Back to the future of socialism

358 Pages·2015·1.54 MB·English

by  Hain

P E T E R H A IN
BACK
TO THE
FUTURE OF
SO CIALISM
“A clarion call for justice, “Fresh thinking to
equality and liberty” tackle rising inequality”
DESMOND TUTU HELEN CLARK
ARCHBISHOP EMERITUS OF CAPE TOWN FORMER PRIME MINISTER
AND NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER OF NEW ZEALAND
BACK TO THE FUTURE
OF SOCIALISM
Also by Peter Hain
Ad and Wal: Values, duty, sacrifice in apartheid South Africa (2014)
Outside In (2012)
Mandela (2010)
Sing the Beloved Country: The struggle for the new South Africa (1996)
Ayes to the Left (1995)
The Peking Connection (1995)
A Putney Plot? (1987)
Proportional Misrepresentation (1986)
Political Strikes (1986)
Political Trials (1984/1985)
The Democratic Alternative (1983)
Neighbourhood Participation (1980)
Debate of the Decade (ed) (1980)
Policing the Police, volume 2 (ed) (1978)
Policing the Police, volume 1 (ed) (1977)
Mistaken Identity (1976)
Community Politics (ed) (1976)
Radical Regeneration (1975)
Don’t Play with Apartheid (1971)
BACK TO THE FUTURE
OF SOCIALISM
Peter Hain
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by

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© Peter Hain 2015
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ISBN 978 1 44732 166 8 hardcover
ISBN 978 1 44732 170 5 ePub
ISBN 978 1 44732 169 9 Kindle
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Contents
Preface vii
Introduction: Back to the future of socialism 1
1 The Crosland agenda 9
2 New Labour, Crosland and the crisis 19
3 Finance and the new capitalism 39
4 Growth not cuts 63
5 Growth by active government 75
6 Fraternity, cooperation, trade unionism 111
7 But what sort of socialist state? 133
8 A new internationalism 173
9 Britain in Europe 195
10 Refounding Labour 221
11 Faster, sustainable growth 249
12 A fairer, more equal society 279
13 A future for Labour 307
Notes 319
Index 333
v
What counts in life is not the mere fact
that we have lived. It is what difference we
have made to the lives of others.
Nelson Mandela
Preface
C.P. Snow wrote that political memory lasts about a fortnight. Wrong.
Some phrases live on in political life. Anthony Crosland’s special
adviser from 1972 to 1977, David Lipsey, is the self-proclaimed
originator of three: ‘the party’s over’ (1975), ‘the winter of discontent’
(1978–79), and ‘New Labour’ (1992).
In his autobiography, In the Corridors of Power, David wrote about
an idea for a book he had in the 1980s: ‘I should perhaps at some
point have settled down to write a new Future of Socialism. But I had
to earn a living and, besides, I had no confidence that I was up to it.’
I know how he felt.
Which is why I am grateful to Roger Berry, Richard Corbett,
John Denham, Arnie Graf, Charles Grant, Richard Grayson, Geoff
Hodgson, Madeleine Jennings, Andre Karihaloo, Fiona Millar, Greg
Power, Nick Tott, Marcus Roberts, Dorothy Smith, Jack Stanley,
David Taylor, Derek Vaughan and Matt Ward for their input and
assistance; and to Elizabeth Haywood for her incisive comments,
corrections and unswerving love. My thanks, too, to Alison Shaw and
Sonny Leong for so enthusiastically publishing the book.
I am grateful also to my South Wales Neath constituents who have
given me such steadfast loyalty over a quarter of a century – especially
my close friend and first agent, Howard Davies, and his successors,
Lyn Harper and Cari Morgans. Part of the thinking behind this book
has sprung from my life and grassroots involvement in the towns and
valley villages of the Neath constituency.
But this book could not have been written without my good
friend Phil Wyatt, who has a rare ability: he is an economist who
can write readable prose. Since retiring as Research Director at the
GMB Union, for some years now he has fed me drafts for articles
and speeches – with the same self-effacing modesty he has insisted
upon for this book. I am both fortunate and very grateful to him,
and so I decided to honour his father in the following way:
vii
back to the future of socialism
On 20 December 1940 the London Gazette listed some
3,600 members of Britain’s armed services whose
names had been ‘brought to notice in recognition of
distinguished services in connection with operations in
the field, March–June 1940’. Heading the list was Vice
Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay who had led Operation
Dynamo, the rescue of the British Expeditionary Force
from Dunkirk. For organising what Winston Churchill
called ‘a miracle of deliverance’ Ramsay was mentioned
in despatches.
Also on the list was Company Quarter Master
Sergeant Philip Ernest Wyatt of the Royal Engineers. In
the chaotic retreat to Dunkirk, his unit was ordered to
render their column of vehicles of no use to the enemy,
which they did. Then came a countermanding order. But
despite the confusion they made it to the beaches. This
was his second mention in despatches for distinguished
service with the BEF in France.
Thanks to the bravery of others, including my father-
in-law Lieutenant Commander Douglas Haywood who
served on one of the Dunkirk rescue ships, Sergeant
Wyatt returned to Ramsgate on 31 May 1940, one of
68,000 allied evacuees who made it back to Britain that
day. He left the army, with the rank of Captain, in 1945
after 20 years’ service, with a long service and good
conduct medal and an army pension. He died aged 74
on Friday 13 June 1980.
Peter Hain
Ynysygerwn, Neath
November 2014
viii
INTRODUCTION
Back to the future of socialism
The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It says so in its
rule book and on the back of every membership card. Democratic
socialism is what the party believes in. But if you ask anyone what
that means today, expect an uncertain response. The people’s flag may
be deepest red but for the 1994–2010 New Labour period it flew
from a pale grey masthead. What was therefore once distinct about
the Labour Party became a matter of doubt, with even the party
itself unsure what it stood for.
The uncertainty crept in well before the 2008 banking crisis
exposed the limitations of New Labour’s light-touch, low-tax
approach to economic management. Dealing with the credit crunch
required a rapid change of stance. Labour bailed out bust banks to
save the financial system from collapse and took strong fiscal and
monetary steps to fight recession and get the economy growing again.
But although these measures worked, they meant big increases in
government borrowing and national debt, providing the pretext for
leading supporters of neoliberal economics who share an ideology
of small government to implement severe public spending cuts and
shrink the size of the state.
In Britain – as across the world, notably continental Europe – the
left struggled to offer a coherent response, instead slipstreaming the
centre-right parties in their call for huge cuts. But that just meant
heading down the same austerity road at a slower pace, when (as
Keynes showed in the 1930s) getting the economy back on the
growth path was always a surer way to sort out the public finances.
1