Even by the banal standards of bourgeois democracy the May general election was bereft of political debate. This was no accident. It reflects the political climate in Britain. The two previous Labour governments consolidated the restructuring of British capital begun by the Tories that was necessary to restore the rate of profit and provide new opportunities for investment and expansion – privatisation, deregulation, a low-wage, flexible labour force, anti-union laws and repressive social legislation. Labour has been particularly successful in pushing this programme through, having sustained a thirteen-year period of uninterrupted growth in GDP begun under the John Major government. They have held down inflation and interest rates, while ensuring a strong pound and record profits for the banks. Consequently, Labour remains the preferred party of the ruling class. Jim Craven explains.
Labour receives a rising proportion of its party funds from wealthy individuals and big companies; far more than the Tories or Liberal Democrats. Once again in this election Rupert Murdoch publicly supported Labour, which ensured the bulk of the media also backed the party. Labour used the high-profile millionaire businessman, Alan Sugar in its election advertising. Even Digby Jones, the director-general of the CBI, normally a Conservative organisation, publicly criticised Michael Howard.
Given this degree of satisfaction among the ruling class with Labour’s programme, it is not surprising that the platforms of the three main parties were virtually identical and no significant debate ensued. Both Tories and the Liberal Democrats would have retained the right of the Bank of England to set interest rates and would have maintained Labour’s fiscal framework, including Gordon Brown’s rule of sustainable investment and his ‘Golden Rule’ of prudent spending. Both opposition parties would have continued the Private Finance Initiative, continued with anti-social behaviour orders and maintained spending on health and education at similar levels to Labour.
Imperialists at stalemate over Europe
One of the issues most conspicuous by its absence was that of the EU. There was virtually complete silence on the subject apart from Blair wearily conceding that it was most unlikely now that Britain would join the Euro. Yet Europe is a topic that has previously engendered fierce debate among the ruling class and the petit bourgeoisie, even leading to the formation of a party, UKIP, that took 16% of the vote in the last European election and threatened to become a major alternative for Tory voters. This time round UKIP polled less than 2.5%.
The real issue behind the Europe debate is the role of British imperialism and whether it has any future as an independent power. British imperialism has huge investments in both Europe and the United States and depends on its alliance with US military power to protect its interests elsewhere in the world. Consequently British imperialism tries to keep a foot in both the European and US camps. By so doing it has managed to retain its position as the world’s leading financial centre even though manufacturing capital is in constant decline.
The problem for the ruling class is that this situation cannot be sustained. As the crisis of capitalism deepens, the European and US imperialist camps are coming into greater and greater conflict. British imperialism will have to choose one side or the other. In any case British imperialism will lose any independent status it presently retains. The ruling class has no idea what to do. The contending wings are at stalemate. Hence the silence on the subject during the election.
Trade unions back imperialist Labour
Just as silent during the campaign was the trade union and labour movement. Representing predominantly the middle classes and most affluent sections of the working class as they now do, they too are worried about how to maintain their privileges in the developing climate of inter-imperialist rivalries. With no other credible party yet to protect their interests, they are sticking with their traditional benefactors the Labour Party.
All those so-called radical trade union leaders who just a couple of years ago were loudly threatening to withdraw union dues from the party or even withdraw their allegiance altogether were struck dumb. Last autumn they signed the Warwick Agreement with Labour. In return for a wish list of minor concessions from Labour, with no guarantee of their implementation, the trade unions agreed to keep funding and supporting the party.
Four years ago, when BMW pulled out of Rover, the unions organised demonstrations and protests (even if they were sickeningly racist and chauvinist) and called for the nationalisation of the company. When Rover collapsed at the beginning of this election campaign there was no significant union reaction despite dirty dealing by the Phoenix consortium that robbed workers of pensions and compensation.
Benn helps rescue Blair
The only issue that kept raising its head during the campaign was that of the war on Iraq. But the debate was not about the nature of the war itself, the atrocities being committed by the occupying forces, the suffering of the Iraqi people or the torture of prisoners. The only question was whether or not Tony Blair had lied about the war and whether this would damage his image and the Labour vote. Even here new revelations about Lord Goldsmith’s legal advice and how Tony Blair and the US government might have leant on him to change his advice, failed to have much impact. The fact was that most people had already made up their minds about whether Blair was a liar. Furthermore, opinion polls showed that although Blair was the least trusted of the main party leaders he was also regarded as the best person to lead a government!
So, the only question that remained for this fiasco of bourgeois democracy to answer was the extent by which Labour’s majority would be cut. The Labour Party ridiculously warned that if just one in ten Labour voters abstained or defected to the Liberal Democrats then the Tories would win. Not even the Tory chairman was willing to predict a Tory victory. Still, Labour was seriously worried about a rebellion and called in its trusty stalwart Tony Benn to rally the troops. Benn spent three hours phoning round wavering Labour voters from a list provided by party headquarters. This so-called scourge of Blairism and ‘New Labour’, this ‘tribune of the British left’, later said ‘To have them ring me to help them out shows this election means Labour is returning to what it was … it is a trade union party and a socialist party. It has done good things. I am voting Labour’. That one phone call can swing such Labour ‘rebels’ back into line demonstrates how illusory their opposition really is.
Election irrelevant to working class
In the end Labour lost 47 seats and had its majority cut to 67. Labour’s share of the vote fell to 36%, the lowest ever percentage for a winning party and the first time since universal suffrage began in the 1920s that a winning party had received fewer than 10 million votes. The turnout for the election was just 61% of the registered voters. This is two points up on the record low of the last election, but when a large increase in postal votes this time and the uncontentious certainty of a big Labour majority in 2001 are taken into consideration, it probably represents a new low. The lowest turnout was just 41.5% in Nottingham East. There were 36 other constituencies where turnout was less than 50%, all of them in poor districts of the big cities, demonstrating once again the irrelevance of these elections to the concerns of the working class. They were even more irrelevant to the black and minority ethnic population. Only 75% of them were registered. Of these, only 39% in pre-election polls said they were certain to vote.
The low turnout and Labour’s low percentage of the vote means that just 22% of the electorate voted for Labour. In other words, taking into account those not registered to vote or denied a vote, just one in five adults have supported the new Labour government. This is the sort of ‘democracy’ the imperialists champion in order to invade other countries and massacre populations.
It was the Liberal Democrats who benefited most from Labour’s decline. They gained 12 seats from Labour and moved into second place in more than 160 Labour seats. In some seats the swing from Labour to the Liberal Democrats was more than 10%. In the northeast as a whole the swing was 6.6% and in Scotland 8.4%. However, it is not at all clear that this swing was due to opposition to the war. For instance, seats in university constituencies showed an average swing from Labour to the Liberal Democrats of 8%, probably created more by opposition to university tuition fees than to the war. Also, the massive anti-war vote predicted in Muslim areas did not materialise. It accounted for Galloway’s victory in Bethnal Green and possibly for the Liberal Democrat gain in Rochdale. Overall, in constituencies with a greater than 10% Muslim population, the Labour vote was down 11% and the Liberal Democrat vote up 9%. On the other hand no other Labour seat in a Muslim area changed hands. Jack Straw’s majority in Blackburn fell by only 1,000 votes and Labour actually regained Leicester South. Four Muslim Labour MPs were elected, including Khalid Mahmood in Perry Barr who had only abstained on the Iraq war vote.
Two things are apparent. The Muslim vote is as much a class question as any other. The Muslim bourgeoisie and petit bourgeois, who are entrenched in the Labour establishment, mobilised to neutralise the more radical anti-Labour Muslim youth. Secondly, the powerful anti-war sentiment that was demonstrated throughout the country in 2003 has been dissipated by the refusal of the SWP and other leaders of the anti-war movement to make a clear break with the Labour Party.
More repression as trouble looms for Labour
The new Labour government has already demonstrated that it will continue in the same way it has acted for the last eight years. Blair has brought back the fascist-minded David Blunkett and rewarded another of his millionaire backers, Lord Paul Drayson, with a government post. Education privatiser Andrew Adonis has been ennobled to become minister of education and. There will be more privatisation, more repressive legislation, more racist hounding of asylum seekers, more prisons, more imperialist attacks on the poor people of the world and more of the poverty, insecurity and inequality that blights the lives of the majority of the working class in this country. The suggestion that the Labour left will create obstacles for the government’s programme now Blair has a reduced majority is ludicrous given its spineless past record.
However, trouble could be looming for Labour. Its plans depend on continued economic growth. But the housing boom that has funded domestic spending is faltering. High street sales have been down for several successive months. Oil prices are at record highs. Domestic debt now totals over £1 trillion. If a recession occurs the poor will suffer most but millions of people presently enjoying a comfortable life could also find themselves in serious difficulties. Already personal bankruptcies have reached record levels. We could yet see a serious challenge to Labour and its ruling class backers – not at the polling station but on the streets of Britain.
FRFI 185 June / July 2005
