Home page The rise & fall of power politics - Part 1 Blair has spoken - there will be no enquiry New Labour's power strategy has run its course . . . Today, 31st October 2006, the British Parliament debated whether or not to hold a Parlimentary enquiry into the Iraq war. Today is particularly notable because the government, that is New Labour, lost all of the arguments in the debate and yet won the vote. Indeed, the government arguments were largely stonewalling and showed no particular interest in rising to the level of debate put forth by just about every opposition speaker. For a government with less than 22% of the support of the electorate, in a country where it has been shown that now over 60% of the population is now opposed to the war, people ask how could the outcome of such a debate result in such a bizarre vote? In essence few felt the government "won" the vote. Instead, a deep unease has set in concerning the obvious ineffectiveness of Parliament to represent the interests of the majority of the electorate for it is unable to call the executive, so-called, to account on an issue of such importance as the Iraq war. The strength of feeling on the Iraq debacle is such that the government's arrogance in not responding to an important demand by the majority, has thrown up in sharp relief that something serious has happened and which has undermined the effectiveness of Parliament. There are many reasons for this ineffectiveness. However, the unacceptable attitude of the current government has become a display of ruthlessness, bordering on the tyrannical, as opposed to rational governance wishing to respond to the demands of the people. In order to better understand this phenomenon it is useful to identify who in fact developed New Labour's election tactics and with what objective. Once upon a time ... In 1989 the Soviet economy collapsed and most of the satellite countries in East and central Europe began to adjust their politics to appeal to another block, the European Union. One of the most remarkable facets of this transition was the way in which political parties in these countries managed this change in a relatively smooth fashion. Naive observers saw all of this to be a success in the underlying logic of free markets. However, what in fact happened, was for the former Communist parties to simply relabel themselves as democratic or socialist parties and they carried on as a political force. This non-disruptive transition was in fact an already-discussed and reviewed European Communist party strategy which arose in the mid-1980s. This strategy came about as a result of Communist factions in the United Kingdom realising that it was disruptive to their status and power to continue to encourage the so-called class struggle. The politicians within the Labour party, who were most closely aligned with the Communist party, realised that the only way to challenge the onslaught from Thatcherism was to replace the class struggle by consumerism and identity politics. This was most clearly expressed by those who organized New Labour as represented by the group Marxism Today and Neil Kinnock. This party rebranding strategy, also known as the power strategy, was not an invention of Tony Blair at all; this is to give him far too much credit. Blair's election strategies were formulated by the Communists as the only way to respond to the rising force of free market policies. Although Marxism Today started out as the Communist party's international strategic theory group they soon became more closely associated with the European Communist movement which included elements in the "socialist" parties in the EU and the then political parties of the new EU accession countries. During the pre-accession process the cues for the shape of new policies and legislation were provided by the Enlargement section at the European Commission. This process only required the old Communist parties in power to translate and transcribe certain segments of EU legislation onto their statute books. This was sufficient for the European Commission to provide positive accession progress reports. However, so as not to risk uncovering the charade, the European Commission largely failed to enforce the Madrid Conditions which require that the judiciary and government agencies observe European Law. In these countries most judges are political party appointees and fail the most basic tests of impartiality and many still work closely with party managers and the police. The result is that the EU today has serious human rights abuse of minorities as a direct result of Central European government policies and the European Commission, as Guardians of the Treaties, doing nothing to stop this abuse of European citizens; citizens whose "governments" will do nothing to protect them. As a result most of these countries "qualified" for entry to the European Union since the European Council and the European Parliament, not being provided with the full facts by the European Commission, voted for their accession. Indeed, even after accession, several of these countries had not translated considerable sections of EU legislation let alone consulted their people about it. But all of this was brushed under the carpet. If you marginalise the public - guarantee your sources of funding During this development and application of the power strategy, the public of these countries were hardly consulted. In order to ensure funding of the party machines, the privatization programmes which took place made sure that the members of the young Communists at the time received control and even ownership of choice assets, at knockdown prices, in exchange for future party support. This is why there are so many young millionaires amongst the "socialist party" leaderships and who seem to have some difficulty answering press questions for explanations of their amazing growth in wealth since 1989. By 1994 Central Europe had provided a textbook case of the feasibility of parties which were heavily committed to state ownership and Communism to switch, without batting an eyelid, to so-called "free market" policies and even get their own marginalised populations to vote for them. This was facilitated by the leverage gained from the promise of EU membership. In Hungary, the so-called opposition parties are also so cynical that agreements have ensured that 60% of road construction contracts go to consortia which support the majority "government" political party and 40% to the consortia supporting the "opposition". Today the decentralisation of EU funding has simply placed billions of Euros at the disposal of political parties who have learned to use such funds for their party benefit. Cynical window dressing In essence the Central European experience in 1989 through 1994 was a demonstration of just how successful the power strategy was in maintaining the power of such Communist parties in spite of their former service in support of Stalin's Gulag and various forms of terror. This case book study was not lost on the Labour party because, like the Central European Communist parties, they were more interested in obtaining the benefits of power than serving the people. Tony Blair simply applied the power strategy by balancing the prize of electoral success against considerable necessary scenery change at the party HQ which meant distancing the party from those still wedded to the old class struggle concepts. Today, the European Communist movement having successfully changed its spots, is almost entirely embedded in the so-called "European Socialists" group of which Tony Blair is now a leading Board member. The rise of professional power politicians One of the most notable associations of the smooth transition in Central Europe has been the existance of politicians who seem to have absolutely no conscience nor embarassment for the way in which they act. They are almost completely oblivious of public opinion. The reason for this is the fact that in Hungary, for example, about 50% of the politicians are so-called list candidates who are elected according to the general success of the party at the election. These politicians only serve the party and not a constituency. They are only answerable to the party, they do not consider themselves to be answerable to the people. These politicians are essentially individuals with little general experience other than serving their party sustain power; their profession is power. Recently, the Hungarian Prime Minister admitted that his party had lied morning noon and night to the people to get re-elected and yet he remains in power and refuses to resign; he happens to be a great admirer of Tony Blair. There is little pretence that politics is about serving the people, it is a matter of serving the party and politicians' pockets, their continued status and power. The situation is so bizarre that during the past week the party in power made much of the 1956 Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union and yet many in the present government's party machine were the very Communists whom the people of Hungary revolted against at that time. One of the main lessons for the Labour party was the ability of the Central European ex-Communist parties to maintain an impregnable discipline held up by the list politicians. This would seem to explain why from the time Tony Blair became Labour party leader they began to increase the number of candidates for election whose main experience was serving the Labour party, that is people whose profession is power. Indeed in the 1997 election some 50 MPs has considerable experience as politicians and political organization and these numbers of disciplined party-serving individuals has increased steadily. This cabal is an invisible wall which protects Tony Blair and who only act in the interests of the party as opposed to constituency or country. The so-called debate on Iraq flashed up this reality in the off-hand manner in which the Labour party participants behaved in the knowledge that they had the power to over-rule the interests of the majority of the population, regardless. Arriving at this perilous state has involved a transition which has occurred with enormous speed. The British electoral system has been hopelessly sidelined by this new form of political organization bent on power. It has become a demonstration of the ability to achieve absolute power for a single political party which serves only its own interests on the basis of an absolute minority of electorate support. Fear & security One of the notable factors in all of this is that such a rush to absolute power in Europe was only achieved by the Fascists in Italy. There is a serious discomfort on the part of most Labour Party "ex-Communists" with Leon Trotsky, largely because he favoured the continued struggle as opposed to the Stalinist model bent on continued power supported by propaganda and lies as the preferred system within which opponents are villified and marginalised and the people of the nation being the most marginalised. Trotsky pointed out the danger of Fascism early on and was ignored by the Communists simply because they were cherry picking the parts of Fascism which suited their purpose. Two aspects of Fascism which were identified by Trotsky, stare at us menacingly today. The Facists essentially scared the so-called middle and business classes to embrace their cause by offering security in exchange of greater freedom. Most people have heard this chant come from ministers in the New Labour government and in a more repetitive form from John Reid a former member of the Communist party. Although the Iraq fiasco will destroy Tony Blair politically it created the very instability and insecurity of the form which raged when the Facists rose to power. Today, the lack of Labour party policies in Iraq exacerbate the security situation in the United Kingdom. This has created a "justification" for additional policies aimed at reducing freedoms in the name of higher security. This government seriously and cynically states that these policies are vote winners while at the same time refuse to address the cause of the insecurity, Iraq. This is a tyrannical state of affairs where the Labour party sustains the causes of tension and insecurity in their foreign policy while lecturing other parties that, in terms of domestic policy, what interests the British people is security and anti-terrorism. This is an ongoing insanity and proof of the lack of general interest the Labour party has for the welfare and security of the population of the United Kingdom. The other Fascist associations which have become defacto aspects of New Labour are party funding coming more from corporations, a close association of military activity with increasing corporate fortunes, an ongoing policy script written in collaboration with large commercial corporations, blind party allegiance, a leader with increasingly messianic pose who considers himself to always be in the right and harbouring no doubts, surrounded by a cabal who consider him to be "charismatic", a significant use of propaganda or spin (erosion of freedom), an increasing move to absolute intolerance of dissension at home and abroad (erosion of freedom), consistent calls for national unity and defense (today in the context of terrorism), tackling presumed internal and external threats by limitation of freedoms (erosion of freedom), constant reference to external threats to massage up to a malleable mass hysteria so masses "thankful for strong leadership" (today in the context of terrorism), tendency to authoritarian rule (erosion of freedom), not comfortable with press freedom, decreasing dialogue, eventually decisions and government by decree (erosion of freedom), a subordinated and obedient mass "led" by an elite "who know best" (erosion of freedom), law by decree, no effective opposition, attempts to reduce the incidence of the use of juries on various pretexts (erosion in freedom) and interference in the judiciary. Ensuing social disruption During the last decade this breaking away from a clearly identifiable fundamental political philosophy has confused many party members. Many continue to leave the Labour party. But this is also a reflection on the labyrinthal nature of political parties within which a core group manage things to their advantage but sell images and spin to their supporters to sustain support. The New Labour party aperatiks could hardly admit to their naive membership that their new and successful strategies were all planned by Communists to ensure the success of the rebranded Labour party. This is why many old Labour members have become disenchanted and also why so many of the electorate were taken in. As a result the Labour party has lost membership rapidly. This is one of the reasons it had to find other sources of funds for increasingly expensive habits. They sought increasingly corporate and businessmen for cash handouts and who in return, in many cases, have expected something in return. The fact that the details surrounding this form of fund raising is a matter for the police, and not Parliament, means that there is a higher probability of transparency in this case; unfortunately this is not guaranteed (subject of another article). With the apparent cynical approximation of New Labour to Conservative "ideologies" some confusion was created in the minds of former Conservative voters and even party members and who, in turn, continue to leave the Conservative party. This process has been disruptive. It has precipitated a realization on the part of the electorate that their opinions literally count for nothing. This is a pernicious process destabilizing social cohesion. Youth have become increasingly alientated from an adult and mature population which has been robbed of any social status, they have been effectively dis-enfranchised with no effective role nor direct say in how they are governed. The will of the people has been hyjacked by MPs intimidated and led by the nose by party whips. There is a complete absense of a representation of the free will of the people. It has also, in this process, helped to undermine trust in political parties as organizations for representation of the people or worthy of support. The status quo The growth in professional power politicians who only serve their party is something which does not serve the interests of the people of Britain. Such people cannot represent the interests of their constituencies in an unbiased fashion. They enjoy the trappings of power and assumed status this brings. They have no conscience or qualms about not questioning the fact that they have a minority electorate support and yet measure their success by the degree to which they can enforce their policies, many of which were never election manifesto items, at will, onto the majority. In the case of the Iraq war however, the power strategy has become such a part of the New Labour mindset, that on an occasion when the executive should be required to account for their actions, after all thousands of troops and Iraqi civilians have been killed and injured and yet more families thrown into turmoil, the Labour Party permits Parliament to become a cabaret where an indolent uncaring government, so-called, can lose all of the arguments in a debate in the full confidence that they will win the vote. This lack of humility (hardly to be expected in people bent on power strategies) is signal enough to the people of Britain of the damage wrought to our system of representation by this approach to politics which, to remind ourselves, is not about the representation of the will of the people but about power and privilege of a few. As the party servers increase in number, absolute power will remain in their hands on the basis of less than 25% of the electorate support, cabinet secrecy will continue to help close party ranks around any scheme, including corruption, and the whips and other cronies will continue to initimidate those who might stray, into supporting an already swollen majority. Unfortunately, all of the main political parties have, to varying degrees, the vice of secrecy, voting in line with party interest and a commitment to power. Therefore, under the current electoral system it is evident that the people of Britain can only act in their own interests and those of their families by not supporting candidates from the main political parties. They should elect independents who undertake to represent the interests of the constituency. People should be elected on the basis of their being from the locality, on their general awareness of local problems, their abilities and integrity. To break the power strategy and avoid the formation of future destructive factions, serving the interests of professional politicians, MPs should only be permitted to be elected and to serve in alternate and not successive Parliaments. references: Ann Talbot, "UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw rants against Trotskyism" Real News, "European Court of Human Rights not fit for purpose" Real News, "The media and civil liberties - Part 1"