In Spain, Izquierda Unida – one of the parties of the European left – has 14.1% support in the polls.
The diminishing influence of the left in the Labour party
Two letters in the Guardian in support of Left Unity
Ken Loach’s article (Labour is not the solution, 28 March) has received a fantastic response – 250 people joined Left Unity over the weekend, when we held our first national conference.
But Labour supporters would rather see us pack up our things and go home. They tell us not to rock the boat for fear of letting the Tories in next year. New Labour was founded on the assumption that Labour could tack as far as it liked to the right and still count on the left vote for lack of an alternative. And tack right it did. Now we have a Labour party signed up to Conservative spending plans, privatisation and a benefits cap that will hit disabled people hard and push 345,000 children into poverty. And whatever you do, don’t mention the (Iraq) war.
Left Unity’s conference in Manchester on Saturday agreed to campaign against austerity and war, to introduce a 35-hour week and a mandatory living wage, and to renationalise the rail and energy companies. These are policies that the vast majority of British people support but Labour, ever in the pockets of big business, will not even consider them. What does this say about the Labour party today? What does it say about the state of British democracy? This is exactly why we need Left Unity.
Salman Shaheen
Principal speaker, Left Unity
• As every year passes, the influence of the left in the Labour party diminishes; it’s almost non-existent now. In 1994, Ralph Miliband wrote in Socialism for a Sceptical Age: “The emergence of new socialist parties in many countries is one of the notable features of the present time … their growth is essential if the left is to prosper.”
The parties Ralph Miliband was referring to have developed into the Party of the European Left, an alliance of left parties in European countries. Opinion polls indicate that those parties, which have a clear policy of opposing austerity and privatisation, and which support the re-founding of Europe on a socialist basis, will get increased support in the forthcoming European elections. Syriza in Greece has 23.9% support, Izquierda Unida in Spain 14.1%, Front de Gauche in France 9% and Die Link in Germany 8%.
In Britain we have no opportunity of voting for such a party. Left Unity’s conference agreed to support the Party of the European Left’s call for a refounding of Europe on a socialist basis. For socialists in the Labour party there is an alternative – Left Unity.
David Melvin
Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester
15 comments
15 responses to “The diminishing influence of the left in the Labour party”
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Given the total failure of left unity to even attempt to engage with the Labour left, all fairly meaningless.
Where the Labour Left with their 13 MPs and a handful of union leaders)actually defend the interests of ordinary people in campaigns, we have and will work with them, such as working in the People’s Assembly, Strikes or Health Service Campaigns. How else do you think we should “engage” with them.
Labour left? What Labour left? O, you must mean Owen Jones. He is entitled to join as well.
Given that Syriza supporters have been attacking communists in Greece, one doubts their ability or PEL to unite the entire Left across Europe. The conclusion is that only the Trotskyist Left and Social Democrats who have given up the ghost would be welcome, especially as Left Unity’s agenda is not even more radical than the 1983 Labour Party manifesto.
Therefore, Left Unity is just another reformist party without any mass appeal which makes it remote from the working class. It’s just another reformist vehicle to allow petit bourgeois intellectuals to play big fish in small ponds.
Left Unity’s “agenda” , as clearly represented by its agreed statements of aims/Platform Statements, at the November Conference, and the policies passed at the 29th March Conference, is actually vastly more transformationally radical than anything in the 1983 Labour Party manifesto by long mile , David. To implement our entire programme of already agreed radical socialist economic policy objectives would involve a direct confrontation with Capital.
I suggest you actually have a read of all the relevant documents, rather than simply making baseless assertions to rubbish the only viable new radical left party initiative in generations.
Those in the old communist parties who refuse to support Syriza or who defend some ghastly totalitarian nightmare in the name of “Socialism”, may not be entirely welcome – it’s true.
The world since 1983 has been totally transformed by decades of crushing defeat. There are similarities between LU’s positions and the 1983 manifesto, but the demands in our policies open the way for a challenge to the entire agenda of free-market capitalism. What would you recommend, the reformism of the “British Road to Socialism” from the old bankrupt Communist Party?
As for petit-bourgeois intellectuals – that could describe the entire left in this period of defeat and reaction, and judging from our last conference we are by no means the worst. Also, many people have decided to get involved in the project to create a bigger pond, not a smaller one. We are a result of the frustration with the shattered and splintered left parties that have caused so much damage – hence the name.
I welcome the formation of Left Unity, and Ken Loach’s call for a new Party to the left of Labour. It is true that Left Unity is not the only initiative we have. One of the abiding legacies left by Bob Crow was the founding of the Trades Union & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) who will be fielding hundreds of candidates in local elections in a few weeks time.
I hope we will see joint action and campaigns in which TUSC and Left Unity comrades will fight shoulder to shoulder in the coming years,
At the Council Elections in May the working class will have an alternative party to vote for and it is not too late for Left Unity supporters to stand alongside us and present a clear, uncompromising Socialist programme before the electorate.
You have enormous spending plans. How are you going to pay for them?
We will pay for our ambitious programme of rebuilding the Welfare state, full employment, free education, implementing a huge job creating housing and productive infrastructure programme, rebalancing the sectoral economic mix , and rebalancing regional development by a range of means :
1. Instituting a radically progressive taxation structure, aimed at the rich and big corporations, as well as closing all tax loopholes and tax havens. Also implementing tight controls on financial sector speculative activity, and maintaining controls over capital movements by individuals, institutions and businesses within our control.
2. Getting most people back to work will not only generate the wealth produced by their work, but save billions on the benefits bill required to support masses of people needlessly kept unemployed, their skills wasted.
3. Restructuring our economy towards making useful things and services, as against an overemphasis on the short termist speculative financial services sector, within a National Plan which aims to revitalise our declining regions outside of the overheated London and South East, will generate wealth and resultant tax revenues, to support our plans. The efficient heavily manufacturing oriented German Economy is notable for not suffering the same recessionary problems as the rest of the Eurozone.
4. Carefully structured money creation via our control of the Bank of England and the entire national banking sector – to facilitate productive expenditure on the national economy. Plus directed productive investment in the national economy from the existing available investment funds of the national banking sector and pension funds, etc.
5. And – Borrowing. Yep, a Left Unity government would have to borrow from the International Money Markets as well. A radical Left government would no doubt have to pay relatively high rates of interest on occasion. Nevertheless we would have to do this to some extent as part of an overall funding package. Our bargaining power as against the money markets would obviously be much stronger if, as hoped, a British Left Unity government was part of a united bloc of similarly inclined radical Left governments across Europe at the time.
We have to work on the basis that we will be part of a large bloc of radical Left governments. Without a broader international dimension, at least on a pan European basis, implementing Socialism , even a transformational mixed economy just moving towards socialism under a radically reforming Left government ,in one beleaguered nation state surrounded by sabotaging capitalist nations and market forces , would be impossibly hard. Fortunately the global nature of the capitalist crisis makes it highly unlikely that a future Left Unity government would be fighting alone to build a socialist future.
Thanks, Robert Lyons, for showing you arrogance and possible ignorance. I only hope – for its sake – that Left Unity doesn’t share them with you.
To reduce the Labour Left to one individual, and to see things only in terms of recruitment to Left Unity says a lot about your concept of politics. Clearly not about the issues, only building the Party.
No LU does not think the Labour left is one individual – and Robert was obviously joking.
However, the Labour Left is at an all-time historic low, as the astonishing response to the benefit cap demonstates. This was not a “difficult” issue where a few lefties could get lost along the way, this was absolute bread and butter, line in the sand stuff and Labour (apart from 13 of them) failed utterly. Disgusting. If in doubt – blame the poor. It makes Ramsay McDonald look like a left extremist.
So – apart from the 13 with a spine, and a few rogue TU leaders – who are the Labour left. They are not seen on any anti-austerity actions that I have been to, or at least not with any banners or posters from the Labour Party. Who can we “engage with”.
So, Ray for you the Labour Left is only MPs. I agree it was a disgracefully small number of them who voted against the welfare cap, but do you really think that they are the sum total of Labour Party members opposed to the welfare cap?
I notice you don’t distance yourself from Robert’s view that the only answer is to recruit people.
Pete – I am a member of a new political party. Of course I want to recruit people from other parties, Labour included. If I thought Owen Jones’s tactics were correct then I would be with him in the Labour Party. I don’t, so I want to recruit him to mine.
That said, I made it clear that in defending the united interests of working people Left Unity will work alongside any other political groups. I also said that Labour MEMBERS are not always that prominent in such campaigns. I suspect that the members of the party itself, not just the MPs, have swung to the right. To be honest, I live in a safe Labour seat and the local Labour Party is all but invisible, and not a single councillor is prepared to defy the government austerity measures.
All socialists should watch the brilliant discussion on the bog at the CLASS website re austerity, the crash and offering positive solutions. I highly recommend this and I think it does offer hope!
Ooops! I meant on the blog at the Class website!
You may of course wish to watch it on the bog if that is your individual thing ha!ha!
It is brilliant!
Now where”s my reading glasses?
X, Peace & Solidarity.