The Labour in Government: One Year on Conference held by John McDonnell’s Claim the Future (19 July) was about 200 people despite the heavy rain. It was pitched as an assessment of Labour’s performance and posed the question where next? Supporters of Workers’ Liberty attended and intervened in the conference.
We can't go on like this
John McDonnell opened the conference by talking about the McDonnell-Fisher report on a Labour Government published before the election – a crude calculation that the government would need £80bn extra revenue a year to get back to 2010 levels of spending. He spoke about his predictions resulting from the flaws in the 2024 ‘mild mannered’ manifesto and the fiscal rules. His anxiety was that the government would lose its support by the mid term and that the left had to be prepared for then.
This all aligns with what McDonnell previously said at The World Transformed's ‘Strategies for a Starmer Government’ in 2023 which I reported at the time. “[McDonnell] argued that things come in waves. We are currently in the residue of Corbynism and the next wave will come because of economic crisis. McDonnell believes that his job is to protect the next generation of the Left in Parliament.” And “McDonnell said that now is the time to bite your tongue, to stay in place and strike at the strategic time. He then told the audience to think and read The Art of War.”
McDonnell admitted that his predictions were wrong in timescale, in twelve months the government was more unpopular than expected leading to an incredibly dangerous moment. A Reform government is on the cards, which McDonnell characterised as a ‘proto-fascist movement’ though he did not explain what this specifically meant.
McDonnell then talked us through the past year: cuts to winter fuel payment; the disability cuts and the maintenance of the two-child benefit cap. That the government responded to rebellions on these issues partly with concessions coupled with harsh disciplinaries.
McDonnell believes the left and the labour movement needs to win a shared understanding of what is happening, which will lead us towards a shared programme with which to force onto the Labour Government. He warned of sectarianism, that there needed to be a ‘Popular Front’ of resistance to the far right and to force those in our movement who are not acting to move (McDonnell said later that this would include members of the new party and the greens). That in this moment it was incredibly important how we articulate and present ourselves to the public.
McDonnell then talked about the shadow the war in Gaza was casting on UK politics, and the proscription of Palestine Action. That the UK must again become a force of peace and justice across the world. He did not mention what mythical time the UK was a force of peace and justice across the world.
It should be noted that there were no opportunities to speak from the floor at this or the next session. Most of the conference was being lectured from the top table. It also seems McDonnell’s pre-election strategy made him slow to respond in bringing the Labour left together in response to the pace of events. A better organised left could have made more effective interventions on numerous issues from winter fuel payments to the disability cuts.
A politically dangerous moment
Andrew Fisher, former Director of Policy under Jeremy Corbyn, now a staffer at PCS then spoke in a personal capacity. Fisher characterised the 2024 Labour manifesto as part embedded austerity and part work of fiction. He went on to talk about rising destitution and child poverty and the modest rise in unemployment. He mentioned the impact of the invasion and occupation of Ukraine by Russia in those terms. But he said the main damage was self-inflicted.
Fisher claimed the cuts to personal independence payments, were more politically damaging to the government as they were not in the manifesto. He debunked claims by cabinet ministers that no cuts would cause a ‘run on the pound’ and the ‘collapse of the welfare state’. That there was always money for the hikes in defence spending to 40bn.
Fisher spoke about the need for a wealth tax, loopholes, rent caps and price caps, a windfall tax on the banks to create investment that would actually boost growth. That Starmer had no policy solutions other than blaming the last Tory Government for everything from the dispatch box. Fisher talked of politicians stoking racial division, that Blue Labour was peddling lines like ‘London is no longer British’. Fisher said we need to remember old labour movement slogans like “The people united will never be defeated’ and ‘united we stand, divided we fall’. That Reform has clarity, communication skills and scapegoats, while Starmer is amplifying their message.
Fisher believes the lefts’ basic problem is the failure to organise and get our ideas across against Starmer. That continuing to back the Labour leadership was the “unity of the graveyard”. Fisher’s speech was the best session of the conference as he discussed strategy and the problem of Blue Labour.
Other Sessions
We then had a series of lords and NGO people speaking on different topics with MPs chairing the discussions. There were no striking workers or rank-and-file trade unionists. I do not think there were any non-NGO activists either, as the DPAC speaker sadly had to cancel. Listening to experts is not how we bring people together into action and should be fixed for the next session. I would have even been happy with breakout rooms.
A theme of these sessions was that the speakers were coming up with a shopping list of demands but not really talking about how to win them, and mentioning loads of statistics. Kate Pickett, author of the Spirit Level, seemed to be talking about how great New Labour and Andy Burnham was, and that we needed to start a ‘big public conversation on basic income’. We have been talking about basic income for years, what will talking about it more do?
Richard Burgon MP made a good speech but ended it inconclusively by saying “the only way to prevent the far right taking power is to radically transform the Labour government and that if the leadership won’t do it then we will see.”
On the climate change panel, Clive Lewis was the only person talking in class terms. That Labour was running in the interests of capital and that water was a ‘shibboleth’ of the damage private ownership causes. He pointed to the danger of Reform also calling for public ownership.
The speaker from GND Rising spoke about needing an ‘Attlee government’ to invest in climate change. The GND Rising speaker spoke as if GND Rising was a mass movement, though I believe its been in decline since the hype created by slick branding fell off a few years ago.
Lord John Henly spoke on employment rights, which was the only thing we got on striking and trade unions. In response to a question from the floor he talked about having to demand a second employment rights bill, and that the trade unions would regret not pushing for more from the first employment rights bill. These sessions were the only chance for contributions to be made from the floor but not too many people were taken.
Next steps
John McDonnell returned to speak about how at the conference we had achieved an analysis that the Labour government was failing to be sufficiently radical, was deeply unpopular and that this was leading to the danger of a far-right government. He said the way to move forward was to bring people and organisations together. That this needed to be the full range of the left to all get together. McDonnell said the left’s problem was that we have been divided in the past.
McDonnell said that there was an alternative dynamic of the ideas that we wanted to promote based on expert nature to build an alternative left economic and political strategy. This sentence seemed very jargony to me, it was possibly a reference to Benn’s Alternative Economic Strategy.
McDonnell said the left should choose a pressing issue – child poverty to campaign on for the next six months. He rightly said that scrapping the 2-child limit was an emergency. He pointed to the fight against disability cuts where the left was partly able to push the government back and prevent the worse. He also pointed to the recently suspended MP, Chris Hinchcliff, who moved amendments on the environmental bill that the government accepted before his suspension. For McDonnell these case studies show that we can make still make a breakthrough. To make this breakthrough we would need to bring people back together after the parliamentary recess.
I believe McDonnell was tone deaf to the amount that people want to do ‘something’. From the age of most of the conference attendees, they will have heard all the policy stuff before. Though speaking to some newer young activists, this was their first big political event and they were just happy to listen along to important people.
Afterwards
John McDonnell sent this message to conference attendees afterwards.
“Dear Colleague,
Hello,
Just a line to thank you for coming along to our conference yesterday.
I hope you found it worthwhile.
I thought the presentations by our policy experts were extremely informative and stimulating.
Let me know what you think.
Any feedback would be really useful.
As many said at the conference, we are at a dangerous moment facing the rise of the far right and the threat of the far right being elected into government in three or four years.
That’s why, across the Left and all progressive elements in our society, we need to come together to deal with this threat together.
A way forward suggested yesterday was to work with others both within the Labour Party and with those in other progressive parties, unions and campaigning groups to see if we can arrive at shared understanding of what we face and a shared view on what an alternative economic and political strategy could be that we can campaign together for.
More immediately, as we discussed yesterday, there is a stark issue that needs to be addressed urgently, that is child poverty.
The government working party on poverty is to report in the next few months.
Most agree that the government’s poverty strategy must tackle child poverty as a priority, including scrapping the abhorrent two child benefit cap.
As part of the next steps proposals coming out of yesterday’s conference it was suggested that we focus fast on bringing people together from across the Left and progressive campaigns to mobilise to press for action from the government to at least scrap the 2 child limit.
I intend to start making those approaches about working together now just as we did over the benefit cuts.
Let me know if you have any ideas on who we should be engaging with on this and also any campaigning ideas.
I will keep people informed of progress usually via social media and we will look to a further coming together in some format after the summer.
Once again thank you for attending yesterday on what was a very busy day.
Best wishes and solidarity,
John”
It should be noted that there was no link to send feedback so I’m not sure how attendees were meant to provide it.
The next event
The next conference should be about how to campaign on the issue of Child poverty and include reports on what activists have done since the last conference. There should be more time for discussion from the floor, and the participation of striking workers and trade unionists. Attendees of the conference had a lot to share from discussions during the recess and this would be more beneficial than listening to top-table experts.
I think we should take the suggestion of uniting the left around a campaign honestly and explore what we can do. In local labour parties where motions against the benefit cuts passed, labour members could be organised to reach out to trade union branches and all those outside who want to abolish the cap. Local branches of young Labour and Labour Students should be invited as well. This could be a good test-case for the union-labour committee model we have proposed previously in Solidarity. Campaigns should be headlined by the demand to abolish the cap but also include demands on local councils.
The campaign will be good in itself, but will also serve as a model for how the left, now scattered across Labour, Greens Organise, and the new party can operate together on an important issue. The Starmer government is fundamentally weak, the labour movement must re-learn how to win and begin rolling them back. Otherwise, we will have to face a Reform government in a few years time.
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