Which way forward for the labour movement?

By Theo Russell

New Communist party (NCP) comrades gathered at the party centre in London last weekend for a seminar to dissect the causes and consequences of the December General Election outcome for the Labour Party, and for the wider trade union and labour movement.

Whilst Labour’s drift in favour of a second Brexit referendum was seen as one of the key factors, especially in the leave-voting North of England seats, it was noted that Labour lost large numbers of votes not just to the Tories and the Brexit Party, but also to the Lib Dems and the Greens, as well as to abstentions.

A range of other factors also came up however:

·    the lacklustre campaign compared with 2017 when Corbyn took the fight to the Tories on the effects of austerity;

·    the intense media hostility, according to researchers, twice as bad as in 2017;

·    covert state interference, smear tactics and dirty tricks, including the secret Integrity Initiative army unit;

·    a large scale Tory campaign of proven lies on Facebook and other social media;

·    the illegal posting of placards the day of the election claiming that children would be unsafe under Corbyn;

·    and finally, the long-term decline in the Labour vote in seats where mines and factories have closed or moved away over several decades.

One comrade noted that media attacks on Rebecca Long-Bailey had already started, despite her clear efforts to back-pedal on Corbyn’s policies and her attack on his leadership.   Meanwhile the Labour Remainers haven’t given up and their candidate, Sir Keir Starmer, is getting an easy ride from the media.

In terms of other left and independent candidates, it was noted that Chris Williamson, the suspended left-wing ex-Labour MP, got only 635 votes in Derby North whilst George Galloway won 489 votes, both standing as independents.

Comrades also noted that the situation was not all doom and gloom however, with the Corbyn period winning back large numbers of Labour members and especially large numbers of new young members.

Labour still managed to win 10.3 million votes despite the massively hostile media onslaught, dwarfing the next largest national party, the Lib Dems, with 1.2 million and the Scottish Nationalists with the same. This compared with 9.5 million in 2005 – when Blair won with a comfortable majority – 8.6 million in 2010 and 9.35 million in 2015.

In 2017 under Corbyn, Labour won 12.97 million votes, only 1.7 million short of the party’s best ever performance, 13.94 million in 1951 when Clement Attlee also lost in a snap election.

In other words, Labour remains the second largest party and the party the overwhelming majority of the organised working class look to, and no other left party in Britain carries any weight whatsoever electorally.

However unpalatable the December election result, it is vital for Marxist-Leninists to have a thorough understanding of the future prospects for the labour movement and this seminar was another step in that learning process.

As we all know, the election may have been a victory for our class enemy, but capitalism’s problems, the growing opposition to massive inequality, job and housing insecurity, endless wars, rampant consumerism and environmental destruction, are not going to go away anytime soon.