Mark Perryman has just had a Compass Thinkpiece pamphlet published. It’s called ‘We’re all in this together : Towards the Political Practice of a Plural Left’. You can download it here.
Towards the Political Practice of a Plural Left – Mark Perryman
Mark Perryman has just had a Compass Thinkpiece pamphlet published. It’s called ‘We’re all in this together : Towards the Political Practice of a Plural Left’. You can download it here.
1–2 minutes
100 responses to “Towards the Political Practice of a Plural Left – Mark Perryman”
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The best that can be said for Mark Perryman is that when his shirts are reduced to £4 each – as they were at Tolpuddle yesterday – they’re not a bad buy.
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Very nice Jay.
Perhaps you’d like to visit Primark you’ll find very cheap T-shirts there too. The point being there that as any good student of marxist political economy cheapness would tell you cheapness is always paid for by someone, most likely workers in the production chain. Our shirts aren’t cheap precisely because we don’t use sweatshop T-shirts, we use local unionised printers to support the local economy, our sole employee is paid above the minumum wage and receives all rights and entitlements above the statutory requirement . And no the two founders don’t draw a big wage either.
The reason the shirts were discounted at Tolpuddle was because they were last year’s. Another part of our ethics is that no shirts are ever thrown away, they are either discounted or if you’d been in Barking on Saturday you would have sen a load of our shirts being donated to the youngsters playing in the Hope not Hate Cup competition.
Never mind, I’m sure you’ll not worried about the facts getting in the way of your snide commentary.
Mark P
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I wasn’t having a go at your t-shirts, I was having a go at your politics.
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Well it might help then if you actually read the thinkpiece Liam has cited and linked to, the responded with your thoughtful critique. Instead you’ve indulged in a snide comment, mistaking this, as so many do, for politics.
In anticipation
Mark P
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I have. In it you write:
“Some leftists would prefer instead a new
Workers Party to demolish the entire
edifice of all that they feel Labour has
betrayed. This is a go-it-alone politics of
never mind the consequences. Coalitions
with those who don’t match up to one
particular version of the socialist truth are
discarded. Instead there is a single claim to
political identity, working class politics.
Representation however has to be earned,
it is never enough simply to declare it as a
political principle. Slogans confused with
principles, the scattergun politics of selfrighteous
denunciation of others devoid of
any sense of self-awareness of their own
weaknesses, no compromise as the
beginning, middle and end of any political
conversation…”But it’s always seemed to me that you are a pretty good example of exactly the kind of hubris that you deride in others. You peddle your own branded line in snide comments whenever it suits you, directing them primarily at those poor misguided sections of the left that might aim to build a new workers’ party rather than cuddle up to Compass and their ilk. You’re remarkably thin-skinned Mark for someone who so enjoys dishing it out.
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Jay, no thin-skinned at all. You’ve quoted an extract from the thinkpiece, it is certainly polemical, sharply worded, and no doubt you disagree with it. I can indulge in snidery with the worst of ’em as you correctly point out. But its better to engage in debate isn’t it, even when we disagree?
So, back to the extract. I entirely disagree with a model of a ‘new workers party’ if its success is modelled on the disaster that No2EU proved to be. Widely trumpeted as a breakthrough based on RMT support, yet it was actively involved a tiny minority of RMT members, I reckon less than 0.1%, a fact casually ignore by those who are accustomed to write hagiographies of the rank and file. I set that out in one section of the thinkpiece. I’ve never made any secret of this opinion, and am convinced that if Respect chooses this particular route as set out by Southwark Respect and their co-thinkers it will be condemning itself not only to the marginality it should be seeking to escape from but an organisation consisting of those who hate and distrust each other more than any external foe.
Cuddle up to Compass? No apologies for seeking to reach out to that part of Labour;s mainstream now breaking with the Blairit-Brownite legacy, Greens, the SNP and Plaid too. A project for a plural left unlike those outfits who delight in their purity whilst ignoring the powerlessness this has resulted in.
If you really think ‘a new workers party’ is a feasible proposition, well good luck with, look forward to reading the progress reports and being proved wrong.
Mark P
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Interesting piece Mark. But its all too easy to slag off small groups to the left for being principled and to suggest instead a huge broad coalition of absolutely-bloody-everyone from Respect to the Lib Dems. (Surely there are even some Tories who would fit nicely in Marks Big Tent).
The missing element is the glue to bind this fantasy coalition together- what are the key positions or policies such a lash up could agree on- that is, agree on strongly and fundamentally enough to put aside other differences and disolve party allegiences?
Its only when you start to advance a platform for this lash-up that we, the punters who are to be governed, can see exactly how ‘progressive’ this coalition is.LikeLike
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With a Big Tent and a Compass I suspect that Mark will be able to do his political orienteering as he goes along…..
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You were the one in the scout leader hat…
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Rob, you’re obsessed with hats. I know you’re starting to go a bit bald, but really…
Top tip for Mark or any other budding socialist entrepreneurs out there – produce a good quality baseball cap with a tasteful red star logo. They’re remarkably hard to find these days.
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Rob. Its not principles I have a problem with. Its when these are transformed into immovable objects and robbed of any meaning. The most recent worst example of this is ‘No2EU’. Loudly proclaimed as a qualitative breakthrough towards a new workers party because of the RMT’s involvement. Yet that involvement, apart from bankrolling the ill-fated enterprise amounted to an tiny minority of RMT members being active in the campaign and not many more even voting for it, including in London where Bob Crow topped its list.
A ‘new workers party’ doesn’t come about by declaration yet in this particular instance that is precisely what its backers are up to.
As for coalition-building. Its not the case that is a jamboree for anyone and everyone to sign up to. The thinkpiece outlines quite clearly a critique of Blairist-Brownite labour. Yet the breadth of coalition around that critique remains considerable. The tragic error for leftists is that they are unable to countenance such breadth because the far left core would rapidly lose the disproportionate influence they enjoy in narrower outfits that they control. The basis of opposition to Brown’s Labour Party is in essence social democratic in content, if you refuse to accept that then clearly a broad coalition is not what you would be seeking.
The glue? This is the purpose of ideology, and it is precisely the decline of an ideological politics, replaced by a governing class managerialism, which makes the case for a plural left now so absolutely pressing.
Mark P
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But nowhere do you explain the content of this social-democratic opposition. Social Democracy can refer to anyone from Benn through to the old SDP- and now you are stretching it to cover a multitude of other parties and individuals.
This is fine if you want your progressive coalition to exist simply at the level of think-tanks, conferences and articles. But in the real world the Lib-Dems, the Greens, Labour and the nationalists (on their own patches) do currently stand in every constituency and have primary loyalty to their own party.
I cannot see a way beyond this that does not at some point start to draw clear lines of demarcation and boundaries around the coalition based on acceptance (or not) of real concrete policies from which later follows the principle of one progressive candidate per constituency.
Anyway, good luck with building your amorphous coalition. I eagerly await news of your success at the next election in getting the Lib Dems to stand down in favour of the SNP whilst the Greens and Respect back Vince Cable…LikeLike
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Content of social-democracy? Like you I would want to push at the boundaries of existing definitions of social-democracy but that doesn’t mean I don;t appreciate the fact that if John Smith had lived and Tony Blair had never become PM, nor Gordon Brown Britain, and the world, would be a better place.
The process towards a plural left clearly at some stage has to address electoral contingencies. But it is entirely unrealistic, and unhelpful to make it the immediate starting point. Geoege Galloway can call for a vote for Caroline Lucas, and vice versa. But if Jon Cruddas or John McDonnell do they will be expelled from the Labour Party, should we really demand that of them? But both are happy to speak on the same platform as Caroline and express near universal agreement with her politics. The endorsement is implicit rather than explicit.
But for a significant portion of the progressive electorate these party labels no longer matter. They will vote for the leading progressive candidate, Respect or Green, SNP or Plaid, Labour or Lib-Dem. A plural left which engages with this progressive electorate would number in the hundreds of thousands.
And Respect backing Vince Cable? What an excellent idea, damn I wish I’d thought of that.
Mark P
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I’m reluctant to interrupt this men in hats debate
http://meninhats.com/d/20020807.html
but I must commend RobM for talking some sense.MarkP’s belief that PR ensures that every vote counts has been disputed before. It actually ensures that the largest centrist party is likely to determine what the government is, so instead of about 40% of the electorate voting for the governing party, the 20% voting Lib Dem will decide. Fine if your only priority is seeing Vince Cable as chancellor.
The idea that there is most progressive voters will vote for the leading progressive candidate is questionable. More electors fail to vote than support any of them, a situation unlikely to be improved by the backroom horsetrading PR tends to bring with it.
You say that Respect has “three or four” target seats, surely with such a small number precision might be achievable?
The idea that outside of “Blairite-Brownite New Labour” everyone to the left of the Tories is broadly in agreement is an idea recycled from the Marxism Today of the eighties.Why if Jon Cruddas or John McDonnell are far more in agreement with Caroline Lucas than their own party are they still in it? I suggest you are projecting your own beliefs.
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Mark – the Vince Cable remark is a joke. Isn’t it?
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I’ll eat my hat if he was joking, Liam…
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‘Why if Jon Cruddas or John McDonnell are far more in agreement with Caroline Lucas than their own party are they still in it? I suggest you are projecting your own beliefs.”
This assumes that people act on their principles without making compromises to what they think can be achieved. Both Jon and John got where they are today because of the Labour brand – it’s their political home. Many comrades stick with the sect they have long been members of only to reach a breaking point and quit – though in the case of elected politicians there’s strong disincentives (not getting re-elected, reaction of local party activists who’ve campaigned for your election, etc.)
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No need to worry about having yer hat for lunch Jay.
If Brown had dumped Darling as Chancellor, brought in Vince then the banks would be properly nationalised not the hands-off approach with little or no actual control we’re lumbered with by new Labour and the railways would be back in public hands.
If I lived in Vince Cable’s constituency I would have no hesitation in voting for him. Would you really want a Tory in Parliament in his place (Labour is a no hope candidacy in leafy Twickenham).
Mark P
Mark P
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What utter rubbish. If Brown had wanted the banks and railways nationalised he could have instructed Darling to do so, or replaced him with someone else from the Labour Party to do so- he could even have picked Galloway!!
Why on earth should he pick a Lib Dem to do it?But actually ou’re a happy bunny aren’t you Mark?
There probably isn’t a constituency in the country where you couldn’t find someone from one of the three (Scottish viewers have their own programme) main parties to vote for already… Lucky you- nothing to build, just move your little flags around the sand-table.
Meanwhile those of us with higher standards and aspirations have it a bit tougher…LikeLike
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“Mark – the Vince Cable remark is a joke. Isn’t it?”
Unfortunately, Liam, Mark P’s remark is not a joke at all.
I’m surprised that you are surprised at what he said.
I refer you to previous debates and your outrage at accurate political characterisations of Mark P’s politics.
The fact that he has a gut level dislike of the idea of a workers party, but want to vote Lib-Dem, says rather a lot.
This is a class-based phenomenon. Bourgeois politics in other words.
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Oh grow up.
I look forward to the new Workers Party raising thrir banner in Twickenham and romping home to grab a stunning victory.
Where Respect stands and has a half-decent chance of winning I would not only be voting Respect but actively campaigning too. In Brighton Pavillion and Norwich South a Green victory at the next General election would be widely welcomed and a new Workers Party candidate to be as welcome as they would be in Twickenham.
In Hillingdon the Greens should have the political maturity to stand aside for JohnMcDonnell a brilliant opponent of Heathrow’s third runway.
Meanwhile in Scotland and Wales most SNP and Plaid candidates are considerably to the left of Labour and in many constituencies stand a good chance of winning.
If you want to build a new Workers Party fine, but the recent track record doesn’t look encouraging does it? 1% of the vote at best abd the much trumpeted RMT backing amounted to less than 0.1% of the membership actually getting involved, yet those who champion the rank and file can’t bear this being mentioned.
Vince Cable or a Tory? I know which one I’d want in parliament.
Mark P
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“Oh grow up.”
Very patrician. Those who don’t want to vote for representatives of the employing class are all naughty children who should be admonished and told to ‘grow up’. Doesn’t this remind you just a little bit of a lady with a handbag?
“Vince Cable or a Tory? I know which one I’d want in parliament.”
I wouldn’t support either on principle. Both are representatives of the employers.
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Vince Cable’s party leader, Nick Clegg, was on TV last night, and the second thing he said was that there was a need to get “Big Money” out of politics, which is well-known Lib Dem code for restricting business donations AND those from trade unions. I know the lines on the trade union link with labour aren’t as clear as they used to be, but the Lib Dems are definitely on the other side of it.
I could say more about how hard it would be to get the Greens and the Lib Dems in a big tent, given their antipathy.
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This discussion is in danger of being sidetracked by the irrelevence of whether or not mark P, who doesn’t live in Vince Cable’s constituency would vote for him if he did. totally esoteric.
Personally, my different perspective coming from the West Country, the regional stronghold of the old Liberal Party, is that they are actually worse than the Tories; and when the Lib Dems sink back to their core support that right-wing regionalist agenda will be likely to trump the urban, mre social democratic wing.
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I agree, I threw in Vince Cable as an example of a Lib Dem worth voting for because for one he has been excellent on the crash, certainly immeasurably better than most Labour MPs, and he is in a constituency where the Labour cause is hopeless, and as for the new Workers Party’s chances in Twickemham?
The more worrying thing tho; is the very apparent inability to distinguish between tactics and strategy. The strategy should be a plural left including those pushing at the very obvious limits of social democracy. The tactic should be to support the most progressive candidate with the best chance of keeping the Tories, and the BNP out.
This inability to distinguish between tactics and strategy was characterised once as an infantile disorder. Grow up.
Mark P
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“This discussion is in danger of being sidetracked by the irrelevence of whether or not mark P, who doesn’t live in Vince Cable’s constituency would vote for him if he did. totally esoteric”
Well it’s already been sidetracked into the irrelevence of discussing his politics at all. Tired old euro-communism had nothing to offer the labour movement in the 80’s and it certainly has nothing now.
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Mark, damn your eyes for making me agree with Martin. You are a cruel man.
You write: “The strategy should be a plural left… The tactic should be to support the most progressive candidate…”
Strategy and tactics are important but cannot be abstracted from the ultimate goal which you seem to be very reluctant to refer to. Or would you agree with Bernstein: ‘the movement is everything, the goal nothing’
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Not too sure about Vince – he was an orange-booker, after all…
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Rob. The immediate, and ultimate, goal is a strong outside left. On that we. probably, don’t disagree. The issue is whether a new Workers Party modelled on a lash up of the No2EU sort is a useful development, or an evolving Respect which seeks both an independent electoral, and extra-parliamentary, profile while engaging with a broader progressive coalition.
Mark P
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“The issue is whether a new Workers Party modelled on a lash up of the No2EU sort is a useful development…”
Totally dishonest argument, since no-one has argued that No2EU was any kind of ‘model’ for a party. What was argued, though is that the decision of an important national union to break from New Labour and create an electoral platform to stand against it was a step forward towards the creation of a working class party.
Mark P simply hates the very idea of a working class party – he prefers coalitions with ‘progressive’ bosses. This is about class, not mundane matters of ‘tactics’.
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Ian. No idea why you keep repeating the same tired old pair of distortions.
Firstly, that decision by the RMT amounted to bankrolling and staffing No2EU with union fill-timers. The actual involvement of RMT members was miniscule, not more than 0.1&% of the membership, while in London where the RMT has a significant concentration of members only a tiny minority of union members even voted for Bob Crow who topped the list.
Secondly, I don’t ‘hate the very idea of a working class party’ I detest the pumped up rhetoric that represents an outfit that attracts less than even the SWP Left Alternative could manage and has next to zero support from ordinary RMT members as anything other than bordering on the insignificant.
Meanwhile you deride tactics as mundane. That perhaps helps to explain No2EU’s achievements to date. Thanks for that admission, I’ll treasure it.
Mark P
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That decision by the RMT was mandated by a previous RMT conference which authorised the RMT leadership to take electoral initiatives – or so I understand. I also understand it has just been endorsed by this year’s conference. In this context, Mark P’s posting above sounds rather like an anti-union diatribe to me.
Its good to see him admit that he ‘detests’ such a trade union initiative. He doesn’t seem to ‘detest’ the parties of the employers, though. People can draw your own conclusions as to where this ‘detestation’ springs from.
And tactics that involve advocating votes for employers’ parties are not tactics. Tactics that contradict class principle are not tactics.
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Very interesting Ian. So as a great champion of the rank and file perhaps you could explain why not 10% (8000), nor 1% (800) or scarcely even 0.1% (80) of RMT members were actually involved in the No2EU lash up’s campaign.
This of course has nothing whatsoever to do with being anti-trade union, it about being honest with the truth. Or perhaps by citing conference motions you are mistaking your Revolutionary Socialism for Resolutionary Socialism. A common error amongst leftists.
Mark P
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Funny how the supporters of bourgeois politics can use abstract ‘left’ arguments when it suits them. Of course, existing structures of many trade unions leave something to be desired, but to suggest that a trade union’s national conference has no democratic authority is indeed anti-union.
Next Mark P will be demanding a postal ballot of all union members before a trade union is allowed to sponsor candidates. That’s the logic of this nonsense.
Sounds just like the rationale for Thatcher’s anti-union laws.
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Tactics that contradict class principle are not tactics.
Surely they’re still tactics, just not ones that any self-respecting socialist would advocate.
The immediate, and ultimate, goal is a strong outside left.
As an ultimate goal it seems to be being put off into the indefinite future, as an immediate goal it seems to be derided in favour of a Progressives Got Talent contest.
an evolving Respect which seeks both an independent electoral, and extra-parliamentary, profile while engaging with a broader progressive coalition.
Is this code for: gonna stand where we think we might win, and look round for anyone who’ll be nice to us to back elsewhere in the hope they’ll be nice to us in our target seats?Seems to be more devolving than evolving.LikeLike
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“Surely they’re still tactics, just not ones that any self-respecting socialist would advocate.”
True. I suppose it would be better to say that they are not just tactics, but also strategic errors.
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ID you really don’t get it do you.
No, I did not advocate postal ballots on this or any other decision. It is you and your co-thinkers who proclaimed No2EU as some sort of historic breakthrough towards a new workers party because the RMT backed it.
All I am pointing out is that this backing amounted to a cheque and full timers. Nowhere in the campaign was there a speck of evidence that any more than 0.1% (80) of RMT members were actually involved. And in London where Bob Crow topped the No2EU list and the RMT have a substantial concentration of membership he did worse than the ill-fated SWP Left Alternative campaign for the GLA indicating a woeful vote from his own members.
Just so long as the RMT keeps issuing cheques you should be OK for a lost deposit or two next year but on current evidence the likelihood of the union’s members turning out to help with the campaign, and vote for its candidates are next to zero. Some new workers party this is turning out to be, best of luck with it mind.
Mark P
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What is there to ‘get’? That Mark P ‘detests’ the RMT’s electoral initiatives that have been endorsed by two national conferences.
1: to feel intense and often violent antipathy toward : loathe
2: obsolete : curse, denouncehttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/detest
Says it all, really.
The rest of the obsessive rant above reflects the meaning of the word ‘detest’. Beneath contempt.
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This ding dong is starting to remind me of the two lovers in The Divine Comedy sentenced to spend eternity unable to communicate with each other.
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Off topic, but as a fellow Leonard Cohen fan & given Socialist Resistances endorsement of BDS, I wondered if you have been following BDS issue over his playing of a gig in Tel-Aviv & the recent picketting of his concerts by Palestine solidarity campaigners? . Under pressure his management scheduled in a concert for Ramallah in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners near the tomb of Mahmoud Darwish, the genius Palestinian poet, but BDS has taken a strong stance that such sham ‘parity’, I do a concert in Israel but I also do a concert in Palestine implies not taking sides or a parity between the 2 sides of the conflict. Hence, I think Paul McCartney who after getting flak for playing in Israel pencilled in a gig in Palestine got panned as all he was playing into was the idea that there were two equal sides etc.
However, this case seems to be getting more publicity than the Rolling Stones and kabalah maestro Madonna who are both only touring Israel.
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Well I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as betrothed Liam.
Its a simple enough question Ian is being asked to address. Rather than quote conference resolutions will he explain why less than 0.1% (80) of RMT members were involved in the No2EU campaign and what this says about its chances of a historic breakthrough as the new workers party in waiting?
Mark P
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Mark, you’re in no position to have a pop at No2EU given that your politics simply amount to a re-heated Eurocommunism – precisely the sort of cross-class ‘lash-up’ (to use your unlovely phrase) which helped usher in New Labour all those years ago. Your prescription – a case of old wine in new bottles if ever there was one – has already been followed, and has left the patient in a critical condition. Presenting this old rubbish as if it was new and innovative doesn’t work for anyone who lived through that period. We’ve heard it all before, we’ve seen where it’s led us. Anyway, as you’re clearly going to want to have the last word, and bearing in mind Liam’s comment above, I’ll leave my own minor contribution to the discussion at that…..
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Anyway, aside from the anti-union hysterics above, there are real signs of positive developments in the wind…
http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2009/07/no2eu-what-next.html
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I generally don’t agree with Mark P, but he does have a point on the RMT and No2EU.
As previously stated No2EU had a meeting in Wrexham at which Bob Crow was speaking which the local RMT branch secretary didn’t even know of!!
Which is odd, given that Wrexham RMT was one of the first trade union branches in England and Wales to affiliate to a party other than Labour (the now defunct Forward Wales) you might think that the branch members might be receptive to an initiative of the union sponsoring a left wing electoral initiative.
The report ID highlights is positive.
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Jay,
As someone around at the end of CP I am a little confused how the small euro-communist wing of a failing party handed New Labour it’s victory. The Euro’s were a small group within the party, maybe the loudest mouthed but definitely very small, I know I was mistakenly sympathetic to the ‘euro- faction’ as opposed to the Tankies as organiser of Communist Student, and an District Committee member in Yorkshire.I can honestly say I never got that call from Tony asking for ideas. Maybe Charlie Leadbetter or Martin Jacques did.
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Also Mark, lets be fair to the No2EU campaign, it was launched very late, hardly had time to get going let alone communicate very well or run a campaign. I think the RMT can be critised for that, but the vote based on 6 weeks of existance was to be expected.
The issue really is where now for No2EU, there is a basis there to build something- not so sure what- when it has been around as long as Respect and still fails to mobilise anyone then a thorough slagging may be in order.
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“I can honestly say I never got that call from Tony asking for ideas. Maybe Charlie Leadbetter or Martin Jacques did.”
I doubt that Jacques and co had the air of Blair personally. It was Kinnock and Mandelson who were the linkmen between Eurocommunism and Blairism. Jacques and co were among the most fervent brains-trusters for Kinnock’s attacks on trade unionism and mainstream old Labour parliamentary socialism, equating it with Stalinism. This laid the basis for Blairism. Mandelson – ex-CP of course, was also a key figure and still is – a close confidant of both Kinnock and Blair. Kinnock’s 1993 TV programme “My kind of socialism” was a clear call for the abolition of Clause IV and the full on embrace of the market, which was fully realised under Blair.
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Oh I think Kinnock would have got there without reading the occasional copy of Marxism Today on the loo.
It was after all the hammering of the Labour Left’s municipal socialism that and witch hunting of Militant that lay at the heart of New Labour and the demise of the Labour Left.
I don’t think Bea Campbell’s denounciation of the NGA’s inheritable jobs, badly timed as it may have been, that did in Labour parliamentary socialism, or the Trade Union movement for that matter.
On a completely unrelated matter can I plug the rally tonight for Vestas strikers
Solidarity with Vestas Occupation – save jobs, save the planet!Demonstration: Tuesday 28th July, 6.30pm, London
Outside the Department of Energy and Climate Change
3 Whitehall Place (off Whitehall, Charing Cross tube)
Called jointly by the Campaign against Climate Change and the RMT (National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers)LikeLike
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Jay, and Ian. You both insist on absolving your particular left strategy of any notion of self-criticism while heaping blame and critique on all n sundry else.
The idea that the Eurocommunists in the CPGB were somehow responsible for new Labour is absolutely laughable. As for Mandelson’s politics being a product of his short time in the Young Communist League, yeah right.
I make no aplogy for the antecedents in Eurocommnism of a strategy for a plural left. And Likewise I entirely acknowledge the wholesale failure to develop such a left in the long years of defeat of the left by Blairist-Brownite Labour. This is a collective defeat, whatever your particular antecedents we have all been defeated.
The trouble with the likes of Jay and Ian is that they are so keen to blame others they are incapable of addressing the failings of their own strategy. If the new workers party model was recording success after success then they might have a point, but it isn’t and they don’t.
Mark P
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Which particular left strategy would that be? Independent working class political action is what Mark P is opposed to. And that is what he, and the Eurocommunists, have in common with New Labour.
What ‘influence’ the Euros had on New Labour is arguable and secondary. The real point is that they were, and are, co-thinkers in opposing working class politics. A ‘plural left’ that crosses class boundaries cannot possibly be democratic, because the bourgeois forces involved have opposing class interests to the working class and seek to cripple working class organisations.
Yes, the working class movement has suffered defeats. Some fought for the defeat of the labour movement, others unsuccessfully to prevent those defeats and are still fighting to overcome and reverse them. The Eurocommunists were among those who fought alongside the Kinnockites and Blairites to defeat the labour movement. They are not critical friends, but political agents of the bosses.
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Perhaps Mark P could explain whether there is any difference between what he’s saying now from 25 years ago, other than the enemy to be tactically voted against expanding from just the Tories to the Blair-Brown Labour Party(and perhaps quite what litmus test he’s suggesting for Labour MPs to escape his wrath), and the adoption of Respect as a ginger group to hopefully further his message( as outside its “3 or 4” target seats it only operates as a guide for who else to vote for).
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Ian. If you want to contribute to a meaningful debate it would help immeasurably if you took your head out of your bucket of leftist cliches masquerading as politics, where did you pick this awful habit up from, the Spartacists, the Weekly Worker mob?
Perhaps you could cite where I am ‘opposed to independent working class action’. Pointing to the pitiful vote for the No2EU lash-up and the near non-existent involvement of RMT members not in the full-time employ of the union in the campaign is what is commonly known as a ‘critique. quite different to opposition.
The point, if you bother to read what I wrote rather than the caricature you prefer, I was making is that the left has suffered a collective defeat at the hands of Blairist-Brownite Labour. And it does no one any favours pretending that any part of the left is doing well, as you seem determined to do with No2EU scraping in behind the SWP Left Alternative on 1% of the vote.
Skidmarx on the other hand, despite the silly pseudonym behind whch he/she hides and the rhetoric makes a far more interesting point. No my politics in terms of the plural left remains more or less unchanged over 25 years. Is that a strength or a weakness? I suspect Skidmarx’s core politics remain unchanged too.
However the terrain has changed markedly for a plural left. 1979-97 apart from the faraway left most considered the alternative to Thatcherism was some sore of Labour Govt. After 13 years of Blair-Brown that narrative no longer compels, this entirely changes the basis of the plural left.
Mark P
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I think we should all take care to keep the debate comradely…
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Where is Mark P opposed to independent working class political action?
How about in calling for votes for Liberal Democrats, while rubbishing trade union initiatives such as No2EU?
That certainly constitutes opposing independent working class political action. His ‘plural left’ means an alliance with part of the boss class.
That is the very opposite of independent working class political action.
If Mark P wanted to make a valid criticism of the RMT’s initiative, from the point of view of indepedent working class political action, he could have criticised the presence of a maverick Liberal councillor on the slate in the North West. I think that was a local anomaly and does not change the fact that as a whole No2EU was a working class initative – there are few things in this world that are completely pure right from the beginning.
But Mark P could not make such a criticism for obvious reasons. What appeared to be simply incongruous for No2EU is systematic for Mark P. He considers this elementary point, class independence from the bosses parties, to be a ‘leftist cliche’.
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Mark P – I’m not hiding behind a pseudonym. Why don’t you stop putting up such an obvious canard. I don’t see you ever objecting to your own co-thinkers use of screen-names. If you think I make an interesting point why don’t you answer it without the pointless personal attacks. I ask several questions in addition to the one about whether your politics are fossilised in the 80s, try addressing them.
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So can I presume your real name is Mr/Ms Skidmarx, er if its not your are hiding behind a pseudonym.
Apart from that I responded by ageeeing that the politics for a plural left remains in many ways unchanged however the conjuncture has changed in that Labour has shiftred dramatically to the right and proved a grave disapointment in office, much graver than even most of its harshest critics would have expected. At the same time while in England the outside left remains weak, it has at least a handful of creditable candidacies, but in Scotland and Wales there is a credible social democratic alternative to vote for in most constituencies in the shape of the SNP and Plaid.
As for Ian. You continue to studiously duck the point. Your definition of independent working class action amounts to the RMT signing cheques. It is entirely legitimate and consciously pro-trade union to question why such a tiny minority of RMT members, around 0.1% were actually involved in the No2EU campaign and not many more even voted for it, including London where Bob Crow managed to pull off the not inconsiderable feat of getting a lowrr vote than the SWP’s ill-fated Left Alternative. You might call this independent working class politics, I’d call it an unmitigated disaster. And yes what you write is stuffed full of leftist cliche, its what enables you to so spectacularly duck the most elementary of points. Looking forward tho to reading further reports on the successes of the new workers party, do tell.
Mark P
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Mark P’s idea of working class political action is to call for votes to the Lib Dems. The rest of his garbage is regurgitated word-for-word with such faithful repetition from umpteen previous postings that it sounds like its being written by a robot.
But repetition doesn’t make it more cogent. Sneering at the first modest election results of a new, pretty tentative trade union initiative in this ultra-boorish way only make it quite clear that Mark P is motivated by class hatred against trade unions and their involvement in the political arena. Mark P ‘detests’ (his words) the very idea of what the RMT tried to do – he ‘detests’ working class politics. His hate-filled tone against No2EU and the RMT reflects his anti-working class politics.
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Come again Ian? Still unwiling to explain why 99.9% of RMT rank and file members were involved in your version of independent working class politics. And if ‘modest’ is a vote in London less than the SWP Left Alternative a year earlier you’re welcome to it.
Mark P
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No,you can assume that I’ve used a screen-name that noone outside the fading hardcore of your Respect(minority) has objected to, and which I have used consistently so that people can see a consistent set of views emanating from it. Clearly I’m not hiding behind it when members of your faction have been passing round the name associated with it in order to find some way of personally embarrassing me, and I’m still using the same screen-name. I can see why with the fading of the Respect(minority) project as anything independent you and your friends have cast around for ways to avoid responding to your critics, but it doesn’t make it any less useless a way of proceeding.
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I think Mark P and ID are missing each others arguments.
Perhaps I can clear it up?
Mark P finds the low level of participation by trade unionists in No2EU problematic.
ID does not agree with endorsing a Liberal candidate because the party is pro-capitalist.
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No, Mark P does not find the low level of participation of trade unionists in No2EU problematic. He detests independent working class politics, whatever the level of participation.
Mark P and his ilk are political parasites who bask in the political successes of others. The funny thing is that the likes of him played no role in the electoral sucesses of Respect, the Greens or the Liberal Democrats – or New Labour for that matter. He certainly played no role in anything Respect ever did, unlike the SWP who played a very important role. People like him only jumped on the bandwagon when they smelled an opportunity as John Rees and co. screwed up.
Irrespective of whether their electoral acheivements are progressive or retrograde, the role of the Eurocommunists in all these electoral projects have been non-existent. The most they can boast of is a degree of influence on the political theorising of Neil Kinnock and proto-Nulab – but that is so discreditable that even they are not too keen on claiming the credit for that.
They just seek to assemble other forces into cross-class coalitions to implement their own tired schemas as a substitute for a real fight for working-class interests and social progress. New Labour was one such project – what Mark P is arguing now is another.
People who are serious about sinking roots in the working class for genuine socialism can live with the odd difficult election campaign and modest result.
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I’m a little disappointed that we’re not engaging with the issues and getting side-tracked by uncomradely sniping. For working people to win power it is vital that we have a broad alliance of social forces. This does not have to mean compromising independent working class politics – the members of the intermediate strata have gained from reforms that the proletariat have won…
At the moment the unions have a link to Labour that isn’t working – I imagine that given the poor showing of No2EU will not result in emulation by unions which have disaffiliated from, or were not affiliated to, the Labour party. Not at this stage, at least.
The next election will be held under FPTP and will be for the UK parliament – so the level of resources and effort put into No2EU will not go as far this time, unless the RMT/SP/CPB coalition grows. I reckon a better bet will be to continue to support candidates on a conditional basis rather than get involved in a new party – particularly as there’s the electoral threat of a Tory government committed to a programme of public service cuts and union-busting.
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charliemarks – when Mark P prefers the Liberal Democrats to the Labour Party he isn’t even in the arena of independent working class politics.
Not to mention that his internet ethics seem to lie somewhere between Harry’s Place and Redwatch.FPTP does make it harder for left candidates to be elected, though it does mean the effect of them doing so is that much the greater. I don’t know if the NO2EU result will discourage other unions,perhaps they will think it will be better if they help.
What candidates and with what conditions?
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Well, I can’t see how a cross-class coalition will help us resist attacks, either from the Tories or New Labour. However, such a coalition has a great deal of potential to cripple resistance in the future.
It’s not intermediate strata ‘benefitting’ from gains won by the labour movement I’m worried about. It’s the inevitable sacrifice of working class interests to keep the ‘progressive coalition’ together. That’s why such cross-class coalitions are wrong in principle. The bourgeois component is a built in guarantee against serious resistance to capital.
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Thanks for the compliments Ian, look forward to hearing you recording your electoral achievements on behalf of Respect too, I hear you’re going great guns in Southwark.
Actually its precisely the abysmally low level of involvement of rank and file RMT members in No2EU which concerns me and should concern you. You champion the No2EU lash up as a breakthrough because of RMT baking but appear entirely disinterested in anything beyond Bob Crow signing off cheques to bankroll it. 1% of the RMT membership would have amounted to 800 activists, 10% 8000, this would have revolutionised the campaign and deserving of wider support and votes. as it was less than 0.1% of RMT members were involved and only a small minority in London even voted for Bob Crow. Quite why you think this doesn’t matter is entirely beyond me.
Charlie on the other hand raises some key issues. Whether or not you think it worthless voting for the most vocal and effective critic of the financial crisis standing in the leafy Twickemham constituency hardly matters. 2010 will in all likelihood see a Tory landslide. Returning a couple of Green MPs, maybe a couple of Respect MPs, an unprecedented number of SNP and Plaid MPs would be some kind of pointer beyond this defeat. And yes if the most progressive candidate you can find is Labour vote for them too. The No2EU disaster in 2009 is likely to be an even bigger failure should it take the decision to throw more RMT money away on the likes of Ian D’s antics but in any case the likelihood of this being a significant electoral intervention are less on current standing than Lindsey German being the next Mayor of London.
Skidmarx is merely fatuous. He/she seems to think that ‘Skidmarx’ isn’t a pseudonym he/she hides behind. This Mark P (as opposed to the ‘Irish Mark P’ is Mark Perryman. I have nothing to hide and don’t take the cowardly route of a pseudonym, equating this point to the Fascist Redwatch is puerile, grow up if you want to take part in serious debate.
As for Ian D’s ‘crippllng resistance’ and ‘serious resistance to capital’ perhaps a report on the huge advances made by No2EU in securing working class support could be supplied, I must have missed that update or are you confusing once again meaningless rhetoric for meaningful politics. A habit you picked up in the Spartacist League, the Weekly Worker crowd or some other group which no doubt provided you with that uncanny knack for feeling the pulse of working-class consciousness perhaps?
Mark P
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Skidmarx – “when Mark P prefers the Liberal Democrats to the Labour Party he isn’t even in the arena of independent working class politics.” He was only talking about a particular situation. But on the other hand, has Vince Cable not shifted radically since he was an orange-booker? By 2010 he’ll be calling for the expropriation of the top 100 monopolies 😉
ID: I can understand why you’d be worried about the “sacrifice of working class interests to keep the ‘progressive coalition’ together”. But the recession is pushing many members of the intermediate strata into the proletariat – the dispossessed tend to blame big capital….
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Mark P – you seem to have the same desire to expose the identity of socialists as redwatch. I’m hardly hiding behind a pseudonym since your colleague Kevin Ovenden correctly guessed who I was the very first time I posted under this screen-name.If I was trying to hide I’d have adopted a different scrren-name, or maybe a succession of them. This should be perfectly obvious to you, so I assume you pose of ignorance is deliberate.
The way you’ve casually dropped what I assume may be the first name of another contributor to this thread when he chooses not to post under shows that you really need to learn some politeness. I know that’s not the done thing in the circles you frequent where double standards are all the rage, but you might feel better if you try.
charliemarks- his position hasn’t changed since Marxism Today was backing the SDP in the eighties. Except to see part of the Labour Party as much of an enemy as the Tories, and to think the rump of Respect is still a vehicle for anything. Vince Cable and expropriation: get back to me when it happens.
I’m not sure I understand to point you-re putting to ID at the end there.
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Skidmarx you really are a very nasty piece of work aren’t you. As you know only too full well Redwatch is a fascist website which identifies left wingers for physical assault. To compare me with this is an indication of your zero political judgement.
I was making the entirely reasonable point that you, and many like you, dish out the criticism, heaping insult after insult on those you disagree with mixed with malicious rumour yet hide behind pseudonyms and/or anonyminity. This is the political cowardice of fierce denunciation and no transparency.
Politeness is having the guts to being open who you are when you make a point.
Mark P
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Serious resistance to capital is something Mark P is not in favour of because he is a supporter of capitalist politics, period. Perhaps Mark P can explain precisely what his contribution was to Respect’s election successes that he trumpets as against those of No2EU? I doubt it, the answer is zilch.
As for his trivial jibes about erstwhile ‘feeling’ for ‘working class consciousness’, directed in reality at the RMT and other working class organisations, I suggest he should turn up at the Vestas occupation to make them in person. Maybe he can demonstrate his committment to working class struggle by flogging ‘Jerusalem’ T-shirts to the strikers. On the other hand, maybe he would do better at the Lib Dem conference. They no doubt have a bit more cash to spare to buy English nationalist bumpf.
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Incidentally, I understand Mark Perryman lives in xx. Can he tell us about his activities in organising xx Respect, how often xx Respect meets, and what its electoral footprint is? I speak as the secretary of the most active Respect branch in London, which not only has held regular monthly meetings for the past four years since it was founded, but has also supplied campaigners for elections in Tower Hamlets in election campaigns from the 2005 General Election – where our branch organised the leafletting and canvassing of Shadwell and Wapping wards for George Galloway. In Shadwell ward, incidentally, Respect subsequently in 2006 won all three council seats. During the 2006 council elections, we were involved in running our election campaign for Southwark council where our candidate won 11% of the vote. We therefore were preoccupied and unable to do much for the 2006 elections in Tower Hamlets, though we had certainly done a fair bit to prepare the ground for those successes. But we did supply at least a dozen campaigners so for the by-election in Shadwell in the summer of 2007 that Respect won despite the defection of one of its original councillors to New Labour. We also did rather a lot of the work for the Mile End by-election at the end of last year – despite the losses from the split, around half a dozen of us regularly turned out. Funny, but I don’t recall seeing Mark P out campaigning on any of these occassions. Can Mark P tell us what his role was in any of these events, and what he is doing to organise Respect activities in Haringey. Is Haringey Respect going ‘great guns’? Or is he, as I strongly suspect, devoting all his energies to flogging T-shirts and dishonestly seeking to claim credit for successes won by others while acting as a trojan horse for capitalist politics within the left and doing bugger all to build Respect or anything else on his home turf.
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Mark P -you could try addressing the content of arguments rather than the nature of scrren-names. When you violate the privacy of others without their permission you are exposing people to attack, maybe not with the same motives as Redwatch, but potentially with the same effect. Your point about pseudonymity/anonymity is nonsense – the only members of your faction who don’t know who I am are those who haven’t asked each other. Have you ever objected to the use of screen-names by Respect(minority) members? Of course not. Yet several of them change names more frequently than they change underpants, so there is no way of knowing who they are.
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Ian you seem almost obsessed with ducking the entirely legitimate question about why 99.9% of RMT members chose not to be involved with the No2EU lash-up, why only a small minority in London even bothered to vote for Bob Crow and what this says of its significance of it as a pointer towards a new Workers Party. Answer those questions and you never know you might be taken seriously.
You question my activism locally. But the point is I never boast about my activism where as you’ve been non stop grandstanding about the important breakthrough No2EU represents based on the RMT’s support, aka the union chequebook, and you don’t like the abysmally low involvement of RMT members being mentioned.
No I;m not active locally. I made no claim that I was. There was a small group of Respect members, we tried to get something going but nothing materialised. Does that mean I’m inactive and therefore should shut up? I;m not really into the game of ‘I’m more active than you, yah-boo’ which is frankly deeply unpolitical but heres what I’ve been up to since the start of the year and leave others to judge.
January. Organised anniversary party for Cuban Revolution, over 250 attended, £2500 raised for Cuba Hurricane Relief fund. Further £150 raised for Venezuela Solidarity Campaign.
Feb-March Viva Palestina. Banners provided for Gaza demos, entire convoy kitted out in T-shirts, window stickers for each vehicle, goodwill gifts provided for every stop on route. £5000 raised in material aid.
March. 350 strong event organised for Searchlight Hope not Hate Campaign. Trade union based with large numbers from GMB, Unison, Unite, CWU , NUT in particular.
May. Book published I edited on Breaking Up Britain with contributirs including Salma Yaqoob and Gerry Adams, plus leading figures in SNP, Plaid and SSP.
May Organised online debates on Ten Years of Devolution on Comment is Free Website with contributors including Salma Yaqoob, Leanne Wood from Plaid.
May Organised Tube Station leafletting for Hope not Hate campaign
June. Englandfans activities in Almaty included over 100 fans attending 65th anniversary of D-Day to lay wreath at Almaty monument to the Panfilov Battalion who suffered terible losses in siege of Moscow. Event highlighted specifically the defeat of Fascism.
June. Spoke at South African Embasy Action on South Africa event outlining campaigning ideas around World Cup 2010 to highlight in a popular way the legacies of empire and apartheid. All campaign ideas subsequently adopted by ACTSA.
June. Organised session at Compass conference with leading speakers from SNP and Sinn Fein, neither party had ever spoken at a Compass conference before and welcomed the opportunity to develop a dialogue.
July. Designs provided for Viva Palestina USA convoy, free of charge
July. Authored ‘We’re All in This Together’ Thinkpiece for Compass.
Throughout period, numerous appearances on R5, Sky Sports News, Setanta, Radio London, including studio discussion on Radio Scotland, focussed principally on England, fan culture and national identity (on average one media appearance a week). A lot of activity around RMT dispute which affected Wembley England game specifically refuting the invitation to attack the strikers.
Mmm. No it might not be the type of activism that in your handbook of how to build a new left party. I’m sure Tower Hamlets Respect could never have got a single councillor elected without the sterling contribution of your Respect branch from outside the borough, glad you pointed that out. And with your tireless campaigning it can’t be long before the new Workers Party secures that breakthrough. I await the reports with interest from inside my Trojan Horse. Good luck.
Mark P
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Fatuous stuff from Mark P, who seems to think that the main aim of left activists should be to be ‘taken seriously’ by him.
But his sneering at Respect people who are active, not only locally, somewhat belies his claim to have the interests of the broad left, including Respect activists, at heart. Mark can sneer to his heart’s content at our branch’s record – actually its not that unique – other branches of the pre-split Respect in other parts of London worked equally hard and played equally if not more important roles to ours in Respect’s real victories and successes in the East End in 2004-7.
What is tragic is that our branch is pretty much the only component of Respect in London outside the East End itself that managed to remain viable and active despite the split. So in sneering at our branch’s activity, and making clear his loathing for the SWP and other far-left components of Respect to boot (whereas I regard the split with the SWP as a unfortunately unavoidable tragedy) he is in reality attacking and undermining Respect itself.
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Mark P is a regular Bono of the faux left!
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Thankyou Ian for once again spectacularly missing the point that you made in the first place.
You suggested that I was some kind of poseur who never lifts a finger unless it was to sell a T-shirt that you don’t approve of. I wasn’t craving being taken seriously I was answering your own point with a modest record of what I get up to.
In terms of sneering. I was questioning first your assertion that without your branch’s help Tower Hamlets could hardly manage to win an election. An idea I find quite insulting actually. And secondly what is wrong with questioning the model of activism you are clinging on to. If it was so effective your branch would be growing at a phenomenal rate, it isn’t.
As for Bono, I make neither awful stadium rock nor invest in tax havens, but I quite fancy that claw thing he prances around on, does that count?
Mark P
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“first your assertion that without your branch’s help Tower Hamlets could hardly manage to win an election.”
A prime example of puerile sneering, since nowhere was any such assertion made. However, one thing I do know is that the elections that were won in Tower Hamlets were not won by the Tower Hamlets branch, but by Respect over London and beyond who came in and campaigned extensively over a long period. Large numbers of SWP members were involved, incidentally. Meanwhile Mark P was not involved in Respect because his loathing of the far left mattered far more to him than any putative sympathy for Respect’s aims, objectives and policies.
How can someone with this kind of record expect to be taken seriously when he pompously lectures others on electoral tactics by evoking election campaigns by a variety of political parties none of which he lifted a finger for? What’s even funnier is that he expects others to care whether or not he takes those others seriously.
You couldn’t make it up!
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Ian. I asked an entirely reasonable question, how can No2EU be presented as a significant development towards a new workers party based on the RMT’s backing when not more than 0.1% of RMT members were ever involved in this campaign.
Your response has not only been to resolutely ignore the point being made but to characterise it first;y as anti-trade union, then myself as some kind of agent of Capitalism, a ‘trojan horse’ and latterly to personalise those attacks.
This is an ugly form of politics that you are no doubt more than adept at conducting, but I certainly want no part of. Good luck with the new Workers Party, its going to need it if you represent the kind of politics it is going to subscribe to.
Mark P
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“I certainly want no part of.”
Good. The feeling is mutual.
Mark Perryman engages in bizarre and uncomradely attacks on active members of the organisation he professes to support, and yet he does nothing to support it and in fact uses his political activities – many of which are pretty weird and incline to English nationalism – primarily as far as I can see to promote his T-shirt business. He cannot reply to my political criticisms of his non-participation in electoral victories that he then tries to claim credit for and use as tools for vilification of those who did the hard work in helping win them. So he whines that he has been maligned ‘personally’. No, his political track record is being examined … and it doesn’t look good.
As for his ‘question’, it has been answered ten times over in this and previous threads, but he doesn’t like the answer so he keeps on repeating it like a demented robot. And yes, Mark P’s line of ‘criticism’ is anti-trade union, he is in fact promoting bourgeois politics as evidenced by his support for alliances with Lib Dems, and his air of injured innocence is a fraud. Again, he reminds me of some Tory whose motives have been questioned for promoting anti-working class politics – listen to the sanctimony and the squealing. Not a pretty sight, but par for the course unfortunately.
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Ian. You’ve not once answered why you aren;t bothered that only 0.1% of RMT members were involved in No2EU and what this says as its contribution towards a new Workers Party. Tho’ I entirely concur that this has sent me into a robit like trance trying to gt that answer.
Ian. I didn’t once claim to have been active in electoral politics so why accuse me of not doing something I don’t profess to do? I detailed what I modestly contribute, you don;t like the sound of it, fine but then I don’t abide by your particular failing model of activism, how many members does your branch of Respect have again?
Oh and now I’ve graduated from a lib-dem to a Tory. Don’t worry I have no intention of being part of the kind of politics you represent, good luck in the new workers party.
Mark P
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“how many members does your branch of Respect have again?”
At the last proper count, which was circulated by those compiling membership figures at the NC, we had more paid up members than Tower Hamlets. That was probably a temporary anomaly. Though I don’t give out actual figures in public forums.
Mind you, it really says a lot about Mark P’s loyalty to Respect that he can engage in small-minded public sneering at branches of his own organisation for (allegedly) not having enough members. I guess he has forgotten he is supposed to be a partisan of Respect – he has as much regard for the organisation he sometimes pretends to support as he does for the trade union movement. I.e. none.
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ID – I’m curious as to whether given your involvement in NO2EU and support for a successor organisation, if you think your ideas or Mark P’s are more representative of the post-split Respect, and if you think it still has a future.
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Well, it is common knowledge that the motion to support No2EU outright failed by only one vote on the Respect NC. It is also the case that supporters of Socialist Resistance on the NC, who also gave sympathetic coverage to No2EU in their publications, voted against having a national policy of supporting No2EU for reasons I consider to be self-contradictory and wrong. But that aside, this does show that among active Respect people there is broad sympathy for the potential for a new left unity initiative that palpably exists. I reckon that if something credible with the support of say, two or three unions is put together, there will be more sympathy still.
It remains to be seen how much influence Eurocommunist entrists can muster and whether they will be able to derail Respect. I hope not, but no-one ever said that a new left-wing party would be easy or straightforward to build.
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`I’m curious as to whether given your involvement in NO2EU and support for a successor organisation, if you think your ideas or Mark P’s are more representative of the post-split Respect, and if you think it still has a future.’
Of course, if the `left’ liquidationists of the SWP hadn’t walked out of Respect and then tried to wreck it you wouldn’t have to ask that question.
ID carry on with the exemplary work, Respect is still a very worthwhile and important project as is the struggle to consolidate it but also broaden it out and link it up with the Labour left and elements of NO2EU on a practical basis when possible. Continue to battle for it, and any wider front it becomes part of, to adopt a programme of support for workers in struggle and transitional demands.
I don’t often agree with Mark P and he is often a right liquidationist but he also does some very good work. His T-shirt company is very generous and he himself gets around and is active. It is easy in any discussion to be pushed into fixed ideological positions and stray from the path of reason. It is up to us to grow.
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Ian. You he once again spectacularly missed the point.
You are a great enthusiast, and clearly a practitioner, of a particular model of political activity. Its not one I believe in or subscribe to, so I was simply questioning given your very obvious enthusiasm for the cult of activism what this has resulted in in terms of a large and thriving local Respct branch. I understand that the motion to support No2EU was passed unanimously by your branch meeting, of 11 members, which doesn’t sound a great result for all your professed activity. POinting this out is crucial to a party culture that cherishes self-criticism rather than just rushing from one initiative to another. It is in the same spirit that I continue to question why only 0.1% of RMT members were active in No2EU.
If you driopped the cliches of left abuse, at the last count I’m a trojan horse an entryist, a Lib Dem and a Tory, you might actually recognise this.
David E. Thanks for the kind comments. I was not showing off what I get up to, I was just pointing outh theres more than one model of political activism.
Mark P
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ID – thanks for your response. I realise that we are never likely to quite agree on Respect,my view has been coloured by the abusive methods of those more in tune with Mark P’s vision. What lies behind my question is a belief that the post-split Respect rises and falls with Galloway and Yaqoob and their immediate circles, would you agree and do you think your perspectives or the cross-class ones of Mark P predominate there?
David Ellis – Respect is still a very worthwhile and important projectMy question about whether the post-split Respect still has a future was somewhat informed by this report from A Very Public Sociologist :
http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2009/08/far-left-party-accounts.html
What is immediately obvious is how much Respect suffered in its split with the SWP. As the accounts note:
This is reflected in the drop of annual income from £210,093 to £36,237 and expenditure from £202,608 to £40,151. This fall in overall turn over reduced the national organisation to a shoestring operation that employed no full or part-time permanent staff in 2008. It also witnessed a fall in membership from 2,472 members in 2007 to just over 500 by end 2008.
“Left liquidationists” of the SWP? Keep smoking that water-pipe, baby.Mark P – at the last count I’m a trojan horse an entryist, a Lib Dem and a Tory
Maybe you’re all four. Is it you or the other Mark P commenting on the report on AVPS? It’s so confusing when you have interchangable names.Since you’re so willing to give out the membership figures for ID’s local Respct branch, perhaps could give an estimate for the national figure. I understand it’s now more like 350 than the 500 in the AVPS report. [I don’t intend to rise to David Ellis’ debate by raising again the question of how the coup against the SWP in Respect could have had any democratic legitmacy if the post-split organisation is smaller than the SWP alone]LikeLike
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`“Left liquidationists” of the SWP? Keep smoking that water-pipe, baby.’
I think the delusions are all yours Man Who Can’t Wipe Arse. SA, the events in Scotland, Respect, a revolvign door of membership, etc, etc. If that ain’t `left’ liquidationism I don’t know what is. And none of your childish attempts to discredit me with accusations of being a drug addict will have any effect or affect clown.
Have you thought also that the figures you quote my reflect a new honesty and an effort to avoid damaging inflation figures. How many seasoned members did the SWP lose or see utterly discredited and even kicked off their own leading bodies?
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Whenever members of Respect Rump have been asked for membership figures they’ve refused to answer the question, as they have any others they might find at all difficult. So no I don’t think there is much honesty in your end of the post-split Respect, and the figures show that a lot of people left and the majority were supporters of the SWP and their friends.
How many seasoned members… Not a lot. Certainly not the implosion you and your mates were predicting, which has more decribed the experience of the Galloway faction. Of course they were all utterly discredited in your eyes. What ever did happen to the faction in the SWP which was supposed to have thought Galloway was right all along?
The bolsheviks and the world war By Olga Hess Gankin, Harold Henry Fisher gives a definition of liquidationism that I think may come from Trotsky:
“attempts of a certain group of party intelligensia to liquidate the present organisation of the RSDLP and to replace it at any price with a shapeless association within the limits of legality even if this legality be bought at the cost of an obvious repudiation of the programme,tactics and traditions of the party.”
http://books.google.com/books?id=SDCsAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=definition+liquidationism&source=bl&ots=Z27IWEM5Es&sig=OW9rM0mNza4mu3V30A1kz-XA9c0&hl=en&ei=z-96Sr3tDZPu-Aatnuky&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10#v=onepage&q=definition%20liquidationism&f=falseI don’t know what you’re talking about has in common with that. Maybe taking some drugs would chill you out a bit and you might start making some sense, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
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I’m thinking more of the time when Lenin took on the `left’ liquidationists who refused to countenance any legal work and the right liquidationists who refused to countenance any preparations for illegality or indeed any illegal work. Lenin, ever the reasoner, was compelled at that time to castiagate even Trotsky who later acknowledged his error. Not surprised that the only time you would site Trotsky is under those circumstances.
Re the SWP. Not an implosion granted, more of a stumbling along into deeper and deeper denial. But there does seem to be a definite division discernable in the ranks now amongst an ultra-left group of purists and a Gramscian Stalinist, existentialist, post-modernist, eclectic, Euro-communist-style, idealist mess who have no idea what they are doing or what they want.
Nobody is trying to kick the left out of Respect, as the discussion above shows, however sharp it was. We can only gain by being involved if we are politically astute. In fact, the only people who have damaged the influence of the left in Respect is the left itself. Even now with impetuous resignations and other silliness.
You are right not to get your hopes up on your last point by the way.
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There is a big problem is with Skidmarx’s reasoning that if the SWP membership as a whole was bigger than that of Respect without the SWP, then Respect has no democratic legitimacy.
One answer, of course, is that Respect membership is individual, and a great many SWP members did not join Respect. They should have. But that is only a secondary issue.
But there is a broader problem that the SWP has implicitly recognised by the self-critical statements it has made since the ouster of John Rees. It is this – that the activists of quite a few labour movement organisations, campaigns, etc. can be outvoted by some larger but less rooted left-wing organisations, even though those organisations with smaller numbers of activitists, if put side by side in an election or some other test of real social roots, would most likely outvote the bigger left group. Sometimes larger organsations can be less rooted than smaller ones.
Making alliances with broader forces that do not have the depth of activists of the far left, but have deeper social roots, is a strategic-tactical problem. You can ‘solve’ it packing meetings, of course, but that does not ‘solve’ anything. It just naturally leads to yet another embittered split.
If the SWP don’t learn this lesson, the kind of debacle that wrecked the SA and massively damaged Respect will happen over and over again. It is essential that this lesson is learned, and the whole foolish perpsective of the ‘United Front of a Special Kind’ which means that the purpose of such coalitions/pre-party formations, for the SWP, is to recruit to the SWP, is junked in favour of a perspective of building a new broad left party and maximising the influence of Marxism within by being the best fighters for the broad interests of the party itself.
That way, the SWP will avoid the pittfalls that led it to first play a positive role in building, and then destroy or seek to destroy, both the SA and Respect.
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ID- that’s the most extensive defence I think I’ve seen anyone put forward for the democratic legitmacy of Respect Renewal. I still don’t agree with it.
Firstly it wasn’t what was claimed at the time.I haven’t trawled through to find particular quotes, but I’m sure it’s uncontroversial that at the time of the two rival conferences RR supporters claimed that not only did they have majority support within Respect, but that a large faction of the SWP agreed with them. That latter claim I think has shown to be false, the criticism of John Rees appears to have been about the methods with which he dealt with Galloway, not that Galloway was in the right.
Apparently many members of the SWP hadn’t joined Respect, and there were complaints that they were doing so at the time of the split in order to win the numbers game. Still what is certain was that RR didn’t win control of the organisation by any democratic procedure, it did so by the bureaucratic trick of having Linda Smith deny electoral nomination to any pro-SWP candidates. Would it not have been more honest and democratic for the minority to leave Respect and set up its own organisation, or would that have unfairly denied those who came in after the split to claim credit for Respect’s earlier successes?Your broader point may have some relevance for the SWP in terms of the way it operates, though I’m sure members almost univerally would start by saying there’s no inevitable contradiction between trying to recruit to the SWP and strengthening the movement in general. As it relates to democratic legitimacy it is reminiscent of the arguments of the Labour leadership in the 80s for interfering in constituency affairs because Militant activists were supposedly over-represented on General Management Committees. Yes it is often the case that the less active , more right-wing members of a party better reflect the mass of the population as they are at the moment. That’s fine for a bourgeois party that wants to maximise its vote by saying “We stand for what you already believe in”. But a party that wants to change people’s ideas is going down a dead end if it adopts that approach.
And clearly there is some contradiction between your assertion that the SWP has had a wrong strategy throughout, and your acceptance that it played a positive role in SA and Respect at some time. I could go into more detail about how ithas taken less control than its numbers would warrant, perhaps to avoid frigtening off independents, in any case I think it is more sinned against than sinning.
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that the activists of quite a few labour movement organisations, campaigns, etc. can be outvoted by some larger but less rooted left-wing organisations, even though those organisations with smaller numbers of activitists, if put side by side in an election or some other test of real social roots, would most likely outvote the bigger left group. Sometimes larger organsations can be less rooted than smaller ones.
Making alliances with broader forces that do not have the depth of activists of the far left, but have deeper social roots, is a strategic-tactical problem. You can ’solve’ it packing meetings, of course, but that does not ’solve’ anything. It just naturally leads to yet another embittered split.
this would seem to sum up quite well the phenomenon whereby the Respect NC nearly took the disastrous course of backing NO2EU at a national level, when the closeness of the vote was really due to the disproportionate vote from the not particularly well rooted Southwark branch, overriding the concerns of the much better rooted birminham respect.
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Sorry, Andy, but the NC was elected by a democratic conference of the elected membership of Respect. It is accountable to a conference if it takes decisions that would be widely disagreed with among the membership. If you don’t like it, raise it at the conference.
Whereas the SWP central committee under John Rees, as is widely known, is not even accountable to the membership of the SWP. The SWP tacticly conceded this in the aftermath of Rees being ousted from the SWP by the creation of its Democracy Commission, which would have been superfluous if such accountablity had existed.
Actually, if you want an example of the use of SWP-style tactics on the Respect NC, a prime example of this is Socialist Resistance, who caucused their people prior to the NC meeting and, against everything they claimed to want to do at the time of the split with the SWP, voted as a bloc against supporting No2EU despite deep disagreements in their ranks about what they continue to maintain is a tactical question. But you won’t find Andy objecting to that manifestation of bureaucratic centralism, because his side of the argument benefitted from it.
The NC is elected and has the right to act as an elected body – it also has the right to be argue its case at a properly constituted conference. The idea that it can be taken for granted that the opinions of prominent individuals will automatically win out or be seen to be right is just as contrary to democracy as the conduct of John Rees.
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“Firstly it wasn’t what was claimed at the time.I haven’t trawled through to find particular quotes, but I’m sure it’s uncontroversial that at the time of the two rival conferences RR supporters claimed that not only did they have majority support within Respect, but that a large faction of the SWP agreed with them. That latter claim I think has shown to be false, the criticism of John Rees appears to have been about the methods with which he dealt with Galloway, not that Galloway was in the right.”
The problem is, that on the issues that were in dispute at the time, GG was in the right. This has been effectively conceded by the SWP when they effectively sacked John Rees as leader, and in subsequent cryptic but unmistakeable statement including in the recent ‘Unity’ letter that accept that the whole business backfired massively against the SWP. Indeed, GG’s criticisms of JR were mild by comparison with what the SWP CC subsequently did to JR – he didn’t demand that Rees be sacked, just that a counterbalancing extra national officer be created for Respect.
The minutae of this are what you would expect in a bitter factional fight. But given the SWP have tacticly admitted (by appointing their Democracy Comission) that the methods they used were undemocratic to the SWP membership, the idea that non-SWP members who hadn’t signed up to the SWP’s then internal regime should meekly accept ‘majority votes’ that they knew were manipulated by an undemocratic internal regime is … not very likely, is it?
This is history now. But it is history we must learn from, so that it is not repeated.
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“Sorry, Andy, but the NC was elected by a democratic conference of the elected membership of Respect.”
Obviously the first sentence is a bit garbled. Remove the last ‘elected’. However, I am still recovering from a bout of ‘flu so maybe my proofing skill are not what they should be;-)
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One other point is this:
“As it relates to democratic legitimacy it is reminiscent of the arguments of the Labour leadership in the 80s for interfering in constituency affairs because Militant activists were supposedly over-represented on General Management Committees.”
Actually, its very different. Those Militant members on GMC’s were in most cases very active people in the LP. The point with the 2007 Respect conference is that suddenly people who had not been active in Respect were surfacing as delegates. If they had been active Respect people no one would have objected. In my branch there was a proposal from the full-time organiser to send an entirely SWP delegation to the conference, made behind closed doors in an SWP meeting.
It was not put to Southwark Respect only because it many local SWP members realised that the non-SWP were too obviously central to the Respect branch to for the SWP to pull this off. But the intention was there. Elsewhere, where the non-SWP were less coherently organised there was fairly systematic exclusion of non-SWP people from delegations who were considered ‘unreliable’ by JR. Also, SWPers who were considered ‘unreliable’ – even ones who were very active in Respect – were excluded in favour of people who the leadership trusted – who were not active in Respect.
(Mind you, Andy Newman’s argument against me above is rather similar to the LP argument you cited. He argued that very active Respect people should defer to others simply because of their prominence, which indeed is an argument against democracy and effectively for automatic endorsement of anything the prominent leaders of a party want to do).
Very few in the SWP defend this now. They don’t defend it in public statements – indeed when the issue was raised by the SP, Chris Bambery replied recently:
“We are well aware of the scars left by split in of Respect. We are not rushing to lay down one prescription or to claim we have all the answers – we are committed to talking to everyone who wishes to discuss with us, no matter past disputes.”
This appears to be an oblique acknowledgement that what happened was not exactly to the SWP’s credit.
Defending this stuff is an obstacle to future left unity. Why shoot yourself in the foot by sticking to this narrative now, Skidmarks?
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Can we wind this one up now? PLEASE!!!
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“effectively conceded”, “tacitly admitted”,or perhaps putting your own interpretation on the SWP’s actions.
I certainly don’t agree that removing John Rees from the CC is an admission that GG was right.The only members of the SWP at the time who appear to accept your narrative are the tiny number who jumped ship to Galloway.If Bambery et al were conceding that you were right all along they would be applying to re-join Respect, whereas in reality the mood seems more that they should have expected such a split and discussed it far more widely internally.Anyway you seem to have shifted the ground from democratic legitmacy, but I’ll just wish you good luck with your recovery, and defer to Liam by bringing this to a.
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Birmingham Socialist Resistance has sent an open letter to the Birmingham Socialist Left which can be found at http://socialistresistance.org/?p=637 or http://birminghamresist.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/284/ for those wishing to explore these issues elsewhere.
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John Lister’s review of Mark’s pamphlet, which will appear in the next issue of Socialist Resistance magazine, can be found here. Reading between the lines John seems unconvinced by Mark’s reasoning.
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Liam redux 
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