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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No.
I agree with Jim … Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
I would have rejoined if John had been on the list of candidates.
I don’t regard myself as anything but a Left-wing European socialist.
I could not thole this whole New Labour stuff.
At least at the moment all the Labour leadership sound like European social democrats.
But then I’m a European socialist.
NO. The far left should do what they have always done. Stay in the unelectable wilderness arguing with each others factions. They should not be allowed to contaminate Labour with their Stalinist/Maoist dictatorship drivel.
Too many on the far left make the decision based on where will I feel comfortable, which particular one of the infinite number of far left sects will I fit into. That is the first problem isn’t it? The fact that the far left sects cater to every difference of opinion, great or small. There is even a pro Israel left sect – the AWL!! So the far left appears to be dogmatic, no allowance can be made for even the slighest theoretical or strategic differences.
But that is the lesser problem, the biggest problem is thst by abandoning the Labour party the far left abandon the agents of change – the working class. Instead of patiently working with workers, step by step, they decide to set up socialist propaganda units in the hope of enticing workers (or whoever) into the fold. Any serious left winger must understand how idiotic this position is.
“If Ed Miliband does manage to secure the leadership … 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.”
No it wont. The same people who thought Brown would move Labour to the left are now duping themselves into believing that Ed Miniblair will move Labour to the left. ‘Second time as farce’ sounds about right.
by abandoning the Labour party the far left abandon the agents of change – the working class
New Labour abandoned the working class long ago – that’s rather the problem.
But despite that, the working class has not abandoned the Labour Party.
“I am genuinely an intellectual convert to a less dogmatic brand of Marxism”
Me too. I’ve even started to enjoy the renegade Kautsky.
The problem is assuming joining the Labour Party now is like joining a more right wing version of what you believe in, as in the 1980s. The LP now is not really a political party in any meaningful sense: you cannot join it and hope to influence party policy. It’s a free floating PR machine that makes up policy from day to day where previously it was given direction by its social constituency. It doesn’t even answer to the trade union bureaucracy anymore (which could ultimately prove its financial undoing).
As to the working class not abandoning it;2010 General Election:
party (share of votes cast) share of total electorate
Conservatives (36.1%) 23.5%
Labour (29.0%) 18.9%
Liberal Democrats (23.0%) 15.0%
Major parties (88.1%) 57.4%
After 13 years in power under 1 in 5 of the registered electorate voted Labour.
Not offering the far left as an alternative; just think its irrelevant whether you are an LP memeber or not.
I am a convert to pragmatism and getting Labour elected.
evertonfan,
You can still influence the politics of the Labour party at the grass roots. If your view of the Labour party is what is on telly then you are not even serious about the issue. As for looking at the last set of elections as proof of Labours demise among the working class, well first, they are still by the far biggest party the workers give votes to and engage with and second, you have to view these things historically. If after a few decades it can objectively be said Labour are in the wilderness as far as working class votes are concerned and some alternative force has emerged then the situation would change. But freeze hell and water immediatley spring to mind.
JamesT. Labour did very well in Scotland and are on course to win the Scottish election next year. The working and middle class still stand by them. The English working class have clearly been influenced by the Sun, Torygraph, Mail, UKIP, BNP, Sky etc etc. Meanwhile the left are arguing amongst themselves about dialectic materialism and such nonsense.
James T
My experience of the Labour Party is as a former member. I still have a vote in the leadership election through my union.
I well remember the predictions that with such a massive Labour majority, socialist legislation would soon supplant the Blairite Trojan horse. Then the even more risible notion that with Brown in power, the real Labour Government would begin. ‘Freeze, hell and water immediately spring to mind’ indeed!
Seems J Glesga is the one influenced by the telly: ‘The English working class have clearly been influenced by the Sun, Torygraph, Mail, UKIP, BNP, Sky etc etc.’
What Phil and Evertonfan said.
The problem nowadays is that the LP seems to be a shell of its former self, and there is NO requirement to have any remotely socialist/social democratic views to join it.
The LP will happily take Tories as long as they sign on the line, smile and follow the New Labour guff.
LP members don’t realise how peculiar Tories joining the LP (without any form of conversion)looks from the outside, and in particular what type of message it sends to the working class…
I’m not sure the last time there were any specific political entry requirements for the Labour Party, modernity.
New Labour abandoned the working class long ago – that’s rather the problem.
Not quite with the gleeful thoroughness and avidity of the supposed far left though. Imagine the imminent opportunities if they hadn’t spent the last 30/40 years indulging in petting zoo identity politics.
evertonfan. I was influenced by the real poverty I was brought up in. Not much of that shit in Glasgow now. Apparantly not being able to afford a 40″ plasma telly or not getting your Hash delivered by the icecream van is considered poverty nowadays.
Yo, an Everton fan!
That’s the right stuff right there.
Simply ‘No’ is the answer from me comrade!”
Like you I too was a member of the Labour Party, and then the SLP, then a brief flirt with Respect – Oh, and I better mention the debating society that is SPGB, and was in that dotty outfit for a while.
I think, when you had a anchoring in Trade Unionism and Labour movement active membership, as many of my generation did in the 70s and 80s, you think in terms of belonging to an organisation where you’re small voice can be heard, and I remember with fondness when the Labour Party was like this, but it’s not the same any-more. I will save you chapter and verse about that, but with the coming of the internet things are now very much different. I have met and particularly through Blogging’, many different traditions that make up the movement, and find that there is much to agree with. I don’t see that the Labour Party is any-longer relevant to the aspirations of workers in this the 21 century, but that’s not to say that there aren’t good socialists in the party, there are, but to few to make any difference!”
but that’s not to say that there aren’t good socialists in the party, there are, but to few to make any difference!”
The party could (and may be) teeming with them. Without restoring the right of constituency parties to select their own candidates it’s a waste of time though.
J Glesga
That’s the point, things have changed. Rejoining the Labour Party because you imagine the ideological battles of the 80s are still there to be fought, granted not your reasons, but the logic of many on here, is (ahem) undialectical. If the reason is exhausation at isolation and a desire to rejoin the mainstream it’s understandable. But it doesn’t change the fact that Labour is no longer in any meaningful sense a political party except as a grouping of professional politicians seeking office (the same goes for the Liberals and Tories).
Arguing it’s the party that attracts the most working class votes: you could say the same about the late 19th C Liberal Party, or the U.S. Democrats.
I would have thought yes, until I saw that Andy Newman did it … He’s been wrong on every twist and turn of the left for … um years. The labour movement needs rebuilding within and without the Labour Party. You need an organisation for that.
The party could (and may be) teeming with them. Without restoring the right of constituency parties to select their own candidates it’s a waste of time though.
What are you talking about? CLPs do select their candidates unless (a) the (elected) NEC rules them unfit or (b) the timeframe is short, in which case a shortlist or candidate is usually parachuted in.
The vast majority of Labour candidates are selected by CLPs.
If the left joins in large enough numbers, it will probably be witch-hunted out after scare stories about “reds under the bed” (Jimmy Glesga seems already to be gearing up). Isolated individuals who are probably moving rightwards politically anyway will probably manage to stay in, but what would be the point?
I found Labour to be too right-wing even during the Kinnock and Smith years. I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole now.
What are you talking about? CLPs do select their candidates unless (a) the (elected) NEC rules them unfit or (b) the timeframe is short, in which case a shortlist or candidate is usually parachuted in.
The vast majority of Labour candidates are selected by CLPs
Oh. I presumed, given that they’re practically uniformly bourgeois centrist chancers with little or nothing in common with their constituents, that they were selected from an approved list emanating from the parliamentary party.
My mistake.
The PLP doesn’t have a say in selections other than through their reps on the NEC. Candidates do have to be approved and sometimes you get shocking decisions to veto candidates like Janet Oosthuysen by the NEC.
But by and large the rightwing nature of the PLP reflects the paucity of leftwing members and poor organisation on the left compared to the right.
“I’m not sure the last time there were any specific political entry requirements for the Labour Par”
Indeed that’s the point.
The LP lets unrepentant Tories join and take up positions of power:
Alan Howarth, Baron Howarth of Newport
Shaun Woodward, the multimillionaire
Peter Temple-Morris, Baron Temple-Morris
Quentin Davies, Baron Davies of Stamford
Ring any bells amongst LP members?
Incidentally, would anyone here care to calculate just how many people we are talking about? Are there really hordes of people on the far left who, if they joined up, could significantly change the composition of the Labour Party? I would hardly think so.
I must say that I find the arguments of people like JamesT truly strange. Ultimately, if you reduce what he says down to the bottom line, the entire content of his message to the far left can be summed up thus: “things would be better if everyone thought like me.” He proposes that the far left join the Labour Party in order to strengthen it. But I presume that he would hope that people in the Conservative Party, the Lib Dems, the BNP and the whole banana shabana of political opinion out there will someday become members of the proletariat. Just asserting hermeneutic banalities hardly constitutes a devastating critical assessment of today’s left. The tragedy of JamesT is that he clearly thinks it does.
Ultimately, the question Dave poses is one inspired by the inner fantasy life of those on the far left who have joined the Labour Party. What is the fantasy? The belief that if only they were joined by the hordes of the deluded sectarian far left, their methods will work.
And they have the ashen-faced cheek to call those of us on the far left deluded fantasists!
Yes modernity but you seemed to be implying that it was a new problem.
The problem nowadays is that the LP seems to be a shell of its former self, and there is NO requirement to have any remotely socialist/social democratic views to join it.
The Labour Party has never had any requirements of that sort for joining, AFAIK. If that’s a problem, it’s not a new one.
well, boilmaker, it ain’t a problem, if you don’t mind Tories:
PS: Please can I suggest that you and other LPers engage with the issues:
1. Why is it now SO easy for Tories to join the LP?
2. And how does that look from the outside?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11186771
If the woman has resigned over the cuts then good for her.
If you mean is it a problem that it’s easy for Tories to join the Labour Party, then I suppose it is, but it’s no easier now.
Yes, yes, and the more the better because the further Left you lurch the more unelectable you become.
signed: A Well-Wisher
(Not really, just my little joke – alright, alright, it was the best I could come up with in the time!)
You read me wrong, CGW. I expressly do not urge every whackjob on the far left to sign up to the LP. Nor do I believe it can be transformed beyond the parameters that are established by its history.
A dose of Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxembourg or at least one of Ralph Milliband’s books needs a bit of a read methinks.
I really can’t see why we can’t have it both ways. Outside Labour are two kinds of Left-of-Labour parties/groups/organisations:
1. Newspaper Groups
Propagandists and writers of all kinds and levels, who don’t stand candidates in elections, but some of whom insist they are ‘parties’ (often correctly because they believe in non-electoral parties potential to stage revolutions).
2. Electoral Parties (with little electoral success or longevity)
I can’t see why the former Newspaper Groups can’t do everything they do from within the mass party. Some call this entryism, but I’m fine with any socialist group operating within my party, however mad I might consider their particular doctrine.
As for the latter Electoral Parties, they generally disappear after small flourishes, or CONSTANTLY keep dividing and reforming under a new name the vast majority of the working class will never hear of. I was in Respect. We got beat, and it was an unsustainable coalition. So I’m back in Labour.
The Socialist Party used to be Millitant (inside Labour) and had electoral success. The SWP used to be similar and were far more interesting as a result.
I want to see the Labour coalition with all of the organising and internal campaigning, newspapers, and groups inside it. Rather than the Labour, SWP, SP, SLP, Respect, Respect Renewal, SSP, SSP Solidarity (this Newman calls ‘the alphabetti spagetti’) all having their own tiny meeting, preaching to their own tiny attendances, imagine HUGE Labour meetings with stalls, newspapers, and campaigning from each socialist group within. A bit like the fringe at conference, but massive, more diverse, and all the time!
That’s why I have joined, and welcome all groups into Labour.
Nor do I believe it can be transformed beyond the parameters that are established by its history.
What evidence is there that it can even return to its historical routes as a left social democratic party?
CGW has this one right. The Labour Left have been banging on about reclaiming the party for decades, with nothing to show for it. In the present time, it’s no less fantastical than claiming that revolution is around the corner.
The fact that the far left is fucked at the moment is not evidence for the Labour left not being so.
And most working class people are not members of the Labour Party, nor are they members of any party.
Yes! People saying that Ed Miliband wouldn’t move Labour to the Left- that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Left can’t just stand and watch until the Labour party comes to us, or stand and watch and then moan that there aren’t any lefties in the Labour party anymore…
But we need to be realistic over what the Labour party can achieve- what any party can achieve. We should be promoting socialism in our communities- promote cooperatives and mutuals and all things nice. We can’t expect the Labour party to do the work for us, we need to collectively push the Labour party and the country in a leftward direction.
As for ex-Tories joining Labour- Stafford Cripps was at the same university Conservative Association as Nick Clegg. Would the Left have recommended blocking his conversion?
“If you mean is it a problem that it’s easy for Tories to join the Labour Party, then I suppose it is, but it’s no easier now.”
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….
Its an issue I’ve grappled with and decided against. I’m with Waterloo Sunset on this. I don’t see a way that Labour can be reclaimed to a more left wing position, because the majority of its members don’t act to secure that objective. Some don’t want it, others don’t think it can be won, others don’t think too much about it at all and just hold Labour in tribal loyalty. And a few want a socialist direction, but are swamped by the rest. I don’t think its controversial to say that the LP has an imperfect internal democracy, to put it charitably, but neither do I see the membership straining at the leash for a new direction, left or otherwise. And I’m not sure the maths would change fundamentally if every socialist outside the LP came in from the cold.
And if the membership are longer behind the idea of a socialist party (let’s say socialist as being no more than principled public ownership, and support for trade unionism, to avoid arguing about what socialism is), then trying to overturn that democratic outcome is pointless. You might as well join the Greens and win them to socialism – it’s probably a shorter journey too.
If no viable party structure exists to carry forward some idea of socialist change then why bother with any of them? Futile activity with no prospect of success is no better than doing nothing. It makes far more sense to me, to get involved in worthwhile campaigns and causes (anti cuts, environment etc), and stay involved in my trade union.
Why do I have to join a party if there seems no prospect of it delivering anything? I don’t have to be a member to vote for them – or even to support and campaign for them where a decent candidate comes forward.
For me to rejoin the Labour Party (I was a member from 1979 to 1997) would not just require the triumph of hope over experience, it would also have to involve a superhuman suspension of disbelief.
It is not just that New Labour combines thatcherite neo-liberal economics and authoritarian social polices, and that it is a project based on the belief that encouraging globalised finance capital will lead to economic growth from which a little surplus can be extracted and redistributed. After all, perhaps it will not be quite so New Labour in the future?
The problem is that Old Labour, New Labour and Left Labour have surrendered any belief that there is an alternative to capitalism. In the face of the un-sustainability of global capitalism’s economic growth there is a utopian faith in pleading for ‘capitalism with a human face’ (Slavoj Žižek).
Rather than waste my time with the Labour Party I will join the Party of Indignation – any movement that is “ready to fight and defeat the Party of Wall Street and its acolytes and apologists everywhere” (David Harvey).
Agree with Dave, I would query the question though. It’s almost as if that definition ‘far left’ itself defines a kind of cult, which plays into the hands of those who would deny socialist ideas any kind of credibility. I’d rather have ‘soft left’ or ‘centre right’ as a label, and ideas with big fucking red teeth, like forcing Serco to be at least partially governed by a workers council (incidentally, an idea hinted at by ‘right-wing Blairite’ Andy Burnham).
Of course, we all know that the organisation of the left in general has been a stodgy overplayed farce for years, and that fact has itself concealed the actually existing strengths which exist in urban Britain. Tower Hamlets elected George Galloway, the respectable village of Hayes elects John McDonnell. In a sense things are not as bad as we could think – in Greater London there is a ‘Blue State’ effect at work, a guaranteed majority for the left on most issues, as we can see from Boris Johnson’s twists and turns.
There is a massive space to the left of Labour, no-one has filled it, and I would totally agree that many of the ‘hard left,’ many of whom are good propagandists and educators, need to think more in terms of helping self-defence initiatives, organising trades councils and all sorts of things, than collecting money for lame-duck candidates.
The “far-left” should never have *left* the Labour Party. Though the likes of ‘Socialist Resistance’ are too stupid to be of any use to the working class, and ‘Socialist Action’ too reactionary, politically corrupt and degenerate.
Socialists should join/re-join if a reasonable case can be made that doing so would help to raise the profile of socialist politics and push party policy in that direction.
It is obvious, to me at least, that joining/re-joining will not secure these outcomes.
The balance of power in the party lies overwhelmingly with the PLP and the Shadow Cabinet. In the absence of significant levels of industrial action and other mass social struggles this will remain the case.
Socialists who join in this context will have the honour of doing lots of leg-work to help sustain the party organisation and electoral machine – while being firmly exluded from policy formation and implementation.
So if you enjoy being regarded as a ‘useful idiot’ by the likes of Shaun Woodward, Jack Straw and Alistair Darling then go ahead. It will be a spectacular waste of your time, energies and political skills.
The political climate for socialists is extremely hostile at present – and is likely to remain so for some years to come. However, building Labour and encouraging illusions in labourism will do little to help make things better.
no.
Instead build a true Labor Party instead, one that stands for the rights of all workers, migrants, disabled and unemployed. On that opposes involvement in the various US led imperialistic wars.
“Nor do I believe it can be transformed beyond the parameters that are established by its history.”
Sorry, Dave, you’re right. I thought there was a point to your asking the question. My mistake.
Jim Denham said,
“‘Socialist Action’ too reactionary, politically corrupt and degenerate.”
Is this the greatest example of pot calling kettle in history?
If I could just add my pennywdorth …. Seems to me we are in a bit of a ‘pheney’ war at the moment. My husband keeps telling me there is going to be mass immiseration in this country soon, and I would like to know what the Labour Party is going to do about it? If they can persuade me that they do have some ideas, and I’ll take a lot of persuading, I would consider giving some of my time and energy to them once again. By the way, ‘Jimmy Glasgae’, is your attitude towards Scottish working class people typical of the Scottish Labour Party?