How fine a line between hackery and activism?
Whenever I go to meetings by Labour members below the age of about 30, I inevitably regret it afterwards. Youthful Labour members can most often be divided into two categories: the hacks and the naive. I don’t mean for this to seem a self-serving distinction, casting myself as a bearing of special knowledge; to a certain eye, I’m sure I can seem like quite a hack at times.
The list of committees I have sat on is long; two university students’ unions, an Oxford college, John4Leader campaign in Oxford, various bodies to do with CLPs – not to mention I’m the chair of the committee in charge of electing Canterbury’s Labour PPC. The very fact that I can fluidly talk about PPCs, CLPs, PPSs and other initialisms marks me out as a hack in the eyes of many people I went to uni with.
Yet I would like to believe there is some distance between me and the people I might denounce for hackery at these Labour meetings. I think one of the problems in picking out the hacks from the naive from the genuine is that all the qualities that go into each one exist on a continuum, rather than being discrete selections from a pool. So if what follows reads in any sense confused, that is why.
Hacks will socialise to get ahead. They will attend events thrown by YL or LS not to get to know how the organisations work but to develop personal relationships with the people higher up the ladder; this is as much true for groups such as Compass and the Fabians. Evidence of this networking often manifests itself in photographs posted online, with the hack standing beside either other hacks or people of importance.
Hacks will smoothe themselves out politically. Certainly some hacks are New Labour true believers, but there’s a vast selection of them I’ve always wondered about. When confronted in debate, they’ve got little to offer. Their websites mirror this with one or two line posts rather than any considered stream of argument. Rather than say something controversial, they’ll hail every government announcement.
Related to this, hacks are bandwagon-jumpers. They will follow the herd towards whatever think-tank or policy shop the Party seems to lean towards. Rather than develop cogent, explicitly ideological analysis, they’ll move according to the ‘feel’ of Party meetings and the attitudes of those they network with. It’s unavoidable really, since they have no roots tying them to their class – or aren’t working class anyway.
Still related, hacks will talk of almost any issue in vast, optimistic and idealistic generalities. Phrases like ‘a new generation of politicians’ are often to be heard, along with euphoric promotion of New Media as the answer to all our problems and the uncritical showcasing of individuals, often mark out the hacks from the rest of us. In some respects, therefore, aren’t hacks just bad politicians?
More insidiously, are they not people who disagree with me?
Overwhelmingly they are people who disagree with me – but I’ve come up against plenty of people who disagree with me and aren’t hacks, so I don’t think that is the key feature. Leaving aside the true believers, who throw themselves into networking and espousing the party line with an undisguised zeal, the defining feature in my view is that hacks seem like they are striking a pose, rather than genuinely searching for answers.
Within Compass, the Fabians, Progress and probably lurking in the LRC too, there are those who will seem to be flying the red flag when reading between the lines will give the lie to their words. This is one of the reasons Compass, over and above the more right-wing sections of the Party, attracts my ire. One can’t shoot a duck for quacking – but for play-acting with the vestments of radical politics? Happily.
It makes me almost as mad as Sinn Fein putting up pictures of James Connolly, Che Guevara and other left-wing figures, as though their politics meant they had any claim to the mantle of these people. This is the same thing that makes me hopping mad when the Right announce some grand policy of pro-capitalist retrenchment, but couch it in the language of rights and freedoms and hope and so forth.
It makes a mockery of a world where meaning should be definite.
Holding positions on a committee doesn’t make someone a hack – but to place all committees in the same bracket would be silly. My principles would prevent me from taking a seat on a body running Compass or the Fabians (for example) because their activism is virtually apolitical. Common to their rhetoric are phrases like ‘social justice’ which essentially mean nothing. When Hazel Blears can sit down and spout the same nonsense, we need a better critique than Compass or the Fabians can offer.
I have a major problem with activism designed to attack the Tories when right now, the Tories aren’t the problem. Labour has a large majority in Parliament and could sweep away the House of Lords and engage in all sorts of other vast programmes – but won’t. In fact the Labour leadership are more likely to use the Tory opposition to pass their anti-working class measures than to use their own Party for a panoramic vision of social democracy.
The only real committee role I actively pursue at the moment is the Left New Media Forum. Its goal is to strengthen the link between anti-capitalist activists, both online and on the ground, with the people who are being hit worst by capitalism. I’m happy to take an active role there because it is a cause I believe in – it’s not the ‘in’ thing and it only attracts a rag-tag of activists.
Compare this to the Labour List Rolls-Royce of internet campaigns. Activist rag-tag versus all-star cast. Democratic decisions versus a pre-ordained leadership. Reliance upon small donations, funding applications and whatever income our activism can bring versus very sophisticated financing (including the retention of Schillings, from what I gather). Praxis dictates the former over the latter every time – and I can’t help but feel anyone involved in the Labour List has either self-promotion on their mind or has the wrong politics.
So far as the true-believers of New Labour are concerned, the wrong politics are of no interest to me. Ducks and quacking. When it comes to those people who dress themselves up as genuinely Left-wing, yes, I’m angry. For me, it’s just one more instance of giving the lie to their professions of faith in activism and opposing the anti-democratic party bureaucracy. And yes, Tom Miller, I’m afraid that means you, every bit as much as it means Ken Livingstone.
Hi Dave, thanks for your response.
First point:
“I have a major problem with activism designed to attack the Tories when right now, the Tories aren’t the problem.”
You’re not going to like what I’m writing right now!
Moving on, I think I am fairly accurately described as a hack, and while this rather saddens me when I look at my whole life, I suppose it’s true.
But I don’t think that hackery and activism are mutually exclusive.
In fact, I think that it’s sad but true that effective activism demands effective hackery (I’m just reading Diane Hayter’s ‘Fightback’ – extreme levels of hackery have been extremely effective for the right).
I think it’s really important that people know the character of organisations, people in them, and most importantly, the rulebooks. My biggest complaint is not that there is too much of this, but that the left doesn’t do it enough.
It’s justified to complain about the way a lot of party and para-party structures are fixed, but I think a lot are still contestable if we don’t spend all of our time on demos. What’s needed is a sense of balance.
As far as I’m aware, the only famous people I share photographs with are Ken, who is, I admit, somewhat of a hero figure for me, and Gordon Brown, simply because I was sitting behind him in a speech.
Next week I will be putting Post Office and defend council housing motions to my CLP to go into the manifesto for our wider county, as well as doing some other stuff.
My CLP has about eight or nine active members over the constituency, all but one of whom are retirees, in one of the most Tory seats in the country – not exactly greasy pole territory. There are ten young members in the whole constituency, and no councillors!
True, I might be a hack, but I’m also an activist.
Anyway, thanks for your iteration, it does actually make quite a few points with which I am in agreement.
Oh, I should also respond on the ‘link to the class’ point.
Firstly, many of us are on the left because we chose to be, not because we have to be. Reminds me of that Paul Foot skinhead story.
Secondly, the working class itself is more fragmented than it ha ever been. I recently spent a good few months unemployed, at the bottom of my overdraft, eating tinned tomatoes for every meal.
There is no trade union to protect people from that, or bind them together to fight it.
I don’t think hackery and activism are mutually exclusive either – which is why I chose the picture inset to the article. It’s of OULC – and among the members there are a vast number of hacks, plus I’m standing right next to Andrew Smith, MP for Oxford East. I wanted to show that I don’t think activism and hackery are at opposite ends of the pole.
On the other hand, I’m completely disabused of the notion that by the Left involving itself in the political and para-political structures of the Party, we’ll improve our position. A politics carries with it a practice – and it is no accident that New Labour, which severs the link between Party and Class, throws itself so heavily into the para-political networking and hackery.
That’s not the case now and has never been the case for the Left.
On the other hand, our practice and theirs can never be mutually exclusive. Every policy announced by central government, every stupid move made by a cabinet minister reflects on to our local branches. Every attack upon the unions by a Labour government reduces the ability of branches to call in union support – and so gradually, with New Labour at the top, their practice dictates the options open to the Left.
These options are growing thin.
Our response should not be to consent to their narrowing of our horizons, it should be the opposite. To gather together the last remaining links between Party and Class and make those our basis. This is something else that Compass has categorically failed to do. It is one more reason why I see participation in Compass as hackery.
In reply to your second point, Tom; our choices are never as free as we think they are.
As for the rest, ALL unions are designed to protect people from that – inherent to every union has always been support for a social wage for the unemployed. It’s the best way of preventing scabbery.
Yep, true dat, but at the time it didn’t make the Tomatoes taste any better.
I wasn’t aware that it was general participation in Compass you saw as hackery! Compass has organised some successful (and semi successful) campaigns, anyway. Plus, it provides a bridge into Labour for NGOs, which is a saving grace for the party.
With Compass, my core motivation for doing it is very very simple; I want to be part of a democratic left group, because that’s my politics; and as you’re aware, I have a number of issues with the LRC which repel me.
It’s more to do with the fact that neither New Labour officialism nor the LRC fit me personally than it is anything to do with hiding real views or engaging in careerism.
“On the other hand, our practice and theirs can never be mutually exclusive. Every policy announced by central government, every stupid move made by a cabinet minister reflects on to our local branches. Every attack upon the unions by a Labour government reduces the ability of branches to call in union support – and so gradually, with New Labour at the top, their practice dictates the options open to the Left.”
My view also. Thus exra-parliamentary pressure is necessary. The question between us, in my view, is what it should look like.
On backing the government, being in a party like Labour continually makes you feel that you have nothing nice to say. I feel it’s important to say something nice when something of merit is done; in other words, credit where due.
Plus, we all hold the same membership card, and have to work with activists with all sorts of opinions to get things done on the ground. It’s nice not to have to argue all the time.
Above all, my willingness to support the govt. wherever possible sums up the essential softness of my left. I don’t see lining up into ‘us against them’ as the way the left can actually win victories, small or large. I think, whether we can win at anything or not, we’re more likely to do it with the PR rep of not being constantly outraged zealots and constructive where there is agreement.
It is important to me that I’m seen this way, and I hope it’s important to Compass too.
I pretty much agree with you about the substance of the situation… as I say, where I see myself as diverging is over what to do about it.
Incidentally, don’t you think it’s funny how us lot go on about how positive trade union influence on Labour is, but savage those who run trade unions so frequently?
Why is providing a bridge between NGOs and the Labour Party a good idea? Don’t get me wrong, I think we need to increase our capacity to research and present cogent ideas backed by empirical evidence – but do you have any idea of the sort of people who go to work for NGOs?
I had a lot to do with Amnesty International when I was a teenager – I was never a member but I was engaged with a lot of their functions. They’re worthless! Middle class liberals with a guilt complex, unprepared to argue a political point – preferring instead dull vagaries about social justice.
Then when I moved to Oxford, I met a lot of Oxfam types, who are better – but they’re just another facet of the very political elite we’re supposed to be fighting against. Give them a place at the top table and let them believe the government is listening to them and most of them are very silent on government policy ever after.
We shouldn’t be proud of Compass for that, it’s just another sign of just how soft-left they are – and that’s not a good thing. You may define your own soft leftism as being prepared to compromise with the leadership if the result is better than it might otherwise have been – and I’m not opposed to that, but that’s not what Compass MPs do. How many times do we have to go round on round over that bunch of unprincipled wannabes?
As for your self-portrayal of credit where it is due, I’m sorry but that’s poppycock: your quote of the day from Peter Hain “private is not always best” belies a man who in front of a CLP dinner trotted out the same line about how private versus public partnership shouldn’t be ‘ideological’. Or your article that has Chukka Umunna spinning the same “no more command and control” rubbish that we just discussed was a key form of hackery, above. You’re not giving credit where it is due, you’re an apologist for these people.
I have good things to say about this Labour government, and on the doorstep I am quick to say them – but I never shrug off complaints. I’m the first to hold my Party to account – why aren’t you?
I like (most) young Labour hacks.
There are some, I guess, who are doing it for the career and the power, but those people often figure out that there are easier and more congenial ways towards fame, power and riches.
Instead, most of them are people who got interested in politics in their teens or early 20s and share Labour’s values (without a massively detailed ideological analysis).
Dave mentions that “Rather than develop cogent, explicitly ideological analysis, they’ll move according to the ‘feel’ of Party meetings and the attitudes of those they network with” – this is what most people do, and there is nothing wrong with it.
New Labour developed some quite effective structures for involving and engaging young people, through Labour students, Young Labour (in some areas) etc. In contrast, it is often the case that people’s first experiences when becoming politically active of the left can be quite negative.
I was lucky that when I went to university the lefties there were nice, welcoming and fun to spend time with. If this were the case in all universities, labour branches and other places where young people first get involved with Labour/leftie politics, I think a lot more of the “hacks” would be leftie activists.
Don’t get me wrong Dan – left-wing politics can bore people silly. They bored me silly while I was part of the Socialist Party and they continue to bore me silly in England as a member of the Labour Party. I don’t like to adopt a prolier-than-thou tone with politics – but simply going with the flow doesn’t cut it for a party supposedly built on activism. It is the responsibility of every member to educate themselves politically – to which end party educational structures grew up.
Unlike you, I have a great dislike for most Labour hacks. That is not the same as saying I dislike certain political sections of the Party; for example, at Oxford, I had plenty of conversations and voluntarily went to dinner with other Labourites to chat. We were involved but weren’t embodiments of the hackery described above. On the other hand, those who were, were also social bores.
Again, I will decline from naming names – but let’s just say, when the London elites came to OULC dinners, it wasn’t because it was a fun social event. Girls crying, prospective candidates bullied…the list of hackery by New Labour’s lot is long and odious – and if you can honestly say you like most of the hacks you’ve met, either its because you have had a good run or because your politics don’t oppose you to their tactics.
I don’t believe the latter to be true, but I know some for whom that is the case – and they happily turn a blind eye to the behaviour of their colleagues.
As for your first paragraph, many of them WILL find these more congenial routes to fame and fortune, but while they are in their late teens and 20s, they’ll bother the rest of us with their networking etc. In a different era, we’d have called them the lounge lizard Leninists – but because the bandwagon has moved along, so have they.
“The only real committee role I actively pursue at the moment is the Left New Media Forum. Its goal is to strengthen the link between anti-capitalist activists, both online and on the ground, with the people who are being hit worst by capitalism. I’m happy to take an active role there because it is a cause I believe in – it’s not the ‘in’ thing and it only attracts a rag-tag of activists.”
Would you still believe in it, if it attracted loads of people?
Are the people who are hit worst by capitalism better served by impotent ideological purity or some reasonably useful practical policies delivered by unwieldy coalitions of people with differing interests – that may include some people who just want to be close to power because it’s exciting?
I don’t accept your opposition of ideological purity (whatever that is) to “reasonably useful practical policies” etc. None of the groups I’ve ever been part of have shown any degree of ‘ideological purity’, but the people worst hit by capitalism are better served by coalitions.
Such coalitions need not violate my ideological preconditions – indeed with the exception of ultra-lefts who have departed entirely from any conception of Marxism – these coalitions can validate those preconditions. The point is that coalitions need to be established on a principled basis.
This is one reason why Respect failed.
As for whether or not I would support the LNMF if it attracted loads of people, naturally it would depend who those people were. If the LNMF was organised institutionally by a New Labour cadre, I’d have nothing to do with it – for the same reason I’ll have nothing to do with the Labour List.
On the other hand, I think LNMF should be bigger than it currently is – and there are those of us working to make it so by recruiting anti-capitalist, activist-bloggers.
I think the thing that most raised my eyebrows was your apparent suggestion that not being the ‘in thing’ was a good think for a political movement.
As someone who was a young person on what’s sometimes called the ‘soft left’ of the Labour Party in the 2000-2005 period, I remember the days when more or less all the younger people representing that strain of thinking could fit around a small table in a pub.
There’s always going to be a fair proportion of people who, while usually broadly well meaning, are more interested in doing politics and having a political career than they are in advancing any principled position.
For me, the bad times are when those people don’t want to be in your team, not when they do.
In terms of recent changes in the political climate, there are few things that make me happier than the fact some people who are vacuously interested in promoting their own career think Compass is a possible route to doing so.
And why do these people latching on to Compass make you happy?