Although he managed to avoid a vote on his support for Bush in the Iraq war, it was clear throughout the week that Blair and his cabinet were much like his troops in Iraq – on the defensive.

In the end the four largest trade unions and many local Labour party branches combined their forces to vote against a key Blairite policy – more privatisation of the health service via the introduction of foundation hospitals.

Blair's woes this year began in earnest with his support for Bush's war against Iraq. The 15 February demonstration against Blair's war plans had an enormous impact on Labour. The handful of relatively principled anti-war MPs suddenly grew into a full-scale backbench rebellion, renewing hope in some quarters that the Labour Party could be reclaimed. Nowhere was this more the case than in the big trade unions.

The victories for the “awkward squad” in elections for leaders of the major trade unions convinced a new layer of bureaucrats that, to win union elections, they had to distance themselves from Blair. Even Blairites like Jack Dromey of the TGWU fought his election campaign as a born-again critic of New Labour.

So, a new crop of decidedly not-so-awkward bureaucrats like Tony Woodley in the TGWU and Kevin Curran in the GMB began to win elections. Both made noises about reviewing their unions' relations with Labour. Both claimed to be “awkward”. Yet both are clearly of the safe and traditional “centre-left”.

Tony Woodley, for example, is the man who shaped the TGWU’scampaign to save the Longbridge car plant – a campaign based on opposition to strikes, occupations and re-nationalisation. Woodley worked with businessmen for a brazenly capitalist solution to the Longbridge crisis. One demonstration was all he allowed, while in the background he negotiated job cuts to keep the plant open. He played a similar role in Fords.

Curran is a friend of Mandelson and a man with excellent working relations with Blair behind the scenes.

The speed with which these bureaucrats recently moved to end the strikes by BA staff at Heathrow is an indication of the type of leaders they are. Strikes are problems to be solved and ended quickly not battles by their members to be won.

Together with Derek Simpson of Amicus-AEU and Dave Prentis of Unison, Curran and Woodley now constitute a powerful centre left axis in the TUC. They will move away from the craven service unionism of old. They will present themselves as “traditionalists” representing the interests of their members. As Derek Simpson announced, “we are beginning to act like a trade union.‰

The content of this trade unionism is, however, strictly limited. It is not anti-capitalist, class struggle trade unionism. It is rather the “bargain hunting” variety of trade unionism: containing disputes so they do not go beyond the realms of what the bureaucracy decree “possible” and exercising bureaucratic control over disputes that do take place.

To make this brand of trade unionism more effective these bureaucrats will need to extend their rights to recruit and negotiate. They will need friends in government willing to grant such extensions. And this is where their goal of “reclaiming the party” comes in.

Politically, the centre-left share the strategy of key awkward squad members like Billy Hayes in the post. They aim to “reclaim” the Labour Party by getting the Brown/Cook faction back in the saddle – despite both supporting privatisation and Brown bankrolling the bloodbath in Iraq.

In other words, the “reclaim Labour” strategy of the bureaucracy aims to reclaim the party from the very right wing Blair and place it in the hands of the centre right Brown/Cook faction. In terms of policies little will change. But there will be one big difference. The key union bureaucrats will be consulted on how to attack the working class and ensure their co-operation and involvement in those attacks.

The idea of a new party is ruled out completely. Derek Simpson has been very clear on this:

“Labour is the only party that will do anything for the people I represent. I don't see any point in withdrawing funding. We have to ensure that Labour beat the Conservatives in the next election. It’sas simple as that."

To this end the new axis will be critical of Labour, but, as Kevin Curran put it, “a critical friend‰, because, “Let’snever forget that we are the party, not Number 10.” And Dave Prentis chimed in by spelling out what the new not-so-awkward squad’splans were:

“I'll be meeting the new boys – Derek Simpson, Tony Woodley, Kevin Curran – to talk about closer links and, yes, we will be talking about how we reclaim our party and it’sabout time we did."

All of this “fighting talk” has a clear aim – marginalise the harder left union leaders like Crow and Serwotka (Curran has said that he cannot work with Crow) and the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs. This will stop the moves to the left in the unions, and, more importantly stop the drift towards cutting links with Labour.

The sense of political anger that many union members feel towards Blair will become focused on a battle within the Labour Party rather than on a campaign to establish an alternative to it. The crisis of political representation that was revealed by the war against Iraq and the movement against it will be resolved in a reformist manner.

All of this makes the fight for a rank and file movement inside the key unions even more important. But it also underscores the fact that this fight has to be linked to a broader political campaign for a new party of the working class, if we are to succeed in preventing Labourite reformism from being given a new lease of life.

We must call on the union leaders and Labour left to break with Blair and rally anti-capitalist and anti-war forces to a new workers' party. In no way does this call depend on whether or not we are strong enough to set such a party up. At present of course we are not - but the need for a new workers' party has been posed by the objective situation and the class struggle itself. It is critical to breaking the hold of the warmongers and their slavish allies over the working class. Socialists and union militants must develop a set of tactics to prepare the way for this.

We must demand that the lefts support all moves in the unions to democratise their political funds and that the union votes in the party be used to mount a leadership challenge to Blair. They should organise local meetings – together with the Stop the War Coalition and others – to discuss challenging Labour MPs who support Blair at the polls.

The danger of the “Reclaim our party” project is that it could become an excuse to do nothing to fight today’sattacks. MPs and union leaders must be forced to oppose every PFI, PPP and Trust scheme and all proposals to dismantle national agreements, both inside and out of parliament. They must support and lead national strike action, even in defiance of the law.

Finally, a new workers' party has to be anti-capitalist – with a view to it becoming part of a new international. It will need to be fully democratic and based on a clear programme – and we will fight for it to be a revolutionary programme.

Opportunists will condemn this perspective as pie-in-the-sky. Yet, compared with passive reliance on the likes of Billy Hayes and Bob Crow or dreams of turning the Labour Party into an anti-capitalist vehicle – it is the only realistic goal. Furthermore, each battle in the coming months and years will convince more and more of the best union militants and socialists that it is a goal worth fighting for.

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Britain: Bring down Blair!

Britain: "historic" antiwar demo isolates warmonger Blair
18 February 2003