In defence of John McDonnell

By Darrell Goodliffe

Baroness Warsi seems intent on making something of a name for herself as a bête noire on the left and within Labour. Her latest intervention, calling for Ed Miliband to ‘take action‘ against John McDonnell, follows hot on the heels of several public attacks on Labour and its leader – most targeting the trade unions specifically. What is interesting about Warsi is the fact that she represents a general Conservative tactic which is to try and separate Labour, and more specifically its leader, from the growing movement against the coalition’s cuts. As I have said about strikes, Ed has to be careful of this because he can’t win either way. If he accedes to the demands of the likes of Warsi then he will risk criticism from the movement and look out of touch. If he doesn’t, the Conservatives and their media allies will dredge-up the ‘Red Ed’ nonsense.

The language of Warsi’s letter to Miliband concerning McDonnell is clearly inflammatory. She carefully avoids more contested terms like ‘direct action’ in favour of ‘riots’ and tries to trap Ed into ‘sharing her concern’. Hardly subtle. Very few people would favour riots but direct action is different because it doesn’t necessarily have to be violent in intent or execution. In conflating the two automatically she is playing a dangerous game herself – her language is dangerous in the way that she accuses McDonnell of being. It marginalises and delegitimises action that is in itself already the product of marginalisation and the failure of electoral democracy. In doing so it deliberately creates a discourse of exclusion which will alienate people further rather than address their concerns.

Part of the growing anger against this government is that it lacks democratic legitimacy and, for example, in the case of the Liberal Democrats and the fees issue clearly ‘won’ power on a false pretense (something that is also true of the severity of cuts). People feel cheated, lied too and generally exasperated enough without the witless intervention of Warsi.

If you look at what McDonnell said (even in what Warsi quotes) he is clearly not endorsing riots. If calling for an ‘alliance of resistance’ is an incitement to riot then clearly we have a very poor understanding of the English language indeed. McDonnell did propose quite innovative direct action including that we all ‘become tax collectors’ but that does not equate to an endorsement of the mindless chucking of fire extinguishers off tall buildings. Direct action that is democratically conducted and organised by a mass movement can be empowering and liberating, something this government indirectly acknowledges with their ‘big society’ concept, and there is absolutely no harm to democracy in supporting it.

Warsi has shown that the real challenge to this government comes from democracy and people taking control of their own lives in resisting this government’s ideologically driven attacks on each and every one of us.