The Hollow rhetoric of Miliband’s New Politics

Barry Biddulph argues that Labour will never be on our side 

Striking is irrelevant for Ed Miliband. He had an awkward lesson for September’s TUC conference: trade unions should offer better relations with their employers. What Labour needed was a continuation of the partnership between business and the unions. The way forward was not negative strikes, but a positive “new economy” built on the Labourite value of cooperation, not conflict in the workplace.

 

 

But this  desire for social peace is traditional Labour politics. The Labour Representation Committee originally founded Labour on the basis of  Keir Hardy’s resolution rejecting class war in favour of parliamentary  constitutionalism. Ramsay MacDonald, the leader of the first Labour Government in 1924, advocated and acted on the commitment to growing  capitalist society, not building a working class alternative.