Sightlines from Labour's 2018 Conference

Contrasting emotions coursed through the 2018 Conference. Excitement abounded at the prospect of power that to some seemed almost close enough to touch. In the peroration of his closing speech to a packed auditorium, Jeremy Corbyn gave voice to that excitement by expressing the hope that by next year’s conference Labour would be in goverment. A confident prediction? Or premature euphoria with the potential for disappointment or frustration of a kind familiar to those who have experienced an unsuccessful coupling or failed a driving test?
At a fringe event for business people, I met a cluster of closet Tories happy to swallow their ideological pride in exchange for a chance to cosy up to Labour politicians. Coaxed into revealing their political affiliation, two of them assured me sotto voce that there would be no general election before 2022. Such without doubt, is the fervent wish of the incumbent of 10 Downing Street and her followers - and doubtless of even those Tories who would like to see the back of Mrs May and her replacement by a rebellious Brexit hardliner.
Indignation was the other predominant emotion and it came in several guises: anger at the ravages wrought on vulnerable communities by Tory austerity, revulsion at Theresa May’s “hostile environment” for so-called illegal immigrants which had resulted in the cruelties of Windrush, and dismay with a touch of Schadenfreude at the government’s shambolic mishandlng of Brexit.

Anguish at the plight of the Palestinians and support for the creation of a Palestinian state found expression not only in speeches by senior Labour figures, but in many conference attendees, Jews among them, who swapped the lanyard that came with their credential for one in the colours of the Palestinian flag.

Solidarity with the Palestinian people was a theme of the Conference for JVL (Jewish Voices for Labour), as was clear rejection of the accusations of antisemitism directed at Jeremy Corbyn by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, most of the UK media including the BBC, more than a few Tories, and even some Labour MPs. Nor was JVL alone in rejecting those accusations. Handing out pro-Corbyn leaflets at the entrance to the Conference Centre on the final day were two representatives of Naturei Karta - an Orthodox, anti-Zionist/anti-Israel Jewish sect considered extremist and even reviled by many Jews, including (full disclosure) some members of my own family. Naturei Karta are - be it said - no less Jewish for being a minority and, like JVL, they are a living refutation of the trope put out by the media of a single, unified Jewish community convinced that Corbyn and his entourage are antisemitic.

While the official Conference speeches and debates received the bulk of media coverage, most of the activity takes place at fringe events. On a full day, there are over 150 of these. They begin as early as 7am and continue late into the evening, with dozens underway simultaneously. Impossible, therefore, to cover the ground, to take in the full range of topics, debates, disputes, ideas, analyses and opinions on offer. The standard format consists of brief speeches from four or five panelists followed by a discussion with the audience. MPs - including shadow ministers - participate fully, some of them dashing from one meeting to the next like couriers on a delivery round.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell seemed to be everywhere, sometimes a little breathless, but indefatigable, and concealing whatever exhaustion he might have felt behind a bon mot and an easy command of his brief.
That brief - honed over years of opposition, battleground defeats and strategic revision - is the most radical since the Labour government of 1945 under Clement Attlee. It includes renationalisation of public utilities and the railways, legislation to force large companies to allocate shares to employees and to have worker representation on boards of directors, an end to ruinously expensive PFI contracts, major infrastructural invesment in all regions of the UK, an end to free schools and the fragmentation of our educational system, and so on. Its fundamental principles are twofold: to launch a counterattack against neoliberalism, which has governed public policy since Thatcher and has catalysed a savage rise in inequality; and to restore a sense of empowerment and economic dignity to those millions who have been betrayed and impoverished by Tory austerity. Popular in the Conference auditorium and doubtless among many voters, Labour’s ambitious programme of economic reform evokes alarm and contempt in sections of the right-wing media, and perhaps a degree of panic in Tory ranks.
What of Brexit, dangerous ground for both Labour and Tories alike? At a hearts-on-sleeve fringe session, I heard MPs Ben Bradshaw, Caroline Flint and Stephen Kinnock plus Professor Anand Menon offer opposing views of what the party should do when Mrs May returns from Brussels with or without a deal. Ben Bradshaw favoured a second referendum with ‘Remain’ among the options on the ballot paper, a posture that Caroline Flint argued against because she felt it would fail to unite the country, while Stephen Kinnock advocated membership of EFTA (the European Free Trade Association) - the so-called Norway option with access to the EEA (European Economic Area). Anand Menon spoke learnedly but left his listeners unclear as to what, if anything, he was recommending. The variety of views on Brexit reportedly led to a six-hour tussle among MPs and delegates that ended with a position to which none of the contending parties could withhold consent, namely to leave all options on the table. Conference was thus left with what looked like a pecking order of initiatives:
- acceptance of May’s deal in the unlikely event she achieves a slam dunk negotiation;
- a call for fresh elections if she fails to get her deal through parliament;
- a second referendum if parliament - like the main parties - is unable to agree on an alternative course of action.
In his Conference address, the Labour leader, after an oblique reference to the arduousness of the negotiation that produced this sequence, stated that the Party now had a settled Brexit position. Well…. maybe.
Despite the superabundance of meetings, Labour’s 2018 Conference showed a disappointing lack of concern for the globalised world in which we now we live. Conflict in the Middle East, the issue of Israel and the Palestinians, and British arms sales to belligerent states received attention. But I heard little on the refugee crisis, and on the burning question of the UK’s relationship with Russia. Other regions of the world - Africa, the Far East, Latin America - were absent from Labour’s agenda, while Canada and USA were acknowledged merely as targets or models for trade deals. Europe figured in terms of Brexit, but not otherwise. Two scheduled meetings on foreign policy - the only two - were cancelled without explanation. A correspondent from Austria asked me why no one at the Conference seemed interested in or even know much about the rest of Europe. “Islanders,” I replied, “are insular.” Post Brexit we are supposed to be reaching out to the world; but so far Labour has shown scant evidence of understanding what that might imply.

And the denouement? Brexit aside, Corbyn’s closing address conveyed a sense of direction that it had lacked at the Brighton Conference a year earlier. He is not a natural orator, but he has worked hard at the arts of timing and emphasis, and he now has a programme to deliver that is radical, well-thought-out and thoroughly rehearsed. At the end he left his audience stirred by the prospect, under a Labour government, of a better, more egalitarian, more humane , more honest, more principled, more socially responsible country. Labour’s programme is at once ambitious and for Party members, at least, both credible and inspiring.
Leaving the Conference precinct after Corbyn’s speech I made my way through Liverpool One - the city’s magnificent, traffic-free retail and leisure zone. It was crowded with shoppers, strollers, people relaxing on benches, or enjoying the hospitality of bars and restaurants.

Street musicians entertained - competing with each other for attention and coin. Like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, I stopped a few pedestrians to ask what they knew or thought of the Labour Party Conference. A few said they aware of it, but most were not, and none showed much interest in the event, nor trust in the promises of politicians. Therein, perhaps, lies the true challenge not just for Labour but for all political parties. Annual Party Conferences are bubbles of purpose, passion, and of a shared sense of hope and solidarity among the faithful. In the world outside, however, life goes on as before, and what most people learn of Party manifestos comes not from participation in conferences, but from snippets of news, and sound-bites from commentators more anxious to provoke than to enlighten. Labour now has a coherent programme and a corps of conviction politicians ready to work on implemention. The task that remains is to convince.

Venezuela's Presidential Election

If there’s such a thing as a ‘nation non grata’, Venezuela in its current political configuration would be near the top of the list on both sides of the North Atlantic. From the moment when Hugo Chavez first won the presidency in 1998 - he was twice re-elected and died in office in 2013 - Western governments and the media viewed him with a combination of alarm and contempt. Charismatic, left-wing, deeply hostile to neoliberalism, Chavez made clear that his aim was to transform Venezuela’s social, economic and political landscape. At the core of his domestic programme lay a determination to provide the two-thirds of the population then living below the UN official poverty line with access to health care, education and the prospect of a dignified life. Revenues from oil during a period of high world prices furnished the necessary funds and, as UN Human Development Reports show, the programme achieved some, at least, of its initial objectives. Internationally, Chavez aimed to reduce if not eliminate what he felt to be the economic and the political domination of his country by the United States; and he collaborated with other like-minded governments in Latin America to achieve the same at continental level. He called his political programme, the “Bolivarian Revolution” and even changed the country’s formal name to the “Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” - in honour of Simón Bolívar, the great 19th century leader of South America’s independence from Spain. Romantic certainly, but a permanent reminder that independence - the right of a nation to choose its own destiny lay - and continues to lie - at the heart of the “Chavista” project.
For some within the country, the Bolivarian Revolution has always been an anathema. An attempt to unseat Chavez by force in 2002 nearly succeeded. It was foiled by the army which has remained a stout defender of the country’s democracy. Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’ successor, has met with a different kind of resistance: street violence and calls from opponents for the United States to help topple Maduro and his “regime”. Maduro is a substantial figure, with an impressive command of the stage; but he came to power during an economic downturn brought on by a dramatic fall in the price of oil; and he won the 2013 election - with very narrow majority - to cries of fraud from the supporters of his right-wing opponent, Henrique Capriles. Without the oil revenues that had financed Chavez’s social policies, Venezuela’s ill-balanced economy with its heavy dependence on oil became evident. Imports of food, medicines and consumer goods fell away, creating shortages that severely affected the less-well-off.
Devaluation of the national currency - the Bolívar - began then and has continued at an increasingly rapid pace. At the time of writing, the unofficial exchange rate is 1 million Bolívares to US$1, down from 250 thousand Bolívares a month ago. Tomorrow there may be a further fall. Long queues form daily outside supermarkets and banks - evidence of the acute shortage of both goods and currency. Distribution of food and household products is largely controlled by the private sector and there is evidence of hoarding and reluctance to supply poorer neighbourhoods. A US embargo on trade and financial transactions with Venezuela has made it difficult to import essential goods and has probably done more to impoverish the less-well-off than to damage the Maduro government. Compounding the economic distress is the permanent insecurity caused by casual gun crime, robberies in the street at gunpoint, and “express kidnaps” in which victims are invited to empty their bank accounts in exchange for their lives. Such was the societal context of the May 20 elections.
Equally disquieting has been the attitude of the so-called West. Canada, the United States and the European Union have dismissed the elections as invalid, despite having called for them. Urged on by the Trump administration, six Latin-American countries have followed suit. For these international accusers, Nicolás Maduro is a ruthless, corrupt dictator, the elections a breach of Venezuela’s constitution, and the results de facto fraudulent.
Unsurprisingly Maduro’s opponents don’t approve of him and they’re alarmed at the state of the country. But as the campaign drew to a close, none - even under close questioning - repeated the accusations against him made by the United States and the EU. And all expressed confidence in an electoral system that US President Carter has described as the best in the world, though that didn’t prevent Henri Falcón, Maduro’s closest rival, from crying foul moments after learning of his defeat. Entirely digital, but with an automated manual verification back-up, the electoral system is designed with multiple safeguards against fraud. As an international observer, I had the opportunity not only to watch the system in action but to explore its workings. It is impressively efficient, with results available within a few hours of the closure of the polls. Among our observer group were officials responsible for electoral processes in their own country. They could find no fault in Venezuela’s system. Maduro’s electoral victory with just over two-thirds of the vote was more than comfortable; though the turnout at 46% was dangerously low by Venezuelan standards and has given rise to charges both within and beyond the country that the election lacked legitimacy. An abstention campaign by the right-wing MUD coalition (Mesa de la Unidad Democrática) undoubtedly had some negative effect on turnout, but general disaffection with politics and politicians in the face of increasing economic hardship will also have played a role in discouraging participation, not least because none of the candidates took the trouble to explain how they proposed to pull the country out of its current mess.
Meanwhile, foreign media have been making hay with defamatory rhetoric - much of it consisting of outright fabrications. On May 20th, Venezuela’s election day, we international observers, who had spent a week investigating Venezuela’s electoral procedures and meeting with campaign managers of all four candidates, learned from the Guardian/Observer website that we had been barred from the country and were not really there. “Venezuela has fallen to a dictator” screamed a Guardian headline two days later, assuring readers that the elections were fraudulent, and that among the methods employed by the regime to remain in power was “violent censorship of the press,” an assertion especially remarkable because most of the Venezuelan newspapers are openly hostile to Maduro. Perhaps the Guardian doesn’t read them. Milder, though no less larded with prejudice, was the Telegraph’s May 21st headline: “Nicolás Maduro filmed victoriously waving to an empty plaza after a ‘sham’ election,” the editor having apparently forgotten that on the previous day his newspaper had described Maduro speaking to a crowd of cheering supporters after his election victory. Similarly threadbare complaints against Venezuela are available courtesy of The Economist, the New Statesman, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and no doubt many others.
Most of the media venom directed at the Venezuelan government is evidence-free and based on little more than rote copying from press releases issued by the United States, the European Union and other hostile governments. All decline to acknowledge that despite the intense international pressure on the country and its disquieting economic situation, Venezuelans have spoken, and have demonstrated more than anything that they do not wish to be told what to think and do by foreign governments and media.
The freshly-elected government’s immediate task, a huge one, will be to rebuild Venezuela’s shattered economy. Whether Maduro and his team are able to accomplish this while maintaining peace within the country remains to be seen. Some would undoubtedly prefer to see them fail. What they and the people of Venezuela need and deserve from the rest of the world, however, is not hostility but respect , support and recognition of their right as a soveign people to decide their future for themselves.