Leaving Labour
Railwayman | 19.02.2004 12:19
Interesting article by a Union Rep on the RMT's decision to leave the Labour Party, a party they helped found one hundred years ago
From Labournet U.K
Leaving Labour...
Report by Oliver New
Published: 19/02/04
“No organisation can bully this union over how it spends its money. We are not going to be dictated to and if New Labour do no want RMT funds that is up to them”
Bob Crow writing in the RMT news
Nearly all the union activists I know left the Labour Party ages ago. Now they have kicked out the whole union. When it came to the crunch at the RMT Special Conference in Glasgow on 6th Feb, there was no contest. The handful of delegates who supported the official Labour line looked and sounded pathetic.
The only branch resolution they could muster up finished by saying... “We therefore instruct the Council of Executives and the General Secretary to cease forthwith any affiliations or other activity which, in the judgement of the Labour Party, renders RMT ineligible for affiliation to the Labour Party. ”
So it was apparently a choice between being a union or being a cabbage. The cabbage option got only 8 votes! Even individual members of the Labour Party voted to keep our independence.
It has not been a coup or a victory for the far left in a debating society. It has been the outcome of a process. Like some other unions the RMT (and before that the NUR) has for years adopted positions in support of working people that have been far to the left of New Labour. Obviously when Labour got elected it immediately put itself in direct conflict with the RMT by planning the PPP on London Underground. In fact we were even a bit of a laughing stock for paying Prescott’s constituency and letting him out a cheap flat at the same time that he was privatising RMT members.
The story has been the same across the Transport industry. Prescott and New Labour have no interest in either our members or our views. When Livingstone wanted to be the Labour candidate for mayor on an anti-PPP ticket, he not only had the support of the RMT, but overwhelmingly of Londoners including London Labour Party members. So New Labour rigged the selection process to keep Livingstone out. When even that wasn’t enough they found and excuse to junk the democratic votes of the RMT, MSF and other Labour-affiliated unions in London.
So the lesson was quite clear - the suits running New Labour regarded us with nothing but contempt. About this time one of these creeps was quoted in the Financial Times as saying that the RMT London Transport Regional Council was ‘off the radar’. We were campaigning on the streets to stop the privatisation of our railway. Obviously we live in different world to these people.
Later on with Bob Crow as our General Secretary we changed the basis of our affiliation to Labour. The RMT wrote to all Labour MPs and asked for support on 4 points - renationalising the Railways, no PPP on the tube, end flagging out of British ships and abolish the anti-union laws. We stopped sponsoring the previous lot of toadies and instead worked with a campaigning group of MPs who backed us on those issues.
Laughably, we were accused by Prescott and co of trying to ‘dictate’ to them! The advantage of this new relationship to MPs is clear to our members. It helps everyone understand that the dog wags the tail, not the other way round. It is up to us as a union to fight for working people and we look for support where we can.
It is a short logical step to looking further for support. We have always supported political campaigns, such as the Anti-Nazi League, Reclaim Our Rights, etc. Like other unions we supported Ken Livingstone against Labour. We have also supported de-selected Labour MP, Dr John Marek, who successfully took on Labour in Wrexham and won getting elected to the Welsh Assembly. John Marek is now trying to launch a new left party in Wales, and he does have support from RMT activists in his area.
These developments have simply been the logic of fighting for our members interests. Our conferences in 2002 and 2003 voted to rationalise the situation. As well as affiliating to Labour branches are allowed - if they get the endorsement of the National Executive - to support parties other than Labour.
Seven Scottish branches and the Scottish region have decided to go with the Scottish Socialist Party. This has obviously been too much for the Blairite suits. Chris Lennie, the deputy General Secretary of New Labour, wrote to Bob Crow giving the union a few days to change its policy. He was unable to say what rule we were supposed to be breaching, so instead he quoted bits of Labour’s constitution to the effect that we should support the “programme policy and principles” of the party. He didn’t say if this applied equally to Blair and co.
Suddenly Labour discovered for the first (and last?) time it could talk to its members in the RMT. For the first time ever they wrote to RMT individual members of Labour, telling them that the union was intending to leave the Party. In reality of course it was the other way round! They were sitting on our affiliation cheque and refusing to cash it!
The concern from Labour supporters has been far less than might have been predicted. The New Labour version of reality does not seem to have taken hold. Obviously there are different views in any union and there is concern over where we go next.
In England and Wales, some activists are looking at the Respect coalition. Others are involved in the opportunities presented by debates at the European Social Forum which will hopefully take place in London this October.
There is a general consensus around the current pluralist type of approach by the union - working with our friends and comrades, including those still in the Labour Party. John McDonnell, the leader of the RMT Parliamentary Campaign Group has made it clear that he will continue to work with the union.
New Labour believes that they can demoralise trade union activists. Their thinking has been that they can’t be challenged from the left because we are too fragmented, politically and organisationally. This contemptuous attitude is increasingly working against them, with many trade unionists backing the RMT one hundred and ten per cent.
In the RMT we’re certainly not out in the cold, as they seem to imagine. It feels more like breathing fresh air.
Oliver New
President of RMT London Transport Regional Council
Links
www.rmt.org.uk
http://www.labournet.net/default.asp
Leaving Labour...
Report by Oliver New
Published: 19/02/04
“No organisation can bully this union over how it spends its money. We are not going to be dictated to and if New Labour do no want RMT funds that is up to them”
Bob Crow writing in the RMT news
Nearly all the union activists I know left the Labour Party ages ago. Now they have kicked out the whole union. When it came to the crunch at the RMT Special Conference in Glasgow on 6th Feb, there was no contest. The handful of delegates who supported the official Labour line looked and sounded pathetic.
The only branch resolution they could muster up finished by saying... “We therefore instruct the Council of Executives and the General Secretary to cease forthwith any affiliations or other activity which, in the judgement of the Labour Party, renders RMT ineligible for affiliation to the Labour Party. ”
So it was apparently a choice between being a union or being a cabbage. The cabbage option got only 8 votes! Even individual members of the Labour Party voted to keep our independence.
It has not been a coup or a victory for the far left in a debating society. It has been the outcome of a process. Like some other unions the RMT (and before that the NUR) has for years adopted positions in support of working people that have been far to the left of New Labour. Obviously when Labour got elected it immediately put itself in direct conflict with the RMT by planning the PPP on London Underground. In fact we were even a bit of a laughing stock for paying Prescott’s constituency and letting him out a cheap flat at the same time that he was privatising RMT members.
The story has been the same across the Transport industry. Prescott and New Labour have no interest in either our members or our views. When Livingstone wanted to be the Labour candidate for mayor on an anti-PPP ticket, he not only had the support of the RMT, but overwhelmingly of Londoners including London Labour Party members. So New Labour rigged the selection process to keep Livingstone out. When even that wasn’t enough they found and excuse to junk the democratic votes of the RMT, MSF and other Labour-affiliated unions in London.
So the lesson was quite clear - the suits running New Labour regarded us with nothing but contempt. About this time one of these creeps was quoted in the Financial Times as saying that the RMT London Transport Regional Council was ‘off the radar’. We were campaigning on the streets to stop the privatisation of our railway. Obviously we live in different world to these people.
Later on with Bob Crow as our General Secretary we changed the basis of our affiliation to Labour. The RMT wrote to all Labour MPs and asked for support on 4 points - renationalising the Railways, no PPP on the tube, end flagging out of British ships and abolish the anti-union laws. We stopped sponsoring the previous lot of toadies and instead worked with a campaigning group of MPs who backed us on those issues.
Laughably, we were accused by Prescott and co of trying to ‘dictate’ to them! The advantage of this new relationship to MPs is clear to our members. It helps everyone understand that the dog wags the tail, not the other way round. It is up to us as a union to fight for working people and we look for support where we can.
It is a short logical step to looking further for support. We have always supported political campaigns, such as the Anti-Nazi League, Reclaim Our Rights, etc. Like other unions we supported Ken Livingstone against Labour. We have also supported de-selected Labour MP, Dr John Marek, who successfully took on Labour in Wrexham and won getting elected to the Welsh Assembly. John Marek is now trying to launch a new left party in Wales, and he does have support from RMT activists in his area.
These developments have simply been the logic of fighting for our members interests. Our conferences in 2002 and 2003 voted to rationalise the situation. As well as affiliating to Labour branches are allowed - if they get the endorsement of the National Executive - to support parties other than Labour.
Seven Scottish branches and the Scottish region have decided to go with the Scottish Socialist Party. This has obviously been too much for the Blairite suits. Chris Lennie, the deputy General Secretary of New Labour, wrote to Bob Crow giving the union a few days to change its policy. He was unable to say what rule we were supposed to be breaching, so instead he quoted bits of Labour’s constitution to the effect that we should support the “programme policy and principles” of the party. He didn’t say if this applied equally to Blair and co.
Suddenly Labour discovered for the first (and last?) time it could talk to its members in the RMT. For the first time ever they wrote to RMT individual members of Labour, telling them that the union was intending to leave the Party. In reality of course it was the other way round! They were sitting on our affiliation cheque and refusing to cash it!
The concern from Labour supporters has been far less than might have been predicted. The New Labour version of reality does not seem to have taken hold. Obviously there are different views in any union and there is concern over where we go next.
In England and Wales, some activists are looking at the Respect coalition. Others are involved in the opportunities presented by debates at the European Social Forum which will hopefully take place in London this October.
There is a general consensus around the current pluralist type of approach by the union - working with our friends and comrades, including those still in the Labour Party. John McDonnell, the leader of the RMT Parliamentary Campaign Group has made it clear that he will continue to work with the union.
New Labour believes that they can demoralise trade union activists. Their thinking has been that they can’t be challenged from the left because we are too fragmented, politically and organisationally. This contemptuous attitude is increasingly working against them, with many trade unionists backing the RMT one hundred and ten per cent.
In the RMT we’re certainly not out in the cold, as they seem to imagine. It feels more like breathing fresh air.
Oliver New
President of RMT London Transport Regional Council
Links
www.rmt.org.uk
http://www.labournet.net/default.asp
Railwayman