I haven’t been
blogging so much recently since there is less to say (in public) about leading
the local Labour Party than there used to be about criticising the leadership
of a trade union (although I wouldn’t want anyone to think those criticisms are
not still valid – I wish well to all those candidates in the forthcoming
elections for UNISON Service Group Executives who are supported by UNISON Action Broad Left. Union
members need and deserve better).
However, on a
day when it is clear just how uncomfortable it is for some of Labour’s
elected representatives to come to terms with the leftward shift in our
(mass) membership and – consequently – our policies it is necessary to say
something. The rightly criticised Haringey Development Vehicle was simply a
particularly extreme version of the “innovative” approach to swerving austerity
by engaging with private sector or third sector providers which has been the
hallmark of “New” Labour in its dotage.
I have
witnessed the perennial failure of such “innovation” too many times. (It is
not, of course, innovative to take services out of direct public sector
provision. The very reason that the London County Council was established was
because the former Metropolitan Board of Works, which managed delivery of
public services by the private sector, was corrupt and inefficient. Pushing
public services into the private (or so-called “third”) sector is just going
back to “Victorian values”).
The truth is
that you can never get a quart out of a pint pot, whether that pot is labelled “partnership”,
“shared services” or even “cooperative” or “mutual”. It isn’t “innovative” to
pretend otherwise, it’s just desperate (and wrong).
If you try to
transfer public services to a charitable trust in the hope that there are tax
advantages (i.e. dodges) to charitable status (or that this will open up income
generation possibilities unavailable to a public authority) you won’t just find
that the extra costs of keeping staff in the pension scheme will outweigh these
benefits, you will also have to excuse taking governance of that service away
from genuine accountability to elected Councillors and giving it in perpetuity
to the “great and the good” who are trustees.
If you create a
joint venture company with the private sector (and don’t kid anyone that isn’t
what Housing Associations truly now are) so that the company can build “affordable”
homes which are not Council homes then, whilst you avoid placing unrealistic
demands on the Housing Revenue Account, you set out on a path which, whatever
good it does, does not build (any number of) new Council homes. I was in
at the birth of a joint venture company in Lambeth which was (at the time) the
largest privatisation in the history of English local government. I also
witnessed the slow failure of this ill-considered “innovation”.
Public services
matter very much. They underpin civilisation. They are best provided by public
servants, employed by the public sector, governed transparently and managed to
deliver services rather than deliver “shareholder value” to anyone (or to
support “third sector” entities which are never accountable in the way in which
local authorities are).
I do understand
why social democrat (and even – which is quite different – “New Labour”)
Councillors sought out “innovative” ways to avoid the consequences for local
government of the austerity policies of successive governments. No one wants to
admit that they don’t have the power to do what they want to do.
However, where
we are now in this country, with the real prospect of a socialist Labour
Government, we don’t need such “innovatory” compromises. We need to develop in
detail the policies to implement the improvement of public services for our
working class communities to be funded by taxation of the rich and the
corporations.
And where we
are now in the Labour Party, with a (mass) membership of socialists who demand
to be respected and heard, we need Labour Groups who can grow out of the
isolation of the past and engage in an inclusive and democratic process of
policy development which engages with our Party.
Everyone who
can be part of this future must be welcome within it. We socialists must not
and will not “purge” opponents as we ourselves have been treated in the past.
We will simply encourage democracy and empower ordinary Labour Party members to
take decisions for themselves.
Those who do
not want to join us in building socialist politics for the twenty first century
need not do so, and they will be best to join those who are stepping aside –
but that will be their choice. All those who came to the Labour Party to make
life better for our people should stay right here and join us in giving effect
to our shared beliefs.