Socialism 2009 – what future for the Left?
Speakers included Jenny Lennox, from the national committee of the LRC; Kevin Ovenden of Respect, who was an excellent speaker; Alex Gordon of the RMT; Mike Davies from the Alliance for Green Socialism; Romayne Rhoenix from the Green Party and Dave Nellist from the Socialist Party. In what follows I’ll try to faithfully represent the course of the debate and highlight points of note, adding my own interpretation.
Dave Nellist started off by discussing the structural change the provision of jobs and services has and continues to undergo, under the capitalist system. He made very clear that each major party wants to squeeze the public purse in order to rescue capitalism from itself. His warning on this point rang around the hall like a gunshot, the hackles on no few of the listeners standing up:
“In one, one and a half or two parliaments, one of these parties is coming for our NHS.”
Dave spoke about the planned spending cuts built into the current budget, the cuts that will take place next year and how they’ll affect youth training for jobs. His point here was to echo the union general secretaries from Saturday night’s rally; there will undoubtedly be an industrial response to this, whether unions lead it or not, what we lack is an organised political response.
Argument was advanced that there is no serious prospect of changing the Labour Party. From a socialist MP who was forcibly de-selected by Labour’s NEC and came within a whisker of being re-elected as an independent, this should be taken seriously. Nellist conceded, interestingly, that perhaps the anti-war movement might have recalled Labour, ‘had the unions co-operated’ but that no other campaign since has had that potential.
I found this particularly interesting, because it seems to me that the same could be said of any mass movement – especially one taking place should the NHS come under threat. Hypothetically speaking, should broad lefts make gains within the unions in the coming period, and sufficient impetus be built up against NHS cuts, then the turn ‘towards Labour’ could be consciously made by the groups involved. At least that’s what Nellist’s remarks about the anti-war movement seem to imply; he himself might disagree with this.
Perhaps Nellist’s own remarks were ill-considered. After all, there are concrete reasons why the anti-war movement did not result in a mass turn towards the Labour Party. Quite the opposite. Throughout the whole thing, Labour lost members. Certainly this was something to do with Labour being the party responsible for the war – but quite a few of the resignations were politically conscious, active people who are smart enough to draw the distinction between ‘grassroots’ and ‘leadership’.
Thus, when Labour’s grassroots can’t even corral their own number, what hope is there of convincing the wider Left, with all the added complication of other fully organised parties? If one follows through to the logical conclusion, it would take the conquest of Labour’s leadership by the grassroots for this convincing to take place – and that won’t happen without a mass influx of politically conscious members to Labour. I would emphasize the ‘politically conscious’ too, as any thing else can easily be turned into door-knocking fodder by the party machine.
Nellist continued with a demand for hundreds of independent challengers at council level, which could be selectively endorsed and supported by a federation of the small parties, to ensure local candidates, local support and a more progressive agenda. This included, a recurrent theme of the meeting, endorsing suitable candidates who were running on behalf of the Labour Party. Such a federation would hammer out a minimum programme, to which any candidate could sign up.
Next up was Jenny Lennox from the LRC. I’ve never met nor heard Jenny speak before, and I think that whoever had her position on the platform that day would have had a hard job. Yet a (joking?) plea for sympathy for her hangover was hardly the best way to start. What Jenny said though, however delivered, was somewhat similar to what Paul has been saying on this blog.
There are few people attending constituency meetings. There are few people who are activists. This is an opportunity for the Left.
Where Jenny and Paul differ is in Jenny’s assertion that “Labour does have the trades unions” and the significance of that. Jenny’s other argument, that Labour is ‘a broad church’ was unlikely to carry any weight in a room full of socialists, most of whom would have had experience of that broad church and the utter reactionaries it brings with it. Disappointingly Jenny simply expected that this would be accepted prima facie as a reason to support Labour.
Jenny rounded off with the assertion that “there is already a structure for coalition, the Labour Party” where we “could get people selected as candidates”. Yet no attempt was made to address issues such as the regular suspensions of CLPs by the Labour NEC. Or the de-selection of parliamentary candidates by the NEC. Or about the various members of the Labour Party simply expelled from the organisation. And no attempt was made to address the democratic deficit between constituency level and national level.
Perhaps Susan Press made a better job of it at the RMT conference the day before.
Romayne Phoenix from the Greens spoke next. Her speech was an unmitigated disaster, in my view – to the point where at one stage Alex Gordon of the RMT simply rolled his eyes and I swore people were going to start booing her. A lot of what she said was innocuous enough, in a conference of socialists; crisis, unemployment, climate change etc. Though rather than talk about structural changes to the economy, Romayne discussed instead about how ‘we need to invest in safe fuel supply’.
Instead of talking about how the Green Party was an alternative for the left-wing to organise, she focused instead on how we should campaign for proportional representation, to ‘improve the democratic system’. Which is probably a good thing, in a way, as it forestalled any arguments about sectarianism, but not something most socialists give two figs about since quite a few of us are in danger of losing jobs or homes, never mind bothering about how we elect the parties that even under PR would form the government.
Where Romayne went dreadfully wrong was, as a Green, a group stereotypically dismissed as liberal, middle-class do-gooders, announcing that we ‘shouldn’t insist on identifying people as working class’, as though socialists knock on doors and demand with menaces that people accept the label before they listen to what’s going on in the area, or agree to help out community groups.
Of all the speakers, I think she was the one performing worst even before it came out that the Green Party will be standing candidates against incumbent Socialist Party councillors in Lewisham, where Romayne herself is a councillor. Fair play to her, she denounced the decision – but it’s still likely to raise a lot of suspicion, despite the Greens standing aside for Salma Yaqoob in Birmingham. Really it exemplifies the schizophrenia in the Green movement, where in one country Greens can get into bed with conservatives, in another with social democrats.
Following Romayne, Kevin Ovenden of Respect spoke. A lot of what he said echoed Dave Nellist regarding the three main parties and the ultimate capitulation of social democracy. Where Ovenden differed from Nellist was in asserting that ‘it is not possible to establish a coalition of the mosaic left’, which I presume – though it was not clarified – means that a federal organisation between the different leftist groups is not the best way forward. Ovenden did agree, however, about identifying mutually supportable candidates.
John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn, Dai Davies, Dave Nellist and Caroline Lucas were all mentioned by Kevin in this context. It was mentioned that Respect would be standing in three constituencies, and it was opined by that winning would be another blow to the philosophy of TINA, there is no alternative. I’m not sure about how much I agree there; it really depends on how one plays the campaign as to what sort of effect it has. Is it just about door knocking and leaflets or will there be strategic interventions to support the working class in those constituencies, to provoke normal people into politicized activity?
Mike Davies of the Alliance for Green Socialism spoke next, and in my view completely departed from reality. In Mike’s own words, he declared “a vote for any Labour MP is a vote for New Labour.’ When question time rolled around, I queried this from the floor; “I’d like to ask Mike is he serious when he tells us not to vote for Labour MPs like John McDonnell, who have campaigned for years on climate change and the Heathrow runway, and who have never done anything except vote against New Labour?”
Davies flatly denied my assertion that John McDonnell (and I would add Jeremy Corbyn) voted against New Labour. ‘Left Labour MPs have had the odd rebellion’ he said, “They have never voted against New Labour’s project”. Indeed Davies went further into bananaland – “The existence of Left Labour MPs creates the myth that there is room for the Left in Labour”. No reader of the blog can be ignorant of the fact that actually several Labour MPs have been consistent rebels throughout the last three parliaments.
One wonders how Davies would get round the evidence of They Work For You. As for how some Labour MPs have ‘never voted against New Labour’s project’, I don’t even know what such nonsense means. Foundation hospitals? School privatisation? The war in Iraq? The anti-terror laws? Running against Gordon Brown to be leader of the party? How this qualifies as never having voted against ‘New Labour’s project’ is beyond me.
As for how supporting such good MPs ‘creates the myth that there is room for the Left in Labour’, this sounds on a par with the jam-tomorrow type theories that Tory cuts will bring on working class activism, so we should not support Labour to keep the Tories out, an argument put forward in 1979. Supporting some decent MPs might keep a socialist presence in parliament, to ask awkward questions, to provide a credible face to bring together the unions and so on. Not supporting them means allowing the election of still more Tories.
I’d also dispute the premise that supporting John McDonnell makes people believe in Labour’s left-wing credentials. The declining Labour vote over the last number of years begs to differ.
Last up was Alex Gordon of the RMT. A lot of what Alex said made sense; he pointed to the efforts of the Labour Left as heroic, but still heroic failures in trying to rein in New Labour. He said that his union would support Left officials anywhere it could find them, in whatever parliament, but that this would not solve the overall crisis in working class political representation. He argued that other unions needed to be awakened to this problem and orientated towards pushing for left regroupment, Die Linke style.
His argument, basically, was that the efforts of the smaller parties – whilst excellent and praiseworthy – lacked the social weight necessary to really kick off the fightback. Only the unions had that social weight, so he said, and if used correctly, this union weight could get things going. I’d say that makes sense – and Labour affiliation / disaffiliation has increasingly become an issue increasingly riven with a hostility proportional to how likely it is that a disaffiliation vote might sneak through. How we handle it requires discussion, because it is an issue likely to split broad Left campaigns and allow the inertia of the Right to prevail.
Comments from the floor were varied. I’ve already discussed my own, which was the second such contribution. One comrade from Cardiff challenged exactly how ‘broad’ Labour was, in response to Jenny Lennox’ comments. Several people made the point that the next round of cuts, from Cameron’s Tories, will likely make Thatcher’s era seem like a picnic. There was celebration of the positive approach of the RMT towards organising some type of platform for the next election, the first union to do so in a hundred years.
A chap from the Socialist Alliance (which I thought the SWP had folded up years ago) offered their name as the banner for a new left regroupment.
An SP member from Huddersfield made the point that Labour does not ‘have the unions’, what Labour has are the union bosses – the very people selling out to social partnership agreements, allowing their workers to face the sack. Those union leaders who oppose such things fervently end up moving away from the Labour Party – as has recently been found with Brian Caton of the Prison Officers’ Association handing in his Labour membership card to Jack Straw and joining the Socialist Party instead.
Worry was expressed that the LRC seem to be saying that Labour could repeat the 1980s, and that the Left could reclaim the Party. The worry was that the LRC seem to ignore the differences between now and then, about how Labour is so much less democratic, the policies of Labour so much less accountable and the Left within Labour incomparably weaker than it was in the 1980s – when it still failed to win over the party.
Some hopes were advanced about recent successes in the PCS union by a left unity platform that had been arguing for the need for a new workers’ party.
Each of the speakers then summed up from the front, attempting to answer any questions or address any sentiments expressed. These varied from the sublime, such as Jenny Lennox admitting that she supported the idea of independent candidates standing against the worst elements of Labour, though she couldn’t work for them herself, to the ridiculous. This came when Romayne Phoenix attempted to stress the anti-capitalist credentials of the Green Party through the fact that she’d done ‘political artwork’ (loud groans were heard from the floor), oh and that the Green Party manifesto marks them out as anti-capitalist, as does the opinions of their leader.
Dave Nellist, speaking last, endorsed the No2EU idea as showing that some of the smaller socialist groups could work together in a non-sectarian way (neatly ignoring the other left groups also on the ballot). This, he said, should be our way forward to redress the imbalance in parliament, where the major parties are all part of a wider consensus that is screwing people out of housing, health care and education. Thereafter the meeting ended and everyone retired to the closing rally.
(See also: Socialism 2009 Saturday session, Socialism 2009 Sunday session one, Socialism 2009 interview 1, interview 2, and three other reports from the Socialism 2009 conference).
You narrow minded nationalists are so backward in your thinking that you are blind to what is moving forward and what is moving backward in the history of mankind and in the evolution of matter in motion!
Like they say, “YOU CAN’T STOP PROGRESS,” ..That being an observable fact, it is only ignorance and fear that is representative of those on the “Right Wing” of the political spectrum that causes those “Right Wing Reactionaries” to be no longer relevant, …and to fear and hate progress.
It is a part of the “Evolutionary Process” for everything in our universe to change and adapt in a manner that would allow all forms of matter and all that reflects all forms of matter to make necessary adjustments so that it could survive, thrive grow and mature in an ever changing environment, an environment that moves in stages from a simple beginning to more complex stage. Everything has a life span and when it is necessary for that which has grown old and weak and no longer useful it is natural for that form of live matter to die and be replaced by something that is new and is it’s diametric opposite. An opposite that is stronger, more relevant, more in tune with the circumstances, situations and conditions that prevail at that particular point in time.
Those that hold on to the theory that “Individual Competition” is more important and better than, “Social Cooperation” are acting blindly because they are ignoring the context.
Under the conditions of scarcity of that which is necessary to survive and thrive, all living things will, because out of necessity, become a competitor for that which is scarce and therefor valuable.
To get what is scarce and what is needed before that what is scarce is all grabbed up by the competition and you are wanting and not getting, is the kind of environment that exists inside of a competitive society This competition exists because of material scarcity. “The Human Nature” of individuals living under the conditions of scarcity will act in an aggressive and desperate manner to get what is scarce for themselves.
Because of scarcity and competition, “STATUS” will go to those that accumulate for themselves the most of that which is valuable, because it is scarce.
The “HUMAN NATURE” of those that live under the conditions of “Material Abundance,” will act in a “Cooperative” manner because the need to compete will not be necessary because there will be enough of what is needed to satisfy everyone and no one will go wanting.
Status under these conditions will be arrived at by what you do for others, the opposite of what you can do for yourselves under a competitive condition.
It is new and advanced “Technological and Scientific” development that will make it possible to produce an abundant material society that will change the nature of the people within that society, and will change the nature of that cooperative social society.
It has been said that when people living under conditions where they receive from each according to their ability and to each according to their need, that in time a new type of human being will be born. It will be a “Social Scientific Being” that will need no one to force that type of person to be social. He or she will have no need to have a leader or government agency tell them what they should or should not do. They will become their own leader and understand scientifically the world environment and how to advance the interests of the world environment and the interests of the individuals within that world environment. It has been said that under this condition of harmony between people and environment that the need, for written laws police, soldiers, and courts, will no longer be needed and that the state apparatus will wither away. That in place of government and their apparatus you will have an administration of things, not an administration of people.
Don’t really see what any of this has got to do with me. As for calling me a ‘nationalist’, one has to ask whether you’ve actually read what I’ve written, before going on to post your diatribe.
Aaah, a troll who cuts and pastes their crap onto a large number of blogs. How refreshing. Never seen one of them before.
The forum did sound good, though I do wonder if we’ll ever see the far left get its act together. It all depends on the class struggle really. At the risk of sounding completely sectarian, I’m sure it’s no accident the one group most closely associated with successful workers’ struggles this year (i.e. the SP) is growing in size and political confidence, is playing a leading role in what is the only regroupment process worth bothering with at the moment, and actually possesses a coherent strategic vision. The rest – Respect, LRC, SWP, etc. are all at sixes and sevens.
I agree that the SP easily seems the most confident of the other groups, and that it is growing in size again, but then in the next series of elections, there’s no guarantee that the weight of the SP on the picket lines will be replicated in ballot success (and I don’t even mean getting someone elected) or even in other key areas of working class activism.
So we can celebrate the success of the SP, and try to replicate and expand it, but that’s not to say that just doing this on its own will be enough – and that’s one of the things which worries me. Because while the real Left is building slowly but surely, there’s still a political vacuum that’s being filled by the far right.
I agree – disputes rarely translate into votes in elections.
What I meant to say was it seems to me (and I know I’m biased) that of the left, the SP has the most coherent strategic view of the tasks in front of us – with the possible exception of Compass on the centre left. But awareness of what needs to be done isn’t any guarantee that it will be done.
The left as a whole needs to be more serious about working with each other and realise its responsibilities are not confined to their memberships. Which is why I find the current retrenchment of sectarianism so disappointing.
1) ‘Dave Nellist started off by discussing the structural change the provision of jobs and services has and continues to undergo, under the capitalist system. He made very clear that each major party wants to squeeze the public purse in order to rescue capitalism from itself. His warning on this point rang around the hall like a gunshot, the hackles on no few of the listeners standing up:“In one, one and a half or two parliaments, one of these parties is coming for our NHS.”’
A salient point, certainly, though I doubt some less ‘familiar’ aspects of the NHS will last that long. Already the funding that Primary Care Trusts provides to voluntary organisations to intervene in ‘health determinants’ (the concept of which is now very well established after the Black and Acheson reports) is drying up, and it will be easy enough for politicians to cut lots of stuff around what they regard as the edges (but are vital in terms of preventative health) simply by saying it’s not part of the NHS anyway. Manifesto commitments on ringfencing can be kept in name while huge damage is done; that easy civil service work.
Of greater note though here is the way even someone like Dave Nellis, whom I’m guessing knows his labour movement/welfare state history very well, implicitly buys into the assumption that the creation of the NHS is the greatest achievement of working class solidarity in gaining concessions from capitalism. Sadly, it’s probably not. The concessions that Bevan had to hand back to GPs, and particularly to the consultants in the big teaching hospitals, are not often noted nowadays, but have had a massive and long term negative influence on the NHS and on the state of health of most people in the UK’ put simply, instead of a design which roughly put a third of the cash into social care/servces, a third into hospital care, and a third into a proper state-run primary/preventative service, we ended up with a system massively skewed towards hospital and tertiary care, and (via GP bank balances) away from the health prevention agenda. A good brief read, especially about how the early concessions became ‘path dependent’ and caused the mush we have today, is at http://www.psa.ac.uk/journals/pdf/5/2003/Ian%20Greener.pdf
That’s not to say the NHS wasn’t a good thing to have won overall, but as socialists we need just to keep in mind what might have been won, and what might still be the main prize (and indeed as the essay notes the original NHS white paper was seen by many Labour MPs as just the first stage in the process towards a properly socialist health service). I don’t put ‘I love the NHS’ thing on my twitter page because of this (and also because I don’t know how to).
To what extent a refreshed and less halcyon view of the NHS might be part of a left agenda going forward, that’s a matter of question, but I think there’s a valid argument to be set out about how and why for historic reasons but ogoing today, resources are actually inappropriately ad regressively spent, which makes any campaign of defence of what we’ve got more coherent.
2) ‘Argument was advanced that there is no serious prospect of changing the Labour Party. From a socialist MP who was forcibly de-selected by Labour’s NEC and came within a whisker of being re-elected as an independent, this should be taken seriously.’
Yes, it should bre taken seriously, but the other side of the argument should be as well (see below)………
3) ‘I found this particularly interesting, because it seems to me that the same could be said of any mass movement – especially one taking place should the NHS come under threat. Hypothetically speaking, should broad lefts make gains within the unions in the coming period, and sufficient impetus be built up against NHS cuts, then the turn ‘towards Labour’ could be consciously made by the groups involved. At least that’s what Nellist’s remarks about the anti-war movement seem to imply; he himself might disagree with this.’
Yes, I agree with that provisional analysis that you impute to Dave Nellis, except that it won’t happen of its own accord – it’s up to the Labour left to make it happen as much as to the ‘broad lefts’ to seize the day as and when it arrives.
4) ‘Perhaps Nellist’s own remarks were ill-considered. After all, there are concrete reasons why the anti-war movement did not result in a mass turn towards the Labour Party. Quite the opposite. Throughout the whole thing, Labour lost members. Certainly this was something to do with Labour being the party responsible for the war – but quite a few of the resignations were politically conscious, active people who are smart enough to draw the distinction between ‘grassroots’ and ‘leadership’.
Thus, when Labour’s grassroots can’t even corral their own number, what hope is there of convincing the wider Left, with all the added complication of other fully organised parties? If one follows through to the logical conclusion, it would take the conquest of Labour’s leadership by the grassroots for this convincing to take place – and that won’t happen without a mass influx of politically conscious members to Labour. I would emphasize the ‘politically conscious’ too, as any thing else can easily be turned into door-knocking fodder by the party machine.’
But that asks the question whether it would have been appropriate for the Labour left that remained to ‘corral’ members unhappy about Iraq. How would that have been a) possible b) helpful? The problem was not their going – all those who stayed understood why people were leaving and wished them well in general – it’s their not coming back.
5) Nellist continued with a demand for hundreds of independent challengers at council level, which could be selectively endorsed and supported by a federation of the small parties, to ensure local candidates, local support and a more progressive agenda. This included, a recurrent theme of the meeting, endorsing suitable candidates who were running on behalf of the Labour Party. Such a federation would hammer out a minimum programme, to which any candidate could sign up.’
Yup, no problem with this – it’s up to the Labour left to confront any such new reality, and welcome it as a challenge, not pretend it’s not there (if it arrives properly). As I’ve said elsewhere though, there is a danger that the ‘broad lefts’ can get as sucked into the electoral machine in respect of elected positions which have (relaitvely) little actual influence over material conditions, just as the Labour left did in the 80’s.
6) Next up was Jenny Lennox from the LRC. I’ve never met nor heard Jenny speak before, and I think that whoever had her position on the platform that day would have had a hard job. Yet a (joking?) plea for sympathy for her hangover was hardly the best way to start. What Jenny said though, however delivered, was somewhat similar to what Paul has been saying on this blog. There are few people attending constituency meetings. There are few people who are activists. This is an opportunity for the Left.
True.
7) Where Jenny and Paul differ is in Jenny’s assertion that “Labour does have the trades unions” and the significance of that. Jenny’s other argument, that Labour is ‘a broad church’ was unlikely to carry any weight in a room full of socialists, most of whom would have had experience of that broad church and the utter reactionaries it brings with it. Disappointingly Jenny simply expected that this would be accepted prima facie as a reason to support Labour.’
Well I don’t know exactly what she mean by ‘have the trade unions’ but if it means have links with and support from, I’m afraid she’s wrong for the reasons I’ve set out in step 3 of the action plan I set out.
8) Jenny rounded off with the assertion that “there is already a structure for coalition, the Labour Party” where we “could get people selected as candidates”. Yet no attempt was made to address issues such as the regular suspensions of CLPs by the Labour NEC. Or the de-selection of parliamentary candidates by the NEC. Or about the various members of the Labour Party simply expelled from the organisation. And no attempt was made to address the democratic deficit between constituency level and national level.’
W ell, as you suggest, it wasn’t an easy job, but the Labour left does have to be honest and humble about where it’s at if it’s to get anywhere. We are not the sine qua non of organised leftism, though we do have the infrastructural potential to be if we can take control of it properly. It does sound like the LRC as an instiution needs shaking out of a ‘they will return’ torpor a bit; they will only return if we make it worth their while, persuading them that their efforts are more cost-effective within than without. That in my book demands both the symbolism and actuality of the turn back to the unions that I’ve advocated, but it also demands humility around standing behind other socialist candidates at elections (ie. by not standing Labour ones) – this won’t in fact happen often because as soon as a system is sorted locally for respectful joint selections/decisions (which can comply with the LP rule book well enough) then many candidates will decide to tap into the LP money and logistics support they wouldn’t otherwise enjoy, but where it does (e.g. Greens who are proper socialists and can prove it) then so be it. If that brings battles between CLPs and regional offices, again so be it in the context of other power challenges.
9) Romayne Phoenix from the Greens spoke next. Her speech was an unmitigated disaster………
Mmm, why am I not surprised? Would be interesting to know from Greens why and how she was chosen for the job. Did she volunteer? Was there no-one else? Do the Greens really care about socialist alliances?
10) Following Romayne, Kevin Ovenden of Respect spoke. A lot of what he said echoed Dave Nellist regarding the three main parties and the ultimate capitulation of social democracy. Where Ovenden differed from Nellist was in asserting that ‘it is not possible to establish a coalition of the mosaic left’, which I presume – though it was not clarified – means that a federal organisation between the different leftist groups is not the best way forward. Ovenden did agree, however, about identifying mutually supportable candidates.
Ok, fair enough.
11) Mike Davies of the Alliance for Green Socialism spoke next, and in my view completely departed from reality. In Mike’s own words, he declared “a vote for any Labour MP is a vote for New Labour.’ When question time rolled around, I queried this from the floor; “I’d like to ask Mike is he serious when he tells us not to vote for Labour MPs like John McDonnell, who have campaigned for years on climate change and the Heathrow runway, and who have never done anything except vote against New Labour?”
Davies flatly denied my assertion that John McDonnell (and I would add Jeremy Corbyn) voted against New Labour. ‘Left Labour MPs have had the odd rebellion’ he said, “They have never voted against New Labour’s project”. Indeed Davies went further into bananaland – “The existence of Left Labour MPs creates the myth that there is room for the Left in Labour”. No reader of the blog can be ignorant of the fact that actually several Labour MPs have been consistent rebels throughout the last three parliaments.’
Perhaps the best thing to say is simply that his fact-free view probably fairly accurately reflects lots of other views held by lefties of Labour, and just because he’s wrong doesn’t mean he’s any less believable to that constituency. Again, it’s Labour as the brand that got ‘besemirched’ and we can’t hand the unbesmirching to others.
12) ‘Last up was Alex Gordon of the RMT. A lot of what Alex said made sense; he pointed to the efforts of the Labour Left as heroic, but still heroic failures in trying to rein in New Labour. He said that his union would support Left officials anywhere it could find them, in whatever parliament, but that this would not solve the overall crisis in working class political representation. He argued that other unions needed to be awakened to this problem and orientated towards pushing for left regroupment, Die Linke style.
His argument, basically, was that the efforts of the smaller parties – whilst excellent and praiseworthy – lacked the social weight necessary to really kick off the fightback. Only the unions had that social weight, so he said, and if used correctly, this union weight could get things going. I’d say that makes sense – and Labour affiliation / disaffiliation has increasingly become an issue increasingly riven with a hostility proportional to how likely it is that a disaffiliation vote might sneak through. How we handle it requires discussion, because it is an issue likely to split broad Left campaigns and allow the inertia of the Right to prevail.’
Well I’ve had my say on how to manage disaffiliation so that the Labour left and the broad lefts gain by having a newly powerful local Labour left to deal with. Whether anyone listens/agrees is a matter for another time, but no great signs on first time of advocating.
13) ‘A chap from the Socialist Alliance (which I thought the SWP had folded up years ago) offered their name as the banner for a new left regroupment’.
Yeah, right. Well he did his job.
14) ‘An SP member from Huddersfield made the point that Labour does not ‘have the unions’, what Labour has are the union bosses – the very people selling out to social partnership agreements, allowing their workers to face the sack. Those union leaders who oppose such things fervently end up moving away from the Labour Party – as has recently been found with Brian Caton of the Prison Officers’ Association handing in his Labour membership card to Jack Straw and joining the Socialist Party instead.’
Yup, agreed (see above).
15) ‘Worry was expressed that the LRC seem to be saying that Labour could repeat the 1980s, and that the Left could reclaim the Party. The worry was that the LRC seem to ignore the differences between now and then, about how Labour is so much less democratic, the policies of Labour so much less accountable and the Left within Labour incomparably weaker than it was in the 1980s – when it still failed to win over the party.’
My even bigger worry is that the LRC start to think that what the Labour left achieved in he 80s was a success overall, rather than a small number of pyrrhic victories masking a total outflanking and defeat on the things that mattered. Indeed, that’s my biggest worry if we go into opposition. Easy victories will be the death of us this time.
16) ‘Some hopes were advanced about recent successes in the PCS union by a left unity platform that had been arguing for the need for a new workers’ party.’
Yes that creates hope for the futurem, but I still maintain on balance that a revitalised Labour left is a better option, if working properly with others like SP and (some) greens. Based on this excellent report (and the other findings e.g. from the Labourite) that it is a challenge, and that the Labour left risks getting it wrong quite quickly and quite irrevocably if it wasn’t just the LRC speaker’s hangover, and if that’s the summation of our analysis of where it’s at.
Well done on reporting it. This might be one of those ones we’ve talked about twiddling with and making into a conversation piece in its own right.
4) Coralling Labour members
Keeping people in the Labour Party is a barometer independent of whether doing so is either helpful or possible. The key point is that, when it came to the actions of the Labour Party, the Labour Left did not exercise enough pull even amongst its own people to stop them leaving Labour and thereafter dropping into inactivity.
If it was not possible for the Labour Left to exercise that pull, it tells us something – and I think that this ‘something’ is mostly negative about the prospects of Labour’s left flank.
8) Is it even possible to arrange for a joint selection / nomination / endorsement process that keeps to the Labour rule book? Bearing in mind that a councillor to your side of the Watford gap got suspended last year even for mentioning that he supported someone who wasn’t a Labour Party candidate, I think the NEC would have everyone involved out of the Party before you could blink.
11) If it is the case that this guy’s argument is widely believed – and judging by the various robust defences of McDonnell and Corbyn which came out from the floor and platform, it’s not – then there’s simply no hope of organising a coalition between Labour and those outside, to the Left.
As for the rest of the numbers, either I broadly agree or – w.r.t. the LRC I want to see if I can set things out in more detail, now that the NC and EC elections are finished and the CLGA/LRC slate has been picked.