The left can’t shape Starmerism – it must resist it
JVL Introduction
Oliver Eagleton is at one with James Meadway, a former economic adviser to John McDonnell, on the necessity for public spending rather than fiscal discipline as the way forward for any left administration.
But he differs strongly on how to approach the Starmer regime in the Labour Party to get it.
Meadway encourages us to present “policy demands” to the Starmer leadership, advocating increased investment and “expanded public and collective ownership across the economy”, while mounting “a defence of the more radical elements of his programme”’.
Eagleton finds these misguided not because they are wrong, but because they fail to engage with Starmer’s explicit programme and purpose. These are, for Eagleton clear: a politics of unthinking deference to established interests.
We should expect nothing from a Starmer administration as of right. We should expect climate protestors to be gaoled, the private sector to be key to any transition to renewables, strong opposition to union pay demands, ongoing privatisation of the NHS. And much more.
The reality may be dispiriting but we must accept that we can only pressure Starmer from a position of unflinching opposition.
This article was originally published by the New Statesman on Wed 11 Jan 2023. Read the original here.
The left can’t shape Starmerism – it must resist it
Socialists cannot simply decide whether or not to pick a fight with the Labour leader – he has continually fought them.
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JC on Peston tonight
Hope he launches new party, stands as an Independent and London mayor
Will be worth watching Liz Kendalls reaction, bit like a baby filling their nappy
Starmer and Reeves’s fidelity to
‘Sound money and fiscal discipline’ is reminiscent of McDonald and Snowden’s policy in 1931, which included cuts to unemployment pay in the national interest.
It was the TUC which persuaded an until then supine Cabinet majority to oppose this policy. The rest is history.
What chance today of such courage?
Evidence is that Starmer favours unthinking deference to established interests and intellectual dexterity extends mainly to conceiving ways to avoid controversy and originating policy ideas that might prove controversial. The pity of this approach is that it mimics alleged Conservative “sound money” politics despite that concept being an illusion dreamed up by public relations gurus. Conservative policies have, over 10 or 12 years, brought the UK stagnation economically and erosion of resilience in the economy and public services. An entirely fresh approach is badly needed, one that looks at need and how to get there; in preference to policies deferential to established interests and past custom and practice. Greater imagination is required in place of uninspiring reiteration of past ideas. I doubt that Starmer, whose response to the challenge of the need for a rational policy on Israel/Palestine is to cancel the membership of intelligent potential contributors; and run away from potential controversy. Running away is not a plan for initiating any fresh approaches to policies across the range needed particularly now after the Conservative decline into the mire of political morass.
Starmer is clear what he is doing. He wants to be PM. Labour is Tweedledee to the Tory Tweedledum. On issues auch as the NHS Labour WILL be better because there is mass support in the country for the NHS. But to believe that Starmer or his team will politely and engageingly discuss policies that we know the ruling class oppose is nonsense. The only thing Starmer and the right wing in the LP will understand is militant opposition that is a threat to them. Then they may give a bit. It has always been like this.
It’s certainly true that the Labour Party currently remains the focus of the left, but this will not necessarily always be the case.
It’s very clear that Starmer’s view is that socialists should be excluded from the party and most have now resigned or been expelled. when Corbyn is officially barred from standing for Labour at the next election, most of the rest will resign. This will give us the opportunity to consider founding an explicitly socialist party, with the backing of at least one of the big unions.
I’m fully aware of the pitfalls in doing this, but most of these can be avoided if we don’t blindly repeat the mistakes made in earlier attempts. This is not the time to act, but it is the time to start thinking about it and how it might be taken forward after the election, whatever the result.
I do sympathise with those hanging on by their fingertips – afer all, this is our party, founded by the unions and others to represent ordinary people – but we must recognise reality. If Starmer was to be overthrown, there is not the slightest chance that a socialist would be elected.
The future of the left is for us to decide – if we choose to do so.
The problem is not Starmer but the monopoly the right now has on the media and our first past the post electoral system. To pretend that any truly left wing leader could win an election in these circumstances is to take a holiday from reality, always a popular destination for the left.
If tactical voting was our whole focus now, and it was then used intelligently by progressives in the next election Starmer would have a majority, but not big enough for him to indulge in his more repressive tendencies. In the election after that, tactical voting could then be used for proportional representation, with a threat to vote Lib Dem if Labour doesn’t back it. Then you are in business. Or we can back doctrinal purity over electoral reality, focus our attacks on Starmer and give the Tories a good chance of winning the next election, snatching defeat from the jaws of a 20% lead in the polls.
We have all heard it before. Left must oppose Starmer. The left must unite to bring socialist values back to the LP. This is just empty talk. The only positive solution has been offered by Ken Loach. We need left candidates to place at every constituency where a right LP candidate is contesting the GE. We certainly need the union’s backing for this. The rest is just talk – blah blah!
Purely from the perspective of someone who could not vote for Starmer:
“I’d rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don’t want, and get it.”
(Eugene Debs).
I do realise that some people might gain a bit relatively under a Labour government, but many of them voted for Johnson anyway.
The illusion of UK democracy is when it’s time for a planned change of government from the Tories to staunchly neoliberal Labour. Neither party will work in the interest of the majority of the population (Streeting and Starmer have both been personally funded to privatise the NHS, a fact the media has assiduously suppressed). Nevertheless the UK population is to feel placated (even grateful) for participating in this charade of ‘change’.
Red Tory New New Labour will not work
Blair and his illegitimate offspring lost 5 million votes and gave us Diddy David Cameron
When in reality 1997 should have finished the Tories once and for all
JC on Peston basically showed us why he is an inspirational leader but could not fight his way out of a paper bag
Pretty much sums up the left
I have now left the Labour Party, despite being a staunch Trade Unionist. I left in disgust at Starmer’s betrayal of everything he stood for when vying to be leader, his pandering to Tories and his treatment of the Left.
Fortunately, I am a Scot so have a ready alternative to the Starmer party (they no longer have the right to call themselves Labour).
My hope is that Scotland will gain its independence and thrive as a progressive European social democracy. Then, whenever the Starmerites and others claim “There Is No Alternative” as an excuse to maintaining the rotten status quo, the English Left can point North and say: “So how come Scotland manages to do it?”
Like Diamond Versi I support Ken Loach’s argument. The right has secured iron control of the Labour Party and those who are unhappy with the situation have no power to change it – certainly not in the short term and we cannot wait for the long term because of climate change/catastrophe. However if Jeremy Corbyn were to stand as an independent at the next election he could well be elected. The same applies to others who have been expelled /deselected but are popular within their constituencies. They would have the opportunity of putting across sound political arguments to the electorate rather than the meaningless waffle we are so often being subjected to and some of them could end up in parliament. Many people in the country are desperate for real change.
Starmer should be challenged every inch of the way! It’s an outrage not just what he’s done to the party but for what it proposes totally against what labour has always represented.
JC proved the country was crying out for real choice, under FPTP you can win each seat by one vote, you can very easily become the party who holds the balance of power
It really doesn’t matter which Tory party you hold to ransom, what you need to do is break up the cartel