The War Goes On: With Corbyn’s re-election, the class-struggle in Labour will intensify
JEREMY CORBYN’S RE-ELECTION should signal an outbreak of peace and unity in the British Labour Party. Especially given his support among Labour members has gone up, not down, since he was first elected in September 2015. Not a chance. His enemies in Labour’s parliamentary caucus simply will not relent. The war of attrition will go on until Corbyn is no longer leader. Why?
The answer is as bleak in its essence as it is in its implications. From its very inception, more than a century ago, the British Labour Party has been the product of two powerful political impulses: working-class unionism and middle-class reformism. Though they were not perceived to be so at the time the party was formed, these two impulses would, ultimately, prove contradictory.
No matter how modest the ambitions of Britain’s moderate trade union leaders, the pursuit of “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work” was always destined to run into the brute realities of capitalism’s zero-sum equations. And when that day came, as it did in the 1970s, the middle-class reformers of the Fabian Society were never going to align themselves with Labour’s working-class voters.
There was a reason for this reformist disdain. They simply did not believe that working-class people were capable of managing themselves. Working people, in the reformers’ opinion, lacked the experience, the education and, yes, the ‘breeding’ necessary for self-government. That being the case, Labour’s ultimate objective must be to erect a state-funded and administered system of social organisation and control, that would allow highly trained middle-class professionals will ‘look after’ and ‘improve’ the ‘labouring masses’.
Policies promising the public administration of health, education and housing services, and the public ownership of key industries, may have sounded like socialism, but in one vital respect they were deficient. The administrators and managers of this Brave New World would not be drawn from the ‘labouring classes’ in whose name they were being created, but from a middle class which saw itself as the meritocratic inheritors of Britain’s louche and incompetent aristocracy.
This dystopic game of bait-and-switch provides the theme for some of British literature’s most famous political fables. From “The Time Machine” and “Things To Come” by H. G. Wells’ (himself a hard-line eugenicist and prominent Fabian) to George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and “1984”. In British social-democracy, no less than on Animal Farm: “All animals are equal – but some are more equal than others.”
What the Fabian Society reformers were never game enough to ask themselves was: “What happens when publicly administered health, education and housing services raise up a generation of workers who are no longer content to let middle-class bureaucrats control their lives?”
When “The Who’s” famous invitation to “meet the new boss – same as the old boss” is rejected. When thousands of young shop-stewards finally work out what their corpulent union bosses have always been too frightened to admit: that “a fair day’s pay” is beyond the remit of even the most thoroughly reformed capitalist society. What happens then?
What happens then – as every member of both the British and New Zealand Labour Party who lived through it will confirm – is that class struggle begins to manifest itself not only in the workplace and on the picket line, but also in the ranks of the political party of the working-class. And when that party has allowed itself to become “professionalised”, especially at the parliamentary level, then the outcome of that class struggle is a forgone conclusion.
But history is not a clockwork mechanism, or, if it is, then there’s a ghost in the machine. Tony Blair may have filled the upper echelons of his government and party with a plethora of “pretty straight guys”, but within the shell of the professionalised Labour Party there still existed the perennially disruptive trade unions and constituency party organisations. It was to forever silence these working-class voices that Blair’s successors brought in the “one-person-one-vote” rule. Not even in their worst nightmares did they apprehend that their cynical gesture towards ‘democratisation’ would produce a Jeremy Corbyn.
So now they find themselves caught between a leader dedicated to creating precisely the sort of emancipatory labour movement that Blair and his professionalised predecessors worked so hard to destroy in the 1970s and 80s; and a fast-growing movement of citizens determined to seize control of their own future. Already the largest socialist organisation in Europe, the 600,000-strong British Labour Party threatens to become something much more dangerous than the ruling class’s second eleven. Corbyn is determined to turn Labour into a people’s movement for radical change. A project so impossibly horrific that it has united the entire British Establishment against him.
Only two things can stop Corbyn now. Either, his parliamentary caucus enemies will contrive some way to fundamentally constrain his power (by forcing him to accept an elected shadow cabinet, perhaps?) Or, the hidden hand of the “deep” British state will arrange for his removal “by other means”.
For the newly re-elected leader and his party the moment of maximum peril draws near. We must hope that the ghost in the machine continues to nudge history in Labour’s – and Jeremy Corbyn’s – direction.
There is no limit to the depraved depths the powerful will sink to to protect their patch.
YES MONEY IS RULING THIS WITH “RENT A POLITICIAN”
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
John F. Kennedy, in a speech at the White House, 1962.
Killed November 1963.
And just what do you think will happen if Corbyn was dealt with by ‘ other means’?
In the stark light of BREXIT it would be a brave man or woman who dealt with Corbyn by ‘ other means’….
Lest you forget just who the minority really is… and it sure isnt the working or middle class, so Im sure we can count that one out. Unless of course, the elite want to take to living in concrete bunkers.
Excellent analysis in this article Mr Trotter, of course it always boils down to class war.
Strange that with your deep understanding of class war, you would defend Hillary Clinton so staunchly in the past?
Chris Trotter continues his tales of woe…nothing the left does will make a difference…middle of the road is the way to go…trade unions have had their day…Oh Chris now you are a expert on Left-wing politics in the UK…is there anything your not an expert on…
Can you not see a ray of hope, a dream for-filled, an objective achieved. I wish those in the UK who would change from failed neoliberalism and individual greed to collectivism and socialization all the best as they move toward a fairer society.
For Gods sake Chris write something positive…or give up the pen and watch Seven-Sharp…
“So now they find themselves caught between a leader dedicated to creating precisely the sort of emancipatory labour movement that Blair and his professionalised predecessors worked so hard to destroy in the 1970s and 80s; and a fast-growing movement of citizens determined to seize control of their own future. Already the largest socialist organisation in Europe, the 600,000-strong British Labour Party threatens to become something much more dangerous than the ruling class’s second eleven. Corbyn is determined to turn Labour into a people’s movement for radical change. A project so impossibly horrific that it has united the entire British Establishment against him.”
A kind of purge seems inevitable within the UK Labour Party, so new MPs can stand for elections, that is new candidates that will replace present MPs.
Of concern must also be, how much appeal such a new movement can get from the pool of voters, as that is the big question that needs to be answered.
I presume, like in NZ Inc here, most have become so conditioned under the neoliberal rule and brainwashing, they do not even see the opportunities for themselves, they rather continue to vote for the same mercenaries and self serving candidates that serve the business lobby and their interests, rather than that of the citizen.
What will the Pope do?
“The administrators and managers of this Brave New World would not be drawn from the ‘labouring classes’ in whose name they were being created, but from a middle class which saw itself as the meritocratic inheritors”
The last decent Labour leader was Bill Rowling.
The Labour Party has been the plaything of the legals and professional pollies ever since.
Unfortunately – because they fail so dismally to connect with, or understand those Not Them. Fem or men – they patronise. And it shows, as well as seeping into such staunch flimsies as Mana and the Maori Party, and those wishy-washy waverers – “Green”.
Anyone with Sanders or Corbyn tendencies is exiled PDQ to the back benches to see out their time.
I don’t want The Return of Key – and I don’t like whatever else is currently on offer.
Silly buggers.
Did they not know that democracy has a strange habit of producing a “mule” (no, not quite the preternatural Asimov version in his “Foundation” series); a creature unforeseen by it’s progenitors?
In Britain’s case, a popular revolutionary; Jeremy Corbyn.
In America’s case, a populist demagogue, Donald Trump.
Both are products of the peculiar societies from which they sprang.
One from a class-ridden society where despite rigid conformity, weird stories such as “The Prisoner”, “The Avengers”, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, and “Dr Who”, and “The Magic Roundabout”, reflected the quirkiness of the British psyche.
The other is a gun-ridden society; a violence-worshipping theocracy, with the unspoken central tenet that Might is Right – especially if that ‘Might’ is backed with superior firepower stamped with “Made in USA” all over it.
In Jeremy Corbyn’s case, should he win power, Britain’s nuclear arsenal would be definitely gone to the bottom of the Atlantic Sea.
In Donald Trump’s case, should he win power, it’ll be Def-Con One by lunch-time.
Message to Time Travellers: any time now is good.
Of course the Americans had their chance with Sanders, however all the establishment media and even the main body of the establishment Democratic party would rather eat there own babies than allow in a candidate with real left wing progressive alternatives to the ponzi scheme that serves them all so well.
So they get Clinton/Trump ha ha.
Your writing is always interesting, Chris. But this time your purist analysis actually showcases the intrinsic contradiction of benign socio-anarchic ideas for the advancement of working people.
In the end those who become leaders of the movement, from whatever branch of society, end up becoming estranged from those they seek to help.
However, the tides of history at the moment are drifting towards individualism as seen in obsession with often puerile self-realisation (vis selfie culture and the MY-frontpage of Facebook etc).
If this is true then, whether for good or ill, the other thing that might stop Corbyn is that the Brits as a whole just might, and I only say might, not elect him.
In my opinion, the Labour polis in the UK will see their only option now is to give Corbyn a chance. Then they will watch the polls like hawks.
http://roymorgan.com/findings/6971-roy-morgan-new-zealand-voting-intention-september-2016-201609271642
National Party support is at lowest level since before election; now behind potential Labour/ Greens Alliance
READ THE GOOD NEWS
A steaming pile of ignorant horseshit is being paraded as fact in this thread.
Mr Corbyn is no fringe candidate, it must be appreciated that he increased his majority to 60% among those voters who had been members of the Labour Party for 5 years or longer.
The hundreds of thousands of new members certainly helped provide the momentum (pun intended) but even without the assistance of new members Mr Corbyn romped home.
The blairites seem determined to wreck the Party rather than run the risk of someone who isn’t a proven neolib getting elected. Their latest stroke, an attempt to gerrymander the NEC by stuffing a pair of neoliberal incompetents from Scotland & Wales onto the NEC is classic undemocratic self immolation which will cause incredible harm to the labour party in both nations. Branch meetings in Scotland & Wales will become toxic shouting matches.
The big question mark is how the mainstream plp will react – many are ropeable at the way the crap coup unfolded.
i suspect (hope) they can see the writing on the wall – that kissing blairite arse is no longer the way forward for an ambitious young pol.