As Blair gave his leaving speech to Parliament, he was greeted with
a standing ovation from all the establishment parties. As
Jonathan Freedland pointed out in the Guardian: “If the Tories had
clapped Margaret Thatcher in 1990, which they did not, Labour MPs
would have sawn off their own hands rather than join in.”
But much has changed since Thatcher left office; the process that
was underway in the Labour Party at that stage is now complete and New
Labour is an unrepentant party of big business. Blair saw himself as
continuing in Thatcher’s footsteps and now Brown and Cameron will
argue over who can best continue in Blair’s.
On public services, on the NHS, on driving down workers pay and
conditions, you’d be hard pushed to get a cigarette paper between the
New Labour and the Tories, or the Liberal Democrats for that matter!
So this begs the question, if the establishment have got three
different parties that all represent their interests – isn’t it about
time that we had one of our own? More and more workers are
thinking this; with almost 3000 having drawn the conscious political
conclusion that a new mass party that represents working peoples
interests is necessary and signing up to the Campaign for a New
Workers’ Party.
This weekend, shop stewards from across the trade union movement
will be taking part in the founding conference of the National Shop
Stewards Network. Supporters of the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party
have been participating in the build-up to this important conference
and will be in attendance on the day.
The campaign for independent working class political representation
and the struggle to build a national network of militant shop stewards
are two key elements of the same basic struggle, to give workers a
voice and the confidence to fight. But if we are to just rely on
either one
tactic or the other, then we are fighting with one arm tied behind our
back.
Supporters of the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party are organising a
meeting taking place immediately after the Shop Stewards Network
conference where we can discuss how the two struggles can come
together and how we can fight for a mass political voice for working
class people to stand up against cuts, closures and privatisation. If
you’re at the Shop Stewards Network conference, then this is a
discussion that you shouldn’t miss out on.
