Letter in The Guardian: “Left Unity ready to offer an alternative”
“This summer will be remembered for Labour‘s final betrayal of the working-class people it was founded to represent. Not content with signing up to Conservative austerity measures that are dragging Britain’s most vulnerable people deeper into poverty, Ed Miliband has turned his back on the union members who supported his leadership bid.
Austerity has not fixed the economy, while the poor pay the social cost. Labour has failed to make the argument that it was not welfare spending that wrecked the British economy, but a crisis of unfettered capitalism. Miliband cannot even promise to reverse the brutally unfair bedroom tax, which has already claimed its first life with Stephanie Bottrill (Comment, 31 May).
We urgently need a new party of the left. Labour will not provide the opposition to coalition policies that the situation demands. We need to provide a genuine alternative to the austerity policies which the three main parties support. A party that is socialist, environmentalist, feminist and opposed to all forms of discrimination.
Since we launched our appeal in March to discuss founding such a party, more than 9,000 people have signed up and more than 100 local groups have been established across the country. As Left Unity moves towards its founding conference on 30 November at the Royal National hotel in London, we call on all those who are sick of austerity and war, who want to defend the NHS and our public services, and want to see a fairer Britain, to join us.”
Gilbert Achcar, Jean Alain Roussel, Alan Gibbons, Zita Holbourne, Kate Hudson, Roger Lloyd Pack, Ken Loach, China Miéville, Michael Rosen
www.leftunity.org/appeal
This letter appears in The Guardian
Left Unity was also mentioned in this major news item in The Guardian
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11 responses to “Letter in The Guardian: “Left Unity ready to offer an alternative””
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In the bottom-up, leaderless organisation, some are more equal than others.
Baaah… baaah top bottoms good, bottom bottoms bad… baaah.
The signatories to this letter are not leaders, they’re supporters who have kindly lent the fame of their names to us to help us get our message out and I thank them for that.
“Fame! I wanna live forever! I wanna learn how to fligh – high!”
That might be a bit more convincing if
a) The signatories weren’t largely made up of the ‘great and good’ within Left Unity. I’m really not a leftist trainspotter and I at least vaguely recognise 6 out of 9 names. This would be less of a concern if it wasn’t for the other issues.
b) The fact that some of the letter is directly cut and pasted from the Left Party Platform. At least have the decency to reword it.
c) The fact that some of us are of the view that the NCG has previously gone massively outside of its remit and made decisions without the democratic mandate to do so. Sorry, but that’s going to make me wary of anything like this. Giving people the benefit of the doubt is no longer an option.
I believe about one sentence is the same as the Left Party platform: “socialist, feminist, environmentalist and opposed to all forms of discrimination.” If we can’t unite around that, I don’t know what we can. The word socialist is quite prominent in the Socialist Platform, I believe. You recognise 6 out of those 9 names, so do the Guardian, Sky News and LBC, all of whom covered our campaign yesterday bringing in a lot of new supporters. I was directly elected to the NCG in May on the promise that I would expand Left Unity’s press coverage. That’s what I’m doing.
@ Salman
Sure, the sentiment is something I think we’d agree on. It’s only the identical wording that made me raise an eyebrow.
I understand the need for press coverage and that it’s often a pretty thankless job. And you’ve definitely been doing a good job of raising our profile in the media.
I do get that when dealing with the press, it’s often useful to have some well-known figures to head that up. But it’s something that I think needs some caution on. Because it can too easily lead into a ‘celebrity’ led party, where the party as a whole is directly associated with those people in the public eye. The experiences of other parties (Respect, SSP) illustrate why that can be a problem.
I agree Hoom, we definitely don’t want to give that impression. Since Ken’s initial appeal, this is the first ‘celebrity’ type campaign we’ve launched. These are necessary to get the attention of a media that would prefer to ignore us and the letter served to announce the date and location of our founding conference as well. However it should certainly not be the mainstay of our work, which I think should be activism in the communities. Ken himself has made it clear that he does not want to be seen as a leader of this party, only an enthusiastic supporter. If you have any ideas on press work, I’d be very happy to discuss them with you.
To hell with the fact that Left Unity is supported by “celebrities.” The joyous fact is, that it is existing! Milliband’s betrayal had left so many of us disenfranchised that a party of the unified left is welcome as never before and I will support you without question. I only wish that I was younger than my 68 years, so that my help could be more practical.
Glad to have you on board. And you’re still 9 years younger than Ken!
The Tories and their carbon copy Blue Labour and LibDem collegues are destroying this country, either through will or complacency. They’re taking all emphasis away from creating a fair, inclusive and free society, and merely pandering to votes with the only intention of managing the people.
British politics is elitist and rotten, and what it needs is a new party, with a new generation of politically minded members to change the current situation we find ourselves in. I’m glad there are still people in this country not too ground down with indifference and apathy, who’re willing to strive for change.