Keep the masses from majority
Geoff Hoon made some unusually revealing statements about Labour Party democracy today on The world this weekend.
Essentially, the Hoon line is that there is - and should be - no such thing. Hoon was asked whether dissenters from the leadership could draw legitimacy from the Labour conference, which had passed motions critical of the New Labour clique now running the party. In other words, do Labour MPs have any right to express the democratically-agreed views of the Labour Party, if these differ from the positions of the New Labour leadership? He replied:
[left-wing MP] was elected on the Labour Party manifesto, as was I. He is bound to deliver that manifesto, as am I.
Time was, it would be generally recognised that party conference decisions were binding on the party as a whole, the leadership included; a Labour Prime Minister who wanted to set aside conference decisions would have many critics and few supporters. Conference's role has long been advisory at best - one of the first priorities in the construction of the New Labour machine was the marginalisation of the party's formal democratic structures (party conference and the National Executive). Now, apparently, we're into a new phase. Not only does the leadership have every right to ignore what the party says; the party has no right to speak. Party policy is leadership policy; what the party itself thinks is sublimely irrelevant.
Hoon's view of democratic procedure within the parliamentary Labour Party followed similar lines: for the parliamentary party to assert itself against the leadership would not only be ill-advised, it would be illegitimate. Specifically, Hoon was asked about the possibility of a leadership challenge. He replied:
recently, at a general election, [Blair] received the overwhelming support of the British people
It's hard to ignore the fact that this is a bare-faced lie: even if we assumed that every single Labour voter was moved by a burning desire to give Blair his or her support, that would still only account for 23% of the British people. There's also the inconvenient, but well-documented, fact that many Labour voters gave the party their vote despite Blair. But this is secondary. The real question is whether the Labour Party exists as an organisation, capable of formulating and expressing collective viewpoints as to its policies and leadership. The Hoon line is essentially that it doesn't exist, or that it exists but should be treated as if it doesn't. Not the Labour Party but the New Labour clique has been anointed by the electorate, on terms set out in the party manifesto, and its word should henceforth be law.
I think Hoon's remarks are revealing and significant - and significant in part because they reveal far more than a better-briefed (or more intelligent) member of government would have done. Through long repetition, the critique of New Labour's 'control freak' tendencies has acquired the kind of familiarity that breeds contempt, but Hoon's comments show just how serious a matter this is - and how destructive it can be. The founding of the Labour Party was a major advance in the history of British democratic representation. Many previous leaders had done their best to hobble Labour Party democracy or stifle its voice, but nobody before Blair had set about dismantling the machinery with such nihilistic gusto. What Hoon's remarks signal is that Blair's project of organisational vandalism is more or less complete: the Labour Party has been destroyed.
Not that Blair would put it quite that bluntly, or for that matter as bluntly as Hoon. But then, eight years down the track, it's not glad confident morning in anyone's book; the first generation of New Labour hacks and Old Labour fellow-travellers is a distant memory. These days, you really can't get the staff. It's the time of the apparatchik: the time of maximum contempt for ordinary party members, with minimum justification. And so we have Hoon: the fourth-year plodder who gets appointed as a prefect (for want of alternative candidates) and promptly starts holding forth about the selection criteria: they don't take just anyone, you know. I don't expect they'd want you...
Once, the Labour Party was built, and the building of the party was a major advance in the history of British democratic representation. But now...
Maintenant c'est joué. L'hacienda, tu ne la verras pas. Elle n'existe pas.
Il faut construire l'hacienda.
Essentially, the Hoon line is that there is - and should be - no such thing. Hoon was asked whether dissenters from the leadership could draw legitimacy from the Labour conference, which had passed motions critical of the New Labour clique now running the party. In other words, do Labour MPs have any right to express the democratically-agreed views of the Labour Party, if these differ from the positions of the New Labour leadership? He replied:
[left-wing MP] was elected on the Labour Party manifesto, as was I. He is bound to deliver that manifesto, as am I.
Time was, it would be generally recognised that party conference decisions were binding on the party as a whole, the leadership included; a Labour Prime Minister who wanted to set aside conference decisions would have many critics and few supporters. Conference's role has long been advisory at best - one of the first priorities in the construction of the New Labour machine was the marginalisation of the party's formal democratic structures (party conference and the National Executive). Now, apparently, we're into a new phase. Not only does the leadership have every right to ignore what the party says; the party has no right to speak. Party policy is leadership policy; what the party itself thinks is sublimely irrelevant.
Hoon's view of democratic procedure within the parliamentary Labour Party followed similar lines: for the parliamentary party to assert itself against the leadership would not only be ill-advised, it would be illegitimate. Specifically, Hoon was asked about the possibility of a leadership challenge. He replied:
recently, at a general election, [Blair] received the overwhelming support of the British people
It's hard to ignore the fact that this is a bare-faced lie: even if we assumed that every single Labour voter was moved by a burning desire to give Blair his or her support, that would still only account for 23% of the British people. There's also the inconvenient, but well-documented, fact that many Labour voters gave the party their vote despite Blair. But this is secondary. The real question is whether the Labour Party exists as an organisation, capable of formulating and expressing collective viewpoints as to its policies and leadership. The Hoon line is essentially that it doesn't exist, or that it exists but should be treated as if it doesn't. Not the Labour Party but the New Labour clique has been anointed by the electorate, on terms set out in the party manifesto, and its word should henceforth be law.
I think Hoon's remarks are revealing and significant - and significant in part because they reveal far more than a better-briefed (or more intelligent) member of government would have done. Through long repetition, the critique of New Labour's 'control freak' tendencies has acquired the kind of familiarity that breeds contempt, but Hoon's comments show just how serious a matter this is - and how destructive it can be. The founding of the Labour Party was a major advance in the history of British democratic representation. Many previous leaders had done their best to hobble Labour Party democracy or stifle its voice, but nobody before Blair had set about dismantling the machinery with such nihilistic gusto. What Hoon's remarks signal is that Blair's project of organisational vandalism is more or less complete: the Labour Party has been destroyed.
Not that Blair would put it quite that bluntly, or for that matter as bluntly as Hoon. But then, eight years down the track, it's not glad confident morning in anyone's book; the first generation of New Labour hacks and Old Labour fellow-travellers is a distant memory. These days, you really can't get the staff. It's the time of the apparatchik: the time of maximum contempt for ordinary party members, with minimum justification. And so we have Hoon: the fourth-year plodder who gets appointed as a prefect (for want of alternative candidates) and promptly starts holding forth about the selection criteria: they don't take just anyone, you know. I don't expect they'd want you...
Once, the Labour Party was built, and the building of the party was a major advance in the history of British democratic representation. But now...
Maintenant c'est joué. L'hacienda, tu ne la verras pas. Elle n'existe pas.
Il faut construire l'hacienda.
posted by Phil at 1:24 pm
1 Comments:
Hoon is an unforgivable pigfucker anyway. As SosD he was spectacularly, baroquely incompetent, had not the slightest understanding of his brief, and succeded in lying to Parliament several times - if you recall he denied in the House of Commons that anyone had gone to Iraq without their right kit, even though the Defence Committee report had on page four a huge photo of a Royal Marine in Basra in Northwest European Woodland camouflage..
And, of course, he managed to say that "Iraqi mothers would thank us" for using cluster bombs. He ought to be tortured to death for that, but I hold out few hopes. When Blair goes no doubt he will walk with a peerage.
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