Should Labour move to the left in order to win another term in office?

[wolfysmith]

Point taken, it’s just that at the moment we have the opportunity to take advantage of the fact that a lot of people only think about politics when the capitalist media and bourgeois democracy bring it to their attention. So I think we should make full use of the political environment that an election creates to use the media attention to fight the agenda of the capitalist class and counteract the ideological propaganda of capitalist imperialism in its neo-liberal and neo-conservative forms by bringing the socialist alternative to their attention both by questioning new-labour and the conservative and liberal-democratic alternatives. At the same time suggesting, an alternative option in the election by offering the Left Unity alternative strategy against the consensus of privatization and dog-eat-dog capitalism.       

[wolfysmith]

BPIX poll shows Gordon Brown has closed the gap on the Tories with the Tories are on 39%, Labour 30% and the Liberal-Democrats at 18%


Dose this mean it’s still an open race and that a leftward shift in Labour polices could still mean they could win. Especially now that the conservatives are watering down their proposals for government spending cuts as fear of the consequences of such draconian polices on the fragile economic recovery and the prospects of a return to the bad old days of Margaret Thatcher are being considered when people think about which way to vote in the general election. 

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/category/voting-intention

[wolfysmith]

Confused Cameron a liability, MPs say

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/86295

Why the Tory wobble could be our cue

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/86310

[wolfysmith]

Poll List: Gap down to 7 points; 82% are unclear on Tory economic policy

http://www.labourlist.org/poll-list-gap-down-7-points-82-unclear-tory-economic-policy

Labour MPs demand radical shift left

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/86349

[wolfysmith]

Friday 5th February 2010

The Labour Party makes gains in the latest council by-elections. Lee Stone won Holmewood and Heath North East Derbyshire District and Mustafa Desai won Blackburn with Darwen Borough Queen's Park both had previous had been previously held by the Liberal-Democrats.

North East Derbyshire District - Holmewood and Heath: Lab 373 Con 209
2008 by-election Lib-Dem 382 Lab 356 Con 165

Blackburn with Darwen Borough - Queens Park: Lab 638 Lib-Dem 366 Con 174
2008 Lib-Dem 756 Lab 722

[wolfysmith]

Winning back Labour's lost millions

http://www.labourlist.org/winning-back-labours-lost-millions

http://www.labourlist.org/poll-list-tories-down-again-as-labour-gain-

[wolfysmith]

BPIX, ComRes and now ICM have shown the Tories dropping below 40% and Labour back up at 30% would another shift to the left by the Labour Party distance it from the neo-liberal/neo-conservative Blair years and put on course for an election victory in May 2010?

ICM poll

Tories 39% (-1), Labour 30% (+1), Liberal-Democrats 20% (-1)

ComRes poll

Tories 38%, Labour 31% (+2), Liberal-Democrats19%

BPIX

Tories 39% (-2), Labour 30%, Liberal-Democrats 18% (+1)

[Dugsie]

I'm not quite sure how the Labour Party can move to the Left whilst blowing in the electoral wind. Of course, the Labour Left will have its moments of excitement as the policy seems to move a little in our direction, only bathetically to move away from us again, as the Party tries desperately to match the Cameroons.

[Free Radical]

Dugsie, Wolfy

I take your point of course Dugsie.

In truth, only the Trade Unions (affilated members of the Labour Party), individual members and other affiiliates can save the Labour Party.

The democratic structures need to be restored before it can become any kind of political force on the left. Whether this can or will happen I am not sure. I suppose the point is that it is not impossible.

The left can only build itself from the base. No constitutional tinkering, or anything else will do.

At the moment I remain in the Labour Party because the basic link to the Trade Unions is still there, and could be used in a positive way - and that would require a new kind of union activism of the kind we have not seen for along time. The other reason I remain in the Party (apart from sheer habit!) is that I have not seen any good alternative - either political or pragmatic.

The party can only be shifted in any significant way leftwards if the members (especially the affiliated members) wish it to happen. There is no great sign of that at present I have to say.

Compass seems to be the nearest thing to signs of life on the left - but it is predominantly middle class and very centrist in its views. But at least it has realised that you have to build from the base. It's no answer at all, but I see nothing much else at the moment... sadly.

[Dugsie]

FR: Pretty much my position too. I am waiting to see if anything much happens during and immediately after the election. Have you joined leftalternatives ?

[Free Radical]

Dugsie

Yes, I've only just joined.

I was talking with a Labour Party comrade recently and he said that he is staying in the Party because he thinks that politics on the left could get a lot more interesting in the next year or two - I hope he is right (and interesting in a good way of course!)... At the moment it's dire.

[Strategist]

FR said:

Compass seems to be the nearest thing to signs of life on the left - but it is predominantly middle class and very centrist in its views. But at least it has realised that you have to build from the base. It's no answer at all, but I see nothing much else at the moment... sadly.

I'm coming into this discussion late, and may have the above quote out of context, but...
Are you saying that groups like the Labour Representation Committee and Save The Labour Party campaign show no real signs of life and/or not grass roots? 

Genuine question - I have no axe to grind (for a change...)

[Free Radical]

Strategist

I should probably be careful what I say as it might seem uncomradely. I understand, and have some sympathy with both those groups but I am not convinced that they are going to make much headway. They don't, I think, have much of a following at the base (I don't have figures and I'm happy to be corrected).

The LRC - which in principle is good - seems to me awfully stuck in the past.

The left in general needs to do some radical thinking and I have not seen a great sign of such thinking.

Compass, as I said, has many faults, but their great strength is that they have seen the need to build from the base. It has an appealing openness too and a lot of genuine grassroots activists. However it is predominantly middle class it seems, and it's hard to have much faith in the leadership who seem centre-right in Labour Party terms (I would love to be proved wrong on this too!).

[Brigg57]

FR, Wolfy,
there are two levels of argument and fightback. One is organisational - the existing organisations of the Left seem (to most of us, anyway) very inadequate, so we fight within the one(s) in which  we feel less uncomfortable. This is forced on us all; it's not a choice. We're in a place which is not where we would want to be, but we have to keep our eyes open and work where it's best. That's why I'm very reluctant to say anybody is outside the pale. I don't know where any political renewal will come from - the centre-right of Compass, or the radical-lite of he Green party. Most people feel the night to join, to feel useful, and there’s no clear grouplet to join (to me, anyway).

There's a second level - of politics as analysis, which itself depends on political understanding. Here the Left has a huge amount of baggage, verbal and emotional. I'm unsure how to shift this, but intellectual honesty and integrity needs to be matched by a calm awareness of facts and their relationship to our values. Wolfy's claims that Harold Wilson was left-wing are just historically wrong (he was fantastic compared to Blair and Brown, but that doesn't actually make him left-wing - look at Vietnam, In Place of Strife, and his emasculation of Benn and Heffer, who WERE left-wing, at Industry in 1974-5). Also, we’re deluding ourselves to think that people voted Labour to reject Thatcher. There's no evidence of this. Blair was popular because he was seen as continuing Thatcher with a more human face. The real break of confidence came over Iraq, then decisively over the latest crisis in the banking system. If the Left can only repeat the same abstract analysis as presented by Lenin or Bevan in a very very different world, then they are of no use to woman, or beast.

The real problem is how to shift this. organisation is important, and I’m total crap at politics as organisation, too much the dissenter by nature I guess.

[Jon Teunon]

FR

My limited experience of LRC is that they are both approachable, clear about what they stand for and willing to sign up for campaigns that I feel any genuinely leftist should (for example):

http://carerwatch.com/finance/?p=20#respond

But you may be right to suggest that they don't have the 'base'.

Have you seen the following campaign?

http://www.labourlist.org/40-labour-mps-call-for-a-radical-manifesto

Compass refuse to confirm whether they support this it or not (despite being asked directly both in email from and on their website, and claims by Tribune that they have- which for me confirms the impression that they are far from having 'an appealing openness' (what they do have is a slick Publicity Relations machine)! And if they do have 'a lot of genuine grassroots activists' (and they refuse to publish any voting figures for their last election) I see little evidence that they are able to directly influence the Mangement Committee in between elections.

I think at the moment Brigg is right to suggest that none of the grouplets (with their varying shortcomings) have enough influence to be significant 'players' and as usual working together appears to be beyond them!

I absolutely agree with you when you point out:

'The left in general needs to do some radical thinking and I have not seen a great sign of such thinking.' At least in respect to the 'established' groups still left.

[wolfysmith]

Brigg, As you say most of us feel the need to join, feel useful, and the problem is who or which group to join ‘so we fight within the one(s) in which  we feel less uncomfortable’ whether this be the Communist Party, Green-Left/Green Party, Labour Party (LRC, Compass etc.), Socialist Party, Socialist Labour Party or as an individual left activist. This isn’t a problem if the individuals and their respective parties allow or encourage cooperation. The Left Unity group I am involved in is predominantly Association of Indian Communists, CPB, Socialist Party plus Trades Council and individual union members and is working well as a group with no clashes or party cliques. Ok the CPB still sees the Labour Party as the mass party of labour for the very reason that Free Radical sites ‘because the basic link to the Trade Unions is still there’ whereas the Socialist Party sees the Labour Party as a lost cause, this is an issue of long term strategy and not an obstacle to campaigning together for a socialist alternative to new-labour and the conservatives. Obviously it would present problems for someone in the Labour Party as they would risk expulsion if they were supporting an alternative candidate to the official Labour Party candidate, but we have the freedom to support left-Labour Party candidates where appropriate. When I say that Harold Wilson was left-wing he came from the left of the party as a Bevanite and along with Michel Foot opposed changing clause four in the late 1950’s which Blair managed to push through in the 1980’s, he also renationalisation of the steel which the Tories had privatised. On Vietnam he agreed to support the USA at the United Nations but refused to send British troops to support the US military in Vietnam unlike Blair in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its true Tony Benn and Eric Heffer’s policies for worker democracy and co-operatives were sidelined in the 1970’s but he introduced Comprehensive Education and the Open University both of which increased the educational opportunities for the working class, not bad for a Grammar School/Jesus College Oxford University lad, First Class Hon’s in Philosophy, Politics and Economics who was considered a man of the people with his Gannex Mac and pipe (Although he smoked Cuban cigars in private). I would also dispute the idea that when people voted for Blair’s Labour government in 1997 that they new they were electing a neo-liberal/neo-conservative government that would continue to follow Thatcherite social and economic polices. I am sure they voted Labour because they were hopping and expected a change of direction all be it different from ‘Old’ Labour. The disillusionment with the Labour government and the reason millions of working class people no longer bother to vote is because like in the USA they see no real difference between a New-Labour government and the Tory government it replaced. If you are unemployed, sick and disabled living in poor housing etc. life is marginally better than it was in the 1930’s so I would argue Lenin and Bevin theory and practice are just as relevant in 2010. It’s the Blairite new-labour third way that is ‘of no use to woman, or beast’ sorry the capitalist beast found it very useful but wants a return to the real Thatcherite beast again.

As Jon Teunon says I ‘ none of the grouplets (with their varying shortcomings) have enough influence to be significant players’ but my personal experience would disagree with the second part ‘as usual working together appears to be beyond them!’
There were problems with No2EU in the European elections in some areas where people felt some of those participating took control, which happens in many groups or organizations where you get dominant individuals, but as I say my own personal experience of working for Left-Unity has been positive thankfully, as has my experience on this forum and leftalternatives. 

[Brigg57]

Labour seems paralysed in its campaign. When asked last week what the agenda would be if labour did win another term this May, one Minister told a journalist (Philip Stephenson) that the first item on the agenda would be a leadership election to get rid of Brown. Only Mandelson seems to have a clear idea of a winning Labour campaign, the rest are just counting time until they start a new career or climb the career ladder in a Labour Opposition. If I were in labour, or a voter, I would be appalled if Labour moved to the Left, because the Left has no realistic policy to move forward from the economic crisis - cue for another rerun of each group's vanguard programme, so let me say realistic - the Left's position intellectually/analytically/ ideologically really is that bad at the moment.

Wolfy, that isn't the Wilson I grew up with. He was a Bevanite for a brief period in the early 50s, almost certainly as a result of frustrated career ambitions (he was Cripps's golden boy until the devaluation crisis of '49, when Gaitskell moved forward). His writings were very much n the corporatist mould throughout. When Bevan resigned from the Shadow Cabinet in 1954, Wilson moved in (backed by Crossman), leading Bevan to see him as a scab, and for a split between 'soft' and hard Left. When Wilson stood against Gaitskell in 1960, he made it clear it was in the interests of party unity (he wasn't a unilateralist). He did not support Clause 4 as you suggested - he told John Junor of the Sunday Express that he saw Macmillan’s attitude to Suez as the ideal for Clause 4 – hold aloft the banner of socialism while leading the party away from it; again it was the threat to unity which he saw as paramount. The govt of the 60s did see the OU, but university expansion was the consequence of the Robbins Report (1963) of the Tory govt. Wilson’s attack on strikes (in 1966, he used the red bogy to attack the Seamen, including a young John Prescott), his attacks on welfare , especially in 1968, his attempts to impose legal controls on the union added ot his support of the US in Vietnam (agreed for economic reasons after a meeting with George Ball of the US State Dept in Sept, 1965, where he also agreed to curb the unions at the US request) is hardly left-wing merely because he didn’t send UK troops (whhc he saw would divide the PLP alone bitterly when a New left led by Heffer was on the rise). These are hardly left-wing. The 1974-6 govt was marked by his continual attempts to divide the Left, isolate the Bennites, then ally with Jones to curb Foot when it came to wage restraint and public sector spending cuts.

I wouldn’t want to go for Wilson too much. I had a very momentary meeting with him once at the 1968 Labour conference, and he struck me as a very decent man. Apparently, he found unemployment a particularly painful pill, as a result of his own experiences as a boy when his dad was made redundant, and the hardships endured by the family. But the fact that a small group of right-wing nutters in MI5 saw him as a Soviet spy (Ian Paisley said in 1966 that Wilson had gone to Moscow to get his orders) doesn’t make him one, nor does it make him left-wing. It’s important not to twist history to fit our own prejudices; better to adapt our prejudices to meet the actual contours of the political scene. Then we can do the same to today’s scene, and begin the left’s road into the new century.

[wolfysmith]

True the Labour campaign seems paralysed because they have failed to move to the left of new-labour and are banking on voters not wanting the Tories back, a very negative strategy. And yes Little Lord Mandy knows exactly what he is after, the reinvigoration of a forward march of Blairite new-labour and the final break with the labour movement. If the Labour Party doesn’t move to the left Willp will be proved right when he argues against bothering with bourgeois capitalist democracy, which is the ultra-leftist strategy of economic struggle and neglecting the political struggle. If we don’t adopt a left-wing economic and political programme what is it that socialist offer. Have we abandoned socialism and social-democracy for new-labourite neo-liberalism and the market as king? Ok this isn’t 1945 or 1965 and we don’t want it to be 1981 or 1991 again for definite.     

Harold Wilson was a shrewd politician and managed to balance the left and right of the Labour Party and I think he once bragged that he had never read Marx, don’t know if that’s true or not. I would still argue that Comprehensive Education and the Open University were major factors in improving the educational opportunities of the working class and that’s why the elite see Academies funded by private finance and outside of local authority control central to the strategy for bringing back selection and a secondary education for the majority of working class students (service industry workers cleaners, shop workers, general dogs body). And yes Wilson’s attack the Seamen and Dockers strikes, and saw left union leaders like Hugh Scanlon as a threat along with Tony Benn this is why my father always said ‘Union first Labour second’ and even though he always voted Labour and canvassed for them never joined the party. Soviet records haven’t shed any light on whether he was working for the KGB so my guess is that’s cobblers, but he wasn’t right-wing probably not left-wing in the sense of Michael Foot or Nye Bevan but he wasn’t a Jim Callaghan either, he was the first Blairite even before Tony Blair. The left intellectually/analytically/ ideologically may not have a concise programme or strategy, that proves it’s not just a rigid formula, I am sure I get the historical facts muddled up, hopefully not from a prejudice just misremembering and a gut feeling (not dialectic-materialism I know, just being human) I am probably not a very Scientific Marxist more an instinctive marxist trying to adapt Marx and Lenin through the theories of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Foster, Kovel and Harvey and the practice of Bevin, Wilson, Tito and Castro, a bit of a mixed bag rather then a dogmatic ideal. Probably why I like Wilson Bevin, Tito, Dubček and Castro, guess I am a bit of a maverick-marxist. If it achieves socialism and works then that’s my version of Marxist-Leninism, opportunist like Lenin and Wilson. No apologies for taking a bit of Lenin and Luxemburg and mixing it with Tito and Wilson. That’s how I see socialism, based on theory but tweaked to work in practice.

A Socialism for the 21st Century that can and will replace neo-liberal/neo-conservatism

[Jon Teunon]

...but my personal experience would disagree with the second part ‘as usual working together appears to be beyond them!’

Fair enough Wolfy - you're commitment to Left Unity is not in doubt and no one could accuse you of being divisive.

But I doubt the General Secretary of your Party has much time for Wilson and co!

http://21stcenturymanifesto.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/lenin-britain-and-elections/

[wolfysmith]

Jon, As a Marxist my view is that social democracy will never abolish capitalism and replace it with socialism. The Labour Party as a social democratic party sought to represent the working class within the capitalist system. Therefore the Labour Party is a bourgeois workers party. Most grass roots membership used to define themselves politically as socialist and whereas the leadership tended to be predominantly social-democrat and saw the role of a Labour government as managing capitalism in a more human way. Socialist policies being restricted to providing a healthy workforce educated to a level suitable for the needs of the capitalist economy and an adequate infrastructure for the needs of industry i.e. the NHS, access to further education and railway system, steel, coal, gas electricity and water industry.
 
Ultra-leftist communists such as Willp’s strategies which ignore the political struggle and concentrate on the economic struggle have to be fought and actions of some ultra-leftist assist the ruling class can be disregarded so they don’t affect the communist party or left unity.

Lenin saw imperialism, the capitalist elite and right wing bourgeois leaders of the working class movement as the main enemy of a socialist advance. But he was in favour of the communist’s affiliation to the Labour Party because of the link between the Labour Party and the labour unions. He say the Labour Party as led by the worst kind of reactionaries and as Rob Griffiths points out we can see this in the case of New Labour which under Blair, Brown and Mandelson is ‘pro-imperialist, pro-monopoly and anti-working class having abandoned all remnants of social democratic or socialist policy.

Does this mean strengthening links with the Labour left in and Labour-affiliated unions isn’t worth pursuing in order to further the cause of socialism? Rob Griffiths points out the political levy paid by affiliated labour union members constitutes 94 per cent of the Labour Parties broad membership although a substantial sections of the working class are not organised into the trade union movement, and a substantial sections of the labour union movement is not affiliated to the Labour Party.

Lenin argued that communists should support the Labour Party in parliamentary elections, not because he thought of the Labour Party was the socialist mass party of the working class, or the political representatives of the true representative of the labour movement, but because it would expose social democracy collaborators with capitalist imperialism. I would argue it’s probably 75% to 25% between trying to manage capitalism in a fairer way on the one hand and being enemies of the working class on the other. Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and John Smith had he lived I would put in the first category and Ramsay Macdonald, James Callaghan and Tony Blair in the second category as imperialist class collaborators.

Lenin saw the election of a social democratic Labour government providing a more favourable state for promote socialism and as William Paul arranged in the 1920’s ‘the Communist Party ought to contest as many seats as possible’ and today that has been extended to mean the broad left in order to influence the Labour Party/government. Marxists don’t see social democracy transforming capitalist society into a socialist society. This will only be achieved by the working class taking control of the state; therefore the Labour Party and the affiliated labour unions are seen as part of an overall strategy in the revolutionary struggle against imperialism, the capitalist state, and global finance capital. Marxist-Leninism sees the participation in bourgeois democracy as a means of putting forward socialist political and economic policies and using bourgeois elections to advance a socialist understanding of capitalism.

Thus I broadly agree with Rob Griffiths analysis, ok I am more inclined towards the Labour Party than he is as an ex-member of the Co-operative and Labour Party and having worked within its political structure for socialism as well as the union AUEW to Amicus-Unite. I never considered myself a social-democrat and always believed socialism would only be achieved by the Marxist-Leninist approach. In the twentieth century the Labour Party achieved tangible social improvements in the standard of living of the British working class. For that reason I find it hard to find common ground with Willp and feel closer to Dugsie, Free Radical, Jonywas, yourself and Strategist although I understand you are reformists as apposed to revolutionaries and in that area I agree with Willp as a Marxist. From Edward Bernstein social democratic theoretician through to Gordon Brown social democrats have believed that they could overcome the contradictions within capitalism by evolutionary socialism and revisionism. As a Marxist I would argue the last thirty years have demonstrated this hasn’t been achieved and that once the Soviet model of socialism began to collapse the capitalist class felt safe in taking back the concession that had been conceded to the working classes in the Keynesian period of welfare capitalism. This demonstrates as Rob Griffiths argues that social democracy hadn’t achieved a real transfer of power from the capitalist elite to the people, they were temporary concessions which would be reversed when the time was right showing that the idea that the moral argument could transform society/transfer power was a utopian elusion. In the end unfortunately only the power of organized labour will challenge the power of the capitalist elite.