Building a workers’ defence in Britain

There is a general perception in Britain that the crisis element of Brexit has receded. The Tories have closed ranks, assuring everyone that they will go ahead with departure from Britain - but not just yet. Today's issue is the fight to return Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party.

Yet this would be a mistake. The new Tory government is the most right wing in modern history. New threats will come from a Europe in crisis. Both Dublin and Belfast administrations face meltdown. The Labour party apparatus would rather dismantle the movement than see a mobilization that opposes capitalism. The small socialist organizations were confused and fragmented in the Brexit campaign and have not recovered in terms of a political explanation of the chaos of existing class struggle or in advancing a programme of socialist transformation of society.

Class forces

There are many things to explain. Why was the Leave movement successful? Why is there no question of a re-vote? Why did the Leave movement implode? Why would the Labour right prefer to destroy the party rather than have it move left?

The lens through which we can examine the class forces at play is the announcement by the then Tory chancellor Osborne, immediately following the referendum, that he was abandoning the flagship policy of "balancing the books" and achieving a positive balance of payments.

As this policy was the ideological justification for the current, and deepest, tranche of austerity it was an issue of some importance. It is a recognition by British capitalism that their current strategy has reached its limit, echoing a broader concern across Europe. Austerity has succeeded in driving down the cost of labour, but it has not led to a sustainable recovery and has fractured the political system.

In England, as in many other areas in Europe, that fracture has occurred to the right. The response of capital will be to placate the Brexiteers, ramp up the threat to migrants and refugees, pour billions into reserves, lean back on some of the most deeply resented economic policies and apply the brake to the Brexit process itself.  That doesn’t mean that they are halting austerity. The new round will be more populist and reactionary.

Contradiction

The dissolving of the Leave leadership shows that the Tory party is the vehicle of both big capital and the far right and that UKIP and the Leave campaign are essentially pressure groups. The immediate acceptance of the Brexit vote means that British capital wants to retain the alliance between capital and the petty bourgeois. The opportunist element is included in the new government and fanatics such as Gove and Farage banished. A section of the working class accepted the right's racist claim that refugees and migrants were responsible for austerity and the new government panders to this sentiment. 

This is by far the most difficult contradiction for British capital. Movement oflLabour is both necessary for capitalist production and for access to the European market. Producing a fudge that preserves the hegemony of the Tory party and allows European alliances to survive will be extremely difficult.

Labour

It is against this background that we must situate the Labour party crisis. The aim of "balancing the books" proposed by Osborne and the collapse of social and welfare rights that that entailed was supported by the majority of Labour MPs, who did not want to be “tricked” by Osborne into opposing austerity.

Understanding what is happening to Labour is to an extent obscured by a narrow focus on Britain and by popular hatred of Tony Blair. It accepts the narrative of principled "Old Labour" as opposed to right wing Blairism. Yet the history of the Labour party leadership is one of betrayal of the working class. Enthusiasm for austerity at home and wars of aggression abroad is common across European social democracy. One contribution of Blairism was to establish direct funding of the parliamentary party by capitalist sponsors, giving it greater autonomy in relation to the unions and its own membership. 

What is new is that throughout the years of austerity members of the party, the trade union leaders and many workers accepted the argument that compliance with austerity would eventually lead to a return to prosperity for all. It is now clear that only the capitalists feel the benefit of the weak and unstable recovery.

Unending austerity

This is the factor that makes the existing Labour party unelectable. By pressing the pause button on some austerity programmes the Tories are briefly to the left of the PLP majority. When service resumes the PLP majority will be reduced to shouting "me too" to the Tory offensive. In the long run they want a capitalist party that holds out the illusion of a progressive Europe. By the Labour coup they plan to demolish the possibility of a party acting in the interests of the working class.

Again this pattern is common across Europe. Social democratic parties are willing to commit suicide to ensure the survival of the austerity programme. The most recent example being the French Socialist Party tearing up employment rights without taking the trouble to bring the issue through the French parliament.

The resistance to austerity in Europe has formed around the trade unions and youth. Trade union leaders have tended to confine themselves to protest. Youth have lacked the strength and organization to go beyond protest. The bridge of independent working class action, a working class programme for socialist transformation, a revolutionary party, all are absent.

Yet things do not stand still. The Greek struggle has ruled out a reformist solution and a new left form of social democracy but sections of the working class and the revolutionary socialist movement are still standing. In France the youthful Nuit Debout movement has exerted considerable pressure on the government and force the trade unions to the left. In Britain we have trade union organization and youth radicalisation in the same party.

The Corbynistas

There is really no doubt but that the struggle to defend Corbyn and defeat the Labour right is at the centre of class struggle at the moment. A Corbyn victory, especially a Corbyn victory propelled by a mobilization of trade union members and youth, would be a major step forward.

The British socialist groups are not well placed to intervene. Many were on the wrong side of the Brexit debate and still claim it as a workers’ victory. They remain outside the Labour debate. Other groups are much more positive, but the majority have tended to restrict themselves  to broad anti-austerity policy with little reference to a socialist programme. 

The immediate task is to analyse and uncover the political terrain on which the battle takes place. At the moment the right are claiming that they too are socialist and that endless personal smears aimed at Corbyn are sufficient to justify their coup.

The Corbyn camp are to a certain extent exposing their throat to the wolfpack, apologising for the right's hurt feelings and setting the aim of winning over many coup members in the aftermath of the vote. The reason for this weakness is that the Corbyn strategy is resolutely parliamentary and will require a sizeable PLP to move forward.

Socialists should explain that the right are opposed to socialism. Any left blather from the Blairites is strictly aspirational -  marginal policies that might get on the agenda after they stand for election on a "realistic" pro-austerity programme. They should draw on the examples of movements like Nuit Debout in France to argue that parliamentary reform will not offer sufficient protection to workers and that action on the streets and in the workplaces is necessary. They should also stress the common nature of the struggle across Europe and call for workers solidarity and a united socialist states of Europe.

The Corbynistas should advance a programme that puts worker's needs first. Jobs, wages, services should all be guaranteed. MPs who refuse to endorse this programme should be deselected and it is around a worker's charter that the movement can be built.

As things stand the slanders and manoeuvres serve only to discredit the coup leaders and ensure Corbyn's re-election. The right know that. The purpose of the slander is to build a foundation for the seizure of the party name and party apparatus. The slanders are only the visible tip of a conspiracy in the party structures and trade unions. 

There must be a counter-campaign of de-selection and democratisation of Labour. As the coup is organized by Prospect and Saving Labour - secret parties within a party directly organized by capitalism, so there should be an open revolutionary current organising around a worker's charter for the socialist transformation of society.

The watchword is defence

There are many challenges ahead. After a brief pause the most right wing government of modern times will attempt to resolve the growing crisis at the expense of the working class. Theresa May will trim to meet the main elements of the Brexit platform; making Britain great again with yet greater aggression in the Middle East and Ukraine,  tearing down European regulations that mark a bottom line on workers’ rights, ending any formal genuflection to human rights legislation, pandering to racial and anti-migrant sentiment.  Workers will not want to be told that they should wait until the next election and vote Corbyn.

They will want to see a movement on the streets and direct action to resist the offensive. For socialists the defence of the workers movement from threats within and without is the order of the day.