Through the Looking Glass

Garth Frankland reviews Liz Davies' new book

ISBN 1 85984 609 2
Reviewed by Garth Frankland

When Blair pushed through his reforms of the Labour Party structures, many on the Left drew the conclusion that it was no longer possible to conduct a meaningful fight within the Party. There were no longer any mechanisms to pressurise the leadership. The Conference was no longer a body which could decide policy. Those of us who had supported Liz Davies in Leeds North East and had seen our Party ripped apart were not surprised by the new Stalinist structures. We had been at the receiving end, as had many others in Brighton, Newark, Doncaster and Hull. The question was, what to do?

The formation of the Grass Roots Alliance inside the Labour Party, of which Labour Briefing was a key element, provided the organisation which propelled Liz Davies and other Alliance members onto the National Executive of the Labour Party. Liz Davies had warned throughout her campaign that getting a few left-wingers onto the NEC would not alter the New Labour project. The new NEC was set up to give Blair an in-built majority. However the hope was that the campaign would provide a focus throughout the Labour Party for those who seriously wanted socialist policies and a democratic and accountable party.

On the day of Liz's victory I was in Blackpool to attend a Left Alliance fringe meeting addressed by Hugh Kerr at the Blackpool Light Craft Club, the best venue in Blackpool but a bit out of the centre. I went from there to the Labour Briefing Rally held opposite the Winter Gardens. Two years before this rally attracted thirty people; now there were over three hundred to hear Liz Davies speak. Just two years after being prevented by the NEC from standing in Leeds North East she was now a member of the NEC. Seldom was revenge so sweet and so soon. I felt I was walking twelve inches off the ground.

However Liz was right to warn that her election wouldn't of itself change anything. The NEC turned out to be worse than any of us imagined. Its setup resembled the descriptions of the Central Committee of Gerry Healey's notorious sect, the Workers Revolutionary Party. There was a feeling of oppression and almost physical intimidation. Right down to the glorious leader departing after his opening speech and leaving the running of the meeting to his Deputy, and of course blaming the shortcomings on the membership. There was a complete contempt for democracy and for the Party rank and file. Liz went through two years of hell at these meetings. Those who met her during this time knew the amount of frustration and stress she felt. The amazing thing was her willingness to carry on and to speak at meetings up and down the country.

Liz Davies goes through how, again and again, the unelected Millbank officials sprang controversial papers on the NEC with out giving the Grass Roots Alliance members the chance to go through them. The rest of the NEC nodded them through with the minimum of discussion. Often, as Liz says, the devil is in the detail of these last-minute papers. But this quote also applies to this brilliant expose of the actual mechanisms of New Labour control freakery. The only possible conclusion after reading through this book is that it is no longer possible to change things within the confines of the Labour Party.

There is a reason for this. Liz's focus on the NEC was on how New Labour was financed. The growth of business support, both direct and through sponsorship, shows who is now calling the tune inside the Labour Party. It is now just another party of big business with minimal links to the labour movement. It has succeeded in becoming a Mark II version of the US Democratic Party.

Liz Davies made her announcement to quit New Labour in Leeds at two important meetings: Steve Johnson's Socialist Alliance election rally for Leeds Central and Celia Foote's Leeds North East election launch and Birthday Bash. At Celia's do not all the two hundred people had come to hear political speeches. However, by the end of Liz's speech you could hear a pin drop.

As one leading member of Women against Pit Closures said, "The Labour Party cannot afford to lose her." But they have lost her, and it is the Labour Party and Blair that will suffer. The Left and Socialist Alliances are the beginnings of a new democratic open alternative.

The following quote, from the Newark Left Web site, sums up the feelings of many former Labour Party members:

On her leaving the Labour party one of the spin doctors was quoted: "I am sure she will be very happy on the irrelevant fringes of politics." The irony here is that this twit does not understand that Liz left because she finally decided that being the democratic representative of the constituency of the Labour Party Membership on the NEC had been reduced by the Millbank operators to campaigning on the "irrelevant fringes of politics."
I remember clearly a friend from Liverpool maintaining that the Tory party was the "natural party of government". It was a similarly arrogant claim. When the Labour Party consistently loses activists like Liz Davies it loses the foundation on which it is built. Liz's defection is representative of a lot of traditional members of the Labour Party. New Labour will inevitably lose its grip on the message, and then it will want to turn to its traditional support, irritating buggers like Liz Davies, to find that they've all joined the Socialist Alliance.
Liz, welcome to the fold, and respect!

Read the book and then act. The tide is turning.

- Garth Frankland