By Garry Macdonald

After being a Left Unity member for a few months now I am puzzled why more people seem to be concerned with debating what flavour of socialist or leftist party Left Unity should be on the main site instead of getting involved in the policy commission forums. I would suggest that whatever character or identity Left Unity as a party is to exhibit will be present in its policies. Instead of focusing our energies on ‘proving’ which theory of socialism or left politics is ‘correct’ should we not instead by focusing on debating the policies we wish to pursue as a party? Ultimately what matters is that we achieve a party manifesto through a democratic process of policy formation instead of succumbing to factionalism. In my opinion I would think it more constructive to focus on what we intend to do rather than on which ideology is ‘right’. Our policies and strategies are what matter and the place to discuss, debate and vote on these are the policy commission forums.

Left Unity has a diverse base of support and whether someone is social democratic, radical Left, Marxist or otherwise should be a personal choice. Left Unity can represent more than one thing to many different people so the debate on party identity should largely be academic. Through the policy commission forums we can democratically establish a manifesto for a new party which will, according to the outcome of the process, exhibit varying degrees of left or socialist characteristics. It is unlikely it will be suitable for all flavours of socialist or leftist but it will have input from a wide selection of them and will likely require a degree of compromise and consensus-building. However Left Unity as a statement and as a broader movement is about more than just one type of party or political ideology. Whatever party is founded at the end of November will be one of many left or socialist parties in a fragmented area of the political spectrum. In this regard I believe a broader Left Unity movement should be aimed at uniting these disparate parties, together with social movements and trade unions, into a cohesive political bloc that can field a legitimate challenge to the status quo.

Achieving this will require extensive networking between different parties, groups and unions. This is something that I believe Left Unity, as it currently exists, should be actively facilitating, serving as the glue which will bind a united left bloc together. This is no easy task and the history of schisms within left politics is well known. Left Unity will need to have skilled interlocutors to conduct negotiations between different parties to discuss, amongst other things, which parties will field candidates in elections and which ones will provide support and backing. Left Unity should also seek to be a means through which different movements, such as anti-austerity or social justice activists, can pool resources and campaign jointly against the root causes of social and economic oppression. This is what Left Unity means to me.

I would urge those that share my vision of what Left Unity should be to put aside their ideological differences and get actively involved in the policy commissions or help build bridges between different left-wing and socialist parties. Help us build consensus and a manifesto that can achieve broad cross-party support. Let us not play into the hands of our real opposition and get bogged down in identity politics.