Swimming against the Establishment Stream

Straight back on the campaign trail last night and at long last I was able to get to the open meeting convened by Birmingham Trades Council that I missed in December as a result of train delays.

This well attended meeting was an enthusiastic discussion of current government policies and the alternative political programme rank and file members of our movement want to see implemented by a Labour Government.

What is clear from this and all the other meetings of activists I have attended is the huge contrast between what grassroots members are experiencing on the ground and the analysis and statements made by the Labour Party elite in Westminster.

If you listen to members of the Labour and Trade Union movement and members of the general public they tell you straightforwardly that what is turning them off the Labour Party as evidenced in poll after poll is the policies. They were promised so much, expected so much and hoped for so much but have been disillusioned by the delivery of so little.

Like any other representative of the Labour Party I can recite from Labour Party briefings the long list of achievements under Labour but it just doesn't wash any more. Iraq, privatisation, health cuts, public sector pay and job cuts, pensions, housing costs, presures and long hours at work, insecurity and fear of crime and many other issues crowned by allegations of sleaze are just thrown back at you.

Rank and file members can see this, why can't the Labour elite?

Instead yesterday we witnessed three stereotypical reactions to the perceived sleepwalking of Labour into electoral crisis.

On one extreme in testing the water for his putative leadership challenge John Reid presented us with the classic argument that it's not the New Labour policies that are alienating our support but the fact that we haven't gone far enough with them. This "if in a hole keep digging" strategy somehow doesn't inspire.

The other response is portrayed in the approach taken by John Cruddas' campaign and reflected in the article in today's Guardian based upon a poll commisioned by this extremely well funded campaign. This policy free aproach seeks to avoid upsetting anyone politically by concentrating on the organisational collapse of the Labour Party, the decline in Labour membership and the lack of activity of the party on the ground. This approach avoids virtually any reference to policies for fear of rocking the policy boat or being exposed as having voted for them or being seen within Westminster or the media to be anything but "mainstream."

The argument that the malaise of the Labour Party is mainly organisational not political just reverses the reality.

Labour Party membership and the commitment of Labour Party has declined dramatically because of the immense disillusionment if not anger of Labour Parry supporters with many of the policies voted for by Labour MPs and implemented by a Labour Government which they fought so hard to have elected.

To adapt the Clinton campaign slogan "It's the policies stupid!"

Even the muted and much coded response from the Brown camp seems to admit that there is a need for policy change with references to being in a policy "rut" over issues like Iraq. Nobody gives any credibility to these attempts at triangulation as Brown's role as the architect and advocate of these New Labour policies is blinding obvious to everyone except the occasional trade union general secretary desperately casting round to justify their personal support for Brown.

At last night's meeting in Birmingham a member of the Labour Party expressed his support for our campaign because, as he said, this campaign is the only one explaining the need for policy change and offering an alternative policy programme.

That's what we will continue to do and we will continue the programme of meetings for activists around the country to engage rank and file members of the movement in development of policies and campaigns.

Of course it is frustrating not gaining as much coverage as we would like in the national media but this will always be the case. We are not part of the establishment, not part of that Westminster dinner party circuit of MPs and media. We never will be.

Also we do not offer the safe option to allow the safe channelling of members frustration to allow them to let off steam to no effect.

Our campaign is a direct challenge to the ideology, the policies and the centralised organisational dominance the New Labour estabishment. It is a serious project for developing a strategy for 21st century socialism in Britain. That is what makes it exciting but of course makes it all the more challenging. Of course we are swimmming against the establishment stream but all the evidence demonstrates that we have majority support in the grassroots of our movement. We need to give people more confidence in that support. Steve Biko once commented that the most effective weapon of the oppressor was the mind of the oppressed.

A key role in the coming months is to explain to members of our movement what a gigantic opportunity and what power they will have in their hands very shortly through this leadership campaign to reclaim our party and reunite the government with its supporters.

Spring of Discontent Looms in Public Sector

The PCS ballot of its members on the Chancellor's pay cut and compulsory redundancy plans is a reflection of the pent up anger felt by public sector workers at the way they have been treated by the Government in recent times.

There has been a growing sense of grievance resulting particularly from the actions taken by the Chancellor.

How does any Labour Minister expect public service workers to react in the face of a concerted programme launched by the Chancellor over a two year period to cut their jobs and their pay?

How does any Labour Minister expect the PCS to react as a union when these policies are announced by the Chancellor unilaterally, without consultation and contary to repeated assurances given by Ministers about dialogue and co-operation?

As Chair of the PCS Parliamentary Group I have witnessed at first hand the way in which the Government has treated its own staff with a contempt worthy of any ruthless private sector employer.

On job cuts it should be remembered how the Chancellor announced unilaterally in the middle of his 2005 budget speech a cut of over 100,000 civil service jobs.

On pay it should also be recalled how the Chancellor announced in a speech to the City of London that public sector workers are to have a pay cut forced upon them over the next two years.

On privatisation it should be appreciated that as a result of a Treasury driven obsession with privatisation, more public service jobs have now been privatised under New Labour in 10 years than in the 18 years of Tory Government.

The result is not only an increasingly demoralised and angry workforce but also services grinding to a halt in some areas of government. Is it any wonder that when 30,000 jobs are cut in the Department of Work and Pensions there is an 30% increase in the number of pensioners failing to take up the benefits they are entitled to? The one million unopened pieces of post at Inland Revenue and the 2 million unanswered telephone inquiries in government call centres tell a story about the impact of job cuts.

In many departments low pay is endemic and the failure of Government to implement its promised pay coherence policy across the civil service has meant staff doing the same job working on widely differing pay rates. To rub salt in the wound of this grievance, the Government is now attempting in some departments to introduce local pay awards which would allow it to pay staff less in areas where pay rates are lower in the local economy.

The reason compulsory redundancies have become an issue is not because public service workers are refusing to co-operate with changes to the way services are delivered. Far from it, public sector workers have shown a real willingness to change and adapt and indeed enthusiasm for improving the way their services respond to the needs of our community. What is angering our public servants is that it has been demonstrated compulsory redundancies are avoidable with proper consultation and the effective use of redeployment within the civil service and yet the Government seems hell bent on forcing through compulsory redundancies almost as a matter of principle.

Undoubtedly the Government will seek to isolate the PCS and try and portray this dispute as somehow "political." Ministers are already being rolled out into the media to denounce the ballot.
However it is clear that the Government has significantly underestimated the strength of feeling amongst public sector workers and is in danger of drifting into a Spring of discontent.

I urge all trade unionists, especially in the public sector , to give their backing to the PCS and to press Labour MPs to assist in this campaign against cuts in jobs and pay.

The TUC' s lobby of Parliament on 23rd January provides an ideal opportunity to get this message across the MPs and Government Ministers.

I will be using every chance I get to urge the Government to pull back from this prospect of such a damaging dispute but if it comes to industrial action I will be joining PCS picket lines to demonstrate solidarity.

The Government is drifting into a Spring of discontent.

New Year Statement: "2007: A Year of Choices for Labour."

2007 will be a year of critical choices for the Labour movement.

Over the last 6 months I have spoken at dozens of meetings of Labour Party members and supporters. As a result I have most probably met more grassroots activists than most Labour MPs or Party representatives.

A small but I believe significant thing that has struck me in these meetings is that fewer and fewer of our supporters refer to "our government" but instead say "the" government.

What does this mean?

I believe that it demonstrates the distancing of even our most loyal supporters and activists from what the government has come to represent under New Labour.

Of course there have been many policies over the last 10 years which we all support and nobody wants to see the Tories back. However the consistent message from the grassroots is that it's time to learn some lessons. honestly admit past mistakes and to move on.

People are worried that after a decade in office Labour has not realised the full potential of government and is at risk of losing power because it has made a series of catastrophic policy mistakes from Iraq to privatisation and the provoking of a forthcoming spring of discontent in the public sector.

People are crying out for a Labour government that provides real inspiration, describing the society we want to create and spelling out the small step policies we will implement to take us there.

At home they want to see a Labour Government transforming our daily lives by honestly addressing the pressures many face including inequality, poverty, low pay, debt, long hours and exploitation at work, housing pressures and, yes, a proper discussion on crime and community harm that goes beyond the failure of just locking more and more people up and attacking civil liberties.

Abroad they want to be able to take pride in a Labour Government playing a role in helping to secure world peace and overcome poverty, hunger, destitution and injustices in the developing world.

In 2007 the Labour movement has a clear choice to make.

Some will want to continue in the policy direction which has alienated so many of our supporters and put our hold on government at risk. They will want to spend their time justifying self evident policy failures and provoke even further disputes and disillusionment in our ranks by forcing through more of the same.

Others, like me, will want to use this year to explain what our society could look like under a transforming Labour government and to inspire people once again with the potential that we could have in government to enact this twenty first century socialism.