Local Elections: Prospects for the left
Thursday May 2nd 2013 will see local elections for councils in parts of England. Harry Blackwell of Socialist Resistance sets out his own views on the significance of these elections for the left, reviews recent council by-election results for left candidates and looks forward to the elections of 2014, the last big ones before the General Election in 2015.
Local Elections matter
In the highly centralised British state, most political power rests with central government and parliament with the partial exception of recent devolution to the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish assemblies/parliaments. Over the decades of successive Labour, Tory and now Coalition governments, the democratic structures, powers and responsibilities of local councils have been progressively reduced and this has resulted in a corresponding decrease in turnout and interest.
However, local elections do remain important. Despite their emasculation by central government, local councils do still have some abilities to make decisions on local matters and they can act as a barometer of local opinion. For political parties, they provide the opportunity to mobilise voters outside of a General Election period. For left wingers, they provide the opportunity to present an alternative approach to local and national issues alike. Local wards give us the opportunity of building support from the ‘bottom up’. Unlike parliamentary or European elections or even the recent elections for Police and Crime Commissioners, there are no financial deposits or barriers to standing candidates in local elections – typically you only need ten signatures of local people to get a candidate on the ballot paper.
Local government used to be a bastion of Labour influence, especially when they were out of central power. For example, despite losing the General Election in 1951 (though with more votes than the Tories, under distorted first past the post system), Labour swept the board in its ‘high water mark’ in the 1952 local elections and for the only time ever won over 50% of the popular vote in an illustration of the continuation of “The Spirit of ‘45”, so well depicted in Ken Loach’s recent film. During the decade of ‘Thatcherism’ in the 1980s, councils from the GLC to Liverpool provided a potent symbol of resistance. Today the Labour Party in office in local councils is committed to implementing the cuts and policies of the Coalition government and fails to organise resistance to the biggest onslaught on the welfare state ever seen.
The ‘Tory Shires’
The campaigns for the council elections on Thursday 2nd May 2013 have recently been launched by all the parties and nominations are now closed. Due to the succession of piecemeal reforms over the decades, English local government is now a patchwork quilt of different council types and responsibilities, each with their own timetable for election. This makes it difficult to gauge nationally what is going on. The main elections will be for councils covering a large minority of the English electorate – the so-called ‘Shire Counties’, of which there are 32 county councils. There will also be an election for one third of the seats in Bristol and for just one council in Wales (Anglesey), together with mayoral elections in Doncaster and North Tyneside.
There were efforts during the 1960s to reform completely the overall local government structure through a Royal Commission. This recommended a system of large scale ‘unitary’ authorities based on cities and their hinterlands. The policy was accepted by Harold Wilson’s Labour Government at the time, but despite this the incoming Tory government of Ted Heath looked out for their own vested interests and retained what have continued to be called the ‘Tory Shires’. The majority of cities and urban areas were kept outside of the ‘shires’. So, there are no elections in most of the major cities this time – London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds and so on, will all sit this election out. Furthermore, successive changes to structure over the last decade have produced an even more bewildering array of modified shire councils, some of them based on rural areas forming a ‘donut’ around larger cities. So, for example, next month there are elections in Nottinghamshire, but not in Nottingham; elections in Leicestershire, but not in Leicester; elections in Hampshire, but not in Southampton and Portsmouth, and so on. Some county councils have smaller, less significant, local district councils under them – a so-called ‘two tier system’, which at least gives some degree of electoral plurality – but some are now unitary, responsible for all council services in their areas.
The removal of many of the urban centres from some of these shire counties has produced an even larger Tory majority in many of them. Coupled with this is the fact that the last time these councils were elected was in 2009, during the dog-days of the discredited Brown Labour government when Labour support was in free-fall. Labour was humiliated and only held one council and a massively reduced number of seats in many areas. Of the more than 2,000 seats up for election in 2009, Labour won only 178, coming a poor third nationally behind the Liberal Democrats. The likelihood for 2013 therefore is that Labour will make some modest gains, and possibly win back three or four of the councils that they lost in 2009 (Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire are the most likely). However, Labour purely sees this election in terms of preparing for the General Election – there is no sense from them of a movement of opposition or resistance to Coalition policies.
There is little likelihood of significant Labour gains in places like Buckinghamshire and Surrey, where the Tory monopoly is likely to be fought out in a depressing three way battle between Tory, Liberal Democrat and a newly invigorated UK Independence Party. Buoyed by their recent by-election successes, UKIP could do well and are standing a very large body of candidates for the first time in English local elections. A strong showing by UKIP would be interpreted as a shift to the right in the Tory heartlands.
Left prospects in May
However, there will some left candidates challenging the establishment consensus in some of the more urban areas.
The Green Party will be contesting over one third of the seats nationally and will be fighting hard to defend the small number of seats that they won in 2009 in places like Norwich, Lancaster and Oxford. It will be an uphill battle though – in their stronghold of Norwich, the leader of the Green group on Norfolk County Council defected to the Tories in 2011, and is standing again to win back his seat under his new colours. The Greens have won the possibly dubious backing of a former (disgraced) Labour MP in Norwich. The Greens much criticised record in Brighton Council (which is not up for election this year), where they run a minority administration and have implemented cuts, have sadly tainted their record for principled opposition to public expenditure cuts. The Greens joining of the coalition administration in Bristol is another very worrying sign. Nevertheless, many individual Green candidates will have far stronger records of campaigning around anti-war, environmental, economic and social issues in their localities than their Labour opponents.
The strongest hard left challenge in the elections comes from the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), which is comprised of two of the largest ‘far left’ groups – the Socialist Party (SP – formerly the Militant Tendency) and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) – together with the backing of the 80,000 strong RMT trade union and a small group of independent socialists in the Independent Socialist Network. Although originally somewhat unrealistically promising to stand 400 candidates, TUSC will stand a significant 120 candidates, approximately one in 20 (5%) of the seats up for election. The number of candidates varies a lot around the country, depending on local support for the TUSC affiliates and groups. There are an impressive range of candidates in Warwickshire (22), Hertfordshire (13), Staffordshire (11) and the City of Bristol (14). But everywhere else the number of candidates is in in single figures for councils having 60-80+ seats up for election. Most disappointing is the lack of candidates in Lancashire, despite the SWP holding a district council seat and targeting a parliamentary seat for TUSC there, there are only four TUSC candidates out of 84 seats– including one standing against one of only two sitting Green councillors, an unnecessary confrontation. In neighbouring Cumbria, there are four TUSC candidates in Carlisle, a key working class area in the county. TUSC are also standing a candidate for the Mayor of Doncaster and for several by-elections due on the same day.
There are only handful of candidates for other left wing parties – the Communist Party have a few candidates, as do the Socialist Labour Party, and the Socialist People’s Party have a candidate in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, where they could hold a seat. The pacifist Peace Party has four candidates in Sussex and Surrey. Respect have no candidates in these elections that I am aware of.
Sadly, despite initial promise, the National Health Action Party has failed to build on their campaign in the Eastleigh by-election and have no candidates anywhere that I am aware of. At least TUSC has stood one candidate in Eastleigh in these elections, despite doing so badly in the by-election. But for the majority of Eastleigh voters, having been presented with no less than three (!) apparently left wing candidates in the by-election only a few weeks ago, they are back to a choice between the main three parties plus UKIP. It is this sort of ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ electoral activity that gives left wing parties a bad reputation among many sympathetic voters who want somebody fighting for them all year round.
So how well can we expect left wing candidates to do?
The Greens have a wide range of candidates including some sitting councillors and strongholds, but a lot of ‘paper candidates’ too. They are likely to have very varied results, and of course despite their left wing programme sometimes appear in rural areas as more akin to liberals than socialists. The defection of their leader in Norfolk to the Tories is sad evidence of this. Nevertheless in many parts of the country they will be the only repository for a left wing voter.
Recent council by-elections have shown the potential for newer left wing parties. The Lewisham People Before Profit group achieved a magnificent result in March’s Evelyn by-election, coming second to Labour and taking nearly 24% of the vote. TUSC recently won its first by-election in the Yorkshire town of Maltby; albeit a parish council and with only one opponent (notionally independent), it was nevertheless a good result for them. TUSC also won over 8% of the vote in an election last week in Prescot, Merseyside. Even though this was slightly down on their result in the election last year, the sudden appearance of a Green candidate, who only got 14 votes, explains most of the small decline. In Lewisham Evelyn ward, the People Before Profit group came to an agreement with the Green Party to highlight campaigning on local environmental issues in return for their support. TUSC does not have a record of campaigning on environmental issues, though at least it does appear in their programme for these elections. TUSC’s previous depiction in its election literature of the Green Party as the ‘Reluctant Cuts’ party has not helped to build alliances with those members of the Green Party who are active trade unionists, socialists and anti-cuts activists, though in a possibly significant move, it appears to have been dropped from the most recent national poster.
TUSC’s election results have varied significantly in the last 12 months – from an impressive 4,792 votes, nearly 5%, for disqualified former Labour councillor Tony Mulhearn in the Liverpool Mayoral, to a dismal 14 votes in a council by-election in Stoke (you need ten voters to get on the ballot paper!). The difficulty for TUSC is that it only exists as an electoral flag of convenience wheeled out at election time. During the rest of the time, it reverts back to its constituent parts, running their own campaigns through their own organisation. Where TUSC has consistently built a presence or has high profile local figures, it can do well. But as was seen in some of the parliamentary by-elections, parachuting in candidates does it no favours. However these are local elections and to stand you must be local and get nominations, so it is to be hoped that TUSC candidates do well, though there will be some areas where there will be pressure to cast a more useful vote for the Greens. Unfortunately, for a large proportion of potential left voters in this May’s electorate, a vote for Labour will be the only option on offer.
Forthcoming Elections
Limited as they are, the May 2013 elections are not going to set the world alight. However, there is a much bigger prospect in store in the elections in 2014. The government is out for consultation on dates at the moment, but the most likely situation is that the local elections and European parliament elections will take place on the same day – Thursday 22nd May 2014. This time the scope of the elections will be massive and it will be the last set of elections before the next General Election in 2015.
All voters will get a vote in the European elections and in addition there will be major local elections across England, including all the major cities – all 32 London boroughs will face ‘all out’ elections and there will be four borough-wide Mayoral elections, and there will be other elections in the other major cities – the so-called Metropolitan Boroughs of Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool etc – and other elections elsewhere.
A key task will be to sort out the mess of left wing parties standing against each other. This is unlikely to be achieved in the European elections where the Greens will want an election broadcast to promote their two sitting MEPs, but at ward and borough level there ought to be discussions and, where possible, agreement. In the last London elections in 2010, the left was virtually annihilated with just 1 Respect and 2 Green Councillors. Yet the ‘all-out’ nature of the London elections where there are 3 votes per ward raises the prospect of tactical candidacies to maximise the left opposition with 1-2 or 2-1 or even 1-1-1 splits of candidates to avoid left-inclined voters having to vote against each other. Respect has already announced that it is to contest every seat in Newham; TUSC will aim to stand extensively in Hackney; Lewisham is likely to see a spate of candidacies. Assuming that the 7,000+ people who have signed the Left Unity want to see a campaign by a new ‘Left Party’ in these elections, local Left Unity groups that are springing up need to discuss whether to stand candidates, and whether it is possible to put together pacts or arrangements that maximise the left votes. An ‘Electoral Strategy Working Group’ of Left Unity, or similar, needs to be set up as soon as possible to prepare the way for this.
As Ken Loach has pointed out, it is UKIP that is currently the main beneficiary of electoral hostility to the three main establishment parties. We need a left that can present itself as a single force in elections and win voters to an alternative, and that includes both a new party and dealing with unnecessary electoral conflicts between the existing left parties and the Greens.
19 comments
19 responses to “Local Elections: Prospects for the left”
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Just to correct one point, you don’t need ten ‘Voters’ to get on the Ballot, you need ten Nominations – they don’t have to vote for you, the Ballot is secret! I have ten nominations, but not all of them will vote for me! I probably need to make that point, standing in Devon, because I will struggle to get ten votes, I am using my standing to help build opposition to the Bedroom Tax and other Cuts locally, not just to try and get a few votes.
Okay, we can agree to disagree on terminology.
The people who nominate have to be eligible to vote in the ward/division in question, so I just used ‘voters’ as shorthand for that. They don’t have to agree to vote for your candidate in the actual election, they just have to support you being on the ballot paper.
Maybe I should have said ‘appropriately eligible registered electors’ but that’s a rather longer phrase. I’ve also been an election organiser and there is an important distinction between all people on the electoral register and those eligible to vote in that particular election (for example, EU citizens other than UK/Irish Republic, and members of the House of Lords can vote in a local/European parliament election but not in a general election).
There’s a page on the Electoral Commission website detailing all the eligibility issues. Nominations have to be done very carefully. Some left groups and even occasionally the major parties can come a cropper and have their nomination forms rejected. Always leave sufficient time to have your nomination form checked and to get it re-submitted is my advice – don’t leave it until the last minute.
Steve, You are quite right. As a former election agent I know how crucial the difference is. I shall pass your comments on the author if indeed he hasn’t already seen it.
Solidarity James
It’s disappointing when people include the Green Party in an assessment of the Left. They are not a Left wing organisation and TUSC are quite correct in dealing with them as they would any other capitalist party.
Actually TUSC are a little inconsistent in their dealings with the Green Party. Sometimes they treat them as part of the left, and sometimes not.
Certainly the SWP wing of TUSC were wanting to come to electoral arrangements with the Green Party when they were in Respect. For those TUSC supporters in the Socialist Party, the confusion may be caused by the fact that their co-thinkers in the USA actually endorse the US Green Party as part of the left and as the best choice in many elections, including last years’ presidential election.
For my part, I recognise that the Green Party in England and Wales have one of the most left wing programmes of any of the Green parties worldwide and well to the left of Labour. Many Green spokespeople, including Caroline Lucas MP, are on the left of many figures in the labour and trade union movement. Ken Loach also recognised this in his closing comments in the satellite discussion after the showing of Spirit of ’45, when he stated that any new left party had to come to an arrangement with the Green Party. See also Alan Thornett’s article on the need for a left party to be ecological as well as democratic.
I think it is wrong to treat the Green Party as a monolithic bloc. In this respect we should consider them like the Labour Party. The current and last leader of the Greens is far to the left of Ed Miliband, but to what extent that is because she is fishing for disaffected Labour votes or not we cannot say. Owen Jones and John McDonnell are not the same as Tony Blair or David Blunkett. There is sufficient difference between the Greens, Labour and the SNP for candidates in all these parties to be dealt with on a case by case basis. They will join mass meetings, pickets, demonstration and applaud and boo at the same things as Left Unity and TUSC members, distinguishing them all from Tory, Lib Dem and UKIIP voters, members and candidates. In the electoral arena we need to make exceptions for non-explicitly socialist parties in only exceptional circumstances. And we need to leave it to local members to take such decisions. However, we do need to prioritise slates that unite the socialist left. Respect and the SLP are unlikely to play ball at a national level, but that should not stop us appealing for that. As for TUSC, I see no good reason for TUSC and the signatories of the Left Unity appeal to divide our vote in the face of first-past-the-post. As for mavericks deciding to do their own thing when TUSC and Left Unity want democratic accountability on the candidate, such ‘independents’ are damaging left unity and we should not be indifferent to such egocentric individualism. There should, btw, be an attempt to secure a united Left Unity/TUSC candidate at the David Miliband by-election. Goes without saying, right?
Greens are for no growth …its only a couple of years back that Caroline Lucas was calling for rationing … these people are the enemy of working class people ..surely the aim of socialism is to make ordinary people better off in material terms ?
An interesting article on processes and general electoral empirical “facts”, but where is the strategic POLITICAL analysis relevant to Left Unity here ?
There is a fundamental issue here, simply not addressed at all by the article. What should the objective be at local council level for radical leftwingers standing for election ? I hope we are all well aware by now (and the implementation of swingeing cuts by the Green Party administration in Brighton simply reinforces the point)that nowadays local government has next to no independent local tax-raising powers – being tightly constrained on budgets and policy by central government edict.
Therefore , although it is fine to stand “anti-austerity” Left candidates as a purely propaganda, issue raising, part of the multi-pronged national campaign, tactic ; but what if some candidates actually win seats ? Everything is OK as long as the radical Left is in a small minority in any council- constantly attacking the austerity budget cuts and raising the political issues of “whose debt is it anyway – we wont pay” .But ALL councils, no matter their political complexion are currently forced by central government support grant cuts, to implement massive year on year budget cuts, or the council falls into insolvency. Remember, if individual councillors vote for policies which cause the council to become insolvent ALL the councillors of whatever party who voted against the budget cuts can be personally surcharged and banned from future office. As happened to the principled Clay Cross Labour Left councillors in the 1970’s. Therefore for a genuine, principled, opposition to local council cuts imposed by the national austerity offensive we will have to ask a lot of any Left Unity councillors in the future who might actually GET ELECTED !
Left Unity councillors would have to be mandated always to actively vote against budget cuts, and if the personal costs of this were too high, to at least resign their seat rather than abstain or vote for the cuts. Any Council in which, Green Party Brighton-style, a future Left Unity councillor group found itself in a power holding position, again would have to be mandated to never carry out central government imposed budget cuts. Eventually, as the Militant-led Labour Council in Liverpool in the 1980’s found, no matter how popular the council was, no matter how big the mass rallies, in the end the central government and capitalist state will impose its financial will, and non-complying radical Left Councillors WILL be removed and suffer personal consequences. In other words , in the current context of the world and domestic crisis, all electoral campaigning, but particularly at local level, has to be agitational and propagandist in intent – merely part of the wider political, struggle. There can be no permanent “Left Unity run councils” in the short or medium term – at least not until a “Left Unity national government” backed by mass popular support, was in power and able to change the ground rules. A “Left Unity” run council should actually expect to last a few months – before the capitalist state forces its councillors from office – unless it sells out and “manages the cuts” like the Greens always will.
Ignore this reality and like many left movements before, the winning of council seats will not be “the beginning of the march to power”, but actually, as the Green Party will find, the turning point where the party’s voters discover that “their” party is just another collaborator with capitalism, and is immediately discredited.
Thanks John. As Left Unity does not currently stand candidates or endorse candidates, you may be putting the cart before the horse.
The article was intended to be informative about current elections and to raise the question of developing a possible strategy for the 2014 election. I think the question of what such candidates would stand for, if elected, is an important part of that discussion which would need to be decided democratically from the ‘bottom up’ rather than imposed.
However the bigger issue is that under the undemocratic first past the post system, the chances of a left wing group winning an election in the near future is some way off. There’s a long history of resistance from majority councils going back to the days of Poplar, St Pancras, the GLC, Liverpool and Lambeth councils, that maybe I’ll write something about when the time is appropriate.
The question of what to do where individual councillors hold ‘the balance of power’ is maybe more pertinent at present and in this respect the Green Party has been shown lacking due to its ‘devolved’ nature of decision-making – this is most obvious in Brighton, but is also an issue in Bristol and Bradford, and particularly in Leeds some years ago when they supported a Conservative administration. Respect councillors are also supporting the ‘Independent’ administration in Tower Hamlets and it would be interesting to look at their perspective on it and establish a balance sheet.
Why have you not mention Mebyon Kernow – a party certainly to the left of Labour (‘not hard’ I hear some cry) – who are standing 26 candidates across Cornwall in the election for the unitary authority: https://www.mebyonkernow.org/news/article.php?id=108
MK’s policies can be found here: https://www.mebyonkernow.org/policies/
I’ve included their policy overview below.
Mebyon Kernow – the Party for Cornwall is a modern and progressive political party, campaigning for a better deal for Cornwall and a fairer, more equitable World.
It is our belief that the historic nation of Cornwall, with its own distinct identity, language and heritage, has the same right to self-determination as Scotland and Wales. Mebyon Kernow is leading the campaign for the self-government of Cornwall, through the establishment of a legislative Assembly.
We will play our part in building a confident and outward-looking Cornwall, that has the power to take decisions for itself. To achieve this, our detailed policies are founded on the core values of prosperity for all, social justice and environmental protection.
PROSPERITY FOR ALL
Mebyon Kernow is committed to a society based on real equality of opportunity, helping people to achieve their full potential in life. We want Cornwall and its communities to be successful, with all residents sharing equally in that success through thriving businesses, worthwhile and secure employment, decent wages, access to genuinely affordable housing and good quality public services.
SOCIAL JUSTICE
The Party for Cornwall is committed to a just and fair society. We believe that effective public intervention is needed to combat poverty, tackle social deprivation and fight for the disadvantaged. We will strive to build strong inclusive communities with free and equal access to well-funded education, healthcare and welfare services, run for the benefit of everyone.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
Safeguarding the environment is central to Mebyon Kernow’s policies. The World faces severe environmental crises, which require radical action on a worldwide basis to promote real sustainability. Mebyon Kernow – the Party for Cornwall will not shirk from difficult decisions to protect and enhance the environment for future generations.
Thanks Philip. That’s a fair point about MK, though I was concentrating on the broader national picture rather than a council by council. I have seen statements in the past from leaders of MK strongly denying that they are a ‘left wing’ party and the policy statement you have posted is not that different from the Liberal Democrats. But ‘thecornishrepublican’ blog that you link to is well worth a read for an alternative view. The coverage of the People’s Assembly and Left Unity on this blog is very encouraging.
I should maybe have also mentioned specifically the slate of Plaid Cymru candidates for the Isle of Anglesey council – the only election in Wales on 2nd May. Plaid Cymru certainly considers itself a socialist party and its new leader, Leanne Wood, is one of the most serious left wing and ecosocialist inspired politicians in the British Isles.
I suggest that if anyone has details of individual left candidates anywhere in the country, including Independents, they can put the details on the new site started by Jim Jepps
http://www.theleftvote.org.uk
which is well worth visiting regularly by supporters of Left Unity. There will be quite a few council by-elections on 2nd May 2013.
As I make the point in the article about the Greens, any Left Party emerging from the Left Unity development that decides to stand candidates will have to develop a systematic and non-sectarian policy of engagement with other left-inclined groups at local and national level and possibly with strong independents. The 2014 elections are key in this regard.
Lastly, the article focuses on the left candidates – there is considerable coverage elsewhere about the decline in the number of BNP candidates in the 2013 elections compared to the 2009 elections. However a point I’ve made elsewhere is that the areas covered by these elections, apart from Burnley in Lancashire, has not been strong territory for the BNP in the past.
If we are talking left nationalists – what about Plaid Cymru? Leanne Wood is a sound republican and socialist I believe?
I would also like to see a joint TUSC-Left Unity/Party candidate in D Miliband’s old seat – it would be an early opportunity for a national mobilisation of Left Unity supporters comparable – see if we really have tapped a popular mood. Obviously the vote would be limited at this stage – but how many people are willing to travel to be involved in the campaigbn would be very interesting.
If we are talking left nationalist then there is an English version. The English People’s Party. I am interested to know if any new left party will support the British Union. If it does so then it surely is contradictory.
I think this article is useful and the start of a really important debate that LU will have to have.
1. We can’t just be an electoral group – we have to be involved in campaigns all year round.
2. Campaigning should dovetail with electoral work. Most people are sick of politicians who rock up at election time with nice promises who are then never seen again for 4 years. I was in West London Respect in 04 and was Election Agent for the South West constituency. We got an okay vote (just over 4,000 in what is a huge constituency – but it contains 2 areas where the left will never do well Richmond anf Kingston! – most of our vote came from Hounslow)but then much to my frustration didn’t do anything for the next 2 years! We should have carried on running local campaigns and making ourselves well known.
3. Any new left party needs a clear, logical set of principles on election strategy. Obviously, the situation will vary in each local area, so our tactics will need to be adaptable BUT our broad election principles need to be clear.
i)In England ( I don’t want to comment on Wales/Scotland as I don’t know eeough) I believe, whatever Labour’s failings we should never stand against Labour in a seat held by the Tories/Lib Dems or indeed UKIP/BNP. Our main objective should be to get these people out and Labour are best placed to do this. In addition, these areas are never fertile territory for the left.
ii)In Labour-held marginals we should never stand against Labour. We can’t afford to be seen as splitting the vote and letting Tories in.
iii) In safe Labour wards and constituencies we should CONSIDER standing. But there need to be clear CRITERIA. Is the Labour MP a socialist like John McDonell – in which case we don’t stand. Are theRE candidates from the Greens? what are they like? Should we stand or shouldn’t we? Can we make local alliances? What about where there are other left-wing groups or local lefts? Again is it right to stand or not? can we form slates either officially or unofficially at local level?
iv) Our candidates MUST live in the area and should be involved in local campaigns or groups. We never parachute people in.
v) We stand candidates only in areas where we have a reasonable number of members who can run an effective campaign. We should never run candidates in areas where we don’t have a base.
vi) in the areas where we stand we need a long-term plan. After the election, what local campaigns can we be involved with or run? Could we stand a candidate in the constituency in 2016? Could we stand again in 2016 in the local and GLA elections if in London? Too often left electoral projects have just bounced from one election to another with no thought or long-term vision.
I’d be interested to know what comrades think. I was in the Socialist Alliance and Respect and it was clear that there wasn’t much of a strategy in regard to elections. Standing in elections is not the same as having an electoral strategy. TUSC just seem to stand candidates for the sake of it – Eastleigh was a waste of time and stuff like that MUST NOT be repeated in LU.
John Penney i think some of your information regarding the possible penalities for Councillors voting against cuts is out of date. See:
Can Councils Set A No-Cuts Budget?
http://councillorsagainstcuts.org/2013/01/22/can-councils-set-a-no-cuts-budget/
Yep you seem to be right – My apologies, the change in the law last year does seem to rule out personal councillor surcharges re Clay Cross and Liverpool. Which is very reassuring. Doesn’t negate my larger substantive point though that a radical local council defying central government budget edicts will be stomped on from a great height – meaning that we would always have to look at defying the central government imposed imperative to collaborate in budget cuts as both vital politically – but also likely to put immense media and other pressures on the individual Left Unity Councilors involved. Being a Left Unity Councillor would NOT be a bed of roses – certainly not an easy transfer across to for a Left Labourite Councillor – or a Green Councillor – hoping to serve for years in that post !
Just to reiterate Phil Hosking’s point, Mebyon Kernow is a left wing party and I hope (I’m one of the candidates) will do very well in the coming elections. MK cllrs have fought against the stupidity of cuts at the Tory led Cornwall Council since 2009. Called for senior well paid staff to bear the brunt of cuts rather than workers losing jobs at the council. They fought against the (ultimately successful) Tory proposals to cut the amount of council tax benefit. They opposed the Liberal Democrat motion passed with Tory support to freeze council tax which made job cuts in adult care and support and childrens schools and families its number one priority. Sorry to rant, its just people outside Cornwall don’t give Mebyon Kernow the credit it deserves as a left wing party and an up and coming one at that.
Fighting against the cuts by calling for cuts – priceless.
MK a left wing party – please.
This is probably the most important debate in the whole website. Not because the opener is well thought-through or has produced good responses, but because it deals with some crucial questions, contradictions and problems affecting the Left.
First a cheap crack: “emasculation” – oh dear, Harry. I’ll leave it to the “feminists” in SR to deal with you.
Doug: “Fighting against the cuts by calling for cuts – priceless.” Thanks, your question shows how counter-productive the whole “Fight the Cuts!” campaign is – and miserably unsuccessful. Non-‘infantile disorder’ left wing people have to be very careful not to look like we are stupid, or we think “the masses” are stupid. If some things need cutting, we should be in favour of cuts and say so loudly. Simple as that: ‘defense’, the ‘civil list’, I could go on… from the monumental (Trident, or are ‘left wingers’ going to – as some of ‘us’ have done in the past – side with Cameron et al, playing the employment card on war-jobs, nuclear power and other anti-people crap?) to the pitiful: loss-making Council-owned golf courses and other such left-overs of municipal daftness.
How ‘left wing’ is it to defend, against any ‘cut’, absurd hierarchies (the NHS for example – scandalized by this? Try working in it!) and weird/dangerous/wrong ‘public ownership’ (as above)? We can pick and choose and should do, on a principled basis and with a sound alternative strategy. Of course we have to defend valuable things against cuts and make sure our support for some cuts is not taken as confusion or disunity, but dogmatically saying “no cuts” does not convince anyone – even workers defending their own jobs, if they know those jobs are unproductive, frustrating and the services/products provided are a gift for The Daily Mail and other scum – and ends up making us sound as if we are defending the status quo.
The same goes for ‘growth’. This is unthinking capitulation to capital, Micky D and the rest of your reply is rank sectarianism and backward: please will someone else answer this – words fail me! Growth = exploitation, capitalist accumulation, wasteful use of resources (dare I say it, environmental destruction, or are all things green anti-‘socialist’, comrades?) and, most predictable of all, leads to a slump, as we are now experiencing. We must be much more imaginative and inventive than this, in our language, theory, strategy, tactics and forms of struggle. I remember a Militant councillor relative of mine saying (pre-Prescott): “there is nothing wrong with Jaguars, working class people should all be able to afford them.” No, it wasn’t Degsy, but incredibly the same person is now sitting by her swimming pool in South Africa; now a member of a party she previously described as “petit bourgeois”, is it any wonder the ANC are having internal problems?
Which brings me onto John Penney. Were you in Liverpool in the 1980s John? I doubt it. If you had been, you would be more cautious in your description of this tragic time for the left. Where did it lead and how did it leave Liverpool and its people? It set back the left for two decades – well more, as it is still a non-entity in this ‘city of radicals’, with a people who deserve so much more than the Millos.
John, your political dishonesty speaks for itself: “although it is fine to stand “anti-austerity” Left candidates as a purely propaganda, issue raising, part of the multi-pronged national campaign, tactic ; but what if some candidates actually win seats? Everything is OK as long as the radical Left is in a small minority in any council- constantly attacking the austerity budget cuts and raising the political issues of “whose debt is it anyway – we wont pay.” Is there anyone in Left Unity who can possibly defend such an abject stance? It deserves the utter contempt it always gets from the people.
Jeremy Taylor – you save the day! Respect and SA!!? Oh well, we live and learn … I fully agree with all of your points and the spirit behind them. I don’t think you mean it, but “After the election, what local campaigns can we be involved with or run?” still sounds like opportunist-left hijacking local issues – we’ve all got experience of that and it is truly cringe-worthy. I’m sure you mean something like: our election campaigns should emerge from our day-to-day struggle with local people in every ward we stand in. If we are not respected as honest, hard-working people with political integrity, by a good proportion of local people (we must be honest with ourselves about this – the left is very good at convincing ourselves that we represent, or have the support, of “the masses”, but at present who are we kidding?) – what is the point of standing? As you rightly say, it is counter-productive and a total waste of effort.
This in itself points to the other thing only hinted at in your reply: short term or long term? Frustration with the existing electoral choices is understandable, but does not excuse any short-cuts to standing in elections. If the test above is not met – as well as your other good points – we should not stand, end of. And in most cases, this will mean a very long term strategy, with great patience and discipline; but isn’t that what we are about? If we had done this in the mid-late 1980s and learned the hard lessons of our struggles with Thatcherism after the massive and profound defeats of the left councils, miners strike, Wapping and Warrington and the third Tory election victory in 1987; we may never have had New Labour, the personality-cult of Blair and the warmongering neoliberal crap that followed.