Should the far left join the Labour Party?
Posted on Thursday 9 September, 2010
Filed Under Labour Left, New Labour
I’M OFF to what we in the journalism trade call a ‘working lunch’ with a contact. I may be some little time, as they say. Hic. So instead of a considered post, I am proposing an open thread on the question of whether far left socialists should join/rejoin the Labour Party, in honour of former Respect activist Andy Newman’s recent decision to do just that.
I personally made the move in 2006, after involvement in the Socialist Labour Party and the Socialist Alliance, and after signing the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party declaration. The Scottish Socialist Party imploded shortly thereafter, and the Respect/Respect Renewal car crash came the following year.
It wasn’t a particularly difficult transition for me, as I first became radicalised in the early Thatcher years and signed up to the Labour Party Young Socialists before becoming a Trot. But this time round, I am not acting as an entrist; I am genuinely an intellectual convert to a less dogmatic brand of Marxism.
That makes me just another rank and file member, content to work to secure the election of socialist local government and Westminster candidates. Working for John McDonnell in the last general election, for instance, strikes me as rather more constructive political activity than canvassing for a candidate set to be thrashed by the Monster Raving Loony Party.
Nor does the fact that I have a Labour Party card constrain what I do or say in other contexts, such as union meetings. As readers of this blog will know, I am frequently highly critical of New Labour. So the practical downsides are few.
Who knows? If Ed Miliband does manage to secure the leadership – and my gut feeling is that he well could – a small space will open in which the democratic socialist left can state its case, in a way it was not able to do in the Blair/Brown period.
As other bloggers have pointed out, with the labour movement likely to close ranks in the face of the Tory/Lib Dem austerity coalition, the opening for some sort of party of recomposition in Britain seems more or less closed.
But that’s just my take. I am sure there will be plenty of other opinions on this one.
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71 Responses to “Should the far left join the Labour Party?”
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Of course, it is.
Anyway, I am just astonish the Labour Party members can’t see why they might not be so popular, and why new Labour’s old Tory friendly attitude (you’ll remember Purnell’s and Flint’s attack on the working class?) doesn’t resonate with its traditional voters.
It should be blindingly obvious to political activists that a decade plus of New Labourism has seriously, possibly terminally, compromised the Labour Party, and unless you’re willing to admit this, then you will be in the political wilderness for at least 8+ years.
You need to ask questions of New Labourism and how it borrowed liberally from the Tories in its attacks on the working class.
You need to get out of the bubble of the Labour Party, and ask why since 1997 the LP has lost nearly 250,000 members.
You need to be less subservient to Labour bureaucrats and officials, and openly point out the problems of the Labour Party.
If you manage to acknowledge these problems then it is possible you might be able to fix some of them, or at the very least win back ex-Labour voters.
Be nice to see a bit of honesty about how shite New Labour are and were….
modernity, unless you can provide any evidence to the contrary, I am quite certain that membership applications have never been vetted much more strongly for political ideas than they are now. Please put up or shut up.
As for the rest of your witterings, if I want to gain empirical evidence of what “the public” thinks, I’ll do so by talking to my family, friends, workmates, neighbours etc, not by listening to the ramblings of a bitter old politico in the comments box of Dave’s blog.
the cardinal joining Labour is a depressing turn as has already been said Neumann has been on the wrong side in everything that he has written about for the last 5 years.
From collaborating with the SWP in the destruction of the Socialist alliance to providing left apologetics for the murderous actions of the dicators of China and the Islamist fascists of the so called ‘resistance’. Newmans descent into uncritical support of any power that stands in temporary opposition to the United States is the prime exponent of all that is bankrupt about the modern left.
“Newmans descent into uncritical support of any power that stands in temporary opposition to the United States is the prime exponent of all that is bankrupt about the modern left.”
It still beats the position of support of neo liberalism.
“From collaborating with the SWP in the destruction of the Socialist alliance”
that is funny, I seem to remember resigning from the SWp over the issue, and spending a year of my life in a rearguard action to prevent the SA being wound up.
“that is funny, I seem to remember resigning from the SWp over the issue, and spending a year of my life in a rearguard action to prevent the SA being wound up.”
His life, politically speaking that is, is a wasted one. Four months after the general election, and let us remember the unadulterated maple syrup support he gave the Respect project, (Galloway Faction)or if like, but not my words ‘Car Crash, illuminates a Jekyll and Hyde type personality now that he is in the New Labour Party – that’s Funny!”
Jim. Seems to me anyone indulging in extreme left wing politics is doomed to the scrapheap of history. Although a few do move on and join the Labour or Tory party or become landlords. I like the term rearguard reminds me of the battle for Stalingrad! You lefties live in your own wee fantasy world.
“Seems to me anyone indulging in extreme left wing politics is doomed to the scrapheap of history. Although a few do move on and join the Labour or Tory party or become landlords. I like the term rearguard reminds me of the battle for Stalingrad! You lefties live in your own wee fantasy world.”
What is extreme left wing politics?”
I can’t tell you, only to think that this is your silly way of singling out and labelling,pronouncing a judgement on genuine socialists. And further to the point you are way off the mark to say that we live in a fantasy world, when in fact it is a rotten to it’s very foundations capitalist!”
The job of socialists is to help the working class realise their own capacity, intelligence and potentialities and change the world for the good of all humanity. This is not a fantasy but a real living destination!”
“It still beats the position of support of neo liberalism.”
But it isn’t anti-imperialism.
“But it isn’t anti-imperialism.”
But it’s still better than the support for the neo liberal project.
But I guess both the pro imperialist left and the anti imperialist left are not really interested in the truth and just decide to distort the other sides position. So the anti imperialists become Taliban supporters and the pro imperialists become Bush worshippers.
I happen to be on the anti imperialist side and am happy to meet one distortion (from Redstar) with another.
“modernity, unless you can provide any evidence to the contrary, I am quite certain that membership applications have never been vetted much more strongly for political ideas than they are now. Please put up or shut up.”
But clearly not for Tory ideas, as that might mean kicking out a large chunk of the remaining (small) Labour Party membership, those New Labour convertees.
The current and recent past LP welcomed Tories into the fold, without them changing a single idea.
I can understand why LPers might not want to discuss these issue, but the impression of the LP as a shell of New Labour, led by control freaks and very friendly to Tory ideas is one that still holds.
PS: Oh, the Tories are now going thru with the privatisation of the Post Office.
Readers will remember that this was first proposed by the Labour Party.
Seeing as you either can’t read, or are just refusing to engage with the points put to you, I can’t see much purpose in continuing this exchange.
I realise that rather apolitical Labour Party members might have difficulties with these issues, but the Labour Party has no major obstacles to Tories joining.
Now anyone with a sense of history will remember that always wasn’t been the case, in the past, long before New Labour reared its ugly head, Clause 4 was an impediment.
Moreover the working class nature of the Labour Party meant that Tories did not feel welcome.
That changed under New Labour.
As I demonstrated New Labour was more than happy to suck up to unrepentant Tories.
And that’s the image that still stands.
Until Labour Party members can address the perception of them as belonging to a “Tory friendly” party then they’ll probably be in the political wilderness for another election.
Again, the LP under new Labour implemented essentially Tory policies, privatisations, PFI, keeping the City sweet, etc and encouraged attacks on public housing and the unemployed (see Flint, etc).
It would be good if LP members could discuss those issues openly….
Jim. I seem to recall during the seventies that the WRP wanted to scrap the standing army and introduce workers militias. They wanted to nationalise everything. Everything would be done for you from the cradle to the grave. No need to think for yourself. No need to express an opinion. Also something else about putting people up against the wall and shooting them. It would be funny to see the workers in pin striped suits standing guard with their Kalashnikovs at Canary Wharf.
A party that is broad enough to contain both Andy Newman and Jimmy Glesga? How could anyone possibly resist the temptation?
(Although I have trouble believing Jimmy can recall what happened this morning, let alone in the seventies).
sunset. Fifties is a bit hazy! So be tempted join Labour.
There are some fairly left-wing ideas being debated in the Labour leadership election: Land value Tax and rail nationalisation.If you lot could stop mythologising what big Trots you were way back, you might consider that some lefties have been working very hard since those times to get LVT back on the leftist agenda.Although the “I was such a Trot in those days but now I only drink gin and tonic” tendency will react with alarm to anything which might halt house-price inflation,LVT is like clause 4, a veritable touchstone for relevant leftiness.
Haven’t we been there and done that before? And it got us nowhere.
When will the “Far Left” realise we are the Left? New Labour destroyed any connection the Labour Party had with the working class or socialism.
The Far Left must stop being lazy and start to build a working class organisation from the bottom up instead of trying to influence an already existing one.
It is time for the “Far Left” to grow up and fight in the real world. Baby Bolsheviks only burp at one end and dribble at the other. It is your choice. You have nothing to lose but your diapers!
According to ‘Jimmy Glasgae’, Lefties grown up and become landlords. I must have passed from my infancy to my dotage without an intermediate stage!
We need to see socialism as a project- “the process of the emancipation of the proletariat”.
Instead of ineffectually staying in our comfort zones waiting for socialism to drop down from on high and taking nothing less, we need to focus on doing it a step at a time.
Democratise the economic sphere by as much as we can using what vehicles we can- and the Labour party is one such vehicle, one of many. There are places it can’t go, but we shouldn’t dismiss it because of that- we should ride it as far as it *can* go.
the cardinal joining Labour is a depressing turn as has already been said Neumann has been on the wrong side in everything that he has written about for the last 5 years.
There’s a definition of irony for you Darren. After all the ink you’ve spilt about how reactionary Andy Newman is you’ve both ended up in the same place politically, the Labour Party. It’s the politics of despair.
there really isn’t any point any more is there?
the left is dead.
the movement of the maggots on its festered corpse might present a semblance of life, but it is an illusion.