Created on Sunday, 21 June 2009 19:13 Written by By Darrall Cozens, Coventry NE Labour Party and UCU (Personal capacity)
In the European elections of 2004 Labour polled 22.6% of the vote, a total of 3,718,683 votes on a turnout of 38.2%. That share of the vote itself was 5.4% down on the previous European election of 1999. In 2009 labour only polled 15.9% of the vote and came in third behind UKIP. Labour’s share of the vote fell by another 6.9%. In ten years the share has fallen by over 12%. This time some 2,381,760 voters turned out for Labour, meaning that Labour lost 1,336,923 votes between 2004 and 2009. The national turnout of voters fell from 38.2% in 2004 to 34.2% in 2009. The turnout fell by 4% and Labour’s share fell by 6.9%. The clear implication is that some of labour’s vote went elsewhere but most voted with their feet and stayed at home, abstaining.
It had been expected that Labour would be hit by the scandal of the sleaze of MPs’ expenses, prominent Labour resignations and the economic crisis, but the message of the programme of Labour did not inspire even its core vote to turn out. This fell by just under a staggering 36%! To regain that vote and to gain new votes in the general election of May next year, less than a year away, labour will have to inspire confidence with a programme that will protect working class people from job losses, housing repossessions and cuts in public expenditure resulting in cuts in social provision. Such a programme however will need a wholesale onslaught against programmes of privatisation, against subsidies to the capitalists and financiers to bail out their mess and a guarantee from Labour that the burden of the crisis will not be paid by working class people who did not cause the crisis. In other words labour needs a Socialist programme.
In the absence of such a programme from Labour there were other political formations in the Euro elections that offered a “socialist” alternative to Labour that would sweep up disillusioned Labour voters with a “left” alternative. This alternative group coalesced around the No2EU campaign that was initially set up as an electoral alliance some seven weeks before the Euro elections by national leading members of the RMT trade union with other “left” organisations participating. These organisations included the Socialist Party, the Communist Party of Britain, the Alliance for Green Socialists, some members of Respect and other non-aligned Socialists. The glue that held this electoral platform together was the common idea that Labour was finished as a political voice of the working class and also there was a need for a socialist voice that would defend the interests of working class people. In addition, some members of this alliance, such as the SP, saw the electoral platform as a stepping stone to the establishment of a new workers’ party.
There were therefore three aims to this campaign. Firstly, to offer this “left” political and trade union alternative. Secondly, to act as a possible forerunner of trade unions presenting candidates in elections as has been discussed at recent conferences of the CWU and the PCS. There is a growing antipathy amongst active layers in the trade union movement to the policies of the Labour government. The CWU is bitterly opposed to the plans to privatise up to 49% of the postal services. The PCS is alarmed at the loss of jobs in public services which severely curtails the ability of their members to deliver effective front line services.
Thirdly, the No2EU platform was seen by many of those who participated in it as a stepping stone to the setting up of a New Workers’ Party. Many of the SP members in the No2EU campaign are developing a strategy of organising a conference after the EU elections to discuss a programme to set up such a party. They saw that the various political groupings in the No2EU campaign would be able to coalesce around a commonly-agreed programme that would offer a socialist alternative to the pro-capitalist, pro-big business policies of the Labour Government.
Even before the election the SP seemed a little apprehensive about the success of the No2EU campaign when it complained that it was not receiving the press coverage that it thought it should be receiving. It criticised the “censorship” of Question Time which cut out a lot of the comments of SP members on the TV programme. If therefore the No2EU campaign did not do well, some of the blame could be laid at the door of the absence of media coverage.
Amongst many of its more prominent candidates and supporters there were high hopes of being able to pose a serious alternative but there were also some misgivings. The No2EU campaign was seen as “a way of taking votes away from the BNP”, as an “alternative to ex-Labour voters”, as an expression of a “need for a working class alternative”, as a “forerunner of an alternative political party of the working class”. These hopes however were, even at this stage, tinged with some misgivings. The programme on offer by the No2EU campaign was “the best of a bad job, not perfect, far from perfect, not where we would like to be”. There was some “good stuff” in the programme, but it was not a “politically correct campaign” but had to be supported “despite the warts” and the absence of a “well worked out programme”. There was even the claim by a prominent member high up on the No2EU list in the North West that “Socialists won’t vote Labour” and therefore a new workers’ alternative, a socialist alternative, was necessary.
Despite the absence therefore of a programme that was “acceptable” to all the No2EU candidates and supporters, they saw their EU election campaign as a socialist campaign despite the fact that their campaign literature did not call for socialist policies as an answer to the crisis of capitalism. It is true that at pre-election meetings, and there were many of them up and down the country, many speakers on the No2EU platforms did state openly that socialist policies were needed but in the material that was presented to the electorate nationally these demands were absent. Whether this was a failure of the differing left political groupings involved in the No2EU campaign to agree on such a programme or reluctance on the part of the campaign to present such a bold programme to the electorate is not known. What is known is that those organised under the umbrella of the campaign foresaw great events unfolding s a result of the campaign as the Labour party was now damned and dead in the eyes of the working class. All that remained was to bury it with the electoral success of the NO2EU candidates and then finish the mourning period by establishing a political alternative to Labour that would sweep up working class support as Labour was finished.
There was however one spanner in the works of the plans of the NO2EU campaign. The electorate, and especially the “disillusioned” working class Labour voters, did not vote as was anticipated and the votes received by the No2EU lists were miserly in the extreme. In London with Bob Crow, leader of the RMT union, at the head of the No2EU list, only 1.01% of votes were garnered. In the Midlands, with ex-Labour MP Dave Nellist at the head of the list, they received only 0.9% of the votes cast, despite the fact that Dave has an excellent reputation as a class fighter, a workers’ MP who would serve if elected on a worker’s wage. Dave had the courage at least to say that if elected he would use the platform of being an MEP to wage a fight against capitalism. In London you had the spectacle of Bob Crow who, had he been elected, would not have taken up his seat as an MEP as the constitution of the RMT forbids officials from holding elected office in Parliaments. In London therefore working class people were being asked to vote for the NO2EU list perhaps not knowing that if candidates on the list were elected, they would not take up their seats. What a farce! Vote for me but I will not go to the European Parliament to represent your interests!
In Coventry, the political base of Dave Nellist, a class fighter well respected in the city, the No2EU campaign picked up 2851 votes or 4.3% of the total votes cast and Dave Nellist headed the No2EU list in the West Midlands. In the local elections of 2008 in Coventry, three Socialist Party members including Dave standing as Socialist Alternative picked up 1920 votes with Dave getting 1643 votes and being re-elected as a SP city councillor. In the Euro elections, the SP, in alliance with all the other groupings of the No2EU campaign, increased the “socialist” vote by 931 votes. This was the alternative to “disillusioned” Labour voters. The Labour vote in Coventry in the EU elections was 17,785 and top of the poll despite the record of the Labour Government. So much for the desertion from Labour that the No2EU campaign was predicting! By the way, for all those on the “Left” who had been campaigning against the danger of “fascist reaction” in the guise of the BNP, their vote in the EU elections in Coventry.fell by 337 compared to the council elections last year, but they still polled 5198 votes.
Away from the political base of Dave Nellist in Coventry, the No2EU result in the West Midlands, where Dave headed their list, was a disaster. They polled 13,415 votes or 0.9% of the total cast. They were even beaten by the SLP of Arthur Scargill that polled 14,724 votes. Nationally, the results were also disastrous. The No2EU campaign polled 153,236 votes or 1% of the total votes cast. The SLP polled 173,115, some 1.1% of the votes cast! In only three of the ten voting regions in England and Wales did the No2EU campaign outpoll the SLP – London, East of England and South East. So if the SP were prepared to go into an electoral alliance with a number of organisations whose “socialist” credentials were questionable, why not an electoral platform with the SLP? After all, their combined vote for “Socialism” would have been 326,351 or 2.1% of the votes cast. The answer may lie in a quote from one of the candidates on the West Midlands No2EU list, “Arthur does not talk to anybody”. So a democratically agreed “Socialist” programme would have been impossible with Arthur Scargill! Where was the democracy in the drawing up of the programme for the No2EU campaign? The main points were agreed by the RMT and later additions to the electoral platform were allowed to make minor amendments! It would seem that one “socialist” democracy is more acceptable than another “socialist” democracy!
So why did the voters, in particular the working class voters “disillusioned” with the LP, not vote for the No2EU candidates? After all many of the No2EU candidates have decades of experience in fighting for the interests of working people in the trade unions and on the political front. Bob Crow in London has an exemplary record of fighting for his members in the RMT and for the interests of working class people in general. Dave Nellist has a similar record in Coventry and the Midlands. Rob Williams from Swansea has gained national prominence in his fight for reinstatement after being sacked by ex-Ford company Linamar in Swansea and he has just won his battle. On some of the No2EU platforms were excellent class fighters from the Visteon plants from Enfield and Basildon that were recently occupied. Here we had a coalition of determined socialists and communists, with a sprinkling of liberals and social democrats, prepared to go out and fight for the interests of the working class. The sincerity and the intentions of these candidates could not be doubted.