NASTY PARTY STRIKES AGAIN

Here we go again.  The Tories have managed to spend the last five years rewriting history concerning the economy, successfully as it turned out.  People believed them.  Now they are trying to convince the British public that the majority of this country’s ills can be laid at the door of the Trades Unions.

The Cameron Government is attempting to interfere with the right to strike by demanding that 40% of eligible Union members vote before strike action is legal.  You might be forgiven for thinking that this rule was across the board, that 40% of people would need to participate in elections for, say Police and Crime Commissioners in order to legitimise them.  But no.  The new laws will only refer to strike ballots.  

Business Secretary Sajid Javid (elected by 38.3% of those eligible to vote in his constituency) said that the Tories would not “hide away from the changes we want to make”.  The key word there is “want”.  Not “need”, but want.  Despite there being no necessity for this legislation, the Tories want to introduce it, showing once again that they are driven by ideology and a desire to take away working people’s rights.

In 2012, elections were held for Police and Crime Commissioners, a pet Tory project which few saw a need for.  Total turnout was 15.1% of the electorate.  Not 50%, not even 25%, but 15.1%.  As he has made no move towards annulling these elections, one can only assume that David Cameron (first elected to Parliament with just under 30% of the eligible vote) feels that they are legitimate.  What is good for the Trades Unions should surely be good for Javid, Cameron and Police and Crime Commissioners.

Restricting the right of people to withdraw their labour is an attack on freedom.  We saw the Conservative attitude towards working people in the last Parliament when they increased the amount of time someone had to be employed before being considered unfairly dismissed from one to two years.  An opt-out from the Working Time Directive has put pressure on the lowest paid workers to accept any hours that are offered.  Zero hours contracts force them even further into the corner.  Agencies give the work to those who have signed the opt-out with little regard for anything else.

The Trade Union Bill is a pernicious attack on people’s rights.  Cameron and co will dress it up as assisting the economy, smoothing relations.  If he was serious about that, he’d make negotiation easier and make industrial relations smoother, but instead we have yet another attack on working people.  It’s time to draw the line.

Devolving and evolving hand in hand

The utter depression of the 2015 election results will stay with those of us on the left for a long time.  The thick grey cloud of Conservative Britain depressed us all in 1987 as well as in 1992.  It looks like enveloping us all again.  A lot of soul searching will follow, with fingers being pointed and much vitriol being poured.  At the time of writing, Labour has yet to decide when it wants to elect its new leader, let alone who it wants to elect.  Post-mortems are being carried out on the campaign, on leadership and on the manifesto.  They will not come up with an agreed position.  The Labour Party rarely does.  It was once said about Yorkshire County Cricket Club that you couldn’t ask them who the Queen was without them holding a special conference, hiring Leeds Civic Hall and everyone falling out.  The Labour Party is not dissimilar.

Ed Miliband deserves some credit for keeping the show together after the 2010 defeat.  The bitter arguments were, on the whole, avoided and the finger pointing kept to a minimum.  That is not to say that we, as a party, didn’t indulge.  We did.  A seemingly interminable leadership contest led us to look inwards and allowed the Conservatives to set the narrative, one which stuck remorselessly throughout the five years of the Parliament.  Labour profligacy, rather than banking irresponsibility, caused the crash; Labour ‘maxed out’ the nation’s credit card.  Public spending had to be reined in.  This narrative continued right the way up to the close of the polls.  Michael Gove was still parroting it at gone ten o’clock.  By refusing to engage properly with the past we put our immediate future at risk.  Now it’s time to wrestle with the present in order to prevent us perishing in the future.

Britain is a more politically divided nation than ever.  London and the north of England voted Labour.  Scotland voted SNP.  The south and midlands of England voted Conservative.  Wales is still predominantly Labour, but, as Scotland shows, should not be taken for granted.  There will be a great deal of talk about how Britain is ‘broken’ or ‘fragmented’.  Few people will see the new political make up as an opportunity, but if we look hard enough, there is one there.

There is a great assumption that political parties need to be as one.  One policy, one ‘hymn sheet’, one voice across the UK.  However, if the UK is no longer a homogeneous unit, why should its political parties be?  Labour should devolve.  At the 2015 election it’s clear that we were too left wing for England but not left wing enough for Scotland.  Let that change.  Let the different wings of the party in different parts of the UK have true autonomy.  Let Carwyn Jones and Welsh Labour differ on tax and spend in Wales if they want to.  Let the Scottish party take on the SNP in the best way possible for them.  Don’t saddle campaigners with the kind of message they know will be unpopular in their area.  As long as our basic values remain the same, we should have the courage to adapt them to specific areas.  After all, the Tories have barely had representation in Scotland for two decade but that has not stopped them from imposing the bedroom tax, public spending cuts and other austerity measures there.  The reverse can also be true.  If the south of England wants a low tax, low spend Government, let them have it.  Labour, however, can now lead the charge to keep it away from the rest of us.