Back to the Future of Socialism 

by Peter Hain

(Policy Press, £15.99)

FORMER Labour Cabinet member Peter Hain has written a book arguing that the assumptions on which leading Gaitskellite right-winger Anthony Crosland based his famous Future of Socialism, written in the 1950s, have collapsed.

That is not this book, however. It is The Democratic Alternative, which Hain wrote in 1983 and I reviewed for the Morning Star at the time. So we have been here before. 

Peter Hain can’t be faulted for persistence. His latest book, like the previous, attempts to set out a radical agenda for Labour. That is what Hain does when in opposition.

And when in government? Another story.

The 1983 Hain argued for strict controls on capital movements and exchange and for managed trade. He proposed a public ownership stake in each of the 25 key sectors of the economy.

Hain ’83 said that a socialist British government would have to break the rules of the EEC, as it then was, and face expulsion or withdrawal. He even asserted that “Western countries and multinationals are the main causes of the Third World’s problems. The net result is in essence what socialists call ‘imperialism’.”

I could go on. But perhaps it should just be said that a lot of blood has flowed under the social democratic bridge since then.

Hain joined the government of Tony Blair in 1997 and the Cabinet in 2002.

There he remained with a brief interruption until Labour lost office in 2010, so he has been well-placed to observe the passage.

It is fair to say that the Blair-Brown governments implemented absolutely nothing that Peter Hain had been urging in 1983 and, indeed, went in the opposite direction exactly.

But, one more time with feeling. Today, Crosland has been rehabilitated. Furthermore, “it is in Britain’s national interest to remain in the EU,” membership of which makes Britain “stronger, safer, wealthier and greener.”

Hain acknowledges some of Labour’s failures in office on equality and other areas and wants to move on from his past. He advocates a new effort by Labour to build “a better-off, fairer and safer society.” 

What does that mean? According to Hain, it is: “Shifting today’s boundary between market forces and state intervention, redefining the roles of competition and co-operation, and changing the rules about privilege, poverty and shares in prosperity.

“It means striking a new balance between rivalry and fraternity, between entitlement and obligation and between continuity and change.”

Yes, we need a new balance between continuity and change. It also means “having the courage of our convictions.” Apparently, it is not the moment for timidity anymore.

Honestly, you lose the will to live. That the ambitious and radical Hain of anti-apartheid campaigning and the 1983 prospectus should be reduced to a parade of inane sub-Blair cliches is grim enough. That he should have sat in Cabinet through all the depredations of the imperialist, pro-City, fawn-on-the-rich new Labour regime is of course worse.

And what does 2015 Peter Hain have to say about the worst decision of that government, one for which he will forever be branded? 

“For some on the left, promoting democracy across the world became indelibly associated with the neoconservative agenda and, by extension, the war in Iraq.”

That’s it. The Hain in opposition is unable to either defend or disassociate himself from a criminal war — “in essence what socialists call ‘imperialism’” — which has resulted in the deaths or displacement of millions of people.

If you want details of his plans for the next Labour government, which he will not be a member of, then please buy the book. 

To be honest, I have not got the patience myself.