth subsection – is celebrated as being a defining socialist moment. Yet, when it was first mooted in November 1917 – amidst the slaughter of inter-imperialist war – Sidney Webb, its Fabian author, had no thought or intention of promoting genuine socialism.

Indeed the Fabian Society had long been known as the quintessential expression of opportunism in the British labour movement. Leaders such as Webb, George Bernard Shaw and William Harcourt, were pro-imperialist, eugenicist and thoroughly elitist. The Fabians wanted Britain to retain its global empire; defective men, women and children were to be dealt with by the means of a “lethal chamber”; and the working class educated in the sprit of their betters. Understandably, Fabian ‘socialism’ was gradualist, managerial and relied on an alliance with enlightened liberals: in other words, we have a variety of bourgeois socialism.

By cynical calculation Webb had three goals in mind.

Firstly, clause four socialism could be used to divert the considerable rank-and-file sympathy that existed for the Russian Revolution into safe, peaceful and exclusively constitutional channels. That did not stop prime minister David Lloyd George from declaring, in his closing speech of the 1918 general election campaign, that the “Labour Party is being run by the extreme pacifist Bolshevik group”. 2)Quoted in R Miliband Parliamentary socialism London 1973, p64n

Secondly, by adopting clause four socialism, the Labour Party could both distinguish itself from the exhausted, divided and rapidly declining Liberal Party and please the trade union bureaucracy. Since the 1890s the TUC had been drawing up various wish lists of what ought to be nationalised: eg, rails, mines, electricity, liquor and land. Clause four socialism also usefully went along with the grain of Britain’s wartime experience. There was steadily expanding state intervention in the economy. Nationalisation was, as a result, widely identified with efficiency, modernisation and beating foreign rivals. It therefore appealed to technocratically minded elements amongst the middle classes.

Thirdly, clause four socialism must be implicitly anti-Marxist. Webb knew the history of the Social Democratic Party in Germany well. And, of course, Karl Marx had famously mocked various passages in its Gotha programme (1875), not least those which declared that every worker should receive a “fair distribution of their proceeds of labour” and that “the proceeds of labour belong undiminished with equal right to all members of society”.3)K Marx and F Engels Collected Works Vol 24, London 1989, p83

Contradictory and vacuous, concluded Marx. What is fair? What about replacement means of production? What about the expansion of production? What about those unable to work? More than that, Marx explained these and other such woolly formulations as unneeded concessions to the followers of Ferdinand Lassalle. His Workers’ programme (1862) called for “an equal right to the undiminished proceeds of labour”. Obviously Webb wanted to give clause four a distinct Lassallean coloration not out of admiration for Lassalle, but because he wanted to distance the Labour Party from Marxism.

Red ribbon

Almost needless to say, clause four was mainly for show. A red ribbon around what was Labourism’s standing programme of social liberalism. In parliament Labour supported Liberal governments and their palliative measures of social reform. Because of its alliance with the Liberal Party, the party even found itself divided over the abolition of the House of Lords and the fight for female suffrage. While a tiny minority – eg, George Lansbury and Keir Hardie – defended the suffragettes and their militant tactics, the majority craved respectability. As Ramsay MacDonald wrote, “The violent methods … are wrong, and in their nature reactionary and anti-social, quite irrespective of vote or no vote.”4)Socialist Review August 1912 – quoted in R Miliband Parliamentary socialism London 1973, p25n

Even if it had been put into effect, clause four socialism remains antithetical to working class self-liberation. Capitalism without capitalists does not count amongst our goals. Railways, mines, land, electricity, etc, would pass into the hands of the British empire state. 5)The Fabians supported the British government in the 1899-1902 Boer War. They justified their stand in a pamphlet, edited by Bernard Shaw, Fabianism and the empire (1900). They did not want Britain to lose out, when it came to the division of the world by the great imperial powers. As might be expected, the Fabians wanted a civilising British empire. The white dominions should be given self-government. However, “for the lower breeds” there should be a “benevolent bureaucracy” of British civil servants and military officials guiding them to “adulthood” (G Foote The Labour Party’s political thought London 1985, p29-30)

Capitalist owners would be bought out – eased into a comfortable retirement. But, as they vacate the field of production, a new class of state-appointed managers enters the fray. In terms of the division of labour, they substitute for the capitalists. The mass of the population, meanwhile, remain exploited wage-slaves. They would be subject to same hierarchal chain of command, the same lack of control, the same mind-numbing routine.

Marxism, by contrast, is based on an altogether different perspective. If it is to win its freedom the working class must overthrow the existing state. But – and this is crucial – in so doing the proletariat “abolishes itself as a proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and antagonisms, abolishes also the state as state”. 6)K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 25, London 1987, p267 Capitalist relations of production and the whole bureaucratic state apparatus are swept away. Every sphere of social life sees control exercised from below. All positions of command are elected or chosen by lot and are regularly rotated. Hierarchy is flattened. Alienation is overcome. What is produced and how it is produced radically alters too. Need, not exchange, is the ruling principle. And alone such an association of producers creates the benign conditions which allows for the full development of each and every individual.

Admittedly, the old clause four resulted from progressive political developments. The Russian Revolution has already been mentioned. But there is also the formation of the Socialist International, the world-wide celebration of May Day, the considerable influence of the socialist press, the increased size of trade union membership, the formation of the shop stewards network and the election of a growing body of Labour MPs. Then there were the horrors of World War I. Because of all this, and more, capitalism was widely considered abhorrent, outmoded and doomed. Socialism more and more became the common sense of the organised working class. 7)‘Common sense’ being the continuously changing but widely held outlook of various classes and strata. Gramsci called it “folklore of philosophy”, because it exists “halfway between folklore properly speaking and the philosophy, science and economics of the specialists” (A Gramsci Selections from the prison notebooks London 1973, p326n)

By contrast, Fabian socialism meant arguing against unconstitutional methods, slowly expanding the provision of social welfare and persuading all classes of the benefits that would come to the nation, if the commanding heights of the economy were put in state hands. In other words, the Fabians consciously sought to ameliorate the mounting contradictions between labour and capital … and thus put off socialism. Fredrick Engels branded the Fabians as a:

band of careerists who understand enough to realise the inevitability of the social revolution, but could not possibly entrust this gigantic task to the raw proletariat alone … Fear of revolution is their guiding principle. 8)K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 50, New York 2004, p83

And, needless to say, the years 1918-20 witnessed army mutinies, colonial uprisings, a massive strike wave and brutal Black and Tan oppression meted out in Ireland.

Interestingly, before 1918 attempts to commit the Labour Party to socialism met with mixed success. The 1900 founding conference rejected the “class war” ultimatum tabled by the Social Democratic Federation. 9)Though it had two guaranteed seats on the LRC’s leading body, the Social Democratic Federation disaffiliated in August 1901. Despite that conference voted to support the “socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange”. The next year a socialistic motion moved by Bruce Glasier was defeated. In 1903 another socialistic motion fell, this time without debate. Two years later conference passed a motion with the exact same wording. In 1907 the previous endorsement of socialism was overturned at the prompting of … Bruce Glasier. Despite that the same conference agreed to set the goal of “socialising the means of production, distribution and exchange”. 10)See RT McKenzie British political parties London 1963, pp465-71.

The explanation for the seesawing doubtless lies with electoral expediency. While most in the party leadership considered themselves socialists of a kind, they were mortally afraid of losing out in the polls. What appeared acceptable to likely voters – in other words, the popular press – set their limits. So, instead of fearlessly presenting a bold socialist vision and building support on that basis, Sidney Webb, Arthur Henderson, Ramsay MacDonald and co chased the vagaries of popularity. With the growth of militancy and radicalism, socialist declarations were considered a sure way of adding to Labour’s ranks in parliament. 11)Labour gained 15 seats in the December 1918 general election, making it the fourth largest party in parliament after Bonar Law’s Tories, Lloyd George’s Coalition Liberals and Sinn Féin. It had a total of 57 MPs. Forming a government being both a means and an end.

Nevertheless, the Blairising of clause four in 1995 was hugely symbolic – the ground having been laid by the Eurocommunists and their Marxism Today journal. Socialism was declared dead and buried, the working class a shrinking minority. Only if Labour accepted capitalism and reached out to the middle classes would it have a future. Neil Kinnock, John Smith and finally Tony Blair dragged the party ever further to the right. Out went the commitment to unilateral disarmament, out went the commitment to comprehensive education, out went the commitment to full employment, out went the commitment to repeal the Tories’ anti-trade union laws, out went the commitment to “the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange”.

By sacrificing the old clause four in the full glare of publicity, Blair and his New Labour clique sought to appease the establishment, the City, the Murdoch empire, the global plutocracy. Capitalism would be absolutely safe in their hands. A New Labour government could be relied upon to not even pay lip service to a British version of state capitalism. Leftwingers such as Tony Benn, Dennis Skinner, Diane Abbott and Ken Livingstone protested, trade union leaders grumbled, but the April 1995 special conference voted by 65% in favour of Blair’s clause four.

Needless to say, his version is stuffed full of managerial guff and classless nonsense. Just what one would expect from the architect of New Labour. After all, one of Blair’s big ideas was to replace ‘socialism’ with ‘social-ism’. Another was communitarianism. But, of course, the media glowed with admiration. Crucially, Rupert Murdoch agreed to unleash his attack dogs. Within a few months John Major was almost universally derided as a total incompetent, heading a sleaze-mired government.

Riding high in the opinion polls Blair inaugurated a series of internal ‘reforms’. Conference was gutted. No longer could it debate issues, vote on policy or embarrass the leadership in front of the media. Instead the whole thing became a rubber-stamping exercise. Then there were the tightly controlled policy forums, focus groups and the staffing of the party machine with eager young careerists (most on temporary contracts). Blair thereby asserted himself over the national executive committee … considerably reducing its effectiveness in the process.

Calls for a return of the old clause four are therefore perfectly understandable. But why go back to a Fabian past? Instead we surely need to persuade members and affiliates to take up the cause of “replacing the rule of capital with the rule of the working class”. Our socialism would (a) introduce a democratically planned economy, (b) end the ecologically ruinous cycle of production for the sake of production and (c) move towards a stateless, classless, moneyless society that embodies the principle, “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs” (see model motion below).

Towards that end our party must be reorganised from top to bottom. A special conference – say in the spring of 2019 – should be called by the NEC with a view to radically overhauling the constitution and rules and undertaking an across-the-board political reorientation.

As everyone knows, Labour members loathe the undemocratic rules and structures put in place by Blair. The joint policy committee, the national policy forums – the whole sorry rigmarole – should be junked. The NEC must be unambiguously responsible for drafting manifestos. And, of course, the NEC needs to be fully accountable to a sovereign conference.

Reclaiming

Real Marxists, not fake Marxists, have never talked of reclaiming Labour. It has never been ours in the sense of being a “political weapon for the workers’ movement”. No, despite the electoral base and trade union affiliations, the Labour Party has been dominated by career politicians and trade union bureaucrats: a distinct social stratum, which in the last analysis serves not the interests of the working class, but the continuation of capitalist exploitation.

Speaking in the context of the need for the newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain to affiliate to the Labour Party, Lenin said this:

… whether or not a party is really a political party of the workers does not depend solely upon a membership of workers, but also upon the men that lead it, and the content of its actions and its political tactics. Only this latter determines whether we really have before us a political party of the proletariat.

Regarded from this – the only correct – point of view, the Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, because, although made up of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that, who act quite in the spirit of the bourgeoisie. It is an organisation of the bourgeoisie, which exists to systematically dupe the workers with the aid of the British Noskes and Scheidemanns [the German social chauvinist murderers of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht – JC]. 12)VI Lenin CW Vol 31, Moscow 1977, pp257-58

Despite all the subsequent changes,

 this assessment retains its essential purchase. Labour is still a “bourgeois workers’ party”. Of course, once Corbyn was formally announced leader of the Labour Party, on September 12 2015, things became more complex. Labour became a chimera. Instead of a twofold contradiction, we have a threefold contradiction. The left dominates both the top and bottom of the party.

Corbyn is not the equivalent of George Lansbury or Michael Foot – an elementary mistake. They were promoted by the labour and trade union bureaucracy after a severe crisis: namely Ramsay MacDonald’s treachery and James Callaghan’s winter of discontent. Corbyn’s leadership is, in the first instance, the result of an historic accident. The ‘morons’ from the Parliamentary Labour Party lent him their nomination. After that, however, Corbyn owes everything to the mass membership. Those already in and those coming in.

That has given us the possibility of attacking the rightwing domination of the middle – the councillors, Iain McNicol and his national and regional apparatus, the Parliamentary Labour Party – from below and above. No wonder the more astute minds of the bourgeois commentariat can be found expressing profound worries over the prospects of Labour being dominated by leftwing socialists, militant trade unions and Marxists.

Of course, there is the danger that Corbyn will be drawn into yet further rotten compromises. We have already seen Trident renewal, a ‘jobs and the economy’ Brexit and the disgraceful silence over the ‘Anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt. In other words, it would be fatal for the leftwing majority at a grassroots level to content itself with playing a support role for Corbyn. Nor should the role of the left be to provide a counterweight to the rightwing pressure on Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott.

No, the left needs to fight for its own aims and principles.

 

Model motion

This branch/CLP notes that this year marks the centenary of the adoption of clause four by the Labour Party.

The old clause four was drafted by the Fabian leader, Sidney Webb, in order to divert the considerable rank-and-file sympathy that existed for the Russian Revolution into safe, peaceful and exclusively constitutional channels. Clause four was managerial, statist and predicated on the continuation of wage-slavery. It had nothing to do with putting an end to capitalism and bringing about the socialist transformation of society.

This branch/CLP notes that, by sacrificing the old clause four in the full glare of publicity, Tony Blair and his New Labour clique sought to appease the establishment, the City, the Murdoch empire, the global plutocracy. Capitalism would be absolutely safe in their hands. A New Labour government could be relied upon not even to pay lip service to a British version of state capitalism.

The Labour Party has been transformed by the influx of tens of thousands of new members and the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader. This branch/CLP therefore believes that the time is ripe to commit the party to the following, genuinely socialist, version of clause four.

1. Labour is the federal party of the working class. We strive to bring all trade unions, cooperatives, socialist societies and leftwing groups and parties under our banner. We believe that unity brings strength.

2. Labour is committed to replacing the rule of capital with the rule of the working class. Socialism introduces a democratically planned economy, ends the ecologically ruinous cycle of production for the sake of production and moves towards a stateless, classless, moneyless society that embodies the principle, “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”. Alone such benign conditions create the possibility of every individual fully realising their innate potentialities.

3. Towards that end Labour commits itself to achieving a democratic republic. The standing army, the monarchy, the House of Lords and the state sponsorship of the Church of England must go. We support a single-chamber parliament, proportional representation and annual elections.

4. Labour seeks to win the active backing of the majority of people and forming a government on this basis.

5. We shall work with others, in particular in the European Union, in pursuit of the aim of replacing capitalism with working class rule and socialism.

This branch/CLP calls for this version of clause four to be included as part of Labour’s constitution at the earliest opportunity.

[For trade unions: This branch/conference calls upon the union to campaign within the Labour Party at all levels for this version of clause four to be included as part of Labour’s constitution at the earliest opportunity.]

References

References
↑1 As are Socialist Appeal’s old comrades in the Socialist Party in England and Wales. After the 1991 split in the Militant Tendency, the minority around Ted Grant, Alan Woods and Rob Sewell became Socialist Appeal. The majority – around Peter Taaffe, Tony Mulhearn, Hannah Sell and Dave Nellist – evolved through Militant Labour and became SPEW in 1997. Needless to say, comrade Nellist – former Labour MP for Coventry South East and nowadays national chair of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, insists that the 1918 clause four must be “reinstated” (Coventry Telegraph August 19 2011
↑2 Quoted in R Miliband Parliamentary socialism London 1973, p64n
↑3 K Marx and F Engels Collected Works Vol 24, London 1989, p83
↑4 Socialist Review August 1912 – quoted in R Miliband Parliamentary socialism London 1973, p25n
↑5 The Fabians supported the British government in the 1899-1902 Boer War. They justified their stand in a pamphlet, edited by Bernard Shaw, Fabianism and the empire (1900). They did not want Britain to lose out, when it came to the division of the world by the great imperial powers. As might be expected, the Fabians wanted a civilising British empire. The white dominions should be given self-government. However, “for the lower breeds” there should be a “benevolent bureaucracy” of British civil servants and military officials guiding them to “adulthood” (G Foote The Labour Party’s political thought London 1985, p29-30
↑6 K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 25, London 1987, p267
↑7 ‘Common sense’ being the continuously changing but widely held outlook of various classes and strata. Gramsci called it “folklore of philosophy”, because it exists “halfway between folklore properly speaking and the philosophy, science and economics of the specialists” (A Gramsci Selections from the prison notebooks London 1973, p326n
↑8 K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 50, New York 2004, p83
↑9 Though it had two guaranteed seats on the LRC’s leading body, the Social Democratic Federation disaffiliated in August 1901.
↑10 See RT McKenzie British political parties London 1963, pp465-71.
↑11 Labour gained 15 seats in the December 1918 general election, making it the fourth largest party in parliament after Bonar Law’s Tories, Lloyd George’s Coalition Liberals and Sinn Féin. It had a total of 57 MPs.
↑12 VI Lenin CW Vol 31, Moscow 1977, pp257-58
Labour structures and programme, Transform the Labour Party

Transform the Labour Party: our proposals

Jeremy Corbyn says he wants to find ways to give more power to ordinary members and a conference that makes the final decision on policy. The democracy commission has now been agreed and will report next year. All this is very welcome. James Marshall presents a 13-point platform that will provide the basis for our submission

1. Mandatory reselection is crucial, though it terrifies the right. We read that this, “even more than nuclear disarmament and membership of the European Community, became the main catalyst for the launch of the breakaway Social Democratic Party” in March 1981.[1] In that same treacherous spirit as the founders of the SDP, Progress – Lord David Sainsbury’s party within a party – furiously denounces mandatory reselection as “a weapon of fear and intimidation”.[2] Yes, it is viewed as an affront by every rightwing wrecker, every hireling, every parliamentary careerist.

It is worth looking at the background. Interestingly, and with good foundation, we read on the Progress website that mandatory reselection carries “echoes of the Paris Commune, and of the Russian soviets, where delegates were subject to recall if they displeased their local citizenry. It rests on the idea that leaders will always be tempted to sell you out, once they get power.”[3] Well, surely, that is what history actually shows.

For decades, sitting Labour MPs – certainly those with safe seats – enjoyed a job for life (or as long as no better offer came along). They might deign to visit their constituency once or twice a year, deliver a speech to the AGM and write an occasional letter to the local newspaper. Meanwhile they lived a pampered, middle class life, frequented various London gentlemen’s clubs and spent their weekends in the home counties with Lord this and Lady that. Despite such evident moral corruption, they were automatically the candidate for the next election. Unless found guilty of an act of gross indecency or had the party whip withdrawn, they could do as they pleased.

With the insurgent rise of Bennism, that totally unacceptable situation was called into question. The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, founded in 1973, committed itself to a range of rule changes – the mandatory reselection of MPs was finally agreed by the 1980 conference. What this saw, however, was not a Labour Party equivalent of the Paris Commune or the Russian soviets. There was no right to instantly recall. Nevertheless, once in each parliament, our MPs had to secure the endorsement of their local general management committee. Note, GMCs were made up of delegates elected by local party and trade union branches; they were sizable bodies too, typically consisting of 80, 90, 100 or even more delegates.

At the prompting of the bourgeois media, Neil Kinnock, desperately seeking acceptability, sought to extract trade unions from the voting process altogether. He failed, but accepted a compromise. A local electoral college for the selection and reselection of candidates was introduced. Ordinary members were given a direct vote for the first time, leaving GMCs with the right to nominate and shortlist only. This electoral college system gave unions and affiliated organisations up to 40% of the vote, with ordinary members having some 60% (the actual balance was different in each seat, depending on party and union membership).

Trigger ballots were a product of the 1990s. Formally honouring conference’s “desire to maintain reselection”, they made it significantly “easier for MPs to defend their positions”.[4] They allowed for a sitting MP to be subject to a full-scale ballot of the membership. But only if they lost a trigger ballot.

We say, all elected Labour representatives, whether councillors, MPs or MEPs, must, by rule, be subject to one-member, one-vote mandatory reselection. All must be brought under democratic control – from above, by the national executive committee; from below, by branches and Constituency Labour Parties.

2. We urgently need a sovereign conference once again. The cumbersome, undemocratic and oppressive structures, especially those put in place under the Blair supremacy, must be abolished. The joint policy committee, the national policy forums, etc, have to go.

3. We are against the idea of electing the general secretary through an all-member ballot. The NEC should elect all national officers. Therefore the post of Labour leader should be replaced by the post of NEC chair. We favour annual elections with the right to recall at any time. As a matter of basic principle Marxists oppose all forms of Bonapartism.

4. In Scotland and Wales, Labour’s executive committees should likewise elect their own officers, including their representatives on the all-UK NEC. We are against a single individual in Scotland and Wales having the right to appoint themselves, or a trusted clone.

5. Scrap the hated compliance unit “and get back to the situation where people are automatically accepted for membership, unless there is a significant issue that comes up” (John McDonnell).[5] There must be an amnesty for all those expelled for having supported leftwing organisations and publications. The compliance unit operates in the murky shadows, routinely leaks to the capitalist media and makes rulings in a completely biased manner. We want to welcome into our ranks the bulk of those who have been barred from membership by the compliance unit. Many of them are good socialists with a proven record.

6. Those expelled from membership ought to have the right to reapply – not after five years, but in just one year. All disciplinary procedures should be completed within three months, at which point suspensions must be automatically rescinded. Endless delay violates natural justice.

7. The huge swing towards Labour in the June 2017 general election happened in no small part due to the enthusiasm of young voters. Yet Young Labour is a creaking, uninviting, thoroughly bureaucratic construction. We need a one-member, one-vote organisation. That must include Young Labour’s national committee. At present, two-thirds of votes are accounted for by appointees from affiliated organisations: eg, the Fabians and Cooperative Party, and affiliated trade unions. Instead of the biannual policy and national committee elections, their must be an annual conference that can both decide on policy and elect a leadership. Young Labour has to have the right to decide on its own constitution and standing orders.

8. We need a rule that commits the NEC to securing the affiliation of all trade unions to the Labour Party. The FBU has already reaffiliated. Excellent. Matt Wrack at last changed his mind and took the lead in reversing the disaffiliation policy. But what about the RMT? Let us win RMT militants to finally drop their support for the thoroughly misconceived Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition project. Instead reaffiliate to the Labour Party. And what about the NUT? This year’s Cardiff conference saw the executive narrowly win an amendment, by 50.63% to 49.37%, which in effect ruled out considering affiliation … at this moment. This can be changed … if we campaign to win hearts and minds.

Then there is the PCS. Thankfully, Mark Serwotka, its leftwing general secretary, has at last come round to the idea of affiliation. Yes, that would run up against the Trades Disputes and Trade Union Act (1927), introduced by a vengeful Tory government in the aftermath of the General Strike. Civil service unions were barred from affiliating to the Labour Party and the TUC. The Civil and Public Services Association – predecessor of the PCS – reaffiliated to the TUC in 1946. Now, however, surely, it is time for the PCS to reaffiliate to the Labour Party. Force another change in the law.

9. There has to be a shift in the party, away from the HQ, regional officers, the leader’s office, the Parliamentary Labour Party, etc. CLPs must be empowered. Towards that end there has to be proper financing. CLPs should be allocated 50% of the individual membership dues. That will help with producing publicity material, hiring rooms, paying for full-time officers, providing transport, setting up websites, etc. That way, our CLPs can be made into vibrant centres of socialist organisation, education and action.

10. Our goal must be a Labour Party that, in the words of Keir Hardie, can “organise the working class into a great, independent political power to fight for the coming of socialism”.[6] We therefore need rule changes to once again allow left, communist and revolutionary groups and parties to affiliate. As long as they do not stand against us in elections, this can only but strengthen Labour as a federal party. Nowadays affiliated organisations include the Fabians, Christians on the Left, the Cooperative Party and, problematically, the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Business. Encourage the Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Party in England and Wales, Communist Party of Great Britain, Left Unity, Socialist Appeal, the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain, etc, to join our ranks.

11. Being an MP ought to be an honour, not a career ladder – not a way for university graduates to secure a lucrative living. A particularly potent weapon here would be a rule requiring all our elected representatives and officials to take only the average wage of a skilled worker – a principle that was indeed upheld by the Paris Commune and the Bolshevik revolution. Our MPs are on a basic £67,060 annual salary. On top of that they get around £12,000 in expenses and allowances, putting them on £79,060 (yet at present Labour MPs are only obliged to pay the £82 parliamentarian’s subscription rate). Moreover, as leader of the official opposition, Jeremy Corbyn not only gets his MP’s salary: he is entitled to an additional £73,617.[7]

Let them keep the average skilled worker’s wage – say £40,000 (plus legitimate expenses). Then, however, they should hand the balance over to the party. Even without a rule change Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott ought to take the lead here.

12. Relying on the favours of the capitalist press, radio and TV is a fool’s game. Yes, it worked splendidly for Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell. But, as Neil Kinnock, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband found to their cost, to live by the mainstream media is to die by the mainstream media.

The NEC should, by rule, establish and maintain our own press, radio and TV. To state the obvious, tweeting and texting have severe limits. They are brilliant mediums for transmitting simple, short and sharp messages to the already converted, but, when it comes to complex ideas, debating history and charting out political strategies, they are worse than useless. We should provide time and space for controversy and the whole range of different opinions within the party. Without that our media will be dull, lifeless, pointless. We should also take full advantage of parliamentary immunity to circumvent the oppressive libel laws. Then we can say the unsayable. That would prove to be electric in terms of shaping and mobilising public opinion.

13. We should adopt a new clause four. Not a return to the old 1918 version, but a commitment to working class rule and the aim of a stateless, classless, moneyless society, which embodies the principle, ‘From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’. That is what socialism is all about. Not a measly £10-per-hour “living wage”, shifting the tax balance and a state investment bank. No, re-establishing socialism in the mainstream of politics means committing the Labour Party to achieving a “democratic republic”.[8]

[1]. http://thirdavenue.org.uk/a-beginners-guide-to-the-labour-party-rulebook-part-2-reselection-of-mps.

[2]. www.progressonline.org.uk/2015/09/28/the-price-of-a-seat-in-parliament.

[3]. www.progressonline.org.uk/2015/09/28/the-price-of-a-seat-in-parliament.

[4]. http://thirdavenue.org.uk/a-beginners-guide-to-the-labour-party-rulebook-part-2-reselection-of-mps.

[5]. http://labourlist.org/2016/02/mcdonnell-and-woodcock-clash-over-plan-to-scrap-member-checks.

[6]. Independent Labour Party Report of the 18th annual conference London 1910, p59.

[7]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leader_of_the_Opposition_(United_Kingdom).

[8]. Labour Party Marxists July 7 2016.

Inside the Labour Party, Labour structures and programme

Recruit, win new affiliates, transform (updated)

Gallery

Jeremy Corbyn’s election presents the left with a historic opportunity. James Marshall outlines a programme of immediate action and long-term strategic goals (this is a slightly updated version of an earlier article)

At the well publicised prompting of Peter Mandelson, Charles Clarke, David Blunkett and above all Tony Blair, the hard right has already launched what will be a protracted, bitter, no-holds-barred struggle to put an end to the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Blair’s ‘Alice in wonderland’ opinion piece in The Observer had nothing to do with the former prime minister trying to swing votes in the closing two weeks of the leadership contest.1 Comrade Corbyn had already won. No, its purpose was perfectly clear. Rally the Blairites and their corporate, state and international allies … and declare war.

Given the punishing logic of the first-past-the-post election system, it is unlikely that the hard right will go for a breakaway. Minor parties tend to suffer “significant under-representation” at a national level.2 Another Social Democratic Party is therefore an outside possibility. But, unlike the early 1980s, the political centre is not enjoying a sustained revival.3 At the last general election the Liberal Democrats were decimated. They remain marginalised and loathed. It is probably true that “more than two” Labour MPs are considering defection, either to the Tories or the Lib Dems. Nonetheless, political suicide remains an unattractive proposition for most Blairites.4 Their constituents would turf them out at the first opportunity. Instead of the glories of high office, it will be the musty corridors of the House of Lords. Knowing that, the right will therefore stay firmly put and fight hard … until we send them packing.

The well-timed announcement by leading members of the right that they would refuse seats in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet needs to be understood as an act of civil war. Yvette Cooper, Chuka Umunna, Tristram Hunt, Emma Reynolds, Liz Kendall, Shabana Mahmood, Mary Creagh, Jamie Reid, Chris Leslie and Rachel Reeves have in effect constituted themselves a shadow-shadow cabinet. This parliamentary gang of 10 are still members of the Labour Party, but, obviously, they do not share the same values as the mass of Labour members.

In that context, Corbyn is absolutely right to maintain the leader’s ‘hire and fire’ prerogative. After all, he faces not just 10 rebels. No, it is more like 110. We Marxists want the abolition of the Bonarpartist post of leader. But these are extraordinary times and require extraordinary measures. The idea of having the PLP elect the shadow cabinet was being touted by the right. Thankfully Corbyn’s early pronouncements on this subject were rethought. He wisely opted to keep the dictatorial powers long favoured by past Labour leaders.

Appointing the shadow chancellor was always going to be a litmus test. The more timid members of Corbyn’s inner circle were reportedly urging him to go for someone from the centre. Instead he chose John McDonnell. Excellent. So there is in effect a Corbyn-McDonnell leadership.

Offering shadow cabinet seats to the likes of Andy Burnham, Hilary Benn, Angela Eagle, Lucy Powell, Lord Falconer, Rosie Winterton and Chris Byrant was always going to happen. Corbyn is a natural conciliator. And the fact of the matter is that there are simply not enough leftwingers in parliament. Unless, that is, Corbyn went for a pocket-sized shadow cabinet and appointed talents from outside parliament. That is what we LPMers advocated.

Nevertheless, equipped with his left-centre-right coalition, Corbyn can claim the moral high ground. He is reaching out to all sections of the party. Meanwhile, in terms of internal perceptions, it is the hard right that will be blamed for starting the civil war. That will play well with traditional Labour loyalists. They do not take kindly to anyone damaging Labour’s chances at the polls. After all, for most Labour councillors and would-be councillors, most Labour MPs and would-be MPs, the be-all and end-all of politics is getting into office … even if the manifesto promises nothing more than managing capitalism better than the Tories. A misplaced common sense that wide swathes of the Labour left, including Corbyn and McDonnell, have thoroughly internalised.

However, the hard right will have the full backing of the capitalist media, the City of London, the military-industrial complex, special branch, MI5 and their American cousins. Corbyn’s much publicised admiration for Karl Marx, his campaigning against US-led imperialist wars, his opposition to Nato, Trident and nuclear weapons, his commitment to increase the tax take from transnational corporations, the banks and the mega rich, his republicanism – even his refusal to sing the national anthem at St Paul’s – mark him out as completely unacceptable.

Of course, the distinct danger is that the Corbyn-McDonnell leadership will have their agenda set for them by the need to maintain PLP unity. Put another way, in what is a coalition cabinet, it will be the right that sets the limits and therefore determines the political programme. Why? Because they are quite prepared to walk. That is what Burnham has indicated over Nato and nuclear weapons. The decision by Corbyn to kneel before Elizabeth Windsor and accept a place on her privy council is therefore more than a symbolic gesture.

Watering down, abandoning, putting principles onto the backburner in an attempt to placate the right, if it continues to happen, will prove fatal. Such a course will demobilise, demoralise and drain away Corbyn’s mass base in and out of the party.

Hence the Corbyn-McDonnell leadership faces both an enemy within the PLP and an enemy within their own reformist ideology. They seriously seem to believe that socialism can be brought about piecemeal, through a series of left and ever lefter Labour governments. In reality, though, a Labour government committed to the existing state and the existing constitutional order produces not decisive steps in the direction of socialism, but attacks on the working class … and the return of a Tory government.

Tactically, Marxists will, for the moment, concentrate their fire on the hard right in the shadow cabinet. ‘Blairites out’ should be the common slogan of the left. The mass of Labour members trust the Corbyn-McDonnell leadership, but they have an instinctive distrust for those who support the Progress outfit, those allied with Lord David Sainsbury and the gang of ten, those who vote for welfare cuts, those who want British forces to join the bombing of Syria. Clearly the Blairites are closer in mind and spirit to the Tories than Labour’s members, supporters and affiliates. An obvious target, therefore, is Tony Blair’s old flatmate and co-thinker, Lord Charlie Falconer. He has already threatened to quit over the EU referendum.

Immediate

The left in the Labour Party faces three immediate tasks.

Firstly, there must be a concerted drive to win registered supporters to become full individual members. There are now well over 100,000 of them. If they want to bolster Corbyn’s position, if they want to ensure that he stays true to his principles, if they want to transform the Labour Party, then the best thing they can do is to get themselves a vote when it comes to the national executive committee, the selection and reselection of MPs, MEPs, councillors, etc. Card-carrying members can also attend ward and constituency meetings and themselves stand for officer positions.

Secondly, within the affiliated trade unions we must fight to win many, many more to enrol. Just over 70,000 affiliated supporters voted in the leadership election. A tiny portion of what could be. There are 4,414,929 who pay the political levy.5 Given that they can sign up to the Labour Party with no more than a click, we really ought to have a million affiliated supporters as a minimum target.

Thirdly, the constituency, branch (ward) and other such basic units must be revived and galvanised. Everything should be done to encourage new members, and returnees, to attend meetings and elect officers who oppose austerity and want to support the Corbyn-McDonnell leadership. Labour’s constituency and branches can be made into vibrant centres of organisation, education and action. As such they would be well placed to hold wayward councillors and MPs to account. They could also spearhead a mass campaign to get local people onto the electoral register. The electoral commission reports that nationally “approximately 7.5 million individuals are not registered”.6 Most are “Labour-inclined.”7

Reorganise

As the hard right begins its civil war, the left must respond with a combination of intimidation, constitutional changes and reselection. Those proven to be in the pay of big business, those sabotaging our election campaigns, those who vote with the Tories on austerity, war, housing benefits, migration or so-called humanitarian interventions, must be hauled up before the NEC. If MPs refuse to abide by party discipline, they must be warned that they face expulsion. If that results in a smaller PLP in the short term, that is a price well worth paying.

Meanwhile, we should take full advantage of our current rules. The ‘trigger’ mechanism allows local party units, including both individual members and affiliated organisations, “to determine whether the constituency holds a full open selection contest for its next candidate, in which other potential candidates are nominated or reselects the sitting MP without such a contest.”8 Ironically, if it happens, David Cameron’s proposed reduction in the number of MPs from 650 to 600, and the expected boundary changes, due to be announced in October 2018, could prove to be a golden opportunity. We should deselect hard-right MPs and democratically select tried and trusted leftwing replacements.

Obviously, the party must be reorganised from top to bottom. A special conference – eg, in spring 2016 – should be called by the NEC with a view to radically overhauling the constitution and rules and undertaking an across-the-board political reorientation. We need a new clause four, we need a sovereign conference, we need to be able to easily reselect MPs, MEPs and councillors. We also need to sweep away the undemocratic rules and structures put in place under Blair. The joint policy committee, the national policy forums – the whole horrible rigmarole – should be swept away at the earliest possible opportunity.

Clearly, it is going to take time to change the political make-up of the PLP and subordinate it to the wishes of the membership. But with force of numbers, tactical flexibility and ruthless determination it can be done.

A particularly potent weapon here is the demand that all our elected representatives should take only the average wage of a skilled worker. A principle upheld by the Paris Commune and the Bolshevik revolution. From memory the Italian Communist Party under Enrico Berlinguer applied the partymax even in the 1970s. With the PCI’s huge parliamentary fraction this proved to be a vital source of funds.

Our MPs are now on a basic £67,060 annual salary. On top of that they get around £12,000 in expenses and allowances, putting them on £79,060 (yet at present Labour MPs are only obliged to pay the £82 parliamentarian’s subscription rate). And, as leader of the official opposition, Jeremy Corbyn has just got himself a £6,000 pay rise.9

We in the LPM say, let them keep the average skilled workers’ wage – say £40,000 (plus legitimate expenses). However, they should hand the balance over to the party. That would give a considerable boost to our finances. Even if we leave out our 20 MEPs from the calculation, it would amount to roughly £900,000 extra. Anyway, whatever our finances, there is a basic principle. Our representatives ought to live like ordinary workers, not pampered members of the upper middle class. So, yes, let us impose the partymax.

In the three days following Corbyn’s election, 30,000 joined the party.10 Many more should be expected. But we need to reach out to all those who are disgusted by corrupt career politicians, all those who aspire for a better world, all those who have an objective interest in ending capitalism. To do that we need to establish our own mass media.

Much to the chagrin of the fourth estate, comrade Corbyn has shown his “contempt” for the capitalist press, radio and TV. Relying on their favours worked splendidly for Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell. But our newly elected leader will get nothing but mockery, hatchet jobs and implacable opposition. While there will doubtless be an attempt to court The Guardian and the Mirror group, Corbyn’s turning to the social media is understandable and very much to be welcomed. However, as is obvious, tweeting and texting have severe limits. They are brilliant mediums for transmitting short, sharp, clear messages. But, when it comes to complex ideas, debating principles and charting political strategies, they are next to useless.

To set the agenda, however, we must shun those siren voices urging us to engage with the “unpersuaded” by relying on the existing “mainstream media”.11 As Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband found to their cost, to live by the mainstream media is to die by the mainstream media. No, we need our own full-spectrum alternative.

Once we had the Daily Herald. Now we have nothing. Well, apart from the deadly-dull trade union house journals, the advertising sheets of the confessional sects and the Morning Star (which in reality is still under the grip of unreconstructed Stalinites). No, we should aim for an opinion-forming daily paper of the labour movement and seek out trade union, cooperative, crowd and other such sources of funding. And, to succeed, we have to be brave: iconoclastic viewpoints, difficult issues, two-way arguments, must be included as a matter of course. The possibility of distributing it free of charge should be considered and, naturally, everything should be put up on the web without page limits or paywalls. We should also seriously consider internet-based TV and radio stations. With the riches of dedication, passion and ideas that exist on the left, we can surely better the BBC, Al Jazeera, Russia Today and Sky.

Branding good people as ‘infiltrators’ because, mainly out of frustration, they supported the Greens, Tusc or Left Unity, at the last general election, does nothing to advance the socialist cause in the Labour Party. Such a jaundiced response smacks of cold-war bans and proscriptions. We should be proud of being a federal party. Therefore securing new affiliates ought to be at the top of our agenda. I am sure the FBU and RMT will soon be back. But what of PCS and NUT? Why can’t we win them to affiliate? Surely we can … if we fight for hearts and minds. Then there are the leftwing groups and parties. They too can be brought under our banner. Labour can become the common home of every socialist organisation, cooperative and trade union – the agreed goal of our founders.12 In other words, we can become what Trotsky called a permanent united front of the working class.

Yet sadly, so far, in terms of those outside Labour, apart from the CPGB, there has been a distinct lack of imagination. Instead of a banging on the door, there is a cowardly disengagement. An approach designed to preserve sectarian interests and brittle reputations.

Showing his profundity, his prostration before Scottish nationalism, his unconscious English nationalism, the media darling, Tariq Ali, assesses Corbyn’s victory as “England coming to life again”.13 In that same blinkered spirit he privileges protest politics as against parliamentary politics. Of course, comrade Ali is one of those freelance socialists, a typical dilettante. The idea of actively engaging in our civil war does not seem to occur to him nowadays.

The same goes for Charlie Kimber, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party. Our Charlie boasts that he, and his much reduced band of followers, did not take up the opportunity of registering as Labour Party supporters. Why did they stand aloof? After all, a Corbyn vote cost a mere £3 … and for levy-paying members of affiliated trade unions it was gratis. So why did the SWP refrain from giving Corbyn voting support? Comrade Kimber pathetically explains.

The right is set to begin a firestorm. The PLP is dominated by the right. Corbyn has the active support of no more than 20 MPs. Tom Watson is a Brownite. Lord Mandelson is advising protracted war. The trade unions are dominated by a self-serving bureaucracy. There will be internal struggles and attempts to introduce constitutional and programmatic changes.

What ought to be a challenge to join the fight becomes an excuse to stay clear.

Having been torn by splits and divisions in the 1970s and then again in the 2010s, the SWP apparatus wants nothing to do with anything that carries even the whiff of factional strife. So, as with Tariqi Ali, there is the call for marches, protests and strikes … as counterposed to the Labour Party, PLP battles and taking sides in a concentrated form of the class war.14 In other words, in rejecting any sort of active involvement in Labour’s civil war, the SWP stays true to its modern-day version of Bakuninism.

Then we have the Socialist Party in England and Wales. Having categorically dismissed the Labour Party as an out-and-out capitalist party since the mid-1990s, it has been busily rowing … backwards. The old Militant logo has now been cosmetically placed on the masthead of The Socialist. Nevertheless, while Peter Taaffe, SPEW’s founder-leader, is a proven dunderhead, he at least has the good sense to borrow a vital element of the LPM programme. Hence we find him saying this:

“Even today a few remnants of [Labour’s original] federal constitution remain, with some MPs standing on behalf of the Cooperative Party under the Labour Party umbrella. Why couldn’t that be extended to allow anti-austerity parties and campaigns to join with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party as affiliates, while maintaining their own independent identity, just as the ILP and John Maclean’s British Socialist Party were able to do in the first 20 years of the party?”

Leave aside the historical blunders. The BSP was never John Maclean’s. A hero of the internationalist left during World War I, he ended up, however, as a sad, totally isolated figure, advocating left Scottish nationalism. True, the BSP did affiliate to the Labour Party … in 1916. And, of course, the BSP was by far the largest component body which helped found the CPGB in August 1920 … whose applications for Labour Party affiliation were consistently rejected. That despite very considerable grassroots support in the unions and CLPs. As for the Independent Labour Party, its special conference voted to disaffiliate from the Labour Party … in 1932.15 In other words, between ILP affiliation and disaffiliation there was not two, but three decades.

Despite such quibbles, comrade Taaffe’s call for SPEW to affiliate to the Labour Party is very much to be welcomed. Nevertheless, showing his political acumen, there is the promise that his ridiculous Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition will continue to stand against Labour candidates. A blundering approach supported by Nick Wrack’s so-called Independent Socialist Network (along with the SWP, Tusc’s only other political affiliate).

If Tusc candidates stood on something that resembled a Marxist programme, that would be tactically inadvisable under present circumstances. But what passes for Tusc’s programme is barely distinguishable form Corbynism. Despite that, whereas the Corbyn Labour Party will get mass votes, even with many questionable candidates, Tusc will hardly register. Its votes are uniformly homeopathic.

Left Unity seems to me to be essentially no different. And, as with SPEW and the SWP, members are peeling away to join the Labour Party as individuals. I have been told of a 20% cancellation of standing orders. Left Unity is clearly doomed if it tries to continue as a halfway house project. Unless it votes for the motions of its Communist Platform at its November 21-22 conference, Left Unity will soon begin to fall apart.

We Labour Party Marxist unapologetically take our programmatic lead from the CPGB. Having been demanding the right to affiliate since 1920, today the CPGB ought to be accorded the same rights as the Cooperative Party, the Fabians, Christians on the Left, the Jewish Labour Movement, Scientists for Labour, etc.16 However, we extend that demand to include the SWP, SPEW, Socialist Appeal, Left Unity and other such organisations.

Then there are the trade unions. Those who have disaffiliated or been expelled must be brought back into the fold. In other words the FBU and the RMT. They actively supported the Corbyn campaign … from the outside. So, comrades, now do the same, much more effectively, from the inside. But what about those unions which have never had an organised relationship with us? Regrettably, Mark Serwotka, PSC general secretary, was one of those turned away in the Harriet Harman-organised purge. But, instead of impotently complaining about it on Twitter, he should turn the tables on the outgoing Blairite apparatus by bringing in his entire membership. Mark, fight to get PCS to affiliate.

I heard him interviewed on BBC Radio 4 on this. He enthusiastically supported Corbyn’s September 15 speech at the TUC. However, he excused himself from getting the PCS to affiliate. Apparently it has been illegal for civil servant trade unions to affiliate to the Labour Party since 1927.

When we moved a motion to the effect that all trade unions should affiliate to the Labour Party at the February 2015 AGM of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, we met with exactly that sort of legalistic objection. However, as NEC member Christine Shawcroft, who was sitting next to me, said: “What does that matter?” Here comrade Shawcroft, a close ally of Corbyn, shows the exact right spirit of defiance. Comrade Serwotka and other leaders of non-affiliated trade unions should take her lead. Laws can be defied, laws can be changed. The key, however, is to win the PCS’s membership to the idea of affiliation. It would be great if the 2016 PCS annual conference was addressed by Jeremy Corbyn and had a raft of branch motions calling for the union to affiliate to the Labour Party.

Reclaiming

Real Marxists, not fake Marxists, have never talked of reclaiming Labour. It has never been ours in the sense of being a “political weapon for the workers’ movement”. No, despite the electoral base and trade union affiliations, our party has been dominated throughout its entire history by career politicians and trade union bureaucrats. A distinct social stratum which in the last analysis serves not the interests of the working class, but the continuation of capitalist exploitation.

Speaking in the context of the need for the newly formed CPGB to affiliate to the Labour Party, Lenin said this:

“[W]hether or not a party is really a political party of the workers does not depend solely upon a membership of workers, but also upon the men that lead it, and the content of its actions and its political tactics. Only this latter determines whether we really have before us a political party of the proletariat.

“Regarded from this, the only correct, point of view, the Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, because, although made up of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that, who act quite in the spirit of the bourgeoisie. It is an organisation of the bourgeoisie, which exists to systematically dupe the workers with the aid of the British Noskes and Scheidemanns.17”

Despite all the subsequent changes, this assessment retains its essential purchase. Labour is still a “bourgeois workers’ party”. However, with Corbyn’s election as leader, things have become more complex. Labour has become a chimera. Instead of a twofold contradiction, we have a threefold one. The left dominates both the top and the bottom of the party.

That gives us the possibility of attacking the rightwing domination of the middle – the councillors, the apparatus, the PLP – from below and above. No wonder the more astute minds of the bourgeois commentariat can be found expressing deep concern about what will happen to their neoliberal consensus.

Notes

1. The Observer August 30 2015.
2. A Blais (Ed) To keep or to change first past the post? Oxford 2008, p66.
3. From a 2.5% historic low point in 1951, the Liberal Party saw a revival in the 1970s, which saw it win 19.3% of the popular vote in the February 1974 general election.
4. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34305994.
5. D Pryer Trade union political funds and levy House of Commons briefing paper No00593, August 8 2013, p8.
6. The Guardian February 24 2015.
7. The Guardian July 2 2015.
8. www.grassrootslabour.net/index.php?option=
com_content&view=article&id=200:how-labours-trigger-works&catid=43:forum&
Itemid=60.
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaries_of_Members_of_the_United_Kingdom_Parliament.
10. International Business Times September 15 2015.
11. Eg, Owen Jones, The Guardian September 16 2015 and Roy Greenslade, The Guardian September 14 2015. Chris Boffy, online special advisor to the last Labour government, has also been bitterly complaining about Corbyn’s supposed lack of a media strategy – see The Drum September 15 2015.
12. At the 1899 TUC, JH Holmes, a delegate of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, moved this resolution:
“That this congress, having regard to its decisions in former years, and with a view to securing a better representation of the interests of labour in the House of Commons, hereby instructs the parliamentary committee to invite the cooperation of all cooperative, socialistic trade unions and other working class organisations to jointly cooperate on lines mutually agreed upon, in convening a special congress of representatives from such of the above named organisations as may be willing to take part, to devise ways and means for securing the return of an increased number of labour members to the next parliament” (www.unionhistory.info/timeline/1880_14_Narr_Display.php?Where=NarTitle+contains+%27
The+Labour+Party%27+AND+DesPurpose+contains+%27WebDisplay%27).
13. The Independent September 12 2015.
14. Socialist Worker September 8 2015.
15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Labour_Party#The_ILP_and_Labour_Party_government_.281922.E2.80.9331.29.
16. www.labour.org.uk/pages/affiliated-organisations.
17. VI Lenin CW Vol 31 Moscow 1977, pp257-58.

Alternative clause four proposed by LPM

Objectives

1. Labour is the federal party of the working class. We strive to bring all trade unions, cooperatives, socialist societies and leftwing groups and parties under our banner. We believe that unity brings strength.

2. Labour is committed to replacing the rule of capital with the rule of the working class. Socialism introduces a democratically planned economy, ends the ecologically ruinous cycle of production for the sake of production and moves towards a stateless, classless, moneyless society that embodies the principle “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”. Alone such benign conditions create the possibility of every individual fully realising their innate potentialities.

3. Towards that end Labour commits itself to achieving a democratic republic. The standing army, the monarchy, the House of Lords and the state sponsorship of the Church of England must go. We support a single chamber parliament, proportional representation and annual elections.

4. Labour seeks to win the active backing of the majority of people and forming a government on this basis.

5. We shall work with others, in particular in the European Union, in pursuit of the aim of replacing capitalism with working class rule and socialism.

Clause 4, Labour structures and programme

Don’t go back, go forward

Gallery 2 Comments

The post-leadership battle has already begun. James Marshall of Labour Party Marxists calls for the adoption of new principles and decisive measures.

Once Jeremy Corbyn is officially declared winner, a review of our constitution is surely on the cards. Understandably, clause four – agreed in 1918 and then rewritten under Tony Blair in 1995 – has been singled out. It carries totemic status for partisans both of the right and left.

But should the left seek to raise the 1918 Lazarus? Or should we audaciously reach out for another future? Asked if he wanted to bring back the old clause four, comrade Corbyn said this: “I think we should talk about what the objectives of the party are, whether that’s restoring clause four as it was originally written or it’s a different one. But we shouldn’t shy away from public participation, public investment in industry and public control of the railways.”1

Very moderate. Nonetheless very welcome.

Of course, there are those now outside our ranks who are determined to look back. Dave Nellist – former Labour MP for Coventry South East, national chair of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition and a leading member of the Socialist Party in England and Wales – reportedly insists that the old clause four must be “reinstated”.

As an aside, comrade Nellist says, when Corbyn is elected, he is “going to have to create a new party in the same way Tony Blair did in the 90s.”2 A good king/bad king contrivance forced upon SPEW because of its abject failure to recognise the underlying continuities amidst the retrogressive changes imposed during the 1990s. However, even the most blockheaded Victorian worshipper of royalty did not claim that, having succeeded his brother, the ‘good’ king Richard, the ‘bad’ king John founded a brand-new English kingdom.

SPEW seriously wants us to believe that Labour pre-1995 was a “political weapon for the workers’ movement” and that post-1995 it became a “British version of the Democrats in the USA”.3 Nonetheless in 2015 our supposedly capitalist party is preparing to announce Corbyn as leader. A strategic misjudgement on SPEW’s part, to put it mildly. And, let us never forget, even after Corbyn had actually made it onto the ballot, SPEW was arguing that, the “sooner Unite breaks from Labour …, the better”.4 The unkind will call this a premeditated wrecking attempt; kinder souls will put it down to blundering idiocy.

Suffice to say, when it comes to clause four, SPEW is far from alone. As well as exiles, the mainstream Labour left also looks back to what is, in fact, an anti-working class tradition.

Original

True, the 1918 clause four (part four) committed us to “secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service”.

Mistakenly, this is often fondly remembered as a defining socialist moment. But when it was first drafted – amidst the slaughter of inter- imperialist war – the calculated aim of Sidney Webb, its Fabian author, was threefold.

Firstly, clause four socialism must be implicitly anti-Marxist. Webb well knew the history of the workers’ movement in Germany. Karl Marx famously mocked various passages in the Gotha programme (1875), not least those which declared that every worker should receive a “fair distribution of their proceeds of labour” and that “the proceeds of labour belong undiminished with equal right to all members of society”.5 Contradictory and vacuous, concluded Marx. What is fair? What about replacement means of production? What about the expansion of production? What about those unable to work? More than that, Marx put these and other such woolly formulations down to an unneeded concession to the followers of Ferdinand Lassalle. His Workers’ programme (1862) called for “an equal right to the undiminished proceeds of labour”. Obviously Webb wanted to give clause four a distinct Lassallean coloration not out of admiration for Lassalle, but because he wanted to distance the Labour Party from Marxism.

Secondly, by adopting clause four socialism, the Labour Party could both distinguish itself from the exhausted, divided and rapidly declining Liberal Party and please the trade union bureaucracy. Since the 1890s the TUC had been drawing up various wish lists of what ought to be nationalised; eg, rails, mines, electricity, liquor and land. Clause four socialism also usefully went along with the grain of Britain’s wartime experience. There was steadily expanding state intervention in the economy. Nationalisation was, as a result, widely identified with efficiency, modernisation and beating the foreign enemy. It therefore appealed to technocratically minded elements amongst the middle classes.

Thirdly, clause four socialism could be used to divert the considerable rank-and-file sympathy that existed for the Russian Revolution into safe, peaceful and exclusively constitutional channels. That did not stop prime minister David Lloyd George from declaring, in his closing speech of the 1918 general election campaign, that the “Labour Party is being run by the extreme pacifist Bolshevik group”.6

Almost needless to say, clause four was mainly for show. A red ribbon around what was the standing programme of social liberalism. Yet, even if it had been put into effect, clause four socialism would remain statist, elitist and antithetical to working class self-liberation. Capitalism without capitalists does not count amongst our goals. Railways, mines, land, electricity, etc, passes into the hands of the British empire state.7 Capitalist owners are bought out. Eased into a comfortable retirement. But, as they vacate the field of production, a new class of state-appointed managers enters the fray. In terms of the division of labour, they substitute for the capitalists. The mass of the population, meanwhile, remain exploited wage- slaves. They would be subject to the same hierarchal chain of command, the same lack of control, the same mind- numbing routine.

Marxism, by contrast, is based on an altogether different perspective. If it is to win its freedom, the working class must overthrow the existing state. But – and this is crucial – in so doing the proletariat “abolishes itself as a proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and antagonisms, abolishes also the state as state”.8 Capitalist relations of production and the whole bureaucratic state apparatus are swept away. Every sphere of social life sees control exercised from below. All positions of command are elected or chosen by lot and are regularly rotated. Hierarchy is flattened. Alienation is overcome. What is produced and how it is produced radically alters too. Need, not exchange, is the ruling principle. And alone such an association of producers creates the benign conditions which allow for the full development of each and every individual.

Admittedly, the old clause four resulted from a far-reaching cultural shift – the Russian Revolution has already been mentioned. But there is also the 1867 Reform Act and the extension of the franchise, the considerable popularity of socialist propaganda, the growth of trade unions, the formation of the Labour Party and the horrors of World War I. Because of all this, and more, capitalism was widely considered abhorrent, outmoded and doomed. As a concomitant, socialism became the common sense of the organised working class.9

Of course, what the Fabians meant by socialism was a self-proclaimed extension of social liberalism. The Fabians would gradually expand social welfare provision and harness the commanding heights of the economy with a view to promoting the national interest.

In other words, the Fabians consciously sought to ameliorate the mounting contradictions between labour and capital and thus put off socialism. As Fredrick Engels damningly noted, “fear of revolution is their guiding principle”.10 And, needless to say, the years 1918-20 witnessed army mutinies, colonial uprisings, a massive strike wave and brutal Black and Tan oppression meted out in Ireland.

Interestingly, before 1918 attempts to commit the party to socialism met with mixed success. The 1900 founding conference rejected the “class war” ultimatum tabled by the Social Democratic Federation.11 Despite that, conference voted to support the “socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange”. The next year a socialistic motion moved by Bruce Glasier was defeated. In 1903 another socialistic motion fell; this time without debate. Two years latter conference passed a motion with the exact same wording. In 1907 the previous endorsement of socialism was overturned at the prompting of … Bruce Glasier. Despite that, the same conference agreed to set the goal of “socialising the means of production, distribution and exchange”.12

The explanation for the seesawing doubtless lies with electoral expediency. While most in the party leadership considered themselves socialists of a kind, they were mortally afraid of losing out in the polls. What appeared acceptable to likely voters set their limits. So, instead of fearlessly presenting a bold socialist vision and building support on that basis, Sidney Webb, Arthur Henderson, Ramsay MacDonald and co chased the capricious vagaries of popularity. With the radicalisation of 1918-20 socialist declarations were considered a sure way of adding to Labour’s ranks in parliament.13 Forming a government being both a means and an end.

Nevertheless, the Blairisation of clause four in 1995 was hugely symbolic, the ground being laid by the Eurocommunists and their Marxism Today journal. Socialism was declared dead and buried, the working class a shrinking minority. Only if Labour accepted capitalism and reached out to the middle classes would it have a future. Neil Kinnock, John Smith and finally Tony Blair dragged the party ever further to the right. Out went the commitment to unilateral disarmament, out went the commitment to comprehensive education, out went the commitment to full employment, out went the commitment to repeal the Tories’ anti-trade union laws, out went the commitment to “the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange”.

By sacrificing the old clause four in the full glare of publicity Blair and his New Labour clique sought to appease the establishment, the City, the Murdoch empire, the global plutocracy. Capitalism would be absolutely safe in their hands. A New Labour government could be relied upon not even to pay lip service to a British version of state capitalism. Leftwingers such as Tony Benn, Dennis Skinner, Diane Abbott and Ken Livingstone protested, trade union leaders grumbled, but the April 1995 special conference voted by 65% in favour of Blair’s new clause four.

Needless to say, his version is stuffed full of managerial guff and classless nonsense. Just what one would expect from the architect of New Labour. After all, one of Blair’s big ideas was to replace ‘socialism’ with ‘social-ism’. Another was communitarianism. But, of course, the media glowed with admiration. Crucially, Rupert Murdoch agreed to unleash his attack dogs: within a few months John Major was almost universally derided as a total incompetent, heading a sleaze-mired government.

Riding high in the opinion polls, Blair inaugurated a series of internal ‘reforms’. Conference was gutted. No longer could it debate issues, vote on policy or embarrass the leadership in front of the media. Instead the whole thing became a rubber-stamping exercise. Then there were the tightly controlled policy forums, the focus groups and the staffing of the party machine with eager young careerists (most on temporary contracts). Blair thereby asserted himself over the national executive committee … considerably reducing its effectiveness in the process.

Class lines

Demands for a return of the old clause four are perfectly understandable. But why go back to a Fabian past? Instead we surely need to persuade members and affiliates to take up the cause of “replacing the rule of capital with the rule of the working class”. Our socialism would (a) introduce a democratically planned economy, (b) end the ecologically ruinous cycle of production for the sake of production and (c) move towards a stateless, classless, moneyless society that embodies the principle, “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs” (Labour Party Marxists alternative clause four).

Towards that end our party must be reorganised from top to bottom. A special conference – say in the spring of 2016 – should be called by the NEC with a view to overhauling the constitution and rules and undertaking an across-the-board political reorientation.

As is well known, Labour members loathe the undemocratic rules and structures put in place by Blair. The joint policy committee, the national policy forums, the whole sorry rigmarole should be junked. The NEC must be unambiguously responsible for drafting manifestos. And, of course, the NEC needs to be fully accountable to a sovereign conference.

The chances are that in the immediate aftermath of Corbyn’s victory there will be another huge upsurge in membership. At the very least 100,000 more can be expected to join. But in order to reach out to the millions who are angry, the millions disgusted by corrupt career politicians, the millions who believe that somehow a better world is possible, the Labour Party ought to establish its own mass media. Nowadays that must include internet-based TV and radio stations. Relying on the favours of the bourgeois press and media worked splendidly for Tony Blair. But we will get nothing but lies, distortion and implacable opposition. The dull-as-ditchwater publications of the trade union bureaucracy and the confessional sects are a model of what to avoid. They turn people off. But a media which strives to tell the truth, which encourages debate, which deals with difficult questions, is another matter. We can surely do better than the BBC, Al Jazeera and Sky.

Branding people as ‘infiltrators’ because, mainly out of frustration, they supported the Greens, Tusc or Left Unity in the last general election, does nothing to advance the socialist cause. Such a snarling response is worryingly reminiscent of the cold war bans and proscriptions. New recruits ought to be welcomed, not cold-shouldered.

We are proud of being a federal party. Therefore securing n ew affiliates ought to be at the top of our agenda. Indeed we should actively seek to bring every leftwing group or party under our banner. Labour needs to become the common home of every socialist organisation, cooperative and trade union – the agreed goal of our founders.14 In that same spirit, unions which have either disaffiliated or been expelled must be brought back into the fold.

We are proud of being a federal party. Therefore securing new affiliates ought to be at the top of our agenda. Indeed we should actively seek to bring every leftwing group or party under our banner. Labour needs to become the common home of every socialist organisation, cooperative and trade union – the agreed goal of our founders.14 In that same spirit, unions which have either disaffiliated or been expelled must be brought back into the fold.

At the last Fire Brigades Union national conference, general secretary Matt Wrack asked those proposing reaffiliation “what their strategy” of changing Labour was, “because he had never heard it”.15 Well, Matt, for the moment that strategy goes under the name, ‘Operation Corbyn’. Of course, today both the Rail, Maritime and Transport union and the FBU are backing him … from outside Labour. Moreover, there are unions which have never had an organised relationship with us. Regrettably, Mark Serwotka, Public and Commercial Services union general secretary, was one of those turned away. But, instead of impotently complaining about it on Twitter, he should turn the tables on the Blairites by bringing in his entire membership. Mark, fight to get PCS to affiliate.

For our part, we should commit the Labour Party to reviving the trade union movement. The drop from 12 million members in the late 1970s to some seven million today can be reversed. Labour members should take the lead in recruiting masses of new trade unionists and restoring union strength in workplaces and society at large. In line with this, strikes must be unashamedly supported. There ought to be a binding commitment on councillors, MPs and MEPs to back workers in their struggle to protect jobs, pensions and conditions. Those who refuse ought to be subject to deselection.

The opt-in proposals contained in Sajid Javid’s Trade Union Bill are part of a crude attempt to starve us of funds. But adversity can be transformed into opportunity. Necessity will oblige us to campaign for hearts and minds if the bill passes into law. Nevertheless, the principle we fight for is perfectly clear. All trade unionists should be obliged to pay the political levy. Worryingly, we have met opposition to this within the Labour Representation Committee and the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy. But the obligation to pay the political levy was agreed practice from 1900 till 1909 and, more importantly, flows directly from the basic requirements of working class collectivism.16

Because of history, because of numerical weight, because of financial contributions, transforming the Labour Party is inseparably linked with the fight to democratise the trade unions. All office-holders in the trade unions ought to be subject to regular election and be recallable. No regional organiser, no president, no general secretary should receive a salary higher than the average wage of their membership. Frankly, Len McCluskey’s £140,000 pay and pension package is totally unacceptable. Rules which serve to blunt, restrict or outlaw criticism of the trade union bureaucracy must be rescinded. Put another way, no more ‘monkey trials’.17

Then there is the trade union vote at conference. It should not be cast by general secretaries, but proportionately, in accordance with the agreed political make-up of each delegation. We have no wish to go back to the days when conference was dominated by four or five men in suits.

Obviously the Parliamentary Labour Party has to be brought into line. No- one knows exactly what will happen after September 12. But we should expect a campaign of manoeuvring, resistance, non-cooperation and if that fails outright war. In fact the first shots have already been fired. Blair’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ opinion piece in The Observer had nothing to do with a final plea in the leadership campaign.18 We all know what the result is going to be. No, its purpose is perfectly clear. Rally the Blairites and their corporate, state and international allies.

Given present circumstances, it is unlikely that the hard right will go for a breakaway. Another Social Democratic Party is an outside possibility. But at the last general election the Lib Dems were hammered. The centre ground has virtually disappeared as a parliamentary force. Hence the Blairites have nowhere to go except the government benches. But, being dedicated careerists, they know their constituents would turf them out at the first opportunity if they switched to the Tories. Instead of the glories of high office it would be the musty corridors of the Lords. So expect them to wage a prolonged, sophisticated and utterly ruthless fightback.

We must respond by constitutionally reversing the domination of the party by the PLP. Tory collaborators, saboteurs, the plain corrupt, must be hauled up before the NEC and threatened with expulsion. If they refuse to abide by party discipline the whip must be withdrawn. We should democratically select and promote trustworthy replacement candidates. If that results in a smaller PLP in the short term that is a price well worth paying.

Another potent weapon against the hard right is the demand that all our elected representatives should take only the average wage of a skilled worker. Here is a principle upheld by the Paris Commune and the Bolshevik revolution. When it comes to existing salaries, the balance should be given to the party. On current figures, that means around £40,000 from each MP (at present they are only obliged to pay the £82 parliamentarians’ subscription rate). That would put a break on careerism and give a substantial fillip to our finances. It ought to be a basic principle that our representatives live like workers, not pampered members of the upper middle class.

Reclaiming

Real Marxists, not fake Marxists, have never talked of reclaiming Labour. It has never been ours in the sense of being a “political weapon for the workers’ movement”. No, despite the electoral and trade union base, our party has been dominated throughout its entire history by professional politicians and trade union bureaucrats. A distinct social stratum which in the last analysis serves not the interests of the working class, but the nation, ie, British capitalism.

Supporting the newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain applying for affiliation, Lenin said this about the Labour Party:

“[W]hether or not a party is really a political party of the workers does not depend solely upon a membership of workers, but also upon the men that lead it, and the content of its actions and its political tactics. Only this latter determines whether we really have before us a political party of the proletariat.

“Regarded from this, the only correct, point of view, the Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, because, although made up of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that, who act quite in the spirit of the bourgeoisie. It is an organisation of the bourgeoisie, which exists to systematically dupe the workers with the aid of the British Noskes and Scheidemanns.19”

Despite all the subsequent changes, this assessment retains its essential truth. Labour is still a “bourgeois workers’ party”. However, once Corbyn is formally announced as leader on September 12, things will become rather more complex. Labour will become a chimera. Instead of a twofold contradiction we will have a threefold contradiction. The left will dominate both the top and bottom of the party.

Corbyn is not the equivalent of George Lansbury or Michael Foot. It would be an elementary mistake to assume he was. They were promoted by the labour and trade union bureaucracy after a severe crisis: namely Ramsay MacDonald’s treachery and James Callaghan’s winter of discontent. Corbyn’s leadership is, in the first instance, the result of an historic accident. The ‘morons’ from the Burnham camp lent him their vote. After that, however, Corbyn owes everything to the mass membership. Those already in and those coming in.

That gives us the possibility of attacking the rightwing domination of the middle – the councillors, the apparatus, the PLP – from below and above. No wonder the more astute minds of the bourgeois commentariat can be found expressing genuine concern about what will happen to their neoliberal consensus.

Of course, there is the danger that Corbyn will be drawn into a series of rotten compromises. After all, many advisors will argue that he cannot form a shadow cabinet that mainly draws on the Campaign Group and still keep the PLP right wing on board.

We say, do not try to stop the right if it wants to make a suicide jump. Corbyn should appoint a small, politically tight shadow cabinet. The right should be kept out. Certainly the generous offer by Labour’s “most senior MPs” to make Corbyn into their prisoner ought to be rejected outright. The idea of the “most senior MPs” is to declare an 18-month truce; that is, if Corbyn agrees that the PLP should elect the shadow cabinet. They then want everything put through the shadow cabinet, so as to prevent Corbyn from pursuing “loony left policies”.20 Shadow cabinet collective responsibility would gag him.

While we Marxists want to see the Bonapartist position of leader abolished, it is crystal-clear that today’s situation is extraordinary and therefore requires extraordinary measures.

Corbyn should be urged in the strongest terms to temporarily maintain the leader’s power to appoint the shadow cabinet. A civil war is about to erupt and the left needs every weapon it can get its hands on. So Corbyn should appoint a shadow cabinet and – once again as a temporary measure – maybe seek a mandate for his choice from the NEC or the annual conference.

Corbyn is still talking in a way one would expect from a left reformist, His team have been sending emollient messages about party unity and taking on the Tory government together. But have no doubt: the right will resort to unconstitutional methods in an attempt to undermine, discredit, isolate and then finally oust Corbyn. In this it will be aided and abetted not only by the City, the military-industrial complex and the capitalist press and media. Special branch, MI5 and their American cousins will provide information, advisors and coordination. If he is going to succeed, Corbyn will have to resort to revolutionary methods.

Three clause fours

Original agreed in 1918 and subsequently amended in 1959

Objects

1. To organise and maintain in parliament and in the country a political Labour Party.

2. To cooperate with the general council of the Trades Union Congress, or other kindred organisations, in joint political or other action in harmony with the party constitution and standing orders.

3. To give effect as far as possible to the principles from time to time approved by the party conference.

4. To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

5. Generally to promote the political, social and economic emancipation of the people, and more particularly of those who depend directly upon their own exertions by hand or by brain for the means of life.

6. To cooperate with the labour and socialist organisations in the commonwealth overseas with a view to promoting the purposes of the party, and to take common action for the promotion of a higher standard of social and economic life for the working population of the respective countries.

7. To cooperate with the labour and socialist organisations in other countries and to support the United Nations and its various agencies and other international organisations for the promotion of peace, the adjustment and settlement of international disputes by conciliation or judicial arbitration, the establishment and defence of human rights, and the improvement of the social and economic standards and conditions of work of the people of the world.21

Blairite version agreed in 1995

Aims and values

1. The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that, by the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we achieve alone so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.

2. To these ends we work for:

* a dynamic economy, serving the public interest, in which the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition are joined with the forces of partnership and cooperation to produce the wealth the nation needs and the opportunity for all to work and prosper, with a thriving public sector and high quality services, where those undertakings essential to the common good are either owned by the public or accountable to them;

* a just society, which judges its strength by the condition of the weak as much as the strong, provides security against fear, and justice at work; which nurtures families, promotes equality of opportunity and delivers people from the tyranny of poverty, prejudice and the abuse of power;

* an open democracy, in which government is held to account by the people; decisions are taken as far as practicable by the communities they affect; and where fundamental human rights are guaranteed;

* a healthy environment, which protect, enhance and hold in trust for future generations.

3. Labour is committed to the defence and security of the British people, and to cooperating in European institutions, the United Nations, the Commonwealth and other international bodies to secure peace, freedom, democracy, economic security and environmental protection for all.

4. Labour will work in pursuit of these aims with trade unions, cooperative societies and other affiliated organisations, and also with voluntary organisations, consumer groups and other representative bodies.

5. On the basis of these principles, Labour seeks the trust of the people to govern.22

Alternative proposed by Labour Party Marxists

Objectives

1. Labour is the federal party of the working class. We strive to bring all trade unions, cooperatives, socialist societies and leftwing groups and parties under our banner. We believe that unity brings strength.

2. Labour is committed to replacing the rule of capital with the rule of the working class. Socialism introduces a democratically planned economy, ends the ecologically ruinous cycle of production for the sake of production and moves towards a stateless, classless, moneyless society that embodies the principle, “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”. Alone such benign conditions create the possibility for every individual to fully realise their innate potentialities.

3. Towards that end Labour commits itself to achieving a democratic republic. The standing army, the monarchy, the House of Lords and the state sponsorship of the Church of England must go. We support a single- chamber parliament, proportional representation and annual elections.

4. Labour seeks to win the active backing of the majority of people and form a government on this basis.

5. We shall work with others, in particular in the European Union, in pursuit of the aim of replacing capitalism with working class rule and socialism.

Notes

1. The Independent August 21 2015.

2. Coventry Telegraph August 19 2015.

3. P Taaffe, ‘Can Jeremy Corbyn’s challenge help to develop the socialist left?’ The Socialist June 19 2015.

4. The Socialist July 1 2015.

5. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 24, London 1989, p83.

6. Quoted in R Miliband Parliamentary socialism London 1973, p64n.

7. The Fabians supported the British government in the 1899-1902 Boer War. They justified their stand in a pamphlet, edited by Bernard Shaw, Fabianism and the empire (1900). They did not want Britain to lose out when it came to the divi- sion of the world by the great imperial powers. As might be expected, the Fabians wanted a civilising British empire. The white dominions should be given self-government. However, “for the lower breeds” there should be a “benevolent bureaucra- cy” of British civil servants and military officials guiding them to “adulthood” (G Foote The Labour Party’s political thought London 1985, p29-30).

8. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 25, London 1987, p267.

9. ‘Common sense’ being the continuously chang- ing but widely held outlook of various classes and strata. Gramsci called it “folklore of philosophy”, because it exists “halfway between folklore prop- erly speaking and the philosophy, science and eco- nomics of the specialists” (A Gramsci Selections from the prison notebooks London 1973, p326n).

10. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 50, New York 2004, p83.

11. Though it had two guaranteed seats on the LRC’s leading body, the SDF disaffiliated in August 1901.

12. See RT McKenzie British political parties London 1963, pp465-71.

13. Labour gained 15 seats in the December 1918 general election, making it the fourth largest party in parliament after Bonar Law’s Tories, Lloyd George’s Coalition Liberals and Sinn Féin. It had a total of 57 MPs.

14. At the 1899 TUC, JH Holmes, a delegate of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, moved this resolution: “That this congress, having regard to its decisions in former years, and with a view to securing a better representation of the interests of labour in the House of Commons, hereby instructs the parliamentary committee to invite the cooperation of all cooperative, social- istic, trade unions and other working class organ- isations to jointly cooperate on lines mutually agreed upon, in convening a special congress of representatives from such of the above-named organisations as may be willing to take part to devise ways and means for securing the return of an increased number of Labour members to the next parliament” (www.unionhistory.info/ timeline/1880_14_Narr_Display.php?Where=Nar- Title+contains+%27The+Labour+Par- ty%27+AND+DesPurpose+contains+%27Web- Display%27).

15. The Socialist May 20 2015.

16. In 1909, the Tory law lords tried to snuff out the emerging Labour Party through the notorious Osborne judgement. Affiliated trade unions were prevented from funding the Labour Party until Herbert Asquith’s minority Liberal government legalised trade union political funds. But the 1913 Trade Union Act also imposed the condition that individual members could opt out of the union’s political fund – legally backed political scabbing.

17. See Weekly Worker September 9 2009.

18. The Observer August 30 2015.

19. VI Lenin CW Vol 31, Moscow 1977, pp257- 58.

20. www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/senior-la- bour-mps-offer-jeremy-6346452.

21. www.labourcounts.com/oldclausefour.htm.

22. Labour Party rule book London 2013, p3.