What, if anything, is socialist about the Labour party?

Richard Wood

Socialism is defined in the oxford English as a “political and economic theory of social organisation that advocates that community as a whole should own and control the means of production, distribution, and exchange.” Philosophically this fitted the labour party and it’s roots. When the labour party was founded in 1900 four constituent elements were instrumental in its make-up. Theses four elements were: the trade unions, the social democrat federation, the Fabians and the Independent labour party. They all needed socialism although only the Social Democrat Federation had a strong ideology. These groups produced a version of moderate evolutionary socialism with an idea of a fairer more just society. They claimed human nature was collectivist not individualist and could reach perfection. To reach this state intervention was needed to run industry- for the collective good. Labour, like all political parties, has changed and evolved over the years, it has most definitely moved away from it’s roots and is by no means as socialist as it was. But is it still socialist at all? In order to find this out I will explore the context of old labour and socialism, the ideological debate, organisation and structural changes, changes in policy and policy-making, and Blair’s ‘New Labour’ government.

Traditionally Labour had won less electoral campaigns than the Conservatives but it had secured a large amount of the working-class vote and become the second force in British politics. Because of labour’s origins it paid more attention to internal democracy in its organisational structure than the other parties. To do this it divided policy formulation between the Annual party conference and the leadership, the variety of interpretations of socialism which labour were committed to made the party seem more divided than the Conservatives. This is one of the reasons the party changed so dramatically. Geoghegan illustrates this problem succinctly saying, “the key problem in defining socialism, as with all ideologies, is that of adequately capturing similarity and difference; showing what unites socialists without minimising the tremendous differences that separate them.” The danger is that one will either reduce socialism down to core essentials or simply give a historical narrative. Labours idea of socialism changed not only form old to new labour but from different stages of old labour. Before the representation of the peoples act labour was essentially a fringe party and as such had little responsibility except to itself. In Labours first time in office it changed its policies dramatically opting for a safer, tried and tested scheme of government, although this may have been due to economic problems at that time. Labours aims changed again when Tony Crossland analysed Marx’s predictions as irrelevant as social polarisation was not happening. He said nationalism was too effective and that the most important objective was the drive for social equality through redistribution of wealth. This was labours policy for 30 years until the 70’s when economic growth stopped. This led to a split of left and right and the continuation of the old ideological debate, which would finally change labour entirely. Although the labour party had changed over the years the idea of socialism had always been in the forefront of their politics. This changed in 1995. In 1918 the labour party had committed itself to a written constitution, the most important feature of this was clause IV that committed the labour party to nationalisation. The constitution survived for 77 years until 1995 when it was replaced with a new constitution and a modified clause IV which did not commit labour to nationalisation in anyway.

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Throughout the history of the labour party there has been a debate over the nationalisation issue as a token of the commitment to socialism. There has always been a general division between left and right, the left having a stronger commitment to fundamentalist socialism while the rights sought to modify the commitment to socialism. The left (traditional) faction of the labour party blueprinted a future socialist society in their constitution wanting, anti-capitalism, decentralisation, state ownership and equality between the classes. The right revisionist sought to revise this constitution in particular clause IV. Whilst the fundamentalists have had strong support in the labour party since the war in Aneurin Bevan (brought in NHS ), Tony Benn, and Ken Livingstone, the revisionists have had more of the valuable support in Hugh Gaitskell, Anthony Crossland, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Neil Kinnock, John Smith and Tony Blair. The modernisers have traditionally centred on the Parliamentary Labour party whilst the traditionalists have their strength in the extra-parliamentary elements- constituencies and other organisations (e.g. trade unions). The parliamentary wing of the party has always sought to be the alternative party to government and so has closely followed the wishes of the electorate and adapted policies. The modernisers have always seen clause IV and nationalisation as an electoral liability. The traditionalists did not want to loose sight of their roots however, nationalisation and public ownership were crucial ways to redress the class balance. During the Thatcher years socialists such as ‘red’ Ken Livingstone argued that labour should work locally to convince voters that socialism could work (e.g. Liverpool council). This proved an embarrassment to Labour leadership and the Conservatives.

Power in the Labour party is divided between the Leader, the annual conference, constituencies and trade unions; therefore it is a federalist party. This reflects the debate as how much the extra-parliamentary wing should control the parliamentary wing has always been an important question in the Labour party. Much of the power in the Labour party was beyond the control of the part leadership because of this system and it is one of the reasons Tony Blair et al reformed the structure of the party. It was not a big problem when labour was not in government but it was inevitable that when they began to form governments that the leadership would want a free hand to govern. In 1963 McKenzie addressed this problem, he came to the conclusion that because of cabinet responsibility the final authority fell to the leadership of the party, from the 60’s onwards labour leaders have acted, as this is true. McKenzie’s thesis was very helpful to the right wing of the party as once in office it meant they had effectively the same amount of power as Conservative Prime Ministers as the Annual Conference or NEC did not restrain them.

The ideological disputes resulted in the big changes in the organisation of the party. Tony Benn led the Labour left in the search for greater democracy in the party, he believed stronger controls were needed to restrain the leadership and develop truly socialist policies. This did make the party more socialist as in 1982 reforms were implemented that led to; the election of the leader and deputy leader by the whole party and not just MP’s and MP’s to be reselected on an annual basis (although this was changed in 1991). They tried to move control over the party manifesto away from the leaders but this failed. In 1983 (after a 2nd successive election defeat) the party leaders decided to regain authority over the left. The reforms implemented affected the leaders, MP’s, the party conference, the power of the trade unions, party constituencies and policy making. The new system was used for the first time in electing a leader in 1994 when Tony Blair was elected as leader with John Prescott as his deputy. The effects would not be seen until labour took power in 1997 when the strength of the leadership and move away from the left were confirmed.

Once leader Tony Blair set about reforming the policy making within the party although he did leave some power with grass roots members embodied in the 1997 ‘Partnerships of power’ document. Critics say that while this may have left some policy-making powers with the rank and file members it was designed to sanitise the annual conference. In effect it meant policy would be decided before the conference in smaller policy commissions that would report to the national policy forum and the conference. This meant there would be few public policy clashes at the conference and echoed sanitised conservative conference. The real powers of policy-making were left in the hands of the leadership and the party consists of a top-down rather than bottom-up structure. This was an attempt by Blair to better manage the rank and file, therefore moving away from socialism.

With the changes to the Labour party has come electoral success and it is probable that they shall win a third general election, equalling the success of the Tories. Tony Blair’s government has undoubtedly moved away from socialism and accepts many Conservative policies. One of the reasons that the Conservatives are seen as such a weak opposition is because they agree with Labour on many things (e.g. war on Iraq). Tony Blair has changed the mechanism of leadership elections, altered the bloc vote and clause IV, introduced OMOV (one member one vote), consulted members through policy forums, and reduced dependency on trade union finance. This marks a move away from socialism and into ‘democratisation’ of the labour party. The party under Blair now has an acceptance of a so-called ‘neo-liberal agenda’. This is shown most obviously in Blair’s ‘Third Way’ policy, it is as Macmurray states communitarianism or ethical socialism. New labour emphasise community involvement instead of equality, a society midway between state provision and the free market. Left Conservatives favour these ideas just as much as they are by the right of the labour party.

In today’s labour party it is difficult to see exactly where the socialist policies lay but there are some there. The Third Way may not be traditionally socialist but there are socialist components, e.g. redistribution of wealth. At the same time there is absolutely no doubt that the labour party has moved to the right significantly Aneurin Bevan or Harold Laskii would hardly recognise the party, and traditional labour MP’s such as Tony Benn often speak out against their own party. Glimmers of socialism can be seen in the labour party but the main agenda is most definitely neo-liberal.