Sunday, December 5, 2010

MISTAKING THE SECOND MONTH OF PREGNANCY FOR THE NINTH


I’m going to make a prediction. The current wave of student anti-cuts protests and occupations, though inspiring to behold, have come too early to be the spark for those much anticipated wider protests and strike action on the part of the working class.


Whether we like it or not, until the cuts being planned by the ConDems move from the abstract to the concrete for the vast majority, that majority will remain overwhelmingly quiescent. As of yet it has been the students, facing the imminent prospect of new legislation on student fees being passed in Parliament on 9th December, who’ve been impacted and who in turn have mobilised to fight back. What took place the other night in Lewisham, where protesters managed to disrupt a council vote on whether to support or oppose £60 million in cuts to the council’s budget, was the result of an organised and already politicised London borough being ahead of the game in terms of taking the fightback to the local council in what amounted to a pre-emptive strike.


The contradiction which emerged from that episode of Labour councillors in Lewisham voting in favour of the cuts package merely illustrates the limits of expectation we should have in Labour’s ability to play a leading role in any grass roots movement. This remains a party in which the tenets of Blairism remain a threat to the shift to the left embarked upon by the new leadership, and the speed and extent of this shift will rely to a significant extent on the size and potency of the anti-cuts movement in the months to come.


But let’s not kid ourselves: in a borough which in 1977 turned out 10,000 to face down the National Front, a protest involving an estimated 400 demonstrators, whilst a positive testament to the work of local activists and left organisations in Lewisham, remains small in relation to the size of any anti-cuts movement, both locally and nationally, that is going to have any chance of a favourable outcome. And when speaking of a favourable outcome we must understand this as effecting a split in the coalition which precipitates an early general election, resulting in a resounding defeat for the Tories and the arrival of a Labour government armed with an alternative economic programme for steering the country through the recession, one which favours investment over cuts and a strong public sector as a ballast of demand.


The only other alternative is a revolutionary government, which in the context of Britain in 2010 is at best unrealistic and at worst delusional, especially when we consider previous social upheavals and the resilience of the state and its institutions in being able to respond with concessions without being threatened.


When taking the measure of the anti-cuts movement in its present form, we see that it consists largely of already politicised activists, trade unionists and students, many already affiliated to various left organisations, and those assorted left Labour, Green and Respect MPs and councillors who comprise the great and the good of the progressive movement. It also currently enjoys the rhetorical support of some but not all the leaders of the nation’s trade unions.


Most who’ve been out on anti-cuts demos and rallies over the past few weeks will be able to attest to the wide ranging support received from passing pedestrians and motorists tooting their horns. However, it won’t be until those pedestrians and motorists move from a position of offering passive support to getting involved that we will have a movement that can take on the government and have any meaningful impact. In other words, until people who do not normally go on protests or get involved in political activity feel compelled to do so, we are still talking about a movement which remains very much in an embryonic stage.


Many have understandably derived inspiration from the impassioned and determined mobilisation of the students that we’ve seen, with comparisons being drawn in some quarters with France in May 68, when students were the spark for a general strike by French workers against De Gaulle’s government which ultimately forced its dissolution and new elections. However, such comparisons are dangerous if used as a template for what’s happening today in this country.


Thirteen years of New Labour’s shift away from its working class base and the trade union movement, during which Thatcher’s anti-trade union laws were left intact, has denuded both in terms of political weight and militancy. This doesn’t mean they won’t rediscover this political weight and/or militancy, but it does mean it will take more in the way of attacks by the government before they do.


But as in France in 68 any victory in such a fight will only come about if the requisite disruption to the nation’s economic and political life that is necessary can be made. The kind if disruption necessary will be in the shape of a general strike and sustained protest and civil disobedience; and any chance of this occurring will require the sort of upsurge in consciousness that can only come on the back of material necessity. If this coalition has a weakness it lies in its failure to learn the lessons of the Poll Tax; which means to say that its plans to make such brutal and across the board cuts in such a short timescale, cuts that will impact on society as a whole, could be its undoing.


Calls for a general strike at this stage, while offering as they do the only realistic path to bringing the country to a halt and with it the present government, nonetheless bring with it dangers if they come from without the trade union movement. The danger is that if such calls are perceived as an attack on the trade union leadership, or an attempt to undermine that leadership, which let’s not forget has been elected to represent in some cases hundreds of thousands of workers, they will only serve to alienate rather than inspire the workers they are intended to reach.


Being too far ahead of consciousness is as much of a mistake as being too far behind. The demo in London next March being organised by the TUC has the very real chance of seeing over a million people coming out to protest against the government, which would certainly have the effect of testing Clegg’s ability to keep his party on board. As such, any anti-cuts movement which sets its face against the trade unions, which views the leadership of the unions as part of the problem before the working class begins to feel the impact of the government’s proposed cuts, will see itself condemned to standing on the sidelines making shrill ultra left demands. While these may prove cathartic for those involved, in terms of impacting on events they will be woefully ineffective.


Any serious anti-cuts movement needs to win the cooperation, support and most importantly the trust of the ordinary working people if it is to grow and be successful. In this regard the romanticization of the working class and struggle as an end in itself has no place.


The working class will move when it is ready to move and not before.