On Fabianism, I strongly agree that there are many negative and even reactionary elements to Fabian history. But it remains a broadly pluralistic organisation. As for the editorial direction of Antics, if you don’t like it, you should vote against the editor (who retains personal responsibility for the magazine), or perhaps even consider standing yourself. As you may anticipate, we don’t all necessarily agree with the content; but neither do we have collective responsibility for it. On behalf of the editor, I would point out that while I personally preferred content from previous years, or at least the choice of it, he has done a fantastic job of revamping the aesthetics which has made it all rather worthwhile from my point of view. I also defend the right of right-wingers to make their voices heard within the organisation, as well as calling for a greater volumes of submissions from those who consider themselves on the left. People like yourself.

“If John McDonnell knows his followers are easily fired up, why bother mentioning Compass at all?”

Because my point was that his goal is to try and fire them up against Compass, not just as positive backers for his own campaigns. He also wants them not to want to #2 candidates we back that he could theoretically come up against, so that he is in a strong enough negotiation position to dissuade us from standing one; despite the fact that most LRC members, when presented with manifestos, would be likely to want to do so.

As for my characterisation on McDonnell, a man who has repeatedly launched unprompted attacks on us, I did not mean in the slightest to portray him as “a cheap rabble rouser, supported largely by cheap rabble”. I meant exactly what I said, and feel that you are caricaturing it.

“Even if it was, when your flag carriers can’t even vote like proper progressives, who cares what banner they stand under?”

I adhere to this criticism, but subject to the caveat that ‘progressive’, perhaps not necessarily with respect to this issue, but certainly with others, is something that people are usually far too happy to define for other people with, perhaps, differing conceptions. The necessary by-product of this is the mentality of split-ism, which it is my prime objective to avoid within my faction, and insofar as arguments are philosophically compatible, within the whole party.

I take your point of view that there must be a boundary, but am not sure firstly who is entitled to the moral authority to define it, and secondly why plurality cannot be contained somewhere within it.

Where your point has particular pertinence is in the fact that both MPs discussed have at times taken the honour of describing themselves as representing as figureheads our 4,000 members. With that lies the obvious responsibility not to vote against their democratically expressed views, Compass itself having overwhelmingly decided to oppose 42 days. I’d say that the ethics of acceptable oppinion would be very different were the MPs in question allies rather than figureheads.

“It is not a media-dominated campaign, backed by book launches and speechifying – it is an activist-led organisation.”

I don’t see why these two things are mutually exclusive, and I don’t see why groups should evaluate their success in and support with other organisations by formal declarations of support rather than habitual day to day behaviour. In fact, both are types of support, but I would contend that a grasp of the latter is vastly more important save for the practise of self-promotion, which itself only goes so far.

As for local Labour Parties, compass does not seek their affiliation. It seeks their conference votes. Plus, this is about bringing up support in the Labour Party for issues which begin outside it, not vice versa. I’m not sure whether seeking formal links encourages those activists who remain unconnected or uncommitted to the worker’s movement as a whole.

“This very activist-led organisation has been at the head of the charges on unionizing part-time and immigrant workers”

Aye, well done. We’ve been fighting ourselves for the very same, mainly behind the scenes to stop them getting pay buts, in locally to get them a living wage.

“Unlike Compass, which, if its members led the Party, would pursue the same poster-and-newspaper campaign that secured New Labour electoral victory.”

Did you read Cruddas’s leaflet about rebuilding mass membership? And what’s wrong with posters and newspapers alongside that?

For me, Orwell isn’t a feeble figure. Fighting with the POUM is enough to evade that charge, let alone all the other stuff. If you have decided that my motive was to sound erudite, fair enough. It was less a motive than an aside, in actuality… because McDonnells language really did remind me of the pamphlet I mentioned, and I deemed that thought a useful one, because the pamphlet itself is a worthwhile exposition of a lot of language used in a political context.

I’m not quite sure that I understand where your argument about the surface and the reality with regard to democracy is aimed at illustrating, I’m afraid. For that I apologise.

In no way do I deny that most McDonellites (we’ll leave out the New Communist Party) are chiefly concerned with activism, nor that the issues are bread and butter.

I was more suggesting that there is a tendency to be unrealistic about the level and power of the opposition faced within the party and often within the country more widely. It’s not that I’m accusing you guys of struggling for dreams. I’m accusing you of dreaming about your struggles… in terms of analysing the ground, and forming responses likely to succeed. Nowt to do with the socialist dawn to be. The charge of romanticism is aimed at the tendency, also clearly identifiable, to form the world into three camps: allies to the left, the correct, and the wrong.

This produces a sense of shakesperian battles between traitors, inspirations and true believers. This remains little more than a drama in reality, but the effect is to divide where, with a little more appreciation of shades of grey, there could be far greater unity.

“In John McDonnell’s personal vocabulary, if Compass qualifies as “Them” rather than “Us””

That’s exactly what I’m talking about. There is no denying that there are differences, but this characterisation is extremely reductionist, simplistic, and asserts the worst (JC and JTs votes for 42 days are seen as treachery, but the admitted instability of the Compass coalition is seen as no mitigation to this with regard to John McD’s characterisation of the organisation as a whole).

“Our goal should be to at least try to overcome this, as much of a lost cause as we, the younger members, may find it. Certainly I admit to feeling entirely disenchanted by my experience of YL, LS Young Fabians and Compass, and the often careerist impulse which seems to run through the heart of anyone remotely senior in these organisations. This has been my intention in writing: not merely to condemn, but to correct. They are all, until they become political full-timers, exploited like the rest of us, and in a position to react against that, once the inconsistency and woolly thinking is rooted out.”

Well, join the club, but I’m not sure that accusing me of intellectual masturbation is entirely conducive to this aim!

Nonetheless, I shall assume (and hope) that you are not charging me with careerism… I spent three years in LS, during which I fought my battles, and never even aimed for any position other than treasurer, simply on the basis that no-one else would. With regard to Compass, I too worry about a careerist streak. We all have issues with individuals in our own organisations. But I certainly don’t worry about aiding people with soft-left ideology that I regard as permanent in gaining political careers, if that makes any sense. MPs must be payed, and I’d rather my MPs were usually strong social democrats, albeit with a realistic and compromising streak where this is necessary in terms of the bigger picture and the execution of tactical manoeuvres. As for LS as a whole, in light of the lack of a reformist, pluralist and democratic alternative, I prefer to keep my comments private.

With regard to the Young Fabians, and indeed that Fabians generally, one must remember that they both exist to act as a forum rather than a faction. As such I am strongly against disenfranchising people from involvement with either, even if they happen (in my eyes) to be careerist or indeed heinously right wing. Beyond fascism, this platform should be open. My one criticism is that it could be diverse, but that is as much down to a lack of interest in the Fabians from the left as a Fabians lack of interest IN the left.

My main reason for my interest in them is their instrumentality in bringing about the factional reshaping of the party; but I also like to hear pretty much anything political that anyone writes or says. Despite my declared fidelities, I’m intellectually promiscuous, you could say.

For the record, my Fabianism is one of GDH Cole style decentralist cooperativism rather than a centralised, top down, bourgeois-eugenicist flight of utopian fancy. But of course, the Fabians being merely a platform, that differs from person to person.

It’s a shame that many of our Youth movements are rubbish. The solution is to make them different, however, and part of that process is about being involved within them, though it may not always please.