Posts Tagged ‘clause iv’

Labour is not a museum. It should be a movement for the future

10/08/2015, 07:00:07 AM

by Pat McFadden

It was back in 1959 that some in Labour first though the old Clause IV was out of date.  1959, before the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the same year the German SPD renounced its Marxist heritage with the adoption of the Bad Godesberg programme.  Gaitskill’s attempt to change Clause IV was a response to Labour’s third defeat on the trot.  He failed.  The party would not give up its statement of aims and values dating from 1918 and the original Clause IV survived until the 1990s.

For some the commitment to “the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange” was a serious statement of intent, a yardstick by which to judge Labour Governments who would inevitably be found wanting when it came to implementation.  That’s the thing about leaders, they will always sell you out goes the argument.  For others its value was more as heritage, not a statement they expected to be implemented but of value as a kind of holy text.

Before Tony Blair attempted to change Clause IV Jack Straw had raised the issue.  If memory serves me right he quoted his constituency chairman citing Yeats’s plea to “tread softly, for you tread on my dreams.”  For Clause IV was not only about content.  It was part of Labour’s religion.  It had a poetic appeal and its very longevity lent it symbolic weight.  So when Tony Blair set about changing it both he and the opponents of change understood the importance of the change.

Blair wanted a statement of Labour’s aims that a Labour government could seriously attempt to abide by.  No Labour Government was going to nationalise the means of production, distribution and exchange.  Secondly, he wanted to communicate to the public, most of whom of course hadn’t read Clause IV, that Labour had changed and was modernising to meet new times.  He knew Labour had a problem appealing to voters who believed Labour was wedded to high taxes, dominated by the unions and weak on defence.  Many of these voters had parents or grandparents who were Labour but they felt they had moved on from a Labour party that seemed locked in the past.

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Jim Murphy needs to be radical to revive Labour in Scotland

18/12/2014, 05:27:18 PM

by Daniel Charelston-Downes

Labour, according to the New Statesman, is now 20 points behind the SNP in Westminster voting intentions. This would see an almost virtual wipeout of Scottish seats for Labour and goes some way to explaining why Nicola Sturgeon was so keen to welcome the new Scottish Labour leadership with words of unity and collaboration. It seems SNP are preparing for, even expecting, coalition partnership.

Jim Murphy’s leadership has come at a crucial time for Scottish Labour. When Lamont talked of her despair at Scottish Labour being treated as a branch office, she hit close to home with all Scottish voters. London-centric politics is killing the main parties in Scotland and will take Labour down leaving the SNP the last man standing.

The moment Tony Blair’s name became sacrilegious in my household growing up was when he abandoned Clause IV. With Murphy using the language of the Clause, he is clearly trying to evoke memories of that kind of reform within the party and the wave of electoral success that brought with it. A rehashed statement of intent for Scotland is an attempt to move Labour into a ‘reformer’ platform.

However what Scottish voters liked about Salmond and continue to appreciate in Sturgeon is their lack of political machinery.

Where Murphy will struggle, and where his use of Blairite language displays a complete lack of understanding, is that he is viewed as the worst kind of career politician. He is straight out of Westminster. He has bounced from education, to the National Union of Students presidency, to think tanks and policy groups and now parliament. He has always seen Scotland through Labour eyes.

If Labour is ever to win a majority again they are going to need to gain Scotland back. The SNP are a much greater threat to the Labour party than UKIP are to anyone, they are doing a much more successful job of converting anti-Westminster sentiment into seats than any other British party.

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Party reform: In the hands of the many, not the few

08/08/2011, 10:11:16 AM

by Rob Marchant

So, we are having a debate about the role of unions in the Party. Perhaps Ed, as my Uncut colleague Peter Watt suggests, is on a hiding to nothing: he is paddling against a strong current of realpolitik that dictates that this cannot change, at least whilst the party is taking ninety per cent of its donations from unions.

But, this aside, perhaps we should examine something more important: rather than whether Ed will win, we should look at whether or not Ed is right.

Firstly let’s frame the debate: every time we try to have a debate about the right level of involvement for unions in party decision-making, the familiar refrain comes out from all corners of the labour movement: “man the barricades, someone is trying to break the link!” The siren goes up, we all rush to the defence of the link, the devilish intruders are repulsed, and the debate stops again.

But breaking the link is essentially a straw man: no serious, contemporary party figure is suggesting that we should do such a thing. Most of us are members of, and support, unions, even if we don’t always agree with everything they do. And how would we survive, let alone campaign? It is natural that, in part-funding the party and being linked to its decision-making mechanisms, unions should have a say.

However, the more nuanced debate that needs to be had is: how much of a say? Because, on the other hand, the current system does beg the question of whether or not it is right that three leaders, whose interests are naturally sometimes directly aligned with those of the party, and sometimes not, control a very sizeable block vote.

So, are we comfortable with that? Because perhaps we shouldn’t be, and it’s quite possible that the upcoming, wholly independent study into party funding may not be, either. Why? (more…)

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Michael Dugher blasts the inward-looking new Bennites

26/07/2010, 01:50:10 PM

When the Labour Government lost the no confidence vote in Parliament in 1979, many cabinet and other ministers at the time expected Labour to lose the following general election, but they believed that Labour would bounce back quickly.  The tragedy that followed was, of course, a generation out of power, and it was Labour’s traditional areas that paid the heaviest price for our electoral failure.  Now is not then, but lessons can be learnt.

The aftermath of Callaghan’s defeat at the polls was a full scale civil war inside the party, with tensions that had simmered around the Cabinet table for many years in government finally boiling over.  The party pushed the self-destruct button in electing veteran left-winger Michael Foot to the leadership and, despite narrowly losing the deputy leadership to Denis Healey, the influence of Tony Benn was ubiquitous and destructive. (more…)

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