JVL in ‘unprecedented’ times: exploring the new political terrain

The unprecedented keeps on happening. Every day on the news some commentator or journalist is heard saying this or that unprecedented event has happened.

A Tory recovery from 30% down would be unprecedented but our recent history means that such an eventuality cannot be totally discounted.

Keir Starmer acts as though his flow to the premiership, if not to power, it is inevitable but the electorate is not always misleadable. If offered a Tory or a pale imitation Tory they may well revert to the real thing.

I remember my experience of canvassing in 1997, when I could not say anything on the doorstep apart from ‘you don’t want the Tories, do you?’ This resonated on the streets of Brixton and encouraged many people to vote Labour. That was all I could say, because I could think of nothing positive to look forward to in the Blair prospectus.

But it has to be said that under Blair and Brown, in the interstices of their neo-liberal edifice, there were things to be pleased with: increased public service funding, even if attached to destructive targets, meant many services improved; initiatives like Surestart improved many people’s lives. It’s difficult to see anything in the Starmer prospectors the even matches the low bar of the Blair offer.

Starmer wants to win from the centre; that is, of course, the centre that is moved at least seven steps to the right since the last Labour government. The only sure way to victory is by striking positions to the left of centre, even if not actually on the left. Starmer has convinced himself and those around him that such a direction is too risky: Starmer is tremulously risk averse in confronting Tory ideology, while bold in other directions.

Immiseration demands authoritarianism

Immiseration is baked into Tory policy: it is at least boiled into Starmer’s Labour. State power in a time of immiseration requires authoritarianism and repression. The Tories understand this, that is why Sunak imposed Braverman as Home Secretary, responsible for policing and security. He needed her unwavering commitment to full-throated coercion and violence. Also securing the allegiance of the bonehead right was an added bonus. Starmer’s approach to the Labour Party leadership is a cross between Chopper Harris and Judge Jeffreys. This shows he can be trusted to sustain that direction.

The ruthlessness of the Starmer/Evans machine towards anyone who might even mildly question Labour Party policy far exceeds anything we experienced in the darkest days of Kinnock. Kinnock attacked Militant but not the rest of the non-Militant left who did not fear expulsion.

The range of Starmer’s targets from Ian Byrne to Apsana Begum to Emma Dent Coad to Maurice McLeod is extraordinary and even encompasses such gentle souls as Sam Tarry: the methods brutal.

Only a lawyer well versed in human rights could have the confidence to undermine human rights so comprehensively.

So what do we do? One huge benefit of the Corbyn project was the cohesion of a large part of the British left inside the Labour Party, pursuing a common agenda. Outside of the Labour Party this powerful left is dispersed and ineffective.

Can we build a socialist party?

Of course, what we need is a socialist party. Having no socialist party is easy, having fifty socialist parties is easy, having a single unified socialist party is a trick we do not know how to master. JVL has to try to play a role in doing something unprecedented in British politics.

New parties which have electoral ambitions can only establish themselves if there is space not filled by existing parties. The SNP only established itself as a parliamentary force when Labour collapsed in Scotland from a mixture of complacency, local government mismanagement and corruption – there is no sign of an equivalent collapse in England. The collapse in the North and Midlands for similar reasons was only, tragically, to the benefit of the Tories. The only way space for an electorally ambitious socialist party will open is by the ending of the two-party electoral dominance – for that a suitable form of proportional representation is essential. The move of sentiment inside the Labour Party is of great significance for us.

While PR is potentially of great benefit to the left we should not ignore that it also opens the way to the far right to gain representation. Farage’s various ventures never gained a parliamentary seat – we cannot be confident that Farage or worse would not also benefit from PR. PR allowed Fratelli Italiana and La Liga to build up their position in Italy to the point where they could lead the new Government, similarly the so-called Swedish Democrats have entered the government coalition in Sweden. We’ll come to Israel later.

PR is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for progress. It provides a mechanism but will backfire unless we present a compelling political offer. Defence and expansion of public services, although essential, is not enough. Support for the growing movement of trade union action to defend pay, conditions and employment is also advanced by socially conservative elements who do not identify with the left, although not by the Labour Party leadership who fear autonomous action.

The environmental crisis is central

We have to propose a programme of action that our audience will see as delivering tangible benefits to them. Our analysis is that not challenging the power of finance leads not just to slow progress but to defeat. Environmental campaigning is crucial to this – but it has to be a campaign that demonstrates how the richest gain economic benefit from environmentally destructive policies. Recent research has shown what we believed but could not back up. That the lifestyles of the UK rich pump carbon into the atmosphere at 20 or more times the rate of the poorest. The figures are even more dramatic on the global stage. The unfairness of this and be seen in floods in Pakistan, drought in East Africa and murderous high temperatures in Europe.

Effective environmental policies are inherently anti-capitalist as the market cannot account for the catastrophes they trivialise as externalities. Much of the Green movement balks at this, we do not.

Confronting the far-right allows us to build a coalition encompassing the many groups that are threatened. The coalition will be wide because those the right build fear about are many. The right affects to offer personal security by bonding only with those most like you. Our vision is of personal security though collective action with those most unlike you. We confront antisemitism by opposing Islamophobia and racism. By supporting disabled rights, even if we are fit; gay rights even if we are heterosexual. This is not to be virtuous or moral but for basic self-preservation.

We have been weak and ineffective in challenging the potent politics of fear and it is fear that embeds not just the threat of the far right but also the hegemony of the ruling class. We have allowed the alleged threat of trade union militants to permit repressive legislation. We have not limited the state’s ability to label many legitimate civil society activities as terrorism and solidify the security and surveillance state. We have not been loud enough when our abhorrence of abuse has been exploited to legitimate censorship.

JVL must position itself as a barrier to the forces that turn legitimate anxieties into immobilising fear and citizens into craven supplicants of a coercive state and advocates for repression of the Other.

The world beyond our borders is little more encouraging except perhaps in South America. The dominance of authoritarian and repressive regimes, whether through election or otherwise, imprisons billions in Khamenei’s Iran, Modi’s India, Putin’s Russia, Orban’s Hungary, in Myanmar, in China and more. A list of places you would want to flee from grows and grows. However British criticisms of these regimes does not mean that those fleeing are made welcome or given a means of seeking permission to travel here – exceptions of course for the wealthy.

There is more than one way of understanding the Holocaust

JVL stands against antisemitism but it equally stands against the misuse of antisemitism allegations to suppress debate about the nature of the Israeli state. To take an example from the past week, The Holocaust was an unspeakable evil; we have never seen a denial of its reality that is not malign. Debate about the meaning of the Holocaust and its use in political debate and rhetoric is both essential and not antisemitic. We recently posted a link to a piece by an ex-Kahanist, turned peacenik, ‘The Holocaust is the ultimate repudiation of Zionism’ which produced a furious reaction from our Zionist trolls. Some responses were angry and legitimate, if wrong, counter-arguments but too many others were denouncements of us and the author as antisemites for daring to challenge the narrative. For instance, “Hitler would be proud of you.” and “Hey JVL stop pretending you are not Nazis…you are racists and nazis and evil immoral people. Honestly…you should get sued for fraud for having the word Jewish in your name…”

It is not just fractious Jewish Socialists who are targets. Shaima Dallalai has just been removed as the elected President of the NUS on the spurious grounds of a ten year old teenage, and unacceptable, tweet that she has since apologised for. Anti-Zionists can never have their apologies accepted, supporters of Israel are all too easily excused. In reality, she is a supporter of Palestinian Liberation and therefore deemed unsuitable as a student leader. Of course, the many who have been disciplined and expelled by the Labour Party for socialism under the false guise of antisemitism have been a major concern for JVL.

The Israeli elections reveal much about Zionism

This brings us back to Israel and Palestine. Israel has been governed from the right for decades but a new government that welcomes Ben Gvir, who even conservative commentators describe as a hard right fascist, is a step even deeper into criminality. This has implications for both the Palestinians and the beleaguered Jewish Israeli left and for the necessity of global Jewish support for those opposing oppression.

Some argue that the election result is not an aberration but the logical next (and not the final) step in the direction of travel that Israel has been on for decades – arguably since 1948 and implicitly before that. Others, while accepting the underlying veracity of this, point out that this election strips away the mask and reveals the true nature of actually existing Zionism. This exposure is deeply disturbing to the many Zionists who are not unbridled Jewish supremacists.

Many Zionists are wringing their hands about the damage that Ben Gvir and Smotrich’s ascent is doing to Israel’s international reputation. An ascent that was facilitated by Netanyahu’s forced marriage of various far right-wing factions to get them over the qualifying level for entry to the Knesset in his desperate attempt to get a majority and escape his many trials for corruption. Jewish mythology warns us against producing a Golem to defend us, a Golem that will turn on us and destroy us. Netanyahu’s Religious Zionism Golem threatens to bring down the temple of Zionism in a Samson-like blinded rage. No Delilah necessary, he had his own shears.

Deep schisms are appearing in the already fractured US Jewish community and even the more unified British community is displaying fissures. The recent Jewish News editorial: Never in Israel’s history has hatred wielded such power is only one example.

It is notable how even the BBC refers to Ben Gvir as far right, although it still shies away from the correct terms: fascist and promoter of Apartheid.

The immediate task of JVL is to encourage all those who see themselves as progressive and Zionist to explore the contradictions in their beliefs. The weaknesses of the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel will become apparent and those who opportunistically have aligned themselves to advance their careers must come to see that maintaining their allegiance is career-ending.

Some of course are obdurate in their support for Israel including it seems the Labour Party leader. Starmer’s pro-Israel stance is exemplified by his February 2020 statement: “I support Zionism without qualification.” Even the elections do not dent their support for Apartheid. LFoI tweeted the day after the elections ‘As a spokesperson for @Keir_Starmer said today, disagreements over policy and individual politicians’ rhetoric “doesn’t change the fundamental nature” of the “strong relationship between Britain and Israel”, which “transcends party politics”.’ It also transcends morality and respect for humanity.

Our aim must be to make it impossible for Starmer to be both leader of the Labour Party and a 100% Zionist. Those whom the gods would destroy they first make leaders of the Labour Party. We will be doing the gods’ work.

Mike was on a panel with Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi who spoke on We are going to be busy!