euro-election

 

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Euro-elections show the need
for a green socialist party

John Bulaitis, with additional material from Nick Long and Peter Drucker

 

Elections are at best a partial indication of the balance of class forces in society and the level and potential for socialist ideas. This is particularly the case with the European elections which inspired record levels of apathy and indifference.

Nevertheless the poll, together with the preceding local English council elections and elections for the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly, gives important signals to those of us committed to building a viable socialist alternative to Blairism, that is a new Socialist Party - broad, non-sectarian, democratic and pluralistic.

The most important feature of the Euro-poll was the colossal abstention rate. The level in the UK - 77 per cent - meant that, under Blair, Britain achieved the level of participation in electoral politics more normally associated with the USA. But mass abstentionism was an European-wide phenomenon: 55 per cent failed to vote in Germany, 51 per cent in Austria, 60 per cent in Portugal, 53 per cent in France.

A number of factors contributed to the abstention rate: the corruption scandals in the European Commission, the Kosovan war, the fact that the European Parliament is remote to the daily lives of populations, and the fear - most marked in Britain but existing elsewhere - that EMU will threaten ‘national sovereignty’. However, by far the most important feature of the abstentions is that they represent a widespread discontent with the neo-liberal political consensus that now dominates electoral politics in all the European countries. In France, for example, a survey found that 45 per cent of those not voting gave as a reason their "discontent with the political parties". Moreover in the same country over one million (5.94 per cent) of those actually going to the polling station showed this discontent in a more positive way by voting ‘blank’, or spoiling their ballot paper.

The ‘Socialist’ and Social Democratic parties (in government in 13 out of the 15 member states) paid the highest price, suffering reversals in all countries except Portugal and France.

Of the three big players in post-war social democracy, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) dropped ten per cent compared to its electoral victory nine months earlier, the Swedish SPD fell to 26.1 per cent, its lowest figure since the war, while Blair’s New Labour polled a disastrous 28 per cent - a level close to the catastrophic 1983 general election result achieved by ‘Old Labour’ under Michael Foot. These results are a crushing refutation of the ‘new revisionism’ that has now conquered European social democracy and symbolised by the June Blair-Schröder manifesto for a ‘social-liberal’ Europe.

However the Right should not celebrate too loudly. In general its progress has been exaggerated by the media.

Although in Britain and Germany, the Tories and the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) gave New Labour and the SPD a hiding, on a European level the socialist group in the Euro-parliament has only fallen in size from 214 members to 180.

The Right’s new majority is because it was previously divided into four different groups but has managed to unite in the European Peoples’ Party.

So while the Right advanced in terms of percentage of voters, the abstention levels meant that it made no real progress in terms of numbers of voters. The general feature of the elections is therefore a weakening of the vote for both the traditional parties of the Left and of the Right, both in terms of actual votes cast and in percentage of votes won. For example, in The Netherlands, the Labour Party declined from 22.9 to 20.1 per cent, while the Christian Democratic CDA also declined from 30.8 per cent to 26.9 per cent. Likewise in Greece the combined vote of the two mainstream parties -- PASOK and the right wing New Democracy -- fell to 70 per cent from the 80 per cent scored at the last general election.

In relation to Britain it is too soon to speak of a Tory revival. The Tories’ victories were because the abstention rate was not so high amongst Tory traditional voters as amongst Labour’s: while the stay-at-home rate in some working-class districts reached 85 per cent and even 90 per cent. A general election is still likely to result in a radically different outcome. Nevertheless a section of the Labour leadership is clearly alarmed by the problems the party is having of maintaining enthusiasm amongst its traditional working class base, and especially amongst the young. Unfortunately, with the exception of the campaign of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), there was no focus provided by the Left which could channel this disillusionment and potential opposition to Blairism.

The performance of the SSP, a new party still in the process of establishing itself, was quite spectacular. Building on the election to the Scottish parliament of Tommy Sheridan, it polled 11 per cent in Glasgow and four per cent in Scotland as a whole.

The successes of SSP were part of a European-wide process.

 

A number of factors contributed to the abstention rate: the corruption scandals in the European Commission, the Kosovan war, the fact that the European Parliament is remote to the daily lives of populations, and the fear - most marked in Britain but existing elsewhere - that EMU will threaten ‘national sovereignty’. However, by far the most important feature of the abstentions is that they represent a widespread discontent with the neo-liberal political consensus that now dominates electoral politics in all the European countries. In France, for example, a survey found that 45 per cent of those not voting gave as a reason their "discontent with the political parties". Moreover in the same country over one million (5.94 per cent) of those actually going to the polling station showed this discontent in a more positive way by voting ‘blank’, or spoiling their ballot paper.

The ‘Socialist’ and Social Democratic parties (in government in 13 out of the 15 member states) paid the highest price, suffering reversals in all countries except Portugal and France.

Of the three big players in post-war social democracy, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) dropped ten per cent compared to its electoral victory nine months earlier, the Swedish SPD fell to 26.1 per cent, its lowest figure since the war, while Blair’s New Labour polled a disastrous 28 per cent - a level close to the catastrophic 1983 general election result achieved by ‘Old Labour’ under Michael Foot. These results are a crushing refutation of the ‘new revisionism’ that has now conquered European social democracy and symbolised by the June Blair-Schröder manifesto for a ‘social-liberal’ Europe.

However the Right should not celebrate too loudly. In general its progress has been exaggerated by the media.

Although in Britain and Germany, the Tories and the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) gave New Labour and the SPD a hiding, on a European level the socialist group in the Euro-parliament has only fallen in size from 214 members to 180.

The Right’s new majority is because it was previously divided into four different groups but has managed to unite in the European Peoples’ Party.

So while the Right advanced in terms of percentage of voters, the abstention levels meant that it made no real progress in terms of numbers of voters. The general feature of the elections is therefore a weakening of the vote for both the traditional parties of the Left and of the Right, both in terms of actual votes cast and in percentage of votes won. For example, in The Netherlands, the Labour Party declined from 22.9 to 20.1 per cent, while the Christian Democratic CDA also declined from 30.8 per cent to 26.9 per cent. Likewise in Greece the combined vote of the two mainstream parties -- PASOK and the right wing New Democracy -- fell to 70 per cent from the 80 per cent scored at the last general election.

In relation to Britain it is too soon to speak of a Tory revival. The Tories’ victories were because the abstention rate was not so high amongst Tory traditional voters as amongst Labour’s: while the stay-at-home rate in some working-class districts reached 85 per cent and even 90 per cent. A general election is still likely to result in a radically different outcome. Nevertheless a section of the Labour leadership is clearly alarmed by the problems the party is having of maintaining enthusiasm amongst its traditional working class base, and especially amongst the young. Unfortunately, with the exception of the campaign of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), there was no focus provided by the Left which could channel this disillusionment and potential opposition to Blairism.

The performance of the SSP, a new party still in the process of establishing itself, was quite spectacular. Building on the election to the Scottish parliament of Tommy Sheridan, it polled 11 per cent in Glasgow and four per cent in Scotland as a whole.

The successes of SSP were part of a European-wide process.

Building a new party of the left

 

 

These results are a crushing refutation of the ‘new revisionism’ that has now conquered European social democracy and symbolised by the June Blair-Schröder manifesto for a ‘social-liberal’ Europe.
 

 

The conclusion that can be drawn from these results is that where there is a nationally established focus for a radical alternative to social democracy it can attract an important layer of supporters.

Generally, the discontent and disillusionment in the Social Democratic or Labour Parties led to an increased vote for parties perceived to be on the radical Left.

The most significant advance was in France.

With a score of 5.2% or about a million votes, the joint list between Lutte Ouvrière (LO) and the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR) won five seats in the European Parliament. Arlette Laguiller of LO and Alain Krivine of the LCR are now both Euro MPs. The campaign programme included a 30-hour work week, a massive increase on social spending and legalisation of the sans papiers (immigrants without residency rights).

It got enormous publicity in France and attracted large audiences to public meetings in towns, big and small.

Elsewhere the radicalism reflected itself in a variety of ways.

In The Netherlands, for example, the formerly Maoist Socialist Party, the only parliamentary party to oppose the Nato’s Balkan war, won its first Euro MP. There were also important votes for various formations based on the old Communist Parties.

These were not uniform, for example in Spain the crisis-ridden United Left suffered a fall to six per cent, and the vote for the broad slate led by the French Communist party (PCF) continued, polling seven per cent. Nevertheless, in France, if the votes of the Greens, PCF and the LO/LCR are added together it can be seen that nearly one voter in four voted for slates perceived to be to the left of the Socialist Party-led government.

Similarly in Greece the three parties standing to the left of the Socialist Party (PASOK) polled 20 per cent (the KKE, Synapsismos and Dikki).

In Sweden, the Left Party polled 16 per cent, its best ever result; and in Germany the Party for Democratic Socialism (PDS) won an astonishing six per cent: based almost wholly in the East, the PDS is still a pariah in bourgeois society.

In Italy four per cent voted for the Party of Communist Refoundation and over two per cent backed its former right-wing, the "Italian Communists" led by Cossuta: the former is sending four MEPs and the latter has won two.

The votes for the Greens also represent a certain radicalism. They polled 12 per cent in The Netherlands (progressing from 3.7 per cent) 9.7 per cent in France (including 17 per cent in Paris), and 18 per cent in Wallonia, the French-speaking south of Belgium. In Britain they won two seats, including one in London. The Green vote was largely young. But the Green political message was very ambiguous, left on some questions, right on others (for example, in most countries they supported the Nato war over Kosova). They suffered a reverse in Germany where they were tainted with support for the government. The good result for the French Greens came despite a particularly ugly campaign led by May '68 hero Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who made a left-sounding case for both Nato’s assault on Serbia and also the neo-liberal monetary union.

The conclusion that can be drawn from these results is that where there is a nationally established focus for a radical alternative to social democracy it can attract an important layer of supporters.

This is of course precisely what did not exist at all in England, while Plaid Cymru in Wales won from the discontent with New Labour. Historically it has been difficult in Britain for parties to the left of Labour to achieve electoral success. The character of the Labour Party, in effect a political reflection of the trade union leadership, tended to channel opponents to capitalism into the Labour Party. Another factor is the British electoral system, which has not favoured small parties. Yet the Labour Party has now changed and the Left clearly could have taken advantage of the proportional representation system introduced for the Euro-elections, as the SSP did.

Indeed there were a number of important indications that a viable Left alternative to Labour would have won a respectable vote.

In the local elections in Tameside 14,000 voted for representatives of striking care workers. In Kidderminster, campaigners fighting hospital closures won seven seats.

In Lewisham, Ian Page standing as a Socialist Alternative candidate won a council seat in a by-election with 40 per cent of the vote.

In Newark, Jill Dawn, accused of exposing an election fiddle by the local New Labour MP and was expelled from the Labour Party, stood as an independent socialist and was elected. In Sheffield, Leeds, Hull and Walsall, socialists won respectable votes.

It does not take much imagination to think that if Arthur Scargill had, in 1995, been prepared to establish the SLP as a broad, democratic and pluralistic party, such an organisation could have been playing the kind of role that the SSP is beginning to play today north of the border.

Instead, the SLP reaped the reward for its neo-Stalinist policies and undemocratic methods polling a Euro-election vote of only 1.72 per cent in London and under one per cent virtually everywhere else.

 

Euro-elections

But the responsibility for the lack of a viable Left alternative cannot just be laid at the door of the SLP. There was no serious attempt by the other important forces on the Left - notably the SWP and Socialist Party - to forge a national alliance of the Left, in the same way that LO and LCR forged a joint slate in France.

Some initiatives were taken at a local level. In London there was a temporary agreement to stand a United Left slate including the SWP and the Militant/Socialist Party (SP). However there seemed to be a distinct reluctance by the two organisations to wage the sort of campaign in the workplaces and communities to broaden the base of the initiative. After the withdrawal of the SWP, the alliance fizzled away.

In the North West the expelled members of the Socialist Party helped organise a similar alliance, but the SWP and SP withdrew as the elections approached. In the West Midlands a Socialist Alliance slate did stand but was hampered by the fact that it was not part of a national movement and its vote was weakened by the left-wing candidature of former MEP Christine Oddy.

These problems are partly rooted in the sectarian approach that dominates the main organisations of the far left in England and Wales.

For the SP and SWP alliance work is a flag of convenience, something they will engage in if – and only if – it can help them to recruit a layer of new members for their own organisations.

This approach creates a log-jam in the struggle to build a new broad socialist party.

This problem is compounded by the very low level of activity in the working class and social movements. It will take a recovery of struggle, and the involvement of a much wider layer of activists than at present, to provide a solid basis for a new party. An upturn in the class struggle is needed to provoke some major rethinking on the left around the question of creating a new party.

What, however, should those in favour of a new Socialist Party along the lines of the SSP do now? It is not a solution to declare a new party without a solid or broad foundation. That would only compound the difficulties and would amount to the creation of another sect alongside the others, as the Socialist Party leaders seem, sadly, keen to prove.

Some are raising the question of big orientation to the Green Party, and even seeing the Greens as being the basis for a new party. This seems to be the position of some around the journal Red Pepper. This is probably mistaken, but comrades around Red Pepper will find out for themselves. The Green Party is an ambiguous political formation and its leadership has an increasingly electoral, parliamentary perspective.

Many Greens do not do not have a vision of building a party of activists and militants that links up with and involves itself in the wider social and workers’ movement. Nevertheless the Green vote was overwhelmingly young and radical and 20,000 applied to join the party after its electoral broadcast.

Socialists clearly have to seriously take up the question of the environment and find ways to link up with Green activists and the left-wing in the Green Party around the Way Ahead group.

The strength and symbolism of the environmental movement is an important pointer to the character of the new socialist party we need to work towards.

It is also a reason why it is wrong to pose the slogan of creating a new ‘workers’ party’, which could be interpreted as a Labour Party mark II or a party only aiming to reflect the political positions of the trade union leaders.

A new socialist party needs to be a socialist green party, encompassing the best from the workers and trade union movement, but also other traditions: the women’s movement, the anti-racist campaigns and new politics like the various direct action networks and campaigns.

It would be an entirely new form of political movement that seeks to build and reflect campaigns and struggles, rather than force its programme on the workers, oppressed and their allies.

Socialists need to work in and build links with these campaigns and movements, building solidarity with people in struggle, engaging in international solidarity and building the Socialist Alliances.

All this activity lays the foundations for a new political party. At the same time we have the task of generating new ideas and new democratic and inclusive methods, which can play a role in creating the culture necessary for the development of such a movement.

We are in a difficult period. We should overlook neither the crisis of social democracy, demonstrated by the European elections, nor the crisis of the Communist movement.

They have created the opportunity and the political space for the emergence of new formations which will involve the coming together of different traditions, and which can organise and give political voice to an important minority of militant workers and oppressed minorities.

  

The strength and symbolism of the environmental movement is an important pointer to the character of the new socialist party we need to work towards.

It is also a reason why it is wrong to pose the slogan of creating a new ‘workers’ party’, which could be interpreted as a Labour Party mark II or a party only aiming to reflect the political positions of the trade union leaders.