A critical view of Saturday’s meeting – ‘anti-sectarian sectarianism’
Left Unity prides itself in not having any existing political groups involved on an
official level – which is exactly its problem, says Tina Becker from Sheffield Left Unity and the CPGB
About 100 people attended the first national gathering of Left Unity on May 11 in
London’s Ambassador Hotel. The gathering certainly succeeded in its conscious aim to
be different from the various other left unity projects that have emerged over the
recent 15 years or so – the Socialist Alliance, Respect, Trade Unionist and
Socialist Coalition, etc. No one organisation or group of people dominated
proceedings; opposing views were heard; plenty of time was allocated to air
arguments and on a number of occasions the conference (or “internal meeting”, as
Kate Hudson insisted in an exchange with the CPGB) voted against the wishes of the
‘interim steering committee’ that had convened the gathering.
That is to put a positive spin on things. A very positive one. In reality, in terms
of moving the organisation forward (clarifying its politics, for example), the day
was a bit of a shambles. Left Unity is totally underorganised and underprepared.
Kate Hudson and Andrew Burgin (important driving forces behind LU) would have liked
the proceedings to have gone differently. After all, the Stop the War Coalition and
Respect – organisations both comrades were prominent in – were far more
choreographed. But, ironically, bureaucratic coherence in fronts like these was
provided by the likes of the Socialist Workers Party, part of the organised left to
which LU is to a great extent a reaction. The politically decrepit Socialist
Resistance – the one ‘insider’ group – is no substitute.
The keynote political statement by Kate Hudson was circulated three days before
conference; a proposal for the electoral procedure to the national coordination
committee was sent out 20 hours before conference; the chairs seem to have been
pre-chosen on the basis that they had no previous experience of handling big
meetings (one chair was actually introduced as someone who had “never attended a
political meeting before”). No wonder that quite a few times people in the room (the
chairs including) did not actually know what exactly they were voting on. It was
pretty chaotic, in other words.
This was also reflected in the rather uneven attendance. Local LU groups were
supposed to send two delegates each, but where more people expressed an interest in
coming, they were advised by the interim leadership to simply divide their group
into smaller parts. For example Manchester comrades – all sitting together in the
same meeting, in the same room – selected five delegates from different areas of the
city. In other areas, groups had not even met yet. Andrew Burgin admitted that about
half of the “90 or 100” local groups exist only in so far as that one person had
volunteered to be the local contact. So the reality was that pretty much anybody who
wanted to come to the conference could come.
Unless, of course, you happened to be a representative of a political organisation.
The interim organising committee had decided to ban existing groups from even
sending observers – apart from a representative from the Red-Green Alliance from
Denmark, who showed up halfway through the meeting. Obviously it would have been a
little harsh to send this poor comrade packing after he had made such a long
journey, presumably on a well-informed hunch.
Nevertheless, the organised British left was there, of course. Apart from two CPGB
members, I identified about four Workers Power comrades, six from Socialist
Resistance, one from the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and two members of the
Socialist Party in England and Wales. The ‘less organised left’ was there too: about
half a dozen each from the Anti-Capitalist Initiative and Richard Seymour’s
International Socialist Network. While the ACI was led by ex-Workers Power member
Simon Hardy, no leading member of the ISN was present. Those ISN members who did
attend did not seem to have that clear idea what they were doing there.
There were also a fair number of people present that I had last seen during the days
of the Socialist Alliance: Will McMahon, Pete McLaren, Dave Church, etc. The rest
(probably the majority of attendees) struck me either as having been ex-members of
various left groups or those who had been burned – some singed, some third degree –
by the organised left in one forum or another.
Banning the groups?
In fact, the question of what role political organisations should play in LU
dominated the conference from the start. In the first and longest session of the day
(which was billed “local report-backs”) it became clear that most local groups had
only just been formed, so there was not a great deal to report. People used the
opportunity to talk about the relationship between the LU and the existing left –
or, more precisely, how to keep the buggers out. There was a distinct air of
anti-sectarian sectarianism about proceedings, with many people arguing for
“safeguards” against an SWP or SPEW takeover.
One ex-SWP member argued that new members should be “vetted” to make sure they are
“serious” about LU. Another ex-SWP comrade, Tom Walker, stated that “we can’t stop
them from joining, but we can stop them from trying to split LU or recruit to their
own organisations” (though he did not elaborate on how that could be done). Worse, I
have been told that there are local LU branches who have banned SWP members. Though
there have been reports that in other parts of the country SWP and SPEW members have
been attending local meetings.
I would guess that about half of those present were implacably against any
involvement of the organised left in any form. The other, more sensible, half,
however, at least recognised that “we can’t pretend that the rest of the left
doesn’t exist; we can’t just go around them”, as it was put. One comrade ironically
asked: “So let me get this straight: we’re going to be the only non-sectarian group
on the left? Don’t you think all the groups we criticise think exactly that of
themselves, too?” Most of those people seem to agree that groups of like-minded
people should be able to get together to form political platforms. I was surprised,
actually, by how many people echoed this demand. However, without even a membership
structure in place yet, this healthy sentiment could not be enshrined as a founding
LU principle, as it were. The next national gathering in September will undoubtedly
revisit the issue. We need to make sure it does.
A number of comrades argued that ‘one member, one vote’ would be an effective guard
against any one group taking the project over. This is an illusion. The SA and
Respect organised on that basis and were dominated by the SWP. And why not, in one
sense? SWP comrades were the majority – and majorities, like minorities, should have
rights. OMOV could not prevent an organisation like the SWP dominating LU – unless
the new initiative implements a regime of bans, prescriptions and witch-hunts from
its inception. And down that road lies madness – and Arthur Scargill’s Socialist
Labour Party.
We argued for an individual membership structure. But we also urged an honest, open
and active engagement with the existing left. Surely, the massive task of building
an alternative to the capitalist system requires the unity of as much talent,
energy, experience and commitment as we can muster – cadre, in other words.
Unfortunately, our proposal to “invite political organisations who are interested in
building left unity to send one observer each to the newly set up national
coordination committee” was defeated, with only Workers Power, ACI and a few
individuals supporting the CPGB amendment (the two SPEW members voted against it,
while Nick Wrack abstained). The motion got a relatively decent 19 votes.
Workers Power also pushed for political organisations to be allowed to affiliate,
though it did not concretise this in a motion and no-one seemed to support the idea
anyway. One of the SPEW members bravely called for a federal structure. I spoke to
the comrade later and it became clear that he had not been sent there by his
organisation, but just happened to be involved in LU locally and thought a just
federal structure would be “a good idea”. Needless to say, his suggestion went down
like a lead balloon.
No statement
Kate Hudson had written a statement for the conference, which was intended to
“clarify our politics”. There is a real need for this. Apart from Ken Loach’s very
short appeal, LU has nothing like a political platform. Unfortunately, comrade
Hudson’s statement clarified little. Or, as comrade Carmen from Manchester put it,
“I like the fact that the statement is so broad. Everybody can interpret it any way
they like.” Which is actually a problem, rather than a strength.
Despite its vacuous nature, the statement sparked controversy even in the
non-elected interim committee. Without the time to discuss it, the committee
nonetheless decided to officially circulate it to members and local groups for
discussion. Most LU signatories did not see it before Wednesday May 8 – three days
before conference. So, there was no time to discuss it in any detail (or at all). A
few groups managed it and 20-odd amendments from a handful of them had been sent in,
but these were only distributed on the morning of conference.
Correctly recognising the “democratic deficit” of this process, comrade Nick Wrack
moved a procedural motion to the effect that the meeting should not vote on the
statement (and the various amendments to it). After a long debate, his motion won a
relatively strong 51 for, with 36 against and 12 abstentions. Good stuff. The
statement was pretty awful and would have required major surgery. There was neither
the time nor the political will at this gathering. Strangely though, Workers Power
voted against the procedural motion. Leading member Richard Brenner cajoled us that
“While we’re spending hours discussing the process here, the Tories are dismantling
the welfare state.” (One can only wonder how impatient this ‘Bolshevik’ comrade
would have been with the months and years the Russian Marxists spent in programmatic
discussions while the tsar was being generally rather unpleasant to workers and
peasants.)
Apart from having the ‘no vote’ motion go against them, comrades Hudson, Burgin and
their supporters in Socialist Resistance must have been especially annoyed to spot
Ken Loach, no less, raising his hand for it. Immediately following this vote, he
gave a brief speech, which he opened with the sentence, “It’s really great to see
democracy in action”.
His speech was a little confused, but, compared to some of what was on offer, quite
encouraging. We should not be afraid to use leftwing terms, he said (one ex-SWP
member had said that we should not use “left language, as people don’t understand
it. I was a member of the SWP for years and I don’t understand it” – that’s the SWP
for you, comrade, not the language). Comrade Loach argued that we should openly
fight against capitalism, for a planned economy and for socialism: “We don’t want a
social democratic party, we don’t just want to pull Miliband a little bit to the
left.”
I am reliably informed that his speech was a conscious dig at Hudson’s soft
statement on the one hand and Socialist Resistance on the other – the latter had
actually been arguing against LU becoming a socialist organisation. Hudson and
Burgin were obviously not happy bunnies: they sat stony-faced through Loach’s
speech, not laughing when others did and clapping him rather limply when there
really was no alternative.
Clearly, people in the audience felt somewhat railroaded by the lack of democracy
and debate in the run-up to this meeting. It was not a stitch-up à la various SWP
and SPEW fronts. But it was more than just a reflection of the lack of any real
organisational structure. Of course, it is true that a key problem is LU’s lack of
reliable and resilient cadre that, ironically, the SWP or SPEW could provide.
Organisations like Greece’s Syriza or Germany’s Die Linke (both quoted approvingly
by Hudson and Burgin throughout the day) took off because existing left groups set
them up and continue to run them. The main organisation in Syriza is Synapsismos,
a substantial organisation with roots in Greece’s ‘official’ Communist Party.
And Die Linke is run by the former Party of
Democratic Socialism (the successor to the official ruling party of East Germany).
While not everybody in the room knew of that background, the ones peddling these
illusions – Burgin and Hudson – are surely fully aware of it.
There seems to be some development on that front, though. I am told that the
Socialist Party is currently involved in an internal discussion to reconsider its
aloof attitude to LU (Peter Taaffe has unfavourably contrasted it to the Trade
Unionist and Socialist Coalition, which apparently “offers the best hope for
furthering the process of creating a viable new mass workers’ party”)1. Dave Nellist
actually came to the conference venue to have a meeting with Ken Loach (of course,
he was not allowed to come in).2 One wonders what those two were discussing … an
anti-aggression pact for any future electoral work, perhaps?
A brutal truth is that – given the current composition and nature of the left – LU
has very little chance of taking off without the SWP or SPEW coming on board in some
form. (Of course, the CPGB and the Weekly Worker are very much aware of the
political problems that these groups will bring with them when/if they come).
Another aspect of the same brutal reality is that without a coherent political
platform, the LU interim committee has little to cohere it other than hostility
towards the organised left. This might have kept people in the same hall on May 11 –
but it is recipe for pretty rapid disillusionment and disintegration in the medium
term, I fear.
ACI member Simon Hardy (until recently a member of Workers Power) pretty much summed
up the problem with this rather sectarian comment in the aftermath of conference: “I
was told at the recent Tusc national meeting that the SP were dismissive, borderline
hostile to Left Unity. Frankly I think we are better off for now without loads of
sects hanging around trying to ‘intervene’ in the new organisation.”3
Yes, let us keep the more substantial, and much more serious, working class sects
out of LU, so that smaller, less coherent groups like Hardy’s ACI or Socialist
Resistance can loom all the larger. The problem of sectarianism in our movement has
to be confronted head on, not bypassed.
Notes
1. www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/759/16429/03-04-2013/april-2013-tory-cuts-blitz.
2. https://twitter.com/davenellist.
3. Facebook.com.
34 comments
34 responses to “A critical view of Saturday’s meeting – ‘anti-sectarian sectarianism’”
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Can’t see the need for the evidently haphazard nature of the first national meeting to be viewed so critically. If the founding clique had wanted a stitch up they could’ve done one and all would have ran like clockwork – thankfully we didn’t get that. What we also don’t need is the far left top tablers working out a deal that the rest of us have to line up behind. There’s no Synaspismos or PDS ready to play a constructive ‘unity’ role in the British left!
It’s going to be hard work, and we’ll doubtless make plenty of mistakes along the way. But no privileges for the sects/”parties” is surely the only way. On the other hand it’s a total fantasy to think we can do without the existing groups – yes, we need their members’ engagement. But not in a way that puts leading Trotskyists in charge of the whole thing, the working class is broader than that!
A few points:
(1) Any grouping that genuinely seeks to commit to LU should strive not to caucus inside the formation.
(2) Any grouping who operates in a sectarian manner and self evidently caucuses will tend to isolate themselves.
(3) Any grouping that genuinely seeks to commit to LU shouldn’t insist on a weighted role on leadership bodies. While affiliated groupings should be given a set number of seats on leadership bodies —
Dan, your three conditions are self-evidently incompatible with the participation of groups within LU.
“(1) Any grouping that genuinely seeks to commit to LU should strive not to caucus inside the formation.”
If a group does not caucus and agree and approach to a given action (be it a meeting or a demonstration or whatever), then in what sense is it a group? It would be better off to dissolve.
“(2) Any grouping who operates in a sectarian manner and self evidently caucuses will tend to isolate themselves.”
Yes, groups who operate in a sectarian manner will isolate themselves. In other news, dog bites man, pope shits in Vatican. I am concerned that by ‘sectarian manner’, what you really mean is maintaining a factional profile and platform autonomously from LU as a whole – which again, is exclusionary.
Does caucusing isolate you? No. It allows you to present a clear political line to a meeting, which will no doubt be unattractive to some people, but could well attract others to your ideas.
As for point three, we have one member one vote, not affiliations. This is how it should be. What we in the CPGB want is a recognition that LU should actively seek to engage with the existing left groups, not dismiss them as irrelevant ‘sects’ at best, or a malignant threat at worst. Comrade, if the SWP wants to take LU over, it will do it. It’s bigger and crucially better organised than all the non-group comrades put together. Piling bureaucratic rule upon bureaucratic rule will simply result in yet another sect, only with less political and organisational coherence than its competitors.
I don’t understand. If LU includes members of existing left groupings then it’s inevitable those groupings will organise amongst themselves in regards to their involvement in LU. Demanding that groups not “caucus” would only mean that their organising happened a bit more quietly.
Dan O says, “Any grouping that genuinely seeks to commit to LU should strive not to caucus inside the formation.” That is Kinnockite witch hunting. If that is Left Unity’s position, then I am off. The entire project will crumble to bits immediately. Dan O says, “Any grouping who operates in a sectarian manner and self evidently caucuses will tend to isolate themselves.” Couple of points about this. Firstly, I agree with this as far as it goes. This is the real safeguard against takeovers by sectarian groups. They will dissolve at the margins as their individual dissidents have somewhere to go other than walk off into the wilderness. Participating by SWP and SP and other groups will help revitalise democracy inside those groups. Additionally, to the extent such groups try to win influence by engaging in a noisy monologue with the non-aligned comrades, the latter will just roll their eyes and refuse to vote for their members to leadership bodies and also deny them the right to represent Left Unity as parliamentary candidates (including at MSPs, MEPs, councilors). This response to sectarianism by any of the groups will additionally give the less sectarian groups a cutting edge which will increase their votes at every level of Left Unity, and it will give them an edge when it comes to recruitment to their individual groups. By giving all the groups an incentive to behave themselves, and engage in a constructive, fraternal debate with the non-aligned comrades, everyone in all the groups and all the non-aligned comrades are gifted with more socialist activists sharpening their arguments with each other, which will obviously pay dividends when we have to face the likes of Andrew Neil. By denying any of the groups any justification for standing outside Left Unity, we undermine any prospect of any competition for the left-of-Labour vote. Respect, the SLP and others will see their votes dwindle as Left Unity’s went from strength to strength. But only on the basis of bringing all the groups in from the cold. The SWP and SP and all the rest have to be welcomed as part of this process. This should be obvious to every genuine supporter of ‘left unity’. Dan O also says, “Any grouping that genuinely seeks to commit to LU shouldn’t insist on a weighted role on leadership bodies. While affiliated groupings should be given a set number of seats on leadership bodies.” Personally, I completely agree with this. That sets me apart from the majority opinion of TUSC’s supporters. But this can be settled by negotiation by TUSC and Left Unity. I would also call for exceptions to be made for trade unions. I would argue alongside the rest of TUSC supporters for seeing trade unions as exceptional. If we can help re-enfranchise them, we pull the rug out from under Ed Miliband. This is absolutely key for the further progress of the left-of-Labour vote. But how this problem is tackled should be via negotiations between representatives of TUSC and Left Unity.
I wasn’t at the National meeting but I’m surprised by the amount of negative reaction to it being a bit disorganised. From the local meeting I attended and from comments on this it seems that most people involved want a genuinely bottom up organisation. If Left Unity is to achieve that it will take a little time to get things in place.
I was attracted to the idea of this project because we are being actively involved in the decisions rather than being asked to just agree to a fully formed set of ideas. Setting up local groups, electing delegates, deciding on principles and working out organisational structures will take time if we are doing it democratically.
The left has been taking a vicious hiding for decades. I don’t think anyone can claim to be the authority on the best way to do things. We need to engage as many people as possible and explore new ideas. This will take some time to get organised.
As for the involvement of other groups, again most people on here and in the local meeting I went to were very much in favour of one member one vote. But would welcome members of other organisations to join and get involved. I haven’t heard anyone say they shouldn’t be allowed to join or should have to dissolve their groups. Just that they wouldn’t have special voting privileges or influence.
If members of the Socialist Workers Party, The Socialist Party or anyone else want to get involved then they would be most welcome as individuals. I don’t see why they should entitled to special treatment as a group.
what a mean spirited article, really worried that those who haven’t been inside the left wing loop and it is a loop will lose interest.
Part of the problem is that the CPGB vision (which I assume Tina Becker supports?) of what kind of left-party we need is quite different from that which appears to be the majority view of those getting involved in LU. See for example the following (to my mind scary) quote from the CPGB newspaper:
“A Marxist party is not built on the basis of going out and getting thousands of signatures. Nor is it built through activity for the sake of activity. Nor is it built by smoothing over differences, fudging the 20% where we differ in favour of unity around the 80% where we agree (or some such other rotten formulation). The Marxist party is built top-down. It is built through the struggle for the correct theory and the correct politics. It is built around its programme.” http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/961/left-unity-the-spirit-of-45
Tina’s decrying of the fact that the meeting of few from the 8000 odd sign-upers who have so far started to get organised reads to be in just this socialism-from-above spirit. A more productive vision is surely that the policy and direction of LU are going to take a time to become coherent, they are going to take time because they will emerge from below?
“The Marxist party is built top-down”. Good luck to them with that. The entire left has been taking a beating for decades. If we want to build an effective fight back and truly change society we need to be listening to new approaches and learning from each other. Top down is the last thing we need.
Tom – I agree with this!!
Come on Ray, you can’t agree with “That is Kinnockite witch hunting.” And the spirit of how Tom writes and what you have observed before needs to be seen in its widest context.
I agree with Richard below, and as you have said more-or-less before “If LU is to succeed it has to be different from all those failed sects that have had their chance.”
There is a desperation in much of what ‘the sects’ write, that belies their utter failure to – as Bazza says – get working class people to join or support them. Yes, a lot of us have been there – like you – in our past, and there is bound to be a certain sympathy / nostalgia / habitual Pavlovian salivating at certain phrases or language; but as you said a while back “… beyond the wildest fantasies of satire.” Funny but born of bitter experience.
And so dear sistren and brethren, we must learn from our past mistakes and move forward, without chucking out the proverbial baby; together with these lovely new comrades who put up with this ancient lefty shite, because they want to improve life for humanity. I would include the 1% by the way, as they will be much better off without all that money and power – ‘liberated’ even!
Ben
OK point taken – but he is getting better ;)
New approaches (usually) require the involvement of new sorts of people, with different ways of doing things, talking and thinking. No offence Tina but I felt your post was tired, negative and actually missed the point. If LU is to succeed it has to be different from all those failed sects that have had their chance.
I hope LU will develop into a broad-based, democratic, radical party that is rooted in the community and green-socialist politics. To do so it will have to offer a genuine alternative that people find convincing, not just opposition to cuts and the promise of some socialist utopia at some time in the future. The Huddersfield group has made an attempt at this – see the post titled ‘Stuff we can unite around?’ This is a first attempt and aims to get a positive discussion going and no doubt much if not most needs changing. But at least it is presented in a positive spirit.
Like many people in LU I was involved in a sect for years, helped try to set up SLP, Socialist alliance etc. From this experience I learnt that any Leninist party that claims to be the vanguard of the international proletariat and have a monopoly of a ‘pure’ Marxist faith are ultimately destructive. Because deep in their bones is an undemocratic core with centralised decision making, a self-perpetuating central clique/committee and even ‘permanent’ leaderships who have lasted for decades. Opponents of the CC are of course expelled or made unwelcome. The relentless activism is too much for most ordinary people who balance jobs, kids, hobbies etc. Most people, however passionate about politics believe it should be only one part of a fulfilled life and not expand to drive everything else out.
So as many have said on these posts before, to allow the leadership of these groups a decisive influence is to give power to people who simply don’t want the LU project to succeed. After all, that would mean leaders of the sects would lose members and control.
dear Tina, I don’t want to start an annoying debate about your lies, half-truth and nasty statements that come from your judging sectarian point of you. this is for children to do.
I want to show your lack of marxism.
At the meeting you were against 50% women rule saying that in the same way we should consider other minorities.
Well, Tina women are an oppressed MAJORITY, as well as the proletariat.
More, you argued that with this rule a woman may think to have been elected just as woman.
now tell me, why don’t men think the same?
You are sexist. wake up!
You also forget, as Marx says in the 3rd theses on Feuerbach, that “circumstances are changed by men and that IT IS ESSENTIAL TO EDUCATE THE EDUCATOR HIMSELF.
You are a clever woman so please think with your mind, not with a party bible.
You’re welcome
I disagree with much of Tina’s report but we should all support her right to vote for the position she feels is correct. I too voted against the 50% quota for women on the committee this time for several reasons.
1) There seems to be no problem in our embryonic party at the moment. Women are putting themselves forward for election and are taking part in debates.
2) Quotas do not necessarily encourage women to stand for positions within political parties. Non sexist and inclusive structures and policies do that.
3) I always vote for someone on the basis of their political beliefs, although all things being equal if there were two candidates one being a women I would probably vote for the women. However, given her expressed opinions there is no way on earth I would ever vote for Tina or would want to see her in a position of influence on the basis of a quota (and I don’t think that’s sexist!)
Dear comrade Gioia, in order to avoid half-truths and lies, may I point out that I didn’t actually speak in the session on the 50% rule? I think you’re mixing me up with somebody else. Like it says in my report, I tried to put forward an amendment to change the point to “We should aim for 50%”, which I think is far better than forcing an organisation to adopt the 50% rule. The chair didn’t allow me to make the amendment, so, given the choice, I (and 19 others) voted for the deletion of this point.
Tina, i took the minutes for this meeting and you have completely whitewashed out any of the positive statements about comrades in TUSC. I was actually the person who sparked the debate by saying that we must find a way to include them. Also others there spoke up about not starting LU with sectarianism. I find this piece really divisive. We’ve had people from SP, TUSC and SWP at our meetings up in Manchester right from the start, and I value their presence. We’ve had people from groups that don’t normally speak to each other in the same room agreeing with each other, that’s what LU is about.
Hi Jenny, I wrote that about half the people at the meeting supported the suggestion for platforms and that this was very positive indeed. My suggestion to allow observers from existing political groups to attend the National Coordination Committee was an attempt to have an active, open and honest engagement with the organised left (and not just TUSC) on a national and not just on a local level. We have very good meetings in Sheffield with the vast majority being members of this or that revolutionary organisation working together very well. Seeing this reflected on a national, much bigger, much better organised level would in my view be a huge step forward for Left Unity.
video the debate and put it on youtube ?
I agree with Juno. If we are to get anywhere we need to engage many people who are not current political activists but normal voters. a lot of political jargon and hair splitting will just put people off. We need a clear message that speaks to people’s needs and hopes, a positive message as was the vibe of the Spirit of 45. all this jostling for domination among the various Left groupings is frankly dispiriting. I do realsie the urgency for us to provide an alternative manifesto but come on we are only nine weeks old!
Wow! what an achievement Tina you seem to have been able to insult and/or discredit just about every participant that you could hang a label on. Your contribution feeds into everyone’s prejudices and certainly fulfils the promise of the title of this thread.
To those comrades who complain that this article is overly critical – there was a famous political economist who wanted us to ‘Criticise everything’ – remember him? Today the left is disorganised, segmented etc, surely the first thing we need to do is LOOK AT OURSELVES CRITICALLY. This is the first step towards repairing the movement. False optimism is a danger, sugarcoating our projects will only allow fundamental problems to fester. If you don’t agree with a viewpoint, then provide a counter argument.
This is inaccurate reporting, Tina.
I didn’t even speak in the debate on the procedure in the afternoon, let alone come out with *this* childish nonsense:
“While we’re spending hours discussing the process here, the Tories are dismantling the welfare state.”
I spoke in the morning session.
Why would I have complained that we’d been spending ‘hours discussing the process’ when we hadn’t been there for hours and we hadn’t discussed the process?
The first session wasn’t about the process. It was about the work of the branches, the relation of Left Unity to the existing left, and the future direction and prospects of the project.
In the morning session I said I hoped the meeting would get the chance to discuss the political situation in Britain. I’m sure I’m not the only delegate that regrets that it didn’t.
Which was why, in the afternoon, I also opposed the procedural motion – I thought it was a shame we couldn’t have spent that time sharing our views on the political situation and beginning a discussion of policy.
I know many comrades didn’t want to rush in to decisions without a full discussion over a far less pressured timetable.
But those opposed to voting could still have intervened at the *end* of the debate, to propose referring the statement and amendments to the next meeting.
Instead they effectively aborted the discussion altogether, even if that wasn’t their intention.
Tina shouldn’t need to invent facts and put (bad) words into other people’s mouths.
But she should issue a correction, which I’m sure will be chock full of side, but still.
Blimey Richard, everybody around me laughed when you said that, because it was so ‘childish’. I personally though it was more apolitical than childish, but there you go. Ask you own comrades for a reminder.
As most of the comments and a largepartof Tina’s original deals with LU’s relationship with other lefts I will confine myself to that issue. I believe LU will be poorer and less likely to grow without comrades from other left org being involved. I accept these comrades will not only bring positive attributes but negative ones. They posses much needed experience, involving sucesses and failures, that could help LU along with localised activists. They will have established contacts with TU’s, campaigns and communities.
On the negative side they will also focus on building their “parties” and seek to give LU their perfect programmes.
While I think these negatives are not helpful they need not be entirely debilitating unless one or other becomes dominat in membership or programme in the formative days. This will kill LU. In the long run any group of comrades or idea may become dominant, that’s democracy.
Building a mass force able to mobilise large numbers of workers, claimants of various sorts, the youth and other sectors under attack. The participation of existing comrades from a range of left organisations can only assist this process. I argued that it was a mistake for Militant, as it was, made a mistake in not joining the SLP. Even if that was as individual members. The take over and ruining of the SLP by a neo Stalinist leader and clique could possibly have been avoided. I therefore see the participation of these groups as both a manageable threat and also a potential bulwark against beaurcratic or opportunist control of LU. Factions will be inevertable, recognising them and giving them a structure to operate in is them effective way of controlling and harnessing them.
In the interest of openness I declare I am ex labour party and militant, ex SLP, presently in ISN/Tusc, IWW. Speaking only for myself.
The left, which I will define as anyone left of the Labour Party are fragmented. I thought the idea was to try and unite these factions, neither of which have any political bearing at present, into an organisation that would have some impact. I have a feeling that some people don’t want to see unity and just see this process as one which can push their grouping to the fore. SOunds like meeting number one was a disasterous start.
” The majority see the obstacles, the few see the objectives, history records the successes of the latter, while oblivion is the reward of the former”
Can never remember who said this, I think it was actually an author who I didn’t much care for. However I think it is an important observation.
I find your negativity unbelievable!!! It will take time to get LU fully organized.
LEFT UNITY is EMBRYONIC.
Quite frankly I find it a positive that it’s first meeting was a bit shambolic. It meant that the people who didn’t attend and who were concerned about structures being set up, without them being able to discuss, were listened too.
Another reason for the disorganization is Left Unity is recruiting people, including me, that have not been involved in a political organization before. This is also a positive!!!! LU is attracting a larger population than the average left groups. People can learn quickly how a meeting is run, and they improve, it’s not rocket science, so give the a chance to get to grips with the process.
The little piece below is a comment on many of the LU articles I have read of late, and am pretty fed up of. For me LU needs to be organic in its growth, for a while at least. Let the groups develop and discussion grow. If we add into the mix some, civil disobedience and action, alongside other campaigning groups and let Left Unity become more visible we should attract the people who are fed up with this countries lack of humanity, (there seems to be plenty of people in this demographic!). THEY ARE FEW, WE ARE MANY!!! this is when we will be able to develop a socialist voice that is a powerful challenge against the greed of capitalism.
A reply to lots of articles I’m fed up of reading!!!
What I know is that we have to do something, The idea of Left Unity is the best thing any of us can think of, at the moment. There seems to be this weird level of paranoia about other left parties. I know I am naive, but surely everything else, like a left takeover, or any other problems, can be sorted out a long the way. The statistics on voting in this country show us something is missing for a high percentage of the population. These statistics highlight the need for a new, accessible, socialist party, such as Left Unity.
I am having a few of own my problems with Left Unity. However I am trying to carry on, as the situation I am experiencing in my life, ( my own health struggles and the poverty that come along with this) and what I see going on around me needs to be tackled. After years of thinking and looking for an answer and a like minded populace that can fight with, for a more humane society, along comes Left Unity. There are many who feel the same, don’t bugger it up with to much academic argument and criticism.
sorry for the typo’s i am having trouble typing at the mo x
It’s a positive reflection of Left Unity’s openness to discussion that it’s willing to publish such a carping, negative account of Saturday’s meeting. An organisation that does not extend freedom of expression to dissenting views quickly becomes deeply unattractive to just the sort of people we want to join LU.
Joseph is to be thanked for digging out the quote which best expresses the approach of Tina’s organisation and many others: “The Marxist party is built top-down.” What is clear from listening to people speak at LU meetings is that this is exactly the approach they’ve had the opportunity to examine close up for a number of years and they’ve decided they don’t like it. Not just that, they are deeply wary of anyone they think holds it, and with a lot of justification.
That goes a long way to explaining why there was such a cold reception to the notion of giving special rights to existing groups which have had plenty of opportunities to demonstrate how they approach building broad, inclusive organisations. Rightly or wrongly, people are sceptical about their commitment to this way of working and it’s up to those groups to prove them wrong by deeds and a public theorisation of how they see their work in LU. Roughly speaking we can ask “do they want to seriously build it?” or “do they see it an opportunity to sell a couple of papers and pick up a few members?”
Members of the International Socialist Network and Socialist Resistance were at Saturday’s meeting. Members of each group voted differently on a number of occasions. This is because both groups explicitly reject a method which says all their members must always say the same things and vote the same way if they are serious about working constructively in broader things, like LU.
Here is the view that SR developed on this a long time ago.
?Inside broad left formations there has to be a real, autonomous political life in which people who are not members of an organised current can have confidence that decisions are not being made behind their backs in a disciplined caucus that will impose its views – they have to be confident that their contribution can affect political debates.
?This means that no revolutionary current can have the ‘disciplined Phalanx’ concept of operation. Except in the case of the degeneration of a broad left current (as in Brazil) we are not doing entry work or fighting a bureaucratic leadership. This means in most debates, most of the time, members of political currents should have the right to express their own viewpoint irrespective of the majority view in their own current. If this doesn’t happen the real balance of opinion is obscured and democracy negated. Evidently this shouldn’t be the case on decisive questions of the interest of the working class and oppressed – like sending troops to Afghanistan. But if there are differences on issues like that, then membership of a revolutionary current is put in question. One can also imagine vital strategic and sometimes important tactical questions on which a democratic centralist organisation might want its members all to vote the same way. But these should be exceptional circumstances and not the norm. In practice, of course, on most questions most of the time members of revolutionary tendencies would tend to have similar positions.
?Revolutionary tendencies should avoid like the plague attempts to use their organisational weight to impose decisions against everyone else. That’s a disastrous mode of operation in which democracy is a fake. If a revolutionary tendency can’t win its opinions in open and democratic debate, unless it involves fundamental questions of the interest of the working class and oppressed, compromises and concessions have to be made. Democracy is a fake if a revolutionary current says ‘debate is OK, and we’ll pack meetings to ensure we win it’.
Why do I find Tina’s piece so scary, when I am very much in sympathy with Marx’s vision for a world fit for the masses, and greatly admire the honesty of his analysis? Joseph has already pointed to the CPGB’s fixation on the primacy of building the party on the basis of a theoretically correct programme, in a top-down fashion, and Gioia and others emphasise the need for continued learning. This all focuses on a fundamental problem that LU needs to find a way of articulating, both for itself and for those it hopes to influence. Our problem is, that the very concept of there being an absolute truth to be found in politics – ie any prospect of ideal prescription that can homed in on through intellectual rigour – only serves to hold back the likelihood of any really deep changes in society. Arguments on the lines of ‘my truth is better than yours’ are ultimately sterile, if only because they play directly into the hands of those whose voice is loudest – the establishment’s media – and we won’t get anywhere by trying to beat the establishment at its own game (and I do not for a moment believe that Marx would have been one for getting stuck in a ‘left-loop’).
How did Stop the War get a million or two citizens out on the streets a decade ago? (No – we didn’t ‘win’ – but it was getting close.) Yes, the quality of the organisation was important, but it would not have happened without a genuine groundswell driven by the sense of outrage at the monstrous injustice being perpetrated. This groundswell brought together types of people more disparate than I have ever seen anywhere else, and I am sure that many of us went away with the same feeling – that we all had much more in common than we may have realised before the event, and not just to do with the single issue of the Iraq war, but at the basic level of how we treat each other as human beings.
Is this not what LU is all about – generating a groundswell of feeling that together we might actually find a way out of this capitalist trap that we have become all too used to over the years? Certainly the Spirit of ’45 taps into that message very strongly; likewise in important respects the Occupy movement and other groups.
So yes, the way forward is bound to be messy, and it will seem out of control in many ways, by its very nature, but we have to live with that. If it is neat and tidy, we’re back in the loop!
I totally agree with your criticism of those who see the “correct programme” as the be-all-and-end-all of broad left parties like Left Unity. It is what the party DOES in the class struggle that is decisive, not the finer points of its political programme.
I don’t think it is even that crucial at this stage that it defines itself as socialist: there are plenty of people in Left Unity arguing socialist politics anyhow and socialism is discussed on its web site and will be in its publications if and when it has any. How it approaches current issues and helps to mobilise around them are the things that will build the party.
This view is illustrated by the useful comment above about the anti-war movement. Crucially missing from that was an openly anti-war party that thousands of people could relate to and allow them to express their political hostility to Labour’s warmongering and Islamophobia in an organisational form. Right at the start of the anti-war movement, such a party (of sorts) did exist – the Socialist Alliance – but it was deliberately by-passed and prevented from providing a focus for those people.
Those who think a “Marxist Party” could play such a role in current conditions, and that therefore LU should be such a party, like the author of the article above, should ask themselves why the SWP did not gain significantly from its dominant role in the anti-war movement.
Tina Becker’s claim that we have already had the same form of organisation – in SA and Respect as LU is likely to become, fails to recognise that the dominant force in both Respect and SA, the SWP, did not see these as political parties at all, just as electoral machines, and did their best to confine these organisations to that role, falsely assuming that their own group was sufficient for organising left-wing militants in the actual class struggle.
Any left-wing party that just rolls itself out for elections is doomed to failure.
If you had come onto this website as someone who wanted to see mature ,grown up debate on why the radical left was trying to come together in the interest of working class people .My oh my you would of believed you had come across a national bitching session & would of been totally put off & thought “ah well back to politically digging the garden”.
Its the left acting in the interest of self interest & not in the interest of working people .
Does it have to be like this ?
Peter………….
Tina should start her own party.
I am starting my own party with a philosopher from Left Unity Greenwich, we are going to publish ‘ruskin times’ using a laptop and laser printer, then we can include an advert on the back for ‘the ruskin party’.
Some of the commenters here and perhaps the OP herself don’t understand the crucial differences between an organized tendency and a faction.
One of the things I like about Left Unity so far is its commitment to the former and its shunning of the latter. It’s no accident that the Bolshevik ban on factions, despite the tragic conflation of the two together, has both mainstream parallels (“factionalism” and “factions” are not viewed positively in political coverage) and a more hardline organizing stance by Marx himself against Bakunin’s secret faction.
“We can stop them from trying to split LU or recruit to their own organisations” and other concerns about parasite-poach-entryism are quite valid. This anti-sectarian “sectarianism” may be more valid than critics take at face value.