Non-parliamentary sources of social power
JVL Introduction
A timely reminder that Labour Party politics is not the be-all-and-the-end-all of political life.
The author provides a critique of the thinking of right-wing organisations like Labour First, riding high in the party machine and convinced they know how to win the next election.
They don’t and they won’t. And they are exacting a terrible price as the author makes clear.
But the article is also an affirmation that while the battle in the Party matters, it is not where most progressive political activity in Britain is taking place.
This is extra-parliamentary – in movements against racism, football fans’ support for food banks, campaigns for renters’ rights, climate change activism, support of asylum-seekers, defending the NHS, and so much more besides.
The left’s role is to build these movement and to generalise their political implications.
This article was originally published by Colonel Despard’s Radical Comment on Wed 19 Jan 2022. Read the original here.
The left must recognize non-parliamentary sources of social power
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In Starmer’s own Constituency (Camden) the hard right have removed anyone who disagrees with them from the list of potential Council candidates. The cull has included sitting Councillors, former Mayors, moderates who have dared to oppose property deals, and obviously, anyone who is remotely a socialist …. if only Starmer’s acolytes could convince more Tories to join them, they wouldn’t have run out of candidates for the local elections
Camden is the BOROUGH , containing two parliamentary constituencies: Hampstead and Kilburn (which is not all in LB Camden), and Holborn and St Pancras ,long represented by Frank Dobson, left-centrist who had no time at all for ‘political correctness’ or Right sectarianism/
A very interesting analysis. Electoral politics are not important at the moment. In my town, Huddersfield the ‘just deliver’ labour force has been on strike. Small but significant industrial action is happening all over the country.Supporting these actions is essential for socialists. Local election work for worthless Labour councils such as Kirklees is irrelevant to the lives of ordinary working people.
The bourgeois assumption that ‘Football is racist’ because it is a ‘working class’ game rears its ugly head again. Association Football has been taken away from the lower classes by elites who import 70% of playing staff from overseas (including managers) & a MSM (BBC & SKY) who will only feature elite Premiership games; the rest of football can go to hell. Any prospect of a working class kid playing for his local club has been massively diminished .
I am 72 years old & have played many sports, including football at a professional level. There is no more racism in football than there is in any other sport, but it gives bourgeois journalists a never ending story to write about, another moral panic, like AS, promoting ‘liberal morality’ & intensive virtue signalling.
Even without reading this horrific list of failures and collapse within the LP organisation, I have wondered for a long time if the Tories have planted people in the LP; if people are not who they say they are politically. Using antisemitism, the Party has been purged of the very people who would always have put in ‘the work’ to get the LP elected. It doesn’t take brains to see that the LP is committing suicide.
“The right wing of the Labour party likes to present itself as an authority on how to win elections.” Right. So leaving aside the last three general elections, two of which were winnable but Jeremy Corbyn was undermined by the right of the PLP and the apparatchiks in control of the party machine (remember all the delays with election leaflets, posters and candidate selection) let alone Starmer’s promise that Remain would be included on and ballot on the outcome of Brexit negotiation, and the disgustingly filthy accusations of antisemitism directed against Jeremy Corbyn and so many others by what we can only describe as an advance in anti-Palestinian activity by external groups, some known, some not.
I agree we need to organise outside parliament in community activities whenever we find an opportunity. One opportunity is to start building up our canvassing lists for our use which arise out of our charitable activities.
I cannot see the charmless Starmer even beating Johnson at the moment. He’s got too much dirty laundry: the whole antisemitism business for one. And on taking office immediately breaking his promise to advance the Party’s policies which had scarcely been touched on during the campaign because most of the electorate thought we were the remain party despite the fact that we had prepared a very strong message that we were not. We were the party who could secure a strong and beneficial deal for the British people. But having the political neophyte Starmer as a negotiator was just not a good look. And as a potential prime minister? Not a good look at all.
And it still isn’t.
GB News has something called ‘Free Speech Nation’ get in touch and ask to appear
It’s a win win if they refuse