The meeting aimed to mobilise students to attend the 8 October
anti-war demonstration and it certainly assisted that. But Benn's
strategy for the way forward was disappointing.
Benn said that ours is the first generation that has at its
fingertips, through the development of technology, the means to
solve the world's problems. But the problem, he explained, is one of
control. And that is why it is important to vote – if everybody
voted we would have the most radical government ever.
He is right, of course, that while the means to solve all the
world's problems exist, the vast majority of us do not control those
means. Most of the world's wealth and resources are in the hands of
a tiny minority.
And he is right in implying that masses of ordinary people are to
the left of the government. But it is wrong to conclude that if we
all voted in the next election we would have a radical government.
All the main parties are much the same, and as long as they are the
only candidates, we will not get a radical government.
At that time it looked like a general election was on the cards.
Tony Benn told the meeting he was considering standing again as a
Labour candidate (for Kensington, where he lives).
From the floor, I challenged him on this. All the main parties
are parties of cuts, privatisation and war; they all support a
system where the wealth is sucked up to the tops of society.
Under Gordon Brown, the Labour party's already almost
non-existent democracy has been virtually eradicated. If Tony Benn
is to stand for parliament again, wouldn't it be better if he stood
as an independent, anti-war, anti-cuts candidate, using the election
to help rally all those opposed to war, cuts and privatisation, as a
step towards forming a new party that would stand in the interests
of ordinary working people?
BENN COULD have allowed genuine discussion by putting forward his
case for socialists staying in the Labour Party to try to reclaim
it. He opted instead for ridicule, deliberately misrepresenting what
had been put to him by listing all the left groups he could think of
and trying to raise a laugh from his student audience.
I interjected to say he could play a part in drawing together
different forces, not just political groups, but striking postal
workers, other trade unionists, community campaigners etc. But Benn
dismissed this by saying that you cannot build a party around an
individual.
Of course checks and controls on any leaders or public figures by
a genuinely democratic party are essential. But prominent
individuals can be important in promoting and inspiring new
developments. Benn only needs to look to Oskar Lafontaine who is
spearheading Germany's new Left Party or to Keir Hardie in forming
the early Labour Party in Britain.
Bob Crow, leader of the RMT railworkers' union, has rightly
declared that the Labour Party is finished as a workers' party and
that there needs to be a new party. The RMT is considering standing
a list of candidates in next May's Greater London Assembly
elections.
The Campaign for a New Workers Party advocates a broad anti-cuts,
anti-privatisation list, with the RMT at its head, but drawing in
other trade unionists, campaigners and socialists. The RMT's London
regional council has now supported just such a proposal, put forward
by a CNWP supporter.
A serious debate is taking place about the need for a new party
in meetings, workplaces, pubs and at breakfast tables countrywide.
The process towards one will not be straightforward but genuine
dialogue is needed. Unfortunately, by choosing to ridicule rather
than discuss, Tony Benn is throwing away the potential role he could
play.
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