Liam redux

Pot misidentifies kettle

For world class precision engineering Germany is probably your best bet. For hand made shoes crafted by artisans with family traditions in the trade going back generations Italy’s the place. Anyone looking for flatpack political campaigns that can be assembled with a screwdriver and a couple of nails can find no finer exemplars than those…

Liam
2–3 minutes

For world class precision engineering Germany is probably your best bet. For hand made shoes crafted by artisans with family traditions in the trade going back generations Italy’s the place. Anyone looking for flatpack political campaigns that can be assembled with a screwdriver and a couple of nails can find no finer exemplars than those created by the British far left

A handful of political full timers pretend to be outraged punters and are tasked with persuading a sceptical world that they are completely unconnected with the political organisation they’ve belonged to for years and that anyone is free to join so long as they don’t mind all the big and small decisions being made in advance through a very opaque process. When that doesn’t quite work they can pack the meetings.

Writing recently in Socialist Worker Alex Callinicos reviews the current surfeit of anti-cuts campaigns and concludes that the important thing in the next few months is that everyone gets behind the Right To Work Campaign, the secretary of which is the very same paper’s editor.

He arrives at this conclusion by demonstrating just how wrong the methodology behind the Coalition of Resistance (CAR) is. He correctly points outs that there are two ways you can launch a “national coordinating coalition of resistance”. Option one is by planting the flag and declaring that you are it. Now even though this is the long established way of doing things in Britain it doesn’t make it right. You can supply your own examples of operations like this that you’ve had the privilege of being asked to collaborate with.

Option two “is to acknowledge that any broader unity will have, at least in part, to develop from existing initiatives.” And there is no denying that.

Unusually for events of this sort the conference that CAR is planning seems surprisingly free flowing. It’s advert says that on the day “we will decide the direction of the campaign. Decide slogans, who’s doing what etc and much more…” For those of us who have sat through our fill of beautifully choreographed Saturdays in under ventilated or under heated rooms this is quite a novelty. Of course it may term out to be a cunning ploy to lure the gullible or a useless talking shop. On the other hand it may just represent a fresh, non-proprietorial approach to building unity in action. There’s probably only one way to find out.

And it goes without saying that a huge demonstration outside the Tory conference will be a very fine thing.

 

12 responses to “Pot misidentifies kettle”

  1. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    Hi, coming in here from ‘CAR’ I was not sure what to expect. Another link took me to an horrendous Liberal website. Nasty and vitriolic. The dirtiest fighters in elections is right. Most of them these days just Tories in different coloured ties.

    I am a Socialist with a capital S. Marxist with a capital M. Have been for 35 years. Ignorant as I am I know some of the theory. But I am sure I am not alone in that. As I may not be alone in thinking much of the stuff here blows my mind away. Fighting still as most seem to be a workers revolution that happened in 1917 it seems. Precious little comment on the ‘material conditons’ we now face. So surprise surprise, nobody listens. For 30 years now. Actually a part of me blames indulgent student stuff here for that.

    Get a grip please comrades. Seems to me Lenin seemed to know how to organise stuff that get’s results. Even if that means being in bed with some we may find ideologically uncomfortable. No not the Liberals. Each other on the left.

    I can read Marx and Engels by candle light. But sorry it does not make up for my soon to be pauper pension.

    General strike on 22nd of October. In my Marx indefinate. I can wish.

    Blogs like this ensure Tesco will actually be in the Cabinet by 2015.

    Have a good life

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  2. Dan Avatar
    Dan

    Liam, this is an unfortunate misrepresentation of what Alex says in the article you link to. He says that any broader coalition should build on what already exists, including the achievements of Right to Work. He also says that the Tory Party demo is an important step in that. He does not demand that everyone ‘get behind’ Right to Work, except in the sense that they support a particular Right to Work initiated event.

    It’s up to you if you want to infer more than this from what he says, but there is nothing actually written that is different from what you go on to argue.

    On a lighter note, Chris Bambery is not the editor of Socialist Worker.

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  3. Prinkipo Exile Avatar
    Prinkipo Exile

    Well Dan, Liam does seem to have summarised exactly what Callinicos is saying.

    A quote from the original article in SW:

    “any broader unity will HAVE, at least in part, to develop from existing initiatives. In particular, it will HAVE to build on the achievements of the Right to Work campaign.

    These include an impressive protest at the Labour Party conference in Brighton last September, two big national delegate conferences this year, and a real degree of practical unity”

    In other words ‘get on board … and stop suggesting anything else’.

    The problem is that the RTWC is purely a front for the SWP. It has no lasting or independent existence outside the confines of the SWP’s view of the world. It was set up in the 1970s and gets wheeled out whenever the SWP need something on economic issues to mobilise behind rather than in their own name.

    If it was so good why did it not exist two year’s ago?

    The SWP are entitled to set up their fronts of course and call for support within the constraints of their own self-declared priorities, but people not in the SWP also have the right to say that they would rather have something that is a little more open.

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  4. robm Avatar
    robm

    What Alex does say is the following “But any attempt to coordinate actions has to take into account the existing realities. These include a number of initiatives, including the People’s Charter, the Right to Work campaign, the Labour Representation Committee, the National Shop Stewards Network, and Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay….
    And we shouldn’t forget the TUC,…”

    All of which is true except that the supporters of Right To Work campaign don’t exactly have a good record in relating to many of the above and tend to counterpose RTW itself to them.
    Now, if the RTW did have an exemplary record of working with local Peoples Charter initiatives or through the Trades Council (to give examples from my own back yard) Alex’s words would ring less hollow.

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  5. Dan Avatar
    Dan

    Prinkipo, I don’t expect to be able to convince you, but ‘build on’ really isn’t the same as ‘get behind’. It is not saying that everyone should join Right to Work, just that broader unity should take into account the campaigns already in place. I accept that you consider this to be dishonest, but that is what he says, and it is, in my experience, in line with what most people in the SWP think.

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  6. Prinkipo Exile Avatar
    Prinkipo Exile

    Dan – if your interpretation is correct, what is stopping the RTWC signing the Coalition of Resistance statement and sending representatives to the November Conference?

    I also notice you didn’t disagree that RTWC was an SWP front.

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  7. Dan Avatar
    Dan

    Prinkipo, I don’t know. I doubt there is anything stopping RTW from doing it, and I’m sure they will.

    The reason I didn’t disagree is because I didn’t want to engage in that debate with you. And I still don’t.

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  8. Prinkipo Exile Avatar
    Prinkipo Exile

    The reason you don’t engage in that debate Desperate Dan is because you know it is true that the RTWC has no existence outside of whatever the SWP decide it should do.

    You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. No debate to be had.

    But, as Liam says, a huge demo at the Tory party conference would be a very good thing, whoever has taken the initiative to call it.

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  9. alf Avatar
    alf

    Dan the problem is that ” most people in the SWP think” does not represent most people. The Right To Work is one campaign, fine. It is not the only campaign. Most people recognise this and work with all campaigns, acknowledging and even welcoming their existence.

    There is also a growing presence of local based democratic campaigns, which are linked to local Trades Councils, local unions, local user groups, local communities and other local based labour movement cttees. Their autonomy must be recognised and respected. There is also the Coalition of Resistance, Peoples’ Charter and numerous other initiatives. These are mushrooming up all over the place.

    A break with the sectarian past and the building of united fronts is the priority for the movement if we are to see progress. This is now becoming the new reality on the ground and others need to recognise this.

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  10. David Ellis Avatar
    David Ellis

    This Coalition of Resistance appears to be the work of gifted organisers. Clearly getting kicked out of the SWP has allowed the likes of Rees and Co. to flourish at least on that front and organisationally to have left those stifling roots well behind. This really is quite an achievement, quite a coup and must be very demoralising for the increasingly marginalised SWP CC.

    However, whilst the stifling organsational straight jacked appears to have been cast off the opportunist politics do not. Programatically what is being proposed at this stage is unity either for the sake of it or unity on the basis of the most wishy washy and hopeless reformist illusions. What is actually required is to tie the reformist to practical joint action for the realisation of our own programme of transitional and socialist demands. `Democratic control of the banks’ is simply not good enough. Regulation of the imperialist finance houses has already proved a delusional perspective of New Labour, why resurrect it now?

    But the organisational intent behind this initiative does seem at this point to be genuine and fresh as opposed to bureaucratic in intent and it has attracted a wide range of forces. Revolutionists should be able to make their point within it without fear of arbitrary expulsion, unprincipled manoeuvres and other bureaucratic tricks. They can work to pledge it to practical, principled politics and prevent it turning into a way of `heading to head off’ or a retirement home for the lost and the hopeless or a little something for the budding bureaucrats’ CV. If it becomes a facilitator of broad class struggle against the cuts that is to be welcomed. Any less must be ruthlessly dealt with.

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  11. alf Avatar
    alf

    Well David, give it a go then and help us.You are welcomed

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  12. David Ellis Avatar
    David Ellis

    Thank you alf, I might well do so but of course we should be ready to jump ship at any time if a mass movement should break out spontaneously or if we can encourage one to come into existence and CAR is proving not to be the vehicle for doing it. We must be encouraging mass participation in politics by workers in their workplaces and communities through various mass organs.

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