Editorial
The NDP Convention and the Slow but Steady Drift Towards Irrelevancy
The New Democratic Party (NDP) held its national convention in Winnipeg from November 23rd to 25th. This convention was billed as a convention of renewal, a last-ditch attempt to revive the fortunes of a party which has experienced a steady decline in popular support since it handed the anti-free trade platform to the Liberals in 1988. In the last federal election the NDP won only 13 seats, just barely clinging on to official party status, and its popular support fell to 9 percent.
Various options of renewal were being offered to delegates to the convention. One option was that which the NDP establishment has actually been following for several years - moving towards a greater accommodation of neo-liberal globalization, while, at the same time, attempting to appeal to those in the anti-globalization movement. Another option was the New Politics Initiative (NPI), a proposal endorsed by a number of personalities on the Left. This proposal called on the party to adopt an anti-corporate and anti-globalization agenda and to lead in the process of establishing a new party of the social-democratic Left.
The NPI proposal was defeated, receiving 37 percent of the vote. The supporters of the NPI intend to hold meetings over the next few weeks to discuss the future of the project, but many pro-NPI delegates have already indicated that they intend to quit the party.
Alexa McDonough was re-elected party leader with 84 percent of the votes cast. However, only 765 of the 1,400 registered delegates bothered to vote, so her leadership was actually endorsed by a minority of delegates. McDonough dismissed the obvious divisions within the party, insisting that 100 percent of the delegates voted for change. She indicated that the "renewal" program of the establishment would proceed with no concessions to the NPI group.
The failure of the NPI represents a serious blow to the Left within the NDP. It demonstrates in the clearest possible way that the NDP has no intention of being associated, even distantly, with an anti-corporate program. It will continue on its course of accommodation with neo-liberal globalization, while trying to pretend that it can give neo-liberalism a human face.
Having rejected any association with an anti-corporate or anti-globalization program, it is difficult to see how the NDP hopes to make any headway in attracting those in the anti-globalization movement. That movement is headed in the opposite direction, from anti-corporatism towards anti-capitalism. The divergence between the movement and the positions of the NDP is increasing at a rapid rate and the outcome of this convention will help to dispel any remaining illusions which some activists may have had about the role of the NDP in the movement for social change.
What does this mean for the future of the federal NDP? It is difficult to see how, without some kind of miracle, it has any future beyond the next federal election. Prior to the last federal election, there were already voices within the NDP establishment, including former Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow, advocating a merger with the Liberals. The emergence of the anti-globalization movement opened possibilities for the NDP to divert yet another movement into becoming a vote bank and for a new lease on life. So, for a time, the voices for a merger have been quieted.
The direction charted for the NDP by this convention is one of a slow but steady drift towards irrelevancy. The verdict of the anti-globalization movement will be quick and brutal - the NDP has no relevancy whatsoever for it. With the bankruptcy of Keynesian economics and the Liberal party occupying the position (by Chretien's declaration) of Canada's party of the "Third Way", there is no political niche left for the NDP to occupy.