Letter from Mark Langabeer, Hastings and Rye Labour member
As Left-Horizons predicted, this year’s Labour conference appeared to be dominated by the right-wing, a procession of cabinet ministers with little input from the members. Speeches from the leadership were long on rhetoric and short on policy. They claim that there would be no return to austerity, but they would have to make ‘hard choices’.
Starmer’s doom and gloom speeches have appeared to affect consumer confidence and so this prompted Reeves to suggest that there is ‘light at the end of the tunnel’. The budget will be an indicator of the direction that Labour’s Leadership intends to travel.
However, the leadership didn’t get their own way on the cuts in the winter fuel allowance. There was also support for a wealth tax and other more radical measures. As the saying goes, ‘there’s life in the old dog’ yet. The vote was non-binding on the leadership and regretfully, conference votes have never been binding on the leadership when in Government. However, it’s a taster of what the future holds. Should the leadership take the path of austerity (in all but name), conference will become a cauldron for opposition.
There are some who think that Labour is dead and suggest that an alternative be created, but I would argue that workers and youth should join Labour with the aim of returning it to its socialist roots. Unions that are not affiliated to Labour should contract in. They are standing on the sidelines and failing to support their members on the political arena.
Industrial strength alone will not solve the problems facing the working class. At present, many of our leaders are exposed for accepting freebies and gifts from wealthy donors. It plays into the idea that politicians are all the same and in it for themselves.
There’s a simple answer to this, every Labour MP should accept the wage of an average skilled worker. That would serve two purposes: it would act as a reminder of what life is like for ordinary workers and it would cut across the claim that Labour MPs are also on the take. The Party must return to the ideas of its founders, the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
