The Last Charge of the Labour Left Brigade?

'Labour List' is an on-line, pro Labour magazine, sponsored by UNITE, UNISON, the CWU and the GMB unions, and puts it this way:

'In short – Ashcroft has polled almost half of Scotland’s seats now and the picture is the same everywhere – Labour is facing a wipeout.

What does it all mean?

Essentially, Ashcroft’s poll appears to confirm the prevailing wisdom – that Labour is making gains in England, but those are offset by losses in Scotland. A hung parliament is coming. As for who comes out on top – Ashcroft himself says “this is the battle: can Labour fight back against the SNP faster than the Conservatives can fight back against Labour?”. The Tories aren’t on course for a majority according to this polling. But Labour’s collapse in Scotland is earth shattering, and doesn’t appear to be reversed so far under Murphy’s leadership.' (Mark Ferguson, 4 March)

Ashcroft is the Tory millionaire Lord who runs a constituency based polling system. His predictions have proved accurate in the past.

Ashcroft's polls also show that the largest single proportion of Scotland's traditional Labour voters, 39%, actively want a SNP / Labour coalition in Westminster after May 7. They are not voting in memory of the heady days of the referendum vote. They have a positive purpose in voting SNP in the Westminster elections. They do not trust Labour's leaders or policies. They support the SNP's anti-austerity message. They want organised pressure from the left on a Labour government.

Meanwhile the other, more traditional, more England based Labour Left are continuing to try and implement their own 'strategy'. At least recognising the feebleness of the Party's current left in Parliament (only 5 Labour MPs voted against the Tory motion to guarantee £30 billion of cuts in the first three years of the next Parliament) UNITE and some other anti-Blairite unions, have been digging away in tens of Constituencies to get new left candidates for Labour. Unofficial estimates vary but claims of over 50 new left wing MPs are predicted among the most optimistic circles as a result of this push spearheaded by the unions. This particular left is bitterly hostile to the SNP surge in Scotland.

Two thoughts come to mind:

First, which of these two 'strategies' has the greater chance of pushing Westminster in an anti-war, anti-austerity direction after May 7? (For surely the point of all this organising is to benefit the mass of the population in the UK, not to get a particular arrangement of party seats?) It is undoubtedly a 'good thing' to get as many left thinking Labour MPs as possible. They cannot be less influential than the current crop. But will the left's influence on key policy matters be any less or more if the SNP sweep Scotland? Is the English, and trade union left Labour strategy any sort of safeguard against austerity (and war) if their current Labour party line prevails? How would the the left Labour MPs vote on Labour's promised cuts? On the other hand the SNP leadership state they will end austerity, borrow £180 billion more over the next Parliament, and vote on proper funding for the English NHS - as the decision would effect Scotland. The SNP is not Syriza or Podemos, but (sadly) they are significantly to the left of the Labour leadership. They are rooted in a country that, in its majority, is significantly to the left of the Labour leadership, so they have to be.

Second, the Labour leadership have too been priming their constituencies. In a previous blog (the Guardian noted (23 June 2014) that 54% of Labour's candidates in their 90 designated marginal constituencies were political researchers by trade. 'The British Parliament has been Bought', March 3) so we already have an indication that Millbank has been hard at work. And if they have put nearly 50 of their placemen and women into the marginals, then we might imagine how many are in safer seats. The Labour leadership have been careful to build their substantial party majority in Parliament. And in Parliament you follow the party line. But if Labour is forced to make concessions to the left to form a government, then that would surely strengthen Labour's internal left.

Perhaps the real fear among sections of what remains of Labour's left wing is more fundamental. Perhaps they realise that the traditional Labour Party is coming to an end. That its slow demise is as much part of Britain's political crisis as the degeneration of Parliament, the collapse in support for the mass parties, the pressure for referendums, now on the EU, the rise of minority parties etc, etc.  The next election could be a qualitative point in the Labour Party's lack of a future. For once Labour can no longer form a government, its political attraction dissolves for the new layers and classes that have come to occupy its leadership positions. If the Tories lose then Cameron will fall and UKIP influences will strengthen, but the Tories will survive. They are a significant class party. In the past Labour could go through long periods of minority status in Parliament. Their survival and regroupment succeeded because the class base that they rested on survived and regrouped. No more. The Labour machine has moved on. The UK working class are also changing. The gap has never been wider.

Perhaps those new Labour left MPs will have a real political job to do in the next Parliament. To help start forming a real political coalition against austerity and war.