FORUM: Tea with the Miliband who was inspiration to socialists

Published: 3 September, 2010

AS brothers David and Ed Miliband go head to head in the Labour leadership contest,  Jeremy Corbyn recalls another Miliband, their father Ralph, and Sunday evening debates where latecomers had to sit in Keir Hardie’s chair

The Labour leadership election is now at the crucial voting stage.

While as a democrat I would hope that all policy decisions would be taken by the party and approved by conference I recognise that leaders have an enormous role.

The five candidates on offer all come from different backgrounds.

Diane Abbott from a background of the hard-working Caribbean diaspora, which shapes her politics and views. Andy Burnham is very conscious of being from a northern, working-class family.

The ones who provide fascination for their apparent differences yet shared upbringing are the Milibands, Ed and David.

A fascinating article by Jonathan Derbyshire in the New Statesman on August 30 profiled Ralph, their Marxist father who has been an inspiration to generations of socialists.

A quick look at Facebook will confirm his enduring appeal; a site has been set up calling for support for “my favourite Miliband, Ralph”.

It seems to have a lot of backing and I enjoy reading the acerbic comments on it.

Sadly, Derbyshire’s article and indeed many other profiles do not give much recognition to his wife Marion, a great socialist, peace campaigner and activist. Maybe there is sexism lurking.

The article reflects on the strange and strained relationship Ralph had with the Labour Party.

A Marxist who never joined the Communist Party and always fascinated by debate, he became a great admirer of Tony Benn.

Earlier, in the 1950s he had been a supporter of Nye Bevan.

Labour’s 1979 defeat ushered in Thatcher, the monetarists, huge cuts in public spending and privatisation.

The whole thrust of Thatcherism was saved by the Falklands War and Labour’s 1983 defeat on a manifesto that pledged a National Investment Bank and improved public services. And, of course, nuclear disarmament.

That defeat made way for the miners’ strike, the bitter defeat of 1985 and the destruction of virtually the whole industry.

Labour, having lost in 1983, elected Neil Kinnock as leader, with his approach of restructuring the Party, “new realism” in its politics and a big change from the 1983 policies with a new document, “aims and values”.

Tony Benn was, and remains, a huge figure in Labour and socialist politics and always wanted a forum, debate and an organisation that could harness radical energy.

He was attracted to The Socialist Society, founded in 1981, and worked closely with Ralph Miliband and others to make a reality of it.

There was also a closer group who met on Sunday evenings, usually at Benn’s house in Holland Park and once at my then flat in Turle Road, Finsbury Park.

It was named the Independent Left Corresponding Society; this odd title was Tony’s inimitable way of catching the times and the history.

Concerned about expulsions and intolerance in the party, he drew the title from the corresponding societies that met in London’s coffee houses during the repressive period of the Napoleonic Wars.

The Combination Acts effectively outlawed trade unions; thus corresponding societies were a way of radicals meeting and surviving.

Our group was an eclectic mix of Tony Benn, Ralph Miliband, Hilary Wainwright, Tariq Ali, former party general secretary Jim Mortimer, Leo Panitch, Perry Anderson, Andrew Glyn and others from time to time.

Tony saw his role as convenor, which included lengthy tea-making and bringing of cups and kettles into his book-and-banner-laden living room as we perched on aged settees or chairs.

Tony took notes of the meetings and on another pad pencilled scrawls for later dictation into his diaries.

The feature of the room is Keir Hardie’s chair, which was given to Caroline Benn after completing a biography of Labour’s founder.

While of great historical symbolism, it is extraordinarily uncomfortable, a cross between a hard chair designed for a primitive methodist chapel and the sort of dining chair one would keep “for best”. 

Because it is flat one was forced to sit up straight to avoid sliding off, but leaning back brings you into direct contact with a wooden decorative boss that ensures there is no danger of snoozing.

After a few meetings this once-sought-after spot became the place for latecomers.

In this atmosphere we debated the miners’ strike, economic directions and party structures.

I once gave a report of a visit I had made to trade unionists in war-torn El Salvador.

The unifying theme was about bringing together radical traditions in and out of the Labour Party.

Everyone there was either in the party, had been or been expelled, in the case of Tariq Ali.

The feeling was that the party was becoming too accommodating of the whole cultural shift that Thatcherism had brought about.

Ralph, having been in the party in the 1950s, then very sceptical about its ability to bring about socialism, was excited by the left and in particular Benn’s role.

As ever, it was the issue of the economy that created the most discussion – nationalisation and state direction of a mixed economy or living with capitalism and the market.

To move the ideas on to a wider stage we organised the enormous Chesterfield conferences in Tony’s then constituency to bring together all left groups and unions.

These were enormous affairs, but treated with scepticism and hostility by the party leadership and suspicion by many left groups happier in a smaller, more ordered world of their own.

They nevertheless did help to develop debate on the eve of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the command economy model.

After the shock of the 1992 defeat, Labour turned in hope to John Smith, who sadly died.

Blair followed and brought in New Labour, top-down democracy and at times a love affair with market economics.

The free market and bankers’ free rein have more than run their course as the coalition government savagely smashes into the social spending that keeps many from destitution.

It is up to Labour to find an alternative.

I hope a socialist one that values all humans and environment and a party that is proud of its depth, breadth and variety.

Sadly, Ralph Miliband died in 1994 and we only have Socialism for a Sceptical Age to fall back on.

Bizarrely, David Miliband is quoted in the New Statesman as saying Anthony Crosland was his hero – the absolute bête noire of the Bevanites in the 1950s.

As for Ed, we can hope.   

• Jeremy Corbyn is Islington North  Labour MP