New Labour: Power Junkies

antrim | politics / elections | opinion/analysis Wednesday March 10, 2004 14:31 by Anarcho

Blair's support for random drugs tests in schools is just insane. It should provoke any sensible person to demand random drugs tests for the cabinet. Only someone out their face on drugs could make the decisions Blair's government has made.

Is Blair on crack? Probably not, although it would explain a lot: the anti-social behaviour, the abuse of power, the lying, the paranoia, the stealing of other people's property (i.e. Iraqi oil, rising taxes on working class people), the self-destructive dependency on their dealer (Bush, corporations). But, no, the drug of choice for Blair is the addictive seductions of the worse of all addictive substances: power.

People say they can handle it. They dismiss libertarian warnings that power corrupts. They want to be practical and make things change. Soon the changes begin. Soon they start to see the world through the eyes of power, seeing the solutions to all our problems in increasing its reach and securing the source of their fix. Everything they once held dear is sacrificed to their new addiction: principles, dreams, hopes, people.

Like all addicts, the power junkie fails to see how it affects them. Slowly, over time, their habit becomes overpowering. No behaviour is below them: lying, killing, stealing, all become justified (even praiseworthy) when "reasons of state" demand it.

New Labour is just the latest in a long line of radicals who thought they could handle power, control it, use to for the greater good. New Labour is just the latest in a long line of radicals which power used to further its agenda. Power controls the politicians, not vice versa. Whether it was Lenin and Trotsky or Blair and Prescott, the experience of power soon turns the user into the used.

Blunkett's Thatcherite Utopia
How else can we explain Blair's government? David Blunkett seems intent on making the Tories seem like liberals. He has built upon the foundations laid by the likes of Michael Howard, applying the same "free market, strong state" logic of Thatcherism to whittle away human rights and civil liberties while giving bosses, police and state with even more power. And this ideological convergence of "New Labour" with Thatcherism ensures that Blunkett can get away with much more. What Labour would have objected to in opposition becomes perfectly acceptable when its in power.

And what is acceptable is truly horrendous. The creation of a UK FBI and the increase in MI5 numbers by a thousand is merely the latest example of New Labour's rampant authoritarianism. The strengthening of the secret state, using the never-ending "war against terror," is just the icing on the cake. New Labour is introducing is strengthening the state in ways it only used to wet-dreams about. Whether it is policing, immigration, the criminal justice system and prisons, Blunkett has suggested or implemented measures which increase the repressive powers of the state to shocking levels.

New Labour is transforming the society in which we live, empowering the state at the expense of the individual. Basic rights, such as the right to be judged by a jury or being assumed innocent until proven guilty, are being removed or weakened. If, as Blunkett asserts, these changes are required to protect our "way of life" from terrorists then, surely, he is simply doing their job for them.

Yet New Labour publicly pronounces its obsession with authoritarianism. Yet it would be wrong to blame these changes solely on them. Before him, Jack Straw did his best to make Michael Howard look good. Blunkett has simply used the threat of terror to shift our society significantly in the direction desired by the state apparatus. This has been a long process, starting under the Iron Lady herself. Blunkett has simply utilised the situation to expound on policies and pass laws that would have been any Thatcherite home secretary's wet-dream.

If unchecked, our ability to resist oppression will be hindered and our liberties go the way of the dodo. Ironically, as Thatcherite authoritarianism is strengthened, we get the mantra "do you want the Tories back in?" to placate dissent. How long are people going to put up with it? Perhaps not for long. We have the power to stop this experiment in fascism-lite.

Fight the power?
It is sometimes argued, particularly on the left, that to fight power you need power. Anarchists reply they are confusing two radically different concepts. There is "power to" and "power over" so the word "power" is ambiguous. It can mean the power of people to control their own lives, communities, workplaces and society. That sort of power anarchists find perfectly acceptable. It can also mean giving power to a few individuals (bosses, governments, leaders). Such power is exactly the sort anarchists combat by building the first kind.
After years of defeats, this popular power is expressing itself in small ways. Strikes are on the increase. More and more workers are standing up for their rights and dignity against their bosses. They are asserting their liberty during work and using collective action to defend it. We need to encourage this. But the class struggle is not limited to the workplace. It goes on everywhere.

A 83 year old pensioner, Elizabeth Winkfield, is also fighting the power. She was told by John Prescott to "face up to your responsibilities" and pay the council tax. Mrs Winkfield is refusing to budge, willing to go to jail than pay the "unfair" level of tax. Her plight is familiar to many, pensioners and non-pensioners alike. Many workers are up to our eyes in debt, working longer hours to make ends meet. Non-workers are finding it harder to survive in rip-off Britain. Thatcher's shifting of the tax-burden onto the working class and poor has paid off.

The pensioner been given two stern warnings from ministers about breaking the law.

Prescott warned that obeying the law was "a requirement of a civic society." As an ex-trade unionist, he should know how much nonsense this is. If workers had obeyed the law then unions would never have been formed. The history of the labour movement shows the necessity of breaking the law in the interests of justice and liberty.

So when Nick Raynsford, the Local Government minister, said "it is not very sensible to try to encourage people to break the law" he simply fails to understand the lessons of history. Every progress made in terms of liberty and justice have come from those willing to ignore and break the law. All the liberties placed under threat by Blunkett were won by struggle from below, not given by the paternalism of those in power.

Without rebels like Mrs Winkfield we would still be paying the poll-tax and workers would not little more than serfs. Thanks to the illegal actions of the Suffragettes, Mrs Winkfield can vote against Prescott's party in the next election. But this shows the weakness of voting. Mrs Winkfield cannot wait until then. She must fight injustice now and is using the best weapon to do so: direct action. Yet the action of one person, while important, is not enough. Solidarity is required. As she argues, "I'm not going to [pay] because it's not right. If enough people rebel, the courts will be filled with people, the prisons will be overfull, they won't have room for me there. They'll be full of other pensioners."

Anarchists should be seeking to encourage this council-tax revolt. We have the example of the anti-poll tax movement and a similar campaign would be as popular. However, we should learn from the mistakes of the anti-poll tax campaign. Like that, a council tax revolt could be the spring-board of a wider movement. Instead of being used as a vote gathering machine by parties, it could be the start of a movement which makes electioneering redundant. Such a movement could be the basis of a federation of popular assemblies, a form of community syndicalism in which local people can fight their own battles against power while strengthening their own power over their own lives. The possibility is there. Are we up to it?