Cuts, class war and a left-wing superstar: LRC Conference review

By Owen Jones / @OwenJones84

For those who consider the Labour left a strange, alien world, I should explain what the Labour Representation Committee is. It was founded as a grassroots organisation of Labour members and trade unionists in 2004 and takes the name of the original LRC, which established the Labour Party a century ago. Like LRC 1.0, it has the same underlying argument: working-class people currently lack effective political representation, and something should be done about it. It’s chaired by tireless socialist campaigner and Labour MP, John McDonnell, and has a vast array of affiliates, including trade unions inside the Labour Party (ASLEF, BFAWU, the CWU and the NUM) and outside (the FBU and the RMT).

The LRC’s annual conference took place on Saturday. Not for three decades has the Labour left met after the fall of a Labour government. Things were rather different last time around. What later became known as the ‘soft left’ and ‘hard left’ were then united in an insurgency that led to the democratisation of the Labour Party. The left was so strong that it came within a whisker of electing Tony Benn as Labour’s deputy leader in 1981.

On Saturday, we were just glad to fill Conway Hall. That said, the Labour left has, in theory, the biggest potential opening for a very long time. The out-and-out Blairite candidate was defeated in the recent leadership election, and Labour’s hard right is in retreat – as best symbolised by the likes of John Hutton and Alan Milburn relaunching their political careers as Tory advisors. Ed Miliband is no Labour lefty, but he has been forced to make the right noises on issues like inequality and New Labour’s obsession with the market. The current crisis of capitalism has been cleverly turned into the Tories’ big opportunity, but it has still led to widespread questioning of free market dogma.

That’s probably why there was a fairly upbeat mood at the conference. The turnout was good, though as one speaker (a 60-year-old self-described ‘young socialist’) put it, the average age was too high and I found myself way too excited every time I saw an unfamiliar face. But it’s true that the sorts of people who turn up to LRC events are not the rather metropolitan, middle-class types you get at other lefty gatherings.

John McDonnell has an almost iconic status among much of the Labour left, and it was no surprise his opening speech was welcomed with rapturous applause. “We are an in absolutely pivotal political moment,” he declared, pointing to both the government’s cuts offensive and the resistance that unexpectedly emerged in November. The list of fights we are facing was daunting, even depressing: the privatisation of the NHS, the slashing of benefits, the end of council housing as we know it, tuition fees, and so on. Difficult to disagree with his conclusion, then, that “We are seeing the destruction of the welfare state that Tony Benn’s generation built.” But there was hope, and he called for solidarity with the students. “We have been on our knees for too long,” he boomed, “and the students have shown that we can fight back.”

His emphasis was, overall, on the LRC’s role as the Labour left. “We are proud to fight for socialism in the Labour Party.” Yes, some in the parliamentary party were nervous about extra-parliamentary action, but it wasn’t like capital had the same qualms. We could not just sit around for five years while the welfare state was dismantled before we had the opportunity to kick the Tories out. One of the big tasks facing the LRC was to mobilise “every section of the Labour Party” in all the upcoming demonstrations. But we were never going to make Labour responsive to a wider movement unless we restored democracy in the party. “We are clear that we are working to bring this government down and elect a Labour government,” he said, referring to a pledge on every LRC members’ cards. “But we do not want a return to New Labour.” As such, he welcomed Ed Miliband’s distancing from the Blairite era.

The FBU’s general secretary Matt Wrack was also warmly welcomed, but had warnings that the whole movement would do well to think over long and hard. “We are facing an organized attack on our class and our movement, but we are woefully unprepared for the coming onslaught.” Sobering indeed. If the left was going to make any progress, it needed to overcome its Life of Brian-style sectarianism “and get a sense of humour.”

Tony Benn remains the Labour left’s only real superstar: the whole room spontaneously rose to their feet as soon as he walked on stage. “I do not remember a time when people are as angry as they are today,” he opened – and he is drawing on a political career spanning almost the whole of post-war Britain. We weren’t just defending our services, but the right to vote to meet our basic needs. “I was radicalized by my time in government. As a minister your realise that there are other people really running the world.”

Jeremy Corbyn was elected to Parliament 30 years ago and is a kind of Foreign Secretary for the Labour left. When the British Tories and George Bush’s colleagues were arming Saddam Hussein to the teeth (and MPs like Tony Blair were turning a blind eye), Corbyn stood against the gassing of the Kurds in 1988. He presented to conference a crucial international perspective, arguing that: “They are imposing the ‘Shock Doctrine across the world. We can’t be divided up like Latin America in the 1980s.”

There was no timelier speaker than Mohamed Ali, a former political prisoner under the now collapsing Tunisian dictatorship. Tunisia was treated as an ally in the War on Terror and lauded for its neo-liberal economic policies, he reminded the conference. “This is the first revolution – more are going to spread right across the Arab world.”

Another important speaker was Clare Solomon, the elected leader of University of London Union and a figurehead of the student movement. “We’re not just defending education: we’re fighting to save public services for all,” she pledged.

What’s a left-wing conference without its resolutions? We had plenty of them, submitted by affiliates from the Communication Workers Union to Islington North CLP. Nearly all of them passed overwhelmingly – like having a broad-based Labour campaign against cuts, backing Ken for Mayor of London, building the LRC across the regions (London’s grip on the left is far from being broken) and scrapping Trident. But we did have disagreements – though it was all friendly stuff. The first was a resolution that would have watered down our commitment to fight for our policies in the Labour Party. Some on the Labour right have wrongly argued that the LRC is laying the foundations for a new party. There is a minority that believes the struggle to reclaim Labour is dead, but they also have no faith in the various ‘new workers’ party’ projects. I call it a ‘syndicalist’ position: that is, they think that by building a strong, militant labour movement, we can get rid of capitalism.

I was one of those who spoke against. My argument was that the motion would strip us of our common political objective – to reclaim Labour as a party of labour – and turn us into a loose network of lefties with no common agreement about how we achieve the LRC’s central goal: representation for working people. We said ‘stand and fight’ when Blairism at its peak; when millions of our voters had abandoned us in disgust; and when thousands were being slaughtered in Iraq. But today the Blairites are on the backfoot, millions are desperately looking to Labour to fight for them, and thousands of new members are surging into the party. To retreat from our commitment to ‘stand and fight’ now of all times, I believed, defied all political sense and reason. That did not mean we did not work with a range of groups in a non-sectarian fashion, but we could not abandon our key role of fighting for political representation.

The motion was rejected decisively (by about two-to-one), re-affirming the LRC’s central role as the Labour left. The argument about what we exist for has, I think, been permanently answered.

In one of the best speeches of the day, veteran Hackney lefty Graham Bash made it clear he sympathised with Charlynne’s arguments. But how could we be politically credible if we turned ourselves into agents of the coalition? To some, that will still seem too abstract and, when we use the argument, they may will spit back at us – ‘Well, I bet you won’t affected by Pickles’ cuts.’ My own position is that Labour councillors will only resist being forced to implement Tory cuts if there is a huge movement behind them doing so. As things stand, there isn’t – or even close.

A tiny minority heckled; they were rightly shouted down, and Charlynne was repeatedly applauded (not least for her bravery). The hecklers did not just underline our impotence, they make the left look like, well, horrible people. Her arguments were straightforward. If councillors did not vote for a balanced Budget, they would not be surcharged and martyred like the 1980s. Instead, Eric Pickles would come in and make more brutal cuts. We would expect the most vulnerable to pay for our high-minded principles.

In one of the best speeches of the day, veteran Hackney lefty Graham Bash made it clear he sympathised with Charlynne’s arguments. But how could we be politically credible if we turned ourselves into agents of the coalition? To some, that will still seem too abstract and they may will spit back – ‘Well, I bet you won’t affected by Pickles’ cuts.’ My own position is that Labour councillors will only resist being forced to implement Tory cuts if there is a huge movement behind them doing so. As things stand, there isn’t – or even close.

John McDonnell ended the conference with a warning: “There is a class war, and they’re coming for us.” There was a clear sense of unity and determination in the air. As is tradition, we parted with an emotional rendition of the Red Flag. But we’re not going to sing this government down. They are strong, and we are currently very weak. Unless we have a clear political strategy, we will be beaten. The left has the biggest political opportunity for a generation. As working-class communities are devastated by the Tories’ rebooted class war, it would be as unforgivable as it would be predictable if we screw it up.