Though Cowards Flinch

There’s an awesomely quotable article over at Liberal Conspiracy, written by Unity, on the need for new ideas. Whether Conservative or Labour, old and new, Unity is convinced that the ideas of the 19th century, or even of Thatcherism thirty years ago are outdated and should be superseded. These points are not new, in any appreciable way, though Unity goes on make interesting points as to how the Labour blogosphere may be positioning itself as regards future ideological developments in Labour.

Additionally, the manner in which Unity has so forcefully made clear how he feels outdated ideas have retarded the development of Labour is eminently citable.

“One can see much the same psychology in Labour ranks, in the hard left refusal to take the hint after the 1983 election debacle and today amongst the ‘uber-Blairites’ some of whom firmly believe that if only the Maximum Tone were still in charge [...] then Labour would be well on the way to a fourth term and smashing the upstart Cameron and the entire Tory Party into political oblivion, after which the glorious leader would hoover the Lib-Dems, annoint a successor of his personal choosing and establish a Blairite hegemony that would last for a thousand years, and still get home in time to give Cherie a good seeing to and defeat Mohammed Ahmadinejad in hand to hand combat.”

Apart from the obvious exaggeration for the point of comedy, what I particularly like about this passage is in its exposition of the weakness of Unity’s fundamental point about needing new ideas. If the failure, post-1983 electoral apocalypse, was that of the Left to ‘take the hint,’ this begs the question as to what precisely the hint was. Of this there is no discussion. Similarly in regards to Blair, if his failure was his defeat by the Awkward Squad and Brown, there is no discussion as to how that happened or why.

This lack of context renders useless Unity’s characterisation of the ideologues of modern politics as out of date. The age in years of each view is irrelevant without a discussion of their use and abuse in history, and the door is closed by Unity to a detailed discussion on the merits and demerits of each idea as an idea in itself by his list. Each idea, from Marxism to NeoConservatism is dismissed on the basis of flimsy historical evidence or anecdotes from its progenitor as though this formed a substantial argument.

All of this forms the basis for Unity’s call for new ideas, to flush out the ‘political classes’ (wittily characterised as ‘arterial plaque’ – something I may pinch later) and generate new momentum. I am not convinced, however, of the incorrectness of some of the ‘old’ ideas – class struggle, trades unions, radical democracy, and I see no argument as to why these should be left behind. Whatever 1983 meant, it is laziness to comfortably rest on the consensus supposition that it entailed the end of class politics.

The point towards which Unity drives is that the difference between Left blogs and Right blogs comes down to this need for new ideas. The Left are trying to create an entirely new Weltanschauung, whereas the Right are aiming for the more immediate, more populist goal of a change of government. Our struggle is harder and less appreciable to those out for a quick-fix answer to the problems thrown up by New Labour corruption, inertia, incompetence and ideology. I disagree.

In fact, if I may be allowed to bring some of my own historical arguments into play, defeat in class struggle has traditionally been followed by a subdued role for the working class. In 1926, for example, after the defeat of the General Strike, the resulting paralysis saw an average of over 2 million striking annually in the immediate post-war years fall to some 300,000 annually until WWII. It has been the same post-Thatcher, who showed down not just with Miners but also with Teachers, and with many professions in between.

We are still not finished with the legacy of that defeat, and the position of the Left blogosphere reflects the position of the Left in the country at large. It is fragmented and with little organic connection to the areas which once upon a time would have been natural Left supporters. In order to rectify that, we do need new ideas, but not for the political class. In fact I would go so far as to say that it is this reliance upon a political class which has rendered the Left ineffective at crucial times.

After the disaster of 1931, when the Labour Party was left with a mere fifty-odd seats in Parliament and a fair chunk of its leadership defected to the National Government, the leader Arthur Henderson announced that the problem wasn’t with Labour ideas. This was a former government which had been ready to propose inroads into unemployment benefits, reduction in child-care assistance and so on, all at the height of the crisis of capitalism into which Britain was flung in the 1930′s.

If we think that Labour won’t emerge in exactly the same way from the upcoming electoral annihilation, we really haven’t been reading our history. What pushed Labour towards the Left in the later 1930′s wasn’t its political class, it was pressure from the grassroots, mediated through the bureaucracy of the trade unions, restricted due to political rules on the Party membership of Communists and at last rendered impotent by the virtual unaccountability of the PLP.

All of those conditions exist today and then some, for Conference is virtually deprived of whatever powers it once had. The point is not for some abstract discussion about the need for new ideas, to render us powerful in front of a ‘sterile political class,’ by the virtue of it having no new ideas, the point is to render that political class obsolete. Without that cornerstone, then all the new ideas in the world will have no effect upon actual events except perhaps as a fig-leaf for some otherwise unpalatable policy.

While we’re thinking about all that, what we need are some very old ideas: better organisation at the points of direct class struggle (whether strikes or whatever) and better co-ordination between all elements of the radical Left to instil class consciousness. When Kinnock said “Principle without power is idle sterility,” he was suggesting that only an electable Labour will make a difference – and so he was wrong. What we need are the old ideas, but a new will to take them to their logical conclusion.