Coalition to stand general election candidates

British politics, Political Organisations

Coalition to stand general election candidates

Below is the text of a leaflet (which you can download here) announcing an electoral coalition involving, among others, the Communist Party of Britain, the Socialist Party, the Alliance for Green Socialism A coalition to stand trade union and socialist candidates in the general election has been launched by organisations and individuals who participated in…

Liam

November 6, 2009

2–3 minutes

Below is the text of a leaflet (which you can download here) announcing an electoral coalition involving, among others, the Communist Party of Britain, the Socialist Party, the Alliance for Green Socialism

A coalition to stand trade union and socialist candidates in the general election has been launched by organisations and individuals who participated in ‘NO2EUYes to Democracy’, the left-wing coalition that stood in the European elections. We call on everyone who wants a working-class alternative presented at the general election to get involved.

FOLLOWING THE European election in June participants in ‘NO2EU-Yes to Democracy’ have continued to discuss the possibility of constructing a coalition for the general election. Given the current lack of political representation of ordinary working-class people in British politics, the organisations and individuals involved in those discussions regard it as vitally important to organise a general election challenge. As a minimum, we intend to stand against as many current cabinet ministers as possible, together with other ministers and prominent ex-minsters who have been complicit in New Labour’s anti-working-class policies.

Our intention is to put forward candidates in the coming general election as a federal coalition under a common name, with a steering committee of participating organisations and trade unionists that operates by consensus. The coalition’s name has not yet been decided. The issue of its name and core policies still will be the subject of further discussions. Efforts will continue to secure the further participation of trade union organisations, prominent trade unionists and all those who want to see a pro-working-class alternative presented at the election. If you want to get involved or help in any way, please contact us at electioncoalition@btinternet.com

Notes:

‘No2EU-Yes to Democracy’ was a left-wing coalition of the RMT transport union, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), the Alliance for Green Socialism and others formed specifically to fight the 2009 European elections. This coalition has the backing of the Communist Party of Britain, the Socialist Party, the Alliance for Green Socialism and is supported, all in a personal capacity, by Bob Crow (general secretary RMT), Brian Caton (general secretary Prison Officers’ Association), leading national officers of the PCS civil servants’ union, and national executive committee members of the CWU, UNISON, FBU and USDAW trade unions.

66 responses to “Coalition to stand general election candidates”

Prinkipo Exile

November 6, 2009 at 10:23 pm

Will they be backing the Liberal Party in Liverpool?

LikeLike

Reply
Nas

November 6, 2009 at 10:43 pm

I would be good if it could move beyond this, but I cannot see how it can. Where do its authors think it can make an impression on the vote?

LikeLike

Reply
Liam

November 7, 2009 at 12:41 am

Nas – the SP’s site says “The coalition won 153,000 votes which, along with the vote for Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party, was 2.2% of the total poll”.

The nature of the link between the SLP and No2Eu is left unexplained.

LikeLike

Reply
Fleabite

November 7, 2009 at 1:01 am

Hopefully this electoral coalition will be fully discussed and further developed at the RMT’s conference on the “Crisis in Working Class Representation” in London this Saturday (7th November).

LikeLike

Reply
Joe

November 7, 2009 at 7:40 am

I’m not involved in any meaningful socialist politics any longer (I’m a member of the Green Party and that doesn’t count, does it?) I primarily read this blog because I’m nostalgic for a world I have no connection with. So, I think I can look upon developments like this as an outsider, outside the rather small world of dedicated socialist activists. I sense that for voters the fact that there’ll be both this coalation and Respect (and the Green Party and, perhaps, some kind of SWP endorsed coalition) standing in the next election will be completely baffling and, seen through their eyes, it will make the left seem rather ridiculous and insignificant. So, I think there needs to be a bit of a reality check here.

LikeLike

Reply
Nas

November 7, 2009 at 11:01 pm

Joe: I think most voters won’t notice.

LikeLike

Reply
Dave Riley

November 8, 2009 at 9:16 am

It has been a long time coming but the Irish SP (CWI) have thsi to say in reagrd toi recent caolition and slate moves:
http://www.socialistparty.net/index.php/news/elections/279-left-co-operation-a-the-building-of-a-new-mass-party-of-the-working-class-.html

In this reagard, I think , aside from issues of working together,. I agree with the SP strongly on this point as my own experience here in Australia was similar:

“The SWP are in favour from the outset of forming an unprincipled non socialist bloc because they feel that people will not support socialist ideas. The victory of Joe Higgins in the euro elections and the support for SP councillors who stood on a socialist platform illustrates what can be achieved. What is the logic in trying to fill the vacuum that has emerged from the capitulation of Labour to the capitalist market by launching from the start a new reformist party? They also propose a mock democracy, where groups can hold their own views but when with operating as part of the alliance must remain within the confines of a reformist programme. How is that a contribution to the redevelopment a socialist outlook or consciousness? It is vital that socialist policies, which are the only solution to the crisis, are advocated as broadly as possible as soon as possible.”

LikeLike

Reply
Derek Wall

November 8, 2009 at 2:52 pm

just back from the CPB Communist University where I urged them to support Caroline Lucas, Salma Yaqoob and Dai Davies MP, these things need to be built to a large extent locally by different groups coming together and building trust.

Not many people seem to pick up on the fact that Davies the current MP for Blaneau Gwent is an independent socialist, with his work on public transport he has a good claim to being an ecosocialist.

LikeLike

Reply
daveinstokenewington

November 8, 2009 at 4:13 pm

Wow. Exciting news for lost deposit fans everywhere.

LikeLike

Reply
Derek Wall

November 8, 2009 at 10:35 pm

Don’t think Salma or Caroline or Dai are going to be losing deposits, there are some seats where the left can challenge.

In fact Dave you may not have notice but Dai is already a member of parliament.

LikeLike

Reply
ID

November 9, 2009 at 10:36 am

Good to see a working-class challenge to New Labour being put together. What a shame to see sectarian sniping at it beginning from people who either consciously refused to participate in putting together a united left initiative together, thus negating everything we in Respect said at the time of the break with John Rees and co about how we were going to be a non-sectarian force aiming to unite the left.

There were left-wing leaders of three trade unions on the platform of that conference. Nowhere near enough of course. Putting together a trade union-centred challenge to Labour is probably going to take some time, and will face difficulties – it will involve kicking out the pro-New Labour leaders of the more strategic unions. But at least a start is being made.

As to daveinstokenewington’s point about lost deposits: we’ll see. There probably will be some lost deposits, at least to start with. So what? No one said that life was meant to be easy. Better that that the kind of mentality that leads someone to write a whole book to demonstrate that the Labour Party has been taken over by business interests, and support it anyway, while sniping at those attempting to put together an alternative. New Labour is going to get hammered at the next General Election, and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving gang of bastards!

LikeLike

Reply
martin ohr

November 9, 2009 at 11:23 am

ID

The problem is that it is the union leaders on the platform and the memberships have been frozen out. No more so than in the RMT.

LikeLike

Reply
ID

November 9, 2009 at 12:04 pm

“The problem is that it is the union leaders on the platform and the memberships have been frozen out. No more so than in the RMT.”

Tedious nonsense. Seemed to be a fair number of RMT people at the TU conference on Saturday – though obviously there is always room for improvement. No doubt there will be many more.

Mind you, there are certain kinds of people I am in favour of ‘freezing out’. I don’t want any association with certain kinds of reactionary sectarians who pour out torrents of abuse at those who have principled differences with them and then complain that it is ‘undemocratic’ when the targets of that abuse don’t want anything to do with them. As I have said before, freedom of political asssociation also means freedom NOT to associate, and I ( and many others) don’t want to be associated with the likes of the Alliance for Workers Liberty.

I have the democratic right not to want to touch such people with a barge pole, and when they try to muscle in on initatives they don’t support, and complain that this antipathy is ‘undemocratic’, many regard this as itself undemocratic behaviour.

Which is something that Martin and hs comrades will have to learn to live with, I’m afraid.

LikeLike

Reply
martin ohr

November 9, 2009 at 1:35 pm

ID I think I roughly translate your rant as “those parts of the working class that disagree we me can f.ck off” or have I missed some nuance?

LikeLike

Reply
ID

November 9, 2009 at 3:56 pm

Whatever you say. Makes no odds to me.

LikeLike

Reply
tlc

November 9, 2009 at 9:29 pm

“What a shame to see sectarian sniping at it beginning from people who either consciously refused to participate in putting together a united left initiative together, thus negating everything we in Respect said at the time of the break with John Rees and co about how we were going to be a non-sectarian force aiming to unite the left.”

What are you talking about ID? And what is the missing ‘or’ clause from your sentence above.

LikeLike

Reply
ID

November 9, 2009 at 9:43 pm

I was referring to the attacks on this coalition – even before it has agreed a name – from well known Respect spokespeople at the beginning of this thread. See #1 for instance.

Obviously the missing ‘or’ refers to the likes of davefromstokenewington further down the post. Sorry for the lack of proofreading – I don’t have enormous amounts of time to compose posts at work.

LikeLike

Reply
Prinkipo Exile

November 10, 2009 at 9:21 am

My question was genuine ID. I lived in Liverpool for some years and have more than a passing acquaintance with politics there.

The new Coalition statement said this:

“FOLLOWING THE European election in June participants in ‘NO2EU-Yes to Democracy’ have continued to discuss the possibility of constructing a coalition for the general election.”

“participants in NO2EU” included the Liberal Party and one of their parliamentary candidates was on the list in the North West – which I declined to vote for and voted Green instead, along with the formal position of the Respect NC including Nick Wrack and others, as they stood more chance of stopping Griffin and were headed by a socialist.

This was not just the formal position of Respect but other socialists such as the Community Action Party in the North West drew the same conclusion. Including the Liberal Party stunted the possibility of building No2EU in the North West (as well as the outrageous attacks on the Green Party candidate as “bourgeois” from the RMT leaders, and the ridiculous position of not taking a seat, when the left actually had a chance of winning a seat in the North West at the expense of Nick Griffin).

If this new coalition is not the whole of the “participants in NO2EU” then
a) I think we deserve to know
b) if they have shed the link with the Liberal Party, then that is cause for celebration.
c) we have to ask why haven’t they approached instead other socialist organisations, especially those who have elected representatives such as Respect, Community Action Party, Socialist Peoples Party and SWP?

This is not making “attacks” on anything but asking for some clarity about this Coalition.

LikeLike

Reply
ID

November 10, 2009 at 9:47 am

So one liberal candidate in one region in the whole country makes No2EU not a working class initiative, despite the dominant role of trade unions and socialist organisations solidly based in the working class.

But it supposedly ‘outrageous’ to suggest there might be anything ‘bourgeois’ about the Greens. Looking at the record of Green Parties around Europe, being indistinguishable from other neo-liberal parties in most countries, I find this sniping against No2EU most hypocritical. Concerned for class independence it ain’t. In fact, it seems to be about using this local flaw as a device to express hostility to class independence itself, in favour of coalition on a more generalised level with the middle-class Greens.

I’m sure that the Liberal Party will not be getting involved in this new, explicitly socialist coalition. I’m equally sure that the Greens won’t be interested either – for the same reason. Class.

LikeLike

Reply
bill j

November 10, 2009 at 10:30 am

Report of Saturday’s conference here

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/2876

LikeLike

Reply
Prinkipo Exile

November 10, 2009 at 2:29 pm

ID – Liverpool is a big working class city with a history of political struggle, and one of two major conurbations in the North West Euro region, a region bigger than the whole of Scotland.

It is typical of the London-centric left to dismiss anything that happens up here.

And the Green candidate topping the North West list – Peter Cranie – was about as far removed from a ‘bourgeois’ candidate as it is possible to be, and I very much want to see socialist greens like him playing a positive role in the creation of the class-based movement we need. Your sectarianism is not helpful.

LikeLike

Reply
ID

November 10, 2009 at 4:58 pm

Who is dimissing anything? Liverpool is indeed a proletarian city, but I don’t see how that logic gives the Green Party in that area a different class nature from the Green Party elsewhere in the UK. The personal qualities of Peter Cranie are not the point – it is the nature of the counterposed parties that matters.

If it is ‘sectarian’ to point out an obvious fact – that the Greens are a middle-class party, how much more ‘sectarian’ is it to condemn a national project of socialists and trade unionists like the new coalition on the basis of a political weakness of one part of it in a previous incarnation, i.e. the local popular-frontism of the influential North-West CPB that presumably was behind the inclusion of the Liberal in the North West region. Since nothing like this happened elsewhere, it is reasonable to conclude that this was a local problem.

In any case, this is largely irrelevant in the General Election. This situation requires a working-class ticket to stand against New Labour, on a national level, and the Green Party certainly ain’t it and doesn’t claim to be. Nor does Respect – it is in practice sticking to its core areas. What is sectarian is denouncing this new project in favour of … what, exactly? No national election campaign at all as far as I can see. Leaving it all to New Labour.

That’s the best possible way to build up the BNP’s chances to make more inroads, since New Labour is main cause of the BNP’s rise.

LikeLike

Reply
tlc

November 10, 2009 at 7:27 pm

Did you go to the conference ID? Were you impressed by its organisation, its openness, its desire to get to grips with the complexity of electoral alternatives? Did you get to speak? Do you think this new organisation is going to be democratic? Do you think it’ll get any decent vote outside of Dave Nellist? Do you think it’ll actually pose a ‘national alternative’ standing in hundreds of seats?

I thought you were a member of Respect in Southwark – and I thought you’d got a candidate selected for the General Election? Is he going to be standing for Respect or would you prefer him to be standing for ‘son of No2EU’. Looks like you’d prefer the latter?

LikeLike

Reply
Irish Mark P

November 10, 2009 at 7:55 pm

Presumably, tlc, he’d like to see Respect participate in the RMT/SP/CPB/AGS initiative. I hold no brief for ID, but he’s been fairly clear in this discussion that he’s opposed to Respect taking a “go it alone” attitude.

This no doubt stems from a reasonably sober analysis of Respect’s prospects. Respect will certainly do much better than “Son of No2EU” in the next Westminster election… in precisely three seats. Respect as an organisation is small and organisationally weak. There is no prospect of it building itself into a national party on its own. At best it will become a highly localised party around a couple of MPs. At worst, if it gets wiped out at Westminster, it will be no more noteworthy than the Barrow People’s Party or Wigan Community Action.

Respect doesn’t have the activists or the spread or the labour movement involvement to build a campaigning national party. Even it if gets three MPs, which you’d have to be very optimistic indeed to bank on, that fact will remain. It isn’t disloyal for a Respect member to acknowledge that and want Respect to shape its strategy accordingly.

LikeLike

Reply
Prinkipo Exile

November 10, 2009 at 8:44 pm

You are misinformed ID. The decision to include the Liberal Party was agreed at a national level between the CPB and RMT leadership. Supporters of No2EU in the North West especially in Liverpool were presented with a fait accompli as the deal had already been done in London before No2EU was launched in the North West.

The CPB obviously wanted the Liberal Party to give a ‘popular front’ flavour to the alliance but more importantly the RMT leadership wanted them because they mistakenly beltieved that the 4.2% who voted for the Liberal Party in the North West in 2004 was due to their “No to the Euro” slogan (which was correct) and would therefore automatically transfer to No2EU because of their title (which was incorrect because although the prospect of the UK joining the Euro in 2004 was real, it was irrelevant in 2009 and No2EU was a crap title).

Despite the Liberal Party’s heavy denunciation of the Militant record in Liverpool in the 1980s, the Socialist Party reluctantly went along with their inclusion as part of the national deal to ‘come aboard’ the No2EU train. There was absolutely no support for it in the North West and the CPB are easily outnumbered by the SP in that region. The SP would not have had the Liberal Party on the list had they had a free choice not bound by the national deal. Bannister’s silence on his ‘running mate’ Liverpool Councillor Steve Radford, a constant critic, was deafening, and as far as I’m aware the two were never seen in public together during the campaign despite living a few miles apart in Liverpool.

So it was a national issue, not a North West local issue – which says a lot for the way the No2EU organisation dealt with it.

Green candidate Peter Cranie is also based in Liverpool where the Green Party has established a good track record of campaigning in some working class communities.

The position of Green Party activists in the North West including Peter Cranie and the leadership of the Bolton Green Party in supporting the launch of the Wigan People’s Alliance comprising Respect, Community Action, SP and SWP, says a lot for how much further advanced the debate is in the North West than down in London. No2EU has played no role in this important breakthrough and you have much to learn from this experience about working across the wider left, including leftward moving Green Party activists.

LikeLike

Reply
tlc

November 10, 2009 at 9:15 pm

The difference Mark P is that whatever ID says Respect does not have a ‘go it alone’ policy. Respect has a policy that will welcome any serious electoral formations – and work with them. What we will not do is sacrifice our own hard won name recognition – and with it a serious electoral base, albeit localised – for the sake of being part of an as yet undefined, unnamed and, at present undemocratic organisation (and to which so far we have not been invited).

I personally wish whatever comes out of No2EU well. The trouble is, I just don’t think it is going to get much of a positive vote. This can have the effect of demoralising any new organisation. It seems to me that what we are talking about is, at best, a few saved deposits – and if someobnce can suggest where these may come from outside of Coventry and Hudderfield, i’d be pleased to know.

So we have the prospect of the SP providing the limited foot soldiers for a new organisation that will attempt to stand in enough seats to get a PPB. Good luck to you. You will spread yourselves thinly – with obvious results. The only way to overcome the fact that no-one will have heard of you is to canvass – door to door – and that is hugely time consuming.

Respect will be concentrating in just a few seats and will not have enough people. The Euro-elections showed that there is not a huge raft of people just waiting for a new ‘working class party’ who are ready to get out and campaign. It’ll be a tough battle for Respect to get even one MP elected – to get three will be incredible. But at least we are after getting someone elected.

As I say, I wish you well, really. I just think you need to be realistic. Grandiose talk by ID about national alternatives is just so much hot air. It is meaningless boosterism – not a serious strategy for the next six months.

As for Respect shaping the post No2EU strategy – well we still come down to the fact that Respect have not been invited to any discussions with the component parts of No2EU. Hard to shape a strategy when you are not invited.

LikeLike

Reply
Liam

November 10, 2009 at 11:24 pm

The report on the PR site that Bill refers to rings true, not least because it was fairly similar last year.

It’s to be welcomed that there will be an electoral challenge to some New Labour ministers but the organisers of Saturday’s conference seem to have viewed democracy and participation as optional extras. A precondtion for a successful broad formation is a willingness to accept that there will be a range of views and that no single current has the right to be organisationally dominant.

How can you expect to engage with the most conscious and militant activists in the unions and social movements if they feel that the decisions are being made for them in advance?

LikeLike

Reply
Irish Mark P

November 11, 2009 at 1:53 am

I’m genuinely baffled Liam. Who do you think is “organisationally dominant” in the new coalition? Of the four organisations involved at the start, the one which seems to exercise a veto is the RMT.

LikeLike

Reply
Jason

November 11, 2009 at 5:31 am

The coalition is a gesture in the right direction because we desperately need a left of centre socialist alternative to the bankrupt failed social democracy of Labour.

Where the campaign or candidate represents some real struggle or real social forces then I too, like TLC, wish them well and would call for a critical support.
However, the urgent task is organising a network of activists and militants, to organise a real fight back, to rebuild the rank and file of the trade unions and communities.

An election campaign can help in organising that but it is only one tactic.

Furthermore, the deal behind closed doors, the lack of democracy, the declarations from on high without a chance for debate or involvement symbolise everything that is wrong with the left.

A healthy campaign should turn outwards to the unions and communities’ rank and file, support action, actively encourage debate and have democratic structures.

Despite all this a left electoral challenge should be welcomed. But to have anything like a serious imact it needs to seriously get its act together.

LikeLike

Reply
prianikoff

November 11, 2009 at 9:00 am

“New Labour is going to get hammered at the next General Election, and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving gang of bastards!”
Unfortunately, that will probably mean the Tories will be in government and it won’t be the New Labour Cabinet that suffers.
Half of them will probably be tying to form a Coalition with the new Tory Administration.

My impression of the RMT’s Conference was posted here: –

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4855#comment-163201

LikeLike

Reply
bill j

November 11, 2009 at 9:21 am

You’re wrong about it being less democratic than a union.

LikeLike

Reply
martin ohr

November 11, 2009 at 12:10 pm

Workers LIberty have responded to the leaflet with the following email: http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/11/09/general-election-coalition-launched#comment-18577

LikeLike

Reply
ID

November 11, 2009 at 1:19 pm

TLC

“I thought you were a member of Respect in Southwark – and I thought you’d got a candidate selected for the General Election? Is he going to be standing for Respect or would you prefer him to be standing for ’son of No2EU’. Looks like you’d prefer the latter?”

That question is chemically pure sectarianism. Why should the two be counterposed? Respect was founded as the ‘Unity Coalition’ and by the way the Respect constitution guarantees dual membership of other political parties. We also have conference policy, passed unanimously at last years conference, in favour of active participation and encouragement of wider initiatives of the working class left. So there is not … or at least should not be … any counterposition.

As for Prinkipo’s interpretation of events in the North West as a national issue, it seems very tendentious to me, and still doesn’t explain why the only Liberal in the entire national No2EU initiative stood in the North West, nowhere else. If the Liberal Party was such an important part of No2EU, how come there were not Liberals on any other of the regional slates?

According to their website, they have 27 councillors in a variety of different localities dotted around the country. Considerably more councillors than, for instance, the Socialist Party/Socialist Alternative and more than adequate to allow representation on a number of regional lists if the Liberal Party was a real player in No2EU.

Which it obviously wasn’t. Whoever went along with it, and however reluctantly or otherwise, this was a local quirk and weakness, not essential to the platform. To portray it as an essential part, and to still more to concieve of the Liberal Party as a part of the new explicitly socialist coalition that has already been publicly announced, albeit in outline, is a sectarian smear, not a serious political contribution.

prianikoff

“Unfortunately, that will probably mean the Tories will be in government and it won’t be the New Labour Cabinet that suffers.”

Not an argument that will cut much ice with the many ex-Labour supporters who cannot stomach voting for this neo-liberal, warmongering, privatising government, and whom are suffering now. Tell it to them! Its amazing how arrogant Labour supporters become when they are forced to become apologists for what exists now, and to scare people with stories of how the Tories will really be much worse. What we have now is already ‘worse’.

LikeLike

Reply
Dirty Red Bandana

November 11, 2009 at 3:42 pm

ID, you only discussed the second part of TLC’s comment and missed out any report of the conference. I am genuinely interested to hear about this conference and your thoughts on it.

At present, it seems to me that the venture has some potential in the longer term, though I am wary of the degree to which one party is inflating its significance and ‘social weight’ at the moment. Reports that I have heard so far suggest that the RMT, Sewotka and Matt Wrack are far more equivocal about this process than others suggest.

I think TLC’s point about Southwark relates to standing a general election candidate as Respect or ‘Coalition’. Since Respect has not been invited to participate and has decided to stand under its own name at the general election, the question does seem relevant.

LikeLike

Reply
ID

November 11, 2009 at 4:10 pm

What did I think of the conference itself? Well, first of all, it was not a conference of the new coalition. It was though the occasion for the announcement of the coalition by some at the conference.

It was more of an exchange of views between sections of trade unionists angry and alientated from New Labour, and some of the remnants of the Labour left.

The latter did not have an easy time justifying staying in Labour. Critical voices were raised, from the remnants of the SA, and also from one pro-Labour Trot, though actually I didn’t agree with the criticisms of either. I don’t have much time for the attacks coming from the smaller left groups here either, to be honest. I thought the conference was positive and quite fruitful – a step forward.

I don’t think it is so much that the unions concerned are equivocal about this initative specifically, rather that there is an understandable fear of stepping into political promimity with the far left due to its fractiousness and sectarianism, and the fear of getting involved in some kind of car crash. That is understandable given the well known history of previous projects. Spinning against the project like this does not help overcome such fears.

As to the question of which party ticket I am in favour of standing under, I don’t regard that as a matter of principle. Whatever best serves overall left unity. We will have to see what activists in Southwark think about that.

LikeLike

Reply
Prinkipo Exile

November 11, 2009 at 4:16 pm

ID – you are based in London, which is not the only place in the country.

The strongest base of the Liberal Party is Liverpool by a long way. It’s where their National President, Steve Radford has a longstanding record as a councillor dating back up to 20 years and he has turned his ward into a fortress. He was the ONLY Liberal Party candidate to come ahead of one of the three main parties in the 2005 General Election (standing in Liverpool) and headed the ONLY list they stood in in the 2004 Euro elections (North West) where they won 4.2% of the vote.

While there are other Liberal Party councillors and a tiny number of activists dotted elsewhere in the country, they only tend to get elected where the Liberal Democrats do not stand and people mistakenly think they are the LibDems. They only tend to get elected for small rural district councils representing handfuls of voters, whereas Liverpool is one of the largest metropolitan district councils (a ‘most purpose’ authority) in the country where they have three seats and are the third largest group (there being no tories and one green).

Radford’s arrogance is such that he still has parliamentary ambitions and hence the reason why the Liberal Party stood in 2004 and why he was keen to be on the No2EU list in the North West, as he could then campaign in his constituency. He approached CPB and RMT and did a deal where the RMT would pay his election expenses and he would campaign primarily in his area trying to attract a sheen of radicalism due to the RMT backing.

Like I say this was not a ‘local quirk’ but was all cooked up in London, not in the North West, and the SP were stitched up outside of the deal (but went along with it). Radford will undoubtably be standing in the General Election and if there isn’t a socialist or Green candidate in that constituency then for all bar hardened popular frontist stalinists the clear class vote is Labour against him.

LikeLike

Reply
Liam

November 11, 2009 at 5:03 pm

The Socialist Resistance statement “Socialist Resistance welcomes new electoral coalition” is at http://socialistresistance.org/?p=736

LikeLike

Reply
ID

November 11, 2009 at 5:07 pm

I am familiar with the Liberal Party. They crop up in a variety of campaigns over civil liberties, racism, etc. So they have a bit more of a base in Liverpool? Doesn’t seem like a big deal. Seems like a mountain is being made out of a molehill here. This is a flaw, but hardly irreversible or decisive.

“the clear class vote is Labour against him”

‘Fraid I don’t see how voting for ‘Labour Party Plc’ is a class vote at all. If someone from the Labour Party who is a socialist stood, then that might be the case, but not a candidate for Labour’s dominant bourgeois-corporate leadership. In any case, as I said, this is irrelevant to the new coalition.

And a Green candidate is in no sense necessarily superior to a Liberal. How is a vote for a Green a ‘class vote’? Even Peter Cranie admits that many working class voters do not see it that way at all.

LikeLike

Reply
prianikoff

November 11, 2009 at 5:50 pm

billj
“You’re wrong about it being less democratic than a union.”
Explain please.
id ““Unfortunately, that will probably mean the Tories will be in government and it won’t be the New Labour Cabinet that suffers.””
“Not an argument that will cut much ice with the many ex-Labour supporters who cannot stomach voting for this neo-liberal, warmongering, privatising government, and whom are suffering now. Tell it to them! Its amazing how arrogant Labour supporters become when they are forced to become apologists for what exists now, and to scare people with stories of how the Tories will really be much worse. What we have now is already ‘worse’”
Not sure if you’re a Respect supporter “id”, but if you are, I think you have a dangerous tendency to get carried away by ultra left rhetoric.
Read my report on the conference for what I see as the problem with your argument.

Then please explain how any new Alliance will be able to bridge the gap between the 150,000 votes that No2EU got in the Euros (including mine!) and the 22% of the vote that Labour is currently getting.
I don’t see how promoting a line that says it doesn’t matter if the Tories get in helps address this issue.
Especially, in carrying out the stated policy of the platform of not standing against LRC and SCG MP’s.

On the question of the Liberals;
Is there some kind of Liverpool exceptionalism going on?
More likely it’s a kite being flown with the hope of winning over the unions
i.e. reversing history to the days of Lib-Lab politics.
Highly dangerous accepting that at face value.

I can see the CP-B doing so, given their shitty record in 1945, when the backed a coalition just before a Labour landslide.
Even Pollitt did one of his famous self-criticisms over this apalling miscalculation.
But there’s no way that the SP or SR can go along with this, other than out of sheer opportunism.

LikeLike

Reply
bill j

November 11, 2009 at 6:02 pm

Explain? It was the most undemocratic event I’ve ever been to.

LikeLike

Reply
Jason

November 11, 2009 at 7:16 pm

Surely that means it is less democratic than a union, despite some being profoundly undemocratic?

LikeLike

Reply
tlc

November 11, 2009 at 11:03 pm

“As to the question of which party ticket I am in favour of standing under, I don’t regard that as a matter of principle. Whatever best serves overall left unity. We will have to see what activists in Southwark think about that.”

That’s loyalty for you. So you’d be prepared for Southwark Respect to stand as part of this coalition (rather than as Respect) in opposition to the policy which was passed unanimously by the National Council of which you are a member – did you not attend that meeting? I’m sure the discussion in your branch will be fascinating. I’m not sure how you think you might advance overall left unity by first of all ignoring it in your own organisation.

LikeLike

Reply
tlc

November 11, 2009 at 11:27 pm

And as for you fatuous point – “That question is chemically pure sectarianism. Why should the two be counterposed?”

It seems you have forgotten that you cannot stand as two entities under electoral law. So best make your mind up which one you would like to stand as. Respect has decided that it’s candidates will stand as Respect – unless this is overturned at the conference next week. People of IDs persuasion can of course stand as anything they want to – join whatever they want. But they won’t be Respect candidates as they wont be standing as Respect. You cant do both so don’t pretend you can.

LikeLike

Reply
ID

November 12, 2009 at 12:26 am

TLC

As I said, how best to advance left unity is a question of tactics. It does not involve ‘loyalty’ to any particular grouping. That conception of ‘loyalty’ is the antithesis of left unity. And I’m sure there are ways around electoral law if the will existed to put the relevant pressure on the electoral commission, who are not the brightest bulb in the pack and still rather inexperienced at dealing with political complexity. Their remit is to prevent electoral fraud and episodes like the ‘Literal Democrats’, not to put bureaucratic obstacles in the way of genuine realignments in UK politics, and maybe a bit of political aggression by proponents of left unity could make them realise that their job is not so simple. Just a thought.

And in reply to Prianikoff, there is nothing ‘ultra-left’ about my refusal to support New Labour. Labour is transparently not the party it once was; it is no longer a bourgeois workers party – i.e. a working class organisation with a servile pro-capitalist leadership, as it was for decades. Now it has an aggressive, if somewhat parvenu, base of support in the ruling class itself, and its bourgeois component no longer consists of those who make a career out of selling out the workers to the bosses. Rather it increasingly consists of those who make a living from privatisation and breaking unions. That is a significant, historic shift.

Labour is no longer ‘Labour’, it is ‘New Labour’, ie. not a workers party but a cross-class party that still had union affiliations. A completely new party, as Blair accurately stated. A vote for New Labour is a vote for open Thatcherism, not for bourgeois reformism as in the period prior to the one of decisive transformation (which somewhat overlaps the Kinnock and Blair eras), when the LP qualitiatively augmented its bourgeois component and reduced the unions from calling the shots in a bureaucratic sense to servants of the parvenus.

This is a qualitatative change; Labour is now a cross class party, a neo-liberal popular front in the form of a party. That is what British social democracy has become, with the qualitative augmentation of its bourgeois component by Kinnock and Blair.

LikeLike

Reply
tlc

November 12, 2009 at 8:41 am

“Loyalty is antithesis to left unity”??

That’s just so much abstract nonsense. Left parties function well beacuse people voluntarily come together around an agreed set of principles – work together and struggle together. What makes any organisation strong is ultimately the personal relationships between the people involved – complex relationships played out within branches, between them and between members and supporters at every level. That generates a sense of loyalty to each other – which allows them to survive the bad times as well as the good.

An adherabce to an abstract idea of ‘left unity’ that ignores the concept of loyalty within its component parts and with those parts electoral support runs the risk of imploding at the first sign of trouble. To generate real left unity will require long periods of trust building, collective working. etc to build a newer, stringer and broader sense of loyalty to a new formation.

Left Unity cannot be announced. It has to be built on the ground. Ingnoring people’s loyalty to their existing organisations is a recipe for disaster.

LikeLike

Reply
ID

November 12, 2009 at 9:41 am

I am supposed to have written

“Loyalty is antithesis to left unity”??

TLC replies:

“That’s just so much abstract nonsense.”

Well, it would be if that was what I wrote. Actually I said:

“That conception of ‘loyalty’ is the antithesis of left unity. ”

Which is slightly different – not an attack on the idea of party loyalty as such, but on a distortion of it that entails hostility to new initiatives of the type that last year’s Respect conference resolved unanimously to encourage and support.

Slight discrepancy there.

When an opportunity for a broader unity such as this comes along, to cite concepts of ‘loyalty’ as a reason for refusing to fully engage with that opportunity, and instead engage in a drip drip of hostile commentary about it, is to distort loyalty into sectarianism. That is what I am attacking, not ‘loyalty’ as such.

LikeLike

Reply
David Ellis

November 12, 2009 at 12:23 pm

Respect s the place for socialists to concentrate on doing serious exemplary work. Respect has explicitly anti-imperialist candidates that are embedded in the
communities they seek to represent. It is a project within which even the most radical of socialists is permitted to organise and propagandise and, importantly, it has a chance of further breaking the
bureaucracy’s monopoly on working class representation. Yes, it is slightly disappointing that those radical socialists haven’t been able or haven’t
bothered to get a couple of candidates that fully
represent their beliefs on the Respect ticket in constituencies where with effort they could be considered serious but that is our fault not Respects. As for the SP, CPB, RMT project, that is proving to be a
serious shambles and a massive disappointment. The CPB is one of the most sectarian and self-serving outfits on the left and the SP could give the sclerotic SWP a run for its money when it comes to that. The CPB would standcandidates in the Arctic Circle if it got them a TV broadcast and it does in retrospect look like they actually thought that NO2EU would steal fascist votes and that that for some was in fact its entire purpose. That is playing fast and loose with principled socialist opposition to the neo-liberal EU and is pure bureaucratic manoeuvring which can only ever back fire. The RMT would be far better at this stage, rather than parachuting god knows who into god know where, in putting their full weight behind Respect. It might not be too late for it to influence the selection of a couple more candidates so that Respect has a healthy but serious slate of embedded candidates with working class and/or community credentials. In the meantime, socialists, in solidarity with workers
everywhere who will be voting either with illusions or
just to keep the Tories out will make it clear that we too want these people re-elected and skewered to the consequences of their anti-working class actions.
Let us see them privatising the health service as their
manifesto now promises to do and let us see them squander the last of their political capital with the working class but until we have built a functioning
alternative then it would be a hollow victory indeed if
New Labour were to be replaced by the serious class warrior `Dave’ Cameron. Respect and the radical left need to be in a position to influence the post-election
debate in the Labour party and the movement as a whole if Labour wins or loses the next election. We must have the ear of its better members and trade unionists and the class in general and it can be
done without diluting our programme one iota.

Incidentally, I wonder how the Wigan People’s Alliance is progressing. They clearly need to be supported as a serious united front community effort. It would be good if they came under the Respect umbrella but if
not it would still be very good to see them doing well.

Anyway, to sum up. RMT: please, please, please talk to Respect and let’s see what can be sensibly and realistically worked out in time for the general election. Stop trying to build the alternative to the alternative and maybe we could still have a couple of headline candidates up against the more obvious Blairites like for instance Hazel Blears whose eve of poll shenanigins led to a mass stay away from the polls by Labour’s usual voters and let the BNP in.

LikeLike

Reply
tlc

November 12, 2009 at 12:57 pm

I’m glad ID seems to be in favour of some kind of loyalty – it just appears from his numerous posts that he’d prefer to be in another organisationb rather than Respect. The only trouble may be that the other organisation has shown very little desire to want him or Respect alongside.

The question about what you stand as is important.

If ID thinks that standing Nick Wrack as a candidate is only about raising a socialist banner at the election then I can see why he thinks whether to stand as Respect or this unnamed colaition it’s a purely tactical question that could go either way.

If it’s about being part of a serious challenge to get up to three MPs elected at the next election then I think there is no question about which is the better tactic.

Left Unity will be better served by having more MPs in the next Parliament who are on the Left rather than less (But I supoose if you are one of the many who don’t consider Respect to be on the left then it doesn’t really matter – their purity will always win out).

Now if I was advising the RMT I wouldn’t be saying just ‘back Respect’, I’d be arguing for a strategy that backed the best placed candidates that supported RMT policy with targetted funds and human resources. That would mean Caroline Lucas, as well as Dai Davis, George Galloway as well as Deve Nellist, John MacDonnell as Jermy Corbyn, etc etc. It would mean accepting ther mosaic for what it is – the reality – and applying resources most effectivly to maximise the outcome for the whole of the left and RMT policies.

Sadly what i think we are going to get is a hastily put together coalition with a vague amalgum of policies amounting to the People’s Charter with a (un)healthy dash of euro-scepticism, that will have almost no name recognition, get very poor votes and allow the Labour wing in the RMT to argue post-election that it was all a mess and they should try to get back into the Labour party at all costs.

Now as I’ve said before I wish they do well. If only to prove me wrong and not give ammunition to those who say it was a mistake – but to pretend I think this is likely (especially after the Europolls) would be dishonest.

The question I’d like to ask is do the supporters of this coalition think they can save any deposits outside of Coverntry and Huddersfield. Afterall, I couldn’t understand why No2EU spent time arguing whether or not they would take up their seats in the European parliamnent since it was patently obvious to anyone with a passing knowledge of electoral politics that their vote would be tiny. There seems no reason to believe that with a General election, and another new name and an electoral system stacks against you, the results is going to anything other than poor for this new coalition.

LikeLike

Reply
prianikoff

November 12, 2009 at 6:10 pm

id wrote “..in reply to Prianikoff, there is nothing ‘ultra-left’ about my refusal to support New Labour. Labour is transparently not the party it once was…
….Labour is now a cross class party, a neo-liberal popular front in the form of a party. That is what British social democracy has become, with the qualitative augmentation of its bourgeois component by Kinnock and Blair.”
Reducing the question to “support” for New Labour is dishonest.
We could have a long discussion about whether Labour is now a cross-class party, but no one here supports New Labour’s Politics.

It’s entirely a question of whether:-
(i) Socialists would recommend a tactical vote for the Labour Party.
(ii) Whether the Labour Left should continue to operate inside the party and put forward Socialist policies.

You argue for surrendering those positions before they’ve been lost.
I think that will alienate both the Labour Left and the 25% of voters who remain loyal to labour.

So both you and David Ellis end up simply issuing ultimatums to support untested alternatives, which don’t even have a Socialist Programme.

LikeLike

Reply
Dirty Red Bandana

November 12, 2009 at 6:15 pm

Thanks ID for the summary of what you felt was achieved at the weekend’s RMT sponsored event. It is appreciated and i do note that you recognize that the RMT and other unions are not quite wholehearted about this ‘Coalition’, which rather begs the question about its claim to be a major step forward.

Your point about left unity is problematic. Left unity is a long term process that will not happen because the SP proclaim it. The CPB are intending to stand candidates outside of the Coalition under the UPS label. It is not certain that the RMT will even bankroll this venture.

Abstract left unity misses the key task for the left. We need to provide opposition to the public service cuts, the wars, the new privatization and the three old parties in general. Unless we provide credible opposition and candidates at the 2010 election, we will not be able to focus the anger and make the left challenge seem possible or relevant. The even nastier scenario is that the BNP will be able to focus this.

Your concept of left unity misses what is actually happening as we head to the general election. The ‘Coalition’ has no electoral base and will be fighting to save deposits where it stands while other left forces such as Respect or the Green Party will be fighting for seats. The chance to provide a left focus that breaks the current consensus is a better headline than the BNP doing it from the right.

At this moment, there is a tumult of concern and anger about the public services and the wars. Your call for left unity looks like a call to retreat from engaging this rather than harnessing and mobilizing it.

LikeLike

Reply
Mark Hoskisson

November 12, 2009 at 10:12 pm

Point of information – the Liberal Party in Liverpool is a community, morally leftish anti-cuts localised phenomenon (in one area of the city as it happens). The Liberal democratis are a major capitalist party led by a David Cameron look alike called Nick Clegg. The Liberal party in Liverpool are a weird outfit but their presence in No2EU is neither here nor there.
No2EU was crap with or without them. As to that RMT to conference – it decided nothing, it discussed nothing and it represented very little.It was a waste of time. Infuriating, but true.

LikeLike

Reply
Nas

November 12, 2009 at 11:38 pm

In the calculus of elections – but not necessarily in politics as a whole – I’ll take a ‘narrow’ 67,000 votes above a ‘broad’ 17,000 votes any day.

But people are free to back whatever left challenges they like, and we’ll see the outcome soon enough.

The puzzling thing about ID , however, is that he spends all his time talking about the coalition with no name, but is in a constituency which has a declared candidate of the party he’s a member of. Isn’t it time, just a few months from the election, to actually do some campaigning?

LikeLike

Reply
prianikoff

November 13, 2009 at 8:44 am

Thanks for your Point of Information Mark.
I hadn’t realised the distinction and therefore, withdraw my comments above re. the Liberals.
However, the results of the Glasgow NE election last night tend to reinforce my views on the Labour Vote.

LikeLike

Reply
Prinkipo Exile

November 13, 2009 at 12:05 pm

Mark H, this is the letter that the No2EU and Liberal Party candidate Councillor Steve Radford sent to the local paper concerning the Council budget in 2007. You might call it “morally leftish anti-cuts”, but I don’t – it’s typical right wing pro privatisation “responsible” anti “Militant” rhetoric of the sort that the LibDems and New Labour come out with all the time.

=============================================
——————————————————————————–
Thursday, March 08, 2007

Labour would take us back to Militant Days

Cllr Steve Radford
Liberal Party Group
…

Dear Editor,

For the fifth year running our Liverpool’s token opposition , Labour, have come to a council budget decrying that the city is heading for another financial crisis.

Haven’t we heard that one every year?

If there was an element of truth in their cries of calamity , then it must beg the question where was their alternative budget ?

Where was Labour plan to put the council budget back on course ?

Of course Liverpool’s neolithic Labour Party complained we had not put up council tax over last decade and they would have in effect kept it at the highest in the land.

We in the LIberal Party supported Liverpool having a modest and a legal budget

We tabled an amendment to set officers to a more stretching target of selling a further £3m worth of surplus and derelict homes and land. The money raised to fund £1m additional traffic safety and £2m extra into the community safety budget

If Labour had come close to winning the vote against the budget, we would have had another financial crisis of a council without a lawful budget.

Labour would have taken us back to the Militant Days.
Will they ever learn Liverpool deserves better

Cllr Steve Radford
Leader of the Liberal Party Group – The Responsible Opposition

LikeLike

Reply
ID

November 13, 2009 at 12:21 pm

prianikoff

“We could have a long discussion about whether Labour is now a cross-class party, but no one here supports New Labour’s Politics.”

That is hardly the point. The question of whether or not Labour is now a cross-class party has some real bearing on whether it is even principled to support its mainstream representatives, does it not?

“It’s entirely a question of whether:-
(i) Socialists would recommend a tactical vote for the Labour Party.
(ii) Whether the Labour Left should continue to operate inside the party and put forward Socialist policies.”

I would say no, precisely because it is now a cross class party, dominated by sections of the ruling class. We could recommend a vote for its remaining pro-working class, oppositional elements, but not for supporters of New Labour. That is no different from advocating votes for Tories.

Dirty Red Bandana

“The ‘Coalition’ has no electoral base and will be fighting to save deposits where it stands while other left forces such as Respect or the Green Party will be fighting for seats.”

Even if one accepted that the Greens were a unambiguously left force (which I don’t) which Westminster seats are they seriously in with a chance of winning? I don’t know of one where they have any real chance. What you are really saying is that Respect, not the Green Party, should concentrate on its three target seats and shun every other attempt by the left to challenge New Labour. And of course, the logic of this is George Galloway’s call to vote New Labour where no ‘credible’ left candidate is standing. This further implies, bearing in mind the spin belitting the coalition in some contributions above, calling for votes for Labour against the coalition.

That is a huge step backwards from both what Respect mark I and Respect mark II both stood for at their respective formative periods.

LikeLike

Reply
Liam

November 13, 2009 at 12:39 pm

Ian – this is an utterly untenable position.

Are you seriously suggesting that there is absolutely no difference between what a Brown and a Cameron government will do? New Labour is committed to a limited form of Keynsianism. It should be doing more and spending it differently but Cameron is already saliviating at the thought of his offensive against the public sector and the welfare state.

More importantly, if the Tories do win, what will that do to working class morale? It will be seen by the overwhelming majority of workers as a defeat. It will strengthen the bureaucracy’s hand as it circles the wagons around Labour. Equally it will mean that any strugggles that do develop against the austerity packages will benefit Labour and narrow still further the politcal space for something on the left.

Finally- the number of candidates that Respect, the new coalition etc are likely to be putting up is very small. Is your tactical advice in hundreds of constituencies “abstain or spoil your ballot paper”?

LikeLike

Reply
Nas

November 13, 2009 at 12:41 pm

ID: I think it’s time to stop artificially polarising matters. Respect’s position is clear – fighting to win where we can and to get a creditable vote where we have a base; encouraging the best left vote – whatever party people are standing for. Of course that requires credible candidates.

How is the Respect campaign going in Peckham and Camberwell?

LikeLike

Reply
Dirty Red Bandana

November 13, 2009 at 5:37 pm

ID, I think you are way off with this argument, which strikes me as schematic.

First, the Green Party topped the poll in every ward in Brighton Pavillion and Kemptown at the Euro Elections in June. In Pavillion, it polled more than 10% above other parties in most wards. While Fptp presents complications, there is clearly a fighting chance in both.

The Respect NC position that will be put to conference is that we stand ourselves. In our target areas, Respect is the best placed left organization to win and to get credible votes. Where there are better placed left candidates, we support them, which includes the Green Party in a few areas and could include the ‘Coalition’ in a few areas (maybe Coventry). In Islington and Hayes, we support left Labour candidates. In some areas, it may well be the case that the CPB or the SWP present a candidate that offers a credible pole of opposition to the three old parties.

This position is about spearheading the breach in the public service cuts, pro war consensus. It is in the interests of the left as a whole to see the biggest possible vote against this consensus as a call to resistance. No left organization can field candidates across the country which are credible so it is a case of standing ourselves and supporting others – the mosaic strategy.

For this reason, I am interested in the ‘Coalition’ as a contribution to this development that may be credible in one or two places. As a fact, it illustrates the mosaic rather than solves it in favour of left unity. In its method and structure it also does this, if it genuinely gets off the ground.

LikeLike

Reply
prianikoff

November 13, 2009 at 5:41 pm

ID: “The question of whether or not Labour is now a
cross-class party has some real bearing on whether it is even principled to
support its mainstream representatives, does it not?”

Sure, but New Labour came about because the unions accepted Blair’s arguments.
They still provide the bulk of party funds.
It’s a union-based party, dominated by the bureaucracy.

“We could recommend a vote for its remaining pro-working class, oppositional elements, but not for supporters of New Labour.
That is no different from advocating votes for Tories.”

But winning a majority nationally is what counts.
People don’t want the Tories back in.
Socialists can’t be seen to be indifferent.

LikeLike

Reply
Nas

November 13, 2009 at 8:45 pm

Prinkipo Exile: that letter from the Liberal councillor is devastating.

And to think there are some who got terribly excited about NO2EU and who considered Respect right wing.

LikeLike

Reply
Mark Hoskisson

November 14, 2009 at 8:15 am

Hi Prinkipo – not saying Liberal Party is any good, or socialist and agree it is terrible. So fair dos, you are right that its adherence to a legal budget will make it pro cuts in practice. I heard Steve Radford speak at an open meeting on the whole issue of left unity up here last July at a meeting organised by Wirral TUC. He was dreadful. But … it is not the same outfit as the Lib Dems and its presence in No2EU did not alter the class charcater of that coalition which some people seemed to think it had because they thought it was the Clegg Liberal party. No2EU was awful with or without this weird Liberal sect in its ranks! Just wanted to clarify that for people.

LikeLike

Reply
Derek Wall

November 14, 2009 at 10:57 pm

I hear from Green Left comrades who were observing that todays Respect conference in Birmingham voted not to debate a motion calling on support for the new No2EU formation, more details here http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/2009/11/respect-conference-in-birmingham-today.html

LikeLike

Reply
Liam

November 14, 2009 at 11:32 pm

It was a bit more complicated than that Derek but I’m too knackered to go into details now.

There will be a fullish report in the morning.

LikeLike

Reply
Derek Wall

November 14, 2009 at 11:40 pm

Fair enough Liam….look forward to that, any way not much doubt about some positive Green and Respect cooperation in at least some parts of the country.

LikeLike

Reply
Prinkipo Exile

November 15, 2009 at 12:31 am

There was an existing resolution supporting broad left coalition but an emergency resolution supporting the CPB/SP coalition announced last week. There is a case for saying it wasn’t a genuine emergency and the broader issue was already covered by motions. Doubtless Liam will explain tomorrow.

LikeLike

Reply
Ger Francis

November 15, 2009 at 3:22 am

The report on Derek’s blog carries the key points, especially this bit: ‘Galloway absolutely hammered No2EU and in particular for standing against Peter Cranie in the North West and refused to entertain any talk of coalition with the son of NO2EU.’

In addition to hammering NO2EU for de facto letting the BNP in (‘if the left had united it would have been Peter Creanie on Question Time not Nick Griffen’) he was scathing about the exaggeration being peddled about son-of-NO2EU. Contrary to claims by Ian Donovan, there are not ‘three national unions’ supporting this initiative, the reality was that three national union secretaries addressed a meeting in a personal capacity on working class political representation. George predicted the FBU would not support any so-called ‘new coalition’ and ridiculed the idea that the Prison Officers Union were now in the vanguard of building a far-left of Labour alternative, saying this would come as a bit of a surprise to any prisoner, especially those black, Irish or Muslim, who had been on the receiving end of dealings with ‘screws’.

The sharp tone of both his and Salma’s attacks on the increasingly marginal Nick Wrack reflected the extent to which the leadership are simply not interested in engaging with son-of-NO2EU, while wishing well to those who want to join it on its journey.

LikeLike

Reply