New Communist Party of Britain

This is just one section of the Main Political Resolution adopted at the 2009 16^th Congress of the New Communist Party of Britain.
An index to the other sections can be found here -> [2009 Policy Documents]

FOR A DEMOCRATIC LABOUR PARTY

The New Communist Party was founded in 1977 to build the communist movement around the revolutionary principles of Marxism−Leninism. Since then we have campaigned for the maximum working class unity against the ruling class, while campaigning to build the revolutionary party.

Working people can never achieve state power through bourgeois elections. Bourgeois elections are democratic only for the ruling class and their instruments, a tool to mask their real dictatorship. All bourgeois elections are the manipulation of the largest number of votes by the smallest number of people.

We reject the “parliamentary road” and electoral politics. The old Communist Party of Great Britain abandoned the revolutionary road when it adopted the British Road to Socialism. Its successors in the Communist Party of Britain and the Communist Party of Scotland continue this essentially social−democratic and revisionist policy today. The Socialist Labour Party, Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), Respect and No2EU all express essentially the same theory.

The paltry gains of all these parties reflect the futility of trying to compete with the Labour Party in bourgeois elections. Respect has one MP, entirely due to the standing of George Galloway within the anti−war movement and the Muslim community in Britain. These gains are more than matched by the non−socialist Greens which shows the futility of programmes that argue the only way to defeat social democracy is in fact to imitate it.

They call for social−democratic reforms while campaigning against the only mass force capable of implementing reform, the Labour Party itself. They foster the illusion that there is a left electoral alternative to Labour when the reality is that the only alternative — in the current situation — to a Labour government is a Tory or a Liberal Democrat government.

All of them end up attacking the Labour Party rather than the ruling class as the main enemy of the working class. Objectively they end up in the camp of the class enemy.

But the masses are often much wiser than those who claim to lead them and this is why these parties remain isolated amongst the working class, despite all their pretensions. The Labour Party is not the enemy of the working class nor is it a barrier to communist advance.

The NCP’s electoral policy is to vote Labour in all elections apart from the bogus European parliamentary polls, which we boycott. This is not because we support the venal right−wing policies of “New Labour”, Gordon Brown, or because we think a Labour government can solve the problems of working people. That isn’t possible in a capitalist “democracy”. It is simply the best possible outcome in the current circumstances.

A Labour government, with the yet unbroken links with the Labour Party, the trade unions and the co−operative movement, offers the best option for the working class in the era of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. Our strategy is for working class unity and our campaigns are focused on defeating the right−wing within the movement and strengthening the left and progressive forces within the Labour Party and the unions.

Day−to−day demands for reform, progressive taxation, state welfare and a public sector dedicated to meet the people’s needs are winnable under capitalism, particularly in a rich country like Britain today.

We support these demands, support the modest progressive reforms Labour has introduced and back the demands of those within the Labour Party and the trade union movement who are campaigning for greater social justice.

We support those in the Labour Party fighting for left social−democratic policies. We backed those, like Ken Livingstone, who defied the Labour leadership, with rank−and−file Labour Party and union support to win the London Mayoralty and returned to Labour Party membership with his position vindicated.

Our Party supports left social−democratic Labour activists who have mass support, even when they come into electoral conflict with the Labour leadership. It is part of our struggle for a democratic Labour Party.

Though the Labour Party is dominated by the class−collaborating right wing in the parliamentary party and the trade union movement, the possibility of their defeat exists as long as Labour retains its organisational links with the trade unions that fund it. The defeat of right−wing union blocs in most of the major unions over the past five years demonstrates this possibility.

We support the affiliation of unions to the Labour Party. We must fight for affiliation in those unions that are not affiliates and we must demand that the Labour Party reflect the wishes of the millions of its affiliated union members, expressed through the unions’ democratic procedures.

The fight for a democratic Labour Party is linked to the fight for a democratic trade union movement. In the unions we must struggle to elect genuine working class leaderships, who are prepared to represent and fight for the membership against the employers and against the right−wing within the movement and to campaign for the removal of all anti−trade union legislation.

The Party must campaign for a democratic Labour Party controlled by its affiliates: a Labour Party whose policies reflected those of a democratic union movement would become a powerful instrument for progressive reforms that would strengthen organised labour and benefit the working class.

We welcomed the creation of the new Labour Representation Committee (LRC) that was restored by a number of left Labour MPs and trade unions in 2004 to secure political representation for the labour movement and promote a series of progressive policies for a future Labour government.

In February 2005 the NCP affiliated to the Labour Representation Committee, which was only possible under the LRC’s rules because the NCP does not run candidates against Labour in the elections. Marxist−Leninists, for the first time since the 1920s, can now make the case for communism within a part of the Labour Party itself.

At the same time we must build the revolutionary party and campaign for revolutionary change. Social democracy remains social democracy whatever trend is dominant within it. It has never led to socialism. Revisionism, which poses as communism, has only led to the destruction of the Soviet Union and the people’s governments of eastern Europe and the destruction of some mass communist parties millions strong.

Our Party’s strategy is the only way to fight for the communist alternative within the working class of England, Scotland and Wales. We want day−to−day reforms and they can only be achieved by the main reformist, social democratic party in Britain, the Labour Party. We want revolution and that can only be achieved through the leadership of the communist party.