Stephen Twigg selected over Bob Wareing
Posted on Wednesday 19 September, 2007
Filed Under Labour Left
Ultra-Blairite former education minister Stephen Twigg looks set to return to the Commons at the next election, after winning the Labour nomination for Liverpool West Derby. The seat has a 15,000-plus Labour majority.
The sitting MP since 1983 has been 77-year-old Campaign Group stalwart Bob Waring (pictured), who was deselected. As a result, he is likely to stand as an independent.
‘Serbian Bob’, as he was dubbed for his pro-Milosevic views during the Kosovo conflict, is a member of the RMT parliamentary group and will probably attract the backing of the rail and shipping union.
He told the Liverpool Daily Post:
“The party leadership (under Blair and Brown) have regarded me as a thorn in their side as I rebelled against their betrayal of the basic principles of the Labour Party.
“Anti-Labour policies, such as privatisation, tuition and top-up fees for students and the stock-transfer of council houses, with the threat that no repairs would be carried out if they remained under council control, forced tenants to concede to New Labour’s wishes.
“Worst of all has been the disaster of the invasion of Iraq, an illegal war in defiance of the United Nations.
[Hat tip: For a New Left Party, a new blog that does pretty much what it says on the tin]
<<Go back
Comments
62 Responses to “Stephen Twigg selected over Bob Wareing”
Wareing lost an election and so decides to decamp. well, piss off and don’t come back then. I hope he enjoys sitting with the Tories in parliament.
Fair enough, Dave, that the angle of your post is that a member of the shrinking Socialist Campaign Group within the Parliamentary Labour Party has been de-selected in favour of a “ultra-Blairite”, in the form of that smug git Stephen Twigg.
However, if I was active within the left of the Labour Party, I would be pissed with the actions of Wareing. The bloke is 77 years of age for christ sake. He should have stepped down with good grace in time for the next election, thus allowing the opportunity for a candidate on the Left of the Labour Party to be selected as the candidate for Liverpool West Derby in his place.
I bet age was a factor in why some local Labour Party members chose to vote against him. And Bob Wareing contemplating the possibility that he will stand as an independent at the next election confirms that he is less concerned with the health of the Left of the Labour Party, and more about his precious ego.
Wareing was pro Milosevic all through the Bosnian war.
And he was on the take from Serbia,which he concealed.
” On 20th June 1997, The Independent reported that “Bob Wareing, the Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, was suspended by the party over allegations that he created a consultancy to lobby on behalf of a Serbian steel company which at the time was on a United Nations sanctions list”.
Good riddance.
Yes, I’m sure Stephen Twigg wouldn’t have any murky loyalites to foreign governments with dreadful human rights records.
Bob Wareing’s deselection opens up possibilities?
I wonder if John Rees is on the train to Liverpool already?
perhaps they could slot Bob Wareing in as an alternative to Galloway?
Last of the Blairites: “Wareing lost an election and so decides to decamp. well, piss off and don’t come back then. I hope he enjoys sitting with the Tories in parliament.”
Which Tories will be sitting with Lastie? Patrick Mercer and Jonathan Bercow, by any chance?
Mr Twigg won the reselection fair and square. He is a man of some character and not just a bland Blairite – Campaigns Director of the Aegis Trust in their educational and campaigning work against genocide and a trustee of the Workers Educational Association. When he got beat he stayed loyal.
Mr Wareing lost the reselection beat fair and square. He is a prncipled apologist for a genocidal dictator. According to an earlier commenter (tim, you only offer an unsourced quote) he was on the take. As soon as he got beat he turned his coat.
Age should not be a factor in politics — *politics* should be a factor in politics.
The truth is probably this — since there’s not been a generation of young socialists joining the Labour Party (on the contrary there’s been a generation of young socialists campaigning *against* a “Labour” government) there probably wasn’t anyone to fill Wareing’s shoes should he have felt like stepping down (to mix a metaphor).
I’ve blogged already about this one. And I’m sorry but Bob Wareing is NOT helping the Labour Left.If he stands as an Independent, yeah, we know what will happen. Twigg will win. he (ie Bob) will get ridiculed. And it has to be said, WHY wasn’t he on board and helping someone else of similar views bed into the constituency so this did not happen.No-one in the Labour Party can help him. Unless they want to do a kami-kaze. I think he’s been stitched up – I sympathise utterly. It must be horrible for him. But he’s doing us an utter disservice here.Strategically, it’s madness.Playing staight intothe hands of the New Labour Right. I hope he reconsiders.
Meantime, in the real world, Labour’s lead over the Tories has widened while David Cameron is Britain’s least popular party leader… the poll, for the Guardian newspaper, puts the Tories back on 32 per cent, with Labour well ahead on 40 per cent.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/18/npoll118.xml
Charlie,
I have to disagree with you. It’s bad politics on Wareing’s part, and highlights that he’s placing his own interests above that of the Labour Left he’s supposed to be a part of.
Say he had been reselected as the Labour candidate for West Derby at the next election; despite all the speculation that Brown will call a snap election, the probability is that the election will be called in 2009/10. Wareing will be 79 at that point.
Even if the rest of Labour Party was to go into meltdown in middle England during that election, Wareing, as the Labour Party candidate, would win West Derby (15,000 majority and all that).
To be blunt, Wareing could die in the next Parliament, and guess what? The upper echelons of the Labour Party impose their preferred on-message candidate for the resultant by-election. (Think of all those New Labour types to choose from after they’ve lost their seats at the next election.)
West Derby won’t have another Labour Left MP for a generation. Wareing from the Labour Left replaced the SDP defector Eric Ogden and, because of the bad political play by Wareing, the next Labour Party MP for West Derby will be from the modernising/right wing of the Labour Party.
It doesn’t look like he has the interests of the Labour Left at heart.
While this is a worrying development it is not entirely unexpected. Brown will want to finally rid himself of the left irritation in the form of Socialist Campaign group MPs.
What is really worrying is that he used the Union delegation on the GC, in the form of USDAW delegates to force the issue.
I think there were 18 new USDAW delegates that really swung it.
It does make you think that if the left adopted a similar tactic of flooding GCs with left union delegates, they could seriously worry some of the Blairite incumbents in some of the constituencies where Party organisation is weak.
While some might consider it a fruitless exercise it is certainly more of a ‘runner’ than standing independently or with one of the ‘New Workers Parties’ and get miniscule votes.
Well … neither of these two gentlemen are quite to my ideological taste, obviously.
But Wareing has had a good 24 year stint in the job, and wilfully did not mentor a leftist successor.
So if it was democratic decision by the local Labour Party, I’ll live with that.
This is not to argue that oldies have no place in parliament. But it would be better for a rank-and-file pensioner to become an MP for the first time in his or her seventies than for incumbents to hang on until (literally) grim death.
And yes, if Wareing does get support from the TU left and the CPB milieu, it’ll be interesting to see what Jilted John Rees does …
I have a particular hatred of Twigg since I learnt that he had been Head Boy of my old school – Southgate Comprehensive. Not to mention the role he played in getting Liz Davis excluded from the Labour Party candidates’ list.
Surprised that Dave does not mention the report in Private Eye that Twigg was arrested not so long ago for being drunk and incapable in the centre of Lodnon.
“I think there were 18 new USDAW delegates that really swung it.”
10 USDAW branches + 6 Amicus Brances that voted against Wareing in the trigger ballot.
I’m not wrong that Wareing didn’t come second (a local councillor did) but a distant third?
Ian: “It does make you think that if the left adopted a similar tactic of flooding GCs with left union delegates, they could seriously worry some of the Blairite incumbents in some of the constituencies where Party organisation is weak.
While some might consider it a fruitless exercise it is certainly more of a ‘runner’ than standing independently or with one of the ‘New Workers Parties’ and get miniscule votes”.
Spot-on, comrade.
“I’m not wrong that Wareing didn’t come second (a local councillor did) but a distant third?”
yes, pregethwr, Wareing came third. Liverpool councillor Roz Gladden came second to Twigg.
Ian and Louise: “It does make you think that if the left adopted a similar tactic of flooding GCs with left union delegates, they could seriously worry some of the Blairite incumbents in some of the constituencies where Party organisation is weak.”
What is this? a deleted scene from “back to the Future”
This is what happens when you start from a priori assumptions about how the world should be instead of looking at the actual state of play on the ground.
Where are these left union delegates to come from? Not only is trade union organisation itself weak, but very few militnats identify with the labour party any more.
Louise, you have been beavering away in the LP for years, if it is such a fruitful strategy, why aren’t you a councillor? How many lefties do you actually have around you in your own ward? How strong is the left in your own CLP? How many votes dod McDonnell get in your CLP? These are the harsh facts by which we can judge whether your streategy is effective.
Will the United Socialists(ex L’pool dockers, etc) in Liverpool be supporting Bob, they could be quite influential?
“What is this? a deleted scene from “back to the Future”
Well, with all the attempts of building an alternative to Labour, some self-styled vanguard to rally around the flag, really does make me think, in cinema terms, Ground Hog Day. And Respect is a whole lot worse as at least many of the other groups had “Socialist” somewhere in the programme.
The rest of what you have asked I have answered before and it is a bit tedious explaining again. You have your own way of seeking to build an affective opposition to New Labour and I have my own orientation.
Lets leave it there. You aren’t gonna persuade me otherwise nor vice versa. I think we just have to accept this but show support/solidarity in what we do.
Whether inside or outside the Left, I believe we have to work together as the Left is weak and fragmented overall and one area we can work together could be re-activating the anti-war movement.
Oh, and I have never fancied the idea of being a councillor. Just not me.
Louise and others, (non SWP)I don’t want to add to the feeling that Iran is next to be attacked but if it is likely, what should be the response of the left, progressives, radicals, etc, be this time?. I really don’t want to have anything to do with the STWC/SWP, especially as at the moment, they are in pro mullah mode, but i can’t see a new and effective anti-war organisation or mobilisation happening. Imo, this is very worrying, people will be distraught, (though obviously not as much as the Iranians) and will be looking for a vehicle to challenge the move to war, etc.
Andy
Similar questions could be asked of you. I mean , where is the left alternative to labour ?
I know you seem to think Respect is now some sort of project worth considering but many on the left see it as discredited and would not touch it with a bargepole.
Personally I don’t think the left in or out of the LP has anything to shout about in terms of achievement. Yes there are campaigns that are reasonably successful and these have people in them who are in the LP as well as outside. In that respect I would say someone like Louise has contributed and achieved as much as those outside the LP who look sniffily down their revolutionary noses at those of us inside the LP.
Isn;t the problem that the left is small and its divided not just between those inside and outside the LP, but all the different factions, grouplets outside .
If I was to leave the LP where should I go? Might as well put all the names of the grouplets in a hat and draw one out.
The left are never going to get anywhere whilst they are split acorss so many groups and point scoring amongst themselves.
Look at the comments on this site when the word Galloway is uttered. The old dinosaurs rear their head and try to out do each other on who has the correct line , yada yada yada.
And whatever happens to Respect it is not going to pull people together . What is the point of joining as an independent when it is two groups who are planning a fight to the death . Or should I wait for the next front organisation of the SWP?
Look at how many lefties have left the LP. Respect should have pulled them in. It hasn’t. Perhaps if the left outside ever got its act together, whilst holding onto to some class/socialist politics, then some of us might leave and join.
Andy (and the usual suspects)
You and others on the outside should think hard about why you are not attracting those of us on the left in Labour to leave .
Its all to easy for some , like Punchie or Pearn, to dismiss us as reformists .
Come on, persuade us as to why we should leave. What are you offering ?
Galloway, SWP. Respect ?? Or perhaps one of the smaller groups.
Its not as if the left is so big we can afford to be scattered far and wide.
As Dave would say, the left is fucked …
I discovered that a ‘spurtle’ is actually a Scottish dialect word for a ‘porridge spoon’. isn’t that interesting? Also, on the one o’clock news this afternoon (Wednesday), it was suggested that Brown might try to hold a snap election before the clocks go back, that is before the end of October. The theory is that he’s riding high in the polls at the moment, if he waits until the winter and dark nights set in people will be less likely to vote.
I have blogged about why I am staying in the LP on my blog, now regualrly being clocked by the Right and therefore more measured than previously ( strategically I have no choice..) We have to THINK seriously about strategy . Wareing will do us no favours if he’s adopted by RESPECT or whoever – frankly, he’s doing us a disservice. Talking to Socialist Worker about how he’s “liberated” when he’s nearly 80 and he’s had 24 good years as an MP and now starts dissing not just New Labour (understandable) but the Labour Party. I do sympathise, really. But As someone else said, why wasn’t the CLP training someone up.Why was this allowed to happen? We do have to flood the GCs we do have to recruit. Or just forget it……
If any Northerners are reading this I’m helping organise an LRC event next Saturday (September 29) If you’re serious about stopping this New labour stitch-up crap, then consider coming. We’re 45 minutes from Manchester/Leeds/Preston How many times do we have to say after this car crash of a year “Don’t mourn, organise…..”
see http://www.l-r-c.org.uk or http://www.johnmcdonnell.org.uk
(Facebook link..)
Louise/Stroppy
You are both correct about both the weakness of the left outside the LP and the need for us to support each other on practical stuff.
My point was not to criticise Louise (although it may have come across like that, in which case I am sorry (no really I mean it)), but rather to point out that continually saying that the left should join the LP is convincing no one.
The fact that Susan Press is having to tone down her blog to stay in the LP is a harsh warning of what the limits are for the left.
I certainly don’t dismiss anyone as a “reformist”, after all what does being a “revolutionary” mean in Britain today? that you sell a boring paper? To quote George Galloway, saying something that I could say about myself “I am not as left wing as people assume”
Actually in a paradoxial way, I am thinking of rejoining Respect not becasue it is viable but becasue it may not be! And because it is unstable then perhaps we can influence it towards changing towards being something more attractive.
I have no illusions that this is a great strategy, and I can see the drawbacks as easily as you can! BUt maybe the more constructive comrades in respect may be prepared to help build something better.
Andy
Many on here do attack those in the LP (and of course their comrades outside the LP who they disagree with) as not being left wing enough and dismiss us .
I’m not actually saying join the LP as much as saying the left needs to get its bloody act together. We are small, yet we sub divide into groups and bicker, often quite venomously.
Independents joining Respect won’t have a chance to make any difference. The SWP and Galloway will line up and fight each other. Are you saying there will be room for opne debate where people listen rather than count heads to see who can win ??
I don’t want to join a group that has Galloway as a figurehead, is controlled by the SWP or ditches prnciples to appease religious groups.
And there are a lot like me who also won’t.
“I have no illusions that this is a great strategy, and I can see the drawbacks as easily as you can! BUt maybe the more constructive comrades in respect may be prepared to help build something better.”
And the labour left are naive ?!
So, with this following a certain announcement made over the weekend, that’ll be at least two Milosovic supporters leaving Parliament at the next election.
Frenetic: I am much more supportive of Iraq Occupation Focus. Have a look at website below. There are lots of independents, Labour supporters, non-Labour supporters, Greens and they do organise good meetings. There’s also interesting info about the oil law and civil resistance. Women and lesbian and gay rights.
http://www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk/
And there may be an attack on Iran we do need to organise ourselves.
Re reformism, well, you know what Lenin said about it.
“Actually in a paradoxial way, I am thinking of rejoining Respect not becasue it is viable but becasue it may not be! And because it is unstable then perhaps we can influence it towards changing towards being something more attractive.”
I think that is bizarre reason, sorry Andy, but I do. Factional and sectarian atmospheres do nothing but stunt organisations further and lose the wider perspective of the organisation as people will be too busy fighting it out. How is that more attractive? You go on about where the activists are on the ground in the LP but where are they in Respect?
Do you think out of the ashes of the faction fight there will emerge something positive for socialists to work with? Whatever that is… probably disgruntled and fed-up people in reality. People hostile to the New Labour project will not simply run to Respect. I think that is an over-estimation.
And whatever comes out of the ashes of Respect it has to be something epic to attract grass roots activists in and out of the Labour Movement. But I won’t hold my breath as why should Respect be any different to the rest.
Louise, same here, Milan Rai and Maya Evans are good people.
Frenetic: I am much more supportive of Iraq Occupation Focus. Have a look at website below. There are lots of independents, Labour supporters, non-Labour supporters, Greens and they do organise good meetings. There’s also interesting info about the oil law and civil resistance. Women and lesbian and gay rights.
http://www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk/
FYI – I’ve toned down the language….not the politics.
Louise wrote:
People hostile to the New Labour project will not simply run to Respect. I think that is an over-estimation.
spot on, any alternative to new Labour has to be credible, and Respect isn’t
if people were honest most would admit that the antics of George Galloway and his alliances have brought Respect into disrepute
I think that there are probably tens of thousands of non-aligned socialists who often despair at the state of the Left, and feel no empathy with Respect’s form of communalism and the SWP’s politics of lowest common denominator. Equally, most of them would be fairly uncomfortable in the Labour Party nowadays, so in the end those 10,000s of non-alighed socialist are in neither
but I think the desire to re-enter Respect has little to do with the debate of “inside labour or out”, I’ll bet it is as much temperament, as has it is political
I suspect that some people (AN, etc) feel more comfortable being BIG fishes in the small pond of Respect, than working through the organisational structures of Labour (and in someway, you can’t blame them, given the nature of CLP type politics)
That closeness to power is strange “aphrodisiac” for political activists, fish and ponds eh?
Look it’s been said a thousand times so once more won’t make it any worse.
Respect is very poor. Unacceptable to many (for info – I’m not a member but would vote for Lindsey German for Mayor).
Everyone accepts the LP is appalling (even its members here!).
No-one makes any cogent ‘positive’ case on why they are in Labour. Often correctly criticising the competition does not do that.
Instead you have dreamers who think its 1981 again – “if the left adopted a similar tactic of flooding GCs with left union delegates”. And just where did the selection of Left Labour candidates, like Harman or Hewitt, get you?
So stroppy – ‘where is the left alternative to labour’ ‘What are you offering (outside)? Good questions. Answers – ‘there isn’t one’ and ‘nothing’.
But that still doesn’t mean you should join LP anymore than an American socialist should be in the Democrats.
So Punchie
Surely the onus is on the left outside to get its act together and create some sort of grouping that still has some sort of socialist politics, does not piss of women and LGBT people , does not excuse reactionary religious bigots and is not a front for controlling sneery SWP puppets ?
The left is weak and small, made more so by the disunity .
Being sneered at or shouted at by those who think they are politically superior (as the SWP often do to LP people on demos etc) is hardly going to win comrades and influence people.
Perhaps if those on the outside actually listened to people rather than lecture we might actually make some progress.
There was nothing sneery in my remarks, Strappy. Although to be frank, my remarks are aimed at the non-committed. I presume you and Louise will be in Labour until you get your CBEs.
No, I don’t actually think there is any onus on ‘us’ (the left outside Labour) to get together and provide you with something. Of course, it would be good if we did and I often argue for it but ‘we’ (and there is no ‘we’) aren’t going to offer it as a sort of service to you LP types. Why not join us in the struggle to make one instead.
And sure it would be good to have a party that had better LBGT policies (and I do think you make far too much of the ‘shibboleth’ remark from a few years ago) but who has, for example, more dodgy businessmen writing policy (by a factor of 100x?) – Respect or Labour?
Now how about you answering the question – and without saying ‘it is poor outside’ – what positive reasons do you have for being a Labour Party member?
Punchie
I do not have the same views as Louise on all things.
I am not arguing that there is any positive reason for joining the LP. I would not join it now if I was not already in it. I’m hanging about to see what happens.
My point is there is nothing outside that is drawing me to join.
I am not arguing with anyone to join the LP.
What pisses me off about the left is that it is so divided, and we are hardly large to start with.
I;m not going to get into all the stuff about LGBT/women and respect. I have talked about it loads before.
Yep, Labour is crap. Strangely I would expect socialists outside, who profess to be more left wing, to be more principled . If Galloway is the best you have to offer then what does that say about your principles (not you as such Punchie, but those who argue for Respect and defend Galloway).
And yes the onus is on those outside to argue and persuade those on the left, inside and outside, to join a united left grouping. Surely part of being a socialist is winning people round to your ideas ? Or are we all supposed to suddenly awake and realise the error of our ways ? There are still quite a few on the left in the LP and many more who left and are disillusioned and not active. Shouldn’t the non LP be recruiting them, or are they beneath the real revolutionaries?
And you are sneery and pompous. The left really needs to look at its tactics and its attitudes if it really does want to make a difference . Or perhaps many are happy to feel politically superior ? The left really does need to critically look at itself, but that seems unlikely whilst there is so much control freakery, which repels more than it recruits.
OK, I will be sneery on one point, feel free to reply in kind.
“I am not arguing that there is any positive reason for joining the LP. I would not join it now if I was not already in it.”
Like, you’re a member of no reason! At least the Blairites had a purpose.
Which is kind of like somebody stuck going round in circles on the M25 -
“Why did you join it in the first place”
“I dunno, maybe I thought it would take me somewhere’.”
“So why don’t you take the next exit, if only to stop wasting all that petrol?’
“I dunno, I kind of like looking at the outskirts of Swanley every time I go past.
Take the car out of autopilot. Just cancel your DD. Job done.
Punchie
I had very good reasons for joining when i did.
Now I said I am waiting to see what happens. I may well leave.Depressing thing is I won’t join any other party or group.More likely be involved with the odd campaign.
But doesn’t this bother you that there are disillusioned lefties that don’t feel there is anywhere to go outside of the LP? Surely groups like Respect should have done well out of the pissed off lefties leaving the LP? Wouldn’t it be an idea for the left to actually stop and think about why they do not win round ex LP people ?
Do feel free to sneer at us, but surely having the left actually pull together would be a better aim ?
I am trying to be honest here and not score points. I joined years back and have worked bloody hard on and off with good socialists . There are very few now . Perhaps try engaging with us rather than gloating at the state of the party or how some of us may find it difficult to leave , even though there probably isn’t much hope at this moment .
Strappy,
Q- “But doesn’t this bother you that there are disillusioned lefties that don’t feel there is anywhere to go outside of the LP? Surely groups like Respect should have done well out of the pissed off lefties leaving the LP? Wouldn’t it be an idea for the left to actually stop and think about why they do not win round ex LP people ?”
A- Yes. I thought the Socialist Alliance was our best and biggest (biggest here still equals very small) recent chance. I’m not trying to win anyone round personally because I’m not a member of anything but did do that when a SA partisan – and would again.
(Although frankly some of the ex LP types in the SA were dodgy enough. What sort of people are left in there now – those who stayed in after Clause 4 etc. So looking for fresh people may be better.)
An irony here is that I think Twigg’s parents were CPers of a similar age to Wareing. Could be wrong though.
Punchie
I was not involved that much in politics at the time of the SA. Other things going on for me at the time , not political.
I think if I had been I would have probably given it a shot.
But you have given it as an example , but again another wasted chance as it was dusbanded . For what, Respect!
So what is your view about what happened to the SA? Why couldn’t it work ?
Mind you, i’m obviously a bit to dodgy for you. Dodgy, as opposed to a party that puts forward candidates who represent small business and have Galloway as its MP !!
Punchie
I was not involved that much in politics at the time of the SA. Other things going on for me at the time , not political.
I think if I had been I would have probably given it a shot.
But you have given it as an example , but again another wasted chance as it was disbanded . For what, Respect!
So what is your view about what happened to the SA? Why couldn’t it work ?
Mind you, i’m obviously a bit to dodgy for you. Dodgy, as opposed to a party that puts forward candidates who represent small business and have Galloway as its MP !!
oops
Posted twice. I was trying to correct some of my ‘Newmanesque’ spelling and sent twice .
Sober, honest
Stroppy wrote ‘Its all to easy for some , like Punchie or Pearn, to dismiss us as reformists .
Come on, persuade us as to why we should leave. What are you offering ?’
Which misses the point with regard to the arguments I try to raise both on my own blog and on other forums.
Indeed as far as I’m concerned the Labour Party remains a bourgeois workers party, albeit only just, and if comrades wish to be members of it then that is a choice I respect. But if the aim of socialists is to develop a basis for socialist ideas within the working class, then it seems to me that there is nothing to be gained within Labour, given that its working class base is now very much reduced and links with the unions reduced to the union bureaucracy giving funds away to Labour for no good purpose.
As for offering leftists either in the Labour Party or elsewhere an alternative that is hardly a task any individual can even attempt. My position by contrast is that leftists and left groups would be best advised to look away from electoralism, especially due to its tendency for a party to substitute for the class itself, indeed the same thing can be argued in relation to the unions.
Instead of such bureaucratic and capitalist politics it is my contention that socialists need to adopt a position of hostility to the bureaucrats and loyalty to the historic aims of the workers movement. That is to say we need to stress the need for Workers Power and Workers Councils as a revolutionary alternative. There is a longish post on my blog entitled Left Communism and Trotskyism which touches on some aspects of I feel needs to be done.
Strappy,
We all now why the SA went kaput – The SWP decided to dissolve it. They might be right that it never made that breakthrough (and Respect, of course, has) but that’s not to say it wouldn’t have. I, and I presume most other unaligneds, would have continued there and want to do it again (but better) but if the DJ is leaving with his CD collection, then the party is over.
And there’s no point trying to tar me with Respect – “as opposed to a party that puts forward candidates who represent small business and have Galloway as its MP !!”
I’ve voted for Respect just about 1/3 times that they have been on my ballot paper and compare and contrast them with your party – with candidates who own big businesses and have (insert 300 names) as its MPs.
But Punchie
You give the SA as the best example in recent times . But as you say, look what happened. The SWP dissolved it.
Thats my point, even a good project gets fucked over.
And what did it achieve ?
I’m not gloating btw. I find both the state of the left in and out of the LP depressing and wish it were otherwise.
Although frankly some of the ex LP types in the SA were dodgy enough
Why? Weren’t they able to strip their AK in under 15 seconds?
Southpaw,
If you can’t see that there are differences in making assessments of mass party like the LP and a small outfit like Respect you need to do a bit more reading.