Most of you media alert people probably heard this little gem from the British Labour Party conference last month, but for those who didn’t it’s too good to miss.
It seems that veteran peace activist Walter Wolfgang, 82, a Labour Party member for 57 years, vice-president of CND and organiser of one of the first Alderston marches
was thrown out of the conference for heckling Jack Straw as he held forth about the virtues of Labour’s Iraq policy.
When Steve Forrest, the chairman of Erith and Thamesmead Labour Party, complained about Mr Wolfgang’s treatment he was thrown out too.
I first heard this story from Bea Campbell, talking to Phillip Adams in the repeat of Latenight Live today. She said that Wolfgang had called out “Liar” and that when he wanted to return he was charged under the new anti-terrorism legislation. Bea said that the Labour apparatchiks should have woken up in 5 minutes that doing this in front of the world’s TV cameras was not a good idea, but it actually took 5 hours to wake up.
No doubt Labour’s spin machine went into overdrive because softer versions seemed to permeate the media. “Liar” became “nonsense” and he wasn’t charged, merely “held” or “prevented from returning”. Also it was put about that he had been consistently disruptive.
Anyway, you’ll be glad to hear that Wolfgang and Forrest were given their passes back and let back in much to the delight of delegates. But the attention he got can be seen by this pic of the media scrum.
For me there was a bit of a bonus in researching this little story. The Socialist Equality Party on the World Socialist website really sank the boot in. They compiled an interesting collection of views of the conference. Bea Campbell said it was pretty dead and disconnected from the Party and the people with half the seats empty. Here’s a sample of what others thought.
Former government adviser, David Clark:
The Labour Party is in urgent need of renewal and that can’t happen until Blair has gone. The party that met in Brighton is visibly exhausted. More than a third of constituencies failed to send a delegate and the ones that did turn up seemed lost and demoralised. Membership is below 200,000 and falling, and the base that is left is ageing and largely inactive. Labour is in a state of incipient organisational collapse. With Blair still in charge, next year’s local elections threaten the sort of wipeout that would leave Labour effectively moribund in large parts of the country.
Polly Toynbee said that Wolfgang’s expulsion:
“perfectly embodied a weak and depleted party that was not even able to debate the war it had been dragged into… Election campaign reports reveal a party hollowed-out, often a near empty shell where even ‘activists’ remain angrily inactive at home.”
The Socialist Equality Party:
When Blair declares that there can be no step back from New Labour’s right-wing course, he is translating into the language of sound bites the essential demands of big business. He insists that there can be no letup in the attacks on the living standards and democratic rights of working people because that is what capitalism demands.
But he is also correct in another sense. There is no possibility of a return to old-style Labour reformism and no possibility of resurrecting the political corpse of the Labour Party.
New Labour is the organizational embodiment of the dictatorship of a fabulously wealthy elite over all aspects of political life. The party’s decline is a function of a deliberate and sustained attempt to disenfranchise the working class, which has provided the political basis for an unprecedented growth of social inequality.
I’m not this blog’s political correspondent and I make no comment except that it is interesting to see and old left view of today’s world still alive somewhere. It all adds to the rich tapestry of life. But honestly, what does the left do about the Blairite capitulation?
Why does the word “Capitalism” appear in the title?
The internal workings of a soft socialist party would seem to have little to do with capitalism as such.
Perhaps a more appropriate title would have been “Socialism rules OK”.
Evil, firstly what the Socialist Equity Party said.
Secondly, I am aware of a critique of Blair’s Third Way politics that says that to find a middle path or rather a third path through triangulation of the social democratic way and neoliberalism. The critique concludes that such an approach inevitably lines you up with neoliberal capitalism.
I tend to agree with that critique.
Blair, as seen by the left within Labour, is often seen as lining up with the interests of capital. Ideas flow from the top and the troops are seen as doing the leg work in the electorate.
When events as described happen people ask whether it was just a minor stuff-up by over enthusiastic security persons, as the Blairites are now claiming, or whether it is what you would expect in the suppression of unpleasant ideas which are surplus to requirements in Blair’s ‘New Labour’. That is, the troops are not supposed to have ideas, they are meant to applaud and follow as the price of a growing economy and a business-friendly Party.
Socialism it is not.
Be that as it may, the suppression of dissent within the Labour Party has nothing to do with capitalism at all.
It’s an internal factional dispute within a nominally socialist party, and suppression of dissent — often violent in nature — is a characteristic of many socialist parties and governments.
The attempt to somehow link this particular event, involving Labour Party members brawling at a Labour Party conference, with capitalism, is completely gratuitous.
It’s an example of the poverty of leftist rhetoric.
The British Labour Party is a lot of things, but it explicitly is not a ‘nominally socialist party”. The ‘nominal’ committments to socialism were removed from the party consitution etc while it was in opposition (was this by Kinnock or Blair? Can’t remember).
Brian, is this not a familiar problem? A left of centre government is elected with mass support, and from day one it begins to be incorporated within the prevailing staus quo, causing popular support to ebb away, until eventually the separation is complete, the government falls, and once again the process must be regenerated from the party ruins – as scholars busy themselves calculating what was gained and what was lost from the whole exercise.
CS, I’m fairly sure that British Labour, like the ALP, is a member of the good old Socialist International. The one where delegates get junkets to Greece, not the old Trot one.
As to your theories about factions and socialism, Evil, remind me to take you out to a Young Liberal meeting in Punchbowl. You’d better be packing heat—because the rest of the room will be.
Here we go. Global revolution is coming, one social democrat party at a time.
Presumably the UK Labour Party is a member of lots of things. Still, quite right. Having checked, I see the 1995 conference watered down (not abolished) the socialist clause in its manifesto, and so I guess it’s fair to say that it remains nominally ‘socialist’. Apologies.
I saw a video of them dragging him out on some TV news about month ago.
Reminds me of another LIAR statement at a gathering of the party faithful in England in 1966.
In that case a hardline unreconstructed old skool party member shouted out “JUDAS” from the body of the conference. The chair shouted back, “LIAR” and then a bit later “I DON’T BELIEVE YOU”, turned to the conference executive and said “Play It Fuckin’ Loud” instead of expelling the interjector.
The modernisation continued and the leader survives to this day going from strength to strength and probably a Nobel Prize.
You can see archival footage coming up on SBS on Novemember 8 and 15 in “No Direction Home”
It’s a funny old world – isn’t it.
I saw an article in the Guardian in which Colin McCabe resigned after 40 years membership over this issue.
Thankyou all. Never having formally studied politics I learnt a bit as usual.
I think one of the keys to this event was the difference in the reflex reaction of those with position and power in the party between now and 1966 as reported by FXH. Bea Campbell says it took them 5 hours to realise they had actually stuffed up. Before that chucking the old guy out seemed the normal thing to do.
cs it is a sad story indeed and Labour does look very vulnerable now. This from a Guardian editorial, per the Socialist Equality Party reminds us of just how vulnerable:
There is a bit of a question as to whether New Labour under Blair was a genuine renewal or whether he stole the conservatives’ clothes.
Because, Evil, these days unless you own vast quantities of oil like Venezuela you don’t get near the levers of power unless you are a fully signed up to the capitalist club. I was going to call the post something else until the Socialist Equality Party rant reminded me of how far the Left has moved to the Right in the last 100 years or so.
So squeeze up a bit there Evil or we are going to have to sit on your lap.