Labour deputy leadership: support grows for Cruddas
Posted on Thursday 31 May, 2007
Filed Under New Labour
Constituency-level support for Jon Cruddas’s bid to become deputy leader of the Labour Party is growing, according to the Guardian website:
The leftwinger Jon Cruddas has jumped to second place behind Hilary Benn in the running for the Labour deputy leadership after a hustings appearance on Newsnight last night, according to the party’s latest figures …
However, Mr Benn, the international development secretary, remained the frontrunner after garnering the support of seven more constituencies, bringing his total to 39. Mr Cruddas gained 12, bringing his total to 29.
Mr Cruddas also has the support of the two largest unions, Amicus and the TGWU, which are still operating separately after their recent merger as the new Unite trade union.
Another reason to give the guy critical support, I reckon.
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The last update on CLP nominations is:
Benn 50
Cruddas 48
Johnson 34
Harman 32
Blears 26
Hain 17
Sedgefield CLP nominated Blears and Cruddas was nominated by North Tyneside CLP (Stephen Byers’ seat)
Go Crud!
Has anyone been following the coverage of Cruddas’s campaign on Luke Akehurst’s blog? I think Luke’s finally lost it.
And the Tories at City Hall have informed comrade Akehurst that they regard his blog, with its obsessive attacks on anyone in the Labour Party who fails to share his hard-right politics, as required reading!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=457904&in_page_id=1770
Cruddas Targeted in Labour Dirty Tricks
The Mail on Sunday today contains a puff piece on Hazel Blears and a piece on Jon Cruddas which he will find very embarrassing. I am sure there is no link between the two!
The Cruddas story accuses him of buying a second home in Notting Hill to enable his child to be educated there. It was clearly leaked by one of the rival deputy leadership camps.
I have no idea which campaign is responsible, but the man with most to gain from damaging Cruddas is Peter Hain, who has lost no time in slagging off Alan Johnson and repudiating much of the government policy he has got collective responsibility for.
Cruddas has sewn up a lot of the left of centre vote which Hain is targeting. Hain knows he cannot win unless much of Cruddas’s support transfers to him, and he’s willing to do what it takes.
It’s turning nasty.
Anything that damages Cruddas works for me
TURNING nasty? I have been sickened by the whole thing for weeks now. If anyone truly truly thinks it matters who is Deputy Leader they are going to be sadly disappointed. Yes, Blears would be a car crash but apart from that it doesn’t matter one jot as Gordon is going to make Blair look like a broad church kind of guy.
“Anything that damages Cruddas works for me”
Showed how scared you are of him!
I don’t think it really matters which campaign released the story about Cruddas buying a second home – the question is, if it is true will you continue to support him?
Hackney North and Stoke Newington went for Cruddas tonight by a 2 to 1 margin over Blears.
They were the only candidates spoken for so it was a straight shoot-out between the two.
Jim, he does have two properties, but the defense is that the flat is the one he and his family lived in for years before he became MP for Dagenham in 2001. Seeing as the vast majority of MPs have a constituency home and a central London home I don’t look upon it as the end of the world. And quite frankly it disgusts me to think that some Labour comrades A) undoubtedly leaked this to the Tory press in the first place and B) are willing to use the Tory smears against Cruddas.
I’m sure there’s a lot more dirt on Hain and indeed the other candidates, but frankly I don’t think we should be interested in that. Cruddas is the only one running on a programme that interests and inspires me and even if he comes 2nd or 3rd I’ll look on that as a victory for free thinkers (of both left and right) in the Labour Party.
If anyone has any illusions in Cruddas, please look @the Compass website.Neal Lawson’s latest piece is an outstanding piece of arrogant Brownite drivel.
I don’t give a shit what Neal wanky Lawson has to say. All I know is that as a non-member of the government, as the candidate who has put housing on the agenda, as the candidate who is willing to openly declare the Iraq War was a mistake, as the candidate who has decent ideas for getting more people out campaigning, and as the candidate who employs a class analysis of modern British society I know that Jon Cruddas is the only one who comes anywhere near my political perspective. And Daily Mail/Peter Hain smears and his lack of ability to magically nominate John McDonnell are of secondary importance to me!!
I think the strength of Cruddas shows why Brown was so keen to veto McDonnell’s campaign for the leadership. Of course, not all Cruddas’s support here would have materialised as McDonnell’s, but Cruddas has demonstrated that there is appetite for some sort of basic leftist positions (of course how much one can trust Cruddas is a separate matter.)
This pole could have been used by McDonnell and the votes counted. Brown would still have won handily, but they clearly didn’t want the votes counted, for fear of a few ‘nasty’ surprises.
Another reason to give the guy critical support, I reckon.
So, you think you should support Cruddas… because other people are going to?
Oh, Dave… what are you thinking?
Osler re Cruddas: “Another reason to give the guy critical support, I reckon.”
Blimey. Supporter of hard left shows elementary common sense. Now that’s something you don’t see every day.
Shame the same can’t be said of those Campaign Group MPs who backed Hilary Benn rather than Jon Cruddas and without whose support Benn would have fallen short of the required 45 nominations.
As Tribune editor Chris McLaughlin observed in last week’s issue:
“… a loyal Blairite seen as the candidate most likely to scoop up the ‘name recognition’ votes, and who is therefore now a leading contender, would not be in the race at all if it were not for members of the Campaign Group”.
I mean, how stupid was that?
Whoever wins will be making the tea for Brown and polishing his shoes, getting his laundry etc. etc. If this was an interview panel and the vacancy was for Party General Secretary then I might look at Cruddas because he would have the freedom to organise the party at the grassroots effectively to an extent. But it’s not. It’s for Deputy Leader.
Cruddas supporters are not only lying to others, they’re lying to themselves. Brown will rule from the top down and it doesn’t matter an inch what Cruddas’ views are on Trident because the job carries no policy making role. Camp Cruddas seem to be saying it will send a message, well maybe but it’s a very short message which will soon be forgotten. CLP nominations have now closed and Cruddas could only get 68, barely 1 in 10 of the CLPs up and down the country. I will be saving the Party a stamp and abstaining rather than go through this charade to see who can get Gordon the best cup of tea.
Shame the same can’t be said of those Campaign Group MPs who backed Hilary Benn rather than Jon Cruddas and without whose support Benn would have fallen short of the required 45 nominations.
I think that Scourge has missed the point, perhaps deliberately. The whole McDonnell campaign was based on letting the members have their say. That, sadly, didn’t happen and we’re left with an Albanian style appointed leader. It would then have been profoundely undemocratic to deny Hilary Benn a place on the ballot paper when it is clear that he has a significant degree of support in the country. Such bureacratic machinations to drive your opponents out of the race are best left to student politics and the likes of Brown and Cruddas.
Bob: Camp Cruddas seem to be saying it will send a message
Yes – indeed it will. Becasue politics is not just every decade when the labour Pparty has a leadership election. There are some three million trade unionists with a vote in this election, and the unions have become the main ideological opposition to Labour over PFI, migrant rights, agency worker rights, etc.
Cruddas is not perfect, but he is articulating a need for a change of direction, broadly sympathetic to the political positions of organised labour. What is more his critique of new labour as an electoral machine and how its fails Labour’s core supporters is an intelligent one, and deserves greater hearing.
After the election would it put us in a stronger position to resist brown’s neo-liberalism if the candidate most associated with the argument that a change of direction is needed gets a good vote. Yes it would.
That is why a number of people well to the left of Cruddas are supporting him.( as are the CP/Morning Star)
Here here Bob. The Cruddas lot are really beginning to reveal themselves for who they are. Their candidate talks about re-engaging with grassroots members – and then him and his supporters nominate Brown to ensure that there isn’t a contest; and then argue that Benn shouldn’t have been allowed on the ballot paper on the basis that he’s the candidate most likely to win support.
Furthermore, his campaign workers spend their time hunting down any even vaguely critical remark about Jon Cruddas on the blogosphere and then piling in under a number of pseudonyms to aggressively denounce the writer as a bitter and twisted ultra-left.
I have never, NEVER seen as Cruddas supporter engage in rational debate with anyone. They simply resort to abuse, ad hominem attacks and the occasional smug mocking of the fact that party members have been denied a vote for their own leader. Admittedly, they even deal it out to their rightwing critics such as Luke Akehurst – although they’ve desperately tried to convince him that Cruddas is not a leftwinger or anything approaching it (see comments on his blog for more details).
That they are intolerant – and willing to resort to the most undemocratic means to win power (such as excluding other candidates from the ballot paper who have more grassroots support) just shows what these people would be like if they had any power. If anything, it seems that they would be even more hostile to the left of the party than the current regime. It does not bode well.
The fact is the handful of McDonnell supporters who nominated Cruddas at a late stage (Corbyn, Drew, Wood, Griffith) would not have done so if the Cruddas campaign hadn’t strung the McDonnell campaign along for several weeks, promised them a deal to get them on the ballot paper and then reneged on it at the last minute. Indeed, they would have nominated Cruddas.
The fact is this is a contest over a total non-job which doesn’t have any political powers. Cruddas can believe in whatever policies he wants, but he has no power to do anything about them. If he is elected he will be subject to collective responsibility and all his leftish noises (which stand in total contradiction to his past political record) will disappear in an instant.
The contest for who will be Brown’s tea-maker is no replacement for the fact we’ve been denied the right to elect our leader. Now the Cruddas lot can go around antagonising those evil hard leftists all they want – and I’m sure they will be even more aggressive when Cruddas finally loses to Benn. However, it won’t change the fact that they’ve brought this on themselves.
Further, note:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/deputyleader/story/0,,2092549,00.html
“The surprise surge for Jon Cruddas has been linked to the absence of a leftwing challenger to Gordon Brown after John McDonnell failed to secure sufficient parliamentary nominations to allow him to contest the leadership race.”
Oh, I bet you lot are pissing yourselves with laughter
Scourge of the Hopelessly Naive Left wrote:
“The fact is the handful of McDonnell supporters who nominated Cruddas [sic - he means Hilary Benn] at a late stage (Corbyn, Drew, Wood, Griffith) would not have done so if the Cruddas campaign hadn’t strung the McDonnell campaign along for several weeks, promised them a deal to get them on the ballot paper and then reneged on it at the last minute.”
My argument in fact related to members of the Campaign Group, not to supporters of John McDonnell. You might have thought that someone with such a firm commitment to “rational debate” would reply to the point that I actually made.
But then, there’s a certain sort of ultra-leftist whose capacity for rational debate is seriously undermined by the delusion that the political universe revolves around John McDonnell and his abortive leadership campaign.
Hilary Benn just scraped in with 47 nominations, of which 6 came from Campaign Group members. They were John Austin, Katy Clark, Alan Simpson, Dennis Skinner, Bob Wareing and Mike Wood. (Of these, Simpson had originally supported Meacher, while Austin nominated Brown.)
So Campaign Group support was decisive in getting Benn on the ballot paper.
Referring to Benn, Scourge of the Hopelessly Naive Left condemns the idea of “excluding other candidates from the ballot paper who have more grassroots support” (by “excluding” Benn, of course, he means “not nominating him”).
Bob similarly argues that it would “have been profoundly undemocratic to deny Hilary Benn a place on the ballot paper when it is clear that he has a significant degree of support in the country”.
So it’s the role of socialists to put Blairites on ballot papers is it, all in the interests of defending “democracy”?
I’m not generally given to quoting Mao, but I think “Left in form, Right in essence” just about covers that argument.
Just had a call from Radio 5 Live they are running a piece on why 200-odd constituencies haven’t nominated Brown……
That’s interesting, Susan. Tell us what you told ‘em.
Oh come off it, you can hardly call John Austin ultra-left. He’s the sort of MP who’s in the Campaign Group only nominally when he’s probably to right of about 30 other MPs outside the group. What’s more, he’s a frothing at the mouth Brownite.
There’s little point sticking to Campaign Group members rather than McDonnell supporters. My point was that these Campaign Group MPs (plus a couple of other MPs) only nominated Benn at the very last minute because (as I’ve been told by several people now) of perceived betrayal by the Cruddas camp. Skinner nominated Benn from the very beginning; the ones who actually got Benn on the ballot paper (Clark, Simpson, Wareing, Wood and, yes, Drew and Griffith) were McDonnellites.
There’s very little point talking about the Campaign Group as a bloc in any case because it’s frankly a fairly fictitious entity in reality – as you can see from a cursory look at the voting records of its members. MPs such as Paul Flynn, Gwyneth Dunwoody, Kate Hoey, Mark Fisher and Gordon Prentice are far more rebellious than most of them!
If those on the left think that the only way we’re going to get anywhere in the party is by excluding our more popular rivals, then god help us. At the end of the day, party members and trade unionists would feel betrayed if a candidate didn’t appear on the ballot paper who had the most support at that particular time. In any case, this is a contest for a NON-JOB with NO political powers between candidates with VERY LITTLE political differences (indeed many felt that Harman was to the left of Cruddas on the Newsnight debate!)
As for “Left in form, Right in essence,” you can have that right back, thank you very much. Cruddas talks about trade union rights, the fourth option, renationalising the railways, disarming Trident, re-engaging with party members etc – so what does he do? Oh yes, that’s right, he helps to deny members a contest by nominating the candidate who militantly opposes all of those policies – for the post that actually has some policy-making powers. The Cruddas lot have helped to ensure that Brown isn’t challenged on all these policies. Even if Cruddas were to win (which he won’t), he won’t have any power whatsoever to implement these policies and frankly Gordon Brown will attend Question Time naked and covered in marmalade before he implements them himself.
If anyone is “Left in form, Right in essence”, it’s the Cruddas brigade.
Oh yeah, and furthermore, the soft left now has the audacity to condemn those they regard as the ultra left for not supporting their little project. As far as the soft left are concerned, it’s a one way street. They are under no obligation to support the hard left; but the hard left are duty bound to back them all the way.
Sorry but no thanks! Good luck winning the prize to make Brown’s cup of tea! I hear he likes it milky with two sugars, hope the advice is helpful.
Dave and anyone else interested there’s a short transcript of what I said in a link on my blog -it’s on the BBC website. “sham show of unity” is probably the key phrase…….and it’s made clear a lot of us wanted the chance to vote for another candidate.In the actual radio interview, I explained regional Party bosses had been ringing up CLPs putting pressure on to nominate Brown
Re Gordon: I hear he’s partial to single malt…….so Cruddas had better get down to Oddbins.
Re Cruddas nominations: It’s OMOV and he’s got one-tenth of the CLP’s supporting nominations . Not exactly Benn in 1981. And the answer is still no……
Scourge of the Naive Left wrote:
“Oh come off it, you can hardly call John Austin ultra-left. He’s the sort of MP who’s in the Campaign Group only nominally when he’s probably to right of about 30 other MPs outside the group. What’s more, he’s a frothing at the mouth Brownite.”
Of course, I have nowhere called John Austin ultra-left. I’m perfectly well aware that he’s on the right of the Campaign Group. What is the point of this sort of stupid polemic?
The rest of the post is on a similar level. It just consists of self-righteous denunciations and moralistic posturing, combined with the silly assertion that the deputy leadership contenders are “candidates with VERY LITTLE political differences”, which would come as a surprise to hardline Blears supporters like Luke Akehurst.
And this from a self-proclaimed standard bearer of “rational debate”.
“Of course, I have nowhere called John Austin ultra-left. I’m perfectly well aware that he’s on the right of the Campaign Group. What is the point of this sort of stupid polemic?”
You’re called the ‘Scourge of the Ultra-Left’ and were denouncing Campaign Group MPs such as John Austin for nominating Benn.
Anyway, good luck trying to elect Brown’s tea-maker. Remember, two sugars!
YouGov poll published today :
Shows that 18 per cent of Party members intended to vote for John McDonnell
Shows that 26 per cent of trade unionists would have done the same.
Jon Cruddas? 12 per cent of Party members and 15 percent of trade unionists.
Susan wrote:
“YouGov poll published today. Shows that 18 per cent of Party members intended to vote for John McDonnell. Shows that 26 per cent of trade unionists would have done the same. Jon Cruddas? 12 per cent of Party members and 15 percent of trade unionists.”
Three points here. First of all, in the case of the leadership, respondents were asked to choose between two candidates, whereas in the case of the deputy leadership they were asked to choose between six, so you’re not really comparing like with like:
http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL070101013_1.pdf
Secondly, 82% of party members and 74% of trade unionists said they would support Brown against McDonnell. And this in circumstances where broad sections of the labour movement are seriously hacked off with the government over domestic and foreign policy.
Doesn’t the poll demonstrate that McDonnell’s ten-month campaign failed to harness this widespread disaffection with the current party leadership? And in the interest of learning lessons for the future, might is not make sense for McDonnell supporters to ask why?
Thirdly, the question of how many party members and trade unionists might have voted for McDonnell is irrelevant, given that there was never any real prospect of McDonnell getting 12.5% of the PLP to nominate him.
And insofar as there was any slight possibility of a hard left candidate winning wider support within the PLP, this was comprehensively destroyed by McDonnell and his supporters waging a ridiculous campaign in association with far-left enemies of the Labour Party, rather than trying to build bridges to the centre left within the party.
And insofar as there was any slight possibility of a hard left candidate winning wider support within the PLP, this was comprehensively destroyed by McDonnell and his supporters waging a ridiculous campaign in association with far-left enemies of the Labour Party, rather than trying to build bridges to the centre left within the party.
I beg your pardon?
The latest issue of Campaign Group News asks questions of the candidates and Cruddas comes out far the best. Online at http://www.poptel.org.uk/scgn/
I have my doubts about Cruddas and what would happen if he ever got comfortable at the top table but on what he has said about Trident, Chavez etc he will get my vote.
What exactly are your objections, Owen? Is it that I applied the adjective “ridiculous” to McDonnell’s campaign? If so, I suggest you re-read that absurd piece on the imaginary first year of a McDonnell government from last November’s Labour Briefing.
Do you really think this infantile exercise in political “let’s pretend” conveyed the impression of political seriousness? It reduced the McDonnell campaign to a laughing stock among most Labour Party members who read the article.
Or do you object to the statement that the campaign was conducted “in association with far-left enemies of the Labour Party” and that it failed to “build bridges to the centre left within the party”? If so, check out this McDonnell campaign meeting in Hackney from October last year:
http://www.hackneytuc.org.uk/node/320
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=9997
The speakers included Gill George, a member of Respect, which as you know is bitterly hostile to the Labour Party and stands against us in elections. The platform also featured Matt Wrack, an ex-Millie who during the firefighters’ dispute toured around the picket lines at London fire stations with a camera crew in tow arguing that the FBU should disaffiliate from Labour.
The third speaker was Maria Exall, who although personally relatively sensible is nevertheless a sympathiser of the Alliance for Workers Liberty, which advocates a “twin track” tactic of putting some members into the Labour Party while also standing candidates against us. Indeed, in the May 2006 local elections the AWL stood two “Socialist Unity” candidates in Hackney itself.
So the platform at the Hackney meeting consisted of McDonnell and three Trots. Could anyone with half a political brain imagine that this was an effective way to “build bridges to the centre left within the party”? It would in fact have had the effect of discrediting McDonnell among the large majority of mainstream Labour Party members.
In Hackney, Trots count as moderates.
Scourge does land some punches here.
I was also concerned that mcDonnell’s campaign was too focussed on rallying what is a tiny hard left within the party, without recognising the degree to which things have changed. To be honest Heffer used to make the same mimstake, even then the Llabour left was much bigger.
The issue is this. labour’s electoral base is slowly crumbling through age and disillussionment, bt is still broeadly progressive, and is now to the left of the party.
At the same time the unions are beginning to articulate an ideological opposition to neo-liberalism over a number of issues, such as agency workers, PFI, private equity, etc.
Any sensible left campaign would have sought to convince the centre of the party that steering left would enable the party to reconnect better with its electoral base and with the unions.
Instead, mcDonnell looked to consolidate the already hard left.
Working with socialists (like me!) outside the LP is counter productive in terms of labour party policies if you create the impression, hey we are all the hard left together, becasue this builds no bridges with the centre.
The ay to work with the left outside the party is to engage with them over single issue campaigns, and specific policy objectives. The big success of the Defend Cuncil Hosing campaign is instructive here, because although closely alligned with thr SWP, it has attracted broad trade union support and many centre MPs.
Working with socialists (like me!) outside the LP is counter productive in terms of labour party policies if you create the impression, hey we are all the hard left together
To be fair, this does seem an odd charge to make against Owen.
Working with socialists (like me!) outside the LP is counter productive in terms of labour party policies if you create the impression, hey we are all the hard left together.
I can’t win with Andy, can I?!
Scourge,
Always a pleasure, never a chore. I am sorry that you didn’t like my article in Briefing. Tough crowd. The point of that article was to give an idea of the sort of policies John stood for. Believe it or not, we were standing as a serious challenge. Clearly you wanted us to present ourselves as a token challenge. We never had intention of doing so.
To be honest, even critics of the John4Leader campaign felt that it was run in a very professional and serious fashion. Indeed, this was the view of many comrades involved in the campaign you are involved with. Clearly you don’t share that view. I’ll get over it.
Now, as for your little quasi-McCarthyite rant. As you may have noticed, this was a meeting organised by Hackney TUC, not the John4Leader campaign. John was one of the invited speakers. When John is invited to events, he is not in a position to dictate who does or doesn’t speak on platforms.
I’m personally glad that Matt Wrack was invited. I hope you share my regret that the FBU felt that they had to disaffiliate because of the Government’s outrageous attitude towards them during the 2002 dispute, and I hope you also wish to see them re-affiliated. Perhaps you think that this will be achieved by adopting a overtly hostile attitude towards their leadership. I beg to differ. In actual fact, the John4Leader campaign encouraged hundreds of FBU members to join the party and indeed boosted the pro-Labour Left within the union. Indeed, at the John4Leader rally on March 31st, Matt Wrack publicly declared that, given John’s leadership bid, the FBU would have to at least debate re-affiliation – which, I’m sure you’ll agree, was a positive step in the right direction.
Obviously the fact that John was excluded from the ballot paper will now make this more difficult – but we’ve at least demonstrated to disillusioned FBU members that there are still decent people left in the party. Indeed, the new president of the FBU is a McDonnell-supporting Labour Party member – so things are clearly starting to move in our direction.
As for denouncing the fact that Maria Exall was a speaker because, despite the fact that she’s a member of the Labour Party and no other party, she’s a “sympathiser” of the AWL – well, if you can’t see the McCarthyite implications of such a statement then you’re beyond help.
Basically, you’ve denounced the entire John4Leader campaign on the basis of a single rally (out of dozens which John has attended over the year) organised by Hackney TUC.
If you look at John’s endorsements page, you will see the breadth of support John enjoys in the party. As you can see, these are endorsements from Labour MPs, NEC members, councillors, party activists and trade unionists. To suggest, therefore, that the speakers at this single Hackney TUC were representative of the support John enjoys is just, frankly, bollocks. Furthermore, as I’ve just said, around a fifth of the party and over a quarter of trade unionists are McDonenll supporters – despite the absence of a) media coverage and b) a contest. Whatever the reasons, there are objectively more McDonnell supporters than Cruddas supporters in the party. Furthermore, most Cruddas supporters wanted to vote for John according to the YouGov poll on Sunday.
Finally, I’d be careful where your red-baiting lands you. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the New Communist Party are staunch supporters of the Cruddas campaign. If you don’t know who the NCP are (I don’t blame you), they’re basically card-carrying fanatical Kim Jong-Il supporters. That’s right, North Korea is basically their ideal conception of a socialist society. Now, if I was to indulge in the sort of red-baiting you’ve just indulged in, I could start a rant along the lines of, “well, a bunch of Stalinist nutjobs are backing Cruddas, shows the sort of people backing him”. I won’t do so because it would be fundamentally dishonest as I am fully aware that the NCP are not representative of the sort of people backing Cruddas.
Anyway, I’m disappointed by your hysterically anti-McDonnellite attitude. Other comrades involved in the Cruddas campaign have fortunately been far more comradely. Furthermore, I would again note that the majority of Cruddas supporters wanted the chance to vote for McDonnell – so I’d perhaps think carefully about alienating your own backers if I were you.
Owen wrote: “this was a meeting organised by Hackney TUC, not the John4Leader campaign. John was one of the invited speakers. When John is invited to events, he is not in a position to dictate who does or doesn’t speak on platforms.”
Come on Owen, this is a bit disingenuous to say the least. The meeting was jointly organised by McDonnell supporters on Hackney Trades Council (which is dominated by the AWL) and in Leabridge Labour Party (the branch is chaired by a leading supporter of Briefing, and I’m told one of its other members was the Hackney co-ordinator of the McDonnell campaign).
If this wasn’t the Hackney public meeting of the John McDonnell campaign, when did the official one take place?
And what about the national campaign rally for McDonnell’s campaign in March this year? The advertised speakers (see pdf here) consisted almost entirely of paid-up members of the hard left, at least four of whom (Gibson, Loach, Serwotka and Wrack) are opponents of the Labour Party. Did that demonstrate the breadth of McDonnell’s support, reinforce his appeal to the centre of the party, or make it any less unlikely that he would persuade the necessary 44 MPs to nominate him?
You also (wilfully?) misunderstand my point about the platform at the Hackney meeting being dominated by the extreme left. Far from engaging in McCarthyism or red-baiting, I see this as a purely tactical issue. If you campaign within the Labour Party as part of an alliance with people outside of and hostile to the party, this raises some serious obstacles to winning support from Labour loyalists in the centre of the party, who not unreasonably see you as collaborating with the party’s enemies.
(Not that I have any influence on or even contact with Jon Cruddas, but if I did I would advise against Jon sharing a public platform with the NCP in his campaign for the deputy leadership! And this despite the fact that, unlike two of the speakers at the Hackney meeting, the NCP doesn’t stand candidates against the Labour Party or advocate that the trade unions should stop funding us.)
Oddly enough, Andy Newman understands this basic point far better than you do, and he’s not even a member of our party.
The other day you posted a comment on Marsha-Jane Thompson’s blog entitled “Labour moves Left” in which you took up the recent YouGov poll of party members, arguing that it proved they are “drastically to the left of New Labour”.
This is undoubtedly true. The poll revealed that 68% of party members oppose the close links with the Bush administration which Brown has supported. 66% of them want a 50% rate of tax on those earning £100,000 or more a year, which Brown opposes. 58% want the railways to be renationalised, which Brown has no intention of doing. And so on.
Yet 82% of those members, faced with a choice between McDonnell and Brown, said they would vote for Brown. In other words, the overwhelming majority of party members who are “drastically to the left of New Labour” refused to back the left-wing candidate for the party leadership.
Now, why do you suppose that was? Why did McDonnell fail to harness the widespread disaffection with Blairism that exists within the ranks of the party? Don’t you think that mght have had something to do with the tactical ineptitude of the campaign he waged?
Look, Scourge, one of my responsibilities was booking meetings for the campaign. I am telling you now as a fact that the Hackney TUC meeting was entirely organised by local activists. I received the invite for John to speak, booked it into John’s diary and that was that. The only work our office did for it was to put it on the ‘events’ page of the website. Yes, it was organised as a John4Leader meeting – but by local activists.
Me and my comrades organised several other meetings right across the country. The other speakers we booked in were almost exclusively fellow MPs, Labour councillors, Labour-supporting trade unionists and prominent local Labour activists. Many were organised by local CLPs. You’ve picked on a single meeting organised locally and suggested that it was somehow representative of the campaign as a whole – which it wasn;t.
As for the national John4Leader rally. Ken Loach didn’t attend in the end – but yes, he was invited because he is a very well-respected and talented progressive film director. Dot Gibson is the vice-chair of the National Pensioners’ Convention, the biggest pensioners’ organisation in the country. Matt Wrack and Mark Serwotka spoke in their capacities as the general secretaries of the FBU and PCS respectively. Other speakers that you’ve failed to mention include Jim Mortimer (the former general secretary of the Labour Party), Andy Reed (from ASLEF, an affiliated union), Alice Mahon (a former Labour MP), and Tony Benn, who is undoubtedly one of the most highly respected political figures in the entire country.
To be perfectly honestly with you, I would be very surprised if more than a tiny handful of Labour MPs even knew that the rally took place, let alone who was speaking. As it happens, it was a very successful rally – I’d like to see 500 people turn up to a similar event held by another candidate.
And no, I don’t think the fact that trade unionists such as Matt Wrack and Mark Serwotka speak at such events alienates Labour MPs on the left or centre of the PLP. Believe it or not, there are dozens of Labour MPs who are members of the parliamentary groups of PCS, RMT and FBU and work closely with the respective general secretaries. Many of these MPs are slap bang in the centre of the party – such as Joan Humble, for example, who is one of the best advocates of PCS in Parliament. By working with such unions, we have recruited large numbers of activists who otherwise would be extremely hostile to the party.
However, what did do us damage was a 5-page document which was circulated around the PLP (by those who didn’t want a contest – you can guess who they are) in the last two weeks of the campaign linking John to Socialist Organiser. No such organisation with that name even exists any longer.
The absolutely fundamental reason that John did not get on the ballot paper was because the Brown machine did not want a contest. This is why John McDonnell ended up being the only other declared candidate, and why there was no contest for the first time since 1931 – despite the fact that a significant section of the PLP is hostile to Brown. After the Fabian Society debate on the Sunday before nominations opened, Gordon Brown frantically rang round dozens of MPs and demanded loyalty. Despite the genuine grassroots pressure that we built up, we were no match for Brown’s machine.
Finally – your commentary on the polling. To be perfectly honest, Scourge, as many people on this blog have pointed out, John had a very low profile because of a near-total media blackout. To find out about John before the brief surge of publicity after the Fabian Society debate, you would have to either have hunted down his website or attended a local John4Leader meeting. As a result, last month his rating among party members was 9%; in March his rating among trade unionists was 10%. The former doubled in the space of a month; the latter nearly tripled in the space of 3 months.
Even now I know of party members who, quite frankly, do not really know who John is. During a contest in which John would have been able to raise issues such as the war in Iraq, privatisation and workers’ rights, we could only have expected his support to have risen very significantly – despite the fact he is a previously unknown backbencher standing against New Labour’s second most powerful politician. To judge his level of support without a contest and indeed any real exposure – and to regard this as the glass ceiling of his support – is frankly deeply unfair.
Take your man Jon Cruddas – his support was around 9% before a contest. After just one appearance on the Newsnight hustings, it is believed that his support surged. This was precisely because he had the opportunity to raise issues which undeniably strike a chord with many members of the party.
Actually, I think it was pretty good that John McDonnell was only rating 18% support. The vast majority of Labour members have probably never even heard of him. The Labour Party magazine we get sent (or used to get sent) would never ever mention “hard left” MP’s. Also, MP’s can no longer be elected to the NEC by the membership thus further reducing the ability of left MP’s to get much of a profile.
I have to say I am rather confused about Andy (and he is one of the better posters here).
Thanks for the compliment Matthew.
I think my position is reasonably straightforward, but perhaps easy to misunderstand.
I personally do not think that the LP can be reclaimed from the right wing, because the rule changes have made it almost impossible for the left to use structures within the party to advance their cause.
For example, conference is more or less a rally. Left MPs cannot stand for membership vote for the NEC, it is very hard for a left PPC to be selected, and I only know of one new left MP in the whole Blair period, Linda Riordan. (David Drew is often listed as a left, but he is more a Christian with a social conscience), councils have less powers, etc, etc.
Nevertheless, many socialists continue to work in the LP. I have no interest in trying to persuade them otherwise, they will come to their own conclusion one way or another, and I am happy to do what I can (for example through the union) to advance their case.
In particular I beleive the most importnat area for socilists at the moment is practical collaboration in single issue campaigns, the peace movement, the pensioners movement, etc. And especially in the unions to win back ground ideologically and practically from the right.
The best result for all the left was a campaign that split the centre of the LP away from the right – that would give us the best terrain to campaign on, showing that Brown’s support was weak and conditional.
McDonnell’s campaign however did not take into account the weak left constituency in the LP itself. Nor did it try to address the centre on its own terms, which it could have done by putting forward the arguments in terms of returning to more mainstream labour values.
Instead it campaigned as if was 1981 again, summoning up the spectre of electoral oblivion in the minds of the centre. What is more, becasue the left has a weak base within thr structures of the LP, the McDonnell campaign actually seemed to work a bit like a group outside the LP, even thorugh most of them were LP members. McD’s excellent work as head of the perliamentary groups of TUs who have been expelled or left the LP is a feather in his cap but not a good association for getting PLP nominations
Whereas in fact it is Brown who is courting disaster, as several trade union general secretaries have pointed out – labour must change direction.
And when I wrote: Working with socialists (like me!) outside the LP is counter productive in terms of labour party policies if you create the impression, hey we are all the hard left together
Perhaps I could have been clearer.
Those of us inside and outside the LP need to collaborate in practical campaigns.
However, for socialists outsdoe the LP to directly participate or been being seen to be a key part of an electoral cmpaign within the Labour Party is counter productive.
For example, on the SU blog I have been arguing strongly that people shoud support Jon Cruddas for months. However it would be very foolish of the Cruddas campaign to put a link to the SU blog on their web-page, although they have put links to blogs much less supportive of Cruddas than I am, but written by LP members. they are quite correct in this
In contrast, the John mcd campaign featured among his supporters on their web-page George B, a prominent member of the ultra-trot Permanent Revoluton group. Was that wise?
Andy,
I genuinely have a lot of respect for you. I think that your contributions are thoughtful and I enjoy reading what you say.
However, I sometimes feel that your political positions are a little erratic and inconsistent.
For example, you’ve always claimed that you supported John’s leadership campaign – but, to be perfectly honest, you’ve used virtually every opportunity possible to criticise it it.
You regard the Labour party to be too rightwing to be a member – and yet you side with a rightwing Labourite critique of a left leadership campaign .
You’ve denounced me for being too hostile to the non-Labour Left – indeed, you suggested that I did the campaign “a gross disservice by this type of post” when I criticised non-Labour left sectarian groups. You’ve now denounced the campaign for effectively being too indulgent towards these groups.
It’s difficult to know how to engage with what appear to me, at least, to be conflicting and indeed contradictory arguments.
On a factual level:
and I only know of one new left MP in the whole Blair period, Linda Riordan
John McDonnell and Mike Wood (his campaign manager) were both elected in 1997. Other left MPs elected in 1997 were David Drew (and yes, although he is a devout Christian, he is a genuine socialist), Anne Cryer, John Cryer (he lost his seat at the last election but is likely to return at the next), Ian Gibson, Kelvin Hopkins, David Taylor, Martin Caton and Bob Marshall-Andrews.
At the 2001 election, David Heyes and David Hamilton were elected.
At the 2005 general election, Linda Riordan, Katy Clark and Nia Griffith were elected.
Finally, as I’ve said, the YouGov poll reveals that John’s support within the party and affiliated unions is significant and was growing, and remains far greater than that enjoyed by Jon Cruddas.
Owen: “you’ve …claimed that you supported John’s leadership campaign – but, to … you’ve used virtually every opportunity possible to criticise it”
No – at a number of levels this is wrong. Firstly, where it has mattered, arguing with other socialists face to face, and through my trade union, I have promoted John’s campaign without reservation. You will also note that on the SU blog there was only whole hearted support for John’s campaign. I am prepared to be more critical now that it is over.
Secondly, the criticisms that i made on this blog during the course of the campaign, in debate with you and Susan for example, were not about John’s campign as such, but about the way socialists not in the LP were being described as ultra-left (by you not J Mcd!), and the reason for which IMO was a failure on your part to account for how much the LP has changed and been damaged by Blairism.
Owen:: You regard the Labour party to be too rightwing to be a member – and yet you side with a rightwing Labourite critique of a left leadership campaign .
That is a paradox isn’t it! Although the critique from “Scourge of the Ultra left” may be from a more right wing position than mine, I think she or he has a better strategic and tactical understanding of what needed to be done. As Mike Pearn has pointed out (who certainly is to the left of labour!) Jon Cruddas has a more realistic appreciation of how damaged the LP has been by Blairism than the McDonnell camp.
I don’t think it is that odd. I think the LP is too right wing to be a member of, but I still think the election matters, and precisely becasue I think the LP is so right wing, I think a soft left rather than a hard left candidate has a better chance of splitting the centre away from the right. And if that happens the hard left will be operating in a better context.
Owen: you suggested that I did the campaign “a gross disservice by this type of post” when I criticised non-Labour left sectarian groups. Yes – that was becasue of the tone and tenor of your attack on the SP and other socialists outside the LP.I still think your words were intemperate and ill considered. Tony Benn is a great role model for how to disagree with other socialists but still do so in a framework of respect. We should all learn from him (and i also am guilty here – it is easy to fall into the trap of being too rude (I have deffo been too mean to southpaw!))
And Ok – thanks for correcting me on the MPs, that is useful information.
On your last point. yes i am sure that mcD’s support would have grown, especially as he was the only contender. But he was too left wing for two vital constituencies, the PLP and the leaders of the major unions. (the PLP would have found it harder to refuse a challenge that was openly backed by the big unions) For different but related reasons: the PLP wanted to stop a left challenge that they saw as a divisive distraction from beating cameron, and the unions leaders did not want to expose their lack of influence by backing a candidate that might get stuffed. Because he aas too left wing for those groups, he didn’t get on the ballot.
And finally, thanks for the kind words.