The Chance of a New Era

John McDonnell MP
Candidate for Leader of the Labour Party

WE STAND ON THE EDGE OF THE MOST DECISIVE DECISION IN THE RECENT HISTORY OF THE LABOUR PART PARTY.

This decision will determine not only the future of the Labour Party as a vehicle for socialist change but also the potential for a radical change in our society.

Recent conspiracies and infighting between the Westminster factions of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair demeaned for a while the significance of the process of electing the next leader of the Labour Party. When Brown’s acolytes launched their attempted coup on Blair immediately after the summer party members and the general public looked on aghast at this blatant operation of naked ambition. Not a single policy or issue of political philosophy was mentioned as blows were traded publicly and privately between the two factions. The only apparent motivations for this leadership challenge were the desperate search for office and the fear of lost ministerial positions and the loss of seats.

What is clearly not understood by the warring factions of this incestuous Westminster elite is that every poll and every recent electoral contest is demonstrating that what people want is not simply a change of leader but regime change itself. Without a radical break with the politics and policies of New Labour a change of leader simply will not be enough to restore the confidence and support of the millions of people who have looked to the Labour Party, often over generations, to create a fair and just society but who have been disillusioned and dismayed at the policies of Blair and Brown.

As members of the Labour Party and trade union movement let us allow these factions fight it out. Their careerist motives are irrelevant to us and to the real world in which the members of our movement live. They are not part of us and do not stand for what we believe in. The vast, vast majority of the members of our movement join it not for some career path but out of an altruistic desire to improve the world in which we and our fellow human beings live. It is to this idealism that we are appealing in our campaign to elect a socialist as leader of the Labour Party.

In announcing my candidacy for the leader of the Labour Party I made it explicitly clear that our campaign would be about policies not personalities. We would go on the stomp around our countries in meeting after meeting with rank and file party and trade union members discussing, debating and, yes, arguing about the policies and political principles the Labour Party and the Labour Government should adopt. That is what we are doing to packed meetings of people enthusiastic again not only that they can have a say once more but also that they are discussing and shaping real policies that they believe in. As one young woman commented at our meeting in Manchester “I am so enthusiastic that for the first time in a long time I can argue and advocate again within the Labour Party policies I believe in.”

Of course in sections of the media owned and dominated by capital and supporters of New Labour there has been what one journalist described as a virtual media blackout of reporting our campaign. However we are making our own weather in the mass of public meetings, the use of live media, especially radio, and the extensive freedom of the internet. Our website and blog is receiving in less than 10 weeks of existence over 1000 people hitting it a day. Terrifically our campaign is being driven by a new wave of young

people and has mobilised the support of a broad coalition of rank and file trade unionists, pensioners groups, environmentalist, peace campaigners, women’s groups and many other progressive campaigns. The choice we are presenting is straightforward. On the one hand the prospect of the election of one of the many infighting adherents of New Labour. Whether it is Gordon Brown, Alan Johnson, Alan Milburn it doesn’t really matter as their neo con political philosophy remains the same. Or on the other hand the election of a socialist and endorsement of a socialist programme of policies for a real Labour Government.

The choice between public services or privatisation, between decent pensions linked to earnings or means tests, between building council houses or homelessness, between green energy and clean British coal or the costs and risks of nuclear power, between promoting trade union rights and civil liberties or further reactionary incursions on civil liberties and ID cards, and between a government committed to peace, withdrawal from Iraq and scrapping nuclear weapons and a leadership committed to renewing Trident and a military alliance with Bush.

The New Labour hierarchy and their friends in the media deride our campaign as a “no hoper.” They sneer at our approach of engaging with the grassroots of our movement. Let them arrogantly underestimate us. The votes at Labour Party conference for our policies, the election of the advocates of these policies to the Party’s NEC and the great response our campaign is receiving amongst rank and file party members and trade unionists all demonstrate to us that we have it in our power to take our party back.