Jim Murphy : forerunner of the death of labourism?

Well, the votes are in, and the remaining few members of the Labour Party in Scotland have voted for Jim Murphy as their leader. As did, pretty enthusiastically, the MPs and MSPs. The affiliates, which is mainly to say unions, didn't - of which more presently. Cue obligatory comment about Turkeys and Christmas.

I have form with Jim Murphy. He was president of the NUS and a big thing in Labour Students when I was an undergraduate. He didn't seem to like me. In fairness to our protagonist, the feeling was mutual; I thought he was terrible then, and he is beyond terrible now. Be quite certain, this is the most right-wing person ever to be elected to a leadership position in the Labour Party, and I include Blair in that reckoning. An unpleasant political fixer avant la lettre, he is, quite incredibly, a member of the Henry Jackson Society. The immediate consequence of his election will be Labour haemorrhaging votes to the SNP next year, when the now certain strategy of opposing them from the right will go down like a lead balloon with the Scottish electorate.

Murphy did not win amongst trade unions, in spite apparently of some SNP trade unionists voting for him as an act of political euthanasia. Calls are already being made for unions to disaffiliate from the party in Scotland. More intriguingly, there are rumours of significant unions - I've heard Unison named - taking this call seriously. 

Working class politics in Britain has been dominated for over a century by the unique phenomenon of labourism. The dual premises of the labourist settlement are the link between trade unions and the Labour Party and Labour functioning as the 'natural party' for working class voters. The correct answer to the question, "is labourism a good or a bad thing?" is a resounding "yes and no". On the one hand, labourism has kept class allegiance in focus in British electoral politics, given a certain political voice to trade unions, and won reforms, most notably the welfare state. On the other, labourism has undoubtedly functioned as a political brake on the working class, at once forcing a division of labour between the political and industrial wings of the labour movement whilst making trade union bureaucracies unhealthily beholden to Labour leaderships. Either way, labourism is real, and has needed to be reckoned with by anyone serious about socialist politics in Britain. The two word answer to the question why I remain in the Labour Party is "labourism persists".

But for how much longer? Labourism is under pressure throughout Britain. It was deliberately targeted in the New Labour era, and faces a renewed threat from the implementation of the Collins reforms. Meanwhile we're witnessing a certain fracturing of traditional party allegiances, with the rise of what has been misleadingly christened 'anti-politics', the Jeckyl and Hyde personae of which are Nigel Farage and Russell Brand.

What is somewhat true throughout Britain, however, is true with a vengeance in Scotland. The SNP has already undermined Labour allegiance in a layer of the working class, and the impact of the referendum, and the major parties back-peddling on their 'vow' to implement devomax will hasten this. With Jim Murphy, who opposed even a referendum on independence, behind the wheel the acceleration will be great indeed. Labour will be fighting the next election in Scotland as the major opponent of the SNP from the right, and this will push their status as a party of reform to breaking point. Meanwhile, the union link is threatened north of the border with more immediacy than in England and Wales. Remember that the disaffiliation of the RMT from the Labour Party throughout Britain was a product of Scottish politics; history could yet repeat.

It is foolish to make predictions in this area, but it is not beyond the bounds of imagination that yesterday's election result was a decisive moment in the death of labourism.