No turning back

The expulsion of George Galloway by New Labour shows clearly that neither Blair nor his Party will be turned back from their course of war-mongering and silencing any opposition to their policies.

New Labour is a thuggish outfit which seeks to terrorise and, as in this case expel, any opposition within its own ranks.

Galloway, MP for Glasgow Kelvin, rightly described the process whereby he was purged as "a politically motivated kangaroo court, whose verdict was written in advance".

Amongst the charges against Galloway, who joined the Labour Party 36 years ago at the age of 13, were accusations that he incited Arabs to fight British troops and British troops to defy orders.

In a strong defence on BBC’s Newsnight programme, Galloway insisted that he stood by everything that he had said and that Iraqis like other peoples have the right to resist a foreign occupation.

The truth is that Galloway’s courageous and longstanding defence of the rights of all Arabs to self-determination, whether in Palestine, Libya or Iraq, has put him at odds with the Labour Party leadership for many years.

His outstanding speech in Parliament in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq instantly made him the No.1 target for New Labour’s thought police.

Galloway’s expulsion virtually completes the purging of the last of the "Old Labour" elements and the completion of making New Labour into a party which serves solely the interests of global capitalist corporations.

Coincidentally, former Tory prime minister John Major has pointed to the "malaise undermining Parliamentary democracy" in a new pamphlet. "All Party machines are moribund, near bankrupt, unrepresentative and ill-equipped to enthuse the electorate as a whole…..he writes. "No one should dismiss the turnout at the last election as a ‘blip’…. the malaise is deep and is getting worse."

If members of the ruling class like Major, who is a representative and supporter of big finance capitalism, are concluding that parliamentary democracy is defunct, then drastic possibilities are undoubtedly being discussed in these circles. That means historic conflicts over how Britain is ruled are on the agenda.

The time is long overdue to decide on and fight for an alternative to undemocratic parliamentary rule. For that reason New Labour’s action in expelling one of its few remaining principled MPs should not be a cause for lamentation. On the contrary, it makes it clearer than ever that there is no way back to the past. It should stimulate the discussion about how to create an alternative that goes beyond the hypocritical charade of today's parliamentary democracy.

Movement for a Socialist Future
25 October 2003