Welcome to Labour, comrade Newman
Posted on Wednesday 8 September, 2010
Filed Under Labour Left, The left
HE’S back, and this time no more Mr Nice Guy. From the contributors’ page at Labour left group blog Left Futures:
Andy Newman is the primary contributor to Socialist Unity, probably the leading website to the Left of Labour. He recently rejoined the Labour Party, he is on the National Steering Committee of the Stop the War Coalition, and the Southern Regional Council of the GMB.
Blimey. I haven’t seen this announced anywhere else, least of all on the SU website. But I presume the statement is authoritative. And so soon after Phil BC of A Very Public Sociologist fame threw in the towel with the Socialist Party and signed up to wussy social democratic reformism, too.
Although Andy is too modest to mention it in the potted biog, he is a former member of the Socialist Workers’ Party, a parliamentary candidate who secured 205 votes for Socialist Unity against Labour in Swindon North in 2005, and until recently a high profile member of George Galloway’s ill-fated Respect grouping.
Until a few months ago, he argued that the latter organisation stood a good chance of securing three MPs and holding the balance of power in a hung parliament, a perspective that was not borne out in the general election.
But hey, I’m the last one to talk. Welcome to the party, comrade.
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54 Responses to “Welcome to Labour, comrade Newman”
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“Blimey. I haven’t seen this announced anywhere else, least of all on the SU website.”
Well, I don’t feel I am not important enough to make announcements about what I am doing.
In terms of my own political activity, in Swindon, SW of England and GMB, this makes most sense.
I don’t necessarily advocate that other people do the same, it is just what makes sense for me. It might make sense for others as well, as the key battle ground in the nest period is likely t be withing the Labuor Party, and in most (but not all) of England it will also be the best place to be located t oppose the Tory cuts
In particular i don’t want to be seen to be making any political criticism of Respect, I agree with the politics of Respect, and believe that it includes some of the most inspiring activists on the left.
The difference is that I now cannot support them in elections.
As a long standing Labour Party member I am appalled. Next thing we know he will be calling for the nationalisation of the 57 monopolys in a fake scouse accent.
Did not Head Office spot this ?
GW
He probably intends to defend the Pope’s anti-imperialism, not to mention the gains of the Cultural Revolution, by voting for Diane Abott.
Sorry: “Diane Abbott”
Well, I don’t feel I am not important enough to make announcements about what I am doing.
Freudian slip, Andy?
Time to leave the Party methinks .
As to his importance, well he has blogged a lot about his membership and support of Respect, so why not let people know he is joining Labour?
“freudian slip?”
well all bloggers are narcissists, but I am not particularkly interested in promotion.
“well he has blogged a lot about his membership and support of Respect,”
Really, have I blogged a lot about my personal membership of Respect? can you show examples?
You will note that during the general election there was at least as much coverage of Labour’s campiagn as Resect’s on SU.
Andy
It is usual practice for longstanding activists who change allegiance to give some account of their reasons, though.
You are welcome to a guest post here.
Andy
It is well known on your site you are a member of Respect. You have talked about their conferences etc and it is clear you were a member.
Most people on that site will assume you are still a member. And yes, you have beat the drum for various Labour MPs etc, which is why people kept saying when were you going to join.
How does it feel to be in a Party with blood on its hands then ?
Yep, most people are open about their membership of groups and parties and why they join. Examples include Phil and Sunny, of late.
According to Andy Newman[The Labour Party] ‘will also be the best place to be located to oppose the Tory cuts’ Really? It’ll certainly be the place to campaign for Labour councillors who’ll implement the cuts.
andy newman. You know fine well the only way the Tory/Lib cuts can be opposed is to have a Labour Gov elected. You can stand on the cobbles until the cows come home shouting against the cuts but the Tory/Lib pact will have their way if they have a majority vote in the Commons. Are you manouvering for some position andy? You could end up a champagne Labour socialist MP! if you play your cards right.
red rose. Aye the old blood on the hands story. I take it you mean Iraq where muslim factions indulge in wholesale slaughter of each other.
Those who suggested that Respect Renewal was a conduit back to Labour were way off the mark then.
I now cannot support them in elections.
They’re going to stagger on to the next one then?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqgvQ88KGLs
“Minutes of Respect National Council Meeting
12th September 2009
Present: Clive Searle, Kay Phillips, Mark Holland, Alastair Stephens, Ian Donovan, Jo Benefield, Jerry Hicks, John Lister, Kevin Ovenden, Ger Francis, Salma Yaqoob, Fiona Edwards, Jim Rogers, Andy Newman, Salma Iqbal, Berny Parkes, Ian Drummond, Carole Swords, Bob Whitehead.
Apologies: Mark Butcher, Nick Wrack, Ellen Howard, Mo Ouanni, Alan Thornett, Terry Conway, Abjol Miah, George Galloway MP, Councillor Dillal, Andy Richards”
http://www.therespectparty.org/natcouncil.php?category=Minutes
Dave,
You sure about Comrade Cardigan joining the LP?
I thought he had been appointed the replacement for Reg Birch on some new Maoist grouplet?
SU blog’s coverage of Respect is extensive, http://www.socialistunity.com/?cat=83
Good news that progressive voices are flocking back to Labour and the timing is just right. But Doug is correct, the New Labour ‘anti cuts programme’ is very very modest so comrades need to stick with the party even through the inevitable disapointments.
“progressive voices, ” spluttered my coffee all over the laptop . Are you talking about the same Andy Newman?
The Pope, DDR nostalgics, Cornish nationalists and the central committee of the Chinese Communist Party need people like Andy to fight their corner in the LP.
Yep, independence for Cornwall but not for Tibet .
When I hear the word ‘progressive’ I get very suspicious. Why even warcrim Blair considers himself progressive – it’s utterly meaningless. My cynic radar also gets activated by news like Ed Balls turning up at the Burston School strike commemoration. Of course, phoney leftism like that fools some people.
JamesT, I probably wasn’t very clear in what I said. I meant that all over the country Labour councillors will be implementing cuts or voting for them. Only a tiny number (or none?) will actually vote against them. That’s the party your a member of and those are the people you’ll be campaigning for come election time. Which means people like you, Newman, AVPS and Mr Osler will be implicated in their consequences. Roll up, roll up for The Great Moving Right Show.
Doug,
That is what I thought you meant!!!
Personally I am campaigning against the cuts, that campaign can only be successful within a mass movement. Shouting from the sidelines is a strategy that leads nowhere. And there is a bigger picture than the cuts.
P.S. Progressive is a relative concept!
Andy.
Bygones, I say.
Did you attempt to lead all, some, or none of Respect to Labour?
I would have preferred a unified and public winding up of the Respect rump in favour of a decisive return to Labour.
You and I are two returners, but a solid collective movement to the party would’ve been good. This doesn’t just apply to Respect, I aim that wish to all left-of-Labour groupings, all of which I would welcome into Labour (then perhaps we could have socialist leadership).
Is this an example of a rat joining a sinking ship?
Are the Labour Party about to turn into a party of clerical reactionaries and secular totalitarians, like Respect?
You lot mock him too much.
Comrade Cardigan is a serious man, no doubt within 6 months he’ll be on the local committee and then a regional/district delegate within a year…
Miliband had better watch out!
If you disagree with Doug’s brand of revolutionary identity politics you’re “moving to the right”. I’m sure he feels very secure in his black and white view of the world. Pity it’s of bugger all use for understanding it.
Now Andy’s on board how long will it be before HP is foaming at the mouth over the crimes of Swindon Labour Party?
Andy, how often did you dismiss those of us who periodically noted that your former revolutionary socialist politics were degenerating into barely left social democracy?
Looks like we real Labour people will have to be alert once again from the loony lefty infiltrators. Its probably a Tory/Lib plot to ensure Labour are unelectable for decades. But they are easy to spot. They shout you down if they disagree.
I really can’t understand socialists joining the Labour Party to ‘oppose the cuts’. Labour were never opposed to the cuts, as we’re reminded every time one of them dares to venture onto something like the Daily Politics and is left shivering in the foetal position by recurring demands to know what they would have cut instead. And they still aren’t opposed to huge cuts, they just give vague platitudes about being opposed to them ‘at the moment’.
The only way to stop the Tory/Lib cuts is to get Labour into power? So that we can have Labour cuts instead? The party that abolished the 10p tax rate? And what then, we all flood back out again and wait for the next Tory government so we can once more flood back in? Einstein’s definition of insanity would find this fascinating, but for me it’s just incomprehensible.
Capitalism in crisis, the major parties all discredited. These are the conditions in which to build a left alternative, but it seems we’re only willing to try when there’s nothing at stake.
Gordon. If the left have an alternative then lets hear it. The voters will decide.
I asked below but didn’t get any answer.
So how do once revolutionary socialists rationise in their own minds belonging to a Labour Party run by New Labour zombies, and importantly a Party that will willingly accept Tories if they sign on the line, without any ideological conversion?
Again, you belong to a Tory-friendly Party, doesn’t that ever stir any thoughts on the issue?
I am genuinely mystified…
Because socialists, at least the ones I’m close to, are members out of strategic and tactical considerations. Far be it for me to use Dave’s blog to plug my own, but it is something I’ve written a not inconsiderable amount about.
The question is for those outside Labour is what is your alternative? How do we move socialist politics forward when the space to Labour’s left is closing, unions are increasingly using the influence they have in Labour, and the mass of the working class would rather abandon politics altogether than give the 57 varieties of left alternatives a punt. Where is a new workers’ party going to come from?
Thats the issue for me, what is the alternative left wing political organisation we can join?
There might be a few isolated places where people have another credible group to organise around, and if so thats what they should do, but for most of us we have very little options here.
The blame for that lies squarely with those indivduals and groups who squandered the opportunity of the last 13 years to build a party to the left of labour. If they couldnt do it then then clearly they never will.
No-one should be re-joining Labour in a fanfare of publicity, and re-claiming it certainly isnt on the agenda, but if its the best local place to re-group and organise then thats just what has to be done
Jimmy Glesga says – Looks like we real Labour people will have to be alert once again from the loony lefty infiltrators. Its probably a Tory/Lib plot to ensure Labour are unelectable for decades. But they are easy to spot. They shout you down if they disagree.
But on the other hand Jimmy it could at least provide some balance to the neo-liberals and Tories in the Blairite wing of the party. The PLP has now become so unrepresentitive of the party as whole that a few Andy Newman’s may not hurt. The old saying of being inside the tent pissing out comes to mind.
Then again wasn’t Darling once in the IMG, Blunkett once running Red Sheffield, Blair once calling everyone ‘comrade’, and Jimmy once a Catholic? What will become of Andy Newman one wonders?
The Labour Party and Andy Newman belong together – this is not a surprise, just part of the dance towards the right that many have observed. As for the Socialist Unity site, it’s more friendly to armchair types, and I don’t bother with it any-more!”
Dave:
“The Pope, DDR nostalgics, Cornish nationalists and the central committee of the Chinese Communist Party need people like Andy to fight their corner in the LP.”
Don’t forget Elvis, and the Sweet.
Andy, I think a “why I’ve joined Labour” post would be interesting & useful. (Personally I’m not joining anything, on the general principle of being knackered, but if I was casting around for a party to join Labour wouldn’t even be in the top three. I suspect quite a few SU readers feel similarly.) I wouldn’t worry about seeming self-indulgent – at the rate you put stuff up on SU, it would only stay on the front page for about half a day.
Sorry Andy, you joining the Brit Labour Party negates the whole ‘socialist unity’ raison d’etre. I can recognize the political context in the wake of the history of these past 10 years of failed and sabotaged regroupment projects but embracing the party that facilitated the Iraq War — and god knows what else — isn’t any socialist — let alone working class — way forward in my opinion.
I think Doug is in the Socialist Party, and presumably the Militant before that. So he would have plenty of experience of doing what the Militant did – trying to get their supporters selected as candidates but also campaigning for all kinds of Labour candidates in elections.
Quite why this went from being A Great Strategy to A Terrible Strategy I’m not clear but I suspect it happened around the time Peter Taaffe told everyone it had happened.
“My cynic radar also gets activated by news like Ed Balls turning up at the Burston School strike commemoration”
It’s the idea that Doug ever has his cynic radar turned off that astonishes me.
“I think Doug is in the Socialist Party, and presumably the Militant before that. ”
Doug was in the SWP before he joined the Socialist Party.
Avante la Labour Party ~ One more BIG push…One more Mile-iband…
“Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Waht was that Ralf M said about searching for “wings on an eliphant”? Easy.
COMING SOON …
“ANDY NEWMAN – THE JOURNEY” (all good book shops…signings pending – no unwashed protesters pleeeeeeeeze).
“God be with him” – T.Blair
The most important issue by far for the foreseeable future is fighting the cuts. You don’t have to be in the Labour Party to do that – you don’t have to be in any party at all. However, if you’re serious about stopping them that means not holding back because the councillors in your own party are implementing and/or voting for them. What credibility will you have with menmbers of the public if, on the one hand, you’re supposedly campaigning against cuts and on the other you’re in a Party whose representatives are implementing them locally?
I have just voted – UNITE ballot paper – for Ed Miliband.
Does that make me a class traitor as well?
Phil,”are members out of strategic and tactical considerations.”
My parents were Labour activists, my grandparents as well.
I was a Ward sectretary of Ipswich Labour for about eight years.
Like the rest of us we co-operate all the time with the Labour Party.
Like in the anti-BNP campaign this year: organised by the SWP, trade unionists, Socialist Party, and, er the local Labour Party.
Don’t forget that some us actually come from the Labour movement.
Doug
“What credibility will you have with menmbers of the public if, on the one hand, you’re supposedly campaigning against cuts and on the other you’re in a Party whose representatives are implementing them locally?”
Out of interest Doug, can you list the councils in Devon where you live where Labour councillors have voted for cuts?
Doug
Nobody in our local anti-cuts campaign is “holding back” anything because of what party they’re in.
In my experience the public are intelligent enough to understand that Labour Party members frequently disagree with, and even sometimes campaign against, activities carried out by Labour administrations. It’s a shame you don’t seem to have grasped that yet.