Liam redux

The Left after Brown's coronation – Alan Thornett

Alan has asked me to post this reply to Andy Newman. Those of you wishing to discuss this issue with real people in a room are very welcome to come to Socialist Resistance’s next London forum on Wednesday13 June at 7.30 in the Indian YMCA, 41 Fitzroy Square close to Warren Street tube. We are…

Liam
3–4 minutes
,

Alan has asked me to post this reply to Andy Newman.

Those of you wishing to discuss this issue with real people in a room are very welcome to come to Socialist Resistance’s next London forum on Wednesday13 June at 7.30 in the Indian YMCA, 41 Fitzroy Square close to Warren Street tube. We are actively seeking a person to put the Labour Left point of view. E-mail me if you fancy the job.

I don’t agree with Andy Newman that everything is hopeless (or almost hopeless) in the wake of the collapse of the McDonnell campaign. Or that the chance of building something serious outside and to the left of Labour is now dead. Or that it is absolutely inconceivable that the SWP could ever do anything positive in this regard, whatever the opportunities presented to them, the pressure applied to them, or whatever developments take place in the political situation.

It¹s right to say to the Labour left, and those like the CPB (and some of the trade union left) who have clung to a Reclaim Labour policy for so long that after the McDonnell collapse the only rational conclusion in the cold light of day is that the Labour left has no useful future in the Labour party. There is no point in saying anything else.

It is also necessary to say to them that were they to change course this would itself open up new possibilities for the left outside of the LP. The problem we have is that while the political conditions clearly exist for a new party to the left of Labour (political space to the left of Labour etc) the project has stalled as a result of divisions amongst the left themselves. It is true that the SWP have their responsibility for this, but they are not the only problem.

Of course it would be wrong to try to insist that they simply join Respect in its present form. But I have never heard anyone in Respect say that. I would certainly argue inside Respect that Respect should be prepared to do whatever is necessary to open the door to them, reshape itself in discussion with them do whatever it takes.

The reason the StWC is a more genuinely pluralist organisation than Respect is because the CPB and the trade union left and much of the Labour left are in it and working fruitfully with the SWP and George Galloway. If it can happen with the StWC it can happen with Respect. It would make Respect a very different organisation.

Nor do I agree with Andy’s over-negative view of Respect. If Respect is already dead in the water it’s hard to account for its election results. It is the only organisation on the socialist left which can win new seats in local elections and which has a chance (a very good chance) of winning a seat or seats in the London Assembly next year. The 12,000 votes in Birmingham in May amongst 7 candidates was remarkable ­ unless Andy is going to argue that they were the wrong kind of votes!

Its true that winning votes is not the only criteria on which to judge a political party, but its not an irrelevant factor either. It is an indication of its relationship with sections of the working class.

The fact is that there have been important radicalisations ­ against the war and against global capital ­ in recent years but they all had their reflection outside of the Labour Party not amongst the Labour left. The anti-war movement destroyed Blair and produced Respect, but it passed the Labour left by more-or-less completely in terms of strengthening its forces inside the party.

Nor, with Brown, can we rule out constitutional changes which might introduce a stronger imperative for left unity to the left of Labour. The proposals he has floated about a constitutional settlement involving a fully elected second chamber by proportional representation and reform of voting in the Commons involving at least a proportional element might be his way of making his name. Of course he might conclude that he can win the next election without making such promises, but there is at least a chance that this will happen.

Alan Thornett

8 responses to “The Left after Brown's coronation – Alan Thornett”

  1. Simon D Avatar
    Simon D

    I think Alan’s comment “The problem we have is that while the political conditions clearly exist for a new party to the left of Labour (political space to the left of Labour etc) the project has stalled as a result of divisions amongst the left themselves.” really sums up his misjudgment of the situation. Firstly, in what sense do conditions clearly exist for a party to the left of Labour? Like many on the far left Alan seems to be confusing his own subjective wishes with an objective assessment of class consciousness. A large section of the population is to the left of the Labour Government in a number of ways (the war, privatisation etc) but that doesn’t demonstrate that the masses have lost their faith in social democracy and are urging a new left party. At the same time there has been a long period of low levels of class struggle and collective organisation, in which the anti-war movement has been the exception that has yet to find an organised expression. There is no evidence to prove the second part that if only the left was more united everything would have been ok. Apart from the fact that the left has probably been far more united than it has been for a generation at least, it is also far smaller and even collectively is less able to be a significant influence on the broad layers of the working class.I can’t think of any historical examples of a significant and lasting split from social democracy in a period of defeats and low levels of class struggle that we have just been through. Even if the anti-war movement were to be the catalyst for such a leftward movement of the masses, you would expect that to find some expression in demanding Labour stop the war, which in turn would lead to people becoming disillusioned in existing parties and looking for an alternative. A far more significant tendency has been to ignore political parties on the assumption that political action can’t bring about change. As I mentioned in a previous post the large numbers of people who have left the LP since 1997 haven’t gone off to form anything new, and by and large have become less political, not more so.If there was significant substance to Alan’s argument, I would expect him to be able to point to a shining example of how the left is making significant progress outside the Labour Party, but there is little more than a number of single issue campaigns in the way that they have always existed.The left might hold more positions on union leaderships than they have in the past, but these are much weakened unions in which the leadership is far less able to bring the membership with it than it has ever been.None of this is an attempt to argue that we’re all doomed, but just to point out that the weakness of the labour left doesn’t make any of the alternatives any better an option, in many ways quite the reverse.

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  2. neprimerimye Avatar
    neprimerimye

    but you are all doomed! Leastways you are if the far left persists on maintaining the fiction that there is a way forward through either the Labour Party or the Trades Unions. The truth of the matter is that only small minorities of committed workers are involved in such bodies. Just take a oook at the voting figures for recent PCS elections for example and remember the act of voting involves very little effort compared to attending a branch meeting.As for working in the diocy that is Respect only a demented hamster would even have considered that an option with its rotten populist politics that were obviously and patently unreformable given the decisive influence of the post-Cliff SWP. And, lets be hoinest here Cde thornett, the STWC is a moribund body that has badly bungled its leadership of the anti-war movement.So to conclude if socialists wish to move forward we must breakwith the dead politics of the old dying organisations and look to the working class. It may not be the class many on the far left remember or fantasize over but its real and offers us more hope than the failed old tactics ever could.

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  3. AN Avatar
    AN

    Thanks to Alan for such a consideed reply to what was just a rushed off reaction from me in the comments fo Liam’s post of SR’s statement on the McDonnell campaign.I will give a reply in the next couple of days. :o)

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  4. AN Avatar
    AN

    I have replied to Allan here:http://socialistunity.blogspot.com/2007/06/can-forward-march-of-labour-be.htmlMIke – it is true that many trad eunions structure are atrophied, but i) the unions have enormous financial and personel resources we shouldn’t ignore; ii) some unions are moving towards a more organising agenda promoting the role of shop stewards – that is the best way of relating to the working class, through their own elected reprresentatives.

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  5. AN Avatar
    AN

    I may as well copy it here as well:The situation that the left finds itself in after the defeat of the McDonnell bid for the Labour leadership is a complex one. A bit of a debate has broken out about this around a statement issued by Socialist Resistance (SR) This was published on Liam Mac Uaid’s blog :The key passage is: “McDonnell’s defeat throws the Labour left into serious crisis. No spin can hide it. The project of reclaiming the Labour or the idea that the Labour Party is a fruitful arena for the left to work in have been dealt a devastating blow.“All this has implication for Respect, which should be taking the initiative to open or re-open a dialogue with those on the left who are currently not in Respect as to how they see the way forward.“The Morning Star and the CPB are a case in point. They are likley to find it increasingly difficult to cling to a policy of reclaiming Labour. Apparently a new discussion has already opened up on this internally in the CPB. The Morning Star had already called a conference in June on “Politics After Blair” at which the issue will now be unavoidable.“But Respect needs to be open and flexible in this situation to any new forces from the Morning Star or the trade union left. It should do whatever is necessary to ensure that new forces have space to make their influence felt. If it can do this it could break it out of its current impasse and open up a new stage of development.“Respect’s task in this process is to turn the tide of politics back towards the left. Rebuild ideological and practical opposition to the market. Work with the left in the unions to build an independent pluralist left alternative alongside the struggle to regenerate the unions and rebuild trade union strength and organisation.”To which I posted a comment to the effect that SR are making two mistakes: i) in not understanding that Respect is not a vehicle around which left unity can be built; and less explicably ii) that SR seem to completely fail to understand the political perspective of the CP.I concluded my initial remarks by saying that currently “the building blocks for any serious alternative to Labour are utterly absent, but where the situation isn’t hopeless either.”Given the undemocratic manoeuvrings in and around Respect, the media galavanting of George Galloway, and the dispersal of the layer of left social democrats who had aggregated around the Socialist Alliance in various parts of the country, then I would characterise Respect thus: “Who is Respect? Galloway or the SWP? Anyone else? Will either of those forces play the productive role you are calling on them to play? If there is no actually existing force within Respect who will steer the organisation to play the role you think it could play, then how could it happen?“Even were the SWP or Galloway to have a damascene conversion, would anyone on the activist left trust them? No-one is going to join Respect, or particularly want to work with them. The whole project is basically an embarrassment now. “If we are looking for a left unity project, then we have missed the boat. The wave of left activists who left the labour party after Clause IV and over the Iraq war could have been attracted to an organisation that respected labour movement norms of behaviour. But were never going to be attracted to respect.”SR are utterly self delusioonal if they believe that the CP or any significant left from the unions would touch Respect with a barge. Even were the Political Committee of the CP so minded, and I have no reason to think they are, then the membership would probably not agree to it.The failure of McDonnell’s campaign has produced unhelpful knee-jerk reactions from Respect and the Socialist Party that the Labour Left should join them in their equally unsuccessful campaigns outside the Labour party. They remind me of the mayor of Amity, swearing that the water is safe. For example Thornett writes: “It¹s right to say to the Labour left, and those like the CPB (and some of the trade union left) who have clung to a Reclaim Labour policy for so long that after the McDonnell collapse the only rational conclusion in the cold light of day is that the Labour left has no useful future in the Labour party. There is no point in saying anything else.”In fact this approach is completely misguided. Instead of looking at whether we can reconstitute the greatly diminished left around already flawed projects, we need to take stock of the current political situation.The overwhelming features are i) that the right within the Labour Party are utterly triumphant, and their victory is structurally irreversible. ii) The Labour party has failed to make the same shift to the right with its electoral base – the enduring progressive and social democratic attitudes of labour voters was well described recently on the SWP blog, Lenin’s Tomb ; iii) that the far left have failed to break that progressive base away from electoral loyalty to the Labour party; iv) the unions – on the whole – maintain ideological and political opposition to New Labour values, as can be seen by the way the unions make the running in opposing PFI, Academies and private equity. v) the structural problems of the unravelling British state.So how can we seek to harness the positive aspects of the current situation to strengthen the left? Alan Thornett has replied to me and asked whether I think Respect’s genuine electoral successes are the “wrong type of voters”. In a sense they are, but not in the sense he implies. Respect has done well particularly with that minority of voters for whom the war is the overriding political issue, but for the majority of the working class that is not the case, and opposition to the war has been subsumed into the general cynicism about politics.This is where SR’s misunderstanding of the CP’s position is clear, because the CP are talking some sense over this issue:As Robert Griffiths, the CP General Secretary: recently wrote : “But what is needed now more than ever is for the trade union movement, once again, to take on its historic responsibility to ensure the existence of a mass party of labour. For all the assistance that socialists and communists can render, the unions alone have the human, financial and organisational resources, as well as the class interest, to take the necessary steps. “Together with the non-sectarian left, they need to work out a political strategy which takes account of current realities. For example, most major unions remain affiliated to the Labour Party and are unlikely to leave it in the near future. “The first steps in this direction might be for all the major unions to affiliate and participate fully in the Labour Representation Committee. Deals between union leaders in smoke-free rooms to win resolutions at Labour Party conference are not enough. The active involvement of unions and their members in the LRC would be the clearest declaration of political intent. “The LRC could itself go the extra mile and allow full membership status to socialist organisations including the Communist Party, respecting their right to participate independently in elections in return for an agreement not to campaign for the dismantling of the Labour Party through further union disaffiliations. “In their relations with the Labour Party, unions should stop all financial, logistical and political support for MPs who consistently vote against key union policies. “SR are correct to highlight the Morning Star conference as important, not least because the CP still able to punch above their weight, and alongside John McDonnell, we also have Ken Livingstone and Jon Cruddas attending. At the deputy leadership hustings at GMB congress last week Cruddas came out in favour of starting to renationalise public utilities.The Labour Left were crushingly defeated in the PLP,
    but the McDonnell campaign has gathered together a nucleus of activists, who are less isolated and more motivated than they were before the campaign. It is as fruitless for us to argue with then that they should leave the party as for them to argue we should join it – comrades need to come to their own conclusions.The way forward is for all the left, inside and outside the Labour party, to promote the trade unions in exercising their own political voice. By and large, the unions will not abandon their stake in the labour party until they have exhausted its historical usefulness. But currently they are not making enough demands on the party, and so not testing the usefulness of the link.The Labour Representation Committee could become a vehicle for the unions to exercise collective political voice and if a substantial section of organised labour is to draw the conclusion that a party of labour needs to be refounded, as they effectively did in 1931, then the LRC could be the body around which that debate tales place. Of course there are serious obstacles, not least of which is the LRC’s requirement for Labour Party membership, which is a serious obstacle to many grassroots trade unions and community activists. But again the way forward is for local trade union bodies to affiliate and open a dialogue about being able to send delegates who are not individual LP members.In the meantime, we have largely missed the boat in England of building an electoral alternative to New Labour. There may still be a case of standing against Labour, but this can only be done by building grassroots links first, not by building the roof before the walls like Respect and the CNWP have done.There is serious work that can be done, but the vehicle for that work is not Respect nor the CNWP, the focus remains where it perhaps always should have been, with organised Labour in the mass organisations of our class.

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  6. Liam Mac Uaid Avatar
    Liam Mac Uaid

    Andy, this is a creative bit of thinking but delusional. The LRC doesn’t do much but organise an annual conference. It didn’t even have enough clout to get John Mc Donnell on the ballot paper and while it’s true that Respect is not very appealing to most socialists the Labour Party is even less so. Whatever new post-Labour anti-capitalist formation emerges will have to encompass Respect, parts of the current Labour left and the CPB. The LRC is not going to be the vehicle for this.

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  7. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    Whatever new post-Labour anti-capitalist formation emerges will have to encompass Respect, parts of the current Labour left and the CPB.Working with the SWP? Do we have to?No, really. I never joined the Socialist Alliance because I don’t like the way the SWP work, and distrusted their prominence in the SA & potential to dominate it. Nothing that’s happened since has made me feel any more positive about RESPECT. There must be thousands of pinkoes out there who are either bruised by contact with the SWP or distrusted them on sight. Maybe we[1] can work round the SWP next time instead of trying to go through them.[1] By ‘we’ here I primarily mean ‘younger and more energetic people than me’. But I’ll be right behind them.

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  8. AN Avatar
    AN

    It is a mistke to read my contribution here as advocating the LRC or the Labour party.What i am saying is that the key to breaking the log jam is the political and ideological disconnect between the unions and the Labour party.Now this would be a long haul approach, but it would also mean that the potential for the left groups to hijack or domiante the process would be diminished

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