Two years on from a ‘landslide’ general election victory, British Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has resigned. Whether through contest or coronation, Andy Burnham is set to be Labour leader and Prime Minister by September at the latest – the seventh in ten years.
With an increase in turnout and a 9,000 majority for Andy Burnham, the Makerfield by-election that precipitated these events was an anti-Starmer, anti-establishment vote, and a vote against the division peddled by the populist right, anti immigrant Reform UK. In the council elections just a month earlier, Reform had won significantly as workers expressed their rage. But as soon as a viable alternative that even slightly appeared to be to the left was offered, it was grabbed and Reform was pushed into second place.
In another indication of the volatility in Britain today, how quickly things can change, the Green Party, just weeks earlier winning hundreds of new council seats and bidding to be a party for trade unionists, received just 0.7% of the votes.
In this rapidly changing time of chaos and crisis, one thing is clear. Now is not the time for the working class to step back and wait.
The spokespeople of capitalism, the bosses and the bond markets, are circling, applying pressure on Andy Burnham and the Labour government to try to achieve some degree of stability in their own interests.
The organisations of the working class, the trade unions, must do the same. Now is the time to pile on the pressure.
NSSN conference
It is therefore very timely that on Saturday 27 June, trade unionists will gather in central London for the 20th conference of the National Shop Stewards Network. It will be one of the first opportunities for workers to debate what the unions should do in this new and changing situation, and can then go back into their workplaces and union branches to fight for it.
It is a sign of the depth of Labour’s crisis that when the most popular politician in the country won a by-election in a seat that has been Labour since its creation more than 40 years ago, it was met in the party with a huge sigh of relief.
But Andy Burnham’s win in Makerfield does not solve Labour’s crisis, whether the next steps play out through open combat or a veneer of unity around a coronation, as seems more likely.
Starmer’s weakness was not due to personal ineptitude – it is the inevitable result of attempting to rule in the interests of capitalism in a time of historic crisis worldwide, and especially in Britain.
The capitalist class requires more austerity and anti-working-class measures, but any government that attempts to carry that out is deeply unpopular and loses elections.
Building on the already intensifying campaign to cut ‘welfare’ in order to pay for military spending, the mouthpiece of the capitalists, the Financial Times, has made it clear. They would prefer a contest to “allow Blairite candidates to square up against the more leftist Burnham.”
“He communicates a sense of optimism and hope which seems to resonate with voters. But his economic policies, in particular, remain hazy and a concern to the corporate world and the markets.” They say: “In the combustible atmosphere of the gilt markets, candidates must avoid throwing matches in the form of careless comments or reckless spending pledges.”
The trade unions must meet the challenge with the same determination. The Makerfield result shows, as the Socialist Party has continually argued, that working-class people desperately want the much-vaunted ‘change’ – and they want that to be in the form of anti-austerity, pro-working-class policies that will make their lives better.
So how do workers really win that change? Some may have hopes in Burnham. Those hopes will likely be fanned by trade union leaders who try to use Burnham’s victory to hold back the pressure from their own members for action and for a new political direction.
But the best response of trade unionists is the opposite of that: to put demands on Burnham and organise to fight for them.
To win this election Burnham – who was a loyal cabinet minister under Gordon Brown and stood against Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader – had to feint left.
He talked of “unity and hope”, about his victory being Labour’s “final chance to change”. He said that the model of the last 40 years has failed, referring to the neo-liberal model of privatisation, deregulation and cuts to public spending. He argued against “being in hock to the bond markets”; he says he stands for “business-friendly socialism”. He says Thames Water should be nationalised and that public ownership of water companies “absolutely would be an option”.
But as the Financial Times has stated in discussing his “tricky fiscal dance”, Burnham is giving “big spending vibes, small spending commitments”. The fact that the ‘progressive capitalist’ Wes Streeting, on the most Blairite wing of the Labour Party, is now backing him is an indication of Burnham’s lack of a genuinely pro-working class programme.
It is possible that he could endeavour to make concessions that don’t involve big spending, for example increasing the number of homes that must be ‘affordable’ in new building developments.
But the “tricky” bit is that any concessions will only increase the appetite of working-class people, and increase the fears of the bosses and the bond markets.
So he also attempts to reassure the capitalists and hold down workers’ expectations: he says he is willing to cut benefits to fund defence; he has already let down the WASPI women; his team is discussing breaking the triple lock; he says he will respect the fiscal rules, the ‘red lines’ – what is that if not being in hock to the bond markets?
But that’s also tricky: it is not through lack of will that Starmer has not made the welfare cuts the bosses want and has still not been able to publish a new defence spending plan – it is because he can’t do it without provoking enormous anger. Burnham may find he is allowed a little bit of leeway by both workers and the bosses – but it can’t hold for long.
The trade union leaders who will want to clear a space will be under huge pressure. The cost of living and the crisis in public services are enormous issues. There is an unfolding catastrophe in education, the NHS, local government, and the civil service. What will Burnham do about the defence investment plan? What will he do about councils continuing eye-watering austerity? What will he do about public sector pay? What will he do about the Tory 50% strike ballot turnout threshold, which two years after Labour’s victory on a pledge to repeal it is still on the statute book?
Unison and Unite are balloting local government members; the NEU is planning to ballot its members in October; PCS and UCU both have conference decisions to launch national campaigns. Members must be ready to fight to ensure there is no backtracking.
Trade union demands
Trade unions must place their demands on Burnham and build a massive national fightback to defend workers, including preparing for national strike action. The agenda of the NSSN conference includes debating an action programme – see below. This can form the basis of workers’ demands on the Labour government and on councils.
Affiliated unions such as the GMB, CWU, Unison and Unite have all seen increased pressure from members and hot debate at conferences about changing the relationship of the union with Labour.
It will not be long before the May elections come around, the biggest set of elections of councils on the four-yearly cycle – and before then there could be resignations, by-elections – even calls for a general election are already being made in some quarters. The trade unions, both affiliated and non-affiliated, cannot avoid the discussion about the need for candidates that stand in workers’ interests.
Trade unionists should still campaign for a conference of trade unions to debate working-class political representation. The Socialist Party will argue that the working class needs its own political voice, a workers’ party based on the trade unions with socialist policies.
Those who want to argue that Burnham’s victory now means that can be the Labour Party can make their case. What would it actually take for trade union leaders to convince members that Labour is really about to change? It would require not just raising general hopes and ‘giving time’, but launching an almighty struggle against the Blairite defenders of capitalism who have driven out all semblance of a workers’ voice or socialist policies. It would require organisational change to restore the collective voice of the trade unions. It would require removal of the Blairites and the readmittance of socialists including Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. It would require the adoption of socialist policies. These issues will also be debated at the NSSN conference in a forum on the fight in local government after the May elections.
The fight must be on – for real change in the interests of working-class people we need to maintain the campaign for national action and struggle for a genuine working-class political voice.
The NSSN proposed Action Programme to defend workers from the cost-of-living squeeze:
- Above-inflation pay rises for workers – automatic rises in pay as inflation increase. In the public sector, for these to be fully funded by central government.
- Scrap all age exemptions on pay, including the national minimum wage. For the immediate implementation of the TUC demand of a £15-an-hour minimum wage for all as a step towards a real living wage, without exemptions.
- Stop the profiteering: nationalise the energy & water companies.
- Freeze rents and energy & utility bills.
- Demand that councils refuse to implement cuts, and instead pass no-cuts needs budgets.
- Oppose disability benefit cuts and attacks on pensions and campaign for a fully resourced, supportive social security system to meet the needs of working class people.
- Demand that the TUC enacts Congress 2025 policy by calling an Autumn national demo against Labour austerity. If not, for a trade union ‘coalition of the willing’ to step in to organise such a demonstration.
- Support the NSSN lobby of the TUC Congress in Brighton from 1pm on Sunday 13th September, in the Holiday Inn Hotel.
- Strike together: co-ordinate the fight on national public sector pay – unite workers across the public and private sectors.
- Repeal all the Tory anti-union laws – immediate scrapping of the undemocratic 50% strike ballot threshold.
- Restore the right to strike to the POA.
- Workers’ unity to face down Reform and the far-right: for the unions to implement 2018 TUC Congress policy ‘to launch a campaign of Jobs and homes not racism’.
- Launch the discussion for a Workers Charter, and how we can fight for it, against the attack on our living standards.