(Tim – if you are here – I missed your comment on the stage 4 of 5 post (concept of campaigning). i do apologise – simply missed the email notifier. Yes please – i’m at paul.cotterillATusaDASHisdotcodtouk.)

Yet it wouldn’t surprise me, as the NUS succeeds in depoliticizing student politics, to see groups like CF swell in numbers. I don’t know if they’ll ever translate this to control of the NUS, but their ‘independent’ candidates certainly wreak havoc trying to pull legs off the NUS spider by having different SU’s disaffiliate.

Bottom line is this: the less ‘political’ becomes the student body, or the less issues that hurt students are challenged effectively by the NUS – and it has essentially abdicated any sort of campaigning role these days, then the fast rises the Right, the socialite element of the political.

I’m the first to admit that in terms of student politics (about which Dave has strong views) I really don’t know, as it seems to be a bit of a semi-enclosed world, which I don’t understand, but about which I don’t want to get cynical-through-ignorance-of-the-real-dynamics. It may be, for example, that the growth of CAs in universities is likned to the idea of a ‘debating chamber’ rather than to any development of long-lasting political affiliations, but I don’t know.

Having said that, my own personal rejection of the Labour Party in its current form is, however, not an isolated incident and I have had many discussions with, for example, other socialists in university who are similarly disillusioned.

If I can speak with my student hat on for a minute, it should be noted that Conservative Future (formerly the Young Conservatives) is growing quickly in numbers, if not in actual activist members, and have a fair amount of support amongst what traditionally would have been Labour or at least Liberal supporters at my age. I do not wish to put too much emphasis on youth but it is an ominous sign when the traditionally lefty/liberal student body is already embracing Tory principles.

Yes,I recognise that the dismissal of Labour as a leftwing force that matters/relates is widespread, and it’s good (well useful) to hear it confirmed so directly. The problem for the left within Labour is that we tend to assume that simply because we’re here, we matter. That’s no longer necessarily the case (though it can be), and we need to make it so rather depend on our now besmirched name.

More later.

I never claimed that my current lack of affiliation with a socialist organisation made me more effective (quite the opposite is true!) but am currently mulling over my options. As some background, I’m 20 years old and was a Lib Dem until around 6 months ago, and haven’t got around to joining anyone else. My point was that rejection of Labour is by no means an SP viewpoint, but a widely-held view by those of us on the left of the political spectrum.

I’ll pick this up in comments on Dave’s final post on Socialism 2009 (the ‘future of the eft’ post).

On your point about identifying a party by its policy and not the view fo its MPs – yes, fine, but MPs make up only a small percentage of the party, and the party operates at sub-national levels.

I’m interested in your sefl-assignation as a nono-affiliated socialist. Why? Indeed, is it possible to be an unaffiliated socialist? Is’nt it a contrdiction in terms? Not trying to be narky here – just trying to understand what it is about standing outside any organisational structure at all which makes you more effective as a socialist.

Speaking as an unaffiliated socialist, with no current ties to any group, I must mention that this attitude is not only present within the SP. Labour as is cannot be described as a leftist party (based on policy, not the views of individual MPs) and while it is perhaps a little strong to suggest that Labour is not “viable” to work with or support, a move away from seeing Labour as the central force behind leftist action at either a local or a national level would, in my opinion, result in greater success.

This is an interesting interview and it sounds very much like Dan was in the same session I was. If this is true I think it’s an unfair characterisation of the debate, particularly remarks like this:

notably in the debate about the need to form a new anti-fascist organisation outside of UAF

This was only raised as a query by one comrade from Wales, who is not the secretary of Socialist Party Wales incidentaly, and was not a substantial part of the debate.