Left Unity, elections and the long haul
The appearance of platforms within Left Unity in preparation for the founding conference is a very welcome development, says Dave Parks. So far there are three platforms; the Left Party Platform, the Socialist Platform and the Class Struggle Platform. In one word these platforms could perhaps be summarised as: “broad”, “socialist” and “struggle”. For myself I’m a supporter of the Socialist Platform but I want to see the party as a broad socialist party that engages in day to day struggle so I see merits in the other platforms.
It maybe that more platforms appear and add to the debate and I for one welcome all of them and congratulate those who have helped form these platforms. It is clear that there are very diverse views within Left Unity about the way forward and it is healthy that these views are properly aired and debated regardless of whether we agree with them or not. I think we should be clear that this is a positive and welcome sign of internal democracy and healthy debate within Left Unity and we shouldn’t confuse this with old style sectarianism. We learn from each other through debate and today’s minority view can become tomorrow’s majority view. Whatever the outcome of the November conference we all have an enormous task ahead of us in building the party and support for the party. In the meantime I wish to address here our aspirations when it comes to elections.
The Sisyphean task of building the Left?
Of course there have been previous failed attempts by the Left to build unity and electoral projects e.g. the Socialist Labour Party, the Socialist Alliance and Respect. An awful lot has been written about how these previous projects have been cursed by problems of sectarianism and there is no need to rehearse those arguments here, very many of us were involved in one or more of those projects and we have learnt from bitter experience. However, I feel one aspect that has received less commentary is the short-termism that has underlined most of these projects. I’m reminded of poor old Sisyphus from Greek mythology who was condemned to constantly push a huge boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down and start all over again. In the dash for the next “get rich quick” scheme the Left has in the last two decades proved incapable of building anything of substance. New Left electoral outfits come about almost with each major General or European election. The last thing we need is over ambitious hopes for short term electoral success that result, yet again, in the demoralised abandonment of the project after the next general election with a new formation arising in time for the general election after that!
Left Unity and that elusive electoral breakthrough
There are those in Left Unity who want us to escape from marginalisation by adopting Left populism. This idea was perhaps summed up in the phrase “UKIP of the Left”. A horrible phrase but I understand the sentiment – we want to have an impact and we want it now! If only we can overcome our differences and talk less about divisive things like class and socialism then a breakthrough is just around the corner. There is a danger here that perspectives are built on unrealistic assessments of our prospects. I will focus in what follows on elections.
What are realistic prospects for Left populism? In an article written back in May Mark Perryman states on elections:
“In electoral politics there’s not much point in coming a good second unless it’s the basis of coming first the next time. The point in achieving single digit % shares of the vote and down the bottom of the polls is next to nothing.”
This was written just after UKIP got 20% of the vote in the last local elections. Frequently we hear that we need to get out of the ghetto of TUSC style 1-2% of the vote although to be fair on TUSC they do occasionally hit 10% as they did recently in a council by-election in Caerphillly. Of course we all want our candidates to be winning elections and not coming last but there is an enormous problem with this perspective. It fails to take into account that minority parties like UKIP have taken decades to get where they are. UKIP did not appear yesterday – it was formed back in 1992. For the first several years of its existence UKIP would typically get single digit election results. Of course part of the problem is that our parliamentary and local elections are first past the post.
It is perhaps instructive to look at the rise of the Green Party. Formed over 25 years ago (40 years if you include earlier incarnations such as the Ecology Party) they made their first parliamentary breakthrough in 2010 with the election of Caroline Lucas MP with 31.3% of the vote in Brighton Pavilion. The previous results for the Greens in Brighton Pavilion were:
- third in 2005 with 21.9%;
- fourth in 2001 with 9.3%;
- fifth in 1997 with 2.6%;
- fourth in 1992 with 2.2%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_Pavilion_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29
In microcosm this is the history of the rise of the Green Party electorally. They started in low single digits “down the bottom of the polls” and spent around 20 years building support. Indeed if you look at their general election results from 1983 onwards it wasn’t until 2001 that they started saving deposits (requires 5% of the vote). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_England_and_Wales_election_results
A potted history of previous Left parliamentary election campaigns
The Communist Party of Great Britain had their most concerted election campaign in the general election of 1950. They stood 100 candidates who on average got around 2% of the vote with no-one elected. This average included percentages under 1% and three double-digit percentages. In the 1945 General Election they fared better with only 21 candidates several of whom got double digit votes with Phil Piratin and Willie Gallagher getting elected and Harry Pollitt narrowly missing with over 40% of the vote. After 1950 the results were typically low single figures except in their strongholds of Rhonda and Glasgow. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Great_Britain_election_results
The Socialist Labour Party was formed by Arthur Scargill in 1996. Typically the SLP gets around 1-2% of the vote although there have been rare occasions when candidates have scraped beyond 5%. In 1997 the average vote was around 1.8%, in the 2010 general election the average vote was less than 1%. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Labour_Party_%28UK%29_election_results
The Socialist Alliance stood 98 candidates in the 2001 General Election getting an average of around 1.7% of the vote. In Coventry and St Helens the SA got over 5% of the vote. See:
http://www.socialismtoday.org/57/socialistvote.html
The Socialist Alliance was shut down in 2004 in favour of the not explicitly socialist Respect Unity Coalition. In 2005 the Respect coalition stood 26 candidates getting a total of 68,094 votes. George Galloway famously won Bethnal Green & Bow with 35.9 % of the vote; he received 15,801 votes which was nearly a quarter of the total votes in all constituencies for Respect. The results in most other constituencies with a few exceptions were of the same order as the Socialist Alliance.
Respect Coalition in comparison to other Left election campaigns
Respect did exceedingly well electorally in tiny pockets around the country; notably in Tower Hamlets, Bethnal Green, Central & East (London), Bradford, central Birmingham and Leicester. In the vast bulk of the rest of the country the results are of a similar order to those “derisory votes” that other Left electoral efforts have achieved. Of course George Galloway also spectacularly won the Bradford West by-election in 2012.
The following table and comments were from a post I made to the UK_Left_Network email list in 2004. It compares the European Election results for England & Wales for the SLP in 1999 with Respect in 2004.
| Constituency | SLP (1999) | Respect (2004) |
| East Midlands | 0.76 | 1.4 |
| Eastern | 0.62 | 0.9 |
| London | 1.72 | 4.8 |
| North East | 1.17 | 1.1 |
| North West | 1.11 | 1.2 |
| South East | 0.49 | 0.6 |
| South West | 0.55 | 0.7 |
| Wales | 0.68 | 0.6 |
| West Midlands | 0.62 | 2.4 |
| Yorkshire & Humber | 1.03 | 1.9 |
Overall percentage 1.7% for Respect and a total of 252,216 votes. In London 91175 votes were cast for Respect representing 36% of the total national vote for Respect. Clearly the best area for Respect. In the Eastern, North East, North West, South East and South West the Respect votes are almost identical to the SLP votes – slightly higher in most cases lower in others. Outside of London the West Midlands stands out as being a slightly bigger improvement on the SLP vote from 1999 (4-fold the SLP vote). The East Midlands and Yorkshire & Humber also are better in comparison getting on for 2-fold the SLP vote. See:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/vote2004/euro_uk/html/front.stm
A similar analysis can be made in many of the other elections and apart from a few pockets the Respect coalition got comparable votes to the Socialist Alliance or the SLP. Even then in Tower Hamlets where a number of councilors were elected a number of these ended up defecting to Labour or in one case the Tory Party.
Elections and Left Unity
In this little survey of elections I am aware that I have not given a thorough account – it would be a long and boring article that covers every outing of the Left in meticulous detail. Also for every general rule there are freak exceptions, for example, the 15% achieved by the Green Party in the 1989 European Election which would require a separate article to explain! I have also consciously avoided going into the politics of elections and the merits or otherwise of the various groups referred to and the circumstances in which they stood. The intention here is to point out that in anything other than exceptional circumstances it takes decades to build support for new minority electoral parties and we should not delude ourselves that there are any short-cuts.
The worst mistake the Left keeps repeating is continually changing our names when approaching the electorate. It is crazy that TUSC has been complicit in the re-launch of NO2EU for next May’s European elections whilst TUSC is standing candidates in local elections on the same day! Most of the electorate will respond with a shrug of the shoulders – who are these people? There we are back at the bottom of the hill pushing that boulder up.
Should Left Unity bother stand in elections? Absolutely! I’m not arguing against standing elections I just think we need to be realistic about the potential for instant breakthroughs. In the vast majority of cases we will be starting with low one figure percentage support coming towards the bottom of the poll. It is from persistently standing and getting ourselves known that we build and improve on that support over the years. On this local elections probably offer the best prospects as they are easy to build local bases of support over years.
I think Left Unity should stand at every opportunity – not because we will get great votes in the short term but as part of a long term process of people actually getting to know we exist and what we stand for. Better results will come with time. Ideally I would love to see Left Unity stand a full slate in the Euro elections next May but given the £5000 deposit per constituency I suspect this will be difficult!
I started this article by mentioning that I’m a supporter of the Socialist Platform and I have said very little about that so far in this analysis. Left Unity currently consists almost entirely of socialists and yet there seems to be a widespread view that if we are explicit about being socialist we will fail to make a breakthrough. I think we need to be realistic about the low point we are starting from and we have to recognise that if we are to successfully build Left Unity it is NOT going to happen overnight and we need to be prepared for the long haul of decades.
As I see it in that time frame we may as well actually be honest and open about our socialist politics – the point being to build working class consciousness and political organisation. It should also perhaps be pointed out that unlike UKIP who have a significant section of the press pumping out a racist, xenophobic anti-Europe perspective we have no-one but ourselves to put out our message. The best thing we have to offer is a coherent alternative to capitalism – that is socialism. It is our heart and our core – this is the glue that will keep the project coherent in the long term and eventually make us successful. Without explicit socialism what is to keep us together if we fail to make a short-term breakthrough? Some of those socialists who don’t want the party to be explicitly socialist may decide that there are better prospects for socialists elsewhere – the boulder having rolled down to the bottom of the hill again!
12 comments
12 responses to “Left Unity, elections and the long haul”
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Whilst I don’t agree with all the conclusions drawn, this article contains some excellent research and analysis which is what we need to inform a proper debate rather than an expression of opinions.
I would think that such is the decline of class consciousness the main need is to awaken class consciousness and solidarity. The dominant ideology has made people thing as individuals rather than communities and workforces. This has spread from the USA. The decline in trade union membership is a sign of this. And it is a factor in the cowardly attitude of the TUC. They are afraid that if they tackle the government they will be smashed.So maybe a longer haul that thought.
That is why I am opposed to those who think that it is just a question of forcing the TUC to call a general strike and a “clap of hands later” we are on our way. Propaganda needs elections. And it is the propaganda stage we are mainly at.
Dave is right about the long haul. But electioneering needs to be linked to the steady work of community campaigning. That is over, benefits, NHS, union campaigns, etc. In that way we can build our standing in localities. As Dave says it takes time and patience.
I agree. The vote received by LU in any future elections will reflect the work it does or doesn’t do in a practical way at both a national and local level and this has to be the priority.
Although the Left Party Platform is broader in it’s appeal, counter-posing it to the ‘narrow’ Socialist Platform can hide the real difficulties that we face in building mass activist support for LU, whatever the founding statement. The long haul – unless there is a radical change in circumstances and that will not be down to the fine statements of organisations or individuals.
Left Unity could be different from all the other groups in the list if … it did something different. Rather then being a debating society or a political discussion group Left Unity should do something in the real world of peoples everyday lives. It would be possible and highly desirable to carry out community work aimed at helping individuals with their everyday problems. This could take a variety of forms depending on the skills and availability of Left Unity people in a particular area of the UK.
This form of community work would offer help and support to people in need and also develop an electoral base. I fear this will not appeal to left wing activists for whom campaigning and political debate seem to be the thing to do.
At the very least this gives Left Unity people an opportunity to behave in a socialist way while the internal debate is developing. No need to wait for final conclusions or elections.
I agree with David about community action.
Firstly because people are in need. Left wing politics must be about the needs of the many, not the fine points of ideology.
Secondly because poorer people are disproportionately disaffected by politics. 35% of the electorate simply do not vote. You will not raise awareness – and understanding – and support – unless you mean something to people.
This is an area where religious groups are active – and bring lessons. I find it unsettling that the vulnerable may be given a food parcel with strong evangelism – religious or political. Explain the message, set an example and let people make their minds up.
Left Unity needs people who don’t care about politics to care about the welfare of others – to rediscover society. That will not be done by rehashing the political debates of the last 100 years. (Or the graphic design, for that matter!)
Yes that very last point about graphic design.. the masthead above is a dead giveaway about the tired old… we need new.. shapes symbols colours . imaginination not cliche(I was just thinking and then rapidly discarding rainbows)..it is a very serious point… how to message with colour and symbols.. something new
Dave’s article gives us facts and figures we need for the Left Unity project. It tells us in detail what has happened when the left and small parties have fought elections since Labour started to overtly support the rich and powerful. Dave says “I think Left Unity should stand at every opportunity – not because we will get great votes in the short term but as part of a long term process of people actually getting to know we exist and what we stand for”.
Dave makes it clear it’s likely to be quite a long haul to win elections. Left Unity will need to stand candidates consistently in wards and constituencies, long before we win them. Labour took more than 20 years from its founding to forming a government and they had World War 1 to show how bad capitalism can be, and the Easter Rising and the Russian Revolution to show people that workers can do something about the way we live. By the same token, given the effort in a locality, a relatively short times scale can see results.
Why should people vote for us? What do we stand for?
Left Unity, I believe, should stand for a world where people have enough to eat, for people (with and without impairments) to work in worthwhile jobs with full trade union rights, to have wages sufficient for a decent standard of life, and an income for all who cannot work.
We should stand for everyone to have decent homes, free and universal education, free and universal health care, and social care for those who need it.
We want a planet safe from pollution, a world where the full force of science and the talents of the population, plan our response to climate change, where we have new clean green industries, shorter hours and decent pensions.
We want a world were women, children and men are safe from violence, prejudice and discrimination and where and oppression fades into unpleasant memories.
We want a free press and open media; not the corrupt system we have today.
We stand against the wars endemic in capitalism and the huge waste of resources spent on armaments.
We are the people who get involved in ordinary people’s struggle for survival; in the local campaigns and struggles
We don’t just want this program: we are going to organise and struggle to get all of these basic needs as soon as possible.
What’s more, we know the planet can sustain this. We know that what’s stopping us sustainably achieving these aims is the economic and social system that makes the world economy run just for the interests of the very, very rich.
If we fight hard enough, the ruling elite might give us some concessions, from time to time, and we will take any benefits we can win, however ephemeral. The inexorable logic of capitalism though, will drag resources away from the many to the wallets of the extremely rich elite – only ending the capitalist system its self will stop this. We will not get these basic rights under capitalism.
We have to be straight and honest with the people we hope to win over, as in the worlds of the Russian poet, Yevtushenko
“Tell them the difficulties can’t be counted,
And let them see not only what will be
But see with clarity these present times”
We can win elections, so long as we make sure thousands of people understand that we are about getting these basic rights.
We also need to work with those who are organising now to defend what we have like the NHS and to win back what is being taken from us under Austerity. We have to recruit thousands to join the resistance to the Government’s policies.
We need to work with the unions. A huge recruitment drive is needed into the unions and we can play our part in unions to make them more democratic and responsive to the issues people face at work and in the communities
Britain exists in a world economy and the interests of working people are with the ordinary people of other countries who face similar problems to those we face.
And, as Dave says, we need to stand in elections to publically make our case, and to do so for both the long haul and for the sudden bursts of success we may well experience.
I support the Left Platform and Dave the Socialist Platform. Yet I think we agree on most of the above.
Whilst we cannot ignore elections we need to understand that we are not going to get socialism legislated into being by winning a majority in parliament.
The state is the political expression of the capitalist economy. That’s why they bailed out the banks & are making us pay for it.
Elections are only of use in raising class-consciousness. We need to be doing other things as well such as protests (in Manchester outside the Tory conference, 5th November day of disobedience) & supporting strike action.
I agree with Dave and really pleased by this discussion, as it shows as said strength comes from debate and unity. I am hoping that whatever platform is chosen we all back it and push forward.
I agree with an awful lot that is in the comments above.
Felicity wrote: “And, as Dave says, we need to stand in elections to publicly make our case, and to do so for both the long haul and for the sudden bursts of success we may well experience.I support the Left Platform and Dave the Socialist Platform. Yet I think we agree on most of the above.”(see details in comment above) Indeed, yes we do agree.
Incidentally, I did wonder after writing the article above whether it might come across as being too pessimistic about elections. I think we could see bursts of success in localities in local elections. The thing is as I see it whilst I advocate standing in as many elections as possible I don’t want to see Left Unity narrowly focused on elections and doing little otherwise – it should be a small part of what we do.
This brings me to David’s comments about community work. I think we should indeed being doing such work. In that work we should be rebuilding the concept of collective action and solidarity. We stand with those facing the bedroom tax, those who can’t afford the Council Tax, those facing eviction, those fighting oppression, those on strike. Ideally I would like to see Left Unity branches able to give basic legal advice and offer solidarity to those at the sharp end of the government policies. I think this day-to-day work is also the kind of work that will also make us electorally successful rather than just propaganda in the run up to elections. I doubt this is contentious but making it reality is far from easy.
I think there are useful ideas on this in Mark Boothroyd’s article “Solidarity not Charity: The case for Mutual Aid”, see: http://leftunity.org/solidarity-not-charity-the-case-for-mutual-aid/
Dave, whilst I agree with you about a commitment to a long-term strategy you say in the article that ‘The best thing we have to offer is a coherent alternative to capitalism – that is socialism.’ I’m not sure it is ‘coherent’ – most socialists don’t agree on what it means (much less how to get there) and the public has massive misconceptions about what it means. When you say socialism should they imagine the socialism of Blair, Bevan, Castro, Lenin or something else?
I think the way to get support is to put forward a small number of realistic policies that would change our society for the better. e.g. take the railways into public ownership under the control of workers and passengers. Without framing it in such a concrete way all these statements of principle sound rather idealistic and abstract.