Saving Labour

THE Scottish Labour Party is currently engaged in a democratic process so far denied to the party as a whole - an election for leader and deputy.

The importance of this process reaches beyond the Labour Party and beyond Scotland, because it will signal whether or not the people's party can throw off the neoliberal shackles of new Labour and once again emerge as a force for the meaningful representation of the working class.

Morning Star readers who are members of the Scottish Labour Party will have a vote - or more than one if they are in affiliated organisations. So too will those who are not party members but who pay the political levy in affiliated unions or are members of affiliated organisations.

Personally, I will be using my votes for Cathy Jamieson and Bill Butler.

The Scottish Labour Party elections involve candidates who all recognise that the majority of the Scottish people are attracted to many of the tenets of democratic socialism.

This has become blatantly obvious over the past year, as Alex Salmond's Scottish nationalists grow in popularity by presenting themselves as being to the left of Labour. Of course, they are not.

Like all of the other mainstream parties, they are vying for position to the right of what we once regarded as the centre.

The SNP has no real ideological roots other than separatism. It comprises a mixture of activists from right across the political spectrum, with some of its number having once been members of the Labour Party.

What it is doing well, though, is hyping policies such as free school meals, free prescriptions and free further/higher education, which are popular with the electorate. At the same time, they pass the buck to local government to make the cuts to services that will inevitably follow as a result of a council tax freeze.

People are actually beginning to feel those cuts bite. Still, the nationalists remain popular for the moment.

However, when more and more pensioners discover that they are no longer eligible for free central heating, when more and more trade unionists discover that their education courses have gone, alongside suffering effective wage cuts, and when more and more people discover that private finance has not been rejected but simply renamed, then the SNP honeymoon will begin to end. However, enough of the Scottish nationalists. What of Labour?

After last year's electoral defeat, there was certainly recognition in some quarters of the Scottish Labour Party that the nationalists can only be defeated from the left. Events since have served to highlight this even more.

But it's not enough to talk the language of left-leaning policies. The new leader and deputy really must be of the left and believe in Labour's founding principles of peace and socialism if the party is to recover.

If our policies fail to reflect the party's traditional mission to secure equality, democracy and the redistribution of wealth and power, then we will fall further into the abyss.

We cannot any longer expect the blind loyalty and votes of the workers, as has been witnessed in the recent Glasgow East by-election.
Instead, we must earn the votes of the workers by offering fundamental reform of the economic and political system that is crushing them.

Deputy leadership candidate Bill Butler recognises that fact. He states in his literature: "We need to promote an imaginative, distinctively Labour message which stresses the need to eradicate poverty and promote social and economic justice."

He goes on to say: "We need a strong leadership team at Holyrood which will work with all sections of the party to shape a progressive policy programme."

Policies that he is promoting to help achieve this include public ownership of the railways, reregulation of the buses and reform of the council tax.

He has also recognised that the party's structure needs to be reviewed and overhauled to ensure that the members play a central part in the policy-making process.

The choice for socialists in the Labour Party or in affiliated unions is perfectly clear in the case of deputy leader - Butler is a socialist and has the unequivocal endorsement of Labour's Campaign for Socialism.

However, things are not quite as clear when it comes to the position of leader.

A decade ago, it would have been much more obvious. Jamieson's left-wing views would have attracted automatic support. However, many people are no longer sure about her politics and are, therefore, wary of supporting her.

In my opinion, of the three leadership contenders, Jamieson is the only possible choice for socialists in the party and for those in the affiliated organisations.

When I was considering my approach to this piece, a tale from a few years ago sprang to mind.

A Labour Party councillor candidate hopeful, who shall remain nameless, approached some comrades seeking support from Labour's Campaign for Socialism. When it was pointed out that support would only be forthcoming for left-wing candidates, the hopeful candidate replied: "I can do left-wing."

All of the candidates in this leadership/deputy election are "doing" left-wing and attempting to appeal to the grass roots and the trade unionists because they are all conscious that the language of right-wing neoliberal new Labour is no longer popular.

What socialists need to consider is, which of these candidates are actually left-wing as opposed to "doing" it?

Which of them will deliver progressive policies that benefit the working class with the redistribution of wealth and power bringing an end to poverty? Which of them will transform the party's structure and constitution to make it a democratic, member-led force for change? And which of them will make the Labour Party recognisable as the people's party once again?

All of the candidates talk about returning to "traditional labour values."

We should remind ourselves and them what those are, particularly since what was once mainstream Labour policy may now seem radical in the aftermath of a decade of new Labour.

Labour's primary purpose is to represent the interests of the working class and to do so by promoting socialist policies such as public ownership of key industries, government intervention in the economy, redistribution of wealth, increased rights for workers and the trade unions and a belief in the welfare state and publicly funded health care and education.

I am confident that the vast majority of party members and trade unionists understand that it is a radical change of politics that is needed and not just a new face.

On that note, I would encourage comrades to use their votes for Jamieson and Butler.

Elaine Smith is MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston and convener of the Labour Campaign for Socialism.