love with imperialem. Labour gov- The Labour Party has always been in
ernments and Labour MPs were as
loyal to the British Empire as any Tory. Now it looks as though this squalid affair might just be slowly killing off Labour's relationship with the working class. As an added bonus Blair's devotion to the American empire looks like it may cost him his job. The question socialists need to get our heads around is how we can give the working class something better.
The Fire Brigades Union Executive is recommending to this year's annual conference that the union democratises its political fund, whilst keeping the link with the Labour Party. It suggests reducing annual donations to the Party and using the money freed up for political campaigns. It also wants to allow members more flexibility to use the political • • • • fund in pursuit of the union's objectives.
The union's leadership has been obliged to do this because there are three motions on the conference agenda, which if carried, would enable disaffiliation from the Labour Party. As an alternative, Kent FBU is also proposing a motion which would allow union branches to support candidates who are standing in opposition to Labour.
Nevertheless the Executive's decision is a very positive development and contrasts with how UNISON's leadership dealt with similar demands.
The RMT has now been expelled T from the Labour Party for permit.
ting arrangements similar to the Kent FBU motion. Its General Secretary Bob Crow writing in Tribune (12 Feb 04) says that the union would like to reclaim the Labour Party but almost immediately dismisses the idea.
He then adds: "We will also work with all progressive organisations that can advance our agenda - we are not interested in tokenism or the politics of the fringe - our members are demanding proper representation."
When two significant unions are actively contemplating supporting alternative candidates we can say that a trend is starting. When the branches in a third, the CWU in Scotland, want to affiliate to the Scottish Socialist Party then it does look like we are seeing something new in the British Labour Movement.
The majority of the people who marched against the war were natural Labour supporters. Even though most of them weren't brought to the demonstrations by their union, many of the two million will have been union members. And, very gradually, we are seeing the foundations of Labour's relationship with the unions being shaken by the rumblings from two million pairs of feet.
It was the imperialist war that cost Labour IN THIS ISSUE of Socialist Resistance Andrew Wiard dear rather than their reactionary policies at home because the unions had taken such a drubbing during the Thatcher years. It took first the emergence of the global justice movement and then the mass anti-war movement to give confidence that there can be an alternative.
New Labour would be able to give itself something of a breathing space by getting rid of Blair and replacing him with Brown. However it is by no means certain that he will go or be forced out. The press gossip about the differences between the two are froth but give the illusion that they are in some way politically distinct alternatives.
But the process that is developing won't be stopped in the longer term. Brown is committed to holding down wages in the public sector and a neo-conservative economic policy.
His differences with Blair are about image and tactics not substance. Yet it would be a ... ... from New Labour. Respect has not called for disaffiliation from Labour but for democratisation of political funds. big defeat for New Labour if its figurehead were forced to resign, the victim of his years of lying and war-making
One of the results of that is the motions to FBU conference and the contempt most firefighters now have for New Labour:
Elsewhere in this issue we report on disputes by civil servants and university staff who are also suffering the financial consequences of Brown's fiscal policy, to say nothing of the students who are entering the labour market with twenty years of debt ahead of them.
It is now becoming much easier in the unions to get a hearing for the argument that a new type of party is needed or at least that some Labour candidates are so revolting that it is impossible to vote for them.
Activists in each union will have to think how best to raise this discussion. In the majority of cases an approach similar to that of the Kent FBU is the correct one. Most ing for action on the right to vote were trade unionists are not yet ready to contem plate a complete break with Labour. Bu many are prepared to vote against wars, pr vatisation or David Blunkett
Bob Crow makes it clear that those trad unionists who are willing to accept the sepa ration from Labour want a serious alterna tive. They want the organised working clas to have a political voice. It is not a coinc dence that it is the three unions who have been most involved in struggles in the las eighteen months where we find these dis cussions are most advanced.
If Respect limits itself to an existence as no more than an electoral alliance it will not be seen as the alternative that militant worker are looking for. Unions don't affiliate to elec toral alliances. They affiliate to parties. This means that those of us who want a new socialist, anti-imperialist party for the British working class have to argue for Respect to become that party Putilov armaments plant on March 7