A victory for instability

Perhaps the most telling statistic in the Labour leadership election was the abysmal turn-out in the trade union section of the electoral college. At 9%, it was lower than during the ballot for the party’s deputy leadership held in 2007.

Despite, (or more likely as a result of), a huge effort by trade union bureaucrats to get members to vote for Ed Miliband, more than 90% who could have voted for him or one of the other four candidates chose not to. In one union, the shopworkers’ USDAW, only 4.3% voted.

That tells you something about trade unionists’ patent lack of faith in their own “leaders” and the advice they received, as well as the widespread disillusionment with Labour politics.

All the trumpeted headlines about “red Ed” are, of course, a smokescreen designed to help the Lib-Con coalition. Ed is no more “socialist” than his brother David. He sat on his hands while New Labour cosied up to the banks and corporations and wrote the party’s recent election manifesto.

Unlike his brother, however, Ed Miliband – who was politically close to Gordon Brown – realised that New Labour was discredited and needs a makeover if the electorate is to be fooled into voting for them again. He is a British version of “change you can believe in”, which became Obama’s mantra.

But because his margin of win was so thin – and with local parties giving Ed Miliband first preference in only 72 of the 635 constituencies – it’s a pyrrhic and unstable victory. This point is reinforced by the barely concealed hostility to him expressed by the party establishment who saw their way back to power through brother David.

A sophisticated operator, Ed Miliband studied at Oxford under Marxist tutor Andrew Glynn. There the comparison with his father – the notable Marxist academic Ralph – ends. The brothers consciously decided that Old Labour was a burden and took the New Labour oath. Distancing yourself from your past in a dishonest manner, as Ed Miliband has done, in order to achieve office is the worst kind of opportunism.

The support given to Ed Miliband by the leaders of the main affiliated unions – which enabled him to overtake his brother at the last gasp – was a reflection (albeit a distorted one) of rank-and-file discontent and concern about the impending massive cuts in public spending and the impact this will have on jobs, services and pensions.

At the same time, it is the explicit desire of union bureaucrats to maintain the status quo and to hold the groundswell of opposition to government within old framework of parliamentary politics and prevent things spinning out of control.

They have hopes of making Ed Miliband their proxy. The Unite union campaigned by texting, phone banking and emailing members, an operation run by Charlie Whelan, its political officer and former fixer for Brown. Whelan persuaded six union-backed MPs to switch their second preferences from David to Ed. "I can retire now after helping deliver this for Ed," he said.

But Unite and other unions are certain to be disappointed. There is immediate and massive pressure on Ed Miliband to “disavow his own campaign”, as the Times’ leader puts it, “which set out unserious positions on banking, capitalism and the deficit in the public services”.

The new Labour leader has already said he wants to help middle England and scotched any idea that his election is a “move to the left”. Labour councils will soon be implementing coalition cuts and the party leadership will do nothing to stop this assault.

Ed Miliband’s election and the political stalemate it has created in Labour’s ranks, is a mirror of the instability and insecurity among voters as a whole that produced a cobbled-together coalition after June’s general election. As the global financial crisis worsens, there is a crisis of leadership in every section of society. How this is resolved will determine our future history.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

An act of state terrorism

The Israeli state literally gets away with murder, dealing out death and destruction with impunity, confident that friendly governments in Europe and America will turn a blind eye or at worst profess temporary, affected outrage. That was the scene played out in London yesterday.

Israel’s ambassador in London was “invited” to the Foreign Office to explain how fakes of British citizens’ passports had turned up in Dubai, used by the assassins of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Ambassador Ron Prosor left looking less than chastened, while in Israel they were saying that the British government was simply “going through the motions”.

The well-worn term double standards doesn’t even begin to apply here. Perhaps treble or quadruple standards might be more appropriate. The murder of al-Mabhouh was an act of terrorism, and the fact that it was perpetrated by a state only adds to the degree of calculation and planning involved.

But search the media, listen to the BBC and other outlets and you won’t read or hear the term “terrorism” used in relation to the Dubai murder. Instead, it’s politely referred to as “targeted assassination”, as if that made it any more acceptable. Of course, if the boot had been on the other foot, Hamas would be quickly branded as “terrorists” and beyond the pale of civilised society.

Now reports are circulating that Mossad, aka as Murder Incorporated, told Britain’s MI6 spy agency that fake British passports would be used in an operation. Moreover, the Foreign Office was informed hours before the actual killing of al-Mabhouh that such a plan was in motion. So David Miliband’s “anger” is more feigned than real, it would seem because New Labour has known about the passports scam for some time. Mossad and MI6 have had a long-term collaboration and the notion that this will be affected by the Dubai killing is just laughable.

None of this should surprise us. New Labour and other European governments have helped make Hamas leaders a “legitimate” target by refusing to recognise the organisation’s election victory in Gaza and boycotting any relations with it. This facilitates Israel’s continuing blockade of Gaza and its arrogance in the face of war crimes committed during January 2009 assault that left 1,500 dead and infrastructure destroyed.

Mossad’s involvement – Dubai police are 99% certain it was them – in the killing of al-Mabhouh is also intended to block any attempts inside Israel itself to bring Hamas into any negotiations with the Palestinians. Hamas militants have on the whole stopped firing rockets into Israel since the 2009 Israeli assault and there was talk of concluding a prisoner exchange.

Was the killing of al-Mabhouh intended to provoke militants into retaliation and strengthen the hand of the far-right Israeli government which is stuffed full of racists like foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman? If there were such developments it would be more difficult, for example, for France to continue its behind-the-scenes overtures to Hamas.

And so while the British and American governments express a desire for a peace deal, the Israel state just gets on with its daily business of destroying Palestinian homes, creating more settlements, ripping up olive groves, building walls and electrified fences – in short, building an apartheid regime that the world thought had disappeared with the old South Africa. And not forgetting carrying out state terror attacks in other countries.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor