What should the future role of Left Unity’s elected public representatives be?
It may be thought that it is rather premature to discuss the role of possible future Left Unity Party Councillors, MPs, MEPs, etc, when we don’t even have a proper Party yet, says John Penney from Crewe Left Unity. However, differing opinions which have already emerged in discussions on the LU Policy Commissions site, suggest to me that there are pretty deep fundamental political issues lurking behind the very different views which have already emerged, which we will have to sort out long before we actually win some local Council or Parliamentary elected positions.
I actually contend that it is how our future elected representatives behave in public office that will prove to be much more significant in determining the historical impact of LU as a party with radically transformative objectives than the current largely “straw men” arguments raging between the “Platforms” over the supposedly distinct “revolutionary” versus “reformist” political road maps being offered by the various competing factions!
Many of the contributors to the various Policy Commission discussions which have raised the issue of our expectations of our future LU elected representatives on public bodies, seem to me to view our future LU MPs’ or local councillors’ “tasks” to be directly akin to that of the usual (bourgeois) parliamentary or council representative, ie, to have by virtue of a LU “ticketed” elected position, a long and prosperous personal political career, on a full Parliamentary salary and expenses. The only material difference between LU and “the others” being that our “political product offer” to the “customer/voters” is a radical Left “flavoured” one.
I have very bad news for those with this view. The world (and UK) socioeconomic crisis will allow for no significant purely reformist route forward. Any LU Parliamentarians or local councillors eventually in a position to have an impact on policy and programme delivery will quickly find themselves : either at loggerheads with the capitalist state, OR, they will end up collaborating and selling out to the demands of “the Market” equally quickly – and PASOK (or Lib Dems) –like, end up utterly discredited . Our future political battles will have to be integrated, Parliamentary/local government struggles linked intimately with mass mobilisations on the streets and in the factories. That will be so if we want to achieve even moderately radical “victories” against the austerity offensive. Because some limited “victories” will undoubtedly be possible – the capitalist class do retreat and concede when pressed – up to a critical point of course – when the “iron hand” is exposed. My advice to anyone daydreaming about a well-remunerated, but essentially painless, risk-free, career as a LU elected representative, is, “don’t bother” – we’ll need radical, mainly working class fighters to serve as our political representatives, not career politicians: or Left Unity will shoot to short term prominence for its radical rhetoric – and quickly splutter to earth again, exposed as a posturing “paper tiger” – like the Lib Dems and the Greens.
Over the last 30 years in particular, and accelerating over the last ten years to an extraordinary degree, the individual membership base of the Tories and Labour has simply collapsed. In the 1950s the Tories had about 3 million individual members, the Labour Party about 2 million. Today the individual membership of each is probably no more than 150,000 or so. The Lib Dem individual membership too has collapsed since its blatant betrayal of its previous “radical” posturing on entering the Coalition.
This collapse in local branch-based individual membership has merely brought into sharp relief the long true reality that the major parties are merely platforms for pretty identical rival groups of professional career “politicians” – separated by very little in terms of overall political ideology, or cultural, class, or educational, background. This political “class” of which the entitled from birth “Labour princelings” of Ed and David Miliband are an absolutely emblematic example, have no roots in the class or cultural/educational background of either the majority of their own individual party supporters (as true of the Labour grandees as of the Tory Eton toffs), and are collectively part of a professional bourgeois capitalist “Transatlantic political cadre” which draw more of their political ideology from US think tanks, US recruited electoral advisors, and US political culture, than from any British political tradition. Even the political language that the political elite use is often alien to British discourse – with the Labourites often being caught out referring to “the squeezed middle” and of the political opinions “within the beltway” for instance – a phrase taken from their US political advisors, and US political ideological frameworks – and being utterly meaningless to 99.9% of the rest of us.
In the UK today then, “Parliamentary politics” is run and controlled by and for a highly individually corrupt, often hereditary, certainly culturally and educationally elite, professional political caste. This political elite is pretty much insulated from the criticisms and wishes of their individual party members, with party conferences nowadays merely showcase “rallies” to show off the party leadership to the mass media in a good light. The political elite only has to keep the “agenda shaping” mass capitalist media on their side, and the cash providing big business interests.
At local council level, councillors nowadays have so little control over their budgets, and are so surrounded by policy edicts from their central government paymasters, that they are a sad shadow of the powerful independent arbiters and controllers of local government policy of years long gone by. Those of us who have worked for years in local government all over the UK will be only too aware that the lack of (legal/legitimate) reward for the onerous task of being a good local councillor, and the careful creation of tightly centralised “cabinet systems” in most councils has reduced most councillors to mere occasional “voting fodder” at the odd full Council meeting – and the provider of a cynical “consultation smokescreen” vis a vis local constituents. Most councillors merely spend their time fruitlessly fending off complaints from their voters about dogshit on the pavements, and the misbehaviour of local youth – with no power to do anything to better their local constituents’ lot. No wonder that local government at councillor level is absolutely riddled with expenses fiddles and procurement and planning permission-based corruption, with petty tyrant busybody councillors throwing their weight around on trivial issues, with family-based nepotism – like a modern day Nero – basically fiddling whilst the provision of local services burns.
If Left Unity as a future party is to “break the mould” of local and parliamentary politics, we have to be a completely different political “animal” in terms of the expected role and behaviour of individuals elected on a “LU ticket”. This is not just because we “should” behave differently because of some abstract political morality. It’s actually vital that we do so, if we are to carve out a distinct political niche in the corrupt and discredited landscape of current UK politics. The Lib Dems are going to be “political toast” come the 2015 General election, and are already “reaping what their political opportunism has sown” at local council level – precisely because their promises of principled behaviour and (admittedly limited bourgeois) “radicalism” has been fully exposed to an increasingly cynical and disengaged electorate. Similarly the Greens will reap a bitter harvest from the stark contrast between their espoused “radical political offer”, and their actual strikebreaking, scabbing and craven collaboration with the austerity offensive in places like Brighton and Bristol.
So what is required of LU as a Party, and the individuals who stand on the “LU ticket “ in elections, and are then elected to various offices, to “break the mould” of individual sell out, corruption, collaboration, careerism, cowardice, which currently dominates the UK political scene at all levels? I suggest the following guiding principles and related guiding policies:
1. We need to break decisively from the convenient fiction in UK politics that the individual councillor, MP or MEP, is being elected “as an individual” and has therefore once elected a freedom to act as he/she sees fit “according to conscience” and supposedly “ in the interests on ALL the voters in his/her constituency. And of course in the “National Interest” too, above all other considerations. (What a scoundrel’s charter THAT heavily ideological status-quo-supporting principle is!)
LU political representatives should be selected by the party to stand for public election on the strict understanding that the support they get from the party is entirely predicated on the principle that, if elected, they are being sent to serve as MPs, councillors, etc, to carry out democratically agreed Party Policy, as presented in the manifestos presented to the voters at election time, nothing less, nothing more. The elected representatives serve the Party, and through carrying out party policy, also the mainly working class voters who have elected LU representatives to implement our uncompromising radical “No Cuts”, “fight Austerity”, “aim to transform society to the benefit of the majority of working people”, Manifesto promises.
2. As a party seriously intending to confront the austerity offensive specifically, and all the vested interests and inequalities inherent in a capitalist society, we have to view the Parliamentary and local government “arenas of action” as intrinsically only a subset of the broader struggles involving direct action by the local communities and trades unions. We therefore will have to impose a blanket foundation principal on all our elected representatives that they never agree to, or implement, or abstain from opposing, any cuts in services which impact on ordinary working people. Yes, our representatives can agree to cuts the council chief executives and their cronies’ no doubt bloated pay packages by 50% – but ordinary council workers wages, pensions, or conditions or jobs, or local services ? No.
This will mean, in the current era of central government imposed budget cuts that any LU dominated council would quickly enter into direct confrontation with central government – only resolvable in a positive direction by massive support by mass action by people on the streets and in the workplaces. Of course we will lose many confrontations – and therefore our LU councillors would have to accept the possibility of being turfed out of office by central government-imposed management teams. In other words, if we are to fulfil our radical promises we shouldn’t be promising LU electoral candidates the prospect of a comfortable career in local government! If their time in “office” does turn out to be incident free and comfortable – that can only mean we have failed as a party to honour our election promises!
3. Similarly, because we are trying to build a mould-breaking party in an era of fundamental political/economic crisis we should not even attempt to pretend to LU parliamentary candidates that if elected they can expect to embark on a long career of well remunerated Parliamentary service. We don’t want people representing us in the capitalist state’s largely “fig leaf” Parliament (a concealing fig leaf for the real, big capitalist ,power brokers in our society – who have currently directly bought ALL the leading politicians of all the major parties, body and soul) who are going to get sucked into the cosy chumminess of the “most exclusive gentlemen’s (and it is mainly blokes) club in Britain”, as even many a pre-war Labour Left “firebrand” did so easily in the past .
I have noticed already, in the LU policy discussions on our attitude to a 5 year limited tenure and the limiting of LU MPs’ salaries, how one can almost see the personal interest “mental cogwheels” spinning in some responses to the idea of our LU MPs’ wages being limited to the UK Median Wage. Quite frankly if someone won’t carry out the party’s mandate for the median national wage (plus expenses) then they aren’t committed enough to fight the battles we need them to. To the suggestion that without a large salary MPs will be tempted by corruption, I say, the person tempted by corruption will be tempted whether he/she is on £70k or £28K – because they are unprincipled scum! We need to carefully select dedicated pro-working class fighters to be our candidates to whom corruption and betraying the radical mandate of the Party and people is personal anathema. Such people exist – they are the bedrock of the rank and file of volunteer trades union shop stewards, and community campaigners, and committed socialists the length and breadth of the UK. We need to send them, not a new career elite to be our representatives – and replace them regularly with “new blood” to keep the campaigning anger hot.
Regardless of whether this promising – but early days – current Left Unity project takes off as we hope it will to become a mass party – the current era, worldwide, is one of ever-rising struggle, as the capitalist class try and make us pay for their systemic crisis, and we try to resist. In this new era of revolutions and wars and dictatorships, the mass of working people forced into struggle against the very basic, humdrum, but critically important, attacks on their living standards – will be constantly looking for a political expression for their anger, and resistance. For Left Unity to fulfil the UK component of that world-wide resistance task will require that we rip up the current (bourgeois) rule book and pattern book for what is expected from elected political representatives, and substitute a new model of radical, fighting, class-conscious, “combat tribune of the working classes” for the corrupt professional career politicians who have so signally failed us all up to now.
18 comments
18 responses to “What should the future role of Left Unity’s elected public representatives be?”
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There are reports that 8000 or more people expressed an interest in Left Unity.
The debates on this website are between very tiny number of people. Where are the other 7900 or so? It would be disastrous for Left Unity if the overall view expressed in this article is accepted as being at the heart of a new left wing party. There is very little chance that electors in the UK could be persuaded to vote for anything remotely like this and not even the faintest possibility of change by direct action or other means in the forseeable future. Certainly not in the next 20 or 30 years.
Then we should aim for the fundamental change over the next 30 years, right?
Agreed. It can be done but not with the approach advocated here. Class struggle views of the world have little or nothing to offer Left Unity. The predictions of the end of capitalism have not proved to be correct or even likely. Left Unity seems to be on course to follow an electoral route. This needs work to establish a base in the UK. A broad base is essential and class struggle rhetoric will not achieve this base.
It is not clear to me what aspect of the ‘overall view’ David you think would be disastrous for LU if the party accepted something like these principles for governing our own political practice and engagement with established political institutions as well as voters. This is what I have called Engagement principles in a recent post. It seems to me that ordinary people would rather welcome a different type of elected representative who is not a career politician – given the widespread contempt for the political elites amongst voters, a set of principles along the lines suggested here, would it seems to me, be popular – we’d be pushing at an open door on this one I would have thought! Ok, the language expressing the ideas is feisty, it made me smile with pleasure to be honest, but however they might be expressed in more official forums.documents, etc – the principles seem sound to me – we absolutely need to think about how we do not repeat a tired history of disappointment with elected representatives – for no other reason than that history is actually eroding interest and faith in democracy generally, of whatever kind one wants to imagine (they are all the same, which is true, they are all the same, so far…we’ve got to be different)
Some very good point made by John here. Our representatives have to be completely different and must be seen to be completely different. There to represent our class not themselves. There to assist our class not to line their own pockets. They must be completely accountable.
A long time ago, when I was in the Labour Party Young Socialists, I visited the home of a new recruit. His father sat in on our discussion and when the question of the Labour Party came up, he volunteered the observation that, “Labour MPs are like bananas. They start off green and end up yellow and bent.” (There have been a few honourable exceptions.)
A very good article by John. We need to build a rank and file militant working class socialist party that can organise fight backs against the capitalist class inside the trade unions and local communities.
Kevin O’Connor
Islington Left Unity.
A rank and file network already exists its organised by the socialist party and there is TUSC shouldnt we be trying to do something different and break new ground. i am not objecting to this i am just saying officially trade union members are 6 OR 7 Million and the workforce is 30Million. Tony Walker
Great post John.
It is essential that LU does not fall into the trap of the Labour tradition of ‘playing the game, to change the system from within’ but then in every case, capitulating and takking the side of big-business against the interests of ordinary people.
That is why I have suggested an amendment to the LPP along these lines (exact wording negotiable, of course). I would value your opinion.
“Labour governments have always tried to operate within the present unfair and anti-democratic economic system and to try to gradually reform it. This has, in practice, limited them to only doing what the rich and powerful want or allow. A Left Unity government, however, would only govern in the interests of the majority of ordinary working people and would rely on their support to fundamentally challenge and bring to an end the domination of these vested interests which have an undemocratic hold over the economy and society.”
Your amendment looks good to me, Ray G. I would be happier with the Left Party Platform Statement if it had rather more specific key policy content to it as well.
Walsall Democratic Labour Party Councillor Pete Smith is a good example of a working-class representative who acts differently.
http://www.independentsocialistnetwork.org/?p=2426
How far from the reality of the world… John Penney writes: “We need to break decisively from the convenient fiction in UK politics that the individual councillor, MP or MEP, is being elected “as an individual” and has therefore once elected a freedom to act as he/she sees fit “according to conscience” and supposedly “ in the interests on ALL the voters in his/her constituency.”
Alas John Penney, precisely the opposite is the case; MPs and party councillors are but clones and puppets obeying the party line and following the whip. And if you bothered to knock on a few doors, you will find that ordinary people ‘hate this’. They want people to represent them, not obscure party platforms.
John Penney article actually does show that there is a need for a change, but a change from his ‘leftee’ version of what the traditional parties actually do.
We need some lateral thinking and new approaches, not the old ‘follow the party line’ mantra. Rather, precisely representatives should be seen and be a alive individuals, with freedom to act. BUT… the party can have a very strong and clear rule of the ‘right of recall’ over it’s representatives. In that way, they are neither political party clones, nor free to go back on the general direction of the new party.
I should add that MPs should also take home an average wage (not their inflated salaries). This would not generally apply to councillors, since most are paid below the average wage and certainly below what most paid trade union reps get (as indeed the trade union reps should).
I’m not clear what overall point you are making , Dave, other than an argument for LU just to be a loose electoral platform for wannabe politicians to use to get elected ,and then do whatever they want ! The logic of your position is that you are simply in favour of candidates who stand as “independents” in local and national elections ? Plenty do so, and of course are free to promise whatever policies they wish to their target electorate. Strangely enough though most voters actually vote for candidates from a political party with a defined common party manifesto .
If we build a principled political party with a democratically agreed common party manifesto and political strategy , our candidates would win their elections (or not) on the basis of this political manifesto “offer”. It is vital that elected LU politicians stick absolutely to the promises made to their voting supporters in the party manifesto. This is not being a “party clone”, but a principled politician and loyal party member.
If you imagine Lu party supporters are going to work day in, day out, to get a select few members of the party elected in local elections or national elections on an agreed LU Manifesto, and then stand back and let those individuals personally decide what policies he/she wishes to follow or not, then I’m afraid you are deluding yourself about the sort of elected political representatives and party discipline we will need to push through fundamental change in the UK.
There are other local councillors who are also prepared to stick to their principles and oppose cuts.
Independent Socialist councillor George Barratt in Barking and Dagenham was elected as a Labour candidate but then expelled from the Labour Party because he voted against the ruling Labour group’s cuts budget.
http://www.independentsocialistnetwork.org/?p=1573
And the same thing happened to Southampton’s Keith Morrell and Don Thomas when they opposed cuts.
http://www.independentsocialistnetwork.org/?p=1495
Agree with Dave Edwards about reality of local govt. councillors. Certainly the LP has very tight contract councillors have to sign compelling them to undertake lots of community involvement, casework and committee work (I’m not saying they all do it, but the coalition parties don’t).
Also there’s a wide range of allowances paid to councillors across the UK – from £2 grand to 16. Average in Scotland is £16 grand.In London it’s about £10 grand. This is too little for genuine working class candidates especially single parents. Extra responsibilities can increase this, e.g. cabinet members in my London borough get £30 grand but these are selected appointments.
Generally speaking some councillors treat council work as full time job but not everyone. In areas where the allowance is ultra-low, I suspect this is where councillors are more likely to be stitching up deals favourable to their business interests.
I agree with John about councillors / councils standing up to national government but this alone would not dispel the electorate’s overall view that all politicians are careerist and this is a big problem in terms of the future of local government as a democratic institution. Many believe that most local authorities will be forced to merge within the next decade to gain economies of scale to deliver services on a residualised budget. Getting involved in defending local services is one thing, but the public is too alienated to want to defend the principle of local government and local representation per se.
Unfortunately John (Penney) is off on his rhetoric ‘again’. Totally ignores the balancing idea of ‘the right of recall’, which is much stronger that dictatorial controls he has in his mind – note the use of seveal total black and white words in his language, like “abosolute”. Let’s hope LU never develops like this. I am attempting to suggest new ways of working and not reproduce the top-down controlling parties of the 20th century. Rather a more grass-roots organisation. Dictating to local councillors from the ‘central office’, can deny local circumstances and situation.
Also implicit in this 20th century approach is that the party matters first and the people second. We all know where that can lead.
Dave, You are certainly keen to set up the “straw man” caricature of principle-based party discipline and strict adherence to the democratically agreed common Party Manifesto, as somehow equating to “dictatorial control” from “central office”. Nothing could be further from the truth however in a democratically run party. It’s actually an essential attempt to make sure the Party members’ democratic Conference decisions are adhered to, to protect the Party’s reputation , and respect our voting supporters’ wishes , from unprincipled careerists and opportunists always seeking to use a party’s election machine to achieve office, and then take the easy, collaborationist route, rather than the hard, confrontational, route essential for us to achieve our radical objectives.
Your expressed desire for localist “flexibility” for elected LU elected councillors ,in deciding which LU policies they choose to to follow, is quite simply a guaranteed recipe for exactly the sort of opportunist, Austerity-implementing, mess the Greens now find themselves in, in Brighton and Bristol.
I’m really glad you and a few other posters have contributed to this thread – as you have simply made my case , as outlined in my article, for me.
I thought some further explanation about party culture and structure should be elaborated on re the above discussion. Let me take one element that lies behind what I am say. This is the proposal of a development of a party that functions largely by, what can be termed ‘soft controls’, in opposition to the traditional 20th century use of ‘hard controls’. The latter is the imposition of centralisation and a whole raft of rules to control the behaviour of people. In the case of political parties, their own members (defaco, by the leadership) and any elected representatives to vote as the central party dictates. Soft control, by comparison are more intangible and relate to morality, integrity and leaving power at the grass roots. It is the shared values of which is important.
But all systems are subject to corruption, particularly the hard controls – where there is a tendency towards centralisation and where the ‘leadership’, who with hard controls in place, dictates to the party, can also be corrupted (materially or politically). Equally, soft controls can become corrupted within individuals. Hence, for political parties it is important to be able to have a’ right of recall over its delegates and representatives’. But whereas the hard controls push power into the hands of an elite to effect the control, soft controls keep power in the hands of the mass of the party – precisely because it is based on morality, and shared values, rather than trying to control people.
A really excellent article!
“The world (and UK) socioeconomic crisis will allow for no significant purely reformist route forward. Any LU Parliamentarians or local councillors eventually in a position to have an impact on policy and programme delivery will quickly find themselves : either at loggerheads with the capitalist state, OR, they will end up collaborating and selling out to the demands of “the Market” equally quickly – and PASOK (or Lib Dems) –like, end up utterly discredited . Our future political battles will have to be integrated, Parliamentary/local government struggles linked intimately with mass mobilisations on the streets and in the factories.”
This is what people need to get their head around: you either end up as collaborators implementing some form of austerity or you fight the capitalist state.
Is left Unity going to be a working class party or middle-class ‘one-nation’ sentimentalists!