Civitas

In light of their vote, one feels like giving a resounding endorsement to the title of an op-ed piece appearing in today’s Times which reads, ‘We need power to the people, not to the autocratic new Labour clique’.

However, what appears below that title makes clear that the author of the article, Michael Meacher, would most likely approve of how the Labour MEP’s voted. For the autocratic Labour clique whom he makes clear he has in mind are those modernising Blairites who favour extending consumer-choice and the market and those whom he looks on as the people for whom he wishes greater power are those disaffected former Labour voters who abstained from voting Labour at the election out of disaffection with these and other aspects of New Labour’s policies.

On one matter, however, at least Meacher does get things spot on. He does so when he observes that: ‘The problem for all parties of the Left is how to reconcile social justice with an unfettered capitalist economy. New Labour simply used spin to claim that the are compatible. Evidence suggests that they are not.’

Despite being absolutely right here, Meacher draws entirely the wrong inference from the fact, when he argues, given their incompatibility, that capitalism needs fettering for the sake of social justice.

The truth, however, is, given their incompatibility, that it is capitalism that should be left as unfettered as possible and that it is social justice that should be given up which is no more genuine justice than much of what passes for social science is genuine science.

One way in which to secure this is by not encumbering the British economy by the Working-Time Directive which should be strictly reserved only for fools and donkeys and whoever else considers it a good idea.