What would a UKIP of the Left look like?
Left Unity supporter Mark Perryman explores the who, what and how of a Left populism
Of course there are plenty who have signed up to Left Unity who wouldn’t want to be in a party bearing any kind of resemblance to UKIP. But what we need to explore is not tacking right to embrace their toxic mix – anti-Europe and anti-immigration with English nationalism; that we can leave to Cameron dragging Miliband along with him in short order. Instead it is the gross failure to project any kind of Left populism at Labour’s outer margins.
The most successful efforts to burst the Westminster Bubble have come first from the Far Right, and now from the Populist Right. We do our opposition to both no favours by failing to recognise that salient fact. And likewise we have to account for the Left’s gross failure to produce anything anywhere near as substantial to squeeze the centre from the other side, our side .
The Socialist Alliance, Respect, the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, all failed, some different reasons, but failure all the same. The success of the Scottish Socialist Party north of the border was something else, but the end result was also implosion and electoral ignominy. Of course the SSP benefited from Proportional Representation, but a similar system exists in London for the GLA elections and for the Euro elections too, again no Left breakthrough. What successes there have been remain almost entirely localised, praiseworthy and important but nowhere near the scale of what UKIP is achieving, and before them to a lesser extent the BNP.
So is Left Unity ready for such a challenge, to become a party of the Populist Left, offering the answers that the mainstream parties won’t offer, but from the Left, not the Right. I would pose three key questions that need answering before Left Unity makes any kind of advance to becoming a party, of whatever sort we want to call it.
Who are we? We know there are 8000+ signatories but what does that response amount to in reality? People sign appeals for all kinds of reasons. What do our signatories mean, by way of experience and skills we are willing to share, time and energy we can give, financial backing we can provide. 4000+ willing to pledge on average £10 a year each is an entirely different proposition to 4000 pledging £1 each or indeed £100 each. We don’t want to monetise commitment but there needs to be some kind of measure of where we are at. In the short-term this will decisively shape what we can become. This is far more urgent than a detailed set of policies and the like. 4000 may be widely optimistic or unduly pessimistic. Any response much below 2000 and we aren’t actually much more than a conglomeration of the socialist, this, that and the others, an uncritical mass unlikely to get very far at all. An e-questionnaire of this sort is an absolute necessity.
What are we? This will be heavily determined by a proper audited answer to the ‘Who’ question. If the result is a lot bigger than anything on the Outside Left in recent years, with a broad range of experience and skills and the will to make use of all of these, a level of activity to sustain a variety of effective campaigns, and the money to back them, well we’ve the basis to be in business. If not, forget it, the outcome will be too painfully disappointing. For the moment though let’s stick with the positive. A Left Populism isn’t just about the issues, it’s the language and the ways the message is put across. This must be key. We need the means to project and promote a new common-sense politics that bursts the Westminster bubble from the Left. There are no campaigns, no party, very few individuals we can point to who do this successfully. The Con-Dems for the past 3 years have been given an incredibly easy ride, Blairist-Brownite Labour before them. A common-sense challenge to the neo-liberal consensus will require entirely new ways to describe our vision of a better world. The old language has failed.
How are We? There is no point reproducing existing single-issue campaigns. The definition of a party should be that not only does it contest elections but offers a joined-up view of society and how to change it. But to establish ourselves around the first objective we need to be certain there is a constituency who will vote for us in sufficient numbers. In electoral politics there’s not much point in coming a good second unless it’s the basis of coming first the next time. The point in achieving single digit % shares of the vote and down the bottom of the polls is next to nothing. The first financial appeal Left Unity should make is to fund the signatories survey, the next as big and professional an opinion poll as possible. Is there a sector of the voting population who could be persuaded to vote for a Left populism, a UKIP of the Left. Invest in the research; if it’s a positive answer it will electrify the 8000+ and give us something to build. If it’s negative then all is not lost, a broad network to develop a common-sense alternative has plenty to recommend it but the electoral front, and a party project should be dropped as inappropriate.
These are unconventional steps towards establishing Left Unity as a party. That’s the point: the conventional has been tried and it hasn’t worked. We have a window of opportunity to try something new. Let’s do that before that window slams shut. Much as we might admit it the Outside Right has successfully rocked the centre in the past few days, it’s about time we did the same.
Mark Perryman’s account of life as a political activist and social entrepreneur ‘The Revolution is Just a T-shirt Away’ is available as a free download from here
49 comments
49 responses to “What would a UKIP of the Left look like?”
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Any new party is going to have a very hard time to become accepted/supported by the great bulk of working class people, ‘fun’ as you call it is important but its only by getting down and dirty with people in difficulties, day in, day out, that will gain respect and ultimately electoral success, the Left will not have the easy media ride UKIP has had.
Reading a lot of these articles there just doesn’t seem to a sense of the utter shite many people are now in: I had basically given up on left wing politics, but like I suspect thousands of L/U members I just cannot stand by while millions now face inequality, poverty and the petty/nott so petty brutalities of ‘welfare reform: in my City there are now 15 food-banks while thousands face being evicted with Bedroom Tax arrears, a guy I know is existing on 3 pounds a day emergency loan for the DWP, and its going to get worse.
However, reading the various ‘sect’ blogs etc, i have major concerns that a number of what might be called the 19th C Left see L/U as a pool for new recruits, one stating “L/U is still up for grabs” I really think ‘ordinary’ people will be turned off by the same old, same old, LU must make a decisive break with this mode of organising which is cynical and dishonest. Perhaps like posted on another blog, “its time to ‘drop the icons” and which revealingly notes ‘Camila Camejo’, the high profile Chilean Activist has decided to use the North Star as a symbol, not communist iconography. We have a long tradition ourselves: the diggers/levellers, chartists, luddites, etc, but maybe we can invent some new ones as well. I do agree though we need populist policies:, nothing more so than taking back into public ownership the railways and taking on th Energy barons, we need some of Harry Perkin’s(fictional left PM) chutzpah and brio.
However, I would suggest that left will remain marginal until it moves away from the basically abstract notion of ‘open borders’ No left party has been successful anywhere in the world on this platform, even Syriza’s policy is becoming more nuanced. We need a immigration policy that works for all and that includes working class people, of all ethnicities, here in the U.k. If that debate handles sensitively is not allowed/shouted down, then L/U has no future.
can we have a edit button?
“The first financial appeal Left Unity should make is to fund the signatories survey, the next as big and professional an opinion poll as possible. Is there a sector of the voting population who could be persuaded to vote for a Left populism, a UKIP of the Left. Invest in the research; if it’s a positive answer it will electrify the 8000+ and give us something to build. If it’s negative then all is not lost, a broad network to develop a common-sense alternative has plenty to recommend it but the electoral front, and a party project should be dropped as inappropriate.”
I agree, this is exactly the approach the IWCA took on an number of estates, using questionnaires, ask people what they want, not lecture them?
I don’t want to monopolise this debate, but I have to take on Jonno’s poisonous suggestion that to be a success Left Unity will have to make concessions to the current hysteria about migrant worker entry rights, drummed up by the popular press, and undoubtedly a major plank of UKIP’s appeal.
This is a huge trap for populist radical parties. Jonno quotes approvingly the experience of the failed IWCA political project (no doubt unknown to most here, but this small non-socialist , indeed avowedly anti-Left, grouping built a small electoral and elected councilor base on a few big white working class housing estates in cities like Oxford in the mid 1990 to 2005 period). As well as engaging in anti-crime and other types of local community activism , they fell into simply “tailing” the prejudices of their mainly poorer white working class target voters – and propagated a very dubious brew of hostility to their special take on “multiculturalism” , campaigning in the council NOT to award grants to ethnic minority projects. They also supported, as Jonno does, immigration controls – all supposedly from the claimed perspective of being “pro-working class”. The IWCA project stalled and collapsed years ago – with no councillors now, and few supporters today. It provides no model for Left Unity, other than the wrong direction, towards concessions to bigotry and racism and media created anti migrant worker public panics, in which we must not go, if we are to build a radical mass party across all ethnic divisions, rooted in the principles of brotherhood and solidarity, which are so central to socialism as a belief and a practice.
The IWCA’s view was that giving grants on a racial basis actually divided the working class into competing for that money on a racial basis. I can’t see how that is tailing the prejudices of ‘their mainly poorer white working class voters’. Many key figures in the IWCA were had played leading roles in Anti Fascist Action.
The IWCA were in fact elected , ousting Labour, on the Blackbird Leys Estate after years of hard work, surveying and acting upon the issues that the local working class raised. If a UKIP of the left is going to be built it is going take years of hard work in local and national campaigns that actually act on what local working class communities want rather than winning them to some sort of programme. That may mean engaging in discussion about issues that the left would rather not and a world away form the present situation where the left is far more comfortable with the left than it is with the working class.
Anyone interested in the IWCA can look at their website and Facebook page and make their own mind up.
Some important points here, Mark. We definitely need to start firming up on the real meaning of the 8,000 or so people who indicated with a computer mouse click that they agreed or were interested in the need to create a new radical Left party in the UK. People paying regularly to support the work of building Left Unity is certainly the minimal indicator required to assess what “forces” in people terms we have at this stage to build on – even if many of these people wont want to be “activists” in the traditional 24/7 frenetic commitment model so common (before personal burnout)in the Far Left grouplets.
On the “building a UKIP” of the left concept. I can see what you mean, in terms of their current 3 party monopoly-busting role, but actually I think UKIP, which just has to opportunistically “surf” the preexisting “reactionery wave” of ignorance-based petty nationalism, anti immigrant phobias, bile against welfare recipients, stirred up and reinforced day in, day out, by the mass media, without the need to build a local activist base — is a poor exemplar or model of the deeply rooted , activity-based, counter capitalist ideological hegemony, mass movement, we have to build.
The human base of the UKIP machine , evident clearly todayon TV as they staggered , blinking in the unfamiliar daylight from their normal lairs of the saloon bars of the local golf club, to be informed that some of them where now elected local councillors , are to a white 60 to 70 year old middle class , man, a dead ringer for that old dodgy, crooked, used car dealer – Arthur Daly. “Human Rubbish” is not too unkind a description of these current media star wielders of the proud banner of “radical political change” ! No doubt in the months and years ahead, as with UKIP’s MEPs and the BNP’s councillors, we can look forward to many of them parading through the law courts on numerous serious corruption and other charges !
We need in contrast to build a serious,principled, honest, deeply rooted, radical socialist party, riding and building a wave of real popular radical resistance to austerity and capitalism. Not really much akin to a “UKIP of the Left” at all really let’s be honest .
If people want to look at the experience of the IWCA, they might like to look at the organisation’s own account of its work alongside John Penney’s take.
http://www.iwca.info/ – the current web site of the IWCA includes an archive going back to 2006 and an explanation of where the Association came from.
http://www.iwca-oxford.org.uk/blackbirdleys/index.htm
http://www.iwca-oxford.org.uk/blackbirdleys/news.htm
http://www.iwca-oxford.org.uk/blackbirdleys/archive.htm – these pages contain much more detail on the day to day life of the IWCA in Oxford Blackbird Leys
In politics its about ceasing the moment in the long term or short term .The latter in my view being the case with UKIP.Farrage & his like ceased upon the fact that here was a political moment to strike ,tories in government trying to look both ways at the sametime on europe & imigration . UKIP picked up on their political weakness ,stayed on message with it to the right wing tory activist /voter & it hit the political target & the political fruits of doing so are evident for all to see .
The key factor in the longterm is when UKIP ,has to go bigger picture (more than two issues) the weakness being that is where the political void is in terms of policy etc ,time will tell if its political life span is short or long.
The radical left can learn some lessons from UKIPS surge ,those being identify the political soft spots ,vulnerable areas around your opponents (labour mostly) hit home on key areas stay on message despite the muck & bullets coming your way & lets not forget LU would have a far broader set of core issues to target (than just two) & its getting the timing correct to reasonate with those who will get behind what you say as many are disenfranchised from politics as the two party machines contrive to spin & counter spin against each other ,they dont see the political rug being removed from under there feet.
UKIP realised a very key important point as well hit at local level & build from there .
LU can & should take much comfort from UKIPS surge & apply your radical politics accordingly & ensure your timing is correct & cease OUR moment !
Peter……………..
On the question of populism, I have to ask what is meant in real terms. If this would mean claiming to have the people on our side then we have to establish that first. What people are we claiming/constituting? If we mean that we ally ourselves around populist sentiment then we’d need to be very careful there too. There is a distinction between being popular and being populist that might most easily be expressed as supporting issues that people actually care about without being carried along by the throes of public passion. This latter move is the one that others in this thread have identified as the opportunistic exploitation and intensification of populist sentiments around immigration. Populism often has the ability to become uncritical and unthinking; if the left fell into that kind of populism then its already lost.
On the point of payment: understandable but weird considering that we live in times of unemployment and austerity. Who will be able to pay for membership, who will support the party through their pocket? The people it would claim to represent might not be able to or want to shell out for a party that claims to represent them, to be “their” party.
Finally, on this repeated call for a census. I’m a little unclear as to what that would tell us. Would it be mandatory? That would feel a bit like a needless identification/interrogation process to a lot of people- myself included. Also, why is money needed for this or for polling? Most of this could be done via this or some other website at no additional cost, couldn’t it? I’m also a little confused about the need for an opinion poll, given that they are only valid at the time people carry them out. If we’re going to ask people for their money, I think it could be better spent.
Here we go, the old if you suggest some sort of coherent migration policy you are a racist, I thought you were moving away from the old tropes, but clearly not. I’m not a member of the IWCA, but I can clearly see some merit in how they approached politics in W/C areas, if not all their policies. This isn’t the place to get into their criticisms of ‘official multi-culturalism’ but the tired old accusations listed above get us nowhere. Furthermore, you clearly haven’t been speaking to people in your community, including second generation families, if you think they are racist due to their concerns about what has happened to their areas.
and yes, on the website, some people are dominating the discussion.
You,Jonno, and that always avid promoter and blog poster of the air-brushed “history” of the failed IWCA project, the 39th Step, are simply deluding yourselves that, at this particular historical time and place, when the capitalist media (across Europe) are pouring out “divide and rule” anti migrant worker propaganda to distract the working classes of Europe from the true source of their impoverishment, (their own capitalist classes), that jumping on the “limit immigration” policy bandwagon, can serve any interest other than the ruling class’s.
Unfortunately , the role of day in, day out, mass media capitalist propaganda , is to distort huge numbers of peoples understanding of the true nature of their oppression. Simply “polling opinion” on working class estates “to find what people want” – and then adopting that as party policy – is fine for an opportunist populist party simply wanting to get votes on an unprincipled basis. Given the current overwhelming state of capitalist ideological hegemony it will lead in many areas to a supposed “radical” party simply tailing the current dominant ideology adopting some pretty disgusting/bizarre policies, eg, unconditional support for the monarchy, a blanket refusal to allow the building of mosques or any other minority religious centres in the area, priority for “white” families in getting social housing , blocking of non-“white” or ” non indigenous” workers getting jobs with the local council, bans on Muslims operating taxi businesses, curfew for Black youth, priority for “indigenous” families in getting hospital treatment,and access to local schools, etc, etc etc. For more examples see the fascist Greek Golden Dawn policy wish list !
We, as a principled radical socialist party should have a world view and aims, distinctly at odds with the capitalist status quo, and its racist, elitist, greed-based , petty nationalistic, dominant ideology. We stand for working class solidarity across ethnic, and indeed national, divides, and complete opposition to the constant attempts by the capitalist class to divide us. This does not however mean that we should be prepared to ignore and condemn the right of ethnic and religious minorities in the UK to organise and express themselves as they think is culturally appropriate.
A practising Muslim, a Hindu, or a Jew, or a Catholic, can quite obviously still be a full member of the wider working class, and can still be a fighter against austerity, and even for socialism. Respect for the cultural and religious rights of minorities is part of the socialist message and aim. Crassly “tailing” some current widespread (capitalist press imposed) white working class prejudices against minorities, behind the convenient smokescreen of opposition to a supposed “identity politics” promoting conspiracy to divide the working class, is simply a transparent ” crass workerist” justification for accommodation to racism and/or cultural chauvinism within the white working class. As is jumping on the “control immigration” bandwagon being surfed so successfully today by UKIP.
A future democratic socialist state based on a rational people-oriented planned economy will no doubt have very different labour supply and sourcing priorities than today’s capitalist state, but fighting the austerity offensive today , with worker solidarity domestically and internationally a priority, is the key requirement of today’s struggle. Picking on migrant workers as a key causal factor and campaigning focus in fighting today’s falling living standards is simply divisive, wrong, and leads nowhere – except to an accommodation with reaction.
Left Unity is dead in the water as a real radical socialist movement if its policies have any truck at all with the “lets make policy concessions to the current anti migrant worker hysteria whipped up by the capitalist press”, siren voices represented by misguided people like Jonno and The 39th Step.
I agree with you, John, that we can make no concessions to racism or anti-immigrant feeling. The left cannot be in favour of tougher immigation controls, British (whatever that it) priority for housing, jobs and all the rest of it. The problems that people raise on doorsteps (people of all ethnicities – by the way) regarding immigration are not primarily about hating one groups of people. They are about competition for scarce resources.
The immigration issue has to be tackled head-on. In the Tories’ praise of Globalisation is buried the right of capital to fly anywhere in the world to make more profits out of super-exploited workers, but of course, they do not extend this to the right of workers to move to areas of better wages. Some sections of the ruling class, however, DO support immigration explicitly as a way of driving down wages, safe in the knowledge that the social dislocation caused by sudden, large-scale immigration will not affect their beautiful home, private hospital and children’s private school.
The need is for campaigns for more low-cost housing, a higher minimum wage, to unionise migrant workers, as well as solidarity with workers still in the majority world. We have to be the voice that unites people against the ruling class, black/white, native born/immigrant, Muslim/Christian/Sikh etc, public sector/private sector, working/claimant, men/women. Our central message should be to put the blame on the rich – not other workers, whoever they are and wherever they are from.
The Green Party is too bloody nice and soft – that’s why they’re getting stepped over by right-wing idiots on the BBC, tory press etc.
Maybe we’re too stuck in the past. Marxism and Socialism have become dirty words. People believe they didn’t work, are old hat, and wrong. Perhaps we should promote different, newer, works about oppression and the benefits of education, such as Ikeda and Paulo Freire. Could any ‘psychology’ left unity members put together a layman’s report on how stereotypes, cognitive heuristics and power relations make it so easy for us to ‘other’ human beings. (for instance, see http://www.prisonexp.org.) They should show how are present political parties and the media use these psychological methods to shape us. Educate people in a new way about ‘Oppression’. Show the history of slavery and eugenics truthfully. Promote a school subject, on an equal par with Maths and English, called ‘Oppression and Freedom’. Teach children the facts.
We need to promote the real benefits of being in Europe; it’s only real fault is it’s Neoliberal economic stance. Perhaps we could talk to Christian Democrats about ways to alter this insane 40 year old ‘fad’. Europe promotes human rights, but, more importantly, Europe gives us the financial clout to stand up to other dominant world powers such as the USA and China. I do not want to have anything to do with a ‘Left’ Independence Party’. I know this piece doesn’t advocate that, but the headline seemed to…
Cognative heuristics? This is already becoming elitist. Think about me, I’m a man who feels that his country is being torn apart by right wing thugs. The alterantives are no more credible, the left being represented by proffesional Oxbridge politicians who are just as bad as the other lot. How is this new party going to appeal to me? The reason that we are talking about a UKIP equivelant for the left is because Farage has created a populist position for himself. Keep the languae simple orwe will get nowhere.
Thanks. Just catching up with some of the responses, all most helpful, even where we disagree.
First, we cannot imagine or will this new party into existence. The appeal has given us a wonderful headstart tho’. However many of the local meetings have been small, and made up of reps from the pre-existing and Far Left. Before we do ANYTHING else this signatories audit is absolutely vital. I hope the 11 May meeting wll consider and action this. Until we do this we have no idea what we are talking about. For example a ‘constitution’ for a group of a few hundred is an entirely diffrent proposition to one of several thousand. And measuring commitment isn’t simply about monetising membership (tho’ thats important, an annual dues income of £400,000 is an entirely different proposition to one of £4000), its about skills, experience and time offered too. We need a party culture in which we can all be active whatever our circumstances. Any consideration of what kind of formation we might beome shouldn’t be definitive until we have these two key pieces of research completed, anything else is simply reckless amateurism and the Left is far too wiling to indulge this woeful habit.
Secondly, UKiP have proved definitively that bursting the Westminster Bubble isn’t about having volumes of policy, its one or two issues, a strong political identity, a clear position outside the political class and shoving two fingers up to that class. This is achievable from the outside Left as well as the outside Right but its not easy. Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party was the first obvious effort at this, but steamrollered by the Blair landslide. George Galloway, whatever his strengths and weaknesses, absolutely personifies this but Bradford West led to no kind of generalised challenge. What will it take to Left Unity to fill this slot? Well first fund the proper research to establish the potential size of that vote, if we’re serious rather than just dreamers its an absolute pre-requisite.
Thirdly, language. We must get this absolutely right from the start if we have serious ambitions as a party. ‘Anti-capitalist’ or ‘Eco-socialism’ mean absolutely zero to 99% of the electorate, we would waste our entire time explaining our definition rather than winning votes. We need a progressive and radical common-sense language. About a political class that doesn’t represent us, bankers and corporations who don’t pay taxes like the rest of us, hospitals and schools run in the interests of patients and children’s needs not to make a profit. Drive home three or four messages but with imagination and creativity not the slogans of planet placard.
Fourth, UKiP are going to drag the entire mainstream to the right on two key issues, Europe and immigration. This will be the most difficult task of all. Everything so far has failed to resist the rightward shift on both. We have to admit that, it doesn’t mean capitulation but it does demand an honest rethink. Ducking that is simply political cowardice masquerading as principles.
Mark P
I don’t want a left party to mirror the xenophobia of UKIP, however I have little hope for the EU as a positive thing. Its through the institutions of the EU that Austerity is being forced on countries like Spain, Greece and Cyprus. The main point is we need a left that can avoid the Life of Brian sectarianism of the past, where small points of ideological difference were used as an excuse not to work together. I think there are lessons to be learnt from people experiences in groups as different as the Greens, the IWCA and the Anarchist movement as well as the conventional Marxist left.
In the spirit of populism, here is the type of populist demand/programmatic item that that LU might advocate:
Private rents should only be allowed to rise in line with average annual wage increases, in other words, the level of rent increases should be controlled by a state agency. (From this week’s New Statesman, pg. 6 – ‘Private rents have increased by 37 percent over the past five years and are forecast to rise by a further 35 per cent over the next six years. As a result, as many as five million reply on state aid to remain in their homes. The government spent £23.8bn on subsidising landlords through housing benefit last year…’)
This is NOT a socialist or revolutionary demand, but it does begin to challenge the workings of the market, private property relations and the notion of housing as a mere capitalist commodity…and it would both differentiate LU from the now four main parties and be very popular (or at least I think so) with lots of people on the doorsteps or street corners of the UK. Certainly, a good conversation-starter for LU campaigners.
To be clear: I put forward this suggestion forward not because it is a particular hobby horse of mine. It is simply an example.
Yes, great idea, 1 in 7 families now rent, it would be a very popular move, it’s a no brainer for left unity to come up with something that challenges the landlords and the sky high rents.
Mark Perryman – I found the article you wrote to be absolutely compelling, thought provoking and most importantly easy to understand. Furthermore, you raise some key points in the comment you posted below about language and essentially marketing and PR or the party. I would like to also pick up on this idea to bullet point the following:
* PR and marketing are everything – thus, language and semantics is key. I suggest moving away from using any of the terms of anti-capitalism, bourgeoisie/proletariat relations, Marxism etc. to just focus on policy driven language in exactly the way highlighted by Mark P above. The working class is being eaten alive by the bankers, elites, landlords etc. we just need to talk about working people and what we can do for them because this is a party founded by working class people for working class people. That’s it. Simple.
“We need a progressive and radical common-sense language. About a political class that doesn’t represent us, bankers and corporations who don’t pay taxes like the rest of us, hospitals and schools run in the interests of patients and children’s needs not to make a profit. Drive home three or four messages but with imagination and creativity not the slogans of planet placard.”
I truly think this is vital, or else we will spend the rest of our lives labeled as far left extremists with a plethora of language inaccessible to the masses. This doesn’t mean losing the theory – but rather appropriating it in simple, easy to understand terms – democracy, workers, wages, job creation, exploitation, race, gender = policy related terms. No talk of communism or even socialism. UKIP do not market themselves as right wing populist xenophobes – but that is what they are and who they appeal to.
* we need to move away from anything remotely related to, or reminiscent of the Soviet Union ideals of communism and even ideas that stem from discussions of socialism – rather we need to focus on a party for the workers by the workers. Class struggle needs to be lost as an idea. The concept will come out naturally from the struggle ensued – by the very act of this party becoming the mass party of the working class. A dog doesn’t need to be labelled a dog and you don’t need to teach a dog how to be a dog. The working class, including myself, is sick of being told what I am, how I am , how I should think or how theory understand me to be. We need to stop talking about the working class as an “other”. The reason we are here fighting – is precisely because we ARE working class. David Cameron on the other hand – is very much NOT.
* we need to move away from any hammers, raised fists, soviet style emblems or even discussions over joint class struggle. we need new appropriations of “class struggle” that don’t sound whimsical, unobtainable and sound fearful. people are scared when they here socialism and the destruction of capitalism because they assume we will all live poor lives, in squalor, with no progress, no advancement and no jobs where we share everything, our job is not to educate people about the theory and terms – its just to successfully provide a vision, promote it and implement it – not to be the “theory policy”. Our job is not to reinvent socialism or communism. Again, this will come in time when one day we turn around and realize that the cultural shift has occurred. SYRIZA is successful because it focuses on policy, not because it claims to be trying to reappropriate communism and/or socialism as the flagbearer of socialism ideaology. This is why we MUST drop the Marxist tagline and just focus on leftwing policy that doesn’t overwhelm. Most people don’t know or understand Marx – that’s doesn’t make them stupid, uneducated or out of touch. They are suffering. If our policies connect with that suffering, its enough. Marx wanted the abolition of class, not the creation of a celebrity status around his identity.
* the youth is vital and getting youth involved, including in key positions of leadership is a big deal. I am under 30, and personally think we desperately need a party that has more youth in leadership positions (those under 40), more women, ethnic minorities and those from other marginalized or unrepresented groups (LGBTQ etc.) That does not however mean positive discrimination, which forces “one man and one woman to each meeting” as has been suggested on this website a number of times. I understand this – but as a woman I do not want to be sent to a meeting as a delegate BECAUSE I am a woman. I want to be sent because people think I am right for the job and they want me as a representative. The process must therefore be far more organic. Furthermore – if we really wanted to argue this point, we could simply ask what is a woman? Or a man? We need to come back to just seeing each other as humans, and just rely on involving more women, ethnicities, races, genders and sexualities in the party. Then you will have a natural flow of minority members as reps, delegates, etc. This should fuel all of us to strive to be the best rep/delegate we can be so we get nominated. Isn’t that democracy?
* the party website does NOT needs articles about how awful capitalism is, how we need to remove it, homages to Marx and free Palestine symbols. Leave this to the blogs. This is where the “major” far left parties are going wrong right now. When I enter their websites, I am bombarded with so much text and images and almost hateful sounding rhetoric that I am bemused and downright confused. I just want the policies, what they stand for and the party reps, not an entire enclyopedia of Marxist history. This is all coming from an ardent Marxist may I add so I do not wish to be accused on not understanding Marx, or wishing to uphold any form of “true socialism” whatever that may be. I simply want the creation of a party that can mobilize quickly, and efficiently and more importantly that is befitting for the times. We have to decide – are we here to spread the ideas of Marx, or create a party based on Marx even if it means removing the explanatory theory behind it? It is the later that offers a truly new and unique approach.
I am not a member of any group, I am however interested in the very pressing issue of founding a new party. As Mark P rightfully points out, organizations and funding stem from these vital questions : How? When? Why? Answering these democratically is of vital importance. But maybe if we can agree to declare a party, then we can come together and decide how it should look, feel, behave etc. Let us just cease any more longwinded discussion and actually begin this process as we have wasted enough time already, agreeing to the existence of a party that outlines what most of us are saying on this website – simple, policy driven, easy to understand party by workers for workers that is a million miles away from anything on the left that already exists today.
Wow, that’s is revolutionary!, even if I and others may not agree with it, this is just the sort of open thinking we need, new thinking doesn’t need to end up like Marxism Today did and embrace Blairism, it can open new vistas and big word change paradigm, well done jasmin
btw, I think LU should make Jasmin’s post a main article on the site..
I am rather uneasy with this idea that Left Unity has to be a sort of left-wing version of UKIP, or that the left’s main problem is one of branding. Sure there is a lot that is simply irrelevant or anachronistic in traditional leftism, but I am not sure that the only answer is to embrace the techniques of mainstream capitalist politics.
If we adopt those techniques, sure we might get votes and even at some point parliamentary power. But that is not enough to create a significant change – let alone a break with capitalism – unless there is also a substantial, committed, conscious movement active outside Parliament: in local politics, in trade unions, co-ops, and other grassroots organisations. Such a movement is not going to be created by better PR techniques, but only by real political education. This is why the comparison with a party like UKIP is not very useful: we have to create a very different kind of party altogether, we have to do a very different kind of politics.
What we really need to be thinking about is what form our political education and consciousness-raising should take. Certainly some forms and styles – the knots on street corners selling little papers – are just not getting through to people, or to enough people. But this does not mean that the techniques of mainstream mass politics are going to work better. These techniques are not designed to create movements that can fundamentally change society. They are designed to keep electoral machines in power. We have to explore the alternatives – and we have enough creative and committed people to do this. We may well be able to learn something from mainstream and even right-populist political techniques, but we can do better than that.
In other words, it is emphatically not a question of finding a left-wing sector of opinion which is already out there (by opinion-poll), and turning it into votes by whatever means we can. We have to deepen as well as widen the working-class and anti-capitalist consciousness that already exists. More: we have to create new forms of consciousness to offer an image of the new kind of society we are hoping to create. These are not tasks we can achieve with opinion polls and a slick PR machine, any more than with insular little sects and newspapers on street corners.
Cognative heuristics? This is already becoming elitist. Think about me, I’m a man who feels that his country is being torn apart by right wing thugs. The alterantives are no more credible, the left being represented by proffesional Oxbridge politicians who are just as bad as the other lot. How is this new party going to appeal to me? The reason that we are talking about a UKIP equivelant for the left is because Farage has created a populist position for himself. Keep the languae simple orwe will get nowhere.
The left needs to stop talking to the left and start talking to the same working class that it theoretically sees as the agent of history.
That would mean having to come up with practical and progressive solutions to the everyday issues that face the local working class. And that won’t be abstract debate about anti capitalism, or far away political parties such as SYRIZA.It will have confront the wait until the revolution is over issues of impact of immigration ,the EC, crime etc on the working class not just the comfort blanket ones it always clings on to.
Thanks. Catching up with the debate. One of the encouraging things already about Left Unity is that such a debate is taking place at all, is quite open-minded and characterised by listening to each other rather than lecturing one another. What a change!
A few responses (in my view all who post articles on this site must agree to take part in any ensuing debate, to fail to do so sets up an unhelpful division, those who write the articles, those who reply, in every case I learn something as a writer thanks to the debate).
Arran
Yes the membership survey is absolutely vital. The 8000 signatories are our only resource. Already the local groups are by and large only attracting a small percentage of those who signed up. A party of 4000 with an initial donation of £10 a head, £40,000 is an entirely different proposition to 1000 and less than a fiver per head. Most Left groups are in a tate of denial about how small they are, some actively lie to their members about the size of their own party. We should be honest and professional from the start. A survey needs to be professionally designed, if there are 1000s of forms filled in, lets hope so, they need to be properly analysed. Until we do this the entire project is based on a singular lack of foundations . There should be no delay in getting this survey out, its far, far more important than deciding on a constitution or policies because until we know how many we are, what skills and experience we have, the potential size of the financial base we shouldn’t even be thinking what we might become.
Jasmin, and others
Yes this issue of language we use is key. Are we a party that speaks to those alredy in ‘the know’ or to those outside the vocabulary of Lefistm and unrepresented by the mainstream. A language which should be every much visual as words. Realising how important this and then putting it into practice will more than anything else mark Left Unity out as breaking with the past. Its about helping to shape a new common-sense. A failure to do so will leave us as simply a bit bigger and a bit better than those who triid simething similar in the past, and failed. Many of us I expect aren’t interested in this, our ambition should be bigger than that.
Peter
I’m not being rude but I’m sorry I have to laugh. If on Saturday morning I’d been opening my paper to read that The Left Party had 139 councllors elected, 25% of the popular vote, had changed the shape of British politics and Miliband was saying ‘Yes. we’re listening’ then what we’d do with parliamentary power would be the least of my worries!
1997-2010 there were 5 moments of this sort, from the Left. Ken winning London Mayor as an independent , The Scottish Socialist Party wining 6 MSPs, People’s Voice winning the by-election, then the Welsh Assembly seat then a load of councillors in Nye Bevan’s old seat, George winning in Bethnal Green. And then again, after 2010, Bradford West in 2012. Each won thanks to a variety of Left populism, each failed either because they had no project beyond the local, or because personality politics vs faction fighting will only end in tears. The best chance? Probably in 2003, after George was expelled if McDonnell, Corbyn, Flynn and a few other Labour MPs had had the courage to stand down to fight simultaneous by-elections then there might have been a generalised break on Labour’s Left, instead the Lib-Dems hoovered up the anti-war vote and look where that’s got us.
But Peter despite my laughter I don’t entirely disagree with you. It goes back to numbers and resources. A poulist Left party will need thousands of members, a great variety of skills given for nothing, serious time commitment and financial backing. It will also need to be patient, laying the basis for the 2016 GLA elections (fought on PR), local elections, the Euros in 2019 fought under PR, by-electins as they occur with a new Labour government failing to deliver. Any impact now and at the 2015 General Election will be marginal. Sustaining our decent start through that period will be difficult, we have to start with a high base of 4000+ members to cahieve that and the financial base too. If we have neither then the kind of group you describe, an activist-group, with self-education and skill development at its core, working with others to initiate broad campaigns, is the far better option, this isn’t a party though, its a network.
Mark P
Mark,
I understand the desire to have a fix on the numbers, but beyond the numbers and how many are willing to donate some minimum amount, what else would it want to know, and how would it be any different from polling on the website or via e-mail?
Show people compelling examples of how things can work in a socialist framework, Mondragon for example. Blairs notion that free market capitalism is irresistable and inevitable needs to be turned on its head. Most of us will know of examples of good socialist practice at work, let people see it. There must be people from the media who interested get them on board. Chivvy some commitment out of people.
I like Jasmines thinking very much. As well as hilighting the obvious shortcomings of our current governent we also need to be positive. This works, look ….. !!!!
THE CURIOUS CASE OF 3 INCIDENTS. 1. My heart is with LU and my head is 90% there but I still have some doubts, will it really help working people? I joined the May Day march in Leeds and walked behind the LU banner. It was quite a good march with a generally good reception from the public and the brass band leading was a nice touch. Some of the public were taking photos on their mobiles which I have never seen before when I noticed an elderly woman clapping and she had a beaming smile – then a Communist (Marxist/Leninist) member thrust a leaflet in her hand which simply said, ‘Ditch Labour!’ I wondered at that moment how many working class people the far left alienate from politics and could’t sleep that night thinking about this. 2. A group of about 15 tenants plus supporters from the SWP/SP turned up at a labour councillor’s surgery in Leeds and demanded to see him re the bedroom tax and were chanting at him. He agreed to see the tenants from the area (which was 3) and one of the m class Trots who also lived in the area (but wasn’t a social housing tenant). This councillor is my friend and he is a very decent human being who hates the bedroom tax) The m class woman tried to do all the talking and literally said, ‘I’m speaking for them!’ as though the w class people were invisible. 3. I attended the excellent Axe The Bedroom Tax in Leeds with about1,000 people (I am a social housing tenant) – I have never heard so many ordinary w class people as speakers and they even had their own placards! I was the first in my family from a w class background to go to University and I studied education – the w class tend to speak in a restricted code (we are straight to the point) the m class speak in an elaborate code (they use more adjectives) so it was interesting if any speaker mentioned Labour you could hear m class voices in the crowd shout, ‘Labour, bloody traitors!’ We shouldn’t”t bad mouth Labour – they are decent human beings who just lack ambition for working people and are happy to settle for crumbs. The far left it could be argued are top down and have all the answers, they practice the banking concept of political education – all they need to do is deposit their ideas and programme into the heads of the w class then their cadres and elite central committee will lead us to the promised land! Perhaps LU could be a beacon for HONESTY, NON-SECTARIANISM, GRASSROOTS-LED, BOTTOM-UP, DEMOCRATIC, PEACEFUL SOCIALISM. I finish with a joke – I went to a public meeting on a council estate and there were 100 w class people there. I said I am from LU and how can we help? The second speaker was from the SWP or SP or similar and he said, ‘The proleteriate must blah blah (you know the stuff) but at the end of the meeting the residents carried him out of the hall on their shoulders and I was shocked! It was only after I left the buiding and was passing the skip just outside that I heard some rustling from within – it was the other speaker and I’ll never forget his words (in a very middle class tone), Can you help me comrade, they threw me in the farking skip!’ It could be quite exciting not having all the answers and working things out TOGTHER! X
Whilst I agree with Mark about the need to modernise language to iron out dogma, sloganeering and cliches LU must be equally mindful that in doing so it does not linger in the same traps as other new/outside left initiatives of recent years, such as the anti-globalisation movement and Occupy.
Specifically, in this and in his previous article Mark stated that old Marxist left has failed. I think the concept of failure is unfair for a number of reasons. I myself was an active young member of the Socialist Party from 1996-2001 and campaigned on a number of issues, most notably the campaign against tuition fees, involving the participation of dozens of young people in my local area. The only local organisation that came remotely close to matching what we were achieving over that sustained period was the SWP branch. I dropped out in 2001, largely because of frustration that we were unable to attract new activists. I also became disillusioned by sectaranism between SP and SWP, and I found the general approach of the left a little stale and outmoded. Having recently returned to activism I continue to work closely with my local SP branch, but have chosen not to rejoin. Presently, as in the past we campaign on issues that appeal to the concerns of people we meet and in everyday language. Some mistakes have been made by past and present SP members along the way and some very good opportunities have been missed, but labelling the work of SP/TUSC as a generation of failure ignores the fact that those activists kept the flame of socialist ideas and campaigns flickering in many towns across the country, at a time when many present LU members were still giving standing ovations at Labour conference. New LU members could probably learn something from failures like me
Darren,
Fair points but see the debates after Mark’s other articles and after the Workers Power for other perspectives on this issue.
Bazza
Three very interesting points, that really find an echo in my own experience. Well said. The Labour Party, by the way, still has some really good, sincere people,who want to fight for people against the 1% and hate what has happpened to their party.If we do not win them over to us we will not succeed.
Jasmin
Excellent contribution, generally. I like your general approach. I DO think however that people will come to us looking for policies, but will then, later, need analysis, but then, as you say there are other discussion forums for all that. On Palestine, or on other issues of solidarity with struggles in other countries – I see them as policies, not analyses. Basic solidarity is as simple as it gets, it’s just justice.
Mark
I reckon that if every branch has an average active core of 15-20 people (based on the reports being sent in) then that given us only 1200-1600 that we can rely on.
On the other hand, I have not even been to my local Waltham Forest Branch yet (I signed up too late to catch the last one) and I am still telling leftie friends about the appeal and sign-up who have never heard of it so there is room for more expansion.
I agree that in this, at least, size is everything. Once we get over the national meeting on 11th May we should be out recruiting like crazy to hoover up all those detached or semi-detached or unhappy Labourite people and also new elements involved in current struggles.
Catching up again.
Darren
What I would measure as failure is the total absence of an outside Left sustainable and national challenge to Blairist-Brownite Labour 1997-2010. There were sparks but nothing that comes anywhere close to what UKiP has achieved from the Outside Right 2010-2013, and to a lesser extent the BNP 1997-2010 from the Far Right.
The SWP , SP and other groups remain tiny, no growth either in this period, CPB the same, they cling to the wreckage of their organisations, are effective on occasion thanks to a disciplined activist core but from those ‘sparks’ they leave no social footprint to speak of.
For my money Left Unity is only worthwhile if it is decisively different. The so-called revolutionaries, ie members of small and obscure groups, must be entirely marginal to the project, the ‘reformists, ie the rest of us, absolutely dominant. And the language issue is central to this, the reason why Left Unity is needed because of the failures of the past, no cover up, no apology, they’ve failed and we should want no part in perpetuating their failure characterised particularly by the language they use and the version of history they are obsessed with.
This may not appear very consensual, but from the outset it should be clear this is a new Left Party we signed up to form, one rooted in 1945 not 1917. Something that asires to be popular, not sioly uniting the various left groups. If the ‘revolutionaries’ want to sign up, fine, but they have to accept that fact or else form their own version ‘Revolutionary Left Unity’ and bid the rest of us goodbye.
Again I come back to the signarories audit. Im really not interesred in any founding statement decided by a handful of delegates. First establish how many, and who we are. If those who signed up and remain interested are predominantly of this so-called revilutionarty variety, fine thats the party we’ll become and some of is won’t be interested. If on the other hand the overwhelming proportoon have a politics rooted in the Spirit of ’45 then it is clear these are our values that the 1917ists either accept or depart. This absolutely has to be the first task of any organising group, lets settle this at the start, there is no reasin for any delay.
Mark,
It pains me to finally disagree with you but I don’t like your revolutionary 1917ist versus reformist 1945ers division.
1945 was an important gain for ordinary people and a great step forward and was the zenith of Labourism (as well as Liberal Beveridge-ism) but socialism it was not.
Sure, I am not a Leninist/Trotskyist and reject both the revolutionary centralist party model and the actual Bolshevik practice after 1917. I sometimes feel, listening to some of our pro-Bolshevik friends in the movement in full flow that one day we will be at either end of a gun, and I will be the one wearing the blindfold with my hands tied behind me.
But I have not abandoned the hope of achieving a democratic, decentralised equal and just alternative to capitalism, not the stifling, inefficient and ultimately corrupt domination of the state over the entire economic and social life of the country and the snuffing out of individual liberty. I see a remaining role for some kind of market mechanism, as well as co-operatives and greater workers control.
However, I am sure that this society will not ultimately be simply voted in by a LU government. It takes a real popular uprising to ensure that the economic and physical power of the ruling class will not crush us, as it has in so many other countries where the vital interests of the rich are seriously challenged. This will involve taking democratic, popular control of the main levers of economic power (banks, energy, water, transport plus key strategic major industries) as well physically taking on the armed forces that would be used against us.
So am I a reformist or a revolutionary? Let me know.
Cheers ;)
Ray, my contrib below was written before you did the above.
I agree, but don’t think Mark meant what you interpret (Mark?) only the cult of ’17, rather than the creative development of Marxism, etc. that we, I think, are all speaking of. A lot has happened since 45 too …
On “physically taking on the armed forces” I think the “real popular uprising to ensure that the economic and physical power of the ruling class will not crush us” – whether this happens in a ‘revolutionary’ (ie. fast) or evolutionary way – the change in popular psychology and a fast/gradual weakening of the grip of capitalist/competitive/warmongering-militarist/monarchist (talking of opinion polls, Mark, have you heard the latest on peoples’ love of parasites? Really depressing; the only hope being a general dislike of bigears – sorry I digress) towards a socialist/co-operative/peaceful/republican ‘common sense’ (sorry about the length of this sentence) it may be that the ‘working class’ people, in the police/armed forces, etc., will support the change, as they will have been part of this development. This has happened in other contexts, far less favourable than in the UK.
Optimism of the will…
Yes….but that’s what they thought in Chile in 1973. Optimism good – complacency bad.
Agreed Ray, Jasmin, Bazza, Mark & Peter H – there seems to be an emerging feeling for a new way of approaching building the left out of its current hole. We can quibble about ‘populism’ vs ‘popular’ – and accept health warnings about populism: cult-of-personality, crude and vulgar oversimplification, short-lived, bound-to-end in tears, tendency to implode, etc. – but Mark makes the point well about us having much better answers and arguments on immigration and Europe (the subject of a forthcoming thread hopefully).
I would add that When is the main question, after we agree What we are. If ‘we’ had taken a very deep breath of learning from our very recent defeats, in 1987, and not carried on digging to more defeats, we may have – with a medium to long term strategy – have got further than the massive compromise of ‘WRONG!’ New Labour 10 years later.
We have the opportunity now, not to think of immediately standing candidates in elections for quite a while (This debate links to the thread on ‘Local Elections: Prospects for the left’, esp’ Jeremy Taylor’s) but a major rethink, regroup and rebuild of a better and more effective left than we have had since the early 1950s (pre-Hungary / post-45). Of course it will be very different, as we have all described, but the form it will take is being shaped by these debates: the lovely people with heartfelt ideas and feelings expressed in these web pages – and those still to come.
Jasmin, I agree about language and also imagery (of which I’ve written briefly in the Cult of Activism thread and will do more later) but ‘working class’ in the current context must be thought and spoken of by us to include the overwhelming majority of the population, not excluding the ‘middle class’ as some people would divide-and-rule, as you move towards, later in your piece, about equality. We need to get the ‘groundrules’ (as our hippy comrades would say) right and then – when we are all confident to challenge verbal/psychological dominance and ‘isms’ when they occur (and this is a gross oversimplification of a process that will take much self/collective discipline and debate) we can invite and welcome into our ranks the 90%+ who have no interest in maintaining the current status quo.
Ray, that hug is getting nearer with every passing day…
Ray
It depends.
You’re unconvinced that voting in a majority Left Unity government wouldn’t be sufficient to transform society.
Well as to date not a single Left Unity local councillor has been elected, let alone an MP or MEP I’d suggest that isn’t something we need to worry about right now! Even UKip aren’t about to take state power are they?
But do we believe that bursting the Westminster bubble from the outside Left in the way UKiP have done so from the right is both possible and a good thing? If we do then we’re in Left Unity together.
Do we believe this requires an entirely different way of doing and saying things to the past, arent’t quite sure what that might be but want to be in a party willing to think things through and act? Then we’re in it together.
Do we believe that whatever vote we can achieve in elections we also need to develop an extra-parliamentary politics, that isn’t just about connecting to voters at the ballot box but a permanent engagement? And do we believe this engagement must be wrapped round issues of ownership, equality, community and workers control. Then we’re in it together.
Are we committed to building our own revolutionary group, seeking a coalition of other revolutionary groups, dragging the reformists along with us to agree with a revolutionary transformation of society. Do we seek a disproportionate influence because of our activism and organisation and unwilling to take a step back, because revolutionaries make the best leaders don’t they? Then we’re not in it together.
Mark P
Mark
Oh good, It looks like we are in it together then, though your emphasis on extra-parliamentary activism goes well beyond 1945 Labourism.
Getting votes is a great idea, and a solid block of Left Unity MP’s could have a huge impact, but getting votes on a loose, purely electoral – UKIP – basis is not good for us. LU MPs elected on a sudden electoral upsurge, without a genuine basis in popular local activism would lead to them either compromising with the existing system/state or being removed. The electoral stuff should spring from existing community or workplace activism rather than just ballot crossing. In this way we can lay the ground work for the final uprising, which as you correctly point out, is currently a long way off – to say the least;)
Looking forward to the experiment.
Sorry – I meant they would be removed if they came anywhere near implementing their programme, even at local government level.
“the final uprising” again!
Come on Ray – as you say this is “a long way off” and we really don’t know what form it will take. It is a very different world to 1973 now and will be by then. Not that crude coercion or repression is ever off the cards, but I don’t think it is complacent to imagine – from this point – a possible (largely) peaceful transition to power that would be revolutionary in its depth and breadth, as it would be with consent, rather than any kind of ‘final showdown’ scenario, as you describe.
This is not complacent, but a sober look at the ‘violent road’ outcomes from around the world, including with brilliant leaders (Ho, Cabral, Che). The peaceful road is the political road: winning overwhelming popular (as opposed to populist) support for change as it progresses – with setbacks along the way – but long term, ever broader, ever deeper.
As you said in another post, peace and love (and hugs) – in a much-better-than-Lennon, Jean-Paul existential sense, with no excuses.
Thanks for an interesting and useful article Mark – and for contributing some fresh thinking. While I agree in large measure with your points I don’t think that we need necessarily go to the considerable cost of commissioning a public opinion survey to establish whether or not there is evidence of a significant sector of the voting population who could be persuaded to vote for a ‘Left populism’. Such evidence already exists – or at least does so to some degree.
In 2010, and again this year, the Vote for Policies web site set up a ‘blind tasting’ of the policies of the six main parties (the big three, plus the Greens, UKIP and the BNP). They selected party policies on a number of issues – the economy, welfare, education immigration, the environment etc. – displayed them without any indication of which party proposed which, and invited people to select which they liked best. The result this time, on the basis of 312,000 responses, is, as in 2010, that Green Party policies are overall the most popular (at 24% with Labour second at 20%).
While this is by no means conclusive; the survey group was self selected for example, and the web based nature of the survey would probably have skewed it towards younger and possibly more leftish respondents. However, it does indicate that there is a significant potential constituency for a radical left party promoting socialist policies unburdened with the baggage (and language) of the old sectarian left.
Of course, how big that constituency is and how we might mobilise it are questions we can only discover the answers to in practice,
I belive LU could be successful and attract working people if we COMUNICATE IN SIMPLE LANGUAGE. Are we writing for each other or do ou want to build a mass party? I have just read my groups draft opening statement which is very good but I have suggested simpler terms for some words so you could discuss it with your family, neighbours, on estates, in the wok place, on the high street . The statement if my group agrees says the exact same things but communicates with more people. I think in LU we need to be critical thinkers as Rosa Luxemburg argued. I want to engage with working people and work out solutions together and as a w class person who was the first in my family to go to University and who loves the work of Paulo Freire I have faith in working class people. I want to buid a democratic socialist society and hopefully World and beliieve we can do it WITHOUT HARMING ONE HAIR ON ONE HEAD. I love the song Power to the People by John Lennon ,You better give them what they really own!’ X & Peace!
Mark
The lack of growth of the Trotskyist left in the nineties and noughties can largely be attributed to the transformation of the Labour Party. Thatcher pummelled the unions and Kinnock did not back them. He didn’t call on Labour councils to reject the poll tax. He expelled Militant, the most dynamic left current in the Labour Party and thousands of other socialists were caught in that dragnet. Consequently, in the nineties it was very difficult to convince people of the viability of combative socialism after the country had been so thoroughly Thatcherised. By 97 the majority of Britons had been sucked into the Blair project and the country was enjoying the limited benefits of a sustained period of economic growth. Movements like the firemen’s strike in 02 signalled a renewal in union militancy, but it evolved gradually throughout the decade.
The swift decline of the monumental anti-war movement in 03 was the one epic squander of those two decades. Much of the blame for that has to be laid at the door of the SWP, though I believe the SP also made some serious mistakes in its strategy.
In 2013 the picture is different. The political system, represented by Tories, Liberals and Labour has never been this unpopular in my lifetime. This is not flavour of the month politics. It is a result of the failure of capitalism. I was born in 73, at the tail-end of the post-war boom that had delivered hitherto unknown prosperity to the masses. Since that boom ended the economic system has not been able to afford that same cosy consensus. Since the crash of 08 the battle lines have been painted more luminously by the policies of austerity. This year Len McCluskey, head of the huge Unite union, called for the first general strike since 1926 – Unite had always been regarded as one of the tamer unions. Health professionals recently formed the National Health Action Party to oppose NHS privatisation and 8000 people have signed up to Ken Loach’s appeal. These are three examples of how the tide is turning for the left. It is entering potentially a more fertile period.
Therefore, the small size of those Marxist parties is not totally the fault of their activists, though I would concur that there is a deficiency of imagination inherent in the SWP and SP, which explains why neither foresaw the potential buzz in the grass roots that Ken Loach’s appeal was able to create.
For someone who is a leading thinker within Left Unity, who writes about the need to modify the language of the left, some of your language is far from unifying – ‘wreckage’, ‘so-called revolutionaries…must be entirely marginal’, ‘the rest of us (must be) absolutely dominant’. As I wrote yesterday, I left the SP in 03, but presently work closely with them but with no plans to rejoin. I like being independent because it means The reason I do so is because of the excellent work they are doing in my city. Their local organiser is one of the best activists this country has produced over the last 30 years. I say that without hyperbole. He is very good because he is so driven and focused, which also means he can be a fucker to work and discuss with at times, but we’re doing work in the English city where, arguably the battle against austerity is most advanced and where Left Unity have no presence. What do I do? I offered to set up a branch here because I believe that LU has the potential to inspire people. I respect that it wants to develop its own path. I would merely be happy to help. Nobody got back to me, possibly because I am tarnished by my association with SP, who do want me to work with them.
Finally Mark, a word of caution. Study the way Occupy petered out as dramatically as it rose to prominence. it did so because they acted like a bunch of arrivistes, believing that modernising language and organisational methods was sufficient to help them succeed where the old left had failed. While the occupations of plazas were in full swing their facebook pages were full of resquests for hardware like butane and tarpaulin to sustain the encampments, but there was no opening of a dialogue on what was required to build and sustain a political movement. Consequently, many Occupy pages now resemble the one in the town where I previously lived – a relativist mush of platforms for Free Palestine, legalised cannabis and abolishing the monetary system, none of which address the everyday concerns of local people. Worse sre others that are completely moribund, like the one for the city where I currently live.
oops. I accidentally truncated a sentence. It should read “I like being independent because it means I can collaborate freely with any groups or individuals and presently that means working with the SP.”
Left Unity sounds a bit clunky for a name … Would prefer something along the lines of PROGRESS
Sean
Not a massive disagreement here and its good to have the dialogue about what a professional, serious approach towards establishing a popular Left challenge to burst the Westminster buble would look like.
My concern that spurred on by the substantial response to Ken’s appeal and the rapid establishment of local groups Left Unity is trying to run before it can walk.
My absolute first priority would be to forget about founding statements and constitutions and the like. This is far too premature and when they are finally adopted they should be shaped by maximum participation not by committees and delegates. Instead right now we need an audit of ourselves, the 8000 plus signatories. Let do that then we know what kind of audience we have already attracted towards a new party.
My second priority would be this opinion poll. There have of course been other attitude surveys of this sort. But to fund and carry this out with the explicit intention to establish whether there is the space for a ‘UKiP of the Left’ sends out two powerful messages. To ourselves, we are professional but we aren’t dreamers, we are realistic, the poll will help decide whether this is a serious proposition, we base our hopes and ambitions on hard-headed realisim. To the broader audience , this would be a very useful way of getting publicity. Of course in the ral world only real votes count, but if the opinion poll indicated tgat a populist left challenge to the mainstream would attract significant support it would help create a talking pnt to take us forward. To my mind, well worth the investment. Though I doubt we can persuade Lord Ashcroft to fund it!
The answers to both should determine what we are to become. If our own audit reveals that of the 8000 barely 25% want now to take this any further and the overwhelming proprtion of those who do are part of the pre-existing Left then all is not lost but to imagine this is the basis of a new Left Party would be crazy. Its the basis of a campaigning and ideas network, there’s nothing wrong with that but its nt a party and doesn’t need to be. If on the other hand the response is almost as high as the initial signatories sign-up then a ‘UKiP of the Left’ begins to become a possibiity and we should be preparing for that,
Mark P
Is it just me who thinks that we are going off at a tangent in talking of a UKIP of the Left? I know Ken Loach offered back-handed praise to UKIP’s Neil Hamilton for their success on the Right and wished for something equivalent on the Left (Question Time, night of Eastleigh by election, I think). At the same time he was also clear how much he disliked just about everything they stood for. It was an opportunity, taken, in a particular context (UKIP’s electoral success) to float the idea of a formulation on the Left, but perhaps we should leave it there?
UKIP’s growth has many reasons.
Not least is Labour’s failure to be seen to stand up for the working class. Many ex-Labour supporters have long since been alienated by the likes of Kinnock and Blair. Some of these, in protest have gone to UKIP, and some of these have politically moved to the right in their dotage to support the BNP, the English Democrats and/or UKIP. But were these ex-Labour voters ever for a full-blown socialist alternative? No, not as a rule. They may reminisce about Labour founding the NHS, the demise of various nationalised industries, and criticise the remoteness and corruption of Labour politicians (among the rest), but they have changed and the World has moved on. They could be won to a socialist banner, but they won’t be in the first ranks of support.
Essentially UKIP represents frustrated middle class layers in society (along with a policially backwards section of the working class). Their real social base came out when they tried to mobilise a pro-cuts demonstration as a counter to the TUC’s anti-cuts demo. A bunch of hooray-Henry’s. The scale of this pro-cuts rally was laughably small. But how many voters understand that this is a founding feature of UKIP? Even UKIP’s Eastleigh candidate, seemingly a vigorous supporter of the NHS, genuinely doesn’t seem to appreciate that UKIP’s policy was even more privatisation than the Coalition’s stance. Which partly explains why they are doing so well………much of their support is on a perceived basis, and what many of their own members and supporters and voters attribute to them independently of any official line. Wholly opportunist. But it is in essence ex-Conservatives who give it its backbone – not one Labour seat was won by UKIP in the county council elections, apparently.
New Labour won elections on the back of being fed up with the Tories, and then on the back of the economy moving forward. New Labour lost the election in 2010 because it was at the helm when the system floundered. Labour is therefore tainted, rightly so, for its blind faith in capitalism to go on delivering. UKIP, on the other hand, have no record on which to be castigated. They have a clean sheet (but some ‘dirty’ candidates!). Their outspoken views are welcomed as a breath of fresh air, against the Establishment. But most importantly, their line on immigration and the EU is reinforced every day by the mass media, alongside the reality of what it means to be out of work and without the chance to get a home, or the fear of it. New Labour has failed, and the Coalition serve the wealthiest. What else is there?
Ken Loach pointed out that in Eastleigh the TUSC and the NHA Party had virtually no publicity on the BBC or elsewhere. Is there a (false) belief abroad that this would be any different for a Left Party? I have no doubt that if the media was controlled by the Left, opinions among the masses would be vastly different. Since we don’t, we can never expect the advantages afforded, sometimes inadvertently as an anti-Labour stance, to UKIP, by the gutter press’s scurrilous banner headlines ingraining prejudice. Nothing will change because of a new Left Party, in other words. UKIP are where they are because of the conditions politically and socially. The demise of the Left, whatever the reasons, is a fact, but from its nadir, we can see the potential for its ascendancy. But not as a mirror image of UKIP. And not in the Left Party or whatever title may be adopted.
UKIP are a new safety valve for capitalism. Labour has traditionally played that role when the Tory Party has lost popular support (with the LibDems also providing a service). Notwithstanding unemployment and benefit cuts, the conditions of life are not yet intolerable for the vast majority, and the vast majority are working class, so it is predictable that alongside the UKIP experiment, most working class voters will either show their opposition to the Coalition by voting Labour or not voting. The Left Party simply will not figure in the collective consciousness, diminutive as it is, and without roots or tradition.
So for my money, it isn’t a question of working in the LP or some other Left Party, but working (not burying yourself) within the only mass party (hollowed out as it is), and at the same time exploring all other options with an eye to reality. In the first place it has to be quality over quantity – understanding the fundamental reasons why capitalism is not the answer for humanity to be able to take on all-comers head on politically, developing a perspective on the line of travel for international capitalism, and developing a credible, radical alternative to capitalism (which seems to me to be sorely lacking on every front), and working in an open, completely unsectarian manner, to build the organisations that the working class can use as a force for change.
Why can’t Left Unity continue to be a focus for all those interested in a socialist alternative, be they inside or outside the Labour Party, a forum for debate and discussion and ideas, an instigator and co-ordinator of campaigns, a publicist, the Wiki of the socialist World?
I fear that if it transforms from Left Unity to Left Party it will simply become one of a number of players vying for votes, with the inevitable disillusionment that will bring to its activists, when it fails, as it inevitably will, to make headway electorally in any meaningful sense.
In a word, Left Unity has a role to play, but I don’t think the Left Party is that role – at least not for the time being.