There are significant signs that the trades unions affiliated to the
Labour Party are growing increasingly impatient with the Blairite wing
of the party and its shadowy support organisation, known ironically as
Progress. Because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tuition fees, ID
cards, PFI and a whole raft of neo-liberal policies, Tony Blair is now
completely discredited among the majority of the rank and file of the
Labour Party. But the organisation set up to support him in 1995 is
still functioning and campaigning for quasi-Tory policies inside the
Labour Party.
There are significant signs that the trades unions affiliated to the Labour Party are growing increasingly impatient with the Blairite wing of the party and its shadowy support organisation, known ironically as Progress. Because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tuition fees, ID cards, PFI and a whole raft of neo-liberal policies, Tony Blair is now completely discredited among the majority of the rank and file of the Labour Party. But the organisation set up to support him in 1995 is still functioning and campaigning for quasi-Tory policies inside the Labour Party.
In February an anonymous report on Progress, entitled ‘A report into the constitution, structure, activities and funding of Progress’ was circulated to all Constituency Labour Party secretaries. It has roused considerable anger not least because, at a time when the Labour Party is in dire financial straits, Progress has been seen to have raised more than £2.9m in less than a decade from rich backers and its business pals.
According to the anonymous report, Progress currently has a staff including a director, a deputy, an editorial and website manager and a political liaison officer.
Because they have to record all donations over £7500, they have been forced to reveal where their funds came from. Between 2001 and 2004 they received £875,500 from a trust set up by the late Lord Montague as well as hefty donations from Lord Sainsbury, who was one of the original signatories to the Limehouse Declaration that formed the SDP.
What is even more revealing is the money given to Progress to sponsor fringe meetings at Labour Party conference as it includes donations from the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Network Rail, the British Retail Consortium, the Barrow Cadbury Trust, and the Police Federation, to name but a few.
Progress is considered by the Electoral Commission to be a “members’ organisation” and it boasts a circulation of 4500 for its monthly magazine. Although Progress claims not to have members, its website offers a “membership form” to download and it helpfully notes that “joining through Direct Debit makes your Progress membership subscription easier to manage for you.”
Agenda
Neither is there any advertised system of nominations or elections, yet it somehow manages to have an honorary president, a chair and seven vice-chairs, overwhelmingly right-wing MPs. It also has an annual conference, most recently in March.
Labour Party members should be aware that Progress actively campaigns inside the Labour Party, pushing for its members to be adopted as parliamentary candidates; they actively promoted a slate for the elections to Labour’s NEC. More importantly, they still actively promote a neo-liberal agenda inside the party. Most recently, the secretary of Progress, Patrick Diamond, has co-authored yet another report (and an article, prominently featured in The Guardian on March 13th), in which he warns against Labour adopting “vapid leftism,” whatever that means. Like the Tories and their Lib-Dem poodles, Diamond argues for fiscal ‘responsibility’ and ‘prudence’ which is an encoded way of supporting the cuts in living standards that the Tories are carrying through.
Their economic policies are no different in fundamentals to Thatcherism or the present-day Tory policies – promoting welfare and pension ‘reform’ as well as ‘hard spending choices’ in other words, pushing the responsibility and cost of the economic crisis onto the shoulders of working people.
Reaction
What is significant for supporters of Socialist Appeal has been the reaction of some sections of the affiliated union membership. At the recent Yorkshire TUC conference, the GMB union moved a resolution condemning Progress and it was passed unanimously.
Marxists cannot support the use of organisational measures against these right wing ladies and gentlemen. There have been too many occasions in the past when such measures have been used against Marxists and Lefts fighting for their own point of view in the movement.
Socialist Appeal campaigns openly for Marxist ideas inside the movement and is funded by donations from workers and youth. Other left groupings, such as the Labour Representation Committee, put forward left candidates and slates for party elections but does so in an open way based on a democratic selection process.
Marxists should fight for the right for all groups and currents to argue freely for their ideas inside the Labour Party.
Progress must be answered politically and not by organisational measures. They need to be exposed for the pseudo-Tories that they really are and their economic policies defeated in open debate inside the Party.
It is understandable that unions like the GMB are angry at Progress. But the solution for all the affiliated unions is for them to take a far more active role inside the Labour Party and start pushing for socialist policies that would provide a real alternative. The GMB has a link on its website to join the Labour Party, but this is not enough.
If the big unions like Unison, Unite and GMB used even a small part of their huge resources to recruit their activists, shop-stewards and branch officers into the Labour Party, that alone would transform the Party overnight.
Who is funding Labour’s Right – A Short History
Steve Jones
The scandal over the big business funding of the Blairites is only the latest such case involving the right wing in the labour and trade union movement.
Since the end of the Second World War, we have seen a number of well-funded ‘pressure groups” established both here and in other countries where a strong party of Labour existed. When the Church Commission in the US opened its investigation of the CIA in the 1970s, it soon became clear that they had been funding right wing Labour movement groups for decades, all with the aim of undermining any move towards the Left.
In the 1950s, the Labour Party right wing mobilised around the Socialist Commentary magazine. This was later found to be enjoying considerable funding from CIA conduits. It’s supporters were also linked to the ultra-secret Bilderberg Group which meets each year with invited quests to discuss the defence of capitalism. In 1960, after Socialist Commentary has received a very large but “secret” donation from a “single source,” they established the Campaign for Democratic Socialism, charged with actively fighting the Left in the party. This campaign had well-funded offices and a fulltime organiser.
In parliament, the Solidarity group of MPs was established. this would later be transformed into the Council for Social Democracy before its cadre left to form the SDP, which now forms part of the Lib Dems in coalition with the Tories.
Those rightwingers who remained in the Labour Party continued to organise as the Manisfesto Group, organising to push back the gains of the Left in the party. Again, finance was never a problem as big business and the Murdoch press were happy to back them. Other sources of right wing propaganda included the Labour and Trade Union Press Service, which during the 1970s received £6,000 a year funding from NATO! The most recent such group is, of course, Progress.
