What sort of party do we need?

45 comments

45 responses to “What sort of party do we need?”

1. colin piper says:

   August 19, 2013 at 7:44 pm

   Hi Fred,

   Thank you for this contribution to the debate that seeks to discuss the issues in a serious and fraternal way.

   You mention PSOE, PASOK and the British Labour Party and their embracing of neo-liberalism. My question to you is, why have all these organisations (plus the Socialist Parties in Portugal and France, the SDP’s in Germany and Sweden….)abandoned socialism and social democracy?

   I would argue that it is because they realise that the reformist policies of the past are simply untenable, Capitalism simply cannot or will not allow them.

   I don’t think all of these organisations have come to this conclusion because they are stupid and so I say:

   “But given the level of attacks today, it would be indeed a tremendous victory if we could return to at least some of that welfare state. It would be a defeat for austerity and the ruling class, it would give confidence to the working class, and open the road for further victories and create the conditions for a challenge to the capitalist system itself.”

   Yes, of course it would be a tremendous victory but how is it going to be achieved? Even the gains of the past can only be secured with a fundamental break with the profit system. To argue anything else would be, in my view, dishonest and lead eventually to demoralisation not increased confidence.

   Comradely,

   Colin

2. Dave Parks says:

   August 19, 2013 at 7:50 pm

   The socialist Platform statement does indeed call for the socialist transformation of society. This is the kind of terminology that has been used by the reformist Left for decades. If it calls for the armed smashing of the capitalist state – well I must have missed that when I signed it.

   The essence of this argument is whether a new party should be explicitly socialist or not. Should it be a broad socialist party or a broad left liberal party? The rest of this is just a straw man argument.

3. Patrick Black says:

   August 19, 2013 at 8:04 pm

   “It would not however seek to define this in an inclusive and non-dogmatic way which would leave room for different visions of a socialist project which could be the subject of future discussions”.Interesting post but I dont understand this commment

4. John Tummon says:

   August 19, 2013 at 8:17 pm

   I am responding as an individual who has signed up as a supporter of the Socialist Platform but who does not speak for that Platform.

   I think we all agree on the need and opportunity to build something with much more political clout than anything else to the Left of the Labour Party, although I have no illusions that Left Unity could build itself quickly enough to attract or become bigger than the Greens for some time. Our ability to get even that far depends, for starters, on whether Left Unity can emerge after November from its current frenzy of debate and in a form in which everyone feels that key decisions have been made democratically and in a way that unifies us.

   At some stage we need to start showing that we are moving towards some kind of consensus, but this is not the same thing as looking for the lowest common denominators and eliminating debate on issues which lie outside these parameters.

   Fred, managing or breaking with capitalism is not a false dichotomy and, if it were, you would not be taking a clear side in this choice, by arguing that “this party should explicitly not be revolutionary”, i.e. it should clearly rule out being for revolutionary (i.e. fundamental) change. This is not the same as saying revolutionary change should be consigned to the background of what Left Unity talks about, but a much more bullish, exclusivist statement.

   You say the Socialist Platform is abstract, in the sense that it is timeless (because the Left Party Platform Statement locates itself within ‘this current situation’, but the Socialist Platform Statement makes no reference to it) and this is wrong on two counts:

   Firstly, what else is social democracy if not timeless? The view that it is “possible to introduce reforms so as to either obtain a more caring capitalist system or even its gradual transformation into a socialist society” was advocated by social democrats for over a hundred years, despite changing situations. Your own and the LPP’s insistence on trying to restore, wholly or in part, the society built immediately after the second world war is incredibly timeless and this is its major weakness, because it ignores not so much 30 years of neoliberalism as the the complete reconfiguration of the world order in the 1970s that gave rise to neoliberalism. You simply can’t pretend that the reconciling of capitalism with high wages and a welfare state that existed from 1945 to the 1970s is possible the other side of the 24-fold increase in oil prices that happened int eh 1970s.

   Secondly, far from not making any reference to the current situation,it argues precisely from this situation – “The welfare state is being smashed to pieces. Everything that used to be taken for granted is being taken away – free health care, free education, affordable housing and much, much more. Young people face a life in debt, with little prospect of getting a decent place to live or bringing up a family in any sort of comfort. The chances of a meaningful, rewarding job are pretty much non-existent. Those out of work, retired, disabled, sick and living on benefits face a miserable life in poverty. Austerity is stamping its imprint on every aspect of our daily life. Anxiety, depression and even suicide result”.

   Thirdly, you claim the undying allegiance of millions of ordinary people to the ideas of social democracy – ‘common ownership, redistribution, popular administration and control’ as if these millions of people have been impervious to 30 years of wall-to-wall denigration of these same ideas. There is no longer a public debate about these ideas and there has been no-one to vote for who has campaigned for these ideas for most of this 30 years, so how do you think you know that this is the case today? You can’t possibly know this – yours is a timeless faith!

   Yes, “by rebuilding an independent working class political representation we have a chance to give hope to those who want to fight to end austerity that there can also be a political outcome to their struggles” but if by a ‘political outcome’ you mean getting elected, then this is as far off from where we are now as the equally timeless Leninist blueprint of a single seizure of power in central London.

   Despite your helpful reminder that there are organisations like the SWP and SP out there who espouse revolutionary principles, they are as timeless and uncontextualised as your own social democracy, which is why Socialists interested in Left Unity massively outnumber them and would not join them under hardly any circumstances.

   May I remind you that there are Left of Centre organisations out there like Respect and the Greens which seem not to have taken advantage of the huge vacuum tot he Left of New Labour!

   So, please stop throwing stones when you live in a glass house and let’s have a constructive debate about those very real issues which really do divide us and which matter is we want to provide people with hope based on something more than just wishful thinking.

5. Nick Long says:

   August 19, 2013 at 8:49 pm

   A very good article from Fred. What is needed in the hear and now is a party representing an alternative to austerity and a party abel to gaining support from working people. We need a broad inclusive party open to all those willing to support and campaign for the defence of the welfare state and a support an peoples alternative.
   We cannot afford another failed project and we must succeed this time. A good example of what can be achieved is the Dutch Socialist Party. Built on local action and campaigns it has built a membership of 50,000. In my part of London, Lewisham People Before Profit over the last 4+ years have supported every local and national strike. We have embedded ourselves in the successful save our local Hospital campaign, occupied houses that were being sold off by housing associations and the Council and have put forward a platform of anti privatisation, council housing and abolition of a directly elected Mayor.
   In the last by-election in Deptford we gained 23%, gaining more votes that the combined votes of UKIP, Tories and the Lib/Dems combined. We are seen by the Labour Party as the principal opposition and they are looking over their left shoulder
   The narrow confined politics of Nick Wrack’s platform will mean a politics of the margins. A politics where we get a toe curling and demolarising 1%, 2% and 3% if we are lucky. This is the level of support Nick Wrack’s Southwark Socialists have been getting standing under the TUSC umbrella.
   We have dozens of tiny insignificant socialist party’s, let’s not see the emergence of another, which will become a feeding frenzy for the ultra left sects. Let’s base our politics on the Left Platform and for a Left Party capable of gaining creditable support.

6. Chris S says:

   August 19, 2013 at 9:40 pm

   There’s some choice selective quoting taking place by Fred in order to make his argument. He writes that “The Socialist Platform’s background document Resistance and Socialist Change argues that the alternative “is not a return to the welfare state of the 1945 Labour government but an advance to a completely new form of society”. But given the level of attacks today, it would be indeed a tremendous victory if we could return to at least some of that welfare state. It would be a defeat for austerity and the ruling class, it would give confidence to the working class, and open the road for further victories and create the conditions for a challenge to the capitalist system itself. That is the key and immediate political task that faces the left today, and why we need a new broad party of the left.”

   But we argued that the resistance to austerity today must be linked with a different vision of society for tomorrow otherwise any gains are likely to be rolled back. The full section of text that Fred quotes from spells this out clearly.

   We wrote that we “are all against austerity. We have to organise the maximum resistance to it. But resistance is not enough. Creating a new party is not enough. What type of party? A new party must have a political programme to chart a way to an alternative to austerity. That alternative is not a return to the welfare state of the 1945 Labour government but an advance to a completely new form of society.”

   Fred, as a member of the Socialist Resistance, already knows that any reforms are not safe under capitalism. One of the key differences between our new party and the established political parties must be that we are prepared to tell the truth from day one and that means saying that capitalism makes no guarantees on the victories we win. What is so wrong in saying this as the Socialist Platform does?

   Another mistake Fred makes is that we (as he is a communist too) should not win Left Unity to a perspective of overthrowing capitalism but wait for the glorious day to spread the good news. Socialist change is a conscious act of millions, conscious of their position in society, conscious of what capitalism is, conscious of who are the misleaders and crucially conscious of the socialist alternative that can be won. We must have an unflinching commitment to telling the truth, to fighting for what is needed not just what is politically convenient for this or that left group and for exposing and engaging the movement in debate and common action that demonstrates that capitalism has to go. For that we need an organisation, a party, whose purpose is to prove in words and deed the necessity of overthrowing capitalism. This is not the task of small groups like Fred’s or even the relatively larger ones he lists but a unified party that overcomes the sect existence of the left.

   The biggest weakness of Fred’s argument though is that it is simply not grounded in the actual political conditions of Britain. Fred seeks to locate some commonality of Left Unity with the left parties on the continent like SYRIZA in Greece and Bloco de Esquerda in Portugal yet there are different condition and huge problems with the direction of these parties. Stathis Kouvelakis’ report of the recent SYRIZA congress is well worth a read (Link: http://tinyurl.com/moocu5j). Unlike southern Europe Britain has saw worrying low levels of resistance. Since the end of the student movement and the inner city youth revolts we have witnessed sporadic and localised opposition to austerity. Unlike Greece, Portugal and Spain there have been no left-wing break aways from traditional social democracy in Britain. The trade union and Labour Party leadership has strained every muscle to dampen down action or let off steam in A-to-B marches. The constant appeal to seize the ground to the left of the Labour Party rings hollow when there is no mass struggle on the streets. We must start with what is needed a party that can patiently help build resistance to austerity, homophobia, racism etc. but also have deeper long-term goals about transforming society.

   It is worth, once again, noting what Ken Loach said at the first national meeting of Left Unity: “The core idea that I hope that sits of the heart of this party is the fact that we need a planned economy to get out of this mess. Of course, you can’t plan what you don’t control, so it needs to be an economy held in common, a democratically controlled economy. And we call that socialism.” Which is exactly what the Socialist Platform has put forward. That we need a democratically planned economy to satisfy need not an economy organised for the profit of the few.

   • Andrew Crystall says:

     August 21, 2013 at 6:36 pm

     Demanding “correct” views, Socialist views, from the start, is not inclusive. Moreover, breaking the hold of capitalism via planning does not mean that people’s choices need to be restricted in the longer term.

     I support Fred. (He knows this, I’m one of his local group and we’ve discussed it :) )

     • Chris S says:

       August 22, 2013 at 1:13 pm

       Who’s demanding correct views? Nobody. Where is this written by the Socialist Platform? Nowhere.

7. John Penney says:

   August 19, 2013 at 9:56 pm

   A sensible piece by Fred Leplat – starting from that essential place for all serious political projects – stark reality. The task facing Left unity is to build a broad mass membership anti-Austerity movement and political/electoral party. To reach far outside of the existing tiny numbers involved in activist radical socialist politics such a party has to speak to ordinary working people in the everyday relevant language which will engage with their current life experience under the multi-pronged blows being delivered by the capitalist class . Offering a “resistance agenda” that is fundamentally “reformist” in scope in “normal” times of capitalist stability. Today though, in an era of worldwide capitalist crisis, the fight against Austerity , if it builds a sufficiently large mass and effective movement of resistance, could have the potential to eventually shift the political struggle from one seeking , largely defensive, reforms – to one challenging the “right to rule” of the capitalist class as a whole. In other words the “Transitional Demands method ” in action.

   Who is the rather “ultra left” posturing of the “Socialist Platform” aimed at ? Not the mass of ordinary working people we have to attract to our ranks if we are to have any chance of building a radical mass movement of resistance to austerity, that’s for sure. The inappropriately ultraleft language of the Socialist Platform is of course merely aimed at impressing and point scoring against other rival sect members on the tiny “revolutionary Left”, as to which sect “REALLY hates the Romans” the most .

   There is nothing about the Left Platform Statement to suggest that it sees Left Unity as anything other than a party of the broad socialist Left. Dave Parks’ use of the term ” broad left liberal party” is a ludicrous bogus “straw man” juxtaposition to the stance of the “socialist Platform” if ever there was one. NOBODY supporting the Left Platform has ever offered any political proposal or analysis which justifies this complete canard.

   The real key difference between the Left Platform and all three of the other offerings so far is that quite correctly the Left Platform understands that we are nowhere near building even any sort of coherent minimal basic resistance movement to Austerity , and this has to be the entire focus of our efforts for some years yet. The socialist transformation of capitalism will have to wait , not as a “maximum programme” project – permanently put to one side, – but as a long term objective. This socialist objective MAY become a political possibility, if we effectively combat the progress of the capitalist Austerity Offensive by building a principled, unbendingly radical Left Party on very simple mantras like “it’s their crisis – let the rich pay” – and hence raise the “political temperature” and shift the political horizons of the people drawn into mass struggle against the everyday attacks of the Austerity Offensive, in a harder socialist transformational direction – eventually.

   • Ian Donovan says:

     August 19, 2013 at 10:48 pm

     “Who is the rather “ultra left” posturing of the “Socialist Platform” aimed at ? Not the mass of ordinary working people we have to attract to our ranks if we are to have any chance of building a radical mass movement of resistance to austerity, that’s for sure. The inappropriately ultraleft language of the Socialist Platform is of course merely aimed at impressing and point scoring against other rival sect members on the tiny “revolutionary Left”, as to which sect “REALLY hates the Romans” the most .”

     That is a really silly allegation, since most of those in the Socialist Platform are not in any ‘sect’ but are independents from a variety of different backgrounds and views. I’m not aware that there are any ‘rival’ sects to the Socialist Platform, since the Socialist Platform has no ‘sect’ discipline and nor would many of its members accept any such thing. There are a minority of people in the Platform who support the CPGB which is formally based on a version of Leninist organisation, but no-one else that I know of is a member of any so-called ‘sect’.

     Why don’t you name the ‘sect’ you are accusing people of belonging to? Name who its members are. Kindly elaborate, or withdraw this piece of Kinnock-style red-baiting! Or are we going to have an “are you now, or have you ever been?” type of inquisition?

     (I think we would have to get rid of Ken Loach, along with most of the rest of us, if we have that).

8. ged cavander says:

   August 19, 2013 at 10:25 pm

   Could someone clarify for me:

   1. Does the Socialist Platform propose to overthrow capitalism through parliamentary democracy or some other method – and if so what?

   2. This platform is described above as “an organisation, a party, whose purpose is to prove in words and deed the necessity of overthrowing capitalism… a party that can patiently help build resistance to austerity, homophobia, racism etc. but also have deeper long-term goals about transforming society.” I’m just a beginner, but isn’t this exactly what the SWP stand for (and do very well) ?

   ATB, GedC

   • Ian Donovan says:

     August 19, 2013 at 11:29 pm

     “Does the Socialist Platform propose to overthrow capitalism through parliamentary democracy or some other method – and if so what?”

     My view as an individual socialist and a signatory of the Platform is that parliamentary ‘democracy’ is not democratic, but a front for capitalist interests. It needs to be replaced by democratic institutions of the workers in their workplaces – workers councils. But the socialist platform does not have a collective view on that as yet.

     The SWP’s practice is of mindless activism and a manipulative, self-defeating practice that has driven an enormous number of people out of the left over several decades, in my view. So no, I do not think they do things well or are impressive – much the opposite, particularly now.

     • Andrew Crystall says:

       August 21, 2013 at 6:37 pm

       I’d not say they’ve been driven away from the left, Ian.

       However, I’d say they’ve been driven away from Socialism as a label. Which is another reason not to slap it on ourselves as LU.

9. Ian Donovan says:

   August 19, 2013 at 10:32 pm

   The wording on the capitalist state that it uses is the following:

   “Its state and institutions will have to be replaced by ones that act in the interests of the majority.”

   This clearly calls for the abolition of the current state, but does not specify that it will have to be done by force of arms. That is not a revolutionary position, but in its implications it is hardly a reformist position either.

   Because such an abolition would have to involve a military defeat for the state forces by a mass movement of many millions that essentially split the armed forces, otherwise it would not have a snowball’s chance in hell of happening.

   This is the first time in the last two decades of attempts to form a new left-wing party that any significant, organic part of this has raised the question of the need to destroy the existing state even in a halfway-house sort of way. I think this is progress – and worthy of encouragement and engagement for anyone who does consider themselves to be a revolutionary socialist.

   Fred Leplat says:

   “If we were in the context of revolutionary upheavals such as in Europe and Russia after World War 1, or even in 1968, then it would be necessary to engage in a debate about a revolutionary programme.”

   So the only time when we can discuss a revolutionary programme and try to put one together is if there is already a revolution taking place. Otherwise we have to build something else that at absolutely at all costs must not raise any revolutionary ideas or perspectives for fear of … what exactly? Alienating potential recruits by challenging their ideas?

   If Marxists had taken this view in the past, there would never have been any revolutions, any time. The preparation, long in advance, even in conditions of defeat and reaction, of revolutionary programmes and building around them is the indispensable preparation for any future victories. That has always been true.

   This is the attitude of ‘fair-weather friends’ of past and future revolutions, which conveniently are a long way away in time. No-one is suggesting that revolutionary events are suddenly about to break out, but it is also true that a serious struggle for reforms, the kind of struggles that can lay the basis for more serious ones later, require revolutionary methods and understanding to succeed.

   You won’t be able to rebuild the welfare state through electoralism, it will take serious mass struggles and at least an implicit threat of a revolution against private property to force the bosses to concede that. In fact, that is why they conceded the gains we are trying to defend now in the first place! These gains were not won by the Labour Party – that was merely the channel for their delivery!

   If we are truly a broad party of those on the left who want to organise against Labour’s betrayals, then these ideas must be an organic part of what we are about, and must gain influence. If not, we become part of the move to the right that is going on in wider capitalist society.

10. Jim Osborne says:

    August 19, 2013 at 11:42 pm

    Ken Loach took a very important step by launching the LU project earlier this year but his description of what the core idea should be sets it off in the wrong direction….in any case I’m sure he would not wish to be put up on a pedestal as some sort of LU guru.
    The vision of a planned economy is a vision of state capitalism. It is a centralised economy and the concept of “held in common” is only a notional idea in such a construct. There is no chance whatsoever of common ownership of the means of production having any real expression in a centrally planned economy…..as I argued in another post, top down command and control is a fractal pattern of capitalism (it repeats at all levels)….central planning replicates the same pattern…..and it also replicates another feature of capitalism….the alienation of the worker from the means and outputs of production…. it must be so as “common ownership”is exercised via the centralised state.
    Real ownership and control of the means of production requires decentralised economic and political power….community ownership and empowerment, political decentralisation and the principle of subsidiarity. Central planning has no place in this model although visionary leadership does in order to promote co-operation between communities, districts, regions and the whole society and beyond that between nations at the global level.
    Nor do I see LU as a broad mass membership anti-austerity movement….that mission confines LU to oppositional politics, not constuctional politics….its just a reactive political mission. Of course in the struggles to construct a new form of society, which is what we should be aiming to do, we will have to confront the realities of austerity politics and whatever other obstacles the defenders of capitalism create. LU needs a clear vision of the society we want to build and set about building it from the bottom up, within the communities where we have a presence….if we do that we will learn as we go because nobody knows how the new society will emerge….what we learn will form the ideas for detailed policies to take the changes forward. It will be a transition to a new society and may or may not be punctuated by “revolutionary” intervals. The road ahead is unknown….we just have to embark on the journey and when we reach forks in the road choose the correct way ahead….and also be prepared to change course if we find we took a wrong turn.
    Dogmatism is the road to failure.

    • Andrew Crystall says:

      August 21, 2013 at 6:40 pm

      I’d agree.

      In the long term (as necessary as it might be in the short term to do undo some of the damage capitalism has done), central planning has very much the same toxic potential as any concentration of capital. We need to be looking at ways to i.e. enable local credit unions from a very early stage.

      I’m a radical, not a revolutionary, and I feel that policy is far more important than dogma – especially since dogma is the chosen weapon of the right, even when their actual policy does not match it!

11. Dave Parks says:

    August 20, 2013 at 1:04 am

    Some responses to comments above:

    John Penney wrote: “Dave Parks’ use of the term ” broad left liberal party” is a ludicrous bogus “straw man” juxtaposition to the stance of the “socialist Platform” if ever there was one.”

    Perhaps I was teasing a bit to make a point: “Socialist” is to “revolutionary” as “left party” is to “left liberal”. The point remains that the Socialist Platform is NOT a revolutionary platform. John suggests the Socialist Platform aims at “at impressing and point scoring against other rival sect members on the tiny ‘revolutionary Left’ “. I reject this. For myself I have not been a member of any national organisation since the mid-90s. I was active as an Independent in the Socialist Alliance (I founded the IndieSA email list). I am not interested in being a member of a sect or of creating a new one. I want to see a mass party that is explicitly socialist and broad with a large range of views within it – that is something a million miles away from the sects. As Ian Donovan points out apart from some CPGB supporters who have signed up to the Socialist Platform the vast bulk of the rest of us are independents, some Independents in TUSC others just Independents. Unlike Fred I’m not a member of a group that claims to be revolutionary (Fourth International – Socialist Resistance). It is an odd thing that members of revolutionary socialist organisations are the most vocal in arguing that the party should not be too explicitly socialist.

    The Left Party Platform has socialism as a “value” rather than at its core. I think we need to be offering a vision of an alternative to capitalism and that is socialism. As I see it the threat of climate change cannot be resolved without a fundamental break with capitalism. We all know this so we should be explicit and clear about it. We all also know that capitalism is in deep crisis and can offer little but misery to the vast population of this planet and to a substantial proportion of this country. We all know this so we should be explicit and clear about it and argue for an alternative.

    Nick Long wrote: “We cannot afford another failed project and we must succeed this time. A good example of what can be achieved is the Dutch Socialist Party. Built on local action and campaigns it has built a membership of 50,000. In my part of London, Lewisham People Before Profit over the last 4+ years have supported every local and national strike. We have embedded ourselves in the successful save our local Hospital campaign, occupied houses that were being sold off by housing associations and the Council and have put forward a platform of anti privatisation, council housing and abolition of a directly elected Mayor.”

    I think a key aspect to this is long term serious day-to-day work. I think whether we are a “socialist party” or a “left party” is actually secondary. Judging by the name of the Dutch party they are explicitly *socialist* and doing well. Surely we can be an explicitly socialist party (rather than a more vague “Left party”) and still build a mass membership and mass involvement in campaigning work. Of course we should be involved in the kind of campaigns that Nick mentions.

    There seems to me to be a false dichotomy posed in this debate. Either you are for a broad party which is “Left” but not explicitly socialist or otherwise you must only want a narrow revolutionary sect. Surely, we can be both broad and explicitly socialist!

    • tony walker says:

      August 20, 2013 at 7:09 pm

      if you dont think it should be revolutionary socialist should you A)leave at the earliest opportunity B) be prepared to fight for your position supporting the broad left – left platform. it was set up asa a broad left broadly socialist alternative. I think we have to be clear there is not much room for compromise between a revolutionary socialist view point and a merely broad left socialist platform. This kind of division as always existed on the left and i have heard these opposing arguments many times. Do these people who still belong to other organisations propose to leave those and accept whatever the majority view is after the party is formally created. Often there is such a wide gulf of opinion if you base your judgement on what is written here. I fear that it will be difficult to come to any agreement but i dont feel it should be revolutionary party and i think it should specifically say we aim to use democratic and peaceful means to transform society on both of most groups except for the capitalist class where there aims differ from ours.

      It is very difficult to reply to some of these arguments because they are so apart from my own and some other supporters of left unity. i think it should be left / socialist / green / left libertarian / but not advocating violent class struggle. i would almost go as far as to say that the revolutionary tactics of some run counter to our programme and ideas they make it difficult to achieve anything and lead to defeat. We need to take on aboard the widest range of ideas and people in society who are opposed to austerity and monopoly capitalism. We need a groundswell of people at the present time and those people are out there because of the unusual situation at the present time. Apart from that i dont personally dont think we are quite at the revolutionary juncture that some crave. Perhaps this is a bit cautious and sensibilist but i think we can achieve something valuable from a low base which is preferable to producing another narrow party of the far left.

      tony walker

    • Andrew Crystall says:

      August 21, 2013 at 6:42 pm

      I’d argue that no, in Britain you can’t be. The reason that is…is largely, but not entirely, down to the legacy of the SWP.

12. Ed Potts says:

    August 20, 2013 at 7:54 am

    As Ian ably points out, the passage in the article suggesting “If we were in the context of revolutionary upheavals such as in Europe and Russia after World War 1, or even in 1968, then it would be necessary to engage in a debate about a revolutionary programme.” is just completely absurd.

    Think of it this way. If we are to put revolution out of our minds because we are not currently close to one (how Fred can tell this is the case is another interesting question), then morbidly obese people shouldn’t think about getting thin; chronic alcoholics shouldn’t think about getting dry. The point is not revolution for revolution’s sake, or childishly assimilating previous historical experiences into an enthusiasm for insurrection like someone who’s watched a Les Mis DVD one too many times, but rather understanding that like the obese patient and the alcoholic, if we do not begin working to eliminate our problem (capitalism) then it will instead eliminate us. That might come sooner or later, but it’s coming.

    Take fracking as an example. This threat to our environment and most fundamental resources including drinking water is ultimately possible because of private ownership of land, and of the mineral rights below that land. Most notably, the Church of England seems set to transform itself into an energy conglomerate by using its massive landholdings as the source of revenue for keeping its roofs in good repair. Now good on Caroline Lucas for making a stand on this and getting nicked for her trouble, but in the end of course you can oppose this or that development, and protest in this or that place, but will it stop the process going ahead and causing irrevocable damage in the effort to squeeze out the last drops of fossil fuels? Of course not. If we were to become relatively electorally successful (say on the level of Die Linke) and win 15% of the vote, would that enable us to stop this sort of thing? Of course not. So we have to start thinking about building structures which put people in control of their own communities, environment and work on both a narrow and wide scale.

    This is why revolution is necessary – because I have no interest in building towards a high-water mark, without acknowledging its true nature as such, and then spending the 10 years after that point with declining electoral support wondering where it all went wrong. We need to start building lower while aiming higher in the long term.

    • Andy Richards says:

      August 20, 2013 at 11:04 pm

      You wonder how Fred can tell we are not close to a revolution? Really? How hard can it be to tell that we are, indeed, not close to a revolution?! If we were, the SWP and SP would be hundreds and thousands strong and we’d have TUSC MP’s!

      How about we try starting from where we actually are, rather than where we’d like to be. There has not been one serious victory in the battle against austerity. The Labour Party has made another turn to the right. Trade union struggle is at the low ebb that it’s been at since the mid-80’s. Far left parties make virtually no impact electorally, and don’t even exist on the ground in vast swathes of the country. Where struggles are taking place (such as at Balcombe), they more often than not do not orientate towards the left groups or the “traditional” labour movement at all. I can’t possibly imagine why :)

      We need to build a party that can draw in all of the people who are fighting austerity and for the environment, whatever analysis or conclusions they currently draw about capitalism as a system.

      What is the point of defining LU in the narrowest political terms, a TUSC Mark 2 which draws in no new forces, and is simply confined to the miniscule section of the population which defines as revolutionary socialist?

13. Patrick Black says:

    August 20, 2013 at 10:04 am

    Anyone who is advocating ‘Revolution’ in Britain 2013 is living a very very lonely life, needs to GET A LIFE , take up yoga or simply get out more often and meet people or keep going to the therapist or get a new one as they havent even begun to deal with their delusionary ideas.However much you might detest the present capitalist reality with good reason and believe it requires revolutionary change that doesnt make it anymore likely

    You are not dealing with reality.

    Obviously, it depends on what you mean by REVOLUTION but if you mean the overthrow of the present capitalist system, which would require the involvement of millions of people fighting against the power of the state (though presumably you have won over the sympathetic elements within the police, army , air force and navy and seen off any attack by US imperialism) then I suggest that you are seriously out of touch with reality.By suggesting such ideas, however passionately you are simply making a laughing stock of yourself and The Left.

    Fine, if you want to call your self a so called ‘revolutionary’ but at least put the idea of revolution on the backburner and think about political strategy, learn to deal with the here and now as we are not remotely facing any kind of a ‘revolutionary’ situation in Britain, at a time when the British Left is either banging it’s head against a brick wall in the Labour party in the vain hope of reclaiming it for the Left or simply imploding , fragmenting and becoming evermore marginalised with the exception of Left Unity which is growing.

    If Left Unity is a mere clearing house for lost and lonely revolutionaries then I suggest they form their own new revolutionary socialist party if they dont like the present ones in existence and we will see how they get on.

    It’s all very well talking about revolution as part of a theoretical discussion amongst those who want to discuss such things but that is not where most people are at in this country,nor likely to b.

    Russia 1917 is not Britain 2013 and Britain 2013 is not Russia 1917.

    Left unity has to be realistic, it has to be relevant to people’s needs and lives based on a very sober analysis of it’s strengths and weaknesses and the present level of class struggle.

    It has to deal with where people are at as against where some Lefty revolutionaries would like them to be.How do you win anyone to any idea ? How do you win popular support ?
    What works ? What does and isnt and hasnt been working for a very very long time ?

    Learn the lessons of the success and failure of The Scottish Socialist party

14. Patrick Black says:

    August 20, 2013 at 10:28 am

    On the issue of FRACKING, Ed ,if enough people became informed and aware of the appalling dangers of FRACKING and fought against it then it would be stopped.As it is there is a rapidly growing movement against this insane practice, both here in Britain and Europe and in other parts of the World where it is being practised.

    If Left Unity gained 15% electoral support like Die Linke then of course that would be an incredible achievement in itself but it’s a bit of a non discussion and completely hypothetical as we need to deal with where we are at the moment and ensure that it is based on solid foundations and has strong healthy deep roots in order to grow .

    Would it help us to stop FRACKING, well who’s to say ? It depends of the actual politics of the organisation in relation to CLIMATE CHANGE, how clear effective and well organised Left unity were in mobilising large numbers of people in extra parliamentary actions against the FRACKING INDUSTRY including it’s own political representatives. It would depend on where the issue of FRACKING were/IS in the perceptions of the population and the strength or weakness of the vested political/business interests of the fracking frackers

15. Patrick Black says:

    August 20, 2013 at 10:43 am

    The movement against FRACKING is diverse and varied but Left Unity can play it’s part in informing people of the danger of fracking and climate change and chaos,as well as being actively against it and helping to involve as many other people in opposing it while promoting the development of eco socialist ideas, such as creating a MILLION CLIMATE CHANGE JOBS through a socially planned reuseable energy/energy conservation programme and a publically owned subsided, sustainable integrated public transport system

16. Simon Hardy says:

    August 20, 2013 at 11:51 am

    The problem with a lot of this debate – well one of the problems anyway – is that we are spending too much time obsessing about who we are trying to attract and not enough time arguing about what we actually want to be fighting for. We all sound so opportunist, it’s all about what will put off who and how so don’t say this or do say that. That is not a serious way of approaching it.

    We should start from what issues matter to us and what we agree Left Unity should be prioritising and fighting for, i.e. what arguments do we want to be having with the electorate and potential supporters.

17. Baton Rouge says:

    August 20, 2013 at 11:52 am

    Fred Leplat rehashes the arguments used by the New Labour clique in the Labour Party in the early 90s against the left.

    `These are not, however, the only possible alternatives for a new party of the left. In any case there are already a number of explicitly revolutionary socialist or Marxist parties in existence in Britain including the SWP and the SP.’

    These are not revolutionary parties but self-serving sects with no programme for socialist transition just not very good propaganda and opportunist relations with bureaucrats.

    Look, would it make any difference whatsoever to the life of anybody anywhere if either the Socialist Platform statement or the Left Party Platform were passed at conference? Of course not. They are platitudinous wish lists and should both be withdrawn as they are a massive distraction from the real task at hand which is to create a genuine alternative to New Labour. The real debate is over policy and in actual fact it is between the people who advocate the eclectic Policy Commission approach and those who advocate a principled manifesto approach. The policy comissions will present its policies to conference and not having been debated in the branches will be rubber stamped by the membership who will not be invested in them. They will be a contradictory mash up of all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas no doubt but they will not have the inner coherence of a manifesto of policies explicitly for the transition to socialism that reflects objective necessity and which has been discussed at branches, regionally, nationally and on the web and which everybody will have a sense of ownership of and which the leadership will not easily be able to abandon for whatever opportunist reason they can think of.

18. John Tummon says:

    August 20, 2013 at 3:34 pm

    Social Democracy and Revolutionary Socialism have both been marginalised ideologically by 30 years of neoliberalism; arguing for either is going to be more than difficult; it is simply not true that one is realistic and the other is a pipe dream.

    However, the call for focusing on immediate anti-austerity struggles and saying little or nothing about socialism as an alternative and what it would mean, is to pretend that waged and unwaged people can be moved from what we have now – occasional small fight backs which then fade away – to a more comprehensive, campaigning resistance to austerity, simply by the formation and interventions of a radical left national organisation committed to defending the welfare state and leading a resistance to the government. As Tommy Cooper used to say, ‘just like that!’

    Yes, John Penney is right, that LU has to speak to ordinary working people, engage their current life experiences, offering a ‘resistance agenda’, but the view that this, on its own, should be enough to break the present inertia is rooted in the old lefty assumption that the lack of activity and class-consciousness of workers can always be explained by the corruption or conservatism of the political and trade union leadership and that the way forward is to provide an alternative, radical, principled and combative leadership, in order to give people ‘hope’. It assumes that the conditions of existence of workers within capitalism naturally produce a militant attitude unless leaders act to control and prevent this, therefore militancy can be rekindled by bringing ‘hope’.

    This view ignores anything else that might be a factor in making people fight back or in preventing people from fighting back, such as great changes in their material conditions. Specifically, it ignores the fact that British working people have had half a lifetime of being subjected by the media and political class to the wall-to-wall assumption that free market capitalism is self-evidently the only way to run society, that public services are better privatised, that trade unions and strikes are nightmarish dinosaurs from a past we must not re-visit, that soldiers make the best teachers and that there is no problem with mass state surveillance unless you have something to hide.

    Ideas are important – the ruling ideas of today weigh particularly heavily on this society, making millions of people feel that it is wrong to fight back, that they have nothing to gain from fighting back and that doing so would risk them losing their job, their home, or their freedom, causing further misery. The disillusionment with politics is not just with the antics of the political class but with the very idea of political action; most people see globalised capitalism as too big, powerful and untouchable for the politicians or themselves to control. They cannot be cajoled into putting this ideological baggage to one side.

    Even a 9,000-strong national organisation of the radical Left cannot just get people acting differently by being there in communities and workplaces, cajoling and urging. As Chris S says, “the resistance to austerity today must be linked with a different vision of society for tomorrow otherwise any gains are likely to be rolled back”; I would go further – there will be no temporary gains even, without people questioning the ruling ideas of this society. You have to believe that it is right and makes sense to fight back before you can fight back!

    Ian Donovan is right that the mindless activism and recruitment drives of the SWP has driven an enormous number of people out of the left over several decades, so isn’t it ironic that the very people who want to drop or permanelty postpone any talk of socialism are the same ones urging another bout of cajoling and urging people, just like the SWP, maybe not to ‘fight back against the bosses’, but nonetheless practicing an oppositional politics updated this time into ‘their crisis not ours!’?. Those fond of urging ‘realism’ on the rest of us are in need of their own medicine. They need to show that it is realistic to get people moving through cajoling,but they can’t, because it cannot be done!

    As Dave Parks says “Capitalism is in deep crisis and can offer little but misery to the vast population of this planet and to a substantial proportion of this country. We all know this so we should be explicit and clear about it and argue for an alternative”. This does not mean that our engagement with people starts or finishes by outlining the need for or the content of revolutionary transformation; what it means is that, whilst working alongside, listening to and learning from people, we offer them an alternative narrative of their own and their community’s situation and prospects, as well as engaging them in how the country and world got to this situation, why it cannot get out of it and why a different way forward is the only way forward.

    It is not an either / or situation and the sooner we drop this idea that activism over pressing issues and the battle for ideas are separate ways forward, rather than complementary ways of working which should be integrated in our practice, the better.

    • John Penney says:

      August 21, 2013 at 10:49 am

      How many times can those proposing that Left Unity adopt an essentially revolutionery socialist agenda , ie, The Socialist Platform, the Class Struggle Platform, AND the Manifesto Platform (which so far seems to be a “Platform” of two people ! ), deliberately misrepresent the Left Platform as being a “Social Democratic” one ! Now we all know that the term “Social Democratic” on the radical Left today is actually the equivalent of calling a political position ” intrinsically class collaborationist, pro capitalist, delusional, etc ” so loaded with historical baggage is the term . Any political position tarred with this “straw man” label is assumed to be half-way to repeating the class collaborationist crimes of New Labour, PASOK, etc, before it even gets going !

      This dishonest “Straw Man ” caricaturing of a rival political viewpoint is of course the absolutely standard “debate technique” of the Far left – and merely muddies the water and makes sensible discussion impossible.

      So let’s stand back for a moment from the misrepresentional bullshit and ask whether what the Left Platform is proposing IS actually a “Social Democratic” strategy , ie, a proposal that we build party solely with the aim of trying to manage capitalism a bit more equitably ? Now I myself think the Left Platform’s statement is far too vague and wishy washy, and pretty thin when it comes to proposing actual policy based solutions . However in terms of “getting the balance right” in the type of language used, the key problems identified, and the quite clearly stated underlying long term socialist transformational objective proposed for Left Unity, I think the Left Platform’s approach has much more chance of attracting “new blood” into the new party. “New Blood” in the form of newly radicalised working class people looking for a serious pro-working class political movement to build a militant resistance to Austerity, both in the communities, in the workplace, and though the electoral process, than the far too didactic, predictable , formulaic ,stale old Far Left jargon in all the other three Platforms..

      The huge conceptual mistake that John Tummon, and all the other proponents of the ” let’s build yet another hard Left Party” – with the same old jargonised recipe of “overthrowing capitalism and replacing it with socialism” proposals, simply don’t “get” is that, today, the vast majority of people have been so ideologically “captured” by mass consumerist, individualist, bourgeois capitalism that when confronted by the highly imaginative socialist fantasy model of future society (as outlined in two long articles by John Tummon here) , whilst seasoned old Lefties like me find it all very appealing – the overwhelming majority of people are thoroughly REPELLED by all that stuff ! That’s right , John, they aren’t “inspired” and “motivated” by it, they are put right off. The murderously disastrous experience of Stalinist “communism/socialism” and the betrayals of Labour, and 50 years of incessant anti socialist propaganda have produced a generalised “Pavlovian reaction” to all the expressions and standard arguments put forward in all three of the hard left Platforms, amongst most working class people – Labour voters included. Fail to grasp this core reality, and you are doomed to simply spend all your time fruitlessly swapping old political certainties and slogans with other isolated sectarians in pub back rooms, forever.

      Therefore we have to build our new radical party on a more generalised pro working class “anti austerity resistance” bedrock – openly stating our adherence to general socialist principles, but leaving all that “overthrowing capitalism” rhetoric out, for now. You are simply totally wrong , John , in your overall tactical analysis. It is the critical tactical point that we need to first draw masses of ordinary working people into a broad raft of radical resistance activities against Austerity – and then , through this radical, uncompromising STRUGGLE, and of course the political explanations produced by the Party members in the course of these struggles, the real oppressive nature of capitalism will become manifest – and the solidarity of mass struggle will clarify in the minds of the masses of active participants the need for mass action against the capitalist system itself.

      But that stage of achieving mass ideological clarity and “class consciousness” is a long, long, way off, with a lot of basic anti Austerity struggle to undergo before the “ideological penny drops” for the mass of our fellow citizens. First , build the radical anti Austerity mass movement on a pretty basic pro-working class resistance agenda. Without that everything else is pure posturing and cloud nine fantasising. One thing’s for sure, the more the “revolutionary” Leftie component of the Left Unity project “strut their maximalist stuff” in the usual “expose the reformist leadership” manner – aimed only at impressing a few potential new recruits to one or more tiny sect – the less likely it is that Left Unity will be an attractive political “home” for the tens of thousands of ordinary working class people we need to recruit to our ranks to build the fightback against Austerity today – and capitalism as a system in the much more distant future.

      • Ray G says:

        August 21, 2013 at 3:15 pm

        John Penney
        I agree with much of what you write here. The new party needs to phrase its aims in such a way as not to exclude a vast number of lefties, and/or even vaster numbers of people new to the politics of the left. I agree that the kind of Leninist catechism that is the ‘Socialist’ Platform represents a bigger danger to Left Unity than the LPP one that Fred supports because it will simply be another attempt at a collection of people who are already revolutionaries – pure and small. We must be a broader alliance and we must be bigger, able to attract wide layers of working people and others to our ideas. I have spent a fair amount of time in those pub discussions myself and they are not why I joined LU.

        But….but….as you yourself have pointed out, there has to be SOME clear line between us and Labour, otherwise what is the point of us? For me that line is a realisation that LU do not seek to content ourselves with what the rich and powerful (the ruling class if you like)allow us to do. We are not interested in running the existing system while they still control all the money and all the real power, forcing OUR government to attack US in THEIR interests – like every other Labour government. We have to find some form of words to express that we want to challenge these vested interests and end their anti-democratic domination of the economy and the state. This is NOT the same as going back to the Attlee government, great reforms as they were. Nor is it the same as calling for an armed uprising led by the Leninist vanguard.

        It is very sad that just for a couple of over-wooly formulations the LPP can end up forcing away people whose instincts are all for the kind of broad unity and freshness that they want to achieve. And on that note…..

        John Tummon
        Your brand of non-Leninist left politics are right up my street – I salute you, mate for some very perceptive articles, breaking away from the simplistic and artificial division between reform and revolution. So I ask again – what on earth are you doing in the Socialist Platform? You need to part of the more thoughtful, fresh and new insights of the non-Leninist Left.

        Just to be clear – I am glad that there are revolutionaries in LU independents and other-party-people – I don’t want to lose any of you and I want LU to be a united group of all those on the left. Most of these ideas will be resolved later in the course of the difficult fight ahead to make LU a respected alternative voice for working people.

19. Lloyd Edwards says:

    August 20, 2013 at 7:28 pm

    Can we cut the Religious search for Nirvana, and concentrate on “moving Left from where we are” please. In a democracy, the electorate will decide the end point, the politicians decide the DIRECTION. ConDems and Labour are all going Right (at different speeds). We need to move Left (as quickly as feasable). Or shall we talk for another 150 years about where Heaven is?

20. pete b says:

    August 21, 2013 at 3:05 am

    I Fundamentally disagree with the article. FRed does no service to his groups position. THE labour party had a more left wing statement of aims than the left party platform proposes now!
    anti- socialist/revolutionary members aside: socialists in left unity need to decide if they support fudge or basic socialist platforms. socialist platform is not a revolutionary platform but is socialist.
    i think fred actualy argues to sit on the fence and form a barely left platform. his centrism is to balence himself (and socialist resistance) in a block of the right against the left. against even its founders views.
    you have lost your bearings comrades. dont know what simon hardy means, i think the manchested aci comrades have a much better grip.
    voting against your beliefs to enable a more comfortable block is self defeating. its manouver rather than debate.
    still hoping that we can combine debate with joint activity. still hoping we co@bine debate with orienting left unity towards the labour movement. left unity members meetings of the different unions.
    for me anti austerity has to focus on supporting workers to take direct action, strikes and occupations.
    would fred, simon and others agree to this? pete b

21. Phil Pope says:

    August 21, 2013 at 12:30 pm

    Firstly I would like to say it is excellent that so many people are debating these issues – that is a great step in the right direction. Unfortunately I think that much of this discussion is mis-directed because of the way the debate has been framed. The first question to ask is ‘do we need to have a vote on which platform is best?’. For me the answer is an emphatic ‘no’ and there are far more pressing things to do. Yes a new party needs a constitution and yes it needs some agreed direction about what it is going to do. the proposed platforms don’t really fulfil either of these functions – the Socialist Platform is strong on principle but says nothing about what will actually be done, the Left Platform is good on perspective but says nothing about what will be done. I disagree with much of what is in the Class Struggle Platform but it is at least the right type of contribution in that it suggests some concrete things that people can either agree or disagree with.

    Everyone is saying that they want to leave behind the sectarianism of the past but this whole process around the platforms is perfect for the pointless ‘I’m more socialist than you’ type arguments. From what I gather these three documents will be put before a conference and whichever one gets more votes (maybe just 35%) will ‘WIN’ and the other two will ‘LOSE’. This seems like a perfect way to get a large part of the membership to feel alienated from the organisation from the very start. Sure have a vote to see how many members support each platform – but shouldn’t the platforms then be amalgamated taking the best of each and ensuring that everyone feels they have some stake in the activity of the party until the next conference.

    Having a winner-takes-all system to the political direction of the party is a recipe to ensure that pre-existing organisations keep Left Unity at arms length. They all have their own political views which they obviously want to promote but they know that if they manage to win a majority at conference and make their views those of Left Unity that all the other organisations will walk out or disengage. Rather than promoting unity and engagement the logical thing for an organisation to do is to join Left Unity in a rather half-hearted way and then wait for it all to go wrong and try to pick up some of the membership on the way out.

    • Ray G says:

      August 21, 2013 at 2:32 pm

      Thank God for a voice of reason – couldn’t agree more. We need ONE platform, based on sensible discussion and the maximum consensus.

22. Stephen Griffiths says:

    August 21, 2013 at 1:24 pm

    DEAR all my Postman asked me this morning what I thought of the discussion
    on this mornings Radio.MILLIBANDS LEADERSHIP He went on to say that LABOUR is not for him any more.
    My postie late 40?s and I have chatted about his Job if the POST is privatized
    This mornings chat on the doorstep was surprising because HE was keen to know
    what COULD be done to move from stopping them, giving us a going over, and
    getting back with something stronger WHICH DID NOT INCLUDE voting against the Condems. A fight around the defence of services across the Post in support CWS AND MY Postie could be convince many like him to get involved in supporting Left Unity in Longbridge and South West B/ham

23. Jim Osborne says:

    August 21, 2013 at 2:45 pm

    Hi everyone
    John Tummon has asked me to tell you that he is unable to participate further in this debate and others he is contributing to as his access to the LU website has been blocked due to a technical problem. He has asked the LU website administrator to sort the problem out but for the time being he is unable to access the website. JIM OSBORNE

    • John Penney says:

      August 21, 2013 at 7:59 pm

      Exactly the same thing happened to me for a week, Jim. It seems very easy to trip the host server provider, nativespace’s”, Firewall – possibly by logging in and out “too often” (?). Fortunately I contacted LU admin and they got the Firewall block lifted in a few days(they’ll need John’s IP number). I wonder how many other LU supporters are now blocked from accessing the site ?

24. Ray G says:

    August 21, 2013 at 3:38 pm

    Fred – do you think that the LP platform would accept this paragraph somewhere in the text, to help those of us who want to support it but cannot at the moment?

    “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 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 fundamentally challenge the domination of these vested interests which have an undemocratic hold over society.”

25. Steve Wallis says:

    August 21, 2013 at 6:08 pm

    Phil Pope said “From what I gather these three documents will be put before a conference and whichever one gets more votes (maybe just 35%) will ‘WIN’ and the other two will ‘LOSE’. This seems like a perfect way to get a large part of the membership to feel alienated from the organisation from the very start.”

    This is wrong. The only power platforms have is to be able to put forward resolutions (and presumably amendments). Individual branches of Left Unity will have this power too. A platform would need to reach 50% (plus 1) support at the conference for a (possibly amended) resolution to be passed. If platforms weren’t allowed within LU, that wouldn’t have meant there was no factionalism – it would have just been harder to figure out which faction was putting forward a particular proposal.

    I’ve signed up to the Socialist Platform (which I agree isn’t revolutionary because it doesn’t say whether capitalism is to be overthrown by extra-parliamentary means or reformed electorally, but is a good start – I strongly encourage you to read http://leftunity.org/resistance-and-socialist-change-an-article-in-support-of-the-socialist-platform/ if you haven’t already).

    I’ve also put out a Call for a Revolutionary Platform of Left Unity (www.revolutionaryplatformofleftunity.org). The aim is not to win majority support in November – whereas the SP could, the RP couldn’t even if we wanted to, and I’m in favour of a (fairly) broad socialist party but one that’s not as ineffective as Respect (where successes such as Galloway’s and Salma Yaqoob’s election victories were more due to those individuals’ reputation than the party’s policies so that doesn’t negate my argument), the Socialist Alliance and the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition. [The Scottish Socialist Party was much more successful (winning Tommy Sheridan to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and 6 MSPs in 2003 largely due to the advantage of proportional representation) but even if it hadn’t been for the Sheridan defamation trial against the News of the World that split the party, the concentration on electoral politics (on what their MSPs were doing) meant that it wasn’t growing and probably wouldn’t have done very well in 2007.]

    However, the purpose of setting up a Revolutionary Platform is to unite revolutionary socialists from differing organisations (or none like myself) who may otherwise squabble with each other in order to recruit to their own organisation at the expense of LU, to discuss the way forward and perhaps put forward resolutions/amendments if we reach 10 members. That squabbling was a problem for the above mentioned broad parties/coalitions. [TUSC is largely an agreement between the SWP and Socialist Party, only wheeled out at election time, with each party’s members campaigning for the same party’s candidates – this is a major reason why LU is highly likely to be much more successful than TUSC, irrespective of the outcome of the November conference.] Furthermore, those who say that there won’t be a pre-revolutionary situation in the near future could well be wrong!

    Socialists (of revolutionary and reformist varieties) were unprepared for the 2007-8 credit crunch, and capitalist governments got away with bailing out the banks, without any serious opposition from working and lower middle class people. The questions arise: Is some sort of similar financial crisis likely to happen again and how can we best prepare for it, so that we can launch a revolution in this country (hopefully spreading around the world very quickly)?

    Hence I included the following point at the end of the Call for a Revolutionary Platform of LU:

    8. A second credit crunch, which this time would mean that capitalist governments would be literally unable to bail out the banks even if they wanted to, could happen at any time, and we need to be more prepared than at the time of the first credit crunch and use such an opportunity to seize power via an international socialist revolution.

    If you read “The biggest financial bubble in British history is about to burst” – quoting some analysis and advice for financial investors – at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/revolutionary-platform-of-left-unity-public-discussion/x4hnEPexTw0 – you will see that our class enemy (the ruling class, big business) is trying to prepare itself for such an eventuality.

    I have also written 3 messages, as part of a debate, on “Barclays’ problems & possibility of a second credit crunch” at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/revolutionary-platform-of-left-unity-public-discussion/ebJyu5Jw9OI (I’ve also put this and the previous item on the LU forum’s Economy Commission board).

    • John Tummon says:

      August 25, 2013 at 12:44 pm

      I think the conference needs a process whereby the platfrom with most votes has then to incorporate amedments from the others, with each platform saying in advance how it would want to amend each of the others – not so as to undermine them, but to balance them.

      To me, we need to emerge from November with a broad consensus and a firm commitment to working together on the basis of what we can agree and that is why I put forward this.

26. Adam Read says:

    August 21, 2013 at 8:34 pm

    I feel that socialism has to undergo some kind of reinvention to appeal to a whole new generation. Musician Colin Turner is already making some headway in this direction and has prepared a website making a powerful and very refreshing argument for social change. To me it looks like socialism, but it is presented from a whole new perspective based on simple common sense. Please spare a few moments of your time to view the 6 minute presentation video and visit the website, particularly the FAQs. I feel left unity could present its case for socialism in a similar way.

27. Jim Osborne says:

    August 23, 2013 at 12:47 am

    Thanks JP….I have cut and pasted your post into an e-mail to John Tummon in the hope that it will help him sort the problem out.

28. Gary says:

    August 26, 2013 at 1:28 pm

    I find this idea that becuase we are not in a revolutionary situation we shouldnt talk about it, or even have the cheek to admit that it is what we are about, whats that bit in the communist manifesto – the communists disdain to hide their views?

    That socialism needs to be re-invented is also a peculiarity i’ve been reading, how exactly do you re-invent the wheel comrades?

29. tony walker says:

    August 26, 2013 at 4:09 pm

    i urge all people who support the left party programme to sign it. i find some of the posts on here depressing because of their thin grip on reality. i thought we were joining a broad left party to actually help the victims of austerity and reverse neo liberalism but it turns out sizeable number of people think differently -we in fact joing yet another branch of the fourth international. Once you say you intend to a have a revolution to replace capitalism it means that is your number one goal which you wont reach with that approach while not actually constructive just arguing amongst yourself about this bit or that bit of ideological candy. Tony Walker

30. Roy Wall says:

    September 15, 2013 at 3:13 pm

    Nick Long, above, gets it right with his second sentence:

    “What is needed in the hear and now is a party representing an alternative to austerity and a party able to gain support from working people.”

    It would be a party that is left of the Labour Party, but it should not be a LEFT party, it should be a BROAD workers party, as per Nick’s sentence.

    But there are those who want to attach all sorts of left niceties. They miss the point, and are simply indulging in left sectarianism by insisting on their particular shibboleths.

    I am personally a socialist, but I would like to be in a MINORITY within a new, broad workers’ party. Unfortunately, too many commnetators here insist on trying to foist their own particular “platform” on to others.

    There really is no need for these detailed “platforms”. Members of the new, broad workers party can declare that they are also members of other working-class parties. Doubtless these members will distribute their particular propaganda within the new, broad workers party, but we really don’t need a debate between detailed platform positions here, we need agreement simply on the basis of Nick’s above sentence.

    • Guy H says:

      September 15, 2013 at 7:54 pm

      Come to the founding conference and make sure this is what the party looks like Roy