Election 2005 | ukwatch.net

Election Fallout

Alex Doherty — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 12:41:50 +0000

The British general election of May 2005 generated much discussion, with sentiments of despair in some quarters and jubilation in others. In a flurry of hype, journalists have employed many over-inflated adjectives regarding a historic victory while simultaneously accusing politicians of causing increased voter apathy by running the least inspiring [campaign] in living memory.

As Timothy Garton Ash notes in the Guardian, by the standards of most previous British elections, from 1945 to 1997, the differences between party policies are remarkably small. Some will put taxes up a bit, others promise to bring them down a bit, but no one proposes to change the way the economy is run, perhaps going some way to account for the fact that for the first time since 1923 the number of people who voted for the government was outnumbered by those who refused to vote, suggesting a correlation between greater choice for voters being equal to more votes. A 2001 report published by the Hansard Society reveals that when it comes to general elections many say that they see the parties as being all as bad as each other meaning that they had nothing positive to vote for which consequently led them to abstain. This goes some way to refuting accusations that the drop in voter turn-out is caused by apathy. As the Guardian reports, Whereas between 1984 and 2000 voter turnout fell from 83 percent to 72 percent, the proportion of people who said that they had boycotted products for ethical reasons rose from 4 percent to 31 percent. It also demonstrates that although 44 percent of people had attended a political meeting in 1979, this had dropped to 25 percent by 2000. Over the same period the proportion who had gone on a demonstration increased from 20 percent to 33 percent.

This year around 61 percent of the electorate voted and 36 percent of them voted for Labour. The Liberal Democrats gained a point or two at the expense of the Conservatives, but, on the whole, voting patterns resembled the 2001 general election and a small change in voter preference may have quite easily put the Conservatives in power, also telling us very little about the country and public concerns.

As per usual the election campaigns for the major parties were run by public relations companies, which have become increasingly bigger businesses in the UK since the 1980s. Companies devote huge sums to creating images to delude consumers. It is an incredibly successful strategy, but one that is based on nothing more than deceit.

The PR industry is dominated by a few big players, most of which are U.S. or UK in origin and ownership. Since the 1980s governmental actions and policies have led to a vast increase in PR spending by governments and by corporations in their attempts to influence government policy. Fundamental to this is the relationship between deregulation of business and public relations. Media analyst David Miller describes it as a revolving door of power, moving between local politics, think tanks and PR and ending up as a minister in charge of part of the deregulated industry [that they] helped to create.

Voters appear to be increasingly aware of this as politicians, big business, and the media have all suffered a decrease in their ability to influence the general public. Part of this decrease in influence is due to a rise in mistrust and it should be of no great surprise that the three largest proponents of spin are also the three least trusted groups in society. According to a 2003 MORI poll, journalists, politicians, and business leaders are at the lowest end of the spectrum of public trust, with just 18 percent of the population saying they trusted journalists and politicians to tell the truth. The Financial Times reported these results, focusing on business leaders with the headline: Business leaders enjoy revival in public trust, basing their headline on the fact that business leaders moved up from 25 percent in 2002 to 28 percent in 2003. Statistically three percentage points is barely a significant increase, leading Robert M. Worcester (chair of MORI) to conclude, If the FT does this to make their readers feel good, then little wonder that journalists rate bottom of the poll for their veracity.

If we compare what people are actually voting for to what the candidates stand for, we find that they often have very little in common. The PR industry trains candidates to project personal qualities, produce slogans that might win votes, and shift the focus away from tangible issues. These virtues are conveyed in a number of ways. For example, we see Tony Blair in a 1997 landmark election broadcast: he is at home, he is dressed casually and drinks tea from an eclectic range of mugs; he expresses cynicism about politics and politicians and he reveals his love of football. None of these things are politically important, but they enforce our image of the prime minister as a trustworthy leader.

In the 2005 election the Conservatives technique is to use language that just manages to stay on the side of respectability. Are you thinking what were thinking? says the Conservatives slogan, raising the distinct possibility that both you and they are thinking things that should not be spelt out too clearly.

As part of their election coverage, the Guardian notes, The list of the top 10 issues covered by the media over…four weeks is just as notable for those themes that have remained almost entirely peripheral. Transport, Europe, housing, and employment were among those that recorded less than 1 percent of all coverage.

In 1997 four out of five or more saw the following as the most important issues in deciding who to vote for:

.Providing affordable homes to those who need them

.Tougher laws on the international arms trade

.Tougher policies to protect the environment

.Policies to reduce the gap between rich and poor in the UK and
worldwide

.Firm measures to reduce energy consumption in order to tackle
global warming

.Clear legislation that establishes the rights of individual
citizens

In terms of the most recent election, it would be hard to believe that the populations attitudes have significantly changed on these issues between now and then. As Tom Curtin, managing director of Green Issues Communications, explains: It s very hard to vote when people dont know who or what they are voting for. Transparency and simplicity are at the heart of democracy and if a complex and inconsistent system deters people from votingthat is extremely dangerous. In a system like this, formal elections may occur but they will have very little meaning. A 1997 British Election Study cross- section survey announced that 58 percent of the British population agreed that people at large have no say in government actions and 45 percent went on to agree that the party in power does not matter, things go on the same.

When it comes to concerns over the ongoing conflict in Iraq and national security, the vast majority of the population said they disapproved of the prime ministers handling of the situation, but seemed to show less concern when casting their actual vote. Labour and Conservative voters, whether they knew it or not, were actually voting to increase the threat of terror, which could understandably have terrible consequences. In February 2003, five weeks before beginning the invasion, a secret Joint Intelligence Committee report stated that any terrorist threat was likely to increase by invading Iraq: Al Qaeda and associated groups continued to represent by far the greatest threat to Western interests and that threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq…. Any collapse of the Iraqi regime would increase the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology or agents finding their way into the hands of terrorists, including al-Qaida, which gives us some indication of how seriously the Blair government actually takes the threat of terrorism and accredits them some success in their goal of misleading the population.

We can only speculate as to what would happen if the main parties had been willing to address peoples concerns on the issues they regard as vitally important, but what we do know is that if the trend continues and these issues are not restored to the political agenda, people are likely to continue to switch off mainstream politics and take the positive action of developing potentially democratic alternatives to elections.

James Quinney is a longtime activist and freelance writer/researcher based in the UK. He writes frequently for many different magazines and publications on social issues.

Bitter Victory of Blair

Thu, 19 May 2005 12:06:12 +0000

I don’t envy my British friends who last week went dutifully to vote for someone they deeply despise. In UK, people don’t vote directly for the Prime Minister; they vote for MPs who in turn pick the PM.

Remembering reign of three consecutive Tory administrations which turned Britain into an experimental lab supervised by free market fundamentalists, most of the voters thought that they had no choice but to insure that the present status quo, no matter how disagreeable and distasteful, prevails. They felt they simply couldn’t vote for Conservatives. They closed their eyes and cast their vote for Labor, no matter how “new” and how treacherous it became. Therefore, Tony Blair, a man associated with shameful lies, survived.

According to Greg Palast: “…The majority of the Queens subjects – deathly afraid of the return of Margaret Thatcher’s vampirical Tory spawn – holds their noses, vote for their local Labour MP and pray that an act of God will save their happy isle. A recent poll showed the British evenly divided: forty percent want Blair to encounter a speeding double-decker bus and forty percent want him to stretched, scalded and quartered in the Tower of London (within a sampling margin of four percent).”

“Special relationship” with George Bush and his neocons across Atlantic is one, but not the only reason, for the scorn so many Britons feel towards their Prime Minister. Blair is obsessed with America, willing to sacrifice social and political principals in his own country which are still dear to so many U.K. citizens.

The well educated and informed majority of British public was opposing invasion of Iraq. However, it was first ignored and then offered a primitive and twisted lecture about democracy and freedom. Lecture repeatedly delivered in an arrogant tone full of spite, resembling that of some old fashioned secondary school principal.

The British public woke up to a cold reality: no matter how high the percentage of those who were opposing the war, the only voices which seemed to matter were those coming from the White House and Downing Street.

The war was not the only issue surrounded by doublespeak and outright lies. While giving passionate speeches defending the working men and women of Britain, Tony Blair was presiding over the monumental dismantling of what was left of both British Labor and the welfare state. True, he was not alone; the same was happening in Germany which was ruled by the Social Democrats (or should they be called “New” Social Democrats, too?), but he was surely in the vanguard, running closely with his counterpart across the Atlantic.

On the international front, the United Kingdom under Blair while sounding increasingly compassionate and concerned about the fate of poor world (at least two thirds of the planet) remained practically idle and indifferent towards the lands devastated by colonial and more recent neo-colonial policies.

There is no doubt that on almost all important issues, Tony Blair refuses to take under consideration the will of the British people. While he joined Washington hawks, British public was demanding peace. While he was assassinating progressive traditions of Labor, the majority of working men and women felt they didn’t ask for it – they were fine with the good old and real thing!

How to defenestrate someone like Mr. Blair from power? Across the rich world, people of Europe, North America, and Japan are dissatisfied, often disgusted with their rulers, while feeling powerless; unable to find a way to vote into the highest office someone who would represent their interests. They often vote for a “lesser evil” as major political parties look increasingly identical, pushing for almost the same domestic and international agendas.

In the past, voting for Democrats or Republicans in the US, Social Democrats or Christian Democrats in Germany, Labor or Conservatives in the U.K., would make a serious difference and influence lives of millions of people. Now almost all differences are gone – every major political force is “pro-business”, ready to defend the privileges of the handful of countries, companies, and individuals.

Voters are angry and frustrated. Often they choose to “punish” their rulers, applying desperate acts like giving millions of votes to neo-Nazis (Germany and France) – a counter-productive undertaking.

If political climate was – unscientifically – measured by opinions in the local European cafes and pubs, it would be clear that a majority of Europeans still desire elaborate social safety nets, full employment, free education and medical care, heavily subsidized public transportation – all that is being taken away from them, little by little. Germans (on both sides of the former wall) nostalgically remember privileges of the social state; French and Italians are, in their majority, still closer to 1960s ideals of left-wing parties than to the oligarchic principals of people like Berlusconi.

But people were told – by the media and by the mainstream politicians – that the Left was finished after the collapse of Berlin Wall, that there is no going back. And “thousand times repeated lie becomes truth.” Clichés are not challenged, anymore – at least not publicly – as the media became complacent with the system.

The Left didn’t die! No matter how often we hear that it did – it is still alive. It was kicked out from the Presidential palaces and PM offices, from television studios and newspapers. But it survived in the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of voters. They have to make sure that they meet again; find each other – The Left and the citizens. They have plenty in common!

For now, Tony Blair will remain in power. But he didn’t win. He merely outmaneuvered the British public, employing an antiquated election system which doesn’t represent the interest of the people. He is clever enough to know what occurred and one has to wonder whether this victory is going to make him sleep well or feel shame, at least at night, behind the closed doors.

In the meantime, the British voters had no choice and they are well aware of it. Paradoxically, unless they demand a change, they may end up – like many in the former colonies where the western interests were force-fed through a corrupt political system and through the US-subsidized coups – not being able to express their will through the ballot. If they could, they would probably vote for real Labor which is battered but not yet defeated.

Blair's Bloody Nose

Alex Doherty — Sun, 15 May 2005 18:35:40 +0000

INTRODUCTION

One week after the British General Election, the dust is settling, and it is clear that the war on Iraq was a major factor in the Labour Partys humbling loss of seats and votes.

BYERS AND THE WAY OUT

The significance of the war was underlined by an intervention by Stephen Byers, a former Cabinet Minister still seen as deeply loyal to Tony Blair.

In The Times on 11 May, Byers supported Blairs stand on the war, but wrote,

The issue that hung over the election campaign was that of Iraq – not just the conflict itself but also the legality of the action taken and the manner in which inaccurate intelligence was presented to the public. Both these issues then fed into the question of trust.

His solution? A review of the operation of the royal prerogative.

At the moment, war is waged in the name of the Queen, and the view of Parliament (or the British people) is irrelevant to her constitutional right to order Britains armed forces into action.

Byers suggests that Parliament should be given the Attorney Generals legal advice on pending conflicts, should be given access to secret intelligence (via the Intelligence and Security Committee) and should have the final say on whether to authorise military action. Power and information would move from the ruler (in fact the Prime Minister), to Parliament.

Such reforms would be welcomed by many and demonstrate that the Prime Minister has really been listening and learning, Byers suggested.

Anyone who recalls the long and bitter struggle to secure a Parliamentary debate and vote on the war on Iraq, and the even longer struggle to gain access to the Attorney Generals secret legal advice, will realize how powerful the Iraq issue must be in order to prompt such unpalatable advice from a supporter of the Prime Minister.

There are parallels here between the wars in Iraq and Vietnam, as it was in November 1973 that the United States Congress passed the War Powers Act requiring congressional authorisation for US military action.

Such a reform, while welcome, does nothing to diminish the scale of the crime committed in March 2003, or the disastrous effects of the ongoing occupation of Iraq. The anti-war movement will not be bought off with constitutional changes, however sensible. The occupation, and the threat of future wars, are our central concerns.

THE ELECTION AND THE MOVEMENT

For all its diversity, the British anti-war movement had one major common goal in this election. The worst-case scenario for us would have been yet another Labour landslide returning a parliamentary majority for Tony Blair of over 100 seats in the House of Commons.

This would have been seen as a vindication of his leadership in general, and of his decision to invade Iraq in particular. It would have made another Bush war more likely.

Instead, the Prime Minister has been dealt what is widely being described as a bloody nose by the electorate, which has left him severely weakened.

Polly Toynbee, the Guardian columnist who urged anti-war voters to support Labour (with pegs on their noses), observed, Those who wanted to give Tony Blair a bloody nose over Iraq may feel satisfaction at getting the much reduced Labour majority they thought he deserved.

The Independent remarked as the election results came in: The early results showed that many people who voted Labour in 1997 and 2001 had deserted the party to give Mr Blair a over the Iraq war, which became the dominant issue in the second half of the election campaign.

For example, Labour suffered a spectacular defeat in Hornsey and Wood Green, north London, where the war was a big issue, at the hands of the Liberal Democrats, who achieved a huge 14.6 per cent swing.

In a clear sign of an “Iraq effect”, Labour performed much worse in the capital than other regions. It lost Enfield Southgate, Putney, Hammersmith, Ilford North and Wimbledon to the Conservatives. (Andrew Grice, 6 May)

Robert Shrimsley, a perceptive columnist with the Financial Times, came to much the same conclusion: So the British public finally got its say on the Iraq war. Tony Blair has been badly bloodied but he is nonetheless back in power. He will certainly pause before rushing into George W. Bushs next little project. (7 May, p. 19)

The Government suffered a significant political cost linked to the war. This has helped to constrain Tony Blair in the immediate future, and to deter future governments from launching such wars.

PART I

SEATS, VOTES AND LEGITIMACY

LOSING MY MAJORITY

Tony Blairs first Governments had massive Parliamentary majorities (see table). In 1997 it had 176 more seats than all the other parties put together (note – one seat is held by the neutral Speaker of the House). In 2005, this has been more than halved to a more normal 65 seats.

Election Labour Seats Total Seats Lab Majority
1997 418 659 176
2001 413 659 166
2005 356 646 65

(Note: there were boundary changes eliminating 13 seats between 2001 and 2005.)

This means the Government is vulnerable to the 50 or so Labour rebels who have been re-elected. It would only take 33 of them voting with the Opposition to defeat a Government bill.

290 Opposition MPs + 33 Labour rebels = 323 votes against the bill.

355 Labour MPs 33 Labour rebels = 322 votes in favour.

Tony Blair is going to have to be more of a consensual Prime Minister than he has been, negotiating with his own party and with the opposition parties in order to get legislation passed.

Apparently, Labour strategists had hoped to be able to keep the party’s majority above 80 – and avoid headlines saying it had been halved. (Telegraph, 6 May)

Mr Blairs allies have been admitting privately for several weeks that he would almost certainly have to resign if the Labour majority fell below 60. In the view of many Blairites, 60 to 70 was a grey area which would leave the party leader severely weakened. (Telegraph 6 May)

The Prime Minister is now in the grey area largely because of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

FROM VOTES TO SEATS

It is a peculiarity of the British first past the post system of elections that the Labour Party received only 3 per cent more of the vote than the runner-up in the election, the Conservatives (35.2 to 32.3 per cent), but received nearly twice as many seats as them (355 to 197).

The Liberal Democrats, generally perceived as an anti-war party, gained 22.1 per cent of the votes across the UK, but received only 62 seats in the House of Commons. This was an increase in the number of Lib Dem seats in Parliament from 52 to 62 (due to boundary changes in Scotland, this increase actually required a net gain of 11 new seats).

2005 Election Results (UK)

Party Seats Gain Loss Net %Seats Votes %Votes +/-
Labour 356 0 47 -47 55% 9,500,000 35.2% -5.5%
Cons 197 36 3 +33 30% 8,800,000 32.3% +0.6%
Lib Dem 62 16 5 +11 10% 6,000,000 22.0% +3.7%

Seats per share of vote

Labour: 35.2 per cent of the vote: 356 seats (10 seats for every 1% of the vote)

Conservative: 32.3 per cent : 197 seats (6 seats per percentage point)

Liberal Democrat: 22 per cent : 62 seats (3 seats per percentage point)

How Many Votes Each Party Needed To Get An MP

Labour: 26,900 votes on average per Labour MP.

Conservatives: 44,500 votes on average per Tory MP.

Liberal Democrats: 96,500 votes on average per Lib Dem MP.

The Ratio Of Share Of Power To Share Of Votes

Labour: 55 % of the seats for 36% of the vote 1.5 : 1

Conservatives: 30% of the seats for 33% of the vote 0.9 : 1

Liberal Democrats: 10% of the seats for 22% of the vote 0.5 : 1)

THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE: A HUNG PARLIAMENT

If we had a fairer voting system, then (on the votes cast) Labour would not have had a majority at all. They would have had 227 seats out of 646, the Conservatives would have got around 209 seats, and the Liberal Democrats would have got around 142 seats.

(Admittedly, if the voting system was fairer, people would have cast their votes differently.)

The Labour Party gained a smaller number of votes in 2005 (9.5 million) than it got in any other post-war election except 1983 (8.5m). (In 1983, it was hit by the Falklands Effect, the SDP defection and the self-deregistration of large numbers of voters because of the poll tax.) Labour had more votes when it was trounced by Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

Labour had a higher share of the vote when it was beaten by Margaret Thatcher in 1979 (36.9 per cent), by Edward Heath in 1970 (43 per cent), by Anthony Eden in 1955 (46.4 per cent), or by Churchill in 1951 (48.8 per cent), than it did in winning the 2005 election (35.2 per cent).

Labours share of the vote (36 per cent) was the smallest share of the vote of any winning party in any British General Election. One interpretation would be that it was the least legitimate winner of any British election.

So when Labour officials, and the Prime Minister, say that the country wanted Labour returned to Government with a smaller majority, that is not what the figures say. When he says he will pursue an unremittingly New Labour agenda, that is not what the figures say the electorate asked for.

Labour had more of a mandate for its manifesto when it was defeated in 1979 and in 1992.

The expressed view of the country, if transmitted through a fair election system, would have resulted in a hung parliament with the Liberal Democrats having a decisive if not determining influence on policy.

PART II

THE IRAQ FACTOR

WAS IT THE WAR WOT LOST SEATS?

There are two main questions for the anti-war movement: how did the war in Iraq affect the election, and how does the political establishment perceive the effect of the war?

On both scores, weve heard from the horses mouth. Tony Blair himself acknowledged immediately after being re-elected that Iraq has been a deeply divisive issue in this country. That has been very, very clear, he said.

BOTTOM OF THE PRIORITIES?

However, during the election campaign, commentators (and Labour politicians) asserted constantly that the war on Iraq was a fringe issue with little significance for the election.

One of the main reasons for this was the opinion poll evidence. Pollsters asked potential voters what the most important issues were in their voting decision.Iraq invariably ranked near the bottom of the expressed priorities, with only 3 per cent of respondents saying it was the most important issue for them.

For example, the Telegraph, on 24 April, found Iraq last in a list of nine possible concerns ranging from health services (20 per cent) to law and order (13) to education (13) to asylum and immigration (9) to Europe (4). Only 3 per cent of people asked said Iraq was the most important issue in their decision on how to vote.

These kinds of results were endlessly trumpeted.

On the other hand, there were other polls which did not receive the same attention. A Times/ITV News poll carried out at the same time found that of voters certain to vote, half of the women asked, and 37 per cent of men said that the war in Iraq would be a significant factor.

61 per cent of women and 49 per cent of men said the war was a mistake even if it has produced some benefits for the Iraqi people.

(The only other option was to say that it had done more good than harm even though it involved some serious sacrifices – 31 per cent of women agreed, and 48 per cent of men).

The poll found that more than half of Liberal Democrat voters (54 per cent) said that Iraq would be significant in deciding their votes, compared to 35 per cent of Labour supporters. 61 per cent of Lib Dems believed the war was a mistake (the only option), compared with 52 per cent of Labour voters.

DONT MENTION THE WAR

The issue of the war was everywhere and nowhere, as one columnist observed.

A Times editorial at the half-way mark in the campaign noted that, This has been described as the election. Tell that to candidates, especially Labour ones in about 50 parliamentary constituencies (university towns or places with large Muslim communities): Iraq is the subject of debate in these seats, with those who opposed military action making the noise. (23 April, p. 23)

A cartoon by Banx showed a voter deterring a Labour canvasser with the words, Go away or Ill mention Iraq.

WAR AND DISTRUST

One of the last polls conducted by the BBC before the election found that hostility to the war was a truly significant issue. (This was after the final barrage of damaging leaks, and the publication of the Attorney Generals legal advice to the Government had driven Iraq to the front pages.)

The poll found 23% of people surveyed cited opposition to the war as a reason for being reluctant to vote Labour, while 21% said they did not trust Mr Blair. (21% cited insufficient control of immigration as their reason for being reluctant to vote Labour.)

The war was not necessarily a distinct issue from trust: A government minister said the Iraq war and the issue of trust in Mr Blair had tended to blur into one another. (Guardian, 6 May)

On this reading, somewhere in the region of 40 per cent of voters were reluctant to vote Labour because of the war, and because of the stream of lies told by the Prime Minister to justify the war.

Even Robin Cook, the only senior Government minister who resigned over the war before it took place, had problems with the Iraq effect.

He memorably remarked after being re-elected, Even in Livingston [his constituency] I have had a number of people saying to me that they can’t vote for me because they were against the war in Iraq. Heaven knows what more I could have done to convince them that I also was opposed to the war.

However, as the results poured in, Labour MPs claimed Labour high command was trying to protect Mr Blair from the reverses by blaming immigration rather than Iraq. (Guardian, 6 May)

THE IRAQ ELECTION

Tony Blair tried to persuade himself that the Iraq war was a chattering class obsession, but it was everywhere, even among those who usually pay scant attention to foreign policy.

Polly Toynbee observes that, It became the symbol and the icon for any disappointment or grievance with the government over the last eight years. It all came down on Tony Blair’s head.

At door after door, the voters said: . Those who never followed the minute details of came to believe the war was wrong, the country was cheated and had been wrongly dragged against its will to fight George Bush’s war on a false prospectus.

Her conclusion: This was a khaki election.

This is also the conclusion of her editors: Iraq was not the only reason why these voters deserted Labour – immigration, tuition fees and a host of other dissatisfactions also played strong parts in one of the most heterogeneous elections in memory – but there is little doubt that historians will look back on the 2005 election as the Iraq election. (Guardian, 6 May)

The Independent, which took a consistent anti-war line throughout the conflict, believes that voters punished the Prime Minister for Iraq – The message was clear: no Prime Minister can treat Parliament and the public with such contempt over an issue as serious as waging war. (7 May)

In a pro-war newspaper, in The Times, columnist Gerard Baker conceded that it was clear what the voters were voting against the Prime Ministers character, the war, Michael Howards leadership and, perhaps, through another large abstention, the whole slippery political class that runs the country. (7 May, p. 45, emphasis added)

The FT editorial was more cautious, suggesting that, The Labour vote plummeted in seats with high concentrations of students opposed to student tuition fees and Muslim voters angry over Tony Blairs support for the US-led invasion of Iraq. (7 May, p. 18)

This editorial may have been based on the analysis of Pippa Norris, a Harvard academic, who observed in the FT that the most common reason for the anti-Labour swing was disillusionment with Labours performance in office:

It remains to be seen whether the source of dissatisfaction represented a specific backlash over the Iraqi war, or a more diffuse sense of ennui after eight years of Labour government, or even a deeper disenchantment with Blairs leadership and record. (FT, 7 May, p. 8)

Lynne Jones, an anti-war Labour MP, remarked after the election, Iraq has come to symbolise the disaffection felt by a large section of our core vote, usually middle-class people with a social conscience people misjudge the situation if they think Iraq is the only issue that disappoints people. She mentions anti-terror legislation as another source of disappointment. (Guardian, 7 May)

It seems to be accepted widely that the invasion of Iraq was a significant factor in Labours loss of votes and seats. There is doubt as to whether it was the single most decisive factor on the night.

On the left, there are wider issues that affected peoples reluctance to vote Labour, and on the right there were fears over immigration and a harsh, racist, right-wing agenda was used to attract voters away from Tony Blairs somewhat less harsh, somewhat less racist, right-wing agenda.

Nevertheless, the BBC poll cited above demonstrates that a quarter of those asked why they were reluctant to vote Labour mentioned the invasion of Iraq, and a further 21 per cent mentioned the issue of trust, which centres on the war.

The war seems to have acted as a lightning rod for wider disaffection, and may have tipped many discontented Labour and Lib Dem voters into refusing to vote for Labour, thereby contributing to the humbling of Tony Blair.

PART III

WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE MOVEMENT

TWO CRITERIA

Before the election, I suggested that there were two main criteria by which the Establishment might judge the effect of the war.

One indicator would be the number of seats Labour lost in the election.

Another would be the share of votes going to anti-war parties.

I put anti-war in quotation marks because what matters, from the Establishment point of view, is how the parties are perceived. By this criterion, the Liberal Democrats are an anti-war party, despite their inconsistency on the issue of Iraq.

On the first measure, Labour lost 47 seats, a substantial reduction, though far from a fatal blow to either the party or its leader. On this measure, Labour was punished, though not severely, by the electorate but perhaps not merely over Iraq.

THE ANTI-WAR VOTE

What about the second measure, the proportion of votes going to anti-war parties? In what follows, we will leave out the Northern Ireland elections, which have an entirely separate identity and dynamic, to concentrate on the results in Wales, Scotland and England.

Comparing the votes won by the anti-war parties in 2005 with their equivalents in the 2001 elections, we find that the number of votes won by these parties increased by about 1.2 million, and their share of the votes increased (in Scotland, Wales and England) from about 23 per cent to over 26 per cent of the vote.

So, the number of votes won in the 2001 election by the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Nationalists, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, and parties such as the Socialist Alliance seems to have been around 5,800,000.

This constellation of parties (plus the independent anti-war candidates) won around 7 million votes in 2005, an increase of 20 per cent, or roughly 1.2m more votes.

(2005 figures generally from the BBC. For anti-war candidates figures, I am relying on the Socialist Unity election tracker. All 2001 figures from the House of Commons Library.)

As a proportion of the total 2005 vote in Wales, Scotland and England, the increase in votes is about 4.4 per cent of the turnout. (Turnout, predicted to be lower, was actually higher in 2005, by about 800,000 votes.)

The anti-war share of the vote in Scotland, Wales and England, including the Liberal Democrats, was 26.6 per cent of the vote, up from 22.9 per cent in 2001.

So the anti-war vote increased significantly, by about 3.7 per cent, as the Labour share of the vote decreased.

CHANNELLING THROUGH THE LIB DEMS

The increase in the anti-war vote was not uniform. In Scotland and Wales, there seems to have been a swing from the nationalist parties to the Liberal Democrats and, on a lesser scale, to the Greens.

One way of looking at this is to say that the Lib Dems increased their vote by 1.16m more votes, which is almost exactly the increase in the anti-war vote. The net gain in votes achieved by the other anti-war parties is virtually zero, despite significant gains by the Greens and by Respect.

The Greens almost doubled their votes in Britain as a whole, from 166,500 to 283,000 (if we include the Scottish Greens). Respect made an impressive showing in a small number of constituencies, and managed the astonishing feat of taking Bethnal Green, accumulating 68,000 votes in total nationwide.

But the strongly anti-war Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties shrank drastically, losing 73,000 votes! (This was mostly the SNP, but the party still managed to gain two more seats even with a reduced number of votes.)

Looking at the Scottish scene, the Liberal Democrat vote in Scotland increased by 150,000, and the Scottish Greens got five times as many votes (25,800) as the Greens did in Scotland in 2001 (4,500). But the other Scottish anti-war parties lost votes.

In a parallel phenomenon in Wales, the Lib Dems there increased their vote by 67,000, while Plaid Cymru lost 21,000 votes.

This table shows the share of the vote in this election, and the gain or loss since 2001, ordered by percentage change:

Share of vote in 2005 and gain or loss since 2001, ranked by percentage change

Lib Dem 22.40 3.80
Green 1.00 0.40
Respect 0.30 0.30
Scottish Green 0.10 0.10
Plaid Cymru 0.70 -0.10
Scottish Socialist 0.20 -0.10
SNP 1.50 -0.30

Pippa Norris, a politics lecturer at Harvard University, has suggested that the underlying pattern of the election was that, voters switched to whichever party was best placed to give Labour a bloody nose in their local constituency. (FT, 7 May, p. 8) This seems to have benefited the Liberal Democrats.

Overall, the share of votes going to anti-war parties and candidates increased significantly but not dramatically.

Given the unfair nature of the electoral system, the scale of the anti-war vote was not reflected in Parliament.

PART IV

CONCLUSION

THE DANGER OF PERSONALIZATION

Earlier, we noted that Mr Blair’s allies were admitting privately before the election that he would almost certainly have to resign if the Labour majority fell below 60, and that, in the view of many Blairites, 60 to 70 was a grey area which would leave the party leader severely weakened. The same sources suggested that there had been a change in the Prime Minister’s mood during a difficult campaign: I think he’ll go in about 18 months, said one loyal minister earlier in the week. Whatever the outcome of the election, he’s been badly damaged by the campaign.

Another Labour strategist admitted that Mr Blair’s morale had been badly affected by the criticisms he had received from voters on the stump, saying, Tony has been shocked by the level of hostility to him personally in the run-up to polling day. No one can know what effect that will have.

Polly Toynbee, who regrets the drop in Labour support in the election, concludes that, in the end, the answer lies on the terrible road to Baghdad and the hubris of a man who thought he could persuade anyone of anything.

At door after door, the voters said: .

There is a danger here for the anti-war movement. It is possible that the war on Iraq war will be totally identified – by the mass media, by the political establishment and by the general public -with a single person, and that when that scapegoat leaves the stage, the Government and the state will be absolved from blame.

This is something we must avoid. The invasion and occupation of Iraq flow out of and are entirely consistent with British foreign policy over decades, and centuries. The so-called war on terror flows out of and is entirely consistent with the nature of the British state, and those institutions which hold power in this country.

It is vitally important for the anti-war movement to explain these facts in a persuasive and compelling fashion.

THE FUTURE

The anti-war movement increased the vote and the share of the vote going to parties seen as anti-war. The anti-war movement helped to prevent another Labour landslide, and helped to sharply reduce the Labour majority. The political establishment seems to accept that Iraq was a major factor in Labours loss of votes and seats.

If the electoral system had been fair, the (weakly) anti-war Liberal Democrats would have had a commanding position within the House of Commons, able to block future wars of aggression.

Questions remain, not the least of which is that posed by Gabriel Carlyle of Voices in the Wilderness UK: in what tense does the electorate see the Iraq issue? Is it an event that occurred in the past (in March 2003), or is it an ongoing war of occupation? Much hangs on this judgement. If this was the Iraq election, was it simply a one-off punishment of an unpopular Prime Minister, or was it a marker that from now on the British people have determined to resist wars of aggression on a scale never before seen?

The question is not an academic one, and the answer lies very much in the hands of the anti-war movement.

Milan is co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness UK and Justice Not Vengeance He is author of Regime Unchanged: Why The War On Iraq Changed Nothing (2004), War Plan Iraq: Ten Reasons Against War (2002) and Chomskys Politics (1995). In 1993 he was awarded the Frank Cousins Peace Award for Research by the Transport and General Workers Union. He is also an advisor to UKWatch.

Blair Lurches Right

Alex Doherty — Sun, 15 May 2005 18:22:54 +0000

Immediately following the May 5 re-election of the Labour government, Prime Minister Tony Blair adopted a posture of humility, claiming, I have listened and I have learned. But Blair is clearly deaf in one ear.

All those political analysts who predicted that Labours haemorrhaging of support would force Blair to make concessions to popular anger over the Iraq war, or even to announce an early retirement and give way to Chancellor Gordon Brown, were deluding themselves.

When Blair declared, I think I have a very clear idea of what the British people now expect from this government for a third term, the people he was thinking about were the representatives of big business, press barons such as Rupert Murdoch, and a narrow layer of the upper-middle class that switched back to voting Conservative in the southeast.

The election saw an unprecedented decline in support for Labour and near universal hostility towards Blair himself. Labour was re-elected with a much-reduced majority of 67 seats, with only 36 percent of the ballot, and the support of just 22 percent of the electorate. Abstentions remained at 38 percent, despite postal votes trebling to 6 million.

Though the results were troubling for Blair, he will not countenance the re-adoption of Old Labour style social reforms. Rather, he will press ahead more determinedly with his right-wing, pro-business agenda.

A Labour victory was endorsed by Murdochs publishing empire, the Financial Times and the Economist, which speak for the financial oligarchy that is Blairs primary constituency. Their continued support for Labour is the essential reason that Blair must face down any demands for retreat from his New Labour agenda. Moreover, the right-wing media was extremely critical of Labour. It accepted that Blair was the best thing on offer, but complained that he had not made sufficient cuts in public spending, had not gone far enough in privatising social services and had failed to cut taxes on business and wealth.

The Liberal Democrats success in winning support in former Labour heartlands dominated the thinking of Blairs critics within the party. They insisted that the central lesson of the election was to recognise that Iraq had lost the party support, and that Blair was no longer trusted and had become an electoral liability.

For Blair, however, the major concern was the swing back to the Tories in marginal seats such as Putney and Enfield. Labours election in 1997 was due to winning over prosperous middle class areas, rather than an increase in support amongst the working class. Blair calculates that Labours standing in working class areas cannot fall much further than it has. What would prevent the party from securing a fourth term in office is a failure to win back the vote of Middle England.

That is why Blair regards the Liberal Democrats ability to make gain almost exclusively at Labours expense, while they fared badly against the Tories, as a vindication of his line. In a May 11 meeting of the parliamentary Labour Party, Blair mocked the Liberal Democrats for choosing the extremist option of claiming to be left of Labour. He dismissed them as the party of Gladstone, Lloyd George and Sedgemorea reference to the retired Labour left MP Brian Sedgemore, who defected to the Liberal Democrats on the eve of the general election.

To win back disgruntled Conservatives, Blair has adopted all the central themes of the election campaign waged by Tory leader Michael Howard. He has pledged to tackle immigration, law and order and discipline in schoolsall the so-called dog whistle issues with which Howard called the Tory faithful back to the fold.

On the central questions of education, health care, welfare reform, and taxation, Blair has set out an agenda that he has compared to the highpoint of Conservative radicalism under Margaret Thatcher.

The Queens Speech to be delivered May 17 will announce that all hospitals are to have the opportunity to become foundation hospitals by 2008. This gives them the right to specialize, and frees them from central government control.

According to a report in the Guardian: the idea is being worked up in conditions of strict commercial secrecy by the senior executives of leading NHS foundation trusts, in the first wave of hospitals to break free from Whitehall control … an acute general hospital would convert itself into a collection of branded medical boutiques, each operating under a concession from the top institutions with the best reputation for a particular specialty. Under this model, local hospitals would become customer service units organising the patient pathway through the boutiques.

Patients are to be offered a voucher to be spent anywhere up to the cost of NHS treatment. This would greatly increase the ability of the private sector to parasite off public health care, by offering cut-rate treatment for relatively inexpensive operations while leaving chronic health care to the NHS. It has already been agreed that the private sector provision of NHS services like diagnosis and minor operations will double to 15 percent of the total.

A similar privatisation agenda is being drawn up for education, where the government is proposing to give education contracts to any private firm able to run schools for less than the cost to the public sector.

The government has already announced its intention to target the 2.67 million people on incapacity benefit, along with reforming the pension and possibly raising the retirement age to 70. More will follow. The governments own estimates on public spending presume an economic growth rate of 3-3.5 percent and a rise in tax receipts of £20 billion over the next two years. However, growth is presently only 2.5 percent and the global economy is extremely fragile.

Further indication of Labours readiness to heed the demands of big business is its intention to launch a huge building programme of 10 nuclear power stations in the face of massive public hostility.

Blair faced off all calls for an early resignation made by backbench MPs, who are supporters of Brown or nominally on the partys left wing. He has made clear that he intends to remain in office for another three to three-and-a-half years before probably handing over to the chancellor. This is vital for Blairs own ego, as much as anything else, as it would make him a longer serving prime minister than Thatcher.

Immediately after the general election, various newspapers ran calls from MPs for Blair to step down within 6 to 18 months. Most of those making such demands linked them to Brown becoming prime minister. John McDonnell MP predicted that Blair would go sooner rather than later. Brown looks as if hes a shoo-in. Desmond Turner MP declared, There is only one choice for leader. I dont think anyone else need apply for the job.

But there is every indication that Brown himself has accepted Blairs timetable, in return for the elevation of some of his key supporters in a cabinet reshuffle.

Even so, Blair is still surrounded with loyalists, ensuring that he has the whip hand within the party leadership. Former Home Secretary David Blunkett was brought back as the new work and pensions secretary after less than five months out of cabinet. Blair adviser David Miliband has taken charge of council tax reform, and John Hutton was made chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster.

Shaun Woodward, the former Conservative MP who defected to Labour in 2001, was made a junior Northern Ireland minister. Lord Drayson, the industrialist and Labour sponsor, was made a junior defence minister. Following his peerage last year, he gave £500,000 to Labour. His company, Powderject, had won a £32 million contract with the Department of Health to supply a smallpox vaccine.

Even within this illustrious company, Blairs most controversial appointment was Andrew Adonis as an education minister. Adonis, a former member of the right-wing breakaway from Labour in the 1980s, the Social Democratic Party, is the mastermind behind university top-up fees and city academy schools. Unelected, his position in cabinet was secured by bringing him into the House of Lords.

No concessions were made to the 40 or so Labour lefts organised in the Campaign Group, despite their threats to use Blairs reduced majority to thwart measures such as the attack on incapacity benefits.

Blair dismissed such threats, as well as the possibility that they would stand a stalking horse candidate for party leader, as inconsequential. Thus far, only one MP has put himself forward, the little known backbencher John Austin. This is itself a measure of the spinelessness and lack of seriousness of the lefts opposition to Blair, which can only fuel the prime ministers arrogance.

A leadership contest is unlikely anyway. It would require the support of 20 percent of Labour MPs and would then have to be supported by a majority at the Labour Party conference in which the trade unions still wield the block vote.

At the May 11 meeting of the PLP, Blair acted like a man who had the true measure of his opponents. He insisted, Our fourth victory will be under different leadership, but we have to remain united until then. The leadership transition must be stable and orderly if Labour was to dominate the new century.

The meeting made clear that Blair still enjoyed the support of the majority of the PLP, for whom electoral success counts far more than political principle. Blair received a standing ovation, and the handful of speakers who called for his resignation met an angry response. Frank Dobsons call for Blair to go was all but drowned out by cries of We won!

There was no possibility that the Brownites could ally themselves openly with the demands of the Campaign Group. Brown shares Blairs agenda on every fundamental question, particularly with regards to taxation and welfare reform. And just as importantly, his backers are all implicated in support for the Iraq war. Their stance was epitomised by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who described Blair as a genius who had been the Labour Partys salvation.

The Labour lefts proved that they are incapable of mounting any serious challenge to Blair. Their loyalty is first and foremost to the party apparatus and their own careers, making it impossible for them to issue an appeal for working people to mobilise against the Labour leadership. They have thus been reduced to vainly hoping that Brown will take the leadership of the party so that they can appear to have put on a clean political shirt.

The relative ease with which Blair has whipped his opponents into line within days of a damaging election performance demonstrates that the Labour Partys transformation into a right-wing vehicle of big business is complete and irreversible. No force will emerge within the party to change this course. No individual or grouping in any way articulates the independent interests of the working class. The disenfranchisement of millions of working people that was evidenced on May 5 can only be overcome through a political break with Labourism and the building of a new socialist party.

A Party Which Cannot Accept How Unpopular It Is

Alex Doherty — Sun, 15 May 2005 18:20:14 +0000

Supporters of New Labour now find themselves in a philosophical puzzle. They went along with Blair’s project because, despite their reservations, it seemed practical as the only way to win elections. But now it’s clearly costing them votes. They’re in the position of someone who says: ‘I didn’t buy the comfortable car I liked as it was pounds 10,000, which I couldn’t afford. So I accepted reality and bought a 15-year-old Mini Metro, not what I wanted but practical, and the salesman let me have it for 37,000 quid.’

The disillusionment with Blair’s support for the war and big business is evident across the election, but most obvious from the success of Respect, especially the victory of George Galloway in Bethnal Green.

But New Labour supporters have another explanation, claiming the campaign against the Labour candidate Oona King was racist. For example, Tony Banks claimed she lost ‘because she’s black’, although in each of the previous two elections, Oona won a majority of over 10,000. So if Tony Banks is right, not only are Respect voters racist, for the last eight years they never noticed she was black, until George Galloway pointed it out. Maybe this will work in other areas. Next time, he’ll run a racist campaign against Boris Johnson, and suddenly we’ll all realise Boris is a Rastafarian.

Oona has added that people were told ‘not to vote for me because I’m Jewish’. So how did Respect candidates win over 20 per cent of the vote in three other constituencies, for example against Jimmy Fitzpatrick in Poplar? Presumably by alerting everyone to the fact that Jimmy is Scottish.

New Labour are heading in the same direction as the Tories, so full of arrogance they can’t acknowledge their own unpopularity. So when a candidate who backed a war stands in an area full of people vehemently opposed to the war, the reason she loses is because she’s black and Jewish. She has admitted the war ‘was an issue’, adding, ‘but there are many other issues’. I’m sure there are.

But it can’t be easy to address voters by saying: ‘OK, so I backed a war, fought on a premise proven to be entirely bogus, that has killed 100,000 people from a region half of you originate from. But you must admit I’ve lobbied hard for the extra zebra crossing outside Sainsbury’s.’ Genghis Khan might as well have complained his opponents only went on about pillaging and plundering issues, paying no attention to his proposed reforms on capital gains tax.

Others have claimed the Respect campaign was driven by Islamic fundamentalists. But I watched the results at a packed Respect party in Brick Lane, in which Muslims cheered along with drunk Christians and atheists, in a scene Osama bin Laden would find very little comfort from. The Muslims present were militant only in the respect that they opposed the bombing of Iraq.

Another explanation offered by New Labour is ‘intimidation’. One Labour supporter claimed: ‘On Tuesday, I was on the way to the corner shop when a couple of young guys threw a bottle at me … Then they threatened to burn my house down. Now George Galloway is my MP.’ Even assuming this is true, nowhere does it explain how these events might be connected. I could say: ‘When I was nine, Richard Bennett, who sat behind me in class, stabbed my leg with a compass. Now Alistair Darling is Secretary of State for Transport. Doesn’t it make you sick?’

Then there are complaints of Respect ‘flooding the area’ with supporters. So that’s it “ an imbalance of resources. To make it fair, next time they should swap. Respect should have to get by on the odd million from a newspaper baron, while the Labour Party enjoys all the takings from a fundraising barbeque and comedy night.

In any case, how does New Labour explain the Independent victory in Blaenau Gwent, and the swing to the Liberals in every Labour area. Or Reg Keys, whose son was killed in Iraq, and stood against Blair himself, winning 4,600 votes and making the speech of the election. Perhaps they all claimed their opponents were black.

But at least we know such an election won’t happen next time in Bethnal Green. Because Labour complained that, by standing, Galloway was ‘splitting the anti-Tory vote’ and giving the Tories a chance to win. Now Galloway has won, logically that must mean next time Labour won’t stand, as it would be them splitting the anti-Tory vote. So Galloway will be able to tell them: ‘Look, I understand you don ‘t agree with everything I say, and I appreciate that. But the only choice in this election is between me and the Tories.’

And I ‘m sure New Labour, despite their reservations, will do all they can to back George, as the only course that’s practical.

What Democracy? Troops Out Now

Fri, 13 May 2005 11:09:21 +0000

Did Prime Minister Blair get reelected? Yes, and as you’ve heard, he’s starting an historic third term. But what was also historic was the beating he took — losing more than half of his majority in Parliament “down from around 160 seats to 66. It’s especially stark, given the state of the British economy. Britain’s booming, but the voters are mad, and they’re mad about one thing: the war. In case you’re in any doubt about that, check out a BBC poll published election night. Hostility to the war was the big issue. Among those who were reluctant to vote for Blair’s party, Labour, 23 % said it was the war specifically; 21% said they just didn’t trust Blair. The party took a special beating in Muslim districts, and places heavy with young people and students.

People were mad and they had a third party to vote for. The Liberal Democrats. Labour’ s share of the vote went down 4 percent. The Lib-Dems went up by the same amount.

Read the New York Times, the Wash Post, AP and your eyes will go blurry before you see it stated clearly. Labor’s support is said to have “eroded” “shrank” “reduced” and “weakened” but let’s be clear: lots of British Labour voters chose Lib-Dem candidates this election because Liberal Democrats, unlike Labour, are the only political party that opposed the invasion of Iraq. Why does the war take a higher toll on Blair than Bush? Because there’s somewhere for anti-war sentiment to go and because thousands of British voters, even many with a long loyalty to the Labor Party, voted against Blair this year.

Even people with a huge stake in the economy — or people who depend on Blair’s social policies — took the gamble and voted against him. And they could, because there’s not a two-party lock down electoral system. And they got what they wanted, a Labour Party victory, but chastened. Blair’s still PM but sobered up. People took a risk and didn’t succumb to the bully media who told them the sky would fall if they voted their dissent. And that’ s exactly what it’ll take right here.

Last year, one of our guests, a retired Washington Post reporter who covered Vietnam, said the political winds shifted on that war not because of anti-war protests but because Americans got tired of the war. They simply stopped giving the president the benefit of the doubt, and started doubting the war.

They started calling not just for the war to be deemed wrong, but for it to be ended; for troops to be brought home, now. Not one more death for a lie. It ‘s not going to get better; it’s only going to get worse.

That’s exactly what they’ve been saying in the UK and it’s exactly what we’ ve got to say more, more loudly, right here.

I got into an e-mail debate with John Walsh, this week. Walsh wrote a piece for Counterpunch in which he called Al Franken a big fat phony and said that Air America Radio supports the war.

Whaddya you mean, I said. Check out our very first show of the year “we dedicated ourselves to the withdrawal of troops on day one. Conservative John McClaughlin, points out Walsh, tracks the Iraqis killed and the Americans killed and wounded “but Air America doesn’t” he wrote. Well we do, on the Laura Flanders Show, weekends. Check out our in memoriam segments.
Check out the roll calls we’ve done.

OK, point made. Defensive splutter ended. You can never say this loud or clearly enough. Progressives don’t have a proactive vision, we’re told. We’re too damn reactive, too negative? Well not on this. On this, we’re the ones with the positive vision, nay demand. Troops out now. They’re not going to do a bit of good. And they’re just going to keep on dying, and killing.

I’ve looked at tons of polls in the last few weeks and it’s all but impossible to find one simple question asked: should US troops be withdrawn from Iraq now (or within the year?) Pollsters seem to ask everything but that. One WSJ/NBC poll quoted by the Institute for Policy Studies this March said that 59 percent of the public believes the United States should pull its troops out of Iraq within 12 months. Just a week ago, a Gallup poll revealed that given the chance to talk to President George W. Bush about any topic, Americans said their first choice would be the war in Iraq. About three-quarters of those who said Iraq said they would tell the president to end it and bring American troops home.

So, the leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom hold their countries up as the world’s greatest democracies (they’re certainly the most internationally arrogant) but in neither place does the majority view on the war have a voice in government leadership? It says something about our democracies, don’t you think?

Laura Flanders is host of The Laura Flanders Show, heard weekends on Air America Radio and the author of BUSHWOMEN.

This piece was a Z Net Commentray, made available to those donating to Z as part of their Sustainers program. For more information, go to http://www.zmag.org/Commentaries/donorform.htm

Sectarian Divides Deepen

Tue, 10 May 2005 16:10:23 +0000

Britains May 5 general election included polls for 18 Westminster seats in British-ruled Northern Ireland. The results exposed deepening sectarian polarisation between nationalist and unionist voters. They also confirmed the virtual collapse of the traditional party of the Northern Irish bourgeoisie, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), and triggered the resignation of the UUPs leader, David Trimble.

The election was prefaced by a media and government campaign waged against Sinn Fein, focussing on the IRAs alleged role in both the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast late last year and the murder of the Catholic nationalist Robert McCartney by Sinn Fein members earlier this year. With negotiations between Sinn Fein and the DUP to revive the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont stalled, the Irish, British and United States governments launched a concerted effort to force Sinn Fein to accept that the IRA must be disbanded, not merely disarmed.

Pressure on Sinn Fein reached a high point with US President George Bushs decision to meet with members of the McCartney family in the White House on St. Patricks Day. The US special envoy to Northern Ireland, Mitchell Reiss, announced that it was time for the IRA to go out of business.

On April 6, Adams pledged himself to such an eventuality in an open appeal to the leadership of the IRA to permanently abandon the strategy of armed struggle and to fully embrace and accept parliamentary means.

For over 30 years, the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms, Adams declared. You asserted the legitimacy of the right of the people of this island to freedom and independence.

Many of your comrades made the ultimate sacrifice. Your determination, selflessness and courage have brought that freedom struggle forward towards its attainment.

That struggle can now be taken forward by other means. I say this with the authority of my office as president of Sinn Fein.

In the past, Adams continued, he had defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle.

I did so because there was no alternative for those who would not bend the knee or turn a blind eye to oppression or for those who wanted a national republic.

Now there is an alternative. I have clearly set out my view of what that alternative is. The way forward is by building political support for republican and democratic objectives across Ireland and by winning support for these goals internationally.

In the aftermath of Adams statement, media interest in the McCartney family largely evaporated. Both the murder and the Belfast bank raid were seen only as leverage to force Sinn Fein to comply with the demands placed on it. Adams and his ally Martin McGuinness are still viewed as favoured instruments for ensuring Republican acceptance of the devolved executive at Stormont based on power-sharing with the pro-British Unionist parties.

The campaign against Sinn Fein in fact served to strengthen its political authority amongst Catholics. May 5 confirmed the ongoing decline in support for the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and its eclipse as the main nationalist party by Sinn Fein. The SDLP had expected to benefit from Sinn Feins difficulties, with members of the McCartney family suggesting that they might stand as SDLP candidates to take advantage of disgust at the IRAs brutal role in Catholic communities. Instead the campaign strengthened the belief that Sinn Fein is the force capable of acting as a defender of Catholics against the Unionist forces and of negotiating political concessions in Westminster and Stormont, when it reconvenes.

A parallel development has taken place within Unionism. The media campaign over the robbery and murder served to further undermine the Ulster Unionist Party, and strengthen the hardline Democratic Unionist Party of Ian Paisley. The DUP still adopts a position of opposing power-sharing with Sinn Fein, which it denounces as a front for the IRA and hence a criminal organisation. In reality, this posture of opposing the terms of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 is used as a device through which to extract further political concessions from London. Paisley is involved in ongoing negotiations aimed at re-establishing the Stormont Assembly.

The election campaign was dominated by jousting between the Republican and Unionist parties aimed at consolidating their sectarian grip over their respective communities.

The DUP fought the election by accusing the UUP and its leader David Trimble of having betrayed Ulster by signing the Good Friday Agreement and bringing the terrorists and criminals of Sinn Fein and the IRA into the state apparatus. The UUPs response was entirely defensive, arguing that it had first forced Sinn Fein onto a constitutional path and then forced it out of power sharing. Both parties draped themselves in the Union Jack and trumpeted their efforts on behalf of Ulsters farming, tourist and quarrying industries.

Amongst nationalists, Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) proposed essentially identical perspectives to push forward the political and economic integration of Northern Ireland with the Irish republic. By drawing together health, energy, infrastructure decision making and planning on both sides of the border, both parties hope to gradually erase Irelands partition while defending capitalist rule. Both demand the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. Both support the adoption of the euro, which is the currency in the South.

But the SDLP is seen by many Catholic workers as a politically compromised force due to its long record of working loyally within Northern Irelands political structures. And Sinn Fein continues to benefit from its association with a militant struggle against British rule, Unionist violence and anti-Catholic discrimination.

The main winner in the election was the DUP, which increased its tally from 5 to 9 seats. All DUP gains were taken from the UUP, which also lost a seat to the SDLP because of a split in the unionist vote.

Emblematic of the UUPs decline was the fate of party leader and former First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, David Trimble. Trimble lost his previously safe Upper Bann seat to David Simpson of the DUP by a margin of over 5,000.

Simpson is typical of the DUP hierarchy, a businessman, member of the Orange Order and the Northern Ireland Assembly and a gospel singer. Amongst his political achievements to date has been the negotiation of local tax relief for Orange halls.

Another leading UUP figure to lose his seat was former British Airways executive David Burnside. Such is the extent of the UUPs decay that Burnside welcomed his own partys defeat as proof that a more hardline stance was needed. I am pleased with the message that has been sent out in Ulster, he declared. Burnside was replaced by another gospel-singing Orange Order member, the Reverend William McCrea, a minister in DUP-leader Ian Paisleys Free Presbyterian Church.

Trimble promptly resigned as UUP leader. In the 10 years since he was elected to the UUP leadership as a unionist hardliner, the party has lost nine of the Westminster seats it held in 1995. The UUP, the party of Ulsters founder Edward Carson and the dominant unionist party since the partition of Ireland in 1921/2, now retains only one seat.

Over the same period, the Protestant bourgeoisie has been forced to acknowledge that its British patrons are no longer willing to subsidise their unchallenged rule over the Northern Irish state and that it must seek a modus vivendi with Sinn Fein. Underlying the UUPs loss of political influence is the drastic undermining of the norths economy.

The Good Friday Agreement was an attempt to end the substantial costs associated with maintaining a British military presence in the north, to bring the political stability necessary to encourage international investment and thereby both emulate the successes of the Irish Republic in the south and encourage cross-border economic cooperation.

For all the DUPs success and its rejection of power-sharing with Sinn Fein, it faces exactly the same problems as the UUP and the same demands from London and Washington that it must do what is necessary to make the north economically and politically viable. Paisley and his cohorts will thus have to make their way to Dublin and seek new relations with Sinn Fein, while seeking the best terms for the Protestant business interests they represent by whipping up religious tensions backed up with anti-IRA rhetoric.

In nationalist-dominated seats, Sinn Fein advanced at the expense of the SDLP, winning the Newry and Armagh seat with an 11 percent swing. SDLP leader Mark Durkan was able to hold off a challenge from Sinn Feins Mitchel McGlaughlin in the Foyle seat in Derry, likely as a result of tactical voting by unionists. In the end, Sinn Fein won five seats against the SDLPs three.

In the coming months, new negotiations between Sinn Fein, the DUP, and the other signatories to the Good Friday Agreement will be sought. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has appointed Peter Hain as Northern Ireland Secretary to oversee the process.

Going Green

jo — Mon, 09 May 2005 18:00:48 +0000

Reading the manifesto of any radical and progressive party in Britain requires a leap of faith. The chances of the Greens forming the next government are roughly equal to those of New Labour declaring Britain a socialist republic hovering, as they do, somewhere close to zero. The temptation, then, must be to say as little as possible by way of specifics and as much of what your imagined core supporters want to hear as possible. Thankfully, the Greens have resisted that temptation and produced a sober and informed document that could comfortably be accepted by socialists as well as environmentalists and, I suspect, plenty of people who accept neither of those labels.

Its the economy, stupid!

The mainstream media, when it bothers to notice the Greens at all, tends to stereotype them as a single issue party. Critics on the left have often come to a similar conclusion from a different perspective arguing that the Greens well worked out environmental policies tend to float around in a sea of ideological incoherence. There may be some historical truth to this charge, but todays Greens can lay claim to a clear platform of radical proposals focused around an alternative economic strategy. Real Progress indeed.

At the centre of the partys economic programme is a vision of sustainability based on economic localisation. This is promoted to counter the corrosive effects of market-led globalisation, which has allowed transnational corporations (TNCs) to trample over peoples basic living standards, considerably widening global inequality and leaving an enormous ecological footprint (see The case for localisation by the late Mike Woodin and Caroline Lucas).

Whereas conventional, neoliberal economics treats environmental and social concerns as externalities subordinating them to the drive for profit the starting point of the Green economic platform is that the economy operates within a world of natural and finite resources, and should be treated as such. This means that we need to find ways to account for the environmental impact of our everyday activities, and re-imagine our economic relationships in ways that move beyond the accumulation of wealth and consumption-for-consumptions-sake. That might risk sounding puritanical, were it not for the basic (and well argued) point that rising consumption levels dont necessarily improve our actual quality of life, since they are accompanied by pollution, inequality and instability.

In practical terms, the Greens propose three main sets of practical changes that would start to reorient the economy on this basis. Firstly, they argue that the tax system should be recentred around environmental sustainability and social equity, replacing VAT with eco-taxes calculated according to natural resource usage, pollution and waste. The Manifesto is short on detail, but the examples given new taxes on aviation fuel and plastic shopping bags give at least a general idea.

Secondly, the Greens promise to redistribute wealth by creating two new income tax bands, set at 50% for those earning over £50,000 per year and 60% for those earning over £100,000. The Manifesto also pledges to address the issue of unearned wealth through reforms in the Inheritance Tax system and land reform (noting that currently 70% of the land is owned by 0.6% of the population).

Thirdly, the Manifesto spells out the implications of economic localisation in relation to trade. The current global system tends to vest increasing power in the hands of unaccountable transnational corporations at the expense of elected national governments. Moreover, corporate-led trade doesnt trickle down to individuals and actually damages local economies. To start with, then, the Greens would promote democratically accountable Community Banks, credit unions, micro-credit and local exchange trading as a means to encourage local investment (and, implicitly, cut off the basis for global finance capital its root). On a grander scale, they would also reform Corporation Tax with a greater number of tax bands, so that large companies pay more (up to 40%); cancel debt for the 52 poorest countries; and introduce a Tobin Tax on currency speculation. Finally, the Greens would seek to replace the WTO and have a General Agreement on Sustainable Trade (GAST) replace the current trade and services treaty (GATS), which is a principal means for the advancement of neoliberalism. They would also seek to reform and democratise the IMF and World Bank so that their goals become the eradication of poverty and the enhancement of environmental sustainability. This goal of meaningful reform seems a little far fetched, given the record of these institutions in implementing punitive structural adjustment programmes on the global South, not to mention the recent appointment of neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz as President of the latter. But as the creation of a progressive IMF/World Bank would in any case require the effective abolition of what currently exists, I suppose this is a moot point.

A more serious loophole is the failure to address the significant decline in corporation tax payments in recent years. Increasingly, global corporations manage to evade taxation through transfer pricing, an accounting device which allows them to shift around their profits to manipulate the system. This deficit cannot be met through increased corporation taxes alone, but would require commitments to closer regulation of the international economic system beyond what the Greens are currently proposing.

The Greens also support a Tobin Tax, which has been welcomed as a positive demand in many quarters as a means to reduce currency speculation and the economic instability it brings but questioned by others on the left as simply a palliative standing in the way of more radical demands to transform the international financial system.

From Carbon to Renewable Energy

As expected, the Greens have a lot to say about climate change, although the core of their position is easily stated: we need to reduce carbon emissions through the expansion of renewable energy production. But tackling climate change doesnt simply mean business as usual, as both Labour and the Lib Dems think. The Greens argue that we would actually need to reduce energy-use (in the home as well as in business) and find more equitable means to distribute the limited resources that the earth provides. The Greens also reject the myth that nuclear power can be a clean energy source, arguing instead that a 40% increase in renewable energy by 2020 should be achieved by a mix of solar, wind and wave power.

So far, so unobjectionable. But the Greens are less impressive when it comes to addressing the Kyoto model of emissions trading: We have an opportunity to lead Europe, not only in energy generation, but also in carbon emissions trading. This is not necessarily as progressive as it might sound, since there is significant research conducted by Carbon Trade Watch, amongst others – which shows that the emissions trading system has the potential to exacerbate environmental and social injustice, creating incentives for the expansion of monoculture plantations in the global South rather than restraining consumption in the North. A more consistent commitment to economic localization might take account of the perverse incentives that the commodification of pollution creates.

Welfare for all

Universal, public provision is at the centre of the Greens approach to welfare. Their approach is centred on rebuilding the welfare state through the creation of a Citizens Income, establishing this unconditional, non-withdrawable income as a universal right, to cover basic needs (see www.citizensincome.org). In marked contrast to New Labour which has eroded the universal principle of welfare provision through a bewildering array of tax credits and means tests this would actually extend the ideals (if not always the practice) of the post-war welfare model. The key advantage of such a scheme is that it allows everyone to draw some benefit from the system, instead of the current residualisation of welfare which treats it merely as a way to discipline the poor and encourage the unemployed to accept underemployment and precarious work. This universal aspect seems to me a vital principle if widespread public support for a welfare state is to be maintained and the spectre of tax revolts (haunting us from across the Atlantic) are not to become a reality. Green provisions for children and pensioners are also based on the Citizens Income model with proposals for a child-rate Citizens Income (basically, an enhanced Child Benefit) and a Citizens Pension.

The Greens make two firm commitments on work. Firstly, they would sign up to a Charter of Workers Rights. Secondly, they make a commitment to reduced working hours ending Britains opt out from the EU Working Time Directive and reviewing the potential for a 35 hour week whilst, disappointingly, stopping short of a commitment to this.

The section on social housing is short on specifics, although it makes positive noises on investment and land reform.

Health and Education

On health and education, the Greens emphasise the need to recover and defend a service ethos rather than commercial management. This is translated into a commitment to increase public investment through higher rates of income and corporation tax, topped up by reductions in defence expenditure.

Their mantra on health is that prevention is better than cure. As a result, health promotion and illness prevention are prioritised, giving a wider meaning to the Green principle of sustainability beyond the conventional sense of environmental issues.

The main theme here, though, is a rejection of the currently dominant neoliberal model of healthcare promoted by the major parties: The Green Party rejects the nostrum of patient choice, which actually undermines the NHS by replicating services, often using private provides, inorder to offer the illusion of choice. In policy terms, this means a rejection of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and the two-tier system of foundation hospitals, as well as abolishing prescription charges and reintroducing free eye and dental checkups.

Importantly, the manifesto also recognises that domestic policy is not the sole agent of privatisation, but that international trade negotiations are starting to encompass even these core service sectors and treat them as potential markets. In this regard, the Greens advocate opposition to the EU endorsed WTO proposal to extend GATS to healthcare.

The Greens have considerably less to say about education, although they do promise universal provision paid for by a more progressive tax system. On schools, the emphasis is on flexibility (in the sense of diversity, rather than greater privatisation). But there is no mention of the persistent problem of the tax-breaks achieved by private schools through their charitable status, and no mention either of the way in which flexibility is currently being discussed by mainstream politicians in the guise of promoting new, business-oriented academies. The sole concrete pledge is a promise to scrap SATS tests.

The manifesto is a little better on education beyond core schooling. Lifelong education is interpreted as a necessity to help people to reach their full potential as human beings in an equitable and just society rather than just skills for the workplace. This provides a rationale for their commitment to expand childcare facilities, scrap tuition fees and restore maintenance grants. But again, few details are provided and the section as a whole is rather weak.

Transport

The Greens transport agenda is perhaps the most radical aspect of their whole programme. Their starting point is that Our transport systems have been built to solve the wrong problem, namely the inadequate supply of roads and runways relative to our spiraling demands to travel more. Instead, the Greens argue, we should address the root causes of [the] demand for mobility. This is a laudable aim, although I am left doubting whether this could be achieved without a fundamental shift in economic and social relations (beyond the rather more modest changes that the Green Manifesto lays the groundwork for). The question to ask then, I suppose, is whether their approach to transport at least moves in the direction of what they term a modal shift.

Judged in these terms, the transport policies put forward by the Greens seem well worked out. There is a welcome recognition that an integrated public transport system actually works out far cheaper than developing equivalent provisions for private travel. This provides the rationale for the Greens commitment to return rail and tube to public ownership. The importance of a publicly accountable planning system, which such a move would make possible, is also recognised.

The Greens dont duck the issue of the need for massive investment in public transport provision, which they would meet by reallocating the governments £30 billion road building budget. They would also provide incentives for fuel-efficient vehicles as well as introducing congestion charging and road pricing. The latter policy, made famous by Ken Livingstone but first conceived of by Thatchers mentor Keith Joseph, requires a little more explanation than the manifesto is prepared to give it if it is to be seen as a progressive move, however. In London, congestion charging works well because there is, broadly speaking, an economic division between car owners and those of us reliant on public transport. But this is not necessarily true for the whole country, and it would need to be integrated with cross-subsidies for public transport use if it were to become an incentive to switch over, rather than simply a regressive tax to drive the poor off the roads.

To tackle air transport growth, the Greens would introduce a new tax on aviation fuel, which is currently exempt from taxation: in effect, a public subsidy worth around £9 billion a year. The wider impact of this policy of having the cost of air transport reflect more closely its true environmental costs is not lost either. Tackling air transport growth would also force a re-appraisal of the real cost of international trade, especially in the area of food supplies, where the heightened cost of imports would make local produce more viable.

Environment

It is a little surprising to come across a section explicitly on the environment in a manifesto which otherwise tries to integrate environmental and sustainable thinking at all levels of policy. But this section also tries to show the connections with other issues, whilst reaffirming that The central aim of green politics is to reduce our burden or ecological footprint on the planet to a sustainable level.

The commitment to a Zero Waste policy starts by claiming that Our growing mountains of waste represent economic inefficiency, before setting out policies to reduce packaging, outlaw incineration, set standards for the recycled contents of products, and stabilise the market in recyclable materials. The ambitious goal of these policies would be a 60% reduction in domestic waste by 2010.

Unsustainable industrial and agricultural processes also come in for criticism, with the Greens highlighting several otherwise obscure issues that environmental campaigners are trying to put on the agenda: the strengthening of the EUs Chemicals Directive, with a view to promoting the development of biodegradable substances; and a precautionary principle with regard to the alleged benefits of genetic modification and nanotechnology.

The Manifesto also draws attention to the WTOs wide-ranging agreement on Trade-Related Apsects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) which, amongst other things, has been used to commodify natural resources by patenting them.

Animal rights are also flagged up in this section, with pledges to ban live animal exports, fur imports and battery chicken rearing.

Food and farming

Our current approach to food supply is unsustainable and fosters economic insecurity. This is a well worn territory amongst environmentalist and international peasant farmers movements, but it is nevertheless welcome to see a British political party taking up the challenges of food sovereignty and intensive agriculture in its manifesto. The Greens draw attention to the ways in which the EUs Common Agricultural Policy fuels factory farming and intensive agriculture, and the intense pressure that the international trade in farm produce places on rural economies.

In particular, the manifesto draws attention to the long supply chains controlled by transnational corporations, and promises a food-chain revolution to localise production and supply, rebalancing the market in favour of small, less intensive farms. The Greens also propose to set a target for organic produce of 30% by 2012; assist the growth of farmers markets and local coops; and take on the supermarkets by introducing a strengthened and legally binding Code of Practice to reduce anti-competitive behaviour. Although it is not fully spelled out, this last point would, paradoxically, work against the current free trade agenda because it implicitly recognises that the practice of deregulation is self-refuting, since markets are susceptible to power relations that market mechanisms, left to their own devices, cannot control.

Crime and Justice

As with their approach to healthcare, the Green approach to crime is also holistic emphasising that criminal justice needs to be a product of a dynamic, equitable and democratic community, Their crime policies are therefore focused on prevention, with detailed measures to control gun crime, as well as a pledge to increase the emphasis on community policing.

Restorative justice and rehabilitation are recognised as important means to reduce re-offending rates, and as a counterpoint to the use of prison as a dumping ground for people with serious social and mental health problems.

There is also support for tackling hate crime, and a pledge to implement the EU Disability Directive, which bizarrely ends up in this section an inadvertent and awkward recognition that the Greens have little to say on equality issues in this manifesto.

There is also a pledge to oppose national ID cards and use the £3billion spent on them for other crime prevention measures.

Democracy

As well as advocating economic localisation, the Greens advocate political localisation too noting that the UK has a very centralised political system despite devolution. The Greens advocate proportional representation (PR) at a local level; greater powers for the Scottish and Welsh assemblies; regional government in England (noting that regionalisation of sorts is happening anyway with the growing influence of Regional Development Agencies, but that these are unaccountable); and increased powers for the European Parliament over the unelected Commission.

Cynics might find this all very convenient given that the Greens current strongholds are in local government, the Scottish Assembly and the European Parliament, and that they stand to benefit greatly from PR. But there are positive arguments in favour of their position too. The consistent thread running through these policies is an emphasis on greater democratisation let the people decide, whether by means of proportional representation, citizens initiatives and referenda. It is in the Greens interests to oppose the sterile grip of the two-party system, but this doesnt make their position untenable. It can be argued that the current post-Thatcher consensus and, in particular, the electoral emphasis on marginal constituencies with their fantasy, middle England hard-working families is encouraged by the failure of our political system to accommodate diversity within its representative structures. The Greens dont put it quite as bluntly, of course, although they do point out Britains democratic deficit. They also promise a series of other welcome reforms: an upper house elected by proportional representation; a written constitution; the disestablishment of the Church of England; and stripping the monarchy of its legislative roles (although they stop short of a full-blown republican platform).

There is a significant and surprising omission in the Greens approach to democracy, however. Their emphasis on making our representative institutions more representative is welcome, but the manifesto has little to say on participatory democracy. Practices that are well tried and tested internationally, such as participatory budgeting, do not get a look in here. This is disappointing, given that such measures would be consistent with the ethos of localisation that the Greens argue for.

Peace, security and international policy

The Greens argue for a truly ethical foreign policy, which would mean the equitable sharing of the worlds resources on the basis of economic localisation. There is a superficial paradox here: how can greater local differentiation lead to increased equality? The rationale of their position is that localisation would disperse the power currently vested in TNCs, Western governments and neoliberal financial institutions, thereby enhancing peoples ability to have a meaningful stake in the decisions that most affect them.

I have already dealt with the economic side of these proposals above, but these do not exhaust the Greens international policy commitments. The manifesto pledges to decommission nuclear weapons and work for arms reduction. It argues against militarism and neo-conservative strategies, such as those which led to the Iraq war (which the Greens steadfastly opposed), and questions the present governments misguided faith in the special relationship. There is a pledge to end export credits for arms sales which are, in effect, a massive subsidy to Britains defence industry and a pledge to promote an International Arms Trade Treaty too. The Greens also promise to reduce Britains military spending to the EU average, although they unfortunately have nothing to say on the present drive to create a more militarised EU, either as a counterpoint to US power or as a complement to it.

On UN reform a very pertinent issue at present, although one that the mainstream parties have remained very silent on the Greens argue for the abolition of permanent seats on the Security Council and the introduction of a majority vote principle.

The Greens also oppose the EU Constitution, which is the other major international issue thats gone missing in the current election debate. Their objection is not to the EU itself, or to engagement with Europe, or even to the idea of a Constitution. Rather, they argue that the present document will do nothing to make the EU more transparent, accountable or environmentally sustainable.

Asylum and migration

The section on asylum is short and, on the whole, a bit disappointing though mainly for what it doesnt say rather than for what it does say. The Greens recognise the need to reduce push factors such as arms sales and unfair trade which are the causes of displacement. This, at least, grapples a major issue that falls outside the current moral panics on immigration: the need to understand why people feel compelled to uproot themselves in the first place.

There are welcome commitments to grant benefits to asylum seekers and give them the right to work. But the manifesto does little to challenge the current asylum and migration system: no commitments are made regarding detention centres, for example, and in warning that we should not confuse asylum with economic migration, the manifesto actually fails to address the positives of economic migration at all let along the social and citizenship rights of economic migrants. All this is unfortunate, although in mitigation the Greens could point to the positive record of both Caroline Lucas and Jean Lambert (their 2 MEPs) on such issues.

Do Voters Need Respect?

jo — Mon, 09 May 2005 16:51:48 +0000

Respect are obviously very pleased that the pseudo-acronym they chose as their name is such a useful word. In the last few months they certainly havent missed an opportunity to display its potential for double meanings. Thus weve been told that pensioners deserve Respect, whilst their candidates make slightly cringe-worthy statements like we all deserve Respect or Hackney South deserves Respect. The tendency has culminated in the rather confusing slogan It takes Respect to get respect!

Their manifesto, released on 18 April, follows a similar pattern, with the titles of most of its sections starting Respect for It works quite well for chapters such as Respect for Young People, less well with Respect for Peace or Respect for Decent Housing. But word-play aside, the manifesto does contain some content of interest to the left.

The twelve election priorities are inevitably headed by a call for an end to the occupation of Iraq, whilst the introduction is titled against war and privatisation. The other priorities are exactly those which left activists have been campaigning on for the last few years. This is not, then, as Nick Cohen and the Alliance for Workers Liberty would have us believe, the manifesto of an unholy alliance between a part of the far left and some vaguely defined current of Islamo-fascists. From the evidence of this manifesto, it is rather that a significant proportion of Muslim opinion has for the first time decided to identify itself with what can only be described as a far left project. We should welcome that step.

The devil, of course, is in the detail.

Since the foundation of Respect, various people on the left have claimed it is a step back in terms of radicalism. The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) has argued that Respect shouldnt write into official policy things like scrapping all immigration controls or the abolition of the monarchy which are too left-wing and would apparently alienate potential working class support (at least thats my understanding of their argument). Critics have alleged this is a sop to get reactionary, or at least mainstream, Muslim organisations on board.

European and by-elections have seen Respect do well in certain areas such as inner east London and central Birmingham, though not in other places, such as Hartlepool. In this election most television news is covering the fight in Bethnal Green and Bow, billed as a straight contest between New Labours Oona King and Respects George Galloway, in some detail. In this regard, and in the level of community support and canvassing in certain areas of the country, Respect are miles ahead of the Socialist Alliance in 2001.

Clearly this is down to an objectively changed situation. The extent to which it is also due to Respects different approach is difficult to say. In terms of the manifesto, though, the most obvious comparison to make is with People Not Profit, the Socialist Alliances 2001 manifesto.

The first thing to notice is that the designers of the Respect manifesto havent been any less enthusiastic about including pictures of people waving placards. And on economic issues, there seems to be very little difference as well. The where will the money come from? section of Respects manifesto seems to have been simply copied and pasted from People Not Profit, so similar are they. Policies on public services; health, education and transport are largely the same. There are generally fewer demands in the Respect manifesto, and more introductory text, but the demands that are missed out are not generally the more radical ones. From support for decent council housing to a good deal for pensioners, Respects economic policies add up to about what any socialist might demand whilst standing in a bourgeois election in the context of a low level of social struggle over economic issues.

On what might be described as social issues, there is a more noticeable difference. As expected on asylum, there is no call for an end to immigration controls (writing in the Morning Star, Galloway argued that no serious person was calling for this). But aside from this, Respect takes a fairly strong line on defending asylum seekers. That doesnt mean that its a particularly coherent position, however. They seem to have settled on an amnesty for all those currently in the UK illegally, plus rolling back New Labours abysmal record, such as dispersal, detention centres and attacks on the right to political asylum. What happens then is not really dealt with. On what basis are people allowed into Britain after the amnesty is over?

Since the manifesto doesnt tell us, are we to assume that Galloways argument (in the same Morning Star article) that we should allow economic migration on the basis of economic need is Respects position? Unfortunately, that is also what I heard the political editor of the Sun, Trevor Kavanagh, arguing on the news this evening. It certainly seems like a policy which puts the needs of corporations before those of human beings, and as such is very problematic. One could argue, that since even in Respects wildest dreams it will only get a couple of seats, the campaign demands which it has offered us are all thats needed for now, rather than a fully worked out policy. All we can say for certain is that theyre all were going to get.

Another contrast is over homophobia. Under the heading No compromise on equality, People Not Profit talked about the fight against racism, sexism and homophobia. Respect talks about an end to discrimination and social oppression. To be fair, most of the demands on homophobia in People Not Profit have belatedly been met by New Labour partnership rights, an equal age of consent, the repeal of section 28 and employment rights all went through in Labours second term. But legal rights alone do not determine equality, and a mention of homophobic violence and rights to asylum on the basis of the threat of violence because of your sexuality might have been mentioned.

One welcome development, on the other hand, is that whilst People Not Profit gave disability discrimination a bullet point, Respect gives it a whole section. The text suggests that the author might be a campaigner and expert on the issue. The same cannot be said for some other sections, such as that on globalisation.

Contrary to the expectations of some of Respects critics, and in distinction to Galloways views on the matter which indicates perhaps we shouldnt take everything he utters to be Respect policy the manifesto states clearly that they are for defending a womans right to choose.

Another major omission from Respects manifesto is the Socialist Alliances call for the legalisation of drugs. In fact, the sole mention of drugs is a call to increase treatment centre resources in the ridiculously short crime section (which luckily isnt called Respect for Crime). Unlike some of the issues which have slipped away in the slimming down of demands since People Not Profit, the legalisation of drugs can hardly be described as marginal. Despite reclassification, cannabis remains illegal and our drug laws serve to criminalise a huge section of the population, with the working class bearing the brunt. Decriminalisation is a working class issue, and such an important one that its omission can only be significant. In the absence of any other policy, again we can only go on George Galloways comments that we should have a war on drugs instead of a war on Muslims. Theres nothing like a false choice to make a politician stand out from the crowd.

These problems aside, the Respect manifesto is a firmly leftwing document. It may not look that great, and reads in places like its been thrown together in a hurry, but taken in isolation the Respect manifesto is something any socialist not plagued by pedantry could support. Its certainly near enough the mark to ensure they get my vote in Tottenham.

East Ham candidate Abdul Khaliq has said that he sees Respect not as a radical party, but as a democratic one. Perhaps he wasnt aware of what was to be included in the Manifesto, as Respect certainly is a radical party in the context of Britain to day. When Khaliq says its democratic, though, he inadvertently raises that other issue which has left a substantial section of left activists cold when it comes to Respect its internal democracy. Cautious after the experience of the Socialist Alliance, and certainly not reassured by reports of Respects first proper conference, such activists would certainly see some irony in the Respect manifestos call for society to be organised in the most open, democratic, participative and accountable way.

In certain areas Respect have managed to achieve the kind of reach that represents the best progress for the radical left in a long while. On the evidence of this manifesto, they seem to have done so without dropping too much of the radicalism. But unless they can start to command the electoral loyalty of a bigger section of leftwing opinion, in the way that Rifondazione Comunista does in Italy, it may not look so rosy after the election. And in order to do that, they have to make a real (and humble) effort to show they can be open, democratic, participative and accountable. On that challenge, this manifesto has no answers.

Blair Gets a Hiding

Alex Doherty — Sun, 08 May 2005 16:59:52 +0000

So Tony Blair looks set to rule with a 66 seat majority, sharply down from 167 at the last general election, however this majority is not the mandate it first appears to be. Due to the quirkiness of the British electoral process this victory was endorsed by only 22% of those eligible to vote (36% of those who did)- the lowest figure that Labour has polled at any post-war election apart from 1983 when the figure was 20.6% and in that election they lost to the Conservatives who had a 144 seat majority.
The Labour vote collapsed right across the country with former supporters votes fragmenting across the range of alternative candidates. In constituencies where local antiwar activists effectively channelled this Labour discontent into a single candidate we saw big upsets for Labour. Examples include Bethnal Green where former Labour MP and Respect candidate George Galloway defeated Oona King with a 26.2% swing and in Hornsey and Woodgreen where Barbara Roche was replaced with Lynne Featherstone, a lib dem, with a 14.6% swing.

George Galloway, in one of the few acceptance speeches to highlight the underlying cause of the collapse in labour support said Mr Blair, this defeat is for Iraq and the other defeats that New Labour has received this evening are for Iraq ... All the people you have killed and all the loss of life have come back to haunt you and the best thing that the Labour Party can do is sack you tomorrow morning.” Galloway went on to thank Oona King for her eight years of work in the constituency and described her as an “able person who will be back in politics and Parliament”, he went on to say “It was not her defeat. It was a defeat for Tony Blair and New Labour for all of the betrayals”.

In Tony Blair’s own constituency, candidate Reg Keys whose son Tom was killed in Iraq, came from nowhere to take over 10% of the vote. Tony Blair, whose support dropped 6%, was forced to stand and listen to some home truths as Mr Keys spoke following the count. He said “If this war had been justified by international law I would have grieved and not campaigned. If weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq — again I would have grieved, not campaigned. Tonight there are lessons to be learned. I hope in my heart that one day the prime minister may be able to say sorry. That one day he will say sorry to the families of the bereaved. And one day the prime minister may be able to visit wounded soldiers in hospital.”

The Labour leadership last night were still unable to square the real world experience of the election with the alternate reality constructed by them and corporate media.
A Labour spokesman said: “Clearly, there are some people for whom Iraq was an issue. For the majority of voters, the focus was on their future in terms of the economy and public services and that is what we got on the doorstep and from our own research.”
This view is at odds with a poll published last night that suggests hostility to the war was a bigger issue than has so far been acknowledged. The poll found 23% of people surveyed cited opposition to the war as a reason for being reluctant to vote Labour.