The media has recently been full of talk about a coalition between the federal Liberal Party and the NDP. Earlier in June, it was revealed that, behind closed doors, naturally, “senior insiders” from both parties had been holding “secret talks” about actually merging the parties in order to defeat the Tories.
While these discussions should be taken seriously by all socialists, workers, and youth in the NDP and the trade unions, the reality of the situation is that a merger of the two parties is, more than likely, not in the cards anytime soon. However, by placing the peg of the discussion as far as a merger, the leaking of these “high-level” discussions gives ample room, both in the Liberal Party and the NDP, for discussions about a coalition or some sort of electoral alliance.
Naturally, socialists must oppose any deal with the Liberals and we must recognize and prepare for the fact that the struggle against any such deal is, in reality, a struggle for the heart and soul of the NDP and the labour movement.
The drive to coalition
The first question that must be asked is, who elected these people? Who elected these people to have these discussions? Who exactly are they representing in these discussions, and what in fact do they represent? This will help us to understand in whose interest this proposed merger is.
The Liberals can worry about their own internal party democracy, but it is completely outrageous, and clearly undemocratic, that Broadbent and others in the NDP would be holding such talks without the membership even having an inkling that this was happening, let alone having a say in the matter.
This raises another question; who does Broadbent represent in these talks? He can only represent the party bureaucracy—specifically that section of the party tops who are looking towards a coalition, and potential merger, with the Liberals—the clique that is prepared to abandon the NDP and its principles altogether.
Despite Layton’s public denials, the assertion that the leader of the NDP, whose closest advisor is Broadbent, knew nothing of these talks is simply ridiculous. This should tell socialists, rank-and-file NDP members, and trade unionists something important—that Layton and Co. are in fact still working towards a coalition or some sort of deal with the Liberals. And if history teaches us anything, what we learned through the last attempted coalition was that Layton and Co. are prepared to reach a deal at all costs—even potentially sacrificing the heart-and-soul policies of the party if necessary.
It is no coincidence that the names of “elder statesmen” such as Jean Chrétien, Ed Broadbent, Roy Romanow, and even Joe Clark and others, have been closely associated with these secret talks. Chrétien and Broadbent were deeply involved in brokering the first coalition deal, and these merger talks are a continuation of the same process.
The leaking of these merger talks, clearly a manoeuvre on the part of these “elder statesmen,” is the result and expression of two processes. One is the continuing disintegration and decay of the federal Liberal Party, a party being torn asunder by the increasing intensity of the class struggle; and the other is the drive towards a coalition, supported by certain forces in both the NDP and Liberal Party—again, driven by the inexorable logic of the class struggle.
It is also no accident that this talk of mergers and coalitions comes on the heels of a recent poll that put the Liberals at 25% support. This is a historic low for the party, a party which once was the natural governing party of capital, and it has never been in a weaker position.
This was in addition to the poll’s revelation that Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff was the most unpopular federal party leader. He is currently polling lower than Stéphane Dion did at the end of the 2008 election—and that’s really saying something! The poll also revealed that if there were to be an NDP-Liberal coalition, the coalition would lose an election against the Tories if it were under the leadership of Igantieff. If led by Bob Rae, the coalition would tie the Tories, and it would defeat the Tories if led by Jack Layton.
By leaking the merger talks, the Chrétien-Rae camp has sent Ignatieff a not-so-subtle warning. The thread of the argument that runs through the press reports, leaks, affidavits, etc., is that Ignatieff is a roadblock to saving the Liberal Party and finding a viable bourgeois alternative to the Harper Tories. The poor position of the Liberal Party has naturally made the differences and factional infighting more acute. In fact, the party faces extinction, and is currently in the throes of its death agony—and a certain section of the party is so desperate to save itself that it is now even prepared to merge with the NDP! Of course, this is only if the Liberals can come out on top of such a deal, i.e. if they compromise and sacrifice nothing while the NDP compromises and sacrifices everything.
Creeping Blairism and rising union militancy—the struggle for the NDP
In the period since the previous election we have witnessed two important shifts take place in the labour movement—two shifts that represent two irreconcilable trends in the class struggle.
The first is the creeping Blairism that has clearly reared its ugly head in the NDP. This trend was best expressed by the Liberal-NDP coalition last year, and the attempt by the party bureaucracy, under the advice of Obama campaign advisors from the US, to rename the party the “Democratic Party” and symbolically begin the transformation of the NDP from a mass party of labour into a Liberal Party mark II.
Of course, the name of the party and other matters are but the symptoms of Blairism—the political content of which and what this means for the NDP, unions, and working class in general has a much more important significance.
Canadian workers have been hit hard by the economic crisis. When the crisis hit during the previous election, the NDP missed a fantastic opportunity to offer a socialist alternative to capitalism. Instead, they told us to stick together and by selling out during the coalition with the Liberals, in fact proposed taking the working class down the path of more cuts and attacks on wages and living standards.
The Liberals and the Tories are bound to the ruling class by thousands of threads—threads that run through the boardrooms on Bay Street and define the class nature of these parties. In fact, the Liberals have historically been the natural voice of capital, and we cannot forget that Chrétien and Martin implemented the deepest cuts and most severe attacks on the working class in history. Thus, any deal with the Liberals means selling out the workers to the interests of Bay Street, sacrificing the independent political voice of the working class.
The NDP completely sold out its platform for the last coalition with the Liberals. While even NDP negotiators admitted that the Liberals needed the coalition more than the NDP did, the NDP freely gave away any important cabinet positions, including those of prime minister and finance minister, without even so much as haggling. The NDP didn’t manage to get one single concession from the Liberals to adopt any of the points on the NDP platform. All the NDP leadership got was a measly six cabinet positions! Better yet, “Prime Minister Dion” would also have been able to select the six NDP MPs to enter Cabinet, and determine which positions they would hold!
What happened? The NDP leadership assured everyone that a deal with the Liberals was what was needed to defeat the Tories. In the end, the NDP was used as so much cheap change in a Liberal Party faction fight. What’s even better, yet, is that by bailing out the Liberals, the NDP allowed the Liberals to save the Tories!
Any credibility and momentum Layton and the NDP had built during the election suddenly vanished. Layton had worked so hard to delineate the NDP platform from that of the Liberals, only to torch it in front of the eyes of the nation himself by joining the coalition. A vote for the NDP was suddenly a vote for a Liberal government—confirming the logic of strategic voting that the Liberals had used against the NDP for decades.
In the face of the greatest economic crisis in the history of capitalism, from asking everyone “to stick together and take care of each other,” Layton has since publicly asked Canadian workers to “take pay cuts so your friends at the plant can keep their job.” And so, the NDP leader passed from promising to work for the kitchen table and not the boardroom table, to dropping opposition to corporate tax cuts and asking workers to take wage cuts because of the economic crisis. It didn’t take very long before Layton was actually working for the boardroom against the kitchen table; thus, not many people saw the point in an NDP vote, when in reality, it was a Liberal vote anyway.
As the NDP shifts more and more to the right, the workers turn increasingly away from the party. How could it be otherwise? It’s not that the other parties are gaining support at the expense of the NDP. To a certain extent, the NDP is losing votes to strategic votes for the Liberals, but this isn’t the main reason for the NDP’s low support in the polls. The real reason for the low support is voter apathy and a lack of socialist policies. The problem is that many, many people are not voting. Voter turnouts are at historic lows because people are fed up with the current system and know that all the parties are the same, and a vote for one means a vote for all—there is no fundamental difference in the policies of any of the parties. It is precisely these people, who have been most affected by the crisis of capitalism, who would be attracted to the NDP if it stood on a socialist platform and captured the imagination of working people by actually offering a socialist alternative to capitalism. The NDP is losing votes not to the Liberals, but to apathy.
However, despite all this, there is still huge potential for the NDP. The other trend in the labour movement, moving in the opposite direction to that of the right-wing bureaucrats, is the growing radicalization in the trade unions, representing the leftward shift of the working class in the face of the economic crisis.
In the recent period a series of union leaders have made radical speeches and public statements, signalling the beginnings of a shift to the left. At the last federal NDP convention, Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), stated that there is a need to learn the lessons of the Regina Manifesto. Leo Gerard, the international president of the Steelworkers, has delivered radical speeches calling for greater militancy on the part of labour. When speaking about the crisis at this year’s May Day rally in Hamilton, Dave Coles, president of the CEP, declared, “Why is this happening? It is a fundamental failure of the system. The capitalist system does not work for us,” adding, “We must fundamentally change the system. They make the rules of the game, so we have to break the rules. If they try to shut down our plant, then we occupy that plant!”
It is not for nothing that these union leaders are making such statements. This reflects the pressure from below—pressure from the rank-and-file workers in the unions.
If the Liberals and Tories are bound by thousands of threads to the ruling class, then the NDP is bound by millions of threads to the working class, principally via its organic connection to the trade unions. This is why, inevitably at some stage, the discontent amongst the working class, the resistance to the cuts and austerity packages within the unions, must eventually find an expression within the NDP.
As the leadership, increasingly less confident in the working class and its ability to fight and change society, drifts to the right and towards the Liberal Party establishment, rank-and-file NDPers and trade unionists, under the pressure of the economic crisis and attacks on wages and living standards, are moving to the left. The stage is being set for an inevitable conflict between these two trends—an inevitable conflict for the heart and soul of the party.
It is not for nothing that the ruling class and its mouthpieces in the press and the Liberal and Conservative parties rage against the link between the unions and the NDP, and try to paint NDP leaders as “hostages” or “prisoners” of the unions. The ruling class understands very well the power of this organic link, which is why the prospects of the NDP surrendering and joining the Liberals is a very inviting one. This would represent a major victory for the ruling class.
The historic mission of Blairism was to destroy the British Labour Party by severing the links with the trade unions and turning the Labour Party into something like the Democratic Party in the United States—or into the Tories mark II. Though it did not succeed, Blairism was able to dominate the labour and socialist parties in Europe and drag them far to the right.
Although the Third Way was formally defeated at the 1999 NDP policy convention in Ottawa, we would be naïve not to think that the same conditions that allowed for the rise of Blairism in Britain and Europe are not present here. We would be blind not to see that Blairism has established itself as a tendency, a force in the Canadian labour movement.
Just as in Britain, the ruling class in Canada would love nothing more than to destroy the NDP and sever the connection between the trade unions and its political voice. Hence, the link between the unions and the party is under attack; there is an attempt to rechristen the party the “Democratic” party, and Broadbent and Layton and the clique around them are discussing a merger with the Liberals.
What makes this behaviour and these tactics all the more shocking is that it comes during the largest financial collapse in human history—rather than talk about socialism, the NDP is discussing mergers with the Liberals?!? This is a graphic illustration of the bankruptcy of reformism and the policies of class collaboration and social peace.
Of course, just as with the coalition talks, it appears that in terms of this proposed merger, the Liberals are prepared to sacrifice nothing and the NDP is prepared to compromise everything—including the very heart and soul of the party. Of course, as confirmed by one of these “insiders,” the first condition of any such merger would be that the NDP renounce socialism. What we are talking about, of course, is not a merger of the Liberals and the NDP, but the acquisition, for nothing more than cheap change, of the NDP by the Liberals and the destruction of the mass political expression of the working class.
Fight for socialist policies
Although there is no socialist content to the NDP electoral platform, and while Jack Layton speaks of “sticking together,” talks about cutting ATM fees, and aks workers to take wage cuts, the heart-and-soul policies of the party, despite its current leadership, are socialist.
The NDP’s 1983 Statement of Principles, still the principles of the party, state the following:
“Socialists believe in planning. We reject the capitalist theory that the unregulated laws of supply and demand should control the destiny of society and its members. Society can control its own destiny by planning its future. And this planning must be an expression of the will of the people, not imposed on them from above. Finally, socialists believe that social ownership is an essential means to achieve our goals.”
Of course, this is precisely what the Liberals want the NDP to renounce and precisely what the NDP bureaucracy is looking to jettison. Yet, the ideas expressed in the NDP’s Statement of Principles are in fact the very ideas working people are looking for!
Capitalism has failed, and as the working class is asked to pay for it, people lose jobs and their homes. They don’t want to be asked to take wage cuts, and while slashing ATM fees would be nice, I think many people would like to hear about the principles of socialist planning, and how these could be applied in Canada to save jobs and provide a socialist alternative to the misery of capitalism. Workers and youth don’t join or vote for the NDP because they are attracted to its most moderate side and because they want to join the Liberals mark II, they are attracted to its socialist principles.
Imagine the possibilities if, during the last election, the NDP leadership had gone back to its own history, studied its own principles, and had presented the above principles of socialist planning as an answer to the problems the working class faced with the economic crisis.
Alas, the Statement of Principles is just that—a statement of principles printed on a piece of paper. They mean nothing to the leadership of the NDP, and in fact, are the first thing they are prepared to sacrifice and scuttle in any coalition or merger talks with the Liberals. If Layton, Broadbent and Co. want to jump ship and join the Liberal Party, they can go right ahead. They don’t need to drag the party with them through the mud to do so.
Now is the time to fight for these socialist principles—not just to keep them on pieces of paper collecting dust in party offices, but as real policies as a solution to the economic crisis. In the face of the greatest economic collapse in history, even the bourgeois press has wondered how it is that the working class has not turned to the NDP. Given the lack of socialist policies, the lack of a socialist alternative to capitalism, the lack of a clear lead, it is no small wonder.
A merger between the Liberals and the NDP is, more than likely, not in the works any time soon. But, we know what the leadership of the NDP is discussing, and what it has discussed renouncing. We also know that there will be plenty of talk and pressure in the lead up to the next election from the NDP bureaucracy for some sort of deal or coalition with the Liberals.
We must fight against any deal with the Liberals, which will mean a deal with Bay Street and the selling out of the working class down the road of cutbacks, privatizations, job losses, wage cuts, and attacks on public services and living conditions.
When the working class moves and the ranks of the NDP and unions swell, it will select the leadership best suited to its needs. The NDP must take its place as the political voice of the working class fight for socialism. The workers must reclaim the heart and soul of the party—the policies of socialism and economic planning. This will be the only way to fight the misery of capitalism.
All socialists in the NDP and unions must form a strong opposition to any deals with the Liberals. We must build an NDP that will fight for the socialist alternative to capitalism. We call upon all socialists, radical youth, and union militants to join Fightback in the struggle for a socialist NDP, for a socialist alternative to the misery of capitalism.
