Who decides Labour's policies?

Submitted by Matthew on 20 February, 2013 - 7:39

According to Labour leader Ed Miliband, speaking on 14 February: “Over the last three decades or so, less than 15 pence of every additional pound Britain has made has gone to an entire half of the population... 24 pence in every pound has gone to the top 1 per cent of earners”.

Inequality soared under the Tories, continued to increase under Blair and Brown, and is zooming under the coalition.

The policies Ed Miliband proposed in that speech would come nowhere near reversing that trend.

“We would tax houses worth over £2 million... We would... reintroduce a lower 10 pence starting rate of tax...”

The “mansion tax” is cribbed from the Lib Dems, and the reintroduction of the 10p tax band from some Tories. Both would be welcome, but marginal.

The new Labour campaign against the “bedroom tax” is also welcome; but also marginal, compared to the campaign needed against the wide wall of benefit cuts which will hit no fewer than 27 million people this April.

Jon Cruddas, the official chief of Labour’s “policy review”, told BBC Newsnight on 13 February that he is working out policies and “you will gradually see this come into the public domain over the next month”.

He told the BBC interviewer to wait for Miliband’s speech and one Cruddas was making on 14 February. In his speech Cruddas suggested more support for a living wage, more regulation of private landlords, and more social house-building — but all so vaguely as to mean little.

The “One Nation Labour” packaging is condemned by Ed Miliband’s own facts. He shows that Britain, like the world, has become more and more sharply divided into two “nations” — the top one per cent, getting richer and richer, and the majority, falling further and further behind.

In between there is, as Karl Marx put it, a “constantly growing number of the middle classes, those who stand between the workman on the one hand and the capitalist and landlord on the other... they are a burden weighing heavily on the working base and increase the social security and power of the upper ten thousand”.

They are also a burden weighing on the Labour Party!

The fundamental division is between the “working base” and the “upper ten thousand”. It cannot be undone by measures such as Cruddas and Miliband propose. They are weaker than the Blair-Brown government’s tax credits and minimum wage policies, which did not stop inequality increasing.

The class division can be undone only by ending the top few’s monopoly of the ownership and control of productive wealth, a monopoly which makes the rest of us depend on selling our labour-power for whatever pittance we can get to that wealth-owning class.

The first obvious step towards that has already been demanded by last year’s TUC congress: “full public ownership of the [financial] sector and the creation of a publicly owned banking service, democratically and accountably managed”.

The unions should fight, in the first place, for a democratic debate on policy in the Labour Party, rather than policies being “unveiled” at whim by Miliband and Cruddas; and for a programme that makes that TUC policy central.

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.