“The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat.”
Trotsky may well have been thinking about the tenants’ and residents’ association (TRA) on my estate when he penned the opening line of the Transitional Programme. A lot of the regular attenders were certainly around when he was writing.
Last night I became acutely aware of the missing generations of working class activists engaging in pretty basic community politics.
It seems that in the 60s, 70s and up to the mid 80s there was an active TRA on the estate. The main force behind it was a Communist Party member who was backed up by an active committee. At the time 99% of the tenants were white British. In fact in the 1980s and early 90s the estate had the reputation as a BNP stronghold. The pub on the corner is where the founding meeting of Combat 18 is supposed to have happened. They are welcome to it. In ten years I’ve never once been tempted to go in even though it’s twenty yards from my front door and I do like beer.
For reasons that have never been clear to me the thing stopped running in the mid 90s. What restarted it was an attempt by the council to hive the estate off to a housing association as part of New Labour’s privatisation binge. We defeated that by a vote of three to one a couple of years ago and that struggle gave the TRA a bit of momentum.
The striking thing that hits you when you walk into the monthly meetings is the age profile. The core attenders are all people in their 70s. Their instincts are solid old Labour on anything connected with housing. When it comes to things like “them illegal immigrants” the opinions voiced don’t really belong on a site like this. What is missing is the people in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. Even a few people aged 60+ would bring down the average age.
It’s not as if we meet clandestinely. Each month I stick up 40 posters a couple of nights before the meeting which brings in an attendance of around 20. I’m told by the council officers we invite each month that this is pretty good. The trouble is, and it’s one shared by a number of left organisations of my acquaintance, that to build up a working committee you need younger more active people.
Last night the secretary resigned due to family commitments. The sound of tumble weed blowing through the hall was eerie when I asked for nominations or volunteers to replace her. It was at that moment I realised just how thoroughly New Labourism has erased much of the understanding of the importance of organisation and collective action that the older tenants take for granted.
Liam redux 
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