Key issues - Democratic rights

The 18 years of Tory rule saw a wave of attacks on the democratic rights not just of working people and their organisations, but on the general right to organise - with a massive extension of police powers, and restrictions on occupations, demonstrations and political activity.

But those who thought a Labour government would reinstate any of those lost rights or extend an open and liberal regime, sweeping away reactionary (and often ridiculous) legislation such as the Official Secrets Act - which so frustrated and embarrasses the last Labour government which tried to use it - have been cruelly disappointed.

Instead New Labour has torn up its pre-election promises.

It has pushed through even more draconian legislation than the Tories, notably in the Terrorism Act - which could potentially be used to gag a wide range of legitimate political opinion in Britain - and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, described by the NUJ NEC as "the most draconian invasion of individual privacy ever put on the statute book in the UK". It allows the state secret access to everyone’s e-mails and other communications, and adds up to the most sweeping powers of electronic surveillance anywhere in the world.

Journalists who keep information encrypted for security purposes can face jail sentences of up to two years if they fail to divulge either the material or the key to the encryption. Any public authority can seek a deception order and access to confidential information if they think it necessary for the performance of their duties, to prevent or detect a crime, or to preserve "economic well-being"!

Jack Straw’s so-called Freedom of Information Act, watered down to an insipid and timid series of half-measures, few of which will take effect at national level before 2002, has been condemned as "weaker than the Conservatives’ openness code" by the Campaign for Freedom of Information.

The new law, which received Royal Assent in November 2000 serves to restrict as well as free up access to information. It removes the statutory right of the press and public to attend council decision-making meetings, to get agenda papers in advance, and to see the minutes of decisions that have been taken. It will assist in future cover-ups on issues ranging from the investigations into police racism and incompetence, through to health and safety and the conduct of public bodies.

There will be no requirement to disclose information on road, rail, ferry or air accidents, fires, chemical spills or nuclear incidents. Authorities which do disclose limited information can impose restrictions on its use, preventing the person who receives it from publicising it. Authorities will be given 40 days to respond to requests for information - longer than in any other country.

This is of course not the first Labour government to be so obsessed with gagging opponents and strengthening the machinery of the capitalist state.

We say a socialist alternative must start from the opposite assumptions: that the state machine uses secrecy to repress and contain the working class and any who can expose it and the power relations behind the flimsy façade of "democracy" in capitalist Britain. Among the first demands on any workers’ government must be to strip away this legal protection from civil servants, bureaucrats, the police and the armed forces, and to demand the fullest, unfettered access to information on actions allegedly carried out in "the public interest". Just as we want to "open the books" of industry, we need to open up the records of the millions of decisions being taken behind locked doors.

Labour’s half-hearted tinkering with the idea of "reforming" the House of Lords also falls well short of the radical-sounding rhetoric both before the election and in the early days of New Labour administration. The continuation of an unelected, unrepresentative upper house - and the continued constitutional powers of the monarchy - stand as an indictment of the failure to complete the democratic revolution in Britain, over 250 years after the execution of Charles 1.

The timidity of the British capitalist class since that time has been compounded by the more recent spineless acquiescence of generations of reformist Labour leaders, who have gladly bent the knee in toadying acceptance of the power of the monarchy, the aristocracy and the core state machinery of armed forces and bureaucracy. Since they have never had any intention of sweeping away capitalism, they have seen no need to confront the relics of feudalism which remain at the heart of the capitalist state.

A socialist government, committed to a massive expansion of democracy for working people, would sweep away the paraphernalia of monarchy, and abolish the House of Lords. The voting system would be democratised, with the introduction of Proportional Representation to enable shades of political opinion to fight for broad popular support.

The decision making of ministers and local government would be subject instead to scrutiny at local and regional level by elected workers’ committees.

The abolition of the monarchy would also facilitate another key democratic reform - the complete separation between Church and state, the disestablishment of the Church of England, and the establishment of a secular state and education system.

While this measure will help address the issue of institutional discrimination against certain minority religious groups, it will not mean any restriction on individual or collective religious practice: only that these will be carried on without any direct involvement, support or subsidies from the state.

Labour crawls to media barons

New Labour’s efforts to reinforce the arbitrary powers of the state machinery run alongside a refusal to confront the massive power of another key institution: the mass media. Tony Blair’s flirtation with Rupert Murdoch prior to the 1997 election may have secured (temporary) backing for Labour from the Sun and the Times, but the Millbank strategy has been one of continued cuddling up to even the most right wing of the national daily newspapers and their millionaire bosses.

This is one reason why the few token gestures towards preserving the right to privacy, regulation of standards and empowering the victims of unfair press coverage to pursue complaints, have been completely ineffectual. The reactionary libel laws remain as a tool in the hands of the wealthy to protect themselves from investigation or critical comment, while the media remain free to witch-hunt and castigate powerless individuals with impunity.

Their efforts to win over "middle England" and its favourite publications has reinforced New Labour’s natural disinclination to challenge issues, such as the concentration of ownership of newspapers and the expanding range of terrestrial and satellite TV.

But Blair’s courtship ritual has not even been rewarded by a continued sympathetic coverage. Traditionally Tory papers have gone back onto the offensive, with the Daily Mail railing against all things Labour, the Daily Telegraph aping Hague’s europhobia, and the Daily Express, sold off by Blairite Lord Hollick, now in the hands of porn magnate Richard Desmond. Only the obvious isolation of the Tory leadership from public support (and therefore from much of the readership of these archetypal right wing rags) has limited the vitriol of press attacks on the Blairites.

But New Labour has been equally timid in tackling one area of the media where the government has direct influence. The sale of commercial TV franchises continues under the system set up by the Tories, selling to the highest bidder. This restricts the amount of cash available to make programmes, and therefore guarantees a constant decline in the quality of domestic programme production.

There has been a constant process of "dumbing down", to accommodate ever more cheap US and other imported material and recycled tat and trivia, which also fills many of the proliferation of cable and satellite TV channels. And far from opening up and democratising control of the BBC, clearing out the team of Tory appointees that Labour inherited on its Board of Governors, Blair’s team has contented itself with installing a few of their own cronies.

A socialist government, working with the media unions, would give urgent priority to reversing the concentration of media ownership in a few private hands, and opening up access to press and broadcasting for a much wider range of community and minority interests.

John Lister is a leading health activist.