WHICH WAY FORWARD?

There is a bit of a debate going on on the Hebweb about Labour's future. The following is a shorter version of my post on what Labour should do to recover lost ground.

New Labour was the result of many years of Tory Government and sheer desperation that Labour would never win office again. So many (myself included) were prepared to conpromise. In Tony Blair we (rightly) assumed we had an electable Leader who could win over a broad coalition of support. That broad coalition has now fallen apart and in its desire to keep Middle England sweet, Labour has lost much of its core support. Most siginificantly that of the working-class .
No-one disputes the achievements of the 1997 Govt. Surestart, Minimum Wage, Northern Irealnd, devolution. But in 2003 Tony Blair took us into an illegal and immoral war in Iraq which for many was the tipping-point out of the Labour Party. We have yet to recover from that.
When Gordon Brown became Leader many also hoped for a change in direction but it has not happened. Far from it. New Labour continues on its road of unnecessary and unpopular privatisations, ie Royal Mail, presides over a society in which the gap between rich and poor has widened, not lessened, and we have a tax system which remains beneficial to the rich. Well-off people actually paid more tax under Thatcher.
In 1997, we said we would re-nationalise the railways and not introduce tuition fees. We reneged on the promise re the railways and did what we said we would not do on top-up fees.We continue to allow the rich to get away with billions in tax avoidance.
Tax credits have helped many people but welfare benefits are derisory. According to the TUC, Jobseekers Allowance should be about £100 a week just to keep pace with inflation. It is about £60.00.
Yet we have committed billions to a new generation of nuclear weapons. At a time when four million people are on waiting-lists for council homes.
So it's not enough to say the Tories would be worse. The fact is many simply don't believe that. What to do? New Labour's status quo is not an option.
Labour backbenchers and trade unionists need to put pressure on the Government to put into place the policies which would win back support. Old state nationalisation might not be the answer but there are many models of social enterprise and alternatives to the iniquities of global capitalism - currently in meltdown.
We need to call for:
A fairer tax system
Millions more investment in social housing
More accountability for the banks we have bailed out.
Scrapping ID cards and Trident
The return of the private utilities into public ownership (doesn't have to be a State monolith) to end the profiteering which is leading many millions into fuel poverty.
The Socialist Labour Party and No2EU are not to blame for the BNP winning. Their vote was frankly, derisory.It says far more that Labour's vote collapsed and we got a BNP Euro MP. If people in the Labour Government are not prepared to listen to that message, then we really are doomed to have a Tory Government.

WAKING UP TO FASCISM

I gave up on the Euro elections about 1.30am and in some ways I'm glad I did as the sight of Nick Griffin winning in my home territory of the North West would have been pretty unbearable. Griffin went over the Pennines after failing to win in Keighley at the General Election. This time, he did it. The news is a terrible blow for al of us. But particularly those of us in the North of England who wake up with two fascists representing us in the Euro Parliament.
I'm going to be careful what I say because my gut instinct is to go into a bit of a tirade against those in my locality who said they could not "bring themselves" to vote Labour.
This morning I just ask them what voting for the Greens, or No2EU, or Arthur Scargill's Friends Of North Korea party has achieved other than to give the BNP a massive blast of oxygen - and the serious prospect now of winning seats at Westminster.But such ire would be misdirected.
Round here, the BNP's share of the vote was highest in former mining communities in Barnsley and Rotherham. Places where traditional working-class communities have felt disenfranchised and abandoned by Labour. We have to ask why and we have to do something about it. And the blame game isn't going to help.
I'm surprised in a way because when I was trying to stand as a PPC in Keighley a common view there with activists was that the BNP had been seen off in 2005 and that they would quietly wither away. Halifax, too, has seen the BNP's share of the vote dwindle at local election level. Now they are back - with a vengeance.
There is truly only one answer to this sickening result and that is for Labour to stop worrying about Middle England. It's now irrelevant. Last night it was crushed and came second to the Conservatives in its Welsh heartland. If Labour does not reconnect with its core vote, get out onto the estates , start re-connecting with the very people who have registered their anger by voting BNP then Labour is finished.

YOU SHOULD HAVE VOTED LABOUR....

I have just watched the Euro election results from Yorkshire.Awful. A decent Labour MEP, Richard Corbett, has lost his seat at the expense of the BNP. Many people I know thought they could register a protest with more "left" parties like the Greens or No2 EU but the truth is that even with PR that those who voted for them, however good their intentions have only aided the BNP. The lesson is this. It's not enough to send out messages saying "don't vote BNP." The BNP has been handed a seat because people deserted Labour. I didn't. Whatever my grumblings when push came to shove there was only one choice. The BNP now has its first seat in the Euro Parliament. It makes me sick to my stomach.Whatever reasons people had for not voting Labour, and I know plenty who said they wouldn't, they made a fundamental mistake.It's a lesson which must be taken on board at the General Election.One can onlyhope Nick Griffin does not win in the north west.