tusc Have a look at the flyer for the General Election launch rally of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC).

What catches the eye?

There’s lots of red on the flags in the photo. That’s good.

The venue, date and start time are impossible to miss. Always a plus we can agree.

Not even a moron in a hurry could be confused about the theme of the event.

The logo suggests unity and hints at the Olympics. Catching the zeitgeist.

Contact details are prominent, a sometimes overlooked essential.

It gives the names of the speakers and gives some details about them. Bob Crow, Brian Caton, Chris Baugh, Dave Nellist and Michael Lavalette. Just what you need.

Let’s pretend for a moment that the logo doubles up as a Venn diagram. One circle is labelled “white”, another “man” and the third “woman, not white and miscellaneous”. Into which overlapping circles would you put the four named speakers?

Now the teensy democratic deficit in TUSC might only be something that a small group of cognoscenti knows about. Sticking four white men on the flyer for a major public event is a pretty big public statement. If it were 1952 you might just be able to make an implausible case that the organised working class is all white men. It hasn’t been true for quite a while now and the balance of this platform seems antediluvian. Trying to offset it with a female chair probably only emphasises the problem.

Even the biggest fan of unreconstructed militant trade unionism accepts today that five white men just don’t reflect what the British working class looks like. There are some old traditions that are well worth ditching. This is one of them.

55 responses to “Old ways aren't always best”

  1. Though nice to see Michael finally describes as what he is. Will he be standing as the SWP next time? I doubt it.

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  2. the logo reminds me a bit of “Mastercard”

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  3. 21stcenturymanifesto Avatar
    21stcenturymanifesto

    Have a look at the fheader for Liam’s blog
    What catches the eye?
    There’s lots of red on the flags in the photo. That’s good.

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  4. The photo is one I took at a May Day march some time ago and rather like. It’s not going to be appearing on a platform to launch a socialist electoral challenge. A small difference but worth pointing out.

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  5. yeh it’s not great, there are lots of meetings on the left at which it is nearly all white men speaking – and in the audience for that matter. in politics in general, not just on the left, it is a serious problem. maybe if you emailed the tusc steering committee they will take your comments on board and try to ensure a better balance in the future.

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  6. Incisive analysis Liam…makes eco socialism all the more relevant….well done….now lets have a look at the green movement in terms of class composition…

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  7. Yeah, Will, the Green movement are generally as crap as most of the socialist movement. They have white male professors and well paid bureaucrats on their platforms too often as well

    … sorry … what was your point about?

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  8. Its certainly a dynamic and exciting platform of speakers.

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  9. You made my point for me rather ably… thanks

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  10. Seriously, 21stcenturymanifesto raises something worth thinking about. Let’s look for a better masthead for Liam’s blog!

    To start with, I was looking at photo’s of last month’s climate and capitalism dayschool organised by the Green Left and SR in Manchester. It looks like a third of the audience was female.

    Will’s point about class composition is odd. Ian Donovan made the point – http://bit.ly/WhitColla – that a majority of Green party members and voters are white collar workers, while a majority of the BNP’s voters are blue collar workers. They are workers, not bosses. But the task for TUSC is not to replicate either the limited social base of the Green party or of the BNP, but to pose the working class as the universal class which champions all the forces in society that can come into action against capitalism. That means that TUSC should look like the working class as a whole – not just like the 50-something guys who are calling the shots.

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  11. Impressive line up:

    – Bob Crown (on pc)
    – Socialist Party member a (on pc)
    – Socialist Party member b (on pc)
    – Socialist Party member c
    – Socialist Workers Party member

    TUSC doesn’t look like the working class a whole simply because it is at best a united front of mostly white small far-left parties, + Bob Crown.

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  12. Prinkipo Exile, is the gender imbalance on the TUSC leadership anything like that in the Green Party? Let’s ask Caroline Lucas MEP, Jean Lambert MEP and Jenny Jones AM, shall we? Or perhaps the dozens of Green party councillors who are women? Green party councillors are 20% more likely to be women than are other councillors.

    It is possible to do better at a public meeting in London. When we look at the people who will be campaigning for TUSC, both as candidates and on the street, we don’t see that sort of imbalance. Of the ten TUSC candidates in the north, six are women. Of the thirteen candidates south of there, there’s only one. Can none of those seven make the meeting?

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  13. An interesting line of attack. Damn with faint praise and then challenge trade union leaders and far left councillors with the crime of being white men. Rather than saying this is obviously where the Left electoral challenge is and it would be nice if more women and ethnic minorities became involved. Have a woman chairing and it just shows up that the others are men.

    If we did a Venn diagram for another group that claims to represent progressive politics, and labelled the circles with “organised workers” and “strong religious beliefs”, how much overlap would there be between their activists or candidates and those radicals looking for a Left of Labour alternative?

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  14. Copenhagen failed. How do we stop climate change?

    Socialist Resistance Public Meeting

    Wed March 3 @ 7.30
    Indian YMCA, Fitzroy Square, London (Warren Street Tube)

    Speakers: Derek Wall (Green Party) and Liam Mac Uaid

    Two white men is presumably OK. Motes and beams, comrades?

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    1. Two probably make a mote. Five are at least a plank and I’m perfectly happy to admit that we should try for gender parity on platforms. But a fairly small public meeting of a tiny group is not quite the same thing as the launch of a national electoral challenge in London.

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  15. Jesus christ! no wonder working class people don`t vote for the left in any great numbers. Tusc haven`t even launched yet and your having a pop. For f…s sake at least debate there policies and just gripe about the poster and platform.

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  16. Should read. `and not just`.

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  17. I agree with Liam.
    And what does “motes and beams” mean anyone?

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  18. I really should remember that not everyone had a Catholic childhood…

    It’s from the gospel according to Matthew, chapter seven, verses 1-5 (the preamble to ‘the sermon on the mount’). In the King James translation:

    1Judge not, that ye be not judged.

    2For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

    3And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

    4Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

    5Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

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  19. So, Charlie, by that token the Liam and Derek show is actually worse than the TUSC platform- a whole central joist and not a little splinter…? how do you come to that conclusion?

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  20. Skidmarxs says “challenge trade union leaders and far left councillors with the crime of being white men. Rather than saying this is obviously where the Left electoral challenge is and it would be nice if more women and ethnic minorities became involved. Have a woman chairing and it just shows up that the others are men.”

    Actually:
    – The objection is not that these individuals are men: they were born that way. The political problem is that a platform with no diversity. In some small way, it reflects the value placed on diversity, pluralism and collective thinking inside TUSC nationally. TUSC may have just launches, but it’s possible for it to learn from the past and use basic common sense.
    – It does not reflect where the left electoral challenge is. Around one-third of TUSC candidates are women, and that’s more or less the same for Respect and the Green party, which also get left votes.
    – How can TUSC encourage diversity and wider participation? Does a platform of five white 50ish guys makes that easier or harder? You could have a woman charing, but could could also have two women speaking!

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  21. Duncan – I seem to recall back in the day that simply pushing aside white men in favour of blacks and women regardless of the politics involved was described as tokenism, and something that most on the Left would try to avoid. What the panel seems to reflect is three trade union leaders, a former MP and an SWP councillor. When there are women and members of ethnic minorities in similar positions with politics as good, which will hopefully be the case if TUSC prospers, then maybe you’ll have a point.
    Around one-third of TUSC candidates are women, and that’s more or less the same for Respect and the Green party, which also get left votes.
    But do Respect and the Greens ” reflect what the British working class looks like”? This very much seems like the skunk calling the pot grass.
    If we look at the big picture (on the leaflet, the only part of the leaflet not apparently covered in the post), we can see workers of various colours and both genders.[Sorry if the use of “both” offends any transexuals, please call a PC PC so I can turn myself in].

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  22. Liam has a point, but his moral high-groundism is somewhat undermined by his own blog, scroll down the pages here and you’ll find hundreds of photos nearly all of which are of middle-aged white men- except for Margeret Hodge and Harriet Harman. (Should leave aside the bizarre frequency which Sting, Bono and Gerry Adams appear.)

    I always thought that in the masthead of this blog Liam was the trombonist- how dissapointing to find it is not.

    Also just to be picky, the venn diagram analogy fails on the terms Liam lays out, because the third circle wouldn’t be overlapping anything at all.

    So all in all, a shit post from start to finish.

    I’d like to attend, only to ask Dave Nellist if he thinks that europe is still the most important issue facing the working class as he did this time last year, or whether I’ve won him round to my way of thinking. Sadly I won’t be in London that day -can someone else ask for me?

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  23. ” I seem to recall back in the day that simply pushing aside white men in favour of blacks and women regardless of the politics involved was described as tokenism,”
    skidmarx

    The point is though, Skidmarx, that there are plenty of Black activists and women activists with good politics, though not many in prominent positions specifically because of oppression of these groups.

    Any platform representing a socialist campaign should endeavour to include Black activists, women activists and other oppressed social groups precisely as a challenge to the sexism and racism of wider society and the labour movement.

    More important still will be to fight in USC and beyond for a political response that puts building mass campaigns with the participation of working class communities at the heart of challenging capitalism and here to the left has a lot to learn.

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  24. Thanks for the explanation. I still agree with Liam though. I’m some what surprised at the injured tone of its various defenders, what’s the problem with simply putting a woman on the platform and taking one of the men off?

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  25. RobM – I’m not a Catholic any more, so I don’t subscribe to a literal interpretation of the Bible 😉 It’s just a short-hand way of saying “If you want to argue that X is wrong, don’t do X yourself.”

    billj – I’m not defending the make-up of the platform (and I’m pretty sure no-one here has anything to do with its organisation). And according to SWP Party Notes http://www.swp.org.uk/party-notes Karen Reissmann is speaking, so it may not be an all-male platform (unlike the SR meeting) – the flyer does after all say “speakers include”.

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  26. The discussion is getting fascinating: ” I seem to recall back in the day that simply pushing aside white men in favour of blacks and women regardless of the politics involved was described as tokenism” It’s an amazing sleight of hand.

    The underlying assumption that the politics determine that all the speakers be male is mistaken. One could judge that Nancy Taffe, Judy Beishon. Hannah Sell and other SP leaders are better qualified, politically, than some of those on this platform. A more diverse platform would be better politically.

    Furthermore, what is the task of the public meeting? It should be to build the TUSC campaigns in London as effectively as possible. Perhaps a rally isn;t the only way to do that. But, if the rally is to mobilise the campaign, to not have London TUSC candidates Nancy Taffe and Onay Kasab on the platform is totally odd. And, of course, why not invite London’s socialist MP – George Galloway?

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  27. 21stcenturymanifesto Avatar
    21stcenturymanifesto

    Free offer!
    21stcenturymanifesto
    (Class of 1968 Hornsey College of Art) will design Liam a new masthead

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    1. 21stcenturymanifesto – if it’s a serious offer thanks very much. Perhaps you can e mail me with your ideas.

       

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  28. Skidders,sounds like a S.W.P. meeting.

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  29. Very generous offer from 21C! I’m sure Liam would love to have the three colour star in the masthead you design http://www.flickr.com/photos/anticapitalistas/3279038556/sizes/m/in/set-72157613797818746/

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  30. shug – don’t understand what you mean.

    Duncan – why not invite London’s socialist MP – George Galloway?
    1.This is a meeting to launch TUSC. He has his own electoral vehicle.
    2.This is a meeting of those who place the working class at the centre of their politics.
    3.He’s a white man last I heard.

    One could judge that Nancy Taffe, Judy Beishon. Hannah Sell and other SP leaders are better qualified, politically, than some of those on this platform
    Given the coalition mature of TUSC, it was presumably up to the SP to put their own speaker up for the meeting, and thought that a former MP, widely respected, would draw more people in than speakers most people would never had heard of (and even you don’t even seem able to spell “Nancy Taaffe”).
    Perhaps rather than attack the diversity of the platform for this one meeting, you would find your time better spent welcoming this coming together of left forces, or are you more concerned with knocking it so as to present an alternative not based on class, based on a very narrow geographical and community basis, as the way forward?

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  31. I agree with Duncan about the discussion getting fascinating – not least because it’s starting to sound like Mick McCarthy and Gianfranco Zola discussing who Fergie should pick for the Champions League….

    And I agree with him about the other possible speakers (who may well be there, of course – ‘speakers include’ does suggest it’s not the full list)

    But skidmarx is right about the oddity of suggesting George Galloway. It’s not only that he doesn’t add to the diversity – as far as I know Respect don’t support TUSC as a project, though they may support some candidates.

    There are old attitudes on both sides, though. I’m no fan of the SP, but from the evidence of sellers on demonstrations, speakers at meetings, etc., they seem to be younger, more female and more ethnically diverse than SR (and I’d argue the same is true of the SWP, too). There are clearly different ways of achieving greater diversity.

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  32. “younger, more female and more ethnically diverse than SR”

    Heady praise indeed! We’re also saner than the Sparts, better on Middle Eastern politics than the AWL and larger than the International Bolshevik Tendency!

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  33. For once I’m in complete agreement with Mark P.

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  34. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship Mark and chjh. Just this once I’ll waive my matchmaker’s fee.

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  35. My point was that Liam’s first instinct was to attack a working class socialist electoral coalition – whatever weaknesses may be observed. I think that tells you a lot about the ISG’s orientation.

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  36. Will: it’s unfair to attack the ISG in that way. Take a look at the TUSC candidate list. What kind of working class orientation is it that almost universally selects white candidates? Perhaps the kind of class orientation Samuel Gompers had?

    This kind of economistic tub-thumping didn’t fit the bill in the early 1970s. It sure as hell won’t connect with the London working class today.

    If they wanted a more repsentative platform they could put Cllr Abjol Miah up. He stands a chance of winning Bethnal Green. He spoke on the construction workers’ protest last year with Bob Crow. He represents one of the poorest wards in Britain. He’s championed every battle the left has cared about in Tower Hamlets and many beyond.

    But I guess for some this doesn’t come under the rubic of working class alternative.

    There is a would be pogrom movement taking to the streets serially across Britain and it is allied to a party of fascists which might win an MP. I don’t think there’s anything radical about selecting 30 candidates not one of whom is from the social group that is under attack.

    This smacks of the No2EU evasion all over again. It doesn’t win significant votes and, more importantly, it doesn’t build the left.

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  37. Nas:

    Are you suggesting that Abjol Miah supports voting for the candidates put up by TUSC? Or that TUSC should launch their election campaign with a speaker who doesn’t support that campaign?

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  38. Mark P: I believe, like Respect, he’s for the strongest possible left vote, and where TUSC is best placed to deliver that then a vote for them (I have Manchester Gorton in mind).

    There are questions of credibility, of course. And no one who had a chance of winning a seat would associate themselves too closely with less than credible campaigns. Dave Nellist didn’t in 1992, did he?

    So I think Abjol would bring some much needed electoral ballast, variety and a friendly other voice to that meeting.

    (I don’t for one minute expect that genuine suggestion to get a serious response from the organisers: they probably think he’s a jihadi.)

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  39. Nas

    “If they wanted a more repsentative platform they could put Cllr Abjol Miah up. He stands a chance of winning Bethnal Green. He spoke on the construction workers’ protest last year with Bob Crow. He represents one of the poorest wards in Britain. He’s championed every battle the left has cared about in Tower Hamlets and many beyond.”

    Sounds like an excellent idea. It would, however, go against the tenor of the remarks made by some very senior Respect people at the conference last Autumn, that Respect should have nothing to do with the forces now involved in TUSC, since they are an ‘electoral liability’. If comrades, by making this point, are repudiating this mistaken approach, I for one would welcome that.

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  40. Socialist Resistance is so implacably hostile to TUSC that supporters from London will be travelling to Brighton to help out with the election campaign of one of our comrades who is a TUSC candidate.

    Nonetheless not even its best friends could deny that its decision making processes, could on a dark night, appear to resemble an anti-democratic stitch up. I also think its reasonable that a left organisation in a city like London should aim to have a platform that reflects the city’s diversity to some degree. This is not best achieved by having an advertised platform mostly comprised of members of two far left groups.

    Why should it be problematical to make these pretty obvious observations?

    Are there any plans for TUSC or child of TUSC after the election?

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  41. ID: look at the policy and the prior endorsement of Dave Nellist and Val Wise. Are you asking TUSC to support Respect’s candidates, who can actually win?

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  42. Nas – over on SUN you had this to say:

    In terms of prospects at the election, here’s a pedestrian observation:
    1) to win a seat you have, first of all, to accumulate enough votes to come second.

    Leaving aside the fact that Galloway came from nowhere to win Bethnal Green & Bow, if we apply this logic to TUSC, it should concentrate on building up its own strength rather than deferring to Respect because the latter has a block of community votes in its pocket.Every time you ask why the SWP or other left forces are not giving the backing to Respect you demand, the transparency of your partisan thinking is obvious, as is the hostility you scarcely bother to conceal.

    Take a look at the TUSC candidate list. What kind of working class orientation is it that almost universally selects white candidates? Perhaps the kind of class orientation Samuel Gompers had?
    You seem unable to understand what is ethnicity and what is class.

    There is a would be pogrom movement taking to the streets serially across Britain and it is allied to a party of fascists which might win an MP. I don’t think there’s anything radical about selecting 30 candidates not one of whom is from the social group that is under attack.
    There’s nothing radical about TUSC? Well this does help to explain the belief of Respect members like yourself that Muslim community politics trumps everything else.

    If they wanted a more repsentative platform they could put Cllr Abjol Miah up… He’s championed every battle the left has cared about in Tower Hamlets and many beyond.
    Having a quick look at the Tower Hamlets Respect site, what he mostly seems to champion is the questionably democratic move for a directly elected mayor. And there is an article on him promoting Fairtrade, fair enough in itself. This seems to be a follow on from Duncan’s point about Galloway, why are TUSC picking people who support their programme and are actually committed to the politics of class when they could be asking Respect luminaries instead.

    Liam – I also think its reasonable that a left organisation in a city like London should aim to have a platform that reflects the city’s diversity to some degree.
    Yes maybe it is.
    This is not best achieved by having an advertised platform mostly comprised of members of two far left groups.
    But this seems to be your problem. After a series of claims that after wrecking the SA and Respect the SWP is so hated and mistrusted by anyone to the left of Genghis Khan, you now find that it is sharing a platform with the SP and trade union lefties and you don’t like it, I would guess because it gives Respect less clout in deciding where the Left is going.

    Would Weyman Bennett have been a better proposition on the platform? He’s been central to fighting the “would be pogrom movement taking to the streets serially across Britain”, but he’s not a woman or a Muslim, so they’d still be some reason to mumble and grumble.

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  43. I think ‘Nas’ coming to the defence of the ISG rather makes my point.

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  44. Oh skidthing – if you don’t see a problem with Samuel Gompers’ colour-blind version of class politics, then you don’t understand class, never mind ethnicity.

    There is nothing radical about a left wing group – yes, TUSC is left wing – selecting 30 candidates who are, I think, all bar one white and not one of whom is from the Muslim minority who are under attack. It was the selection I was commenting on, as the words make plain.

    As for Abjol – housing, defence of striking workers, calls for public ownership of the banks… I could go on, but your prejudices mean you won’t listen, especially to those who in fact live in Tower Hamlets and know what they are talking about.

    Will: that’s rather a weak argument. Why not engage with the points? Those who counterpose class politics to championing the battle against other forms of social oppression, such as racism, do the fight no favours at all. I thought this was a lesson most sections of the left learned by the end of the 1980s at the latest.

    You were in the Socialist Alliance, Will. Wasn’t there, rightly, a particular effort to ensure a varied spread of candidates? Liam pointing out the weaknesses of TUSC in demonstrating no such concern is not an “attack on a working class socialist electoral coalition”; it’s a political criticism of the narrowness of that coalition.

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  45. “ID: look at the policy and the prior endorsement of Dave Nellist and Val Wise. Are you asking TUSC to support Respect’s candidates, who can actually win?”

    Of course. That’s always been my position. And conversely…?

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  46. Crikey Will! You’re being uncharacteristically tetchy. I’m half expecting you to say that I’m objectively counter-revolutionary because of the piece on Orlando Zapata.

    It’s not easy to get really enthusiastic about TUSC and even its most ardent defenders aren’t making much of an effort to sell it as anything other than a short lived expedient.

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  47. Nas – I wouldn’t particularly support Samuel Gompers, fortunately he’s not a candidate for TUSC this time round. Of course it was the selection you were commenting on, it was to say TUSC isn’t Respect and therefore can’t be worth supporting, all that can be done is that it support Respect candidates and stand aside in favour of Respect candidates. The Muslim community isn’t the only group under attack, and to counterpose a cross-class alliance largely restricted to that community to a more diverse left force is going to leave you at the end of a dead end street.
    I could go on, but your prejudices mean you won’t listenYou are so right.
    Those who counterpose class politics to championing the battle against other forms of social oppression, such as racism, do the fight no favours at all. But, but that’s what you’re doing, only in reverse.

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  48. At the risk of sounding like a vulgar empiricist, did anyone actually go to the bloody meeting?

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  49. chjh – it’s in March.

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  50. I have n’t read that article Liam – but i shall if a perusal and let you know. At the moment the class as whole is not in a good place and it is important that we have a proper discussion about an electoral challenge rather than the intro you came up with – while ‘movement’ is not everything, it certainly counts for quite a lot in this period. Something your colleagues in Respect might agree with.

    I have never counterposed class politics to other forms of oppression Nas – but as I dont know who you are I assume you dont know my politics I will give you that misunderstanding – but if you look back at the respect split I strongly opposed Rees’ charge of communalism in Tower Hamlets – because I understood that an oppressed group moving to resist do not need worthy lectures from marxists (much like militant trade unionists on the front line) about the right make up of platforms etc.. I have also been pretty keen on the left addressing the environmental catclysm brought by capital; and to be clear questions of gender oppression and the issue of racism – having been a member of the IMG for 16 years not only was this was de rigueur but i agreed with it and still do.

    To my mind there is no question that a class movement on the rise will reflect its own diversity. Having said that, in the present conjuncture, the class question is key; the fact that the national leadership of the most miltant and organised section of that class is mostly made up of white men is a product of a quarter of a century of defeats – they can hardly be blamed for that. chjh – do keep up.

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  51. ERRATUM line 1 ” if ” should have read “give it”

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  52. Liam – D’OH!!

    will – only eleven points behind, we’re keeping fairly close…

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  53. Well, I didn’t get there (too long day at work), but the photos I’ve seen on Facebook show three female platform speakers – Hannah Sell, Karen Reissmann and Jenny Sutton.

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