Aims and Platforms – To Vote or not to Vote?
There have been contributions to the conference debate, and there is a motion on the agenda, suggesting that no vote should be taken on the aims motions, particularly those put forward by platforms. The suggestion is that to do so at this stage is undemocratic and unnecessarily divisive. In reality, I think the opposite is true. Not to vote would be undemocratic, prolong and extend divisions, and could potentially be fatally damaging to the whole Left Unity project.
I understand the desire to get away from some of the past practices of many British left organisations. I, like many who are currently not in any organisation apart from Left Unity, have nonetheless had damaging past experience of factionalism and splits based on tiny differences.
Aims
But there are very different conceptions in Left unity about what sort of organisation it should be. If we don’t decide between them, how will we be able to say who we are – to people who are looking for a left alternative to Labour, to potential voters, in media interviews, leaflets etc. It is not as if this decision is coming too quickly, there have been many months of discussion. In my local group, the Haringey Group, the differences in view and lack of resolution about what we can say about Left Unity, means that we have not been able to produce leaflets, or say anything to people outside the group about why they should join – except that we want a party “to the left of Labour”; and even that description causes dissent with some supporters of a more explicitly revolutionary Socialist Left Unity. If we don’t adopt a statement of aims now, my fear is that we will lose momentum, that out of frustration local groups will start issuing their own publicity which may embody different conceptions of what we are from area to area – or worse still local groups may divide on the basis of their preferred aims, rather than on a geographical or functional basis. We need a national decision to unify us. Does anyone really think that if we don’t decide the aims now, the debates about them will go away? In reality failure to make a decision is more likely to prolong the paralysis, deepen the divisions and encourage the dynamic towards fracturing the organisation.
Platforms
But maybe for many the issue is not so much whether we should decide our aims, but the way the platform motions have come about. The whole idea of Platforms feels alien and reminiscent of the worst practices in the SWP etc. It is seen as hardening the positions of organisations like the CPGB, Workers Power, Socialist Resistance, ISN etc within Left Unity and weakening the role of individual non-aligned members. The fears are not unfounded. Organised Left groups have wrecked broad left unity initiatives in the past. They could do in Left Unity. But in my view the platforms and the discussion about their proposals are in fact a strength rather than a threat. I agree the word “Platform” itself is not ideal, it carries baggage. If anyone can think of a plain English word that means “a bunch of people who agree about something” I’d be happy to use that instead. But not having open platforms would not wish away the reality that there are “bunches of people” with different ideas about what Left Unity should be. That is a reality, and the strength of Left Unity is that it is entirely transparent and open to everyone, not a stitch up behind closed doors (as has been more usual on the British Left, even in broad coalitions like the People’s Assembly). It is true that some of the platforms are in effect based on organisations – the CPGB one for example – but others are genuinely “bunches of people” who agree. I was one of the first signatories to the Left Party Platform. I am not in any other political organisation, nor were most of the other original signatories. Some of the groups, Socialist Resistance for example, have supporters who have signed different platforms. My main motivation for joining a platform was born from frustration at the inability to have a broad set of aims adopted at the first national meeting, and carry through the momentum of the original Ken Loach Appeal. I understand why that happened, and realise that there are fundamental differences between people about how broad and inclusive Left Unity should be that needed to be debated out. So I felt I wanted to put my view about that openly to the organisation, with others who agreed. That is what the Left Party platform is to me.
If there were not platforms, the same debates and differences would exist – there would be similar aims motions pushed through branches (although that would not necessarily reflect the view of everyone in the branch in whose name they were submitted). I am pretty sure that without the opportunity for platforms to submit aims motions, the discussion in the Constitution Commission would have led to alternative majority and minority proposals coming out of the Commission (or “delete all, and replace with” amendments that amount to the same thing). The platforms provide clarity (everyone signing it supports it), transparency, and equality of opportunity (any large enough group of people who have a proposal can put it forward). By all means let’s debate the terminology, the role of platforms, and the controls on what they can do. But the real time to fear is if they aren’t there at all. Because that would either mean a monolithic leadership was suppressing debate, or that debate had gone “underground”.
Doug Thorpe
9 comments
9 responses to “Aims and Platforms – To Vote or not to Vote?”
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This is a well argued piece about why ‘the big debate’ is necessary. Yes, those disagreements if hidden would only cause the party to fester. And we need to start campaigning— but be able to answer the reporters and others questions’ in what way are you socialist?’ etc which is difficult to do honestly at the moment.
Much of the problem here comes down to (a) timing, and (b) method used to make choices. No-one, as far as I can see, is arguing that there should not be a full and open discussion of what Left Unity is for, and how it proposes to get somewhere. But to assume that clarity of purpose can be achieved during a one-day conference in a couple of weeks’ time seems a bit foolhardy to me, if only because it is not obvious that any of the current Platform statements is yet fit for purpose – especially in the eyes of anyone who signed up to LU in the expectation of a fresh approach to left politics.
I will argue that the down-side of rushing this process and ending up with a damp squib is much more serious a risk than that of extending the discussions until there is a better sense of what it is that LU could reasonably set out to get its teeth into. In other words, have a proper discussion of practicalities as well as aspirations. Only then will it be clear what breed of organisation is appropriate to the task.
As for (b) above, I think that majority voting as usually carried out in UK politics can be a very blunt instrument, particularly in situations as complex as we have to tackle at the moment, and that some sort of consensus-forming procedure should be adopted, at least to start with. If we can’t even do that, then there really is some hard thinking needed for an organisation with ‘unity’ in its name!
Left Unity and the power of words
The point of the competing platforms seems to be to have a statement that reflects socialist beliefs in a way that is plausible to many on the left. The beliefs may be stated as a numbered list of socialist dogmas or more creatively.
Thus, if we can only get the ideas right and some publicity we can win the masses over.
Why do we want them to join us? They will fight for socialism and either open the way to revolution or a re-run of the 1945 general election and socialism will be back on the agenda. Then we can leave the world a better place for our children and grandchildren than we found it.
Given the way that big business and its governments are driving against the proletarian masses we can spearhead the resistance and this will be the way that we puncture the system, perhaps injuring it fatally
All the masses need to do is recognise that our movement and its ideas are right and we are as good as there. Marxism as a body of knowledge and practice has been handed down and provides the key to the situation.
A problem is that while this overcomes some of our past problems it does not fit the bill at all.
The world moves on with conflict between the forces of capital and its state facing a mass of people in ways that are radically different from the ways that many of us have grown up with.
The defeat of the Soviet Union marks an end to the kind of experiment that was initiated by the Bolsheviks. Historical evidence suggests that it was a disaster even before Trotsky had got off his war horse.
The Soviet experiment gave rise to two major lines of interpretation. The Stalinist/mainstream communist theory is that the USSR delivered great benefits. The snag is that these benefits were so massive that the people who lived there couldn’t wait to get rid of them.
The Trotskyist version is that all went well until Stalin took over and betrayed the revolution. But almost all recent evidence suggests that the USSR was stuck with a bureaucracy in charge long before that. Trotsky was not an enthusiast for bottom up democracy in his mature years. If they doubt it his fans need to read his writings for modern trade unionists. The Role and Tasks of the Trades Unions is especially recommended.
The Labour Party and more broadly social democracy has likewise failed. The reforms had some value in the post-war years but not much remains. The reformists have no idea how to proceed in a world that has globalised under the power of capital. To describe Ed Miliband as cautious is to exaggerate his radicalism.
One favourite of the reformists is the little Englander (or little Scotlander) notion of reformist change in one country. This lacks all credibility. It suggests that socialism is little more than the welfare capitalism of ancient memory.
Trying to retread these old ideas (reformist or Marxist) will take us nowhere.
The mass of working people have suffered a range of defeats since the late 1970s. The core of the system is still exploitation of the many by a very few. But they have weakened the unions, the parties representing opposition to capital have either been destroyed or co-opted and the class has temporarily lost its way.
It is re-creating itself on a radically new basis. It is doing that through movements that are temporary – they come, they light us up and then they fade away.
These movements reflect the new character of the exploited. We, in the developed world, are more likely to work in call centres than factories. The wages are lousy but the workers’ response has not been to join unions.
The old policies and slogans mean less and less. Nationalisation (like RBS or Lloyds) is no answer. Elections seem like a joke to millions. We have hardly had an all-out strike since the defeat of the miners in 1985.
Yet the state is busy stripping away rights, spying as never before and preparing massive repression. The authorities are not frightened of an imitation of old movements. They are concerned with the new.
We need to be sensitive to the new forms as they come forward. We have to become the main mouthpiece of that rising movement not a cry from past times.
What does socialism mean? To most people not a lot. An older generation have old Labour in mind. But surely our Left Unity vision has little in common with Jim Callaghan or his chaotic and bureaucratic government.
The call for socialism is a slogan to make us feel good about ourselves.
We update it by adding the extras: feminism, environmentalism, lesbian and gay rights, etc. It all misses the point. The point is that what is urgent is that society takes conscious control over its own processes. To do that it needs to smash the power of capital. Capital exploits us in a way that is inefficient and chaotic. It wrecks the environment and endlessly finds scapegoats to blame for mess it is making. We can only really solve these problems with a social transformation in which power is removed from the state and business. The ordinary people need to take over.
But they are not living on the dead slogans of a past age. The premise for taking over is that we see the world as it really is. That is we free ourselves from ideology and look life in the eye. Each of the platforms seems to be a re-creation of some aspect of the past.
The worst seems to be the Communist Platform with its dream-based check list of virtuous ideas. If supported it should raise our membership to one or two more than the people who signed it.
Pretty feeble is the Republican Socialist Platform. Fred Engels pointed out in the century before last that even the Chartists recognised that the monarch was irrelevant to the question of power. The stuff about democracy shows some real limits. Capital and democracy were never friends and clearly to win popular power over society we need a revolutionary upheaval. The notion that we would be more democratic with President Blair instead of Charles III is nonsense.
The Class Struggle Platform surely qualifies for the most backward looking of all. It demands a general strike when that demand is restricted to a few lefties. If we were anywhere near a general strike it would be on everybody’s lips. This is the repetition of a mantra – hopefully it will make the person saying it feel better but it will change nothing.
This leaves me with Platform 9 3/4. The jokes could be better but the basic thrust that we need old dogmas like we need Iain Duncan Smith puts me closest to this one. Voting for it is a way of voting against any of these unnecessary platforms.
Geoff makes a pretty feeble attempt to dismiss the Republican Socialist Platform with Classic royalist Tory arguments. The Tories say who would you prefer the Wonderful Queen or President Blair. Since geoff is thinking of the future then he says Charles III versus Blair. What’s wrong with digging up President Thatcher? No in this fantasy world this is all the ignorant peasants can hope for. Oh I forgot Engels said this so it must be a Marxist argument not just a royalist one. Perhaps we need a Royalist-Marxist United front to keep the Windsors in their palaces at the taxpayers expense. As one of their spokesperson said “if you take our palaces you will have President Blair”. What about the Weimar Republic which gave us Hitler? I can hear Geoff saying I told you we should have kept the Kaiser!
Geoff’s is not just a Tory conservative argument but worse it shows gross political ignorance. First it mixes up anti-monarchism with republicanism. Anarchists are anti-monarchists but are not republicans. Anarchists are against all states not just monarchies. Republicans stand for democracy and the republican case is about real democracy. Second the monarchy continues for many reasons including its ability to divert attention from the Crown and it’s extensive powers. Geoff is the living proof this con trick works. Blinded by the brilliance of monarchist ideology – the queen does nobody any harm and makes everybody happy and glorious – he hasn’t noticed the unaccountable Crown agents are reading all his emails and sending copies to America. If he makes too much trouble he will become a guest in one of Her Majesty’s prisons. Still supporting platform 9and 3/4 should keep him safe and free.
1.19am?
Go to bed earlier!
I think there is some confusion around the platforms and what they are for. I am in favour of there being free and open platforms in any new party, and the platform statements are useful in that they enable an identity for particular viewpoints. However, the purpose of the Platform Statements is presumably to distinguish the particular viewpoints form each other. In order to do this they must, of necessity, find where they disagree with each other and make those disagreements clear. That’s all good and great for the platforms themselves but it isn’t good for a party that, by definition, is broader than any single platform. To vote on the platofrm statements serves no puropose other than as a way of showing their relative strengths of support at this moment.
What we need is a workable aims and objectives of the party and as such we need some sort of statement that goes into the constitution about those aims (analogous to the old Clause Four in the Labour Party). A clear, simple statement that is not intended to show where we disagree but where we agree. That is what we should be voting on at conference. If the platforms had any real leadership capacity then they would already be working on what that simple statements of agreement could be or at least putting forward proposals for such a statement and I hope to see such in the run up to conference.
Agree with doug that platform debate is where we are at and not voting on it doesnt help anything. I have been very critical of the groups not taking a lead in establishing an interim agreement on what wedo now and over the last 6 months to get things moving. A monthly meeting in a pub is not going to break the mold of left politics.
I see the platform debate as being a means to state where we are and where different parts of left unity stand. I will vote for socialist platform and seek means for left unity and others to get involved in the class struggle. I am a unison steward and I want to work with others in left unity and rest of the left to challenge and change unison.
In large part left unity was formed from the need to fight the austetity offensive and put a left alternative to labour movement vacilation and retreat.
I feel that a central strategic part of this is to make the unions fight! And build a rank and file movement in the unions to challenge and defeat the bureaucrats regime of rolling over.
Ken loach said he saw this as being a socialist struggle and I agree. This tetm may an old one but it is still one of some meaning. Our role should be part of rebuilding and rejuvinating the labour and socialist movement.
We must quickly develop a youth and student section and look to new generations in how we relate to the class.
Its not really a bad thing for political differences to be aired, for me its encouraging. This shows a committment to democracy and debate. But we need to resolve diffetences at conference and move forward to building left unity. The groups are important at this stage and I agree should also be putting action proposals to conference, recruitment campaign, key campaigns to be national campaigns resourced from national dues.
Branches enabled and encouraged to raise money for local campaigning and towards carefully planning to stand a few candidates in local elections, where we have a base and with forces on the left that will extend membership, key into local struggled etc.
Pete b
Platform Nine and Three quarters. You are right I was up too late but some of this royalist twaddle was giving me nightmares. The thought of having President Blair instead of our own dear queen doesn’t bear thinking about. I am just shocked that the rest of Left Unity were soundly tucked up in bed. They should have been up and waiting on Platform 9and 3\4 for the train to Buck Palace with placards “No to President Blair” and ‘ Down with President Thatcher’. Unfortunately that platform has trains that never come and when they do they are going nowhere. It’s all magic!!
All this talk about platforms is a waste of time and solves nothing.
A platform is something you stand on to achieve something. At a railway station you stand on a platform to wait for and then board a train. A political platform is something you “stand on” to deliver a message – what you will do if you gain political power.
That’s all you need to know. QED.