There are days when I despair of the Labour Party. It is the official opposition in the UK. It has a constiution that even after Blair declares it to be committed to democratic socialism. And it has Alan Johnson as a member.
One can hope Johnson is part of the death throes of New Labour, but I know that for all the obvious failures of New Labour, the neoliberalism it embraced and the austerity its proponents have espoused since 2009 as part of the plan for diminishing the role of government whilst promoting the role of wealth that they share with the Tories, he is not alone.
Johnson's latest folly is threefold. First he has demanded Labour embrace Tory spending cuts when austerity is obviously failing. Johnson has admitted he knows nothing of economics, and it seems likely that is true of all who argue in similar fashion in Labour these days, certainly based on my experience. If they did know anything they'd know growth can only come in four ways: consumers must spend more, business must invest more, net exports must rise or government spending must increase. The first three are not happening and will not happen in an environment of austerity; that is guaranteed. Increased government spending, preferably on investment, is therefore the only way out of recession. But Johnson and his ilk demand otherwise: it's economic suicide they prescribe for all but the rich.
Second, when inequality is rising Johnson slams the unions who have done more to reduce inequality than any other organised grouping in the UK. Clearly the man wants to make divisions in society worse. His suggestion is completely contemptuous of 99% of people in this country and sure evidence that power can corrupt.
Third, Johnson wants to reduce the influence of 7 million people in Labour. What does he want to do instead? Increase the power of 1,000 compnay directors? It seems likely.
There are dinosaurs in Labour. I'm afraid Alan Johnson is one.
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It is long past time the unions stopped funding nulabour and recognised the reality that the party has no interests left in common with them. Let Mr Johnson stay where he is and get his party’s funding somewhere else. We are desperately in need of an alternative to vote for.
Then the party must change. It is, after all, the party the unions started….mainly.
I note the strident voices declaring the lack of “democracy” in unions funding Labour.
Nothing about the lack of democracy, or accountability, in large companies and multi-billionaires funding the Conservative party….
I also note the press mentioning that “members are not aware they are paying a political levy”. Rubbish. The conservatives made it law that the unions HAD to ask their members if they wanted to pay said levy. To their horror, 90% voted to continue. All new members are asked the same as those in unions in the late 90’s.
Pretty soon we are going to have state-funded political parties….and then democracy will be up to its neck in solid excreta.
It has changed, that is the problem. Unless and until the party commits to reversal of the anti union laws which are such feature: unless and until it starts to make the case for the benefits of trade unionism as outlined in Andrew Dickie’s post and in your own; and rejecting the american rhetoric of “interest groups” applied to everyone EXCEPT plutocrats, there is no hope for the labour party and no future for the unions in alliance with them.
How can a man who was General Secretary of a major union, the Union of Communication Workers, come up with such bilge? It seems to me that Johnson hasn’t only forgotten any GCSE level economics he might have known, he’s also forgotten any graduate level politics and sociology he might have known.
The truth is that over the long term, however foolish the behaviour of individual Unions and individual industrial actions may have been – and I grant they have sometimes so been – the existence and activities of Trade Unions have always been to the the advantage of society as a whole, with organizations such as the Food Standards Agency and the Health and Safety Executive being the product of union campaigning. Do we want to go back to chalk, plaster and arsenic in bread, as happened in the 19th century? Or to having the worse record in Europe form industrial accidents, as happened before the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974?
And the Unions were, are, and hopefully always will be, our main bulwark against tyranny. It’s not for nothing that Pastor Niemoller included Trade Unionists in his famous “When they came for …” list. Tyrants know that only organized labour can ever offer sufficiently strong resistance to their unfettered exercise of power.
I find myself agreeing with Fiona – if Labour doesn’t seize the baton now being handed to it, and argue for the moderate Social Democratic changes (e.g, taking the railways back into public ownership, and certainly adopting the radical reforms of banking argued for in this blog) then I, along with many others, will have to look elsewhere for the courageous politicians and policies called for by our present mess.
The frustration is that people like Alan Johnson, Jacqui Smith, Caroline Flint etc are the ones who are always wheeled out on BBC programmes like ‘This Week’, ‘Daily Politics’, Question Time’ when they are to the right of even the Parliamentary Labour Party. They certainly do not represent the grassroots.
I am beginning to feel sorry for Ed Miliband and his followers who are trying to ditch what he calls trickle down economics and form a one nation Labour Party.
This extremely reactionary and economically illiterate attack fom Johnson on his own kind is unforgivable.
If Miliband ever forms a government he should never have any Blairites in the cabinet.
They have shown their colours.
Shocking stuff from Alan Johnson, who seems to have moved further right over the last few years. What is the point of the Blairite hard right of Labour? Is Labour really going to get elected by being an exact clone of the Tories? Of course not. The Johnson interview is of course in Progress magazine which is a heavily funded “LINO” (Labour In Name Only) publication bankrolled by Lord Sainsbury with the sole objective of returning either a Tory govt or a Labour administration indistinguishable from a Tory govt. Absolutely shameful.