Don't let the facts get in the way

Posted in Janine's blog on ,

In last week's Hackney Gazette, LibDem Councillor Ian Sharer wrote that "The Labour Party conference at Brighton has just resoundingly endorsed four more years of New Labour spin and deception."

Maybe he didn't actually watch the conference, or maybe he just doesn't like to let the facts get in the way of a good rant on the letters page, but the truth is that Labour Party conference passed several resolutions that were against Blairism. Councillor, where does the legal right to take solidarity strike action sit in the Blairite agenda?! Or opposing NHS privatisation? Or defending pensions?

Of course, the Blair-and-Brown Show will ignore these resolutions and continue on their merry way criminalising effective trade unionism, letting the privateers rip off the NHS and attacking pensions. Such is the extent to which they have gutted Labour Party democracy - one reason why I believe that socialists can no longer confine our fight to internal battles within Labour.

But it galls me to see a LibDem try to capitalise on anti-Blair sentiment. Cllr Sharer, what is your party's policy on solidarity action and trade union rights? Keep the anti-trade-union laws, and extend them to introduce binding arbitration (ie. taking away the right to strike) in 'essential services'! (click the link and scroll down to page 20)

The LibDems are often even worse in practice than in policy, and it is easy to find other examples of their hypocrisy and oppportunism. While the party nationally tries to cash in on the widespread opposition to Academies by claiming to oppose them, the LibDem Council in Islington is going full-steam-ahead with setting them up!

Anyone who thinks that supporting the LibDems is a worthwhile alternative to Labour is a deluded sufferer of Frying-Pan-And-Fire Syndrome. After all, everything that is wrong with today's Labour Party springs from its leadership's abandonment of its founding principle of working-class political representation. How can you possibly find the solution to that in a party which has only ever been a bosses' party?!

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