Beyond Corbynism: Young, left voters and the green wave
JVL Introduction
Anyone wanting to see a left regroupment capable of renewing hope among the many thousands of political lost souls floating in limbo since Corbyn’s defeat, should read and digest the home truths in this article.
Some are undeniable: “Building a serious political project is about representing a solid base in society. This task flows from organising, and having roots in social and industrial struggle, not how many Twitter followers you have.”
Others will raise hackles in some quarters, eg: “Much of the left will also have to get over its age-old sectarianism towards the Greens, who have emerged as by far the most serious organised force to Labour’s left.”
But every point bears serious consideration. Respectful readers’ comments are, as ever, most welcome.
NWI
This article was originally published by Open Democracy on Fri 11 Oct 2024. Read the original here.
Forget Corbynism 2.0. Something bigger is happening on the British left
A new generation across the UK is demanding political representation. But this unstoppable force is meeting an immovable object, the Labour Party
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We badly need to unite as a movement around a red green agenda which goes beyond the sectarianism and divisions of the traditional left and recognises that what is urgently needed in the face of the environmental crisis is to create new forms of cooperative, caring and collective interaction and ‘investment’ (putting energy in) to meet our real needs
“There are many socialists – including me – who remain in Labour and will keep chipping away”
Thats reassuring, it’s good to know self-described socialists are never learning the lesson and just continuing to put faith in the absolute dead end that is the British Labour Party.
The Greens are building an electoral machine, which, from their point of view, is sensible.
However, they are now abandoning other grass roots campaigning. Greens don’t usually take their banners on demonstrations anymore, if they are even attending at all. Surely the Left, inside and outside the Labour Party, does not see a contradiction, and does both. Many people leaving Labour and joining the Greens may be in for a bit of a shock.
It is also difficult to take a party seriously that managed to have an entire leadership election fought almost exclusively on their different approaches to transgender policy. They even began expelling people who had the “wrong” view on this, although not always the same way.
(Full disclosure: I have left Labour and joined Transform.)
Interesting but sorry to say I’m still not convinced by the Green Party for socialists and left. I do work with my local Greens and do get on well. Yes we should work together when we have common objectives like the Palestine campaign and anti-racism work.
However, I’m disappointed to hear that you are still in the Labour Party. There’s nothing there for you to chip away. That’s where the problem for left and socialists remain. They can’t quite let themselves believe that the Starmer’s party DO NOT want people like us. It’s better to concentrate the time and energy to build a party for the left. Labour is dead and we should move on.
The left urgently need sto address the UK’s totally unfit electoral system. It is absurd that Labour got its massive majority of MPs on only 33.8% of the votes in a very low turnout. Together Reform and the Tories got 38% so it wasn’t really a victory for the left even if the Starmer government could misleadingly be described in those terms. Next election it could be an extreme Tory/Reform group that gets such a majority on the same or even less of the national vote because of disappointment by many Labour voters about the performance of the Starmer government and the inevitable unrelenting attacks on it from the Tory media. I would suggest that the left unifies around a move to the Second Ballot System as exists in France where in any constituency where a candidate does not get 50% of the vote there is a run off a week or two later between the top two. It keeps single member constituencies and is a better than the Alternative Vote where candidates are put in order of preference on the ballot paper because it allows the second vote to be made knowing what the political realities are while parties out of the top two in any constituency can make suggestions to their supporters. It would encourage parties on the left to work together. Also, in the first round it would increase support for left wing parties as people would know that their votes would not be wasted and let in a Tory. ‘Vote first with your heart and then with your head.’ In the recent parliamentary election in France it stopped the extreme right from gaining power although they led on the first ballot.
This is not so much a description of actually existing conditions ripe for a reformation of the Left in Britain as it is a re-hash of a project dreamed by a postmodern metropolitan-left which, let’s not forget – perhaps unwittingly, perhaps not – was instrumental in capsizing Labour after 2017 by insisting on focusing resources on an anti-democratic second referendum; thus guaranteeing a schism in the coalition of forces that brought Corbyn so close to winning against Theresa May. While I’m not hostile to it, am pessimistic to its prospects if led by the likes of Chessum whose vision excludes class and left politics which rejects the identarian turn.
The Green Party has no class politics and could easily morph, like so much chaff blown by the wind, into something like this. Klaus Barbie doll and German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, a Green in name, addressing the Bundestag last week.
https://videopress.com/v/yfIKazQC
You say “There are many socialists – including me – who remain in Labour and will keep chipping away” but, why? Why waste your energy supporting a corrupt party that will never return to its original mission (that of supporting the poor, a better and more equal society)? Starmer’s success at becoming leader did not happen in a vacuum but because many of the people working in the Labour Party were working against our interests. I supported Corbyn and was excited by the vision of those 2017/19 Manifestos. They would have offered a way into the future for all of us (rather than the few). That vision will never become a reality in the Labour Party because it is too entrenched in being a party that serves business and priviledge – as you can see by looking at today’s Labour Party. Yet, that vision is not dead. There is a party fighting for a better, sustainable, fairer world – and that is the Greens. Just read their Manifesto; it is, as near as dammit, the same Manifesto supported by Corbyn’s Labour Party. Leave the Labour Party. Join the Greens – and fight for what you truly believe in.
I managed to ride out the Militant expulsions and loyally stayed in the LP for most of my adult life. However I am now in the political wilderness, having been chucked out by Starmer’s AS rules. With a whole lifetime of political experience behind me I, and a great many others in a similar situation, have no other party to gravitate towards. There are so many small parties being formed but no beacon of light. How are we, the disposessed, meant to get back on the political horse I wonder?
Kier Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Raynor, Wes Streeting and the WHOLE Labour gang of MPs responsible for the genocide. (Yes: including John McDonnell and Zara Sultana… if they disagree with the crimes of imperialism they have no place in such a party).