The Left: What’s the Point?
Lewes Left Unity have held their first meet-up, Mark Perryman reports
Last Thursday, signatories to Ken Loach’s Left Unity Appeal in the East Sussex town of Lewes, met up for the first time. We opted for abandoning the formalities of traditional Left meetings and instead we gathered in an artists’ cafe, sat on sofas and comfy chairs, brought food and drink to share and had a conversation. Most of us were aware of the encouraging response to Ken’s appeal, none of us were certain though precisely what this was likely to result in, either locally or nationally, we broadly welcomed that uncertainty as an opportunity not a threat and felt that it would be wrong to rush headlong towards any rigid formulations.
Mark Perryman, who had organised this first meet-up, gave the briefest of introductions. The theme for the night was to be participation and conversation, rather than being talked at or rallying calls.
Mark suggested four quotes that he felt summed up the kind of Left we might want to become:
” All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.” This is a wonderfully poetic summation by Marx of the commodification and monetisation that has characterised British politics, first under Thatcher, then accelerated under Blair and Brown, continued by Cameron and Clegg.
” When the world falls apart some things stay in place” is a line from Billy Bragg’s song Levi Stubbs Tears. Since 1997 Mark suggested simply by standing still, particularly rejecting Blair’s case for War against Iraq, many of us ended up much further to the Left than where we started while the entire political mainstream, Labour leading the way until 2010 at least, marched rightwards.
‘The Personal is Political’ was the ethos of 1979’s recently republished and updated book, Beyond the Fragments, placing feminism right at the core of any Left project.
” The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Antonio Gramsci was writing about the 1930s, but in the 2010s we have our own version of these ‘morbid symptoms.’ UKiP in particular, but the crisis also offers more positive readings, unrepresented in the mainstream for example massive support for renationalisation of the railways, real anger over bankers’ bonuses and tax evasion.
Mark then outlined 4 principles for what he tentatively suggested might be a ‘Next Left’
First, plural. Green, Welsh and Scots Nationalists, Owen Jones from Labour, we reject the tribalism and the myopic of the ‘People’s Front of Judea’ which over and over again proves to be anything but a caricature. We support where something good and progressive is being attempted whatever the label.
Second, participative. Social media is the means for this in large measure but you can’t just have online participation online and not in the physical spaces of the Left too, we need both.
Third, prefigurative. AKA ‘How we do our politics is why we do our politics’. Absolutely linked to the principle of participation.
Fourth, pleasureable. a Left which is only about duty will have a distinctly narrow, and in all likelihood declining appeal. This means that not only must being part of the Left be enjoyable but our agendas should be every but as much cultural as political or economic.
Next up a huge blank sheet of brown paper was pinned up for each of us in turn to fill in with our own biographies of the Left. In part inspired by a recent discussion at the Dangerous Ideas Festival What’s The Point of the Left? in which one of the speakers, writer China Mieville suggested a better title might be ‘The Left: What’s The Point?’ so we took that as our theme for our biographies.
The Left; What’s The Point – Our Biographies as Understanding
- The importance of family, backgrounds in the Labour Party, Communist Party, trade unions in framing our politics and values
- Developed generationally, experiences of student politics, trade union organising, feminism, the peace movement these values becoming more fully formed, and changed along the way
- Disappointments with Labour, for some dating back to Kinnock, for all Blair and the Iraq War in particular
- The frustrations, particularly since 2010 , of tactical voting
- A shared desire for a space for alternatives, beyond the Westminster definition of politics
- An anger, an absence by and large of those who in an earlier era inspired us, Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone of the 1980s GLC Era
- Today’s inspirations: Caroline Lucas, Glenda Jackson’s speech on Thatcher’s death, Margaret Hodge on taxation, Salma Yaqoob. All women!
- Elsewhere in Europe a much stronger Left, the need to engage with and learn from this, Greece in particular. But defeats too, the plight of the Italian Left the rise of Golden Dawn, again in Greece. Across Europe a more diverse, a more vibrant Left than here, we can no longer afford to ignore this. We need to be part of a European Left, not apart from.
- Other sources of inspiration post 1989 mainly located in Latin America.
- The legacy of first monetarism, then neoliberalism has fundamentally shaped political discourse. We cannot underestimate the consequences.
- There is a Left constituency that is disillusioned by what Labour has become, sees not much hope that this will change and as a result is, disenfranchised.
- Part of that disillusionment is about Labour’s historic patronising attitude to women, paying lip service only to feminism, there has also been a history of racism on the Left too, particularly around immigration. These are faultlines that cannot be ignored.
- The ambition remains to contribute to a collective culture in politics, a popular politics not simply statist or even state socialism. A politics not defined simply by economic interests.
- A recognition across Britain of differing political traditions, values and cultures.
- Suggestions that new generations are apolitical demand that we question our definition of the ‘political’ . The rave movement of the early 1990s is one example of this kind of challenge.
In the discussion a couple of key texts were cited. In particular Paul Mason’s Why It’s Still KIcking Off Everywhere and the framing statement of The Kilburn Manifesto.
What does this all add up to? Over a couple of hours a group of us discussed and shared how we’d ended up on the Left, stayed there through a period of time and now largely felt ourselves unrepresented and disenfranchised. We laughed, we took part, one of us won the raffle and we felt the exercise was worthwhile. We agreed to continue the conversation with no fixed idea, yet, of where this will take us. We agreed to seek to involve others too, tho’ all were relieved that a recruitment drive via leafleting the local shopping precinct was not what any of us was after.
18 comments
18 responses to “The Left: What’s the Point?”
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Well, reading about the meeting, at first I thought this was a very progressive way of doing politics, inclusive and informal, then I looked again: nothing about the bedroom tax, basic issues such as housing, crime on working class estates, accusations that having concerns about mass immigration is racist which means the majority of the Uk are excluded from debates as poll after poll identifies this concern. This is not to ‘surrender’ to the EDL or other far right entities.
I am really concerned that L/U is emerging as a bourgeois style party similar to the early French Socialist Party (and I am not usually one for such terms), its key interests going by what I read on here and in my local one, seem to be focussed on identity politics* and global events at a time when people here are dying weekly from benefit cuts, etc, (see Calums’ List for details) Such issues as the above are important and should be a central part of L/U’s agenda but there is an economic crisis in the U.K and people are suffering now.
I don’t write this in malice: many many thousands of working class/unemployed/marginalised people are desperate to see a fighting formation that addresses their concerns, but will L/U be that entity? I thought the urgency in creating this party was to defend and work with these groups, it seems it may be the same old same old, with a post modern twist.
*btw, Beyond The Fragments, many involved in this became the soft left in the Labour Party and ultimately the Blairite machine.
So because Left Unity isn’t likely to embrace support for the entirely divisive and politically distracting policy of demanding immigration controls (and why would a radical Left party aimed at uniting all sections of the working class ever do so ?) you have already written the LU project off as ” a bourgeois style party similar to the early French Socialist Party” ! Immigration controls are certainly an absolutely key issue for you Jonno !
It is in reality perfectly possible for a party of the Left to work fruitfully on bedroom tax, anti cuts, pensions, hospital closure, anti redundancy and working conditions, campaigns with people who have a range of racist or semi racist ideas, without having to make concessions to the distracting ideology which “blames the immigrants” – rather than the true cause – capitalism. Getting people with racist ideas involved in joint campaigns with people from ethnic minorities is the best way to fight racism – NOT making concessions to anti immigrant prejudices.
You are seriously mistaken in believing that embracing the anti immigration bandwagon wont be surrendering to the hysteria of the capitalist press, Jonno. The entire historical experience of making “concessions” to anti immigrant sentiment right across Europe , as the “mainstream parties” have done in Greece for years now as an example, is that this simply legitimises the even more extreme racism of the Far Right. What starts as verbal concessions on a limited front – say, EU migrants – is immediately outflanked by the ever greater racist demands of the fascists, witness the explosive growth of the Greek, Golden Dawn Nazis, or on a much lesser scale – the rise of UKIP here , riding the wave of irrational anti EU immigrant hysteria whipped up by the popular press, and “outflanking” the relatively petty racism of the Tories and New Labour.
Pandering to the irrational Islamophobia and anti immigrant prejudices present in some sections of the White Working class is simply a recipe for ever greater division within the working class – and a major distraction from fighting , across ethnic divisions, the austerity offensive on its various fronts. For a party of the radical Left to embrace immigration controls is political suicide. Standing up for the rights of ethnic minorities, women, gays, isn’t actually that slippery and euphemistic term “identity politics” Jonno, its basic civilised behaviour – and a core principle of socialism.
@John Penney
You have pretty much ignored jonno’s concerns and have shut down debate by dismissing those with concerns as racist or semi-racist. It seems okay to be racist against those born here, though. There is a a mentality in some – and I see this as a liberal mentality, not a left mentality, though perhaps I am mistaken – which says that all immigrants are hard working whereas all natives are lazy. It is a great capitalist argument – it helps to lower wages and goes along with the idea that anyone on the dole is simply a ‘scrounger’. Apparently this mentality is fine because it is not ‘anti-immigrant’.
Talking about mass immigration is not being anti-immigrant. One is an issue and the other is a person. Net immigration, like any increase in population, does affect working people’s lives – both those born here and immigrants who have been here a while. We can’t ignore legitimate concerns on immigration as ‘racist’ because the extreme hard-right has used this to stir up hate in the past (and still does). And of course you are right, John, to mention the ‘blame of immigrants’ – this is clearly a property of the extreme hard-right: it isn’t focusing on immigration as a policy but immigrants as faceless individuals. Just like the phrase ‘opening the floodgates’ seems designed to ignore the human element of individuals and reduce people to a non-count noun (water). Why should recognising the extreme hard-right’s use of anti-immigrant, etc., rhetoric mean that you shouldn’t debate the area referred to?
All concerns should be heard and responded to. Isn’t that how you tackle racism – with reason, with allowing debate so you can dispel myths, etc.?
You also mention ‘Islamophobia’ – does this mean no one cannot criticise the Muslim religion? What about the Christian one – is it different? Can’t there be reasonable criticism of both immigration policy as well as religion in general without being labelled racist? I’m sure there’ll be some level-headed immigrated Muslims who agree with me.
As for jonno’s comment on LU ’emerging as a bourgeois style party’ that’s jumping to a conclusion by a long way from only looking at one group in East Sussex. Perhaps the bedroom tax and the other issues mentioned were not brought to mind because it was considered too early – you cannot discuss everything from one meeting.
I think a group which seeks to unite all people who consider themselves on the left needs to realise we are all different. We are all in different situations and from different backgrounds, and sometimes we have to agree to disagree rather than dismiss, etc. It won’t be easy and there will be a lot of debate but that is what happens when you seek to unite a broad church, so to speak.
‘For a party of the radical Left to embrace immigration controls is political suicide.’
I certainly disagree with that. Whether it is decided to ’embrace immigration controls’ or not, not addressing an issue because it might be ‘political suicide’ or bad political capital has led Labour to where it is now. Labour were in power for a very long time under Blair. If being elected is what is important rather than making a case then we may as well all turn to Labour.
Over a couple of hours a group of us discussed and shared how we’d ended up on the Left, stayed there through a period of time and now largely felt ourselves unrepresented and disenfranchised.
This worries me somewhat. How is that kind of discussion going to draw in people who’ve not been involved in left politics before? LU needs to be more than a sounding board for bitter ex leftists.
I have to agree with jonno; the description of the meeting sounds almost like a parody of a bourgeois left wing gathering. You didn’t say if there were beanbags but I have my suspicions.
Where’s the urgency? where’s the anger? And as a feminist I find it incredibly patronising that it’s deemed necessary to point out that a group of influential people are women. Who knew? But, for the record, Esther McVey, Maria Miller, Angela Merkel; women!! (your emphasis)
We want a plan of action, a campaign strategy, not endless pontificating and fantasising about some far off leftist utopia. And as you’re so fond of linking your politics to quotations I’ll donate one from up North: fine words don’t butter the parsnips.
Jonno
You’re being a tad premature there.
I have absolutely no doubt that any group that emerges in Lewes will both discuss and tackle the issues you raise, and others.
But unlike some in Left Unity we don’t feel that by rushing straight forward into pre-determined structures, with a pre-existing programme we’ll get very far because precuous few such efforts have done before us. So for the moment instead we are providing a space to explore why to date the Left has let us down, left us unrepresented and disenfranchised. Discuss the Left’s failure to respond adequately to the economic crisis. Shape what kind of effective initiative we may be able to make happen locally.
As for ‘Beyond the Fragments’ you are spectacularly wrong. The 3 authors, Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Seagal and Hilary Wainwright remain trenchant critics of both Blairism and Leninism to this day, read the recently updated edition to see what I mean. It should be a vital text for Left Unity.
Mark P
Quite extraordinary rushing to judgement, if you want to make some us feel we don’t belong in Left Unity you;re going the right way about it. Thanks.
Countless Left initiatives of this sort have failed. So why the urgency to reproduce the reasons for those failures all over again? It is absolutely vital we explore the reasons why so many who consider themselves on the Left or thereabouts belong to no organisation, let alone a party, and don’t find the cult of activism appealing either.
If you want to rush towards repeating every other failed attempt to create a left of Labour party since 1997 fine. But for the sake of providing some space, time and participation we could actually get it right this time. The signs tho’ from these kinds of responses however are we won’t. What a shame, what a waste.
Mark P
Today’s inspirations: The many thousands in Taksim Square and Sao Paulo.
Is there enough space on the comfy sofa for local shoppers?
Mark, this site is for discussion and sometimes you will hear things you don’t like or agree with, people like me and I imagine other ‘constructive’ critics like Sue are not part of the inner circle, etc and need to express our concerns through mediums like this. I said in the beginning of my post, I thinks its great you are are providing space for discussion in a viable non elitist, non-hierarchical way and that such new thinking and ways of doing things on the left are essential. However, one needs to be careful it doesn’t become self-referential and navel gazing, how would, say a young call centre who is new to politics have felt at the meeting?, just as alienated as the usual top down lecture format, I don’t know, but its something to be considered.
I’m glad that you say basic issues would be a given but I’m not sure that would be the case, identity politics seems to be a central theme of L/U(see Merry’s imo intemperate article)I welcome an article in defence of them and how they will help the poorest in our society.
I would again like to reiterate criticism is not a negative thing, its the lifeblood of a forward thinking progressive formation, please take it in that spirit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZfu_qagC7c
Anyway in the spirit of true internationalism here is a great video of Turkish protestors in Taksim square, singing the Italian partisan song ‘Bella Ciao’
Jonno
Thanks. That explanation is appreciated. We need this kind of ‘horizontal’ debate in order to move forward and on occasion this site is very good at providing that space.
The self-referential, politics as therapy is I agree to be avoided like the plague. Its inward looking and invariable crates its own cliques and hierarchies. On the other hand a political project needs a shared set of values in place of the old model of party discipline. Thats what we’re trying to explore in Lewes, we’ll see where it takes us.
As for your antipathy towards ‘identity politics’, thats the subject of another debate. Although we should all be quite clear that a political project which fails to be rooted in exposing and challenging inequalities framed by race, class and gender is doomed.
Mark P
@ Mark
Nobody is saying you aren’t welcome, just because they raise criticisms & concerns. You obviously disagree which is fine; it’s a way for both of us to refine our own views. This is a byproduct of aiming for a bottom-up democratic structure (which, from what you’ve said elsewhere, is a goal we both share?) Of course we need to work out what we think by discussing and debating it with each other. We don’t have a central committee handing down a line we all have to agree on, thank god.
So why the urgency to reproduce the reasons for those failures all over again?
To be clear, that isn’t the reason for my criticism or, I suspect, others. It’s the opposite. By orientating primarily to people who were on the organised left, I worry we’re just going to reproduce the same old failures. I want to break from that at least as much as you do.
There is this though. Previously, you’ve argued (rightly in my view) that we should be somewhat cynical about the motivations of the established left groups, while not excluding them. I just extend that to the ex-Respect people who’ve come on board since the failure of their project. Is that really an unreasonable position in your view? Surely nobody should be considered beyond criticism?
Hoom
Thanks. Constructive criticism conducted in a manner which encourages a process of learning is most certailny the way forward.
There may be some confusion from the report I wrote. The group, 7 of us in a smallish town, not bad, all self-identified ourselves as on the Left. As far as I’m aware none were any more members of any organised Left group. Our backgrounds included The Labour Party, The Communist Party, Trade Unions, CND, the 1990s Acid House/Rave scene. Some voted Green, in our constituency some tactically voted Lib-Dem, others Labour or not at all.
Certainly none of this was meant to suggest that whatever Left Unity becomes should be restricted to the existing Left, anything but, it was more an admission of the starting point of our group in Lewes.
Hope this helps.
Mark P
Mark,
Thanks for the clarification. 7 people definitely sounds like a good starting place!
I think you’re possibly taking some unfair flak for what some of us see as a wider issue with LU so far. There’s sometimes a feeling that it’s the left talking at each other. (The name really doesn’t help that, in my book).
I’m certainly not expecting everyone to come to this from a ‘clean slate’. I’d be a hypocrite- my background is the early 90’s Reclaim The Streets/AFA intersection. And the former, especially, comes with a whole new set of issues. (If I never have to sit through another argument about people smoking dope in meetings again, it will be too soon).
However, in the long term, if LU doesn’t manage to recruit people who aren’t like you and me in that sense, it’s not a success.
Mark, my criticism was more of a gentle ribbing than anything else. Any vitriol was the result of having written it upon my return from a local bedroom tax meeting where tenants are already being sent letters threatening repossession. Perhaps priorities need to be established and the fight against austerity and its very real, horrifying consequences won’t wait for the formation of a new party. So, I’m undecided about whether such meetings are a misuse of intelligent campaigner’s time when their help is urgently needed elsewhere.
A broad coalition of the left? Yes. A totally new party? Less convinced.
Hoom
Thanks. Yes its a starting point, to a process, which in my view elsewhere in Left Unity is proceeding at far too fast a pace which means theres no space whatsoever to establish what our first principles and values are. Thats what we are trying to do in Lewes, for the moment at any rate.
But I think there’s a wider point too. There shouldn’t be one model or template for what each and every local group does. We should do what suits our local environment best in order to maximise our effectiveness.
Mark P
Jonno, I would like to hear some things I can agree with. The left has suffered traditionally with tearing itself apart before it achieves anything. This was an inaugural meeting. I wasn’t there, but please do not forget our enemies – the controlling hegemony we are trying to combat – they will attempt to destabilise this movement before it starts. We need to give them absolutely nothing to work with.