The election result is a serious setback for workers everywhere. It opens the prospect of the most right-wing government for thirty years, an economic catastrophe around Brexit and the further erosion of standards in all local government services and in the NHS. The fear among Labour members and supporters is that we now have a Johnson government with a big enough majority to last for ten years. His victory has been described as seismic, in the same terms as Thatcher’s victory in 1979.
In the Labour Party there will be huge feelings of disappointment, not to say dismay and that will be especially true for the left of the Party. It is not a time for despair, however. It is a time to be angry and to channel that anger into organising and preparing for the future. There will be a radical Labour government elected at some stage – the crisis of British capitalism and the associated collapse in living standards leaves no room for any alternative – and if it takes longer than we hoped, its impetus will be all the greater for the wait.
Johnson has achieved the biggest Tory majority for over thirty years, but that is barely down to any campaign by the Conservative Party or its leader. He carefully avoided all serious contact with real people on the streets or in workplaces, because so many of his outings turned out to be PR disasters. He dodged TV interviews that might have given him a hard time and stuck rigidly to carefully-arranged photo opportunities. Even some of those he mucked up.
Mainstream media conducted Tories’ campaign
In the streets, Tory Party workers were thin on the ground and far fewer in number than Labour activists, as would be expected from a much smaller and largely geriatric Tory membership. It was the national press: The Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Sun, The Times, The Daily Telegraph – all owned by tax-dodging billionaires – who did all the heavy lifting for the Tory Party election campaign, day in and day out.
The newspapers were ably backed up by the BBC, with its most partisan coverage for years, even going to the extent of twice doctoring TV footage (later apologising for the ‘mistakes’) to put Boris Johnson in a better light. It should be noted that the total Tory vote rose by only one single percentage point and that by no means indicates a ‘landslide’, although the big parliamentary majority might suggest otherwise. Nevertheless, the clear majority for Boris Johnson has brought a wave of euphoric relief among the tax-dodgers and coupon-clippers who make their money by having money. The pound immediately rose against the Euro and the Dollar and the FTSE100 index of leading shares jumped two per cent. According to the Financial Times, a mere eight companies – those ear-marked for nationalisation under Labour – saw £6bn added to their share value. BT shares rose 7 per cent, the utility Centrica rose 8.7 per cent, housebuilders – those profiting from the rigged market and the housing shortage – also rose in value. Among the rich and powerful, there were sighs of relief all round.
But Labour Party members cannot put this defeat down to a bad press, because it was expected that the big majority of the press and TV would back the Tories. A Corbyn-led left Labour Party offered a genuine threat to the interests of the ruling elite for the first time in two generations and it was anticipated that the Establishment would use the press to fight back. Labour, quite properly, relied on its half million membership and its armies of enthusiastic volunteers, far outnumbering the election workers of all the other parties put together.
A re-run of 2016 EU referendum
We have argued that the main issue facing working class people has not been Brexit, but austerity and the fall in living standards. Labour tried hard to keep a focus on the issues that really affect workers on a day-to-day basis: education, housing, local government services, minimum wages and especially the NHS.
However, that strategy failed and by keeping Brexit centre-stage in the election campaign, Boris (“Get Brexit Done”) Johnson effectively turned this election into second EU referendum and that was the fundamental basis of his victory. Brexit was much more of an issue this year compared to 2017, precisely because of the fact that it has dragged on for three and a half years and Euro-sceptics now completely dominate the Tory Party.
In this election, the Tory Party, in effect, became the Brexit Party and for the first time in living memory, in some cases for the first time in the best part of a century, it was able on that basis alone to win seats in what used to be solid Labour areas like Don Valley, Rother Valley, Bolsover, Redcar, Durham North West and Bishop Auckland. In many of these areas Labour is still paying the price for decades of neglect by right-wing Labour councils and Labour MPs and here the election on Thursday was an echo of 2016.
The actual Brexit Party was no more than an auxiliary to the Tory Party, a splinter of the Conservative right wing. Farage had pulled all his candidates from standing in 317 Conservative-held seats to concentrate on those held by Labour. Where this was done, his party successfully drew enough votes away from Labour for it to allow some Tories to win.
According to data compiled by the Financial Times, “the Brexit Party took more votes from Labour than the Conservatives in the election, supporting Nigel Farage’s claim to have helped Boris Johnson defeat the opposition.” (December 14) “…Labour also suffered greater losses on average where the Brexit Party stood than where it did not. This was most evident in Yorkshire and the Humber, where the Brexit Party had their best performances…In the constituency of Don Valley, the Brexit Party picked up 15 per cent of the vote as Labour’s share fell by 19 per cent…”
In Scotland, Labour is still suffering from the legacy of decades of the rotten Labour councils that had governed for decades, while doing nothing for working people. The rise of the SNP, from having only two MPs elected in the 1983 general election, to a position where it completely eclipsed all the other parties, has been largely the result of the failure of Scottish Labour’s right-wing which dominated Scottish politics for so long. The SNP covered itself in fake ‘radicalism’ precisely to win over workers disillusioned with Labour MPs and Labour councils. Labour still has a long way to go to recover in Scotland, now with only 18.6 per cent of the vote and a single MP.
What was different to 2017?
We have to ask the simple question, therefore, ‘what was different to 2017?’ and we have to offer an honest answer. In 2017, there was a huge jump in Corbyn’s Labour vote compared to Ed Miliband’s miserable performance two years earlier. The jump in Labour’s vote, from 30% in 2015, to 40% two years later, was the biggest between two general elections since 1945. In total votes, the increase was from 9.3m to 12.8m, an increase of over of three and a half million votes.
The question is, how was Labour different this year and why was there no repeat of 2017. The key answer must lie in Labour’s position on Brexit. In 2017, Labour stood on a manifesto that accepted the 2016 EU referendum result, but insisted it would fight for guarantees on trade (and therefore jobs), on workers’ rights, and on environmental and food safety regulations. Labour put forward specific conditions to support whatever was negotiated and was opposed to a Tory Brexit, correctly in our view.
By 2019, Labour’s position had changed to one of renegotiation, followed by a second referendum. Even if Corbyn said he would personally remain ‘neutral’ in any second referendum, his position was perceived by many – and emphasised over and over again by Johnson – as either a dither or a closet Remain position.
Two key players in the shift of Labour’s position were the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry and Shadow Brexit Minister, Keir Starmer. Both of these, from the traditional right of the party, undermined Corbyn’s personal position at Labour Party conference by making it plain in their set speeches that unequivocally they were going to campaign in any second referendum to remain in the EU. Before he resigned, deputy-leader Tom Watson penned a newspaper article that insisted that Labour faced defeat unless it embraced a new referendum. Len McCluskey of Unite has complained over the weekend about a ‘metropolitan elite’ (Starmer and Thornberry are both London MPs) pushing Labour towards the position of a ‘Peoples’ Vote’ and he has a point.
Labour continued to get most support among younger voters, who are more in favour of remaining in the EU. But despite this, Labour’s changed position on the EU has been the key factor in losing it two and a half million of the three and a half million votes* it had won back in 2017. That shift had the added effect (combined with the most vicious press campaign against any Labour leader) of undermining Corbyn’s personal standing.
The right wing of the Labour Party are rubbing their hands at this result because, they claim, it demonstrates the failures of radicalism and Corbyn personally. Right-wing commentators have been queuing up to go on TV – where, of course, they are welcomed with open arms – to argue for ‘change’ in the Party. All the usual suspects are jostling to rubbish the Labour manifesto and its radical slant: so we have assorted has-beens like Alan Johnson, Jack Straw and David Blunkett along with current MPs like Wes Streeting, Jess Phillips, Margaret Hodge, and all the usual riff-raff of the right. We even had the spectacle of former Labour general secretary, Iain McNichol, adding his pennyworth. Party members will be wondering why our current general secretary wasn’t on TV instead of a right-wing has-been. Oh, yes, it was the BBC.
Even if Jeremy Corbyn’s personal standing was a factor in the defection of some Labour votes, Left Horizons will not join in the chorus of personal abuse against the man. He has had a dirtier press campaign against him than any Labour leader and that includes Michael Foot and unfortunately, it seems that some of that rubbed off, despite the decline in influence of the mainstream press. In various headlines he has been “anti-British, anti-Semitic, pro-IRA, pro-Hamas, a friend of Putin, a Czech spy” and many other things. No story was too outlandish to make a good headline.
Lowest expense claims of any MP
Party members know that Jeremy Corbyn has consistently fought racism and prejudice all his life; he has opposed overseas military adventures like Iraq and Afghanistan and long before Margaret Hodge saw the need (as leader of Islington council), he fought for the interests of his constituents, including Jewish people, in Islington. Not incidentally, he has the lowest expenses claim of any MP. He has the support of thousands of Jewish members of the Labour Party. The charge that he is “anti-Semitic” is outrageous. But none of this featured, as broadcasters and the press conducted a character assassination, which at least to a degree, was successful on the doorstep.
If Jeremy Corbyn demonstrated any ‘weakness’ in his leadership, it was in his generosity towards the right-wing of the party, and particularly those in the Parliamentary Party, who have never accepted his double mandate from the membership and have never accepted the radicalism of the party’s half million members.
While Boris Johnson dealt ruthlessly with rebels in his own parliamentary party – kicking out twenty one MPs, including the grandson of Winston Churchill – Jeremy did not deal with the relentless sabotage, sniping and undermining from his ‘own’ side in the same way. Many right-wing MPs now calling for his early resignation are the same people who have undermined him non-stop for four and a half years. Rather than fight back hard against the slanderous accusation of systematic anti-Semitism, as he ought to have done, he simply repeated his opposition to it, appearing to give credence to wildly false allegations.
We need to deal with the quasi-Tories in the PLP
In our period reflection, analysis and discussion in the Labour Party, we have to say loud and clear that the struggle for socialism will not progress as long as quasi-Tories infest the Parliamentary Labour Party. It was the split-off from the Labour Party forming the SDP that contributed to Labour’s defeat in the 1983 general election. Then, under Michael Foot, Labour won 28% of the vote, the SDP and Liberals (then separate parties) got nearly 25 per cent between them. The SDP subsequently disappeared into oblivion, and Labour’s right-wing today has learned a lesson from it. Let us not forget that 172 Labour MPs voted against him in the confidence vote in 2016, defying the mandate of the membership. The majority of these did not split from the party and have been re-elected as MPs. Unlike the SDP or latter-day defectors they are only staying to do damage from the inside.
Labour’s right wing are now demanding Corbyn’s head, but that is only the opening gambit for them. Their main aim is for Labour to row back from its radical reform agenda. It is true that we need to discuss to what degree there was some scepticism among Labour voters about the manifesto. The reforms outlined were aimed to tackle the very urgent problems faced by working class people up and down, but, prompted by the TV and newspapers, many workers asked, ‘how will they pay for it?’.
There is some basis to the doubts, because these very necessary reforms outlined by Labour will not be easily affordable under a capitalist economy, whatever John McDonnell says. Unlike Labour’s right wing, Left Horizons supports all of those reforms, but, as we have argued, they should be the starting point for a wholesale transformation of the economy along socialist lines. A socialist economy, democratically owned and run by the majority can easily afford Labour’s reforms – and much more.
But differences in explaining how these reforms can be brought about are not a reason for ditching them. The manifesto answered very real needs, we could even argue very reasonable needs, of working class people. Labour’s right wing were opposed and still are opposed to the Labour manifesto and the wave of radicalism that has gripped the party in the last four years. They want to roll the back to the Blair years, to Tory-lite, and to the miserable offer of the Ed Miliband ‘tombstone’ that lost us the 2015 election.
What the right wing will never accept is the fact that Labour’s policies – particularly re-nationalisation of rail and public utilities – have been shown by one opinion poll after another to be popular. According to a poll by Opinium, after the election, the main reasons given for the desertion of Labour voters were Corbyn’s leadership (37%) and Brexit (21%). Only 6% cited “economic policies” as their reason for switching. (Financial Times, December 14)
The right will now argue – and the BBC is offering the maximum platform for the idea – that Labour’s defeat was the worst for generations. In fact it was not. Labour’s share of the vote under Michael Foot was 27.6 % to be exact. Under Gordon Brown, Tony Blair’s successor in 2010, it was 29%. Under Ed Miliband in 2015, it was 30.4%. As bad as it was last Thursday, and faced with unprecedented hostility by the media and systematic sabotage by the right wing, it was still better than these results, at 32 %.
Even in terms of seats won, if we take into account Labour’s demise in Scotland, the result is by no means the worst. In 1983, Michael Foot won 209 seats, but this included 41 (out of 72) seats in Scotland where last Thursday, Labour only managed to hang on to one.
Brexit will be a disaster
So what is likely to happen now, in society at large and in the Labour Party in particular. One thing is for sure, we need to steel ourselves for a fight. The main enemy, as always, is the Tory government and it goes without saying that we will fight against all the policies and measures that Johnson will try to implement in the next few years. Brexit will be a disaster, bringing economic chaos and dislocation. Moreover, this will be taking place in the context of a looming world recession which will hit the UK economy particularly hard.
We now have a prime minister who has made a political career out of lying and the idea of a “smooth transition” out of the EU is only the latest lie. Even a columnist in the Financial Times (July 26), asked what the Tories’ answer was to the most “profound crisis” in modern peacetime thought they had put a “second rate huckster” in 10 Downing Street. Johnson is a man, the same newspaper’s sketch-writer says, “whose campaign involved inventing statistics, dodging interviews and hiding in a fridge.” He is a man, acknowledged by even Tories, as someone with only a passing acquaintance with the truth.
Whatever Johnson is now saying about healing and reconciliation after Brexit, there is not a snowball in Hell’s chance, that austerity will be “over” for the overwhelming majority of working class people and young people especially will continue to suffer the insecurities and uncertainties of life in Tory Britain. Johnson has admitted that Labour supporters have only “lent” their votes to him, but the promises of an end to austerity will turn to ash in their mouths. Homelessness will continue to rise. Low pay will plague millions of workers. Food banks will multiply, along with poverty and squalor in the private rented sector. The dismay of the millions of young voters who voted Labour will turn to anger in a measurable period of time and then we will see some serious opposition to the Tories.
Although the Fixed-term Parliament Act and Johnson’s comfortable majority, would appear to suggest that there may not be another election until 2024, it does not mean an earlier election is ruled out or that there will not be a crescendo of opposition to the government. Those who voted for him in former Labour areas will be expecting genuine improvement in their lives and prospects, investment in infrastructure, relief for local authorities, schools and the NHS – and none of these things are going to happen beyond cosmetic measures.
Young voters particularly angry
The first preliminary analysis of voting by age has been produced by the polling organisation of Lord Ashcroft, former Tory Party chairman. Even his poll shows that there was approximately the same gradient that we had in 2017, where the younger the voter the greater the likelihood to vote Labour. According to Ashcroft, 57% of 18-24 year olds voted Labour and only 19% Tory. Among 25-34 year-olds, the figures were 55% and 23% and for 35-44 year-olds 45% and 30%. This chimes with anecdotal evidence from election day itself. For the first time that anyone can remember in British politics there were long queues of voters at polling stations and a large majority of these were younger voters.
This information has profound implications for the future, because, when faced with years of Tory rule, these young voters will not shrug their shoulders and switch to the Conservatives. On the contrary, they will become increasingly angry at the economic and social outcomes they face. The long-term prospects for the British economy, as the article by Marxist economist, Michael Roberts explains here, are dismal.
Having failed on the electoral front, we may well see a move of workers and youth into struggles on the industrial front and on the streets. The pent-up frustrations and anger among workers in many industries and services – education, local government, NHS, rail, Royal Mail – will not vanish overnight and they are likely to exacerbated in the coming months and spill over into industrial disputes.
‘parliamentary democracy’ is discredited
Depending on what the leadership of the Scottish National Party does and the outcome of next year’s Scottish Assembly elections, the government in Westminster may also face an unprecedented constitutional crisis not dissimilar to the crisis in Spain over Catalonia. After the sweeping gains of the SNP there will be some considerable momentum towards another Scottish independence referendum and Johnson and the Tories, however big their majority in London, will be unable to deal with it.
As for the sanctity of ‘parliamentary democracy’ Johnson himself has diminished the status and reputation of the ‘mother of parliaments’ by his cavalier approach to its suspension, by the Tories’ hooligan behaviour in the chamber of the House of Commons and by the abandonment of ‘constitutional norms’ and custom and practice. What could better demonstrate the Tories’ contempt for parliament than the image of Jacob Rees-Mogg arrogantly lounging full-length, eyes-closed, in the chamber of the House of Commons. Among young people especially, the Tories have set a certain tone – that parliament doesn’t really matter – and so the focus of opposition to the government will move outside and onto the streets.
But if we have a struggle on our hands against a rampant right-wing government, for the left of the Labour Party there is another fight. We will need to defend the radical shift of the party in the last four years and to vigorously oppose any attempt to shift the party back to the non-existent political ‘centre’, into Tory-lite territory.
Jeremy Corbyn is right to stay on as leader in a period of ‘reflection’ as he put it. But the right wing will be clamouring for his resignation as early as possible and they are already touting alternatives like Kier Starmer, Lisa Nandy or Jess Phillips, all of whom supported the leadership ‘no-confidence’ vote in 2016. Emily Thornberry’s acceptance speech in the early hours of Friday morning apparently sounded like an opener in her own leadership bid, but the Labour Party needs a right-wing leader from another London seat like it needs a hole in the head.
Open selection needs to be brought back on the agenda
We need to resurrect the idea of Open Selection – something favoured at Labour conference in 2018 by the majority of Constituency Labour Party delegates, but voted down by the trade unions and Momentum-supporting CLP delegates. Serious steps need to be taken to bring the parliamentary Labour Party to heel – to bring it into line with the aspirations and wishes of the majority of members. Labour MPs are in office to fight for Labour policy, for the hopes and aspirations of party members and for policies in the interests of workers in general. They are not there to feather their own nests or further their own personal careers. There should be no more allowing the NEC to parachute chosen candidates into safe seats where they have no connections, often against left candidates with a track-record of campaigning in the local area. Selections need to be entirely transparent, locally-managed and fully democratic.
Supporters of Left Horizons will participate in the debate and discussion that will inevitably grip the party in the coming months. We will be arguing in favour of Open Selection for a left candidate in any forthcoming leadership election and, above all, for the consolidation of socialist policies in Labour’s commitments for the future.
It will be interesting to see where some of the forces of the ‘left’ make their stand. The leadership of Momentum has shown itself to be unable to run its own organisation democratically and has used its authority to bend and give ground at every push from the right wing. Momentum and a lot of the so-called ‘lefts’ will no doubt draw entirely wrong conclusions from the general election and will support the dilution of radical policies. That must be opposed.
We must also fight and campaign for socialist ideas in the trades unions affiliated to the party. Too many union representatives – at Labour conference and on Labour’s NEC – take decisions that fly in the face of the best interests of their members and often against their own expressed union policy. We must demand that union delegates to Labour meetings, at all levels, are fully accountable for their actions to the members they purport to represent.
There will be a lot to do and a lot to fight for. We might be bloody but we are unbowed. We fight on.
December 17, 2019
*This editorial is available as a Left Horizons pamphlet. Please contact the editor for copies. Note that the current online editorial is a corrected version of the one originally posted. We have corrected an error in the numbers of votes cast for Labour in past elections. Corbyn won three and a half million more votes in 2017 (compared to Miliband) not five million as was posted originally. But the political point being made is the same – last week Jeremy Corbyn lost two and a half of the three and a half he had previously won back. Unfortunately this mistake was spotted too late to change the printed leaflet but we are happy to acknowledge the correction.
