Morning Star John McDonnell Interview

JOHN McDONNELL
by RICHARD BAGLEY
After nine months on the road, JOHN McDONNELL's Labour leadership campaign is nearing the finishing line. It seems he's relishing the challenges to come.
IT'S been a long time coming, but it looks like Tony Blair is finally going to step down from the Labour leadership after 13 years at the top.

His tenure has been tortuous for leftwingers, marked by subservience to big business and an obsession with the private sector. If his anointed successor Gordon Brown has his way, that looks likely to continue full steam ahead.

But one man hoping to throw a spanner in the works is left Labour leadership contender John McDonnell, who has waged a nine-month campaign aimed at uniting the grass roots of the labour and trade union movement around a truly progressive programme.
In the face of a virtual media blackout and overwhelming odds, his campaign has won the backing of a diverse range of groups and individuals disgusted at the direction in which the country and the Labour Party have been taken.

The latest step is the publication of a compact book, Another World is Possible. Contained within its pages is a comprehensive assessment of the state of the world and Britain in the 21st century - and some proposals as to how these problems can been tackled.
Meeting McDonnell in Parliament, it seems as if, rather than taking their toll on the Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, the nine months on the road have left him in high spirits.

"It's been tremendous," he beams. "I've met people who have no other ambition than to actually do good, they have no other objectives other than to promote the objectives on which they agree, no other reason for getting involved than that they believe themselves to be socialists and trade unionists and part of a movement that wants to change the world. It reaffirms your faith in humanity."

The man labelled "Honest John" by the Guardian in a recent profile talks animatedly about the contents of Another World is Possible and his leadership campaign, speaking with an excited air but seemingly without the kind of inflated ego so common in the political world.

"The one thing the whole campaign has been about is that it is not about individuals, it's a collective effort," he replies when asked about the new publication.

"What we wanted to do was to get a document that was accessible, readable and gave us a shared understanding of how the world is.

"The whole purpose of this is not looking backwards. We've got to look back in terms of how we got here, but we can't look back for old solutions.

"What we've got to do is found our new solutions as 21st century socialists on the principles that we've developed but then to look to the future."
The stark picture painted in Another World could be deemed depressing - not least, McDonnell concedes, by his wife - but the MP rejects the word.

"It's in your face, accurate, it's daunting. I don't think it's depressing.

"We've painted a picture of how globalisation works - this is what it means to you in terms of inequality, in terms of insecurity and fear, in terms of the impact on the environment, the planet plundered for profit and, in addition to that, what it means in terms of international wars and instability.

"So, that is a bleak description of the world as it now is, but, actually, it's honest, it's the world that people recognise out there. The underlying features of our society today are insecurity and fear."
The stakes are certainly high, a fact underlined when Brown proclaimed last year that Britain must become an "evangelist" for globalisation.

"It was an extraordinary expression to use," says McDonnell, "but that's what new Labour have done. They've unleashed the market on every area of our lives. We've got to understand that.

"They've introduced the market as their guiding force. What is our guiding force? It's democracy. So, how do we ensure that, where they've introduced the market, we democratise those areas.

"The underlying concept is what we've got to do is get back to the roots of socialism, which is about using democracy to create equality. That's what socialism is about."
And McDonnell is convinced that there is widespread support in Britain for socialist ideas.

"Whether it's campaigns on the environment, trade unions, students or whatever, all people want change because they're not satisfied with what's out there at the moment.

"You've now got groups in all parts of civil society campaigning at the local, regional and national level and we've got international movements that we've never had before."

That's as may be, but the fact remains that the electoral system means that candidates must win over their parliamentary colleagues first.
On the left, both Michael Meacher and McDonnell have announced their intention to stand.
They need to secure 45 nominations from Labour MPs in order to launch a campaign proper once Blair announces his decision.

The last few days have seen an unhelpful exchange between the Meacher and McDonnell campaigns following a Guardian article reporting that Brown was worried about the latter's challenge.
While the MP for Hayes and Harlington is not keen to get too bogged down by the issue, he does concede that the friction has been a "diversion."

"Michael Meacher's campaign has not been helpful," he says, "but it's about policies, not personalities. What we're saying to Michael is: 'Look, we'll sit down, set out the nominations that we've got and, if you set out yours, whoever's got the most can go forward'.

"The problem we've got in terms of timescale is that we expect Blair to go on May 8 or 9. There will only be five days - probably three parliamentary sittings - to get the nominations in. And, if an MP has nominated a candidate, unless that candidate withdraws, the MP can't switch their ballot."

While there is still uncertainty over the number of nominations that Meacher has secured - although the former environment minister has said that he has a fair few - McDonnell is confident that he has won over a number of MPs to the cause, a list that goes beyond the traditional left-wing Campaign Group.

"At the moment, we've think we've got 25. Our campaign manager MP Michael Wood's estimation is that that will go up to 30 shortly.

"We're allowing people to make up their own minds, not putting pressure on them, convincing of the arguments. Then there's the last 10-15. We think we can get there, but it's going to be tough."
Whatever the result among MPs, though, McDonnell believes that the grass-roots campaign waged by him and his fellow travellers has done a great deal to boost morale on the left.
In fact, he recalls, it was the clamour for a left contender at meetings across the country last year that led to his decision to run for the leadership. Initially, McDonnell had argued against the idea.

"My argument then was that, when the left enters any activity from hereon in, it's got to be serious and it's got to be successful. The way we measure that success is, does it advance the movement or does it set it back?" he explains.

"I didn't think we had sufficient support either in the constituency Labour parties or the trade unions either to win the Labour leadership but also to win the battle of ideas and to move the movement forward."
But a series of meetings changed his mind. He says: "What completely convinced me was not just the enthusiasm but the willingness of people to say: 'Well, we can put the structure in place ... we've still got a tremendous base among the rank and file of the Labour Party on the left who are socialists and, at the same time, we've got a huge base in the trade union movement'."
While unions such as the Fire Brigades Union, transport union RMT and public-sector union PCS have backed his campaign, even ordering some of the 10,000 copies of Another World is Possible to distribute among their members, Britain's biggest unions have not put their weight behind McDonnell.

"The 'big four,' plus CWU, meet on a regular basis and, tactically, they've decided that they would not nominate anyone until the election is called. The objective behind that appears to be that they want to negotiate with Gordon Brown," asserts McDonnell.

"It's interesting that, since they agreed that strategy, three months later, he announces a wage cut for public-sector workers and we've gone through in the last six months the biggest wave of privatisations that this country has been through - beyond anything that Thatcher dreamed of and into areas that Thatcher was fearful of touching - privatising whole sections of the Ministry of Defence, a £15 billion contract for MoD training, the coastguard service, the liberalising of the Post Office.

"Individual members are now asking: 'Why isn't our union backing someone who's backing us?'" he says.
While it has been suggested that there's no point in backing McDonnell's campaign because he has little chance of even getting past the first hurdle, the MP points out that the same argument has been used before.

"That was the explicit argument used in the debates around whether anyone should vote for Derek Simpson or Tony Woodley," he points out.

"Exactly the same arguments were used. They did win, because people had the confidence and courage to vote and organise on the basis of principle."

Nevertheless, McDonnell remains confident that, if he can secure sufficient nominations, a majority of rank-and-file trade union members will use their vote to back his campaign.
The MP chuckles when asked whether the McDonnell campaign is just about winning the leadership.

"If it was just about achieving position," he laughs, "I'd have picked up every right-wing policy that new Labour is pursuing and portrayed myself as a new Labour politician. I'd most likely be in the Cabinet by now and be what the Guardian would call 'a serious candidate.'

"It isn't about that at all. What this is about is saying: 'Here's a set of ideas. Do we share these ideas? Can we move forward? Can we build a movement around them?

"That doesn't undermine the seriousness of wanting to become the leader of the Labour Party, because if we could achieve that objective, it would give us such strength in developing the arguments and giving us another platform from which we can advocate our policies."
He raises again the Guardian piece that has caused all the trouble with Meacher over the past few days.

"Why is Gordon Brown desperate not to have me stand?

"I don't necessarily think he's worried about losing. What he and his colleagues are worried about in new Labour is that, if I stand, it will demonstrate that there is overwhelming support for our ideas and that might well be translated into a significant vote - and I'm confident about that, both in trade unions and among local Labour Party members.

"What we'll have done is we'll have recreated the broad church of the Labour Party.

"Once we've done that, there is no leader who wants to win the next election that can ignore that that force has re-emerged. Whether it be in changing policy or the composition of government, any leader who wants to win the next election will have to take that into account."
To many, it may seem like a challenge too far, but McDonnell is having none of it.

"The worst thing about society at the moment is that people feel completely alienated and powerless," he says.

"It results in people creating their own world through drugs or trying to satisfy themselves through consumerism or being left completely isolated.

"What we're saying is: 'Well, actually, you can become part of a movement that can tackle those issues and your contribution is as valuable as anyone's."

"Whether we win the leadership election campaign or not, whether we're on the ballot paper or not, what we've built is a movement for the next stage of our campaign."