Labour’s desire for authority comes from an instinct to prove they can manage the workers best
~ Jon Bigger ~
Two themes have been ever-present in Labour Party history. The first is an elitist view of the working class, in which the best voices, the most intelligent and responsible voices, will be found at the top of the party. The Labour Party’s founders did not have a positive view of the masses. The party existed to elevate the working class by giving voice to its perceived interests. This patronising looking-down upon the working class has never been fully shaken off.
The second theme is a desire to appear tough on crime. The Tories have always been presented as the party of law and order whereas Labour are depicted as weak. The Tory instinct towards hierarchy and authority comes from a desire to keep the old order in power (initially the crown and aristocracy and later simply the rich). Labour’s desire for authority comes from an instinct to prove they can manage the workers best. These two instincts within the Labour Party cause it to forever patronise and criminalise its potential core supporters.
When it comes to our current age of rising authoritarianism, these instincts could take the UK is some startling directions. Building on the previous Tory government’s curtailing of protest rights, we now see the Labour government preparing the ground to ban Palestine Action. If that comes to pass it will be illegal to promote the group as they will be considered in the same bracket as Islamist terrorist groups and some fascist groups.
So while I can legally do so I just want to applaud their actions.
They have been peaceful and disruptive. Their actions have shone a light on the continuing genocide perpetrated by Israel. They have been brave and imaginative and I hope they can continue.
Working class Labour Party members who take an internationalist approach to their politics must be wondering why they still support the party. Palestine Action has consistently acted to support working class people in Palestine; Labour Party policy actively results in those people facing famine and brutal death at the hands of the Israeli military. Now, that same Labour Party will absurdly label the people they disagree with as terrorists, while aiding the Israeli state to carry on its sickening campaign of collective punishment—with arms sales, vocal support and possibly military help in its new war with Iran.
The current Labour Party has also framed itself in terms of what it is not. It wishes to point out not only that it can manage things better than the Tories, but also that it is categorically not the party of Jeremy Corbyn. The desire to prove this time and again has compelled Keir Starmer to take the worst possible line on Israel. The issue of antisemitism within the party during Corbyn’s leadership blurs with its response to the Hamas aggression on 7th October 2023, when it was still in Opposition. There’s no obvious connection between these things except a desire to appear nothing like Corbyn. Wholehearted support for Israel’s so-called right to defend itself has meant turning a blind eye to the obvious genocide playing out in front of us.
We could take the view that the ‘working class party’ has been corrupted by power, and this is the inevitable compromise such Social Democratic parties have to make in order to attain and stay in power. There is a truth in this analysis. The Labour Party does want to appear suitable for high office and nimble enough to deflect some of the inevitable criticism from Tory supporting newspapers. But we shouldn‘t forget that the urge to manage the working class was baked into the party from the very beginning. That emphasis on the hierarchy of the party never went away. They may never have been a revolutionary Marxist party but they share a great deal in sentiment when it comes to their visions of the working class: it is to be moulded by them, represented by them, with the rough edges ironed out. The leaderships know best. They’ve read the sacred texts and understand them. Both the Leninists and Labour see the working class as their party’s greatest asset and their greatest weakness.
It is in this context that the Blair government moved further from social democracy and ignored the masses who marched against war with Iraq, introduced anti-social behaviour orders, and tried to database the population with an ID Card scheme. Keir Starmer is playing his Labour’s Greatest Hits album in the hope it works twice. Last year’s election manifesto included a large section on anti-social behaviour and floated the idea of Respect Orders, which could be used to ban people from town centres. The framing of the entire manifesto is that Labour will be better managers than the Tories.
What they are managing is us. The attempt to ban Palestine Action is a blow to imaginative peaceful resistance. Embarrassed that a RAF base can be broken into at ease by people with wire cutters and paint, the State resorts to authoritarian means to shut the protests down. Unless it faces powerful grassroots resistance, Labour will likely go further in its efforts to manage and stifle working class voices that embarrass them.
