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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 181 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 181, December 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
A new period of internal warfare has opened up inside the Tory Party. Its start was signalled by the humiliating abandonment of Post Office privatisation by the government.
The threat of possible future rebellion by a handful of backbench MPs was enough to persuade John Major to drop what should have been the centrepiece of his government’s legislation in the coming months.
The right wing of the Tory Party was enraged, and even more so when Major declared that voting against a bill to give more money to the EC would be regarded as a matter of confidence and if defeated would precipitate a general election.
The government and its supporters are split between those who want to continue the offensive against working people with a whole number of measures, and those who are determined to do nothing between now and the next general election in the hope that the economy will improve and along with it the government’s chances.
Those who want to ‘consolidate’ fear that anything they try to do will only rebound on them. They know that the outcome of the signal workers’ strike was not a victory for the government. They know they are trailing Labour by some 30 points in the polls. They know that moves to further privatise public services could create a huge backlash. The 75 percent rise for the boss of British Gas while bills go up for the poorest gas customers is only the latest example of the rich getting richer on the backs of the poor.
They have no concern for ordinary working people but they fear that pushing too hard could result in the sort of movement which developed against pit closures two years ago. That is why this year’s Tory Party conference was in such stark contrast to last year’s, with few attacks on single parents and scroungers and no gloating over defeating the unions.
The Tories have not adopted a more human face: they are just more cowardly about displaying their true feelings. But they are also still pursuing cuts in public spending to appease the right wing and deliver tax cuts in the next year.
They are still implementing the job seekers’ allowance and cutting unemployment pay from one year to six months. They are still refusing to provide funding for health care or education.
Kenneth Clarke and John Major are banking on economic recovery to allow them to make spending cuts and possibly cut taxation as well. Inflation is still low and unemployment is falling which means that actual spending may work out lower than the projections. But the political benefits which the Tories hoped to get from recovery are as far away as ever. A central reason for this is the growing burden of taxation – on fuel, insurance, foreign flights, as well as National Insurance – which means that most people are worse off than a year ago.
The continued cynicism over the rich lining their pockets while the poor suffer has been deepened by the revelations over MPs taking money for questions, and over parliament’s obvious refusal to even pretend to reform itself. The double standards are apparent everywhere. Two cabinet ministers have been attacked by the courts for not following their own rules, yet nothing happens to them.
With all the ministers and MPs accused of wrongdoing, we are told that they are innocent until proved guilty. Yet the right to silence is being removed from everyone else charged with an offence. The Criminal Justice Act was used within days of it becoming law against road protesters and hunt saboteurs, yet there is still no criminal investigation of MPs.
We are at end of a year when the anger at government policy has begun to be focused: in the big demos against the Criminal Justice Bill, in the campaign against the fascists during the local election campaign culminating in the Anti Nazi League carnival of 150,000, and above all in the beginning of recovery of working class organisation and struggle.
The strikes in the Post Office and the campaign by Post Office workers against privatisation were one of the main reasons the government backed down on its sell off. The signal workers’ strike was the biggest confrontation between government and workers since the miners’ strike of 1984-85. The vote to throw out their pay offer by Jaguar workers demonstrated that private sector workers are fed up with low pay and worsening conditions.
But the recovery of working class confidence is highly uneven. The promised actions over public sector pay – which should have taken off after the signal workers’ deal – have failed to materialise. Union leaders have accepted rotten settlements rather than see strikes break out.
Unevenness in confidence means while a growing minority are becoming prepared to act independently of the union leaders, there are many other workers who feel they cannot win strikes and who accept the argument that they should settle for what they are offered. The weakness of factory and office organisation means that arguments carried relatively easily when there are militants on the ground are often simply not put.
Labour’s policy acts to put a brake on that recovery, with it attacks on Clause Four, distancing from the unions and talk of abandoning universal benefits.
The experience of the US elections last month shows what happens when workers are angry and bitter and put their faith in a change of government which then doesn’t deliver. The past year has shown that revolutionary socialist ideas and organisation can gain a substantial audience, and can make a real difference to success or defeat in a particular dispute.
We should spend the next year developing support in the working class and the local roots which can enable us to provide an alternative to the despair caused by the system to which Labour has no answer.
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