Why Britain now needs a Socialist Labour Party

This coming Saturday, the founding conference of the Socialist Labour Party will be held. The decision to launch this party has not been taken lightly. It is based on an amalgam of analysis, experience and emotion which has produced the conclusion that "new Labour" can no longer offer a home to those who want to work for socialism.

When, last October, Clause IV, with its commitment to common ownership, was cut out of the party constitution, I was faced with a challenge I could not duck or hide from. Commitment to the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange was a cornerstone, a founding principle in the Labour Party that was born nearly a century ago. It was a constitutional aim that made Labour fundamentally different from the Tories and the Liberals.

The new rulebook adopted at the 1995 Labour Party conference, however, went far beyond ditching Clause IV. The new rules, together with fundamental policy changes, mean that - as Tony Blair has declared - "new Labour" is a "new and different party", which has now actually embraced capitalism and the "free market".

On all the fundamental issues that affect the lives of working class people, their families and communities, "new Labour" has adopted policies that cannot be supported by those who call themselves socialist. On privatisation, "new Labour" is clear that it will not reverse and repair the appalling social/economic damage created by the Tories' privatisation programme.

On unemployment - "new Labour" has abandoned a commitment to full employment, with its leadership declaring it cannot guarantee that "new Labour" could eradicate unemployment. In reality, a British government could do exactly that, even within a capitalist society - by introducing a four-day working week with no loss of pay, banning all non-essential overtime, and introducing voluntary retirement on full pay at the age of 55. It is economic insanity to pay out more than pounds 50bn a year on unemployment when the measures referred to above could create full employment. But the very nature of capitalism cannot cope with such measures.

On pensions, "new Labour" is in the process of abandoning the principle of universal pension provision for all citizens, and is examining ways in which workers will have to pay for pension security and for care in old age.

These are just three fundamental issues which have given rise to such grave concerns throughout the working-class constituency that originally gave birth to the Labour Party. I believe that this situation has presented socialists with an inescapable challenge.

The decision taken a few months ago, in January, to establish a Socialist Labour Party has met with enthusiastic response from trade unions, pensioner and environmental activists, and single-issue campaigners. It has, of course, also aroused hostility and derision in certain quarters . Much of the criticism has come from the "left" in the Labour movement as well as from the "right".

The hostility from some on the left is actually reminiscent of the response to the birth of the Labour Party nearly a century ago. At the Labour Representation Committee's founding conference in 1900, trade unions generally, including the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, refused to attend, opposing the birth of a socialist Labour Party as a threat to the Liberal Party.

While Socialist Labour is born from the frustration and anger of trade union and Labour movement activists who feel disenfranchised by "new Labour", its founding spirit is overwhelmingly positive, full of hope - and belief that that hope can be fulfilled.

The writer is leader of the Socialist Labour Party.