Michael Prior writes:
It is obvious that Britain is not Greece or Spain. Those hot-headed Latins can switch parties and entire political systems without a moment’s thought. But we have a calm and sensible system which accepts that what was good enough for our parents is good enough for us. And that means first-past-the-post gets the prize and coming second gets nothing. As Labour may soon find out in Scotland. Just what a Labour wipe-out in Scotland would mean in the rest of the country remains to be seen. But surely one consequence has to be a close examination of the system which has produced the most rigid political structure in Europe, one that has essentially remained unchanged for nearly a hundred years. This involves not just the electoral system which does look increasingly dysfunctional but also the political framework built around this system. The starting point for such an examination has to be the Labour Party and the complex history which has brought it to the current impasse.
A rigid first-past-the post (FPTP) system tends to produce
an equally rigid two-party system which, loosely, correspond to progressive and
conservative positions. The range of different views within these broad
categories are represented by factional groupings within the two parties which
jostle for influence in determining the policy of the party in various ways.
However, the inexorable electoral logic of FPTP tends to perpetuate the
two-party structure despite internal differences. Just how well this system has
served Britain (it has never worked in Ireland) can be disputed but one thing is
clear, the coming election is one in which it has broken down. There are two,
rather distinct reasons for this. First, has been the rise of a specifically
regional party whose position on the left/right spectrum tilts to the left but
is less important than its regional allegiance. This is not quite a new
phenomenon in U.K. terms but the political structure of Northern Ireland, the
regional exception, has long since been detached from Britain though it may yet
in tight votes come back into prominence. Second has been the rise in
importance of issues which simply cannot be contained by factional disputation.
EU membership and immigration have seen the rise of UKIP, primarily as an opponent
of the Conservatives whilst concern over environmental issues has fuelled the
rise of the Greens. (Discussion of the extent to which the Greens can be taken
seriously as a political party rather than a pressure group must be deferred.)
These twin issues impact most heavily on Labour as the
Conservatives have long vanished from Scotland. Wipe-out in Scotland and major
Green inroads into some parts of its English vote could leave it faced with no
electoral future at Westminster without a major restructuring of the British
political system. None of this is certain. It could yet hang in with
30-something percentage of vote, a deal with the Scot Nats and a continuing
grip on its northern citadels. But given the clear possibility of a potentially
fatal blow, some assessment has to be made of this rather odd body, odd because
its structure differs so sharply from the normal, continental form of a classic
social-democratic mass party with a hierarchical structure built up from a
national membership.
In February 1900, representatives of most of the socialist
groups in Britain (the Independent Labour Party (ILP), the Social Democratic
Federation and the Fabian Society), met with trade union leaders at the
Memorial Hall in Farringdon Street, London. After a debate the 129 delegates
decided to pass Hardie’s motion to establish "a distinct Labour group in Parliament, who shall have their own whips,
and agree upon their policy, which must embrace a readiness to cooperate with
any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interests of
labour." To make this possible
the Conference established a Labour Representation Committee (LRC). This
committee included two members from the Independent Labour Party, two from the
Social Democratic Federation, one member of the Fabian Society, and seven trade
unionists, effectively equal representation for the political and labour wings.
The wording “any party” is
significant; these men were not themselves forming a new party nor is there any
indication that they aspired to this.
The name Labour Party was in fact first adopted in 1906 by
the group of 29 MPs who had won election under the auspices of the LRC
essentially to describe themselves and those who had worked to elect them. Its ‘object’ in 1910 was to ‘secure the election of Candidates to
Parliament and organise and maintain a Parliamentary Labour party with its own
whips and policy’ It was a ‘federation
of national organizations’, a loose and ill- defined alliance rather than a
coherent party with specific aims.
Nationally, the Labour Party only acquired individual
membership in 1918, after extension of the national franchise to all adult
males and some women, when something like the existing constitution was
adopted. It was only after 1918 that the party began to contest nearly all
seats and to systematically oppose the Liberals, the party which had been the
main representative of the working class before 1914 and with whom the LRC had
concluded electoral pacts to gain election. Its success was then meteoric. By
1924, it was able to form a government, albeit as a minority, and by the end of
the decade, it had totally eclipsed the Liberals. This complex organisational
rather than political process and its sudden rise to power has provided the
Labour Party with unusual, though longstanding, features which still define its
nature and politics.
First, as a federal organisation in which most democratic
power is exerted by affiliated bodies whose own individual members have
different relationships with their national body, it has only a limited role
for individual members of the Party itself. A consequence of this has been a
persistent inability of positions which commanded significant, often majority,
support within the individual membership to determine party policy as expressed
within party manifestos. It is noteworthy that the one affiliated body with
specific political ambition controlled by individual membership, the ILP, split
from the national LP in 1932 to begin a long decline.
Second, it has remained true to its original LRC roots in
being primarily an electoral body dedicated to providing the Parliamentary
Labour Party (PLP), a separately constituted body with its own rules and
policy, with members and to electing local councillors. It has had a minimal
role as a campaigning body or one with any ambition to the development of any
left political culture outside Parliament. As a result, a wider political body
of left campaigns and agencies has always existed outside the LP with overlapping
membership and various levels of support but with no official relationship.
It is a provocative but essentially truthful comment that it
has always been this loose gathering, a kind of political penumbra, which has
provided the LP with the full characteristics of a political party rather than
being just an electoral machine. The procedural basis of this has been the way
in which affiliated bodies have memberships which contain both LP members
(often a minority) and members of other political groups as well as those with
no direct political affiliation. The classic example of this is the way in
which Communists were always able to play an indirect part in forming Labour
policy by their active participation in policy formation inside the unions to which
they, as individuals, belonged.
Third, the trade unions have always had a crucial role
inside the LP, though one which is now reduced, though not vestigial, usually
one that is supportive of the leadership of the PLP and which provides much of
the party’s money. Trade unions provide the parliamentary leadership with its
compliant majority on the National Executive Committee, which nominally runs
the LP, and also helps elect the national and Scottish leaders (thus Ed not
David Miliband and Jim Murphy). They also provide substantial though
diminishing amounts of dosh.
This historical role defined much of the party’s internal
ethos. Supporting the Labour Party meant accepting not socialism or indeed any
specific ideology but an intricate network of loyalties. This was essentially a
trade-union code of behaviour; so were the political aims of the Labour Party,
at least for much of its existence, essentially trade union ones. Within these
limited terms the Labour Party has had reasonable success. If it is objected
that it has not served the ‘true’ interests of the working-classes the answer
is that it was never designed to do so. One of the abiding features of unions
is solidarity, an unquestioning support of other members against external
forces. This, translated into political terms, is essentially a kind of
tribalism in which support for the party rather than support for some external
political principle becomes the dominant feature of political calculation. The
result is that a large number of LP activists continue to work to elect LP
candidates even though they reject a good deal of Party policy and always have
done. It is probable that this rigid but essentially fragile shell of support,
which can break once a single crack appears in its carapace, is one important
reason for the extraordinarily rapid collapse of the Scottish LP.
Fourth, the LP was never a socialist party though initially,
it contained elements of support for a socialist political programme in its
constitution and even now some of its elected MPs, though certainly not a
majority, would define themselves as socialist and probably a majority of its
membership still would. Historically, Labour has coped with the wide diversity
of political belief in its ranks by a sometimes chaotic and often fractious
internal coalition stretching from right to left. The left-wing of the Party,
though normally the junior partner, had often been able to exert influence over
both policy and leadership though this influence has declined drastically since
the mid-1990s. Its last form, the archaically-named Labour Representation
Committee, has only a few hundred members, a bare half-dozen affiliated M.P.s
and has no influence of any kind.
This odd, hybrid body might have been expected to undergo
various kinds of political development into something like the continental
pattern of a hierarchical membership-based party if it were not for its
remarkable and, at the time, unexpected transformation into a party of
potential government, a transformation which, even after the debacle of the
defection of the then Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, in 1931,
continued without any serious challenge. Labour won only 7.0% and 6.4% of the
votes cast at the two general elections of 1910. In 1923, on an extended
franchise, its share was 30.7%, just ahead of the Liberals, who were damaged by
the bitter feud between Lloyd George and Asquith, and it was able to form a minority
government. It was only in 2010, that its share dipped down to this level,
leaving aside the 1983 election when it faced with its first and, so far, only
challenge resulting from in internal split. As a result this strange political
formation has continued to dominate left politics in Britain down to the
present day without significant alteration to its original form despite the
contingent features of its first structure.
This then is the vessel which will set sail in May into the
choppy waters of minority government. Although it still has a full set of sails
and is manned by a crew of old salts who largely if reluctantly obey the orders
of the captain, this disguises the fact that its sails are threadbare and its
hull is worn paper thin.
Media political commentators still see the post-May
situation in conventional terms of two, dominant competing parties even if the
loss of Scotland wipes out much chance of an overall Labour majority. Labour
will, it is blithely assumed, form some kind of alliance with the SNP which
will enable it to form a convincing government. A moment’s thought suggests,
however, that this is a very unlikely situation even in the short-term. There
are a number of key issues which are red-lines both for the SNP and Labour. The
most obvious of these is Trident renewal whilst others on austerity, Europe and
immigration easily come to mind. The fact is that on most of these, Labour will
find it much easier to obtain its majority with Tory votes than by compromising
with the SNP. There will never be a formal Labour/Tory coalition but it remains
quite possible that on key issues, Labour will continue in government for the
statutory five years by relying on reaching compromises with the Conservatives.
The logic of a first-past-the-post electoral system has always been that there
will be two main parties, each covering the span of right-wing
conservatism/left-wing progressiveness and containing internally most of the
various emphases that such a broad definition encompasses. When these start to
overlap and rely on mutual deals then the system begins to break.
The impact that such a situation will have on the English LP
is difficult to predict but there are already some straws in the wind
suggesting that in its northern heartlands, alternative structures are being
considered. The Yorkshire First Party is standing in several constituencies mainly
with ex-Labour members who see the national Labour Party as too centralised and
London-based to represent the people of Yorkshire. A similar party has been set
up in the north-east. Neither will win any seats but their appearance in
previously solid Labour areas is significant.
A quite different but perhaps even more interesting
development is that of DevoManc, that is the deal agreed between a consortium
of 10 Greater Manchester councils and the Conservative government, to devolve
control of large chunks of local expenditure, including most startlingly that
on health, to the councils although the actual level of the budgets will remain
under central control. Greater Manchester is the most important and powerful
Labour machine in England. Manchester is the one major city never seriously
threatened by the Liberal Democrats and without a single Tory councillor. The
deal, brokered by the twin leaders of this machine, Richard Leese and Howard
Bernstein, is remarkable for its breadth and also, given the politics of
Manchester, the apparent fact that it was done directly with Cameron and did
not involve the central party, who do not seem to like it very much. Certainly,
the health service unions are spitting blood over it.
It is doubtful that Leese and Bernstein envisage the breakup
of the English Labour Party. The fact is, however, that they are busy setting
up a situation in which Greater Manchester will come to resemble Scotland in
its power and which, given the bringing together of 10 councils, 8 of which are
Labour, will make the regional Labour Party a significant power-broker whatever
the complexion of Westminster.
Clearly, if Labour suffer a wipe-out in Scotland they will
be vulnerable to challenge in England not to mention Wales. Plaid Cymru is now
up to around 20% support there but Labour still remains way out in front. In
England, only the Green Party shows any signs of acting as an alternative on
the left but would need a massive injection of support to be anything other
than an irritant to Labour, mostly acting as a conduit for disaffected Lib Dems.
Labour now has an iron-bound constitution preventing any challenge from
disaffected members. It would require the emergence of a trade-union leader of
real stature rather than jokes like ‘Red’ Leonard McCluskey to provide a
genuine challenge rather like that of the Jones/Scanlon leadership of the
1970s. Disaffiliation by unions would not provide any problem except financial.
It is one of the oddities of the LP constitution that the number and, indeed,
membership of affiliated bodies, trade unions and societies, could drop to
single figures and still have the same dominant position in elections of leader
and NEC.
It also has no need of any pool of potential candidates now
that Westminster politics has now become the province of a self-serving group
who have chosen politics as a career and, like Tony Blair, may have chosen
Labour as their vehicle largely by chance. It is significant that out the 31
members of the current shadow cabinet, less than half have ever had a proper job
outside politics having climbed up the ladder via advisers to M.P.s or in
various lobbying groups. And that is counting solicitors as a proper job. The
days of stalwarts like Prescott or Blunkett, who learnt their trade in trade
unions or local authorities whilst holding down other jobs, are past.
And yet. The main result of the May election will be conformation
of the growing contempt which much, perhaps most, of the electorate has for Westminster
politicians. Under 20% of it, possibly even less, will have voted for the party
which will claim the right to form a national government. If Labour is that party it will do so on the
basis of being essentially a regional organisation rather than a national one.
It will proceed to act in a way which the majority of its membership will have
reservations about. It would be difficult to describe a more unstable political
scenario. It would be pleasant to envisage a future in which this was
recognised by the leadership of the main parties and there was a consensus to
push through the reforms necessary to reduce this instability. But this is not
how either Labour of the Tories behave. There will be frenetic back-stairs manoeuvring
in May, much making of deals and counting heads. But there exists neither
leadership nor will to do anything than ramp up the already dismissive contempt
with which most people view Westminster. Could Labour collapse in England as it
has seemingly done in Scotland? Could the Green Party strike some kind of
political alliance with the Scot Nats, Plaid Cymru and odd fragments of the
English left such as Yorkshire First and the Trade Union and Socialist Alliance
(aka Militant of yesteryear) to form some kind of emergent democratic left
party to take its place? Even writing
such a sentence seems to provide its implicit answer. But something is going to
change.
