CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown yesterday did his best to hand back the political initiative to his politically battered and discredited Prime Minister Tony Blair.
On the one hand, Brown called for a renewal of the Labour Party and its policies while on the other, he refused to demand that Blair gives up the premiership or that he should even make known the timetable for his retirement from it.
In fact, there is to be no renewal, the situation is more akin to a stillbirth.
The Chancellor also revealed that his enemy is the Labour Left and the working class.
Andrew Marr, on the BBC Sunday AM programme, asked Brown the following: ‘I mean a lot of people believe that that transition requires at least you to know when the Prime Minister is going to stand down, do you know?’
Brown replied: ‘No, and the issue is actually, Tony has said himself . . . Tony Blair has said himself a year ago that he wishes to. . . to play his part in organising that stable and orderly transition. Now that’s actually not a matter for me because we don’t actually know who’s going to be leader of the Labour Party, it’s a matter for Tony . . .’
Brown added: ‘I think stable and orderly transition is what people actually want. You know, I’ve been in politics long enough and I’ve seen throughout the last 25 years when the Labour Party divides and extremists take over, and the moderates lose control, that is a recipe for disaster. People want unity, they want politicians like myself to show that we can move things forward in a unified way. What Tony Blair has said is he will organise a stable and orderly transition. Now I know he’s talking to people about that. . .’
This means that Blair will be allowed to go on for as long as he pleases, because the Chancellor agrees with the main Blair policies, which are all extremist, but of course they are right wing extremist.
These policies are the PFI, the privatisation of health and education, the lightest of light touch regulation of industry, the lightest of light touch taxation of the rich, the maintenance of all anti-union laws, and more and more legislation to sweep away basic rights, supposedly in the interests of security.
The fact is that the Chancellor is the originator of many of these policies!
Now he openly campaigns against the left of the party, the trade unions and the working class, labelling their socialist policies as ‘extremist’, and opts for Blair against them. He is in favour of Blair continuing to lead the Labour Party, for as long as he likes, if that is what is necessary to keep the left and the working class at bay.
The ‘renewal’ of policy and leadership that Brown is allegedly seeking is a fraud.
Even when dealing with the upsurge of BNP influence in Barking and other places his solution is to stay with the Blairite policies that have created this situation.
He told Marr: ‘We have got to answer these concerns and if I may say so affordable housing is the issue, the quality of jobs is an issue and we must not let a party like that steal the British flag from us, we must be the patriotic party in this country.’
So speaketh the ‘Iron Chancellor’ who has insisted on the sell-off of the entire council house stock in Britain, and that no more council houses are built, leading to the most acute housing shortage in generations.
He remains opposed to council housing, and to council house building. He is opposed to defending workers’ jobs, especially highly skilled, quality manufacturing jobs, but he is for competing with the BNP as far as the waving of the Union Jack is concerned.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. The right wing Labour Party scoundrels see waving the Union Jack and making threats to Iran, and other countries, as the way to win more Labour votes.
Presumably they see sending back thousands of brown skinned Indian doctors in favour of bringing in thousands of white skinned doctors from Eastern Europe as part of the way to fight the BNP.
Brown could not be shifted from his support for Blair against the ‘Labour extremists’, even when Marr goaded him with barbs like ‘It’s a power struggle going on, the Prime Minister has put in place core Blairite supporters around him to keep you and your people out and he’s going to carry on like that for the next few years and in the end he’s more aggressive, more ruthless than you are.’
Marr is wrong to make the issue ruthlessness. Brown has been ultra-ruthless with his budget cuts and job cuts.
Brown is frightened that an open struggle at the top of the Labour leadership will attract the attention of millions of angry workers who will intervene in it, and then who knows where it will all end? Rather political solidarity with Blair than risk the working class breaking loose.
Brown’s refusal to remove Blair must be the signal for the trade unions to take action to bring down the Blair government to go forward to a workers’ government, socialist policies and socialism.
