The Daily (Maybe)

I loathe and despise blog rows where one blogger denounces another at length and it goes round in circles until everyone feels sick. However, just for once I'll use this space to disagree with Carl at Raincoat Optimism over 'sectarianism' because, hopefully, it will be a friendly disagreement. And anyway, "it's good to talk" as Bob Hoskins used to say on that advert encouraging us run our phone bills up.

dalek-victory-poster[i-dalek-victory-poster]Carl wrote earlier today a post that is a hybrid between a history lesson on the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and an opportunity to say that "refusal to work in the Labour Party, from the ILP back in the thirties to the Greens and the SWP now, is the scourge of left wing politics."

If he'd written about a refusal to work *with* the Labour Party I might not have bothered, cooperating with people you disagree with on specific points of agreement is healthy, but working *in* it? That's different.

But first the history. I'd like to defend the ILP from Carl's assertion that it as a "small, inadequate left wing part[y] shout[ing] in the wind, by the sidelines". I think this is far too harsh.

Firstly the ILP left the Labour Party in 1932 when it was in crisis Labour having played an utterly shameful role in government. Although a smallish organisation (with less than ten thousand members) it provided a strong left current outside of Stalinism, provided trade union militants who were not in the pockets of the large political organisations and, crucially, aided the Spanish revolution organisation aid and volunteers to fight in the POUM.

I think all of that was worth while and were a real contribution to the political moment quite distinct from Labour, who were a shower at the time. While I've no intention of defending every action of the ILP inside Labour they would have found making this contribution more difficult not less.

link[i-link]Which brings me on to today. For Carl we need to be inside "the Labour Party, currently in opposition to a government demanding ideological cuts over jobs and growth", but I think this ignores something pretty basic, which is that people like myself are for things as well as against them.

The current Labour position is that the deficit should not be halved in three years but in four. My economic position is that we should not be cutting public sector spending, but rather investing in the future. If I joined Labour it would be harder to argue that case for investment, not easier, so why should I spend my time campaigning for candidates who think the opposite of what I think?

There is a basic principle here - my politics are not the same as Labour's. Labour have consistently gone into General Elections saying that the market should have a greater involvement in public services, saying that the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq were good and, while I have collected money for strikers, they have denounced them. I don't think Labour wants me anymore than I want to join them.

There's loads of people in Labour I have a real respect for, mainly the grass roots activists, but while I love and hug and kiss left Labour MP's like John MacDonnell I could never do what he does. Going to the polls on a manifesto that I disagree with from the header on the front page to the "printed and published" on the back he doesn't agree with a word of it.

It just doesn't feel honest to me. Voters deserve candidates whose politics match their parties, at least in general.

Now, it's all very well saying people on the left are sectarian for not being members of the Labour Party but what if I don't want to support candidates in favour of war? What if I think the economy needs to be regeared towards the ecological crisis? Is it sectarian to have political disagreements. Surely it would only be sectarian to refuse to join even though I agreed with their policies? But I don't.

Members of the SWP want a workers' revolution and think Parliamentary democracy is shit. Seeing as there is a very clear dividing line between that position and the position of every Labour leader and manifesto since its inception it seems pretty sensible for them to go elsewhere for their political sustenance.

Political pluralism does seem to annoy many in Labour, which is one reason I guess they've never tried to introduce proportional representation, but I'm afraid it's a fact of life - they really are other ways of thinking than inside the Labour/Tory horse race.

None of this means small parties are better than big ones. It doesn't even mean having different politics means being 'purist'. Labour don't think a watered down version of what I think, they actually think the opposite - at least on the big things like war, privatisation and ecological devastation. It's not purism that stops me being a Labour Party member but the fact I don't agree with their policies. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

8 comments Labels: History, Labour, The Left

One theme that is emerging is that, these days, I use the word socialism a lot less when I write - and a good thing too. However, I was intrigued when I came across this piece I wrote in July 2004 on 'Why we stand in elections'. Tempted as I am to tinker with it to reflect some changes in my perspectives I think I'll be brave and post as is.

It's not that long ago that many on the left assumed that we never stood in elections. There is no Parliamentary road to socialism, meant we never use parliamentary elections. Now the assumption has flipped the other way. Not only does everyone believe that we must stand in elections, but there is very little questioning of why we might be doing it.

I want to take a quick look at what a socialist election campaign is meant to achieve - and the kind of thing we should attempt to avoid.

Obviously, for socialists, we see elections as an opportunity to advance "socialism" and persuade people over to left wing arguments on a whole host of questions.

We hope that by standing in elections we can raise crucial questions that no one else will raise and can help build campaigns in the estates and on the streets that fight for social justice, often uniting with people who fall well outside of 'socialist'.

A socialist campaign should try to reflect the principles that launched it. Team work, democracy, fraternal discussion and working class politics need to be crucial threads running through those campaigns.

We don't avoid certain questions or adapt our answers because we think they might be vote losers. Nor do we go out of our way to bludgeon people with a full list of socialist demands, or pick out what think might be our most unpopular demands.

None of this means that we never compromise, that we always stand no matter how bad the vote might be or anything like that. Tactical questions are important to make sure we don't end up finding ourselves stepping backwards, but it's this overall picture - the real reason for standing in elections that we should not forget.

A socialist election campaign needs to draw new people in and give those with less time the opportunity to do a little on this special occasion. There are a whole layer of progressive people across the country that simply will not become 'activists' attend meetings and regularly support demonstrations - but they will, once a year say, go out and leaflet and stick a poster up in their window. We need to find ways of going to them rather than expecting everyone to be head banging activists.

This layer is particularly important because we should be striving to give them as much democratic input as possible so they feel this is their movement and when they go to work or are waiting at the school gates they are confident to put the arguments of that movement.

If activists and supporters are to give their all they must feel they are part of the campaign, they have a say in decisions and that it represents their views - rather than simply supporting someone that they think will do a good job. In short it must be accountable to the supporters on the ground rather than a top down plan by the 'leaders' of the movement.

All of this raises the question of the difference between our democracy and theirs and it all points us in a very different direction to the careerists and opportunists that pollute the Labour Party. Protests are not simply good opportunities to get your face in the paper - they are the essential building blocks of the struggle for a better world. Elections and elected officials are worth only what they add to this fight.

We do not stand to get elected, but we do hope to get elected, to win greater support for the left and gain a profile for our ideas that we could not otherwise achieve. The press will always suppress information on minority candidates, particularly socialist ones, but we can twist their arms if we prove ourselves to be news and to ignore us would clearly smack of censorship.

However even when we get a hearing, we should never expect that we get a FAIR hearing. Despite all this the media is a crucial tool in any modern campaigning work.

Whilst those socialists who remain in Labour may conceivably argue that a fight inside Labour may push it to the left - there is no Labour election campaign (for instance at the June 10th elections) that can be said to be a real fighting expression of the anti-war movement, or that connected with the local population on a socialist basis, no matter how left wing the candidate.

For the Labour Party power is an end in itself, and protest is useful only where it enhances the vote - for socialists political power is only worth bothering with if it gives the movement more confidence, shifts the population to the left and strengthens our ability to fight. Socialists never say 'we will do this for you' what they must say is that 'no one but yourselves will protect your interests, rise up and fight.' And in this unity is strength.

0 comments Labels: Archives, Elections, The Left, Thinking aloud

This is another piece from April 2004 on building socialist unity and I've posted this for my own historical interest really. I was not a member of the Greens at the time as you might guess from the content, the 'we' refers either the left or sometimes specifically those who wanted Respect to do well. I've edited the article down a bit for length, removing some references to election stats that no one cares about anymore - even if they did back then. I've added new pics.

Rachel[i-Rachel]One of the grand old traditions the left would do well to leave behind is the sectarian and, frankly, bad mannered approach to other sections of the left. It’s hard enough to conduct a decent political debate without additional unpleasantness and deeply entrenched sectionalism.

I doubt any of us has a totally ‘clean slate’ but it’s hardly surprising that some SWP members have been less than enthusiastic about the Socialist Alliance because, for them, it was the place they’d go to be personally abused and be expected to swallow with a smile.

In fact, the way in which we conduct a debate can dictate whether meaningful discussion is even possible. Due to the level of Galloway baiting it became completely impossible to have a real discussion about the workers wage and what it signifies. This issue became so bound up with the attacks upon this anti-imperialist, reformist socialist member of parliament that many who would have supported the workers wage found themselves completely unable to do so. If the movement had been giving Galloway support, despite both the real and imagined political differences, it would have made proper dialogue possible.

If only we were as vigorous in our attacks upon our enemies as we are upon our potential allies.

We can all of us find reasons not to unite with any given person – but the over arching principle of the post-Seattle left has been that of unity. Whether in the anti-capitalist movement, the left in the unions or political re-groupments, the entire trend has been a coming together. It may well be that this period is ending and certainly the establishment of RESPECT has been difficult to regard as an example of consensus building and democracy, but that period is not yet dead and it is still possible for us to make gains.

The recent National Union of Students elections show a worrying backward step where Socialist Worker chose to stand a candidate against the only left winger capable of over turning Labour’s strangle hold on the presidency. Thankfully Kat Fletcher was able to win despite the divide in the left, though what their few dozen votes achieved for SWSS God only knows. The given reasons for standing against Kat Fletcher was that they held a different position on Israel / Palestine, this would be the most abstract bit of sectarianism if it were not a pretext.

Socialist Worker members will have no difficulty voting for RESPECT members who have a different view on this question, nor a left wing candidate in a trade union election that holds a different view. The real reason is unfortunately the attempt to retain a hermeneutically sealed organisation at the expense of the wider movement. Let’s hope the lessons have been learned from this little episode of grubby sectarianism.


war47[i-war47]We need to develop a more cooperative blend of politics on the left against the prevailing mood. I think that every socialist, no matter what their affiliation, or lack of it, can play a part in building a positive and collaborative culture. Refusing to involve ourselves in progressive movements, no matter how much room for improvement there is, would be a real mistake.

Where we are involved in any real campaigning in our area we should seek out potential allies no matter where they might be. Having a positive relationship with RESPECT is clearly part of this, and any serious campaigner cuts themselves off at their peril.

Socialists should involve themselves in everything they can that has any progressive content, and preferably do so as someone who genuinely wants that group / organisation to succeed. This not only includes RESPECT, but also Christian Aid, Greenpeace, Bus Campaigns and what ever may be happening in your local area.

I believe that unity is the name of the game, not any one particular organisational form that this may take, and this is the question we have been attempting to address. How do we achieve greater left unity? Not just of those who marched against the war, nor simply of the left organisations but across the board unity.


402576144_794f6fb920[i-402576144_794f6fb920]There are three golden rules to building a successful socialist movement in this country. Unfortunately no one knows what they are. But we can see that the closed circles and cliques of the old left are not up to the job of realising the fantastic potential that exists in this current period. These natural tendencies can be habit forming but let’s break with the mistakes of the past and take a revolutionary leap into a fresher, more open collaborative politics.

The diversity that exists in the movement is a source of strength, not concern. The left needs to become a more pleasant and interesting place to be. It is not enough to want to be in the same organisation as other left wingers whilst conducting a war against them – we should be allies in the fullest and deepest meaning of the term.

To do this we should, I think, try to develop a culture where we can explore ideas and be ourselves without fear of bilious condemnation. This is not incompatible with being an organised and effective socialist. Axe grinding is not politics – harping on about the issues that divide us cannot bring about greater unity, it can only poison the waters.

At the same time part of a democratic debate is the recognition that we have something to debate about – we are not of one common mind and often these differences take organisational forms – that need not bring about disunity in action, and can prevent a group becoming locked in paralysis by its internal disputes.


09RESPECT1_415x344[i-09RESPECT1_415x344]Personally I think RESPECT made a mistake on the workers wage, republicanism and, Lord help me, even its name – but should I allow these issues to distract me from what are the most urgent tasks? Money, members and momentum. A defeat for RESPECT [note from 2010: this is referring to the 2004 Euro elections and the 2005 general election where Galloway was to be elected] would be a backward step for us all, and a success will pick up the pace for everyone on the left – this means all serious socialists should hope for a good result, no matter how painful we have found the process.

How could any of us hope to gain a hearing in a movement where we play a less than positive, or even disruptive, role? If we are genuinely in favour of a successful progressive coalition we should do our best practically as well as politically to making that coalition work. Whilst we cannot allow political disagreements to obstruct making a valuable contribution I hope people will not take that to mean I believe our political differences should remain unobtrusive – it is simply a question of how, when and why we raise these issues.

Due to the frantic pace of its development RESPECT has, by necessity, left dirty great holes where we would wish to see flesh on the bones. Be these questions of democracy, policy or organisation the best way that we can influence its future direction is through unconditional involvement today.

The fact that the French left were able to achieve more than a million votes at the last elections is an impressive feat we are unlikely to match, but we should be realistic about what a good vote is lest we only bring people on board until June 11th when they see a respectable vote as a total, crushing defeat.


My assessment of this is that if we have anyone at all elected that will be an achievement that was not on the cards five years ago. For the first time in my life I regret not living in London because to work for a candidate like Lindsey German, who both can and should get a seat, would be a real incentive to hard graft and that dreaded word enthusiasm.

If we got 3% (Nader’s share of the vote at the US presidential elections) this would be a good result. 3% of an entire country, not simply our strong holds, would be impressive.

A swath of under 2% votes and being seen to lose a sitting Green MEP their seat would be a bad defeat and, in all honesty, RESPECT will have to work hard to avoid that, but avoid it we can.

But however large the job in the run up to the June elections it is an ongoing progressive organisation that we need, that can fill the gap that used to be occupied by Labour which can fight on the ground in the estates all over the country. A mass national organisation can only be made up of hundreds of local groups who have gained respect in their town over the victories and principled stands that they have made – it cannot be built with a very efficient press organisation and national demonstrations.

The former has the added advantage of requiring any progressive bloc to remember why we are standing in the election in the first place, and quite a number of people are becoming worried that this is exactly what we are beginning to forget.


We do need to bring about a balance between vigorous political debate and unified action. There are stubborn tendencies in all of us that swing all of one way or the other. Either “the task is action so shut up now” or becoming completely paralysed and bogged down in our disagreements due to a purely polemical style of political activity.

4 comments Labels: Archives, The Left

Tommy Sheridan has been convicted of perjury and in January he is likely to be sentenced to a prison term. This should make no one on the left happy, nobody joyous, nobody smug - indeed it should make all of us on the left very angry that it was ever allowed to get this far.

link[i-link]Cicero said that “Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature” and what could be more fitting to describe the long and drawn out series of court cases begun not by the police, not by Sheridan's "enemies" on the left or by MI5 but by the Scottish socialist politician Tommy Sheridan himself?

Dave Osler has the tone about right I think when he rightly points to the service Sheridan had done to the left over the years prior to these events but that he then pulled down those achievements around himself over some (largely true) tabloid allegations that he could have simply brushed aside.

That he was a victim of internal rivalries is fanciful. The SSP was at a high point, with six MSPs, the best known of which was Sheridan, when the saga began. To claim that internal foes manouvered him into taking up a court case, when they were openly calling on him not to pursue it, and then lied in court to destroy him, regardless of the catastrophic effect such a course of action would have on their party just goes beyond credible. That he turned allies into enemies through his decsion is beyond question.

To say that Sheridan's decision to try to force fellow party members to lie for him in court about his sexual life was misjudged would be to put it mildly. To say his refusal to back down when they made it clear they would not perjure themselves for his personal ego was suicidal would be spot on. He made a terrible error of judgment that dragged his family, his friends, his colleagues and himself through an extraordinary and damaging process. He is the victim of his own mistakes.

As Sheridan was using the courts to make two hundred thousand pounds in libel damages from the News of the World, he was also using the tabloid press to attack his comrades on the left, using ludicrous accusations like 'scabs' for their refusal to lie. A scab is someone who crosses a democratically agreed picket line, who works during a strike, undermining it, not someone who fights to protect the reputation of a socialist party against the personal ego of one man.

The implication that socialists should tell lies to protect 'one of their own' when the case was neither political nor an attempt to bring that socialist down is wrong headed in my view. The left has to be honest with itself and with others, to do otherwise is to become morally bankrupt and unsupportable. However the lines were drawn up and the feud was as public as it was bitter with bad behaviour on both 'sides'.

The libel case raised the question that someone had to be lying and all sides of the case were investigated. Eventually the roles were reversed and it was Sheridan who was in the dock. Bizarrely in his five hour summing up Sheridan even described systematic lying as part of his political tradition. He claimed that the old Militant tendancy that he was trained in would use a "defiance strategy" of dishonesty and conspiracies against their enemies. I think that says more about Sheridan than it does the socialists with whom he once held common cause and I'm convinced that had I been on the jury the length and tone of his summing up as well as this admission of the willingness to lie to achieve his ends would have weighed heavily against him.

If this case had gone the other way, it would have been other socialists facing a jail sentence. I'm glad that they are spared this hardship, even if I'm not happy that Sheridan is not. The fact is that Sheridan made it inevitable that someone on the left would go to jail, and there's no reason to think that given that facts it should have been anyone other than the man himself.

That there is a legacy of bitterness on the Scottish hard-left is undeniable. This article by SSY shows both the power of the arguments against Sheridan's suicidal course of action and how emotionally damaging the last years have been. That some of Sheridan's former comrades made mistakes is undeniable, but the fact remains all of them, to a man and woman, had tried to stop the first idiotic case from ever getting off the ground. Once it had begun, everyone's course was set.

However, the left is not there to simply serve itself and the left is far more than those who are members of hard-line parties. The civil war in the Scottish left, in those corners where it still persists, should end, but the truth is that for many it was never more than a distraction from the good work that they continued to crack on with, either because they had never been involved in the SSP or because they did not let the feud pull them down. Those who are unable to move on from this dark period will need no help from opponents in disappearing into obscurity.

The anti-war, anti-privatisation party I'll be supporting in May's elections will be the Scottish Greens, of course, but I wish all of those on the Scottish left inside and outside the SSP all the best. This has been a difficult time, but it is a period that is over and a new chapter is begining.

4 comments Labels: Scotland, The Left

Recently, 12 activists in the French New Anti-Capitalist Party, including Ilham Moussaid - whose candidacy for the regional elections caused controversy both within and without the party on the basis that she wears a hijab – resigned from the NPA. John Mullen, a member of the NPA in the Paris region, spoke to the Australian left organisation Socialist Alternative about the issue of Islamophobia in France, and the debates within the NPA that led to these resignations. He's kindly allowed me to repost the discussion here.

First of all, John, could you elaborate on what caused these members to resign and the contours of the debates within the NPA about the rights of its Muslim membership?

Ilham was chosen as one of a list of candidates in the regional elections last year. This decision was made in the region - the NPA is very much a federal organization. The NPA was attacked from all sides for giving in to Islamicists, fundamentalists and for abandoning secularism. The national spokesperson Olivier Besancenot defended Ilham’s right to be a candidate, but a vocal minority inside the NPA is hostile to having members with a hijab.

For the upcoming conference, this minority has put forward a motion that hijab wearers can’t be candidates for the party. A counter-motion defends equal rights for all members to apply to be a candidate, and a third motion suggests a dreadful compromise (that hijab wearers can be candidates if approved by special commissions).

The group of comrades of which Ilham is part, near Avignon, have been running dynamic local campaigns on different issues, including the question of Islamophobia. A campaign against them inside the party has worn them out and rather than fight at the conference, they have chosen to continue their activism outside the party - it’s very sad. The very real, and slowly growing support they have had from a minority of comrades around the country has not been enough to keep them in our party.

One of the things Moussaid stated on her resignation was, "We need to concentrate on what unites us, on the fight for equality between men and women, and not to say we should all dress the same way, that you can't wear a headscarf because otherwise you're not a feminist.” What do you say to the argument so often employed in these debates, that wearing the hijab is, ‘an assault on feminism’?

The majority of the Left in France believe that the hijab is an assault on women’s rights, and this position quickly moves into the prejudice that Muslim women in France are more oppressed than non-Muslim women, that the experience of women in –say- Saudi Arabia is merely an extreme case of an oppression which is inherent in Islam, and other such ideas. Muslim and Arab men are then presented as the major source of women’s oppression and contrasted with the progressive white values of Republican France. So opposition to religious practices on the basis of progressive values can easily turn into a thinly disguised form of racism – and often does.

In fact, if Muslim women in France suffer oppression, get mostly low-paid jobs and bad housing, this is not usually because of their husbands and big brothers, but because capitalism wants cheap labour, and treating ethnic minorities badly is good for profits.

Pieces of clothing have symbolic meanings in all cultures. In many cultures, women must cover their breasts, men must not wear dresses. In Sikh culture men must not cut their hair. And in many Muslim cultures women must cover their hair. When French Muslim women cover their hair to please their God, they are not saying “treat me as an inferior”.

There is another point : in France, where anti-Arab and anti-muslim racism is at a high level (which has a lot to fo with France’s imperial past and neo-colonial present), wearing the hijab is about showing you are proud to be a Muslim, (and often proud to be an Arab) in a fairly hostile situation. Tragically the opinion of the women who wear the hijab, or the niqab, is practically never asked. “Enlightened” left antisexists speak for them and tell them how they should dress. It’s an old colonial tradition, telling oppressed groups what is good for them.

The right-wing Sarkozy Government, with the support of the Socialist Party, recently banned the wearing of the hijab in state schools and the public service, and the full veil is now illegal in the streets. How is this issue exploited by France’s politicians and how prevalent is racist abuse of Muslims in France today?

A few months ago, researchers sent out to French companies applications for jobs accompanied by CVs. They wanted to compare how a young black Catholic woman fared in comparison with a young black Muslim woman. The CVs were identical except for first names and a mention of their religion (one said she was active with a Catholic organization, the other with a Muslim one).

The “Catholic” black woman got asked to an interview 21% of the time. The “Muslim” Black woman got asked to an interview 8% of the time. That’s how bad it is. The mainstream press covered this story, the Left press almost totally ignored it. That’s how bad it is.

Meanwhile racist grafitti on mosques, and desecration of Muslim graves are becoming more common – there have been at least twenty cases of vandalizing Muslim graves this year. A mosque and a halal butchers were shot at earlier this year – 32 bullet holes were left in the mosque walls. And a number of veiled women have been attacked in the streets.

The recent law to ban women who wear the “full veil” from leaving their homes was initially a proposal of a Communist MP! And the law in 2004, banning high school students from wearing a hijab was initiated by a campaign against two young Muslim women in which Trotskyist teachers were very active! Two months ago, when the Senate was debating the law against the “full veil”, a group of Muslims and left wing supporters organized a rally outside.

We got sixty activists there : not many, but in the French context quite an achievement. Almost all of the left organizations ignored it. The NPA leadership decided to “support” the rally … seven hours before it was due to start, although it had been planned for weeks. Internal division paralyzes the NPA and many other organizations on anything to do with Islamophobia.

We understand the issue of the hijab will be debated at the NPA’s upcoming conference. How do you think socialists should respond to Islamophobia in society?

The radical Left should launch an active and dynamic campaign against Islamophobia, and not just “debate “ the issue. This means allying itself with Muslim organizations. This is a very obvious point, but highly controversial on the French Left. In Britain, the biggest Trade Union confederation, the TUC, has run a joint campaign against Islamophobia along with Muslim organizations. Islamophobia is tremendously useful to Sarkozy to divide us, to point the finger at the Muslims as a threat to “our culture” in order to divert our attention from the real enemy.

Islamophobia is a gigantic blind spot of the French Left. The NPA is better than the other organizations of the radical Left, (which is not hard). The upcoming “Conference against the Islamic domination” in December, run by groups which came from the Left but have ended up on the far right, will see sections of the NPA mobilizing against it. And at the party conference we have a good chance of winning the demand for equal rights for Muslim party members.

But tragically, the conference will debate almost exclusively about the rights of Muslim members of the NPA. Only a few isolated voices are calling for an active NPA campaign against Islamophobia. This is a tragedy. In the mass strike campaign to defend pensions, these last few months in France, NPA activists everywhere played an excellent role, in the forefront of building the strikes and building unity between different sections of the working class and different generations.

It is a party with tremendous positive potential. But old French traditions of left wingers mocking or hating those who believe in God, and more recent trends towards demonizing Muslims since 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to be blinding comrades and they are falling for old divide and rule tactics. Progress is slow, but this question will have to be faced. We have to actively fight Islamophobia both because of how hard it makes life for many of our Muslim sisters and brother, but also because working class rebellion is made harder every time workers believe that “Muslim threats to our culture” are what we need to be fighting, not the capitalists.

5 comments Labels: France, Guest Post, Racism, The Left

I'm wrestling with the pedantry demon at the moment - and losing! It's not a pretty sight. However, I might as well let that primal scream of nit picking out while it's gnawing at my innards.

condem_cuts[i-condem_cuts]I've been particularly excised recently by the constant use of the phrase 'ConDem' to describe the coalition government. It's on leaflets, placards, blog posts and even painted on faces. My problem is that it reeks of dogma.

The moment I hear someone use the phrase I know with absolute certainty that this is not a 'normal' person but a political activist. I've never heard any member of my family use the phrase, any of my non-activist friends nor come across it in everyday conversation, even when discussing the government.

The *only* time I hear it in use is from committed political activists. Just as the only people I've ever seen raising Greece as a *good* example to us all (as in the picture) are people from some very specific political traditions. Now, while there is a political purpose to talking about Greece and things we can learn from this, the phrase ConDem simply serves to create an internal language for the left that excludes those we're seeking to bring in.

It's effectively the equivalent of the right's Zanu-Nu-Labour that tried to draw similarities between Mugabe's regime and Brown's. It's sole useful function is that it allows you to identify people who are going to be against the government no matter what happens, effectively ruling them out of any rational debate.

For me, ConDem is very much like the phrase FibDem. Whoever came up with it can feel rightly smug about a nice turn of phrase, but the moment it goes into your everyday language it's just lazy and childish. These pieces of jargon seek to deepen the tribalism of the situation at the expense of reasoned analysis.

Don't get me wrong, some people love it. Just as some people like screaming the word 'SCUM' at the top of their lungs on demonstrations. God bless them all I say, but I hope it's worth bearing in mind that while the name calling is an easy way of making one part of the movement feel warm and cuddly it simultaneously makes another part of the movement wince in embarrassment.

Where it's a political point (like Greece) let the debate go unabated and difference flourish - where it's a question of semantics why adopt jargon that adds nothing to your point but creates a barrier to potential allies enthusiastically embracing your ideas? Even if it's only 5% of people who end up labelling you as dogmatic, that's 5% of people that we want, that we've lost.

Obviously there's no neutral way of speaking and we all have dialects and idiosyncrasies that some will like better than others, which is one reason why political and cultural diversity is a good thing when you're trying to build a movement, but I'm not quite sure that's the same thing as using language only a clique relate to. Even if it's a large clique.

It's just a thought. Hopefully I'll win my war with that scoundrel Pendantry soon. I'd hate to become one of those dreary language-police people you find patrolling round the left. In the mean time I hope you'll forgive me.

13 comments Labels: Languages, The Left

I wasn't able to make the Coalition of Resistance conference on Saturday as I was in a meeting across London discussing a very different deficit. However, Natalie Bennett has kindly written up her experiences of the day for me. By the nature of these things her impressions are very much shaped by the sessions she attended;

The Coalition of Resistance national organising meeting on Saturday saw a packed Camden Centre with 1,300 registrants spilling from the main hall, a strong and determined mood, and lots of solid work in the breakout sessions...

I've written elsewhere about the Women Against the Cuts session, and I unfortunately couldn't make the morning session, when Jean Lambert reportedly gave a storming speech, but I was impressed in the afternoon plenary by the argument of Dot Gibson from the National Pensioners' Convention, who said that her generation had a responsibility to account to the youth of today - to account from "where we came in and where we got to".

In 1945, she said, there was a general determination in society not to return to the pre-war situation where everyone had to pay for education, pay for medical services, and there was widespread unemployment. Universal provision was meant to prevent poverty. "But now my grandchildren don't know if they can get a job or can get somewhere to live."

She said: "A compromise was made after the war. That compromise was the mixed economy. The private sector - the pharmaceutical industry, the rail stock manufacturers - could use the public sector for profit. That laid the foundations for what Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown have done since."

Rapper Lo Key had an interesting suggestion: MPs supporting the rise in tuition fees should retrospectively pay £9K a year for the free university education they had enjoyed.

Kate Hudson from CND put it plainly: "The redistributive state has been the liberator for millions of people."

She dismissed the argument that Britain's nuclear weapons could in any way be defended as job generators - "There are a maximum of 7,000 jobs in our nuclear weapons systems, which means it costs millions of pounds per year per job. If you invested the same money in sustainable industry you would create many thousands of jobs. Nuclear is a dead end in every respect."

For other reports on the Coalition of Resistance see: Natalie on women against the cuts, Liam's uncharacteristically positive thoughts, Derek's thoughts, Permanent Revolution, Luna17, lots of images and videos and things on the CoR site.

3 comments Labels: Guest Post, Reports, The Left

Left Foot Forward are running a poll on the most influential left wing thinkers involved in politics today (from a list drawn up by readers) and I just voted in it here. I'd like to encourage you to do the same.

There's some lovely names on there but it did get me thinking about what influential actually means. I mean Tony Benn is pretty much a household name and is a worthy addition to any list of signatories to your open letter in the Guardian but do people think differently because of him, or is he preaching to the choir?

I wonder what similar list would look like if it was a poll for the 'most influential green thinker'? Monbiot? Lucas? Meacher? Or would we be traipsing off into the Andes to find those courageous fighters that no one has ever heard of over here?

1 comments Labels: The Left, Thinking aloud

Martin Smith, leading Unite Against Fascism activist, national coordinator of Love Music Hate Racism and a central committee member of the Socialist Workers Party has been convicted of assaulting a police officer in what is, almost certainly, a miscarriage of justice.

Smith attacked his sentence of community service and a fine as an attempt to criminalise anti-fascist action.

Mark Serwotka, an old work colleague of Smith's and now head of the PCS union, said of the conviction that "I am shocked at the verdict delivered in a magistrates court today, in the absence of any evidence, that Martin Smith, national co-ordinator of Love Music Hate Racism, was guilty of assault on a police officer at the demonstration outside of the BBC on 22 October 2009, against Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time."

He continued that;

"There is a danger that verdicts such as these provide encouragement for the abhorrent views of racist and fascist organisations and therefore it is crucial that across the labour movement we stand united in our condemnation of it.

"At PCS we will re-double our efforts to campaign against the far right, including organisations such as the BNP and English Defence League and we will continue to support Martin and other anti fascist campaigners when they are treated in such an unjust, outrageous way.

"PCS will work with UAF and LMHR to fight the far right wherever we can and also to highlight the unequal way in which anti-fascist campaigners and activists are treated in comparison with racist and fascist thugs."

A worrying development but it's good to hear that people are not willing to be deterred.

1 comments Labels: Fascists, Police, The Left

I attended a friendly 'organising meeting' for the Coalition of Resistance this evening which was put on to help organise both for the conference in November and help bring together a network of anti-cuts activists. Although it started the latter there wasn't much movement on the former, but perhaps that was an impossible task with so many people at the first such meeting.

job-cuts[i-job-cuts]Roughly one hundred and fifty people squeezed into the basement of Birkbeck College all of one common purpose - to oppose the economic policy of the government and make a modest start at organising that resistance.

Contributions by the likes of Paul Mackney (former union leader), Lindsey German (Stop the War Coalition), Dot Gibson (National Pensioners Convention), Lee Jasper (all round live wire) and others gave proceedings the required seriousness and weight. However, while we heard some interesting thoughts on what the consequences of the cuts would be, I do tend to think this was time wasted in a room full of anti-cuts activists. I've never been to an organising meeting that spent an hour or more on why we're involved in the campaign.

However, there were contributions from people like Steve Sweeney (Cambridgeshire Against the Cuts) who talked about the trade union campaign he'd been part of organising which showed what was practically achievable and were very useful.

Hilary Wainwright of Red Pepper made easily the best contribution of the day bringing the discussion back onto what, practically, such a national umbrella group could usefully *do*. She described how we should be providing resources to the plethora of anti-cuts campaigns up and down the country. More than that we need to be listening to them (I think she used the phrase that we need "an enquiring element to our work") finding out what cuts are going on and where the resistance lies rather than preaching down to them from a centre that we have invented for our own benefit.

This theme was taken up by others, arguing that we need "policy orientated" resources to give people the arguments when their local campaign is accused of being "unrealistic". Anne Grey, from Haringey Greens, talked about how we have lived in age of TINA for too long and that project to provide alternatives, like the Green New Deal, is the area where a national group can provide the most help to local campaigns. Something Lindsey German had earlier described as addressing the "political deficit".

I'm a bit cynical sometimes and I have to say when people said things like we should "give a voice" to local campaigns I thought "Don't you mean your voice?" or that local campaigns "need to be pulled together" I think "For what purpose and do they need to be pulled together by you?" However there wasn't too much of that kind of discussion and some people even talked about non-hierarchical organising, which was nice.

Guy Taylor, who had the practical the idea to [censored in case it happens], gave people a dose of how practical could be fun and was one of a few people present who advocated "creative" protests - something I've previously described as "recreational activism", that's both an important part of our arsenal, keeping people motivated and they're good for media hits, although beware over-use as it can become an end in itself, substituting for more substantive work.

Other practical suggestions included John Rees' (Counterfire) proposal of a day of action and another person, whose name I didn't catch, immediately suggested that this should the 20th October - the date of the national budget review - to help get local and national media to take seriously that there is a whole political movement that thinks the cuts are not necessary.

I'm aware there's quite an interesting discussion going on about about what kind of anti-cuts coalition we need, and I'll be posting on that soon I hope, but for now it's good to see people from different traditions in a room with each other, listening with respect and agreeing on our common aims. Hopefully there will be a bit more focus on practical organising next time.

0 comments Labels: Economics, Reports, The Left

There's been an interesting debate developing around whether or not it's anti-democratic for the official top brass to endorse candidates running in a contested election. For those who are opposed it seems to say 'Sure, you *can* vote for the other candidate, but really, it's against policy'.

saints[i-saints]Let's look at the current Green Party deputy leadership election. Here we have Derek Wall running against Adrian Ramsay, both known and respected figures in the party, but of course Adrian is not just the incumbent he is also running as a joint ticket with the uncontested (and currently unbeatable) Caroline Lucas. Some people clearly think this is a problem.

Personally I'm OK with this because, to me, it seems like useful information to know who Caroline's preferred deputy is. Also the fact that they are running as a team implies a shared political vision or approach, which again is useful information to those deciding where to place their support. The fact that it is overwhelmingly seen as an (undue?) advantage to Adrian is simply because Lucas is well respected in the party - but doesn't this mean her opinion counts and should be heard? Members should have received their ballot papers this week and will still have the option of voting for Derek as deputy, no matter how official Caroline's endorsement may feel to some.

This is a far cry from the way far-left groupings organise their internal leadership elections. These are decided by the hardcore activists (usually by show of hands) at conferences under the watchful eye of organisers, rather than by post to all members in a secret ballot. They also always use slate systems which suffocate debate, reducing members' options to being in favour or opposed to the official party selection. This gives tremendous weight to a self-perpetuating leadership and all but declares even nuanced disagreement on (or among) candidates as an automatic ticket to political Coventry, which is even worse than the actual Coventry - if you can imagine such a thing.

That's better than CAAT though. I was horrified when I discovered that the Campaign Against Arms Trade has no elections at all but some sort of nebulous self-selected body of elders. It ticks along pretty nicely without all that fuss of members deciding how their money is spent or anything. They still manage to make a worthwhile contribution to the movement, but I think that's inadequate for any organisation that does not want to get mired in conservatism or risk becoming a self-sustaining clique.

For me tickets, like the Lucas/Ramsay combined candidacy provide a useful function as long as members have the power to buck the recommendations if they so choose, which in the Greens they do because they still vote for individuals, not lists. However, I would draw the line at 'official' tickets, which seem inappropriate, painting those unlucky enough not to be on that list as unrepresentative of the organisation, when surely that's what the election is there to decide.


An interesting variation on this is the Fawcett Society's internal trustee elections, which are taking place at the moment. Here members are being asked to elect six of nine candidates (using the completely inappropriate STV system). The existing Fawcett board provide their recommendations of which six they want members to elect to help to run it which goes out with the candidate statements.

While I'm not informed enough to quibble with the out-going board's recommendation which is probably sound (and the London Library use the same system) this process does seem to have a few ethical issues when it comes to accountability and openness.

Caroline Lucas endorsing Adrian may *feel* like the official endorsement of the Green Party to some members but it falls far short of the Fawcett option of the organisation actually telling members who it wants them to elect to hold it to account.

Note: If Green Party members want to submit a question to the online leadership hustings send an email to ero@greenparty.org.uk with the subject header 'hustings question'. Put your name and local party in the email and if your question is for a specific position (either leader or deputy) remember to specify that.

12 comments Labels: Democracy, GPEx10, Leadership, The Left, Thinking aloud

Just thought I'd flag up an event in late September in Manchester. The Convention of the Left is an initiative that's been going on for a little while now bringing together people on the left and trying to facilitate a bit of conversation between the often fractious and warring left factions.

unity22[i-unity22]Rightly it has quite modest aims. It does not set itself up as a new coalition or party of the left, but simply tries to get people in a room with each other and being nice to each other. That's a good place to start I think.

This September will see some speakers like Ian Angus on ‘Climate & Capitalism’, Gregor Gall (strong lefty on industrial relations), John McDonnell MP and Matt Wrack (General Secretary of the Firefighters' Union). However the main session will be an open forum on building alliances against the cuts. Seems sensible and well worth attending.

Visit the website at conventionoftheleft.org for more details. Download the flier here. (Reminded by Liam)

0 comments Labels: Diary Dates, The Left

At the Liberal Conspiracy blog nation event yesterday one speaker from the Social Liberal Forum told us that the biggest threat in this Parliament will be tribalism. He continued to predicate everything on the inevitability of Parliamentary mathematics and the idea that the Lib Dems had no choice but to support the coalition.

Well, I don't agree. Like my friend Dave Osler who gave a spirited rant in response I think the biggest threat posed by this Parliament is a slash and burn economic policy under pinned by a right-wing anti-state ideology.

It's estimated that between half a million and 1.3 million people will lose their jobs, millions of families who rely on public services will find their lives harder and many people will literally find themselves on the streets - all cheerfully supported by the Lib Dems en bloc, en masse, en tribe.

Anyone who saw the beleaguered Vince Cable on Question Time this week will have seen the shonky dishonesty of the Libs Dems on proud display. He weakly tried to justify this budget as progressive and good for the poor. He claimed to have changed his mind about VAT, coincidentally at the same time as being given a cushy treasury job, even he didn't believe it.

If Lib Dems want to dissent from the party, argue against the budget and other parts of the coalition deal then they're welcome to pride of place in any campaign I'm part of, but you don't get to posture as part of the left while supporting these extraordinary measures of mass impoverishment.

The speaker told us that if we rock the boat too hard it would "jeopardise the referendum on AV." Well, big deal. AV, like FPTP, will leave millions unrepresented in Parliament and millions more massively under represented. As carrots go it's pretty rotten.

The AV referendum is the Tory strategy to prevent PR, damn right I want to jeopardise it but not half as much as I want to challenge the down right villainy of this budget.

If Lib Dems want to hang out with the left then they need to buck up and stop pretending that they're taking part in some sort of "progressive coalition". Our job is to thwart the intentions of this government, not give excuses to its embarrassed supporters.

3 comments Labels: Coaltion Government, Lib Dems, Reports, The Left

As the hyper-cuts budget is announced it would be easy to overlook the election of the General Secretary of one of Britain's largest unions, and one whose members will be bearing the brunt of the public service bonfire. Who leads the union in this crucial time is extremely important.

link[i-link]The incumbent Dave Prentis, who Cameron took the trouble to slag off the other day, won the votes of 67% of the 216,116 people who cast a ballot (14% turnout, which is pretty standard). A fairly ringing endorsement of a union moderate who has been able to make the right noises in the press but has also taken a hard line approach with the left in the union, including some extremely dubious expulsions.

His two challengers were both from the left. Roger Bannister of the Socialist Party won an impressive 20% of the vote and Labour Party member Paul Holmes won the remaining 13% for the 'United Left'.

The result is no surprise given that Prentis was nominated by a whopping 371 branches, 11 regional councils, 7 service groups and the National Executive Council (compared to Bannister's 31 branches and Holmes' 52 branches) but the size of the opposition is significant, as is the fact that it all came from the left of Prentis.

It's also interesting that Prentis has seen his support among members decline from the 77% of the vote he received five years ago, with the left increasing it's share of the vote (last time round Jon Rogers, also a left Labour Party member stood as the United Left candidate).

2010 candidates			2005 candidates
Dave Prentis	145,351	(67.3%)	Dave Prentis	184,769	(75.6%)
Roger Bannister	42,651	(19.7%)	Roger Bannister	41,406	(16.9%)
Paul Holmes	28,114	(13.0%)	Jon Rogers	18,306	(7.5%)
	216,116			244,481

It's interesting that in both elections Bannister was put under a great deal of pressure by the 'United Left' to stand down in favour of their candidates who on both occasions received more branch nominations but less support from ordinary members.

Quite rightly in my view the Socialist Party understood that they had the better placed candidate among members, even if the United Left was able to mobilise a certain layer of branch officers. On both occasions it was seen as the height of sectarianism on the part of Bannister not to step down, and on both occasions it turned out that it was the United Left that was in fact speaking to a more narrow section of the membership.

At no time did the United Left seriously consider stepping down in favour of Bannister despite the fact that such a move could bode extremely well for a more coordinated approach to elections and campaigns at other levels of the union. Such as it is the different cliques of the organised left in the union are still at daggers drawn and will, therefore, remain unable to win a majority influence.

However, the good news is that 32.3% of the union's membership who voted opted for a fighting union that takes on the government cuts agenda head-on. Whether that one in three can be translated into victories in the public sector depends not just on UNISON members but the wider movement as a whole.

1 comments Labels: The Left, Trade Union

The BBC and the Telegraph report that the union negotiations between the UNITE union and BA management have been disrupted by protesters coming from the Right to Work conference. The BBC have particularly exciting footage which shows quite a few people I recognise from the SWP and at least three of them are employees of that organisation.

Unite-Demo_1641920c[i-Unite-Demo_1641920c]Now, I might be taking a wild stab in the dark here but there didn't seem to be a single BA worker among the protesters who'd decided to break up the union's negotiations. If anyone is going to make the decision to occupy their union's negotiations with management it should be the BA workers themselves, and not just one of them but collectively making that decision.

I have absolutely no idea what this is meant to achieve apart from making the strike more complicated for those workers who are already on the receiving end of abuse from media and management alike.

Derek Simpson, one of the union's negotiators tweeted that "Unite totally and absolutely condems [sic] the demonstrators who disrupted the talks at ACAS no member of cabin crew were involved". Now, whatever you think of him that seems to be a perfectly justified position to me.

Unsurprisingly Socialist Worker have a report up already where they unintentionally make clear that no BA worker asked them to disrupt their negotiations and that their key (or should that be only) purpose was in "demanding that activists build solidarity for the BA workers and hold collections to support the strikes."

So that's all about activists demanding things of other activists then without any involvement from the workers who are actually on strike and whose livelihoods are concerned. I don't think this is very cool, in fact I'd say it was the wrong way to help cabin crew win their dispute.

2 comments Labels: Campaigns, The Left, Trade Union

In the space of such a short time we've gone from the leadership race being characterised as a Miliband family operation to being swamped by a host of would be leaders of the opposition. This is, of course, a good thing. For Labour to have a proper discussion about the direction it wants to go would mark a great improvement on the last time they selected their leader, from a list of one.

520x[i-520x]Generally I'll keep my nose out of it, I'm not emotionally involved enough to distinguish between David and Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Andy Burnham et al. They all pretty much look like caretaker leaders to me anyway.

What does interest me is that there are currently two lefties with their hats in the ring, although we'll have to see which, if either, actually gets on the ballot paper.

The left hopefuls are Diane Abbott and John McDonnell who are two London MPs who have long political histories and who are both members of the Campaign Group. Either one of these candidates would be a real contribution to the political breadth of the leadership debate and would provide an opportunity for left-field ideas to get a wider airing.

McDonnell comes in a straight clear red, softened by his personable and thoughtful style while Abbott is more of a free thinking leftist who often does not conform to type. In other words she's not as left-wing as McDonnell, but then again it would be hard to live up to his impeccable, mace wielding, credentials.

Well, I say impeccable, he's been consistently opposed to electoral reform on the basis that Labour might seats and he's also supported odd EDMs on homeopathy and voted for the Digital Economy Bill but these aside he's as sound as a pound. Not the pound obviously - but a pound.

link[i-link]The objections most often aired about Abbott tend to revolve around two things. First that she's on TV a lot and second that she sent her kid to a private school. Having heard Ed Balls on Radio Four yesterday I'd say that someone who is capable of being in the glare of the media without collapsing into a blubbering ridiculous heap is probably an advantage.

The school thing is less fortunate although quite why this as been elevated to the status it has been as opposed to the way, for example, Jon Cruddas voted for the launching of an illegal war that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands is quite beyond me. I'm pretty relaxed about candidates that are not 100% on message, and I'm certainly repulsed by the idea that to be on the left you have to be a moral paragon.

If we compare the left's challenge this time to last time's dress rehearsal we see differences and similarities. We're obviously seeing a more open field rather than the coronation of Brown. We're not seeing an associated deputy election, at least I hope not. However the attitude of McDonnell's supporters is surprisingly similar.

Last time McDonnell's allies chose belligerence as their coalition building tool of choice. They poured poison over both Michael Meacher, who they described as fake left, and bile over deputy leadership challenger Jon Cruddas who they simultaneously insisted had to back McDonnell. This time it's Abbott who is being accused of being fake left, despite the fact that she backed McDonnell's campaign last time around. I don't think this sort of heat will do anything except make it impossible for McDonnell to get onto the ballot paper - and he deserves to be there.

Whatever the outcome I hope that one of them is on the ballot paper, although I suspect it is extremely unlikely that either of them will be able to make a truly significant challenge for the top post simply because they represent a Labour Party that does not exist - and maybe never did.

1 comments Labels: Labour, The Left

Before the election a number of people I knew would shudder and say of a potential Tory government that they "they remembered Thatcher" and didn't want to go back to those days. Never that they remembered Major or Heath or MacMillian (although actually very few would remember MacMillian, he was certainly in power before I was born).

Somehow Thatcher had become the representative of what Tories are like through the ages, regardless of the political and economic circumstances and regardless of the ideological nuances and gulfs that exist between different strands of Conservatism.

[Loband: Object Removed -]

It could get a bit wearing sometimes if, like me, you don't accept that all bad things are the same despite all being bad.

Thatcher came to power with a plan, a large majority and a clear determination to take on a powerful trade union movement. So there's three differences straight off with Cameron's government that hasn't really decided what it's for, has been forced to deal with the Liberals and whose main priority is to attack a budget deficit in times when the trade union movement is a shadow of its former self.

It seems to me that the challenges we face in the next five years will not be the same as those we faced in the early eighties - but they could well be harder not softer days.

With no mass membership left of center party to draw on and a far left that is sadly far more confused and pessimistic than that of 1979 the austerity measures may not be met with Greek fire at all, although we can certainly hope.

What's clear is that trying to rehash the struggles of the eighties (struggles that we, cough, lost) is not going to be up to the job. Over the coming months we'll see a good number of trade unionists and leftists trying to come to terms with the new period, that's going to be important work in my view.

If our resistance is going to be both active and effective a solid appraisal of where we are and what the government is concretely going to do is going to be essential. What's clear is that it wont be a historical re-enactment of the battle of Orgreave.

2 comments Labels: The Left, Tories

How well did the left do at this election? 'Not brilliantly' is the quick answer, and depending upon your party loyalties that could be upgraded to 'disastrous' or even 'abysmal'.

I've already mentioned that the Labour Party did far better than we might have expected and left-wing Labour MPs actually performed very strongly within that doing very well in mobilising their support.

croline[i-croline]The headline for the left is, of course, that anti-capitalist leftoid Caroline Lucas has been elected to the House of Commons making her the first Green MP in British history - but this result does conceal disappointments elsewhere.

Adrian Ramsay performed well in Norwich South almost doubling his vote to 14.9% (up 7.5%) taking almost all of Labour's hemorrhaging vote in the constituency. Tony Juniper also polled well in Cambridge at 7.6% but largely the vote was heavily squeezed in the course of such a momentous election.

This is, of course, partly down to the heavily targeted strategy the Greens pursued as well as the electoral circumstances, but it's disappointing none-the-less despite the great achievement in Brighton Pavillion.


respectpaperfeb10-ad[i-respectpaperfeb10-ad]Outside of the Green and Labour Parties there were three left results of any note what-so-ever - all from Respect. While Respect may have taken a pasting in Poplar and Bethnal Green they still polled very well with 16.8% in Bethnal Green and Bow (down a massive 19.8%) and 17.5% for George Galloway in Poplar and Limehouse (with the far smaller reduction of 0.7%). These areas also saw a near wipe out of Respect from Tower Hamlets council.

On the other hand Salma Yaqoob performed extremely well in a hard fought election in Birmingham Hall Green more than doubling Respect's vote to 25.1% (up 13.9%). Other results for Respect were not as cheering but should not be allowed to cloud their well deserved results in these three strongholds.


mccann[i-mccann]In Foyle Eammon McCann (who I mentioned previously) polled extremely well in a very polarised environment.

He managed to receive 7.7% of the vote as a 'People Before Profit' candidate up from his 2005 performance of 3.6% when he stood as the Socialist and Environmental Alliance backed, if I recall correctly, by the local Green Party.

This is stirring stuff, particularly when we've seen that the voters in the North of Ireland are beginning to loosen up in their political affiliations and consider alternatives, albeit ones with a solid history - which McCann has.


jenny+sutton[i-jenny+sutton]The Morning Star has printed a little guide to how the left did here which shows that generally we are talking about 1%ers in decline. However Tommy Sheridan provided the Scottish left with their best result in Glasgow South West at 2.9% and Jenny Sutton provided the best London result for TUSC with 2.6% in Tottenham.

If we take a look at the left's electoral trajectory it makes for depressing reading. I was sent an email from the 'Cambridge Socialists' saying what 'a great start' they had made having just received 0.7% of the vote, which did make me feel a little bit like I was being expected to have a five second memory.

Cambridge: Martin Booth who is an excellent, open minded socialist and stood for TUSC got 0.7% of the vote. In 2005 Tom Woodcock (part of TUSC) stood for Respect and got 1.1% of the vote and in 2001 Howard Senter (who is now a Green) stood for the Socialist Alliance and got 1.7% of the result. Over nearly ten years the left vote has declined by more than half in Cambridge.

Coventry: This mirrors a similar picture elsewhere. Dave Nellist, for example, who got one of the best TUSC results of the night in Coventry North East with 3.7% of the vote, received 5.04% in 2005, getting his deposit back and 7.1% in 2001. Again, Nellist's vote has almost halved since 2001.

Lewisham: Ian Page in Lewisham Deptford is often held up as one of the Socialist Party's great white hopes but his result of 1.6% this time was down on his 2.4% in 2005 which itself was down on his 4.6% in 2001. Page polled a third of his 2001 result in 2010.

These are not campaigns which are building up the socialist vote but are demonstrations of the hard left's (temporary?) decline. Feel free to give me examples of a left vote that went up from 2001 to 2005 to 2010 - I need cheering up!

This should make sobering reading for the non-Labour left and, I hope, sparks some sort of calm reflection on where to go from here. These are people who contribute far, far more to their communities and to the left than these small votes reflect and it will no doubt be hard to pick themselves up and keep at it.

Obviously I joined the Greens sometime ago and found it an interesting home for a socialist, although for those who like their socialism full of quotes and by the book I suspect the Green Party would be a hard terrain to negotiate. Others will reassess whether they want to be involved in electoral work altogether, which may well be the right decision for them. Party loyalties aside though I really do hope we haven't seen the last of the likes of Sutton and Nellist whose contributions are much appreciated by me - if not necessarily the electorate!

0 comments Labels: General Election 2010, The Left

Prior to the election there were some on the left who would hold up the ragged scarecrow corpse of Thatcher and wail that we're all doomed if Cameron got in. I went to a Keep the NHS Public meeting tonight and there were a couple of people there who seemed to have the view that we're all doomed.

2217325_f520[i-2217325_f520]Now, first of all, if there is a rumble to be had let's not go into it with our head in our hands. That's not the fighting spirit is it?

Secondly, to a certain extent this result makes things much clearer. Cuts and privatisation were on the menu no matter who won this election. The result simply determined the colour of the executioner's hood.

What the result does mean is that Labour Party members, cllrs and MPs as well as some trade union branches will be less 'confused' when the cuts come. It will be easier for them to join in campaigns to save hospital units or protest against public sector layoffs when it isn't "their" government that they are having to fight.

As a campaigner I'd far rather have good Labour Party supporters with me than vacillating on the sidelines looking guilty and sick as they try to persuade me to be realistic as their government obliterates some public service or other.

The potential Lib Dem-Tory coalition will not be as daunting to face off than the 1979 Tory Party with its whopping majority. It wont have the confidence, it doesn't have a proper plan, and there is a real potential to exploit the cracks between the parties, especially as the Lib Dems are likely to be thrown into a crisis with this shoddy decision.

It's not good news. They are a shower of shits. But they are a shower of shits we can beat if we keep it together and keep on fighting for what is right.

4 comments Labels: General Election 2010, The Left

Next in my series of discussing members of other political parties I admire I thought I'd take a look at some of the lefties standing at this election. I hate to disappoint any Tories reading but whilst I've met plenty of Tory supporters I like I could not for the life of me put together a similar post about Conservative politicians.

My admiration for George Galloway I'll leave aside for the moment as I know some people find him hard to take and I'll focus on three others that I've discussed less often on this blog.

McCann is standing for People Before Profit in Foyle, a seat he got 12.3% in in 1969, and the last time he stood there he managed to beat the Ulster Unionists.

Eamonn McCann is a long-serving socialist warhorse of the most excellent, humane sort. Having been consistently active in politics in the north of Ireland for decades it's fair to say he's been there and done that, this and the other.

From his involvement in the very early days of the civil rights movement alongside the likes of Bernadette Devlin right up to his acquittal after direct action against multinational arms company Raytheon in 2008 he has been a constant radical presence.

I thought his book Dear God: The Price of Religion in Ireland was absolutely breath taking, hilarious and shocking by turns and his attempts to bring socialist politics to Ireland, free from the debilitating sectarianism that has plagued the country, is much to be admired.

McCann argued in the Sunday Journal: "When market forces drive the poor into destitution, we must roll with the punches. But when hard times discomfit the super-rich, the State weighs in to make a mattress for them stuffed with our money."



No-one will be surprised to see Ms Yaqoob on my love list. After all I've spoken about her before and even interviewed her a little while back.

Salma is part of the New Left camp site (as opposed to big tent) who has been been willing to back the Greens when appropriate (like last year's Euro elections) and has always been someone who has approached others on the left in an open and thoughtful way.

She has rightly received many admirers from outside of Respect in return. As she said in The Guardian a little while ago; "Labour's mantra on the need to make others more "British", rather than making ourselves less racist, has helped undermine concepts of national identity that celebrate pluralism and diversity."

More importantly she points out that; "On the economy, [Labour, Lib Dems and Tories] have for years embraced and celebrated the neo-liberal free market dogma responsible for record levels of wealth inequality and the worst recession in over fifty years. They are also united on the necessity of vicious cuts as the solution to the crisis and are divided only on the timescale for the implementation of those cuts."

That's why she is an important part of the left alternatives.




Co-speaker of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) Colin Fox has had a hard decade. Or at least it must seem hard having been part of a team that led the SSP to six MSPs and a real chance to hit the big time he had to see it all fall apart and fall back to square one.

However, where lesser mortals would have given up in despair, and certainly if it had happened to me I'd have been trailing stuffing behind me for years, he's made of far better stuff than me and kept ploughing on. After all he was a leading campaigner against the poll tax and had to go through the indignity of the Labour Party so I guess he'd done it all before.

When I interviewed him a little while ago he said that; "The SSP has been in favour of an independent socialist Scotland since our inception ten years ago. We believe that working people in Scotland will be economically, socially, politically and culturally better off if able to control all our revenues and all our own decision making. It is clear to us that if this were the case then Scotland would be a radically different country from the one we live in today. There is no doubt whatsoever that an Independent Scotland would not have sent troops to Iraq or Afghanistan, would not have nuclear weapons stationed on the Clyde, would not have entertained the privatisation of our hospitals and schools and, since a majority here are in favour of a modern democratic republic, we would not have the Queen as our head of state either."

And I rather enjoyed that - but most of all I admire the man's stamina to keep fighting the good fight, regardless of how hard it gets.

10 comments Labels: Be Nice To Someone Day, The Left