Labour Party

Ed Miliband: "escaping the Blairite comfort zone"?

Ed Miliband, writing for a Fabian Society round-table of leadership contenders, has called for Labour to “escape” from the “comfort zone” of Blairism. The motivation for this call comes from Labour’s defeat. Although the core vote held up better than expected — especially in the north of England — the data shows a more detailed and worrying picture. Miliband writes that “Five million votes were lost by Labour between 1997 and 2010, for every one voter that Labour lost from the professional classes ... we lost three voters among the poorest, those on benefits and the low paid ... Add in skilled...

Clay Cross, 1972-3: When a Labour council defied the Tories

In 1972, the Tory government told local councils to implement the “Housing Finance Act”, designed to claw in a bit of extra money by increasing council tenant's rents. The context was in some ways similar to that of today – an aggressively pro-profit, anti-worker Tory government seeking to make working-class people pay for economic instability created by capitalism itself. There was significant working-class resistance to the Act, with several Labour councils initially stating that they would refuse to implement it. We reproduce below articles from Workers' Fight (the paper of the forerunner...

Labour leadership contest: why we shouldn't support Diane Abbott

The AWL’s national committee thought we should argue for a critical vote for Diane Abbott in the Labour leadership contest. But not everyone agrees. “We should propagandise for a spoilt ballot” No-one in the AWL is claiming Abbott to be a decent or even passable candidate. We recognise her candidacy was in some way a buffer to stop a serious class-fighter like John McDonnell getting on the ballot. But we over-estimate any advantages in using her candidacy as a propaganda tool; and she doesn’t talk about the things we use as reasons to support her. One of the main arguments in her favour in...

Labour leadership election: vote Miliband for torture!

Your grandfather fought in the Red Army in the years immediately following the October Revolution. Your father was a Marxist academic renowned for his critique of the Labour Party as a party obsessed with parliamentary politics which always prostrated itself before the capitalist status quo when in power. So what do you do to maintain the family tradition? Well, if your name is David Miliband, you stand for election to the position of Labour Party leader as the standard-bearer of the Blairite right-wing, you say nothing about how to combat Tory/Lib-Dem attacks on the working class, and you...

Labour Executive moves to limit review of party structures

The Labour Party’s National Executive has moved to limit the review of Labour Party structures which is promised to start from October 2010 to a mere consultation on details of the existing ultra-undemocratic structures, pushed onto the party by Tony Blair after his election victory in 1997. Despite all the talk from David Miliband, and even more so the other candidates for Labour leader, about “moving on” from New Labour, the Labour Party machine is clearly still as “New Labour” (i.e. undemocratic, bureaucratic, manipulative, distant from the labour movement) as ever. The widespread feeling...

Big unions back Ed Miliband for Labour leader

Both public services union Unison and general union Unite have announced that they will recommend their members vote for Ed Miliband in the forthcoming Labour leadership ballot. "The decision", says Unison, "was taken after consultation throughout the affiliated members of the union. Hustings at Unison’s national political conference, attended by 200 Unison Labour Party members representing the regions, were held in early July. All the candidates were present and the hustings were broadcast over the union’s website". The union statement does not mention what we are told by activists who were...

Labour CAC blocks rule changes

Labour's Conference Arrangements Committee has ruled out of order almost all the rule changes proposing democratic improvement which were submitted by local Labour Parties to the 2009 conference and which (under an odd rule, dating from 1968, which says that rule changes, except those proposed by the National Executive, must be debated the year after they're submitted) were due for debate at this year's conference. The pretext for the rule changes being ruled out of order is that they refer to sections of the rules in which, before 2007, "contemporary motions" to conference were mentioned. At...

Vote Miliband for torture!

Your grandfather fought in the Red Army in the years immediately following the October Revolution. Your father was a Marxist academic renowned for his critique of the Labour Party as a party obsessed with parliamentary politics which always prostrated itself before the capitalist status quo when in power. So what do you do to maintain the family tradition? Well, if your name is David Miliband, you stand for election to the position of Labour Party leader as the standard-bearer of the Blairite right-wing, you say nothing about how to combat right now Tory/Lib-Dem attacks on the working class...

Labour Executive moves to limit review of party structures

The Labour Party's National Executive has moved to limit the review of Labour Party structures which is promised to start from October 2010 to a mere consultation on details of the existing ultra-undemocratic structures, pushed onto the party by Tony Blair after his election victory in 1997. Despite all the talk from David Miliband, and even more so the other candidates for Labour leader, about "moving on" from New Labour, in crucial ways the Labour Party machine is clearly still as "New Labour" (i.e. undemocratic, bureaucratic, manipulative, distant from the labour movement) as ever. The...

Labour leadership hustings: tacking left?

Hustings for the leadership of the Labour Party are taking place everywhere. Extracts from two reports. On 3 July the union Unite hosted a hustings in Leeds. At the entrance I had to run the gauntlet of well-dressed young researchers handing out glossy leaflets for all the candidates apart from Diane Abbott. The former cabinet ministers tailored their pitch to the slightly lefty crowd. Ed Miliband proposed a Living Wage, increasing the rights of agency workers (a theme of all the candidates at other events) and a “high pay commission”. Even Andy Burnham said he “for one was not relaxed about...

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