Establishment politics is being challenged like never before, whether that be Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the US, Front National in France, Podemos in Spain and now in the UK, the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.

Below is an article written by G.A. Howkins which provides a fascinating insight into why so many people are flocking to become members of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. Contrary to mainstream media spin, these new members are not young “lawless anarchists” or gun toting “Troskyists,” they come from a diverse range from British society. In the case of G.A. Howkins, a retired teacher, author and former S.D.P. Founder Member.

Here are his thoughts on the need for a united and regenerated Labour Party.

Regenerating The Labour Party For Democracy

I came away from a weekend having just spent one day of it at the Fabian Society’s 2016 New Year Conference. Good things are afoot. First of course is that Labour Party membership has increased by 183,658 since last May – this figure is more than the whole of the Conservative Party membership combined – and making party membership almost 400,000 in number. The Fabian Society itself has recorded an upsurge in membership by 1,400 to a record 7,000 which is the greatest in its history.

The increase for the Labour Party is well publicised by many but actually its importance is probably more clearly recognised by those opposed to the Labour movement and to the new Labour Party recruits themselves rather than to some long-serving Labour MP’s, party members and ‘sympathetic’ commentators. This was brought home to me by one of the panel members for a forum, who, straight after Jeremy Corbyn had left the stage and with the cheers still ringing in her ears, spoke for some time about how the people ‘out there’ had to be brought around to vote for Labour and no political leader with low opinion polls has ever been elected into government. Let’s just remind ourselves that ‘accuracy’ and ‘polls’ were not worth repeating in the same sentence about the last General Election, never mind a forthcoming one.

They don’t get it, do they? ‘Out there’ is exactly where the new Labour Party members have come from. Oh certainly there will be the returning activists but more importantly is the influx of young people who have never been actively involved in politics and then people like myself, one of the ‘baby boomer’ generation and former S.D.P. Founder Member. I joined that political party then with the belief that Labour politics had swung too far to the Left and I join the Labour Party now because I believe that Labour politics and society need to make a recovery after having swung too far to the Right.

The Drills Are Going Down

People more unfortunate than myself might be clearing up a flooded home and cursing the Conservative government whose environmental minister, Liz Truss, pops next door to the Farmer’s Union and pledges even more subsidies for dredging which actually only increases the speed and volume of water flow and field drainage, that does likewise to move water off the those fields and into urban residential and business areas. It’s the easy way out isn’t it? The ‘quick fix’ not requiring real thought that consequentially damages everything.

People like me are living in the North-West or other parts of the country and wondering what possesses a government to pursue an insane method for sourcing our energy such as fracking or pursuing out-of-date destructive fuel sources like gas and nuclear power? Ask the U.S. citizens in Oklahoma what the fracking industry has done for them. Before the drills went down that vast state experienced on average two earthquakes a year – after the fracking industry moved in, that number became two a day. People there now find their own homes being damaged around them. Oklahoma is a vast territory, the North-West is tiny in comparison and with a higher concentration of urban dwellers. We spend our environment, our health, our homes and our taxes on the wrong methods for sourcing energy.

George Osborne, in ignoring global scientific evidence concerning fossil fuels and their disastrous effects has presided over the biggest government subsidy investment into the fossil fuel industry than has been given by any previous chancellor. He will tout the reason that it is the quickest, most efficient way for getting the energy we need quickly. His real motive, of course, is the massive amount of money it will generate – massive that is if you don’t quantify the tax subsidies and destruction to people’s lives and property – that will end up in the pockets of banking associates and corporate lobbyist friends promising donations to the Tory Party and a continued lucrative life after the parliamentary career is over for M.P.s. When you weigh all that benefit against clean renewable energy that can be produced safely by individual citizens or small community groups themselves at very little cost, well what do you think he would choose – selfish corporate greed or a long-term, responsible policy for improving the lives of British citizens?

There is so much we could hold against our political opponents but of course the Labour Party has its own history to contend with. Under the administration of Tony Blair the Labour Party lost its identity and became a neo-Conservative government. How else could you describe an administration that took a Tory policy from a former Conservative minister, Norman Lamont and ran with it? That policy was the Private Finance Initiative (P.F.I.) which provided entry for privatisation into the public sector and loaded huge costs onto the public purse from that time well into the future. Ruinous P.F.I. contracts were awarded by the Coalition government and are still being incepted by the present one.

How else too could you describe an administration that prepared the way for deregulating the central banking system, releasing financial institutions from control by the Bank of England and helping to create the conditions for the 2008 financial collapse? This is the real reason why at the last election Labour representatives refused to defend themselves against the charge that they had built up a large debt when all they had to say was that the money had to be borrowed to bail out the banks and save the capitalist system from collapse. But even by embarking on such a discussion, other questions would have naturally followed. These questions are best answered by those responsible parliamentary Labour members who served on Blair’s Deregulation Committee from 1995-7 for example. I am sure they don’t need our help to justify themselves. That was nearly twenty years ago. This is now.

A Twisted Democracy

The last four decades have seen a Conservative Free Market and privatisation orthodoxy in the political and economic structure that has failed. We need a new establishment: a democratic one. This is now and we have to change it. Back then, all those decades ago, powerful vested interest were embedded in large Public Service and manufacturing unions. Abuses took place – a democratically elected government was brought down. Today, the magnetic pole of politics and economy has reversed itself and much more powerful vested interests destroy Trade Union rights to attack democracy and the rights of individual citizens. How do they do that? They sit down around the Prime Minister’s dinner table as corporate executives paying upwards of £50,000 a time with the intention to change our laws to benefit their own companies. Further anti-democratic pressure is exerted through fracking, gas, oil and financial industry companies who have their place-men and women in the House of Commons or the House of Lords to guarantee them changes in the planning laws or ensure high subsidies, low taxes and frequent tax loop-holes. All this without any kind of democratic counter-balance for the British voter and taxpayer whatsoever. Meanwhile the House of Commons distances itself further from the people it is supposed to represent by voting for M.P.s salaries to be raised by 11% when in these recessionary times 1% would be more acceptable and Cameron bloats the House of Lords with yet more burden on the taxpayer and yet further deterioration of democracy because the unrepresentative chamber of parliament is now bigger than the representative chamber.

We have an economy which is preyed upon by foreign global corporates that receive more in British taxpayer subsidies than they pay out in tax to the British State. They pay British workers less than the minimum wage through zero hour contracts and take the huge income ‘earned’ from British customers elsewhere to be invested. The annual tax paid on these amounts are either zero or the equivalent of a just one employee on average earnings or in fact a tax credit because of accounting manipulation. This is one of the real reasons for why Public Services are being under-funded. Public Service protection for citizens can only be worsened through corporations developing their power to sue national governments in the current T.T.I.P. and engage in what effectively will be theft from the taxpayer.

Green Reformation

A cohesive Labour Party manifesto for government must begin to address these problems and for the electorate it must be a carefully planned programme of economic investment and reform: one to inspire. The subsidies for fossil fuels must be redirected to renewable energy production and technological innovation. It has been calculated for example that if we as a nation invested properly in the marine renewable energy industry – one in which we excel for our expertise – we could capture 22% of the market by 2050, earning 76 billion pounds between now and 2050. The state should lead the way on this and more besides. It should begin to rejuvenate the ailing mixed economy. Restore and shape it on the basis of expanding the renewable energy and recycling industry, effective exploitation of medical and other sector technological innovations that have been invented by British scientists and engineers and a reformation of democratic power for the British public by political restructuring.

This reformation, a Green Reformation, could deliver much in bringing back the cohesion for which the Labour Party and this society is in urgent need. It should be an organised campaign over the next five years that points out clear and specific benefits to the self-employed, the small and medium-sized business directors, the employees and the pensioners living in this country. In the movement towards democratisation, renationalisation should be an essential element. The railway network is a given, yes, but why don’t we take a much bolder step and nationalise one of the energy companies? It could be developed as a model for producing energy used by households and businesses that would be 100% renewably sourced and would provide a service to local communities enabling them to create varied means for producing their own green energy.

Whatever happens in the next five years we must not be vague or indecisive in producing a strong, political alternative to this present government which in its extreme libertarian economics will take this country to the irrational, miserable consequence that results from the belief ‘There is no such thing as society’, only powerful, greed-driven individuals who control the means for our survival and happiness. This is an oligarchy we should reject by standing united together. The desire for a social morality – fairness and justice for all – will be characterised by the present Conservative Party as a ‘swing to the hard left’. In reality it is that political party which is becoming ever more extreme, attested by the fact that David Cameron is the only political leader who does not oppose the current T.T.I.P. negotiations that include a secretive legal framework in the form of Inter State Dispute Settlements. That and his continued austerity programme which is simply an excuse for private companies to extend their control over state provision and widen ever further the gap between the 1% and the rest of us are the warning signs for their anti-democratic and anti-patriotic politics..

In five years time, possibly sooner, the British people will be ready for a change. We must be united for that opportunity to make a fairer, healthier society. They will not want to see the two main political parties presenting a similar Conservative agenda as has happened in the past. They will want to vote for a Labour Party restored to its principles and that offers them an inspirational programme of reform. it will not only set a new course for Britain’s industrial future but share the proceeds of that future equitably. It will mean a social change for the better – greater and fairer mobility based on improved opportunities and training for their own natural talents. It will be a better politics for a better life.

Guest Contributor:

G.A. Howkins

Independent author. Former teacher, organics entrepreneur. Now a new member of the UK Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.

Follow him on Twitter:

@HowkinsAuthor

His Blog:

gahowkins.wordpress.com

His Latest Book:

Timoleon – Sold on Amazon

Like this: Like Loading...