Left Unity and elections – some brief thoughts
Andrew Burgin of Crouch End Left Unity contributes to the debate on elections
Left Unity is approaching its first anniversary as a party. We have around 2,000 members and just over 40 active branches. The basic internal democratic structures of the party have been laid down and we have policy in many areas: economy and austerity, health and housing, Europe and migration, electoral strategy, trade union strategy, anti-racism and internationalism.
There will be a further policy conference this November. A balance sheet of the activity of Left Unity would include an array of protests and trade union support work around the NUT strike struggle, participation in the three national Gaza protests, the sit-in at the Department of Education, the Homes Not Spikes picket, opposing the Bedroom Tax, protesting against Atos, opposing the EDL, supporting women and children against violence and sexual abuse, supporting the People’s March for the NHS, the No to Nato protests in Wales, the Wigan Diggers Festival and many more.
Local branches have arranged dozens of public meetings and other activities. The LGBTQ, Women’s and Youth caucuses have all produced their own broadsheets. A national office has been established and office and social media workers are being employed.
We are part of the European eco-socialist network and helped arrange its London conference and travelled to Paris and Brussels for that work. In the May local elections we stood a dozen candidates – in Wigan, Bolton, Norwich, Exeter and Barnet. And we achieved some creditable results.
We have important plans for the next few months. In October we will host a tour by a leading member of the new Spanish party, Podemos. Our youth and student work is developing in colleges and universities and we will be participating in the freshers’ fairs. We will be on the TUC demo in good numbers.
Our next national council will also decide on our participation in the forthcoming general election.
There is of course still a huge amount yet to do. Our membership is stable at around 2,000 but has been at that figure since the beginning of the summer. Our branches in the North East are still in the process of being formed and we need to grow and build everywhere. Every member will have their own positive and negative balance sheets of what we have done so far.
Nevertheless, I think the effort that been undertaken by all in establishing Left Unity as a political party has been impressive, not least the achievements of our press and media department which have enabled us to have a national voice and profile.
There is no doubt that there are obstacles to building a successful party of the left in Britain. The first is the experience of previous attempts which deters many from trying again; the second is the dominance of the Labour party and its links with the trade union movement; and third is the particular nature of the ‘first past the post’ electoral system in Britain which makes it very difficult for smaller parties to make an electoral breakthrough.
There are many who are supportive of the fundamental aims and policies of Left Unity but who are wary of joining at this moment. There are many more who would join were they to see Left Unity making the same impact on politics in this country from the left as UKIP are now beginning to do on the right.
Left Unity is committed to building an electoral base and has voted at its national conference to stand in next year’s general election. We have agreed to open discussions with other left organisations in order to avoid electoral clashes.
Despite the problems of FPTP a serious electoral strategy is an essential component of the development of the party. Many of our members have been motivated to join by the abandonment by Labour of any semblance of political representation of the working class. But no one expects that Left Unity can win a parliamentary seat this time and even saving a deposit may be beyond us at a first outing.
However, electoral work must be integrated with all our other campaigning and political activity and it is precisely success in that arena that has defined the emergence of other left parties throughout Europe. They have won and retained the confidence of many working class voters as defenders and promoters of their rights.
A general election is an opportunity for a political party to ensure that its voice is heard by hundreds of thousands if not millions of voters. It is the one time in a five year period when politics is at the forefront of people’s minds and for us to abstain from this – as some in the party suggest – would be to limit the scope of our work. Campaigning work or electoral work is not an either/or choice – they can strengthen one another.
Our National Council – Left Unity’s leadership – will be discussing the party’s electoral strategy at its September meeting, and following agreement there, we will be approaching other left organisations about our general election plans. We have agreed at our national conference in Manchester the following resolution:
‘Left Unity should open discussions with other left groups, coalitions and parties to avoid electoral clashes and move towards electoral pacts – with the aim of creating the largest ever left challenge in the 2015 general election.’
Some Left Unity members who are also involved in one of these coalitions, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), have argued that Left Unity should become part of that coalition and not stand as an independent party.
TUSC has written to us proposing that we either become an element within TUSC, or that we form a new electoral coalition with TUSC. Many members also of the Green Party are keen to work more closely with Left Unity and some have questioned our decision to set up Left Unity and not to join their party.
It is worth examining some of the issues that surround our relations both with TUSC and the Green Party. These are questions that have generated some debate in Left Unity and more widely on the left.
TUSC is an electoral coalition formed by the Socialist Party which also includes the Socialist Workers Party, the Independent Socialist Network and the rail union the RMT. It is not a political party nor has it any intention of becoming one. It is an organisation through which these component parts come together to stand in some elections.
Each organisation within TUSC has the right of veto and there is no individual membership of the coalition. As such it is unable to develop policy beyond a basic programme. This means that on many issues TUSC can take no position.
The separate organisations have, to give just one example, different positions on Europe and the EU. The Socialist Party and the RMT are for withdrawal from the EU and also for immigration controls whereas the other organisations, while opposing the EU, have a different position. Thus in order to stand in the Euro elections last May the Socialist Party and the RMT stood as No2EU, a separate coalition with the Communist Party of Britain. TUSC did not stand in those elections as it has no policy on Europe.
In the 2015 general election, which will be dominated by the European question and the rise of UKIP, the inability of TUSC to speak on this question will cause problems. Left Unity has policy that while it opposes all aspects of a neoliberal Europe also ‘opposes all programmes and demands for a British withdrawal from the European Union’.
Should Left Unity seek to include our policy on Europe in the TUSC manifesto that would not be possible because of the right of veto held by individual organisations within TUSC.
The relationship of the RMT to TUSC is complicated. The last RMT conference voted to continue its support for TUSC. Following the tragic death of Bob Crow, the RMT is in the process of electing a new General Secretary. The only candidate fully committed to the TUSC project is Steve Hedley. Other candidates may take a different view on the future of TUSC. At least one leading RMT member on the TUSC executive is rumoured to have joined the Green Party.
It is also unclear, given the RMT conference resolution that it supports TUSC, whether the RMT executive could agree with the offer made by the TUSC executive to Left Unity that a new electoral coalition could be set up.
The continued participation of the SWP after the 2015 general election is by no means a foregone conclusion. It is an open secret that many members of the SWP are lukewarm, to say the least, about the TUSC project. On the evidence from the local elections last May they only mobilised in support of their own candidates. Some members of Left Unity would be resistant to entering into a compact that includes the SWP because of their experience as previous members of that party and in campaigns in which they have worked with the SWP. That would require a serious discussion in itself.
Although the debate around TUSC often generates more heat than light it is striking how few people – including members of Left Unity – have heard of TUSC. This is reflected in the poor votes TUSC gets in elections and also because its ambitions do not include building a new party. TUSC is fraught with problems, even as a limited electoral front.
We need to build a radical left party with a distinct identity determined by clear socialist policies across the board. This has to be a party which will be ever present in the life of the working class, campaigning in every election, supporting every strike for better pay and conditions, every demonstration and every action against austerity. The work for such a party will be done over many years and decades. It will not be helped by subsuming ourselves in an electoral compact with no clear identity and with no real future.
The party seen as being on the left that will make the biggest showing in the general election is the Green Party. It will stand in more than half the seats. It already has one elected MP, Caroline Lucas in Brighton, and will seek to increase that by concentrating on the areas where they are strongest. So expect a big effort in Norwich, Oxford, Bristol and Brighton. In the polls they stand on a par with the Liberal Democrats at about 8%.
Their new leader, Natalie Bennett, has attempted to position the party on the left, looking to the radical left parties in Europe for inspiration. Many Green Party members are keen for Left Unity to dissolve and for us to join them in a red-green alliance.
As with the TUSC proposal there are serious obstacles to doing this. First and foremost is the inability of the Greens either in this country or internationally to stand up for the interests of ordinary people. Their collective political history is littered with examples of their capitulation to the power of capital. In Brighton where they have control of the council they are engaged in cuts and more recently even the privatisation of services. The council there faces a second strike by refuse workers.
You can have progressive policies on paper but if you jettison them once you enter office then, as a political party of the left, you are as much use as a chocolate fireguard.
In my opinion, Left Unity should seek to work closely with other organisations and individuals on the left. Joint campaigning on anti-war, anti-austerity and on anti-racism is the lifeblood of the movement. And this should apply to electoral work as well. We should seek to avoid electoral clashes as much as possible and we should support other candidates of the left.
However we should be careful about standing left candidates in marginal seats, especially where we recognise the possibility of a Tory victory. While we now see little difference between the three main parties, working class voters are desperate to get rid of this coalition government and many still consider that there is still a difference between a Tory and a Labour government, albeit a marginal one.
The shadow health minister Andy Burnham was welcomed onto the platform at the People’s March for the NHS rally because the Labour Party has promised to repeal the Health and Social Care Act. We have to hold Labour to that commitment – whilst also reminding people that it was a Labour government that started the privatisation of the NHS. Privatisation within the NHS must not only be stopped but reversed and the same applies to the utility companies, rail and many other areas.
The next Labour government will be one of the most right wing in its history and its promise to continue with further austerity measures will open up the question of a new party of the left to much wider layers. Thus the election of a Labour government in 2015, committed to austerity, may well create the possibility of a political re-alignment on the left.
In my opinion, there may well be future political regroupments that Left Unity will be a part of. As I write, we are on the eve of the Scottish referendum which – whatever the result – has already shaken British politics.
Such regroupments have been the pattern across Europe in the building of radical left parties. Whether Left Unity can become a serious political contender in the mould of Syriza or Die Linke remains to be seen. We are only at the beginning of the process, but what is crystal clear is that our success depends on us projecting a clear set of policies within a framework of consistent work in our trade unions and local communities. Any future electoral success will be a measure of the extent to which we are an organic part of the working class and its struggles.
13 comments
13 responses to “Left Unity and elections – some brief thoughts”
Left Unity is active in movements and campaigns across the left, working to create an alternative to the main political parties.
About Left Unity
Read our manifesto
Left Unity is a member of the European Left Party. 
Read the European Left Manifesto
ACTIVIST CALENDAR
Events and protests from around the movement, and local Left Unity meetings.
ongoing
Just Stop Oil – Slow Marches
Slow marches are still legal (so LOW RISK of arrest), and are extremely effective. The plan is to keep up the pressure on this ecocidal government to stop all new fossil fuel licences.
Saturday 27th April: national march for Palestine
National demonstration.
Ceasefire NOW! Stop the Genocide in Gaza: Assemble 12 noon Central London
Full details to follow
More events »
GET UPDATES
Sign up to the Left Unity email newsletter.
CAMPAIGNING MATERIALS
Get the latest Left Unity resources.
I have emailed Left Unity, some time back. The only response I got, was an email and branch address, where I could Join. My thoughts were in the email and had NO response to my thoughts at all. For a new Party, you aren’t doing yourselves, any favours by ignoring emails or other sources.
My thoughts, in brief, are, why can’t Left Unity get together with other parties/organisations that have similar policies, e.g. Boycott Workfare, The People’s Assembly, 38 degrees, the NHS Party, the list goes on. With a collective organisation, there is at least, a real chance of denting the moral of the established parties and at most maybe winning the next General Election.
People are sick to the teeth about the way things are being run by our current politician’s and policies. WE need a party for the PEOPLE.
John Wiley, Bolton, Greater Manchester.
I am sorry that you did not have any response to the thoughts that you placed in your email.
Please can you re-send your email so we can reply.
In Solidarity,
In Norwich, Left Unity has got together with People’s Assembly and 38 Degrees and others successfully. I’m sorry you had problems with Head office, several people have. It may be teething problems but don’t let that put you off.
I agree with Andrew. I think only an elephant needs a TUSC as it is anti-democratic and most people are completely baffled by the concept of an ‘electoral coalition’that isn’t a party, including me.
The Greens appeal to the middle classes and that is OK, but not enough. Left Unity must also take on the environmental issues with great seriousness, but as ourselves,and this means re-examining some of the traditional policies of the ‘left’. We have not really done that yet.
But I am still to be persuaded that there is any thing we could achieve by standing in elections which we couldn’t achieve in more creative ways, this time round. For Left Unity to become a successful party it needs to demonstrate that we are proposing something new and relevant to current and future issues. John Whiley talks about collaborating with the organisations which people are joining in their millions, like 38 Degrees (2.7 million members). They are considered by the media to be a left wing group.Then there is the People’s Assembly with thousands of members, and numerous campaigning groups with more forming every day, including the Equalities Trust, Hope not Hate, DPAC and WeOwnIt. Then there are the think tanks like CLASS, False Economy and Positive Money. What they all have in common is their ‘alergic’ reaction to party politics of any sort. And, I am sorry to say, I still think our name is an enormous barrier to engaging with this much broader coalition of people. It turns people’s heads backwards an inwards, and we need to turn it forwards and outwards.
And lastly, we have done a fantastic job of organising ourselves – 40 functioning branches is very impressive – but our policies still need much debate and deep thought before they are solid enough, water-tight enough, understood enough and inter related enough to be the genuine alternative to capitalism we will need. The environmental issues for example are not just for a separate policy but must be part of all the others. We do not yet have a viable ‘Social Security’ policy, and I would like to see us have a specific policy on the rights and needs of children and young people. No other party has done this as far as I know.
Our electoral theme in our branch (Wandsworth and Merton)is going to be ‘Don’t Vote For Us – join us’ and we will still be door knocking and putting out information whilst not getting in the way of getting rid of the Tories, now and forever.
John Wiley. None of the campaigns you cite in your comment are political parties – they are single issue campaigns and broad popular front movements of many parties. As Andrew’s article makes clear, Left Unity members already work across Britain with many campaigns. But with the total degeneration of the Labour Party into a neoliberal capitalist party determined to enforce Austerity – what is needed today is a united radical Left political party – to move beyond campaigns alone – to compete for mass political support on a coherent, comprehensive, socialist programme electorally at all levels, from local government to the EU to Westminster, to the Scottish and Welsh legislatures. This doesn’t preclude working with a wide range of other parties or campaigns around a wide range of issues. But what is needed overall is a new mass radical socialist party . That is what we are trying to build . If you agree with our aims – join us. If not – work with us on specific campaigns.
This is a really good article and clarifies why Left Unity decided to form a new party and not dissolve into the Greens or ‘join’ TUSC.
We are in a long-term process of reorganisation on the democratic socialist left.
I think we should maintain dialogue and work with TUSC. Members and supporters of Left Unity need to assess this in their locality. I would encourage joint meetings to discuss the forthcoming elections and include the Greens, TUSC, Alliance for Green Socialism and others on the progressive spectrum. We need consensus to avoid clashes and standing in areas where clashes may result in the racist right making gains.
I understand that some people have expressed reservations about working with the SWP. “Some members of Left Unity would be resistant to entering into a compact that includes the SWP because of their experience as previous members of that party and in campaigns in which they have worked with the SWP.”
This line of argument concerns me. The SWP has attracted support from socialists and campaigners. They are involved in the Unite Against Fascism, Trades Councils, anti austerity campaigns and have played a leading role in many local campaigns in Yorkshire- Bedroom Tax, Public Transport. They are involved in Trade Unions, Stop the War, People’s Assembly etc.
My involvement in these campaigns does not mean I support or endorse the SWP. I feel it would be a mistake to ‘boycott’ any campaign or organisation that has the involvement of SWP members. The overwhelming majority of TUSC candidates are not in the SWP. In Doncaster they attracted Care UK strikers, local campaigners and trade unionists. I feel we need to focus on people on the left who have sympathy for the TUSC project and have not heard of Left Unity or are yet to be convinced of it.
TUSC has flaws but so does Left Unity- I hope that working together may well lead to greater collaboration, possibly a new party in the future. We are not joining TUSC- we are working with them. I would happily campaign for some of their candidates in the locality- they are brilliant activists, committed socialists and work hard to support campaigns.
In response to Nick Jones – I don’t think Andrew Burgin is advocating not working with SWP members in campaigns or union branches, and I agree that would be a serious mistake for all my disagreements with the direction taken by my former organisation. The issue concerns joining the TUSC coalition and although a motion ot hat effect was defeated at the Manchester conference there are still some active voices on the national council who want us to go down that route.
MY own view is that we do need to engage in talks with TUSC and other organisations/parties at both a national and local level after the national council this coming weekend. We should avoid clashes with TUSC and it should be up to local groups to determine how engaged they are with campaignign for TUSC candidates.
Because the Greens are standing so widely we cannot guarantee to avoid clashes with their candidates but we should avoid standing against identifiasbly leftwing Greens such as Caroline Lucas in Brighton and Natalie Bennett in Holborn and St Pancras.
Finally I agree with Micheline Mason about our name ( which I did not vote for) but now is not the time to change it. What we need to think about is a further regroupment on the left (eg with people currently active in the People’s Assembly and 38 Degrees)after the Election and then a new name will need to be on the agenda. We also need to look closely at why Podemos have been so successful in Spain and the forthcoming Podemos tour organsied by left Unity will be very interesting and thoughtprovoking in that respect.
I find myself agreeing, at least in outline, with just about everything in your article Andrew. As for the details, there are some things I simply don’t know enough about or who need time to pick apart, and I am notoriously slow on such things.
We have not had a bad first year, a brand new party which has pretty much doubled in size since the inaugural conference, we have had a reasonable amount of media attention considering our size and we are lucky in having good media representatives who have undoubtedly helped draw people towards us.
The question now is can we build on this and I know some members have questioned whether we should stand anybody at all at the next general election, preferring to wait until 2020. I think that to follow that line would be a catastrophic mistake, becoming known as a political party that doesn’t stand in elections would deprive us of a great deal of credibility. Of course, gaining a merely derisory vote in most seats would also damage our credibility, but that is the hand we have been dealt, it is simply a matter of playing it as skilfully as we can. Trying to stand in as many seats as possible, regardless of the chances of electoral success would encourage that derisory vote, so we need a coherent strategy to deal with the situation and we also need to define what electoral success would mean for us in the next election.
We know we will not be forming the next government! We know it would be an incredible success if we won even a single seat, the system makes it inherently unlikely that we would manage this next year. The question will be whether we can achieve visibility in the results, pushing in at 3rd, 4th or 5th place. If we can we’ll have a sounder basis for competing in council elections in the coming years and be in a better position to fight 2020. If we don’t try we may well have been forgotten by then.
TUSC is TOXIC.
Andrew has provided an excellent summary of where Left Unity are with regards to election strategy. The Scottish Referendum campaign has shown that the core Labour vote will be up for grabs at the 2015 election. UKIP could squeeze it from the right on immigration and Europe and the Greens from the left.
The recent Green party conference positioned the GP well to the left of Labour on every issue. Although the Greens have traditionally been regarded as a one issue environmental middle class party their policies are not. In the North West cities of Manchester and Liverpool the Greens are the main opposition to Labour.
Some comrades in LU want an alliance or electoral pact with TUSC. If that was agreed I would expect LU to loose members. Other comrades talk about waiting until the 2020 elections. A week in politics is a long time let alone 6 years. In the long we’re all dead!
LU have said they aim to be UKIP of the left, but its not going to happen in the 2015 elections. The Greens have got there first! I trust those comrades on the national Council will consider the pitfalls of any decision they make. The best of luck.
The other party to take note of is the National Health Action Party, that is standing 12 candidates against prominent Tory ministers, for example Dr Louise Irving who is standing against Jeremy Hunt, the Health Minister, in South West Surrey. The full list is on the NHAP website. Their line is to oppose the privatisation of the NHS and this is going to be an important element in the general election.
I think Left Unity should stand a small number of candidates, focused like the NHAP has, against prominent sitting MPs. We should only stand where we have enough members to make it a real campaign, on the streets, etc. But I think it is important to have a few candidates, both to raise LU’s profile and given the raised political level during an election, recruit to and build our branches. We should avoid opposing left-wing Greens, left LP MPs like McDonnell and Corbyn, etc. We should leave it up to local LU branches as to whether they support other groups such as TUSC, the Greens, etc.
My additional points would be two-fold:
1 underlining the point you make about this being a project for years if not decades of hard work. We need to stick to the same public identity throughout (I’m avoiding using the word “brand”). The Green Party has had the same public name for (I think) 40 years and even the people who don’t vote for them know roughly who they are. UKIP achieved the same over a much shorter period. We can’t just keep presenting the electorate with a different set of socialist names and expect them to keep up and keep voting for us (if they ever were). We can’t decide in response to a bad election result that there will be a quick fix if we drop part of the name and replace it with something else. We’ve voted for Left Unity and that’s the name we will stick with for years, so that the voters can at least have a vague awareness of who we are.
2 my view is that election resources need to be aimed at leafletting, postering, billboards and public activity, including megaphones on cars and street stalls. Door to door canvassing is probably our lowest priority. Our aim is to be noticed – first of all by those people who know that they are socialists and are looking for someone to vote for. They have already made the break with Labour (in their heads at least). Leaflets through doors reach far more people than face to face canvassing. 99 people won’t notice our leaflets. 1 in 100 thinks “ah, maybe I could vote for this lot, they appeal to me, I’ve been looking for something to the left of Labour”. Face to face canvassing has 2 aims. If you are an established party – like the Labour Party where many of us learnt our trade – then you are principally identifying the vote (“can we rely on you to vote Labur on Thursday?”). The voter knows what you are asking, and knows what the Labour Party is, and just says yes, no or don’t know. You don’t need to explain who the LP is. You spend as little time with each voter as is possible and move on fast. When you’re canvassing for a small, left, new party, it’s a completely diferent process because you do have to explain and (once you’ve explained) the chances are the voter says “not interested”. You’re talking to the 99 people out of 100 who – as yet – won’t vote socialist. Second purpose of canvassing is to convince people – the Labour Party once it has identified the “yes, no, don’t knows”, then goes back if it has the resources and talks to the “don’t knows”. Canvassing fora small new left party is, in effect, trying to convince people. Nothing wrong with that – but very demanding on human resources when the strike rate is likely to be very low indeed. My view is that a much better use of resources is getting leaflets and other publicity as widely distributed as possible so that there’s a chance that the existing socialist will see it and decide to vote for us. I’m not ruling out canvassing – just saying that it’s low on the list of priorities.
3 for multi-seat elections eg London council elections, the best tactic is to stand one candidate where there are 2 or 3 seats up for election in one ward. Then you can say “just try one of your 3 votes on us, if you’re scared about deserting the Labour Party”. And we concentrate the vote, rather than dissipate it, so we do know what it really is.
4 Labour Party elections were all about identifying the vote in advance and then getting those individuals out to vote on election day itself. Since we can’t possibly identify our vote on that sort of scale – because people don’t know who we are – then our job is to be as public as possible, so that people see us and think “oh, I might try voting for those socialists”.
I would also say that I’m one of those people who does not want to work with the SWP in any organised, institutionalised form since they crossed the line so appallingly last year. I don’t want to be part of an organisation that is an organisations’ alliance, not a one member one vote democratic structure. I entirely agree that we avoid election clashes at all costs – we wouldn’t want to stand against TUSC comrades in Coventry where they are strong(ish). And ditto the Greens, it would be deeply sectarian to stand against Caroline Lucas (as it would to stand against Corbyn or McDonnell), or even stand where they may have a chance of winning. We would have nothing to gain – and if we were accused of costing them votes – a great deal to lose.
Since we don’t have famous supporters, except for the wonderful Ken Loach, our candidates should be people who are known locally as campaigners – tenants activists, pensioner campaigners, anti-cuts etc. So that the person can say “you know me, I was one of the people organising the campaign to keep A&E open”. That personal vote could add to the 1 in 100 socialist finding a leaflet on his/her doorstep and deciding to vote for us. I’m sceptical about “famous people” standing anyway. I don’t think that most people the left considers to be famous are nearly as famous as we think. My view would be to go for the local activist every time. Plus, of course, candidates should be selected by local members.
I am not in favour of LU becoming primarily an electoral organisation, for the reasons clearly stated in my ‘Take democracy Back!’ article on the website; this seems to be one of the things that the Left just stumbles into automatically without strategic reasoning and comes out or trying to celebrate the odd ward or constituency in which we are not humiliated and thoroughly marginalised. And so on it goes in each new generation and each new Left organisation, however ‘new’ it calls itself.
Where is the theory / strategic thinking behind this?
No – none ever does provide this strategic thinking and that is the problem with a hyperactive Left that never delves into what electoralism actually achieves or is meant to achieve. In the overheated climate of a General Election, even this lot are lost: http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/voteforpolicies.
Take 5 minutes to view their video, which tells us they aim to go from 280,000 to 5 million voters using their site between the last GE and the 2015 one. There is no chance of that happening because of how the British oligarchy runs elections and Vote for Policies does not even register Left Unity as worthy of consideration as a contender; I have tried to get them to include us, without any success.
I am not trying to be disruptive – No! Actually, I am. I am trying to get LU to pause and reflect before ending up next June having exhausted ourselves and our resources for anything else by running a GE campaign our base in the working class is nowhere near ready for. After we get a sub-1% average share of the vote and start congratulating the candidate and team that managed to get double this – a whacking 2% – and then lose all the people who joined us from the Labour Party hoping we would become an alternative electoral force but then realise we are not, maybe the few hundred activists left will want to sit down and discuss this.
The CPGB stood in elections throughout its early history, got 3 candidates elected between the wars and got hundreds of thousands of votes in the late 1940s. After the highpoint of working class struggle in the 1960s & 70s, half of British Trotskyism entered the Labour Party, including significant sections of the IMG but not until after the IMG had first set up the ‘Socialist Unity’ electoral front in 1979 (which Big Flame joined). The WRP fielded 101 candidates in parliamentary elections between 1974 and 1981; all lost their deposit. The Greens fielded 133 candidates in the 1987 General Election and lost their deposit in every seat. Since the millennium, Left electoralism has become a regular feature and the reason is clear to me – this comes out of the long decades of defeat, the change in composition of the working class, the triumph of neoliberalism and the inability of theory and strategy to adjust; an increasing electoralism has been the response.
And where does this leave us? In the 2010 General Election the highest vote share recorded by any of the 44 Trotskyist candidates in England and Wales was 3.67 per cent (Socialist Party, Coventry North East & largely a personal vote for Dave Nellist). Only eight of the 44 candidates obtained more than one per cent of the vote and the median vote share for all Trotskyist candidates combined was just 0.45 per cent. Trotskyist vote shares were just 1.11 per cent in EU elections in 2004 and 0.98 per cent in 2008
(source: http://www.psa.ac.uk/sites/default/files/conference/papers/2014/Paper.Trotskyists%20and%20elections%20PSA%202014_0.pdf).
If LU follows the post-millennium Trotskyist rush to electoralism, what basis is there on which to expect that our results will be above ONE PERCENT and what will that achieve in terms of LU’s broader goals?
Yes, LU’s existing policy may mark electoral interventions as only one area of work but it clearly states that “conference, furthermore, calls upon all local Left Unity structures to begin the process of building their electoral capacity”. Unfortunately, because electoral campaigning is simple, uncomplicated work that anyone with a political head can just get on with, it gets done, whereas having to think through and work through the far more difficult strategy and practice of building grassroots support gets indefinitely postponed.
Left Wing Electoral interventions have consistently failed to build any momentum, failed to translate to grassroots organisation or support and they have only ever appeared to be other than that when special factors were involved; the latest example is that in only one of the 9 or 10 wards LU stood in last May did we get anything other than a derisory vote. Has anyone looked since at how this helped in building grassroots organisation and support in any of these 10 neighbourhoods – No, they have not and that is my point! Elections get assessed (usually in a self-delusionary way) by the left in purely electoral terms, never in terms of their links to our broader work. You know this is true and this is exactly how electoralism diverts us and has for decades.
I don’t mind debating the issue of the point of electoral interventions with any Trotskyist speaker but I doubt anyone will find anything of much relevance on this within Trotsky’s writings, as his lifespan pre-dated the transfer of Madison Avenue advertising techniques into electoral politics, initially in the two post-war Italian General Elections, where what became known as the manipulation of consent was trialled successfully by Truman’s administration. This so shocked sociologists at the time that it spawned a series of excellent critiques by Vance Packard, John Williams and other Left thinkers of the 1950s and 1960s and major studies of US elections such as “The Selling of the President”. I read all these when I was a teenager, which led me into Left politics and the ideas of Antonio Gramsci on hegemony, which is the Marxist theoretical basis of my critical stance on electoralism. The game is fixed and the excellent empirical work carried out by the Glasgow Media Group over the years confirms this; the disruption of Left groups by sectarianism & opportunism does not begin to explain the long-term decline of the Left vote in this country – where US advertising and public persuasion techniques transfer more easily than anywhere else via the common language. This can be seen most clearly through the vote for the CPGB, which I have already set out above, in the same post-war period in which the manipulation of consent emerged and achieved dominance, despite the British Road to Socialism consolidating its commitment to reformism & electoralism.
The growth of the manipulation of consent paralleled the Cold War, when anti-socialist propaganda was wall-to-wall. The Cold War may be over, but it has done long-lasting damage to the popularity of the ideas we share and have fought for so long.
Trotsky was simply not around to see any of this, but Trotskyists were and, mostly, stayed away from electoralism until the defeats of the late 1970s. The historical record shows an increase in electoralism dating from this point on and escalating after 2000 when neoliberalism consolidated its grip with ‘The End of History’ triumphalism and the western boom. We – the Left – were in a bad state then and lost confidence in theory – partly because it had not been developed to account for neoliberalism. It was during this period of floundering around that unthinking electoral interventions took hold of the Left’s imagination.
This calls out to be re-examined. If any Trotskyist organisation has internal communications or publications that attempted to give a theoretical underpinning to this development, then please let’s see it, but, until then, I want Left Unity to put its energies into grassroots activism, not into elections.