The Hindu : Britain headed for a 'summer of discontent'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 22, 2002

International

International

Britain headed for a 'summer of discontent'

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON JULY 21. Identify a current British phenomenon which, despite its huge success, is "just a brand name, and is beyond its sell-by date.''

If the question were to be posed at a quiz show it is doubtful if there would be many hands up in the audience; and the chance of anyone getting it right would be negligible unless you were an insider.

But ask frustrated Left-wing Labour MPs and they will insist that the right answer, of course, is the Prime Minister, Tony Blair's New Labour.

In fact, the above quote is from the Labour M.P., Alan Simpson, a member of the "Socialist Group'' of MPs who broke ranks with Blair-ites on Saturday to attend a conference ominously called "After New Labour''.

The conference, attended by distinguished Old Labour figures such as Tony Benn and militant trade union leaders, came amid growing talk of a "summer of discontent'' with public sectors worker threatening a series of strikes over pay demands and the Blair Government's labour policies.

In what has been described as a "preview'' of what is to come unless there is a last-minute settlement, civic services were brought to a halt this week in one of Britain's biggest nationwide strikes by council workers since the historic "winter of discontent'' in 1979; and this was followed by a crippling strike by the London Underground, throwing life in the capital out of gear.

``The New Labour experiment is disintegrating,'' one participant said pointing to the mood of increased militancy with the leadership of more and more trade unions passing into the hands of the hard Left. In a damaging blow to New Labour, one of Mr. Blair's most loyal trade union leaders, Sir Ken Jackson, this week lost a leadership election to a little-known former communist trade unionist, Derek Simpson.

The conference, to which the dissident U.S. academic, Noam Chomsky, contributed, was seen as the first serious initiative by disillusioned Labour activists and supporters to forge an alliance with trade unions against Mr. Blair's "Third Way'' politics which, in recent months, has seen its adherents in Europe suffer a series of setbacks. Organisers said it was the first of a series of discussions planned to discuss an alternative to "Third Way'' and "New Labour's'' vision for Britain. ``The tide is turning and the Left is once again seizing the initiative,'' they said stressing that the party must return to its "traditional commitments of full employment, universal welfare, peace and democratic accountability.''

The dominant view was that the Labour Government was only "marginally'' better than the Conservatives.

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