Labour right’s onslaught against democracy and Corbyn must be fought

Hannah Sell (this is a slightly changed version of an article that appeared on www.socialistparty.org.uk) 

For decades working class people have had no voice in Westminster. The establishment parties – not least New Labour – all acted in the interests of the capitalist class. Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader has the potential to change that situation. Fundamentally that is why the 1% – and their representatives in the Labour Party – are prepared to do whatever it takes to try and remove him.

They face the gigantic obstacle, however, of a political uprising against austerity that is determined to keep Corbyn in place. The Labour right have repeatedly shown that they are prepared to dispense with democracy and the wishes of Labour Party members in order to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn. At the Labour Party NEC, however, their attempts to stop him even appearing on the ballot paper were defeated. This was a victory, ultimately reflecting the enormous pressure from Labour Party members and trade unionists to allow Corbyn to stand.

But the battle has only just begun and Labour’s right are stepping up their dirty tricks campaign. After Jeremy Corbyn and one or two of his supporters had left the NEC meeting an item not on the agenda was added, according to ITV journalist Robert Peston. The item in question was a plan to do everything possible to stitch up the leadership contest in order to try to prevent Jeremy winning. The election rules of ten months ago are to be drastically changed. Ironically on that occasion the rules, initially designed to strengthen the right of the party, actually acted to allow hundreds of thousands who wanted to oppose austerity to vote for Jeremy Corbyn.

Disenfranchisement

This time the NEC has done its best to disenfranchise as many of them as possible. They decided that anyone who joined the Labour Party after 12 January 2016 will not be eligible to vote in the leadership contest. So, at a stroke, the 130,000 who have joined since the referendum – overwhelmingly to defend Jeremy Corbyn – have been disenfranchised. Never mind that the online application that most of them filled in explicitly said: “You’ll be eligible to vote in leadership elections”. Now, if this ruling stands, they will have to pay another £25 during a two day window, 18-20 July, to apply to be a registered supporter.

No doubt many others who have not joined the Labour Party were intending to sign up as registered supporters in order to support Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-austerity stance. Last time this cost £3 now it is £25. £25 which it seems is non-returnable. So anyone who is turned down – because they have previously supported the Greens or TUSC, for example, or publicly campaigned against their local Labour councils closing libraries or care homes – will have handed £25 to the Labour machine without even getting a vote in return.

At the same time Angela Eagle, Neil Kinnock and others are making increasingly frenzied appeals for those who want to see the back of Jeremy Corbyn to sign up to vote against him. No doubt more of them will be able to pay £25 – and they are far less likely to be turned down by Labour’s ‘compliance unit’.

These outrageous anti-democratic rulings cannot be accepted by Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters across the labour and trade union movement. A national mobilisation should be organised to demand that they are changed by the next meeting of Labour’s NEC. It is possible that Saturday’s national anti-austerity demonstration could, as we have suggested, become such a demonstration despite the failure – up until now – of the organisers, the People’s Assembly, to call for it to be in defence of Corbyn.

In response, Corbyn supporters were looking for other ways to vote for him via the affiliated trade unions. The deadline for affiliated supporters (members of affiliated trade unions) to register with the party was later – 8 August – and, as in the last election, they can do so at no cost. However, a sub committee of the NEC today (Thursday) ruled that trade unionists will also be excluded unless they registered as supporters before January 2016. 

It seems that the NEC also decreed that constituency and branch Labour Party meetings are not allowed to take place during the campaign except to nominate candidates! This is a flagrant attempt to prevent local Labour Party meetings passing votes of no confidence and demanding the deselection of MPs that are dedicating themselves to removing Corbyn. This should not be accepted. Local meetings should be organised anyway, and turned into councils of war to fight in defence of Jeremy Corbyn, inviting all of those who support him whether or not they are members of the Labour Party.

The campaign to defeat Jeremy Corbyn will not be limited to trying to stitch up the election rules against him. It is being combined with a gigantic propaganda campaign from the capitalist media that Jeremy is ‘unelectable’, combined with lies about his supporters being ‘intimidating’ and ‘thugs’. Of course, any intimidating or violent behaviour should always be condemned but, as Momentum has pointed out; so far it has not had a single actual incidence of intimidating behaviour by a Momentum member reported to it. There is nothing new in this. Whenever a political movement is seen as a threat by the establishment they attempt to slander it, just as was done with the Militant Tendency (now the Socialist Party) in the past. Meanwhile the Daily Mail happily prints a picture of Corbyn in a coffin with the headline, “Labour must kill vampire Jezza”, just ten days after the murder of a Labour MP, and not a word of complaint is made by the Blairites.

Anti-austerity offensive

This relentless propaganda, which is only just beginning, is designed to wear down existing Labour Party members in the hope that enough of them feel they have no choice but to vote against Corbyn. The only way to counter that is to go on the political offensive and to build on the popular movement which thrust Jeremy Corbyn into the Labour leadership and is now coming out on the streets to defend him.

His election campaign needs to be a relaunched fight against austerity, with the programme which he stood on ten months ago as its starting point. This should include making clear that he opposes austerity whoever it is implemented by: Brussels, Westminster or local councils. Such a stand – including a £10 an hour minimum wage, nationalisation of the privatised utilities and mass council housebuilding – would be able to enthuse many beyond those who are already convinced to vote for him.

For the last ten months Labour has effectively been two parties in one – a pro-capitalist Blairite wing, and a new anti-austerity party in formation. If, as is most likely and all socialists should work to achieve, Jeremy Corbyn again wins the leadership election it is clear that the right of the party are already discussing plans to split away and form a new party. Offers of big business funding for such a party, including from Hull City owner Assem Allam, are being lined up. Such a split away by the right would open the road to a new re-founded Labour Party with a clear anti-austerity programme and an open, democratic federal structure, along the lines of the Labour Party’s structure in its earliest days, allowing the participation of all anti-austerity forces, including the Socialist Party, anti-austerity Greens and others.

If, on the other hand, the relentless propaganda against Jeremy Corbyn by the whole of the capitalist establishment means that one of the anti-Corbyn – pro-war, pro-austerity – candidates win there can be no return to business as usual. It would be a mistake to return to serving as a loyal minority in a party dominated by the pro-capitalist forces that make up the big majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Whatever initial crumbs might be thrown down in terms of promising to keep Jeremy’s programme the reality would be a quick return to ‘big business as usual’. The last ten months have shown how popular a clear working class, anti-austerity party could be. The need to create one would be urgent.