If you were in Greece, would you vote Syriza or PASOK? But in Britain….
Kate Hudson, National Secretary of Left Unity, looks at the rise of the European Left.
Last week, Labour voted for the Tory benefit cap. Bad news for those who need to claim benefits, and bad news for those who still hold out hope that Labour will present an economic alternative. This week, we’ve seen Labour’s Lord Warner proposing a £10 a month fee just to see the doctor. Is it any wonder that Len McCluskey has described Labour’s policies as ‘a pale shade of austerity’, questioning future union funding?
And is it any wonder, that in spite of all the tired old arguments against building a party to the left of Labour, 250 people joined Left Unity over last weekend alone?
Still small beginnings maybe, but our new party is making steady headway. Since foundation last November, many former Labour party members have joined us. Many ordinary people are frustrated and desperate, not only because of current government policies but because the reality is that no major party will fight to defend them; they have no political representation.
That is why people are joining Left Unity and why people are joining parties of the left across Europe. Labour is not the only supposedly social democratic party to betray its supporters and – as its poll ratings slump – it’s not the only party punished electorally for embracing austerity. These parties which once championed welfare states across Europe have all gone the same way.
At Left Unity’s National Conference in Manchester last weekend, we welcomed delegates from across Europe. From Syriza – the radical left party which is likely to form the next government in Greece. It has superseded Labour’s austerity-loving sister party PASOK, smashing it at the polls. From Die Linke too, the only opposition party in the German parliament. The Social Democratic Party has joined Merkel’s CDU in a grand coalition to drive forward the neo-liberal agenda.
Polls ahead of next month’s European elections suggest that left parties will make major headway against pro-austerity forces. The parties sitting in the United European Left/Nordic Green Left bloc in the European parliament currently number 35. According to Pollwatch, surveying across all member states, the left may total 67 MEPs, making it the third largest force in the parliament.
Greece is due for the biggest increase, with Syriza projected to take 28% of the vote. In 2009 it took 4.9%. Die Linke is likely to remain stable at 8 seats and around 2 million votes. Izquierda Unida, the United Left in Spain, could get as high as 12.8%, potentially moving from the current one MEP to seven. In Portugal, the Communist Party stands at 11%, and the Left Bloc at 6%. The pattern is repeated across the continent.
So as we put the foundations of our new party of the left in place in Britain, we know we can draw on the experience of like-minded parties across the continent. Not surprisingly, they are interested in our development. For too long the European left has met together without British representation. Not any more. Left Unity is part of this movement.
For those who think that Left Unity’s European links are irrelevant, remember that the economic and political problems we face today are not just British problems. They cannot be solved on a British basis alone. And ask yourself, if you were in Greece, would you support Syriza or PASOK? Then think seriously about the kind of party that you really want to build and support in Britain.
8 comments
8 responses to “If you were in Greece, would you vote Syriza or PASOK? But in Britain….”
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I think your last paragraph sums up the ‘conundrum’ well. Since I wasn’t able to attend the Manchester conference I’m not yet aware of what decisions may have been reached with regard to, for example, who local LU branches could support in the Euro elections. We cut ourselves of from the Euuropean left, as disorientated as it may sometimes seem, at our peril. Thw links LU can forge in Europe should be interpreteted as an essential part of being an internationalist party.
i of course would vote syrizia but you have to apreciate that you have Tsiparas is more interested in building links with the Labours party than left unity, a syrizia government will need allies through out the eu with influence and we on the left havent been able to build that movement.
Mr Tsipras is a Greek. If Left Unity Party really gets good coverage in the media and gains big rise in membership and Labour lose 41 MPs with a Free Scotland after September so unable to form a government against the 299 Tory MPs (ONE 1 Tory MP in Scotland, you will see Syriza be more interested in the Left Unity Party in the UK. Syriza offers experience is how to meld together lots of small socialist parties, to form a party big enough to get at least 300 MPs into London’s parliament in 2015 general election and win to form a government. Gandhi observed, People’s Politics Are Their Daily Bread. My reply direct from Salman Shaheen has given me the sole hope as a pensioner short of a state pension at 60, with nil disability/sickness benefits, unable to work, low works pension below the level of the Social Charter international treaty law that has been ignored by UK government for benefit and state pension. We do not need to be ruled by Empire Europe to have links with socialist parties across national borders. Europe is killing people with Austerity in a recession, that is a failure of the role of elite throughout history who are there to feed us in lean times. It was an EU Directive that morally stole pension payout, especially to women, for up to a decade in life. There is no excuse in England – see who loses most or all state pension: http://leftunity.org/
I absolutely agree. We do not need to be ruled by “Empire Europe”(Tony Benn’s description) to build links with socialist parties across national borders. In any event Greece, Spain and Portugal are only three of the 28 countries in the EU and I doubt if the pattern suggested by Kate Hudson is repeated all over Europe. It makes more sense to concentrate on taking care of our own politics rather than trying to reform and revolutionise an institution invented for the benefit of the big business.
The headline (Coming soon…..)above suggests that the Left Unity is aiming for the general election in 2015. Therefore, it will not be very prudent to ignore the surging public opinion regarding the referendum. The issue has already gained momentum and any party who tries to ignore it, will do it at its peril. It seems that the conference, in view of the fact that the LU is not standing any candidates in the May election, and therefore does not feel the need to reach a decision on it, seems misguided. This is going to be a huge issue in the general election and therefore I suggest that Left Unity get its act together and get this issue thrashed out. A day conference should be organised just to deal with this issue and get it debated fully. Simply saying that LU is for or against is not going to be enough.
The other big issue to sort out is LU’s attitude towards the Labour Party. I got the impression from Salman’s interview with Andrew Neil (an excellent presentation! He nearly convinced Andrew Neil to join Left Unity!) is going to be based on individual candidates. This softly-softly approach to the labour party will be of no help. It will only confuse labour voters. We are in a parliamentary democracy and it is the party manifesto which matters. The LU cannot, one minute criticise the labour party and the next minute recommend a candidate because he is supposed to be on the left of the Labour party. LU must use all its resources to expose the labour party. The fact that one cannot put a cigarette paper between the three parties must be spelt out loud and clear.
Furthermore, the idea that the labour party can be changed from within must be taken head on. The left had been toying with this idea since time immemorial. This fantasy must be dealt with decisively. The Labour Party is now rotten through and through and is beyond the pale. If some of the people are good e.g. Owen Jones, they will not be able to bring any good to ordinary people by staying in that party.
LU has a good chance of making headway provided it gives a clear lead. The most important factors are that, for some reason, the Guardian has extended quite a bit of support to Ken Loach. Ken Loach has also not got a baggage like some other left party leaders which is very helpful.
None of them: Pasok is responsible for the handover of the country to the Troika, Syriza is a party of gatekeepers who have no real desire to change anything, since they are committed to stay in the EMU (which equals austerity for peripheral countries as all monetary unions of this kind do).
Neither. The pseudo-left Syriza party (aka New Pasok) are not radical. They are less radical than Pasok were in the 80s (Pasok were voted in then on a platform of leaving NATO and the EEC). Syriza offers no real solutions, nothing radical, and are being feted by the pro-capitalist press because it is clear that if they do get into power the staus quo will be maintained. My fear is that Left Unity is in danger of becoming another Syriza.
Here are a few quotes as food for thought:
‘From the outset of the crisis the pseudo-left formation SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) advanced itself as the sole progressive alternative. On this basis its vote rocketed from 4.6 percent in 2009 to nearly 27 percent by the 2012 election; just a few percentage points from being the majority party.
Its rhetoric was based on a rejection of the memorandum and continued austerity and the pledge that it would renegotiate Greece’s debt on coming to power.
On this basis SYRIZA, along with many pseudo-left movements in Europe, promoted an audit of Greek debt via an “independent commission” in order to establish which debt was “legitimate” and which was “odious” and not payable.
Last month the MacroPolis web site noted that no final figure was established regarding “odious” debt, but that “SYRIZA MP Giorgos Stathakis, part of the party’s economics team, has now suggested that only around 5 percent of Greece’s debt, which is expected to stand at €340 billion or 174.8 percent of GDP at the end of this year, can be considered ‘odious’.”
The article cited comments of Stathakis to the Sto Kokkino radio station in which he defined the odious debt as “the arms procurement programmes and the electrification of the Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE), which never happened.” He elaborated, “Over 90 percent of the debt is traditional, public debt of the markets, in other words bonds. There is no legal process to challenge this.”
Stathakis’ comments make a mockery of SYRIZA’s anti-austerity rhetoric. It commits SYRIZA, as a main governing party, or in coalition with other openly austerity parties, to paying off the vast majority of Greece’s debt.
This is the content of SYRIZA’s central policy of remaining in the European Union at all costs and “renegotiating” the debt.
On Tuesday, SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras said a SYRIZA government did not intend to unilaterally default on its debts, but “One weapon we could use if our partners are very, very tough is to stop repaying interest in order to finance the Greek economy. But this is not our intention. Our position is to try to find a consensus solution.
SYRIZA’s repudiation of its previous radical posturing takes place in the context of a recent discussion in the Greek media and parliamentary parties, regarding the possibility of a future coalition government involving SYRIZA and the ruling conservative New Democracy (ND). SYRIZA MP Manolis Glezos, in comments he later said were sarcastic, asked, “Will the government abandon its lending policy? Will it stop stealing from the people to save the banks? If they do that, then I don’t believe, SYRIZA colleagues, that we will object” (to a coalition). […] SYRIZA’s rightward shift was underscored recently with its selection of a pro-austerity candidate, Odysseas Voudouris, for the upcoming local elections. Voudouris is a former MP for the hated social democratic PASOK, who imposed the first memorandum as part of the government of George Papandreou. In December 2011 Voudouris’s team visited Kalamata in his Messinia constituency and was confronted by protesters who chanted, “Collaborators leave our town.”’
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/10/syri-f10.html
‘Voters, especially the urban youth who supported Syriza last spring, are concerned that Syriza is turning into a new Pasok. The socialist party came to power in 1981 with a radical programme, but achieved hardly any of it. Today, many young victims of the crisis, hostile to “their parents’ Pasok”, are disappointed by Syriza’s restraint.’
http://mondediplo.com/2013/07/07syriza
‘In that fight [over democracy and national independence], Syriza stands as the alternative, and Mr. Tsipras now has a chance of becoming prime minister. If he succeeds, nothing vital would change for the United States. Syriza doesn’t intend to leave NATO or close American military bases.’
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/opinion/only-syriza-can-save-greece.html?_r=0
What we all need is a truly radical left – not pseudo-leftism.
This is all too tragically true Mark. Syriza is not, and cannot be, a model for our new Left Unity Party. As you accurately describe, it is not enough to just “talk the radical talk”, whilst far from electoral office – the truly radical Left party has to also “walk the radical walk” when elected office is delivered by voters eager for radical change and a resolute resistance to the capitalist offensive.
There can be no doubt now , since it lurched rightwards at last years Conference, that if it gains governmental office Syriza is NOT going to effectively confront the Troika in its demolition and robbery of the Greek nation on behalf of international capitalism. The end result of this betrayal will be mass demoralisation for the working class in Greece – and huge gains for the Nazis of Golden Dawn as despair turns to ever greater xenophobia and scapegoating of minorities.
But John
Our failure to spell it out now that we are not interested in simply running a capitalist economy, but believe in and intend to deliver a knock out blow to counter the inevitable attempts of those with economic and state powerto co-opt us into the “system”, is ALREADY in danger of sending us the way of Syriza, without any of the excuses they have.