What future for Labourism?
A remarkable thing happened on Monday night – a disparate group of socialists assembled in a Labour Club on the Kent coast to talk about the future of the Left, sharing analyses of the gloomy political environment while acknowledging differences of opinion respectfully and constructively.
The tone was set for the discussion about “Building The Movement For Socialism” by Jewish Voice for Labour’s Political Officer Graham Bash, whose opening remarks we publish below.
He shared the platform with speakers from Newham in east London, where two constituency parties have been suspended, triggering a grassroots mobilisation Graham hailed as an authentic community based challenge to the Labour right.
He noted that different socialist views on electoral tactics were grounded in a growing recognition of the unprecedented scale of the move to the right in the Labour Party, just at a time when uncompromising resistance is needed to multiple threats from the state and establishment at every level. Does this mean unions should disaffiliate from the party and socialists should leave en masse? In the absence of any alternative mass party of labour, Graham says “no”.
He argues: “A new party of labour will not just happen through an act of will – but through the development of a mass movement.”
(NWI)
A time of monsters
By Graham Bash, JVL Political Officer
We’re discussing tonight the future of the left – and in particular I want to focus on the Labour Party.
Just two preliminary points.
To begin, a word about myself. I am now aged 74. Where have the years gone?
55 years ago when I was 19 – I made the two most important political decisions of my life – and I made them at about the same time, after some inner struggle. First, to become a Marxist, within the tradition of Trotskyism – and, second, to join the Labour Party – as the party to which most of the major trade unions are affiliated.
I have never changed my mind on either decision – and I would be in the Labour Party today had I not been expelled after almost 53 years continuous membership for signing a petition criticising the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Somewhat ironic as it was my own experience of antisemitism when I was young and the lessons I learned from my father about fighting the fascists at Cable Street that brought me into political activity in the first place.
Second, I am very pleased to share a platform with the comrades from Newham. If I was in Newham I would be supporting them and voting for them in local and parliamentary elections – as I would the Community Independents in Liverpool, Jo Bird in Birkenhead, despite my views on the Greens, and of course Jeremy Corbyn in Islington.
Why? Because they represent an authentic community based challenge to Labour – and they stand a chance of winning and getting socialists into Parliament.
What unites us
Whatever our possible differences on electoral tactics, what unites us tonight is, I think, so much more important:
- Our recognition that the global crisis of capitalism – economic slump, war in Europe, climate catastrophe – threatens the survival of our planet, that time is running out, and only a revolutionary transformation will enable us to survive.
- A recognition that in Britain we face a Tory government determined to resolve that crisis at the expense of the working class – with growing attacks on our living standards – our jobs, conditions, wages and benefits – and also on our civil and human rights and our right to protest and organise.
- And thirdly a recognition of the scale of the move to the right in the Labour Party. This is unprecedented. The tearing up of every pledge Starmer made to become leader, the failure to challenge the main planks of Tory policies, the obscene aping of the Tories on immigration and asylum, the removal of the whip from Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott, ensuring they cannot stand for Labour at the next election, the real threat this will be followed by similar action against other left MPs, the removal and imposition of candidates and of party officers, the closing down of CLPs and the removal of the right to debate contentious issues.
The establishment wing of the Labour Party had the fright of their lives when Jeremy became leader – and they are determined to shut out the left for ever. And to shut out the working class – the trade unions – from any influence in the party.
So what hope for the Labour Party?
The party of class compromise
Let’s take a step back. What was and what is the Labour Party? It was born as a class compromise – Labourism – based on the affiliation of the trade unions and socialist organisations, but never in its economic policy going beyond the limits of capitalism, or in its political practice going beyond the limits of the British parliamentary system. For most of its existence that was the Labour Party.
In the last 40 years there have been attempts to resolve that class contradiction – firstly by the Bennite movement in the 1980s, then by Corbyn, both attempting, however partially, to resolve that contradiction in the interests of the working class – then, following their failure, attempts to resolve that contradiction in the interests of the British establishment – the capitalist class – by Blair and New Labour, and now Starmer.
Blair was a secure leader in a period of relative economic stability and he did not break the party from the union link – not because of a lack of ideological commitment, but because he didn’t have to. With Starmer it could be different.
Is this business as usual? Well we have seen this before. Remember Wilson and Castle’s In Place Of Strife attack on the unions in the late ’60s, the Social Contract of the ‘70s, the betrayal of the miners by Kinnock, the side-lining of the unions under Blair.
Remember too, that Labourism has enormous staying power – and the Labour Party has been written off – and new socialist parties proclaimed – rather too often in my lifetime.
Just another swing of the pendulum?
So under Starmer – is this just a right wing swing of the pendulum? If the Labour left keeps its nerve, will our turn come again?
It is still possible, but it is not the most likely outcome. It is possible that Labourism is entering its death agony. Why do I say that?
To repeat, the establishment faction had the fright of their lives under Corbyn – and are determined this will never happen again. Second, the economic crisis is now far deeper, with a future Starmer government having far less room for manoeuvre and more likely to attack the trade unions.
The resistance which must be built will not come in the first instance primarily from the Labour left in their constituency parties – though the resistance must engage with it – but it will come primarily from the trade unions and campaigns against racism, on climate change, etc. How to give this resistance political expression is an open question. It is possible, that the relationship between the Labour Party and trade unions may come under huge strain in the period of a Starmer government. I cannot see it happening before then.
Neutrality? I think not
And we are not there yet. At this election, yes, I support authentic community based socialist challenges to Labour. But the only alternative outcomes at the next election are a government led by the Tories or a government led by Labour. Are we really neutral? I think not. On the picket lines I think the message is clear. No illusions in Starmer whatsoever, but also a determination to bring down the Tories, then prepare to fight the next Labour government.
Take my constituency in Thanet South. A hopelessly Starmerite Labour candidate against Craig Mackinlay, a founder member of UKIP and on the far right of the Tory Party. Abstain? No way!
And should we advocate for unions to disaffiliate from Labour or for members to leave? At this stage my answer is NO. Because this would be a move not towards, but away from, political engagement in the absence of any alternative mass party of labour AND that is not going to happen this side of a general election AND this side of a Labour government. Then, who knows?
But let me anticipate a criticism that what I am saying is a passive “Wait till there is a Labour government” position – and do little in the meantime.
Resistance in a time of transition
On the contrary. We have to fight on three fronts now from wherever we are – in the Labour Party, in the trade unions, in community based organisations, in our campaigns.
- To build the resistance to all the attacks we face.
- To challenge illusions in a future Labour government and prepare to fight it.
- To fight to create or recreate a political expression of our resistance – within the Labour Party if we may, outside if we must. But remember this – a new party of labour will not just happen through an act of will – but through the development of a mass movement.
We are in a period of deep crisis – economic, political, environmental – which is likely to accelerate. We are in a time of transition.
As the Italian Marxist Gramsci put it almost 100 years ago, “The old world is dying, the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”
Attlee was no Lefty but as PM he saw through the greatest – almost only – serious set of steps to get the economy working for people who were not rich. However he was able to do this because most voters – by a significant margin – wanted this. The war and subsequent peace had convinced them that collaboration was the route to a better world. I joined the Labour Party in 1967 – the time of the Tiger talks – as I felt that only the Labour Party would bring about the changes needed, and although the probability was low we would at least avoid the worst ravages of a Tory government… I am still a member and still working for the local Party and left policies that can gain members and voters support. Perhaps I am daft and should just grow vegetables.
Corbyn and the left PLP saw the purge evolving and gathering force before their very eyes, for months. However, they chose to say nothing at all as to have done so would have enraged the most milirant within the left ranks. An open exposure would inevitably have lead to them organising a powerful confrontation with the Right.
Meanwhile, British capitalism absolutely needed the left to be scatterred and the LP sanitised, hence the witch-hunt. If the witch-hunt were to be thwarted in advance the only option would be for the Right and centrists to split the Party assunder.
Consequently not only would the Right form their own party but so to the militant ranks. But a party forged under conditions of anger and militancy, which now would have no rightwing blocking force.
This capitalism could not contend with, therefore why Corbyn and the left PLP remained shtum about the gathering purge. The rest is history. No “Trotskyist” can either deny or regard this as “innconsequential”. It has had nother other than a profound effect.
Failure, or rather refusal to recognise this reality, this deep betrayal, will lead to no viable party of the working class and oppressed being constructed. Or even any new mass party of any kind.
It means that meetings like this (small in number, not accidentally) are actually staged to sublimate the anger and expectations that go with it. At best they tailend consciousness. It would not be difficult for the top organisers and key personnel involved to prepare a series of mass meetings nationally in a dozen or more major cities. The main focus should be on the most angry of the strikers, students and militant youth rather than routinused Labour lefts who really only want the old LP back, which they see as a shrine…
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What are your thoughts on the Transform Politics initiative? I am quite hopeful that it can make a difference. It’s diverse, it’s profile is much younger (significantly more than you and me anyway!). It fills a massive void for socialists who cannot remain in Labour or have been kicked out also and has the potential to reach out to those who are disillusioned with current politics. It has no illusions about electoral possibilities for itself at a national level, but it is prepared to build from the grassroots upwards, whilst challenging as best it can the right-wing consensus nationally. It could play an important role in moving the centre of the political fulcrum leftwards, as UKIP did for the far Right. But I would be interested in your “take”.
Paul
I agree totally with the diagnosis, but not the inferred solution. Things have gone too far now in the Labour Party – what we are seeing is nothing less than institutionalised opposition to Left/socialist stances. As the article suggests it won’t just go away with the swing of the pendulum. Sorry, there needs to be a new party formed. Yes, in the short term this may be very difficult but in time it will likely force the issue of proportional representation. If the new party harvests sufficient votes Labour, or others, will be forced into coalition. Socialists initially will have greater influence as coalition partners than being entrapped in a Labour Party that believes they are expendable and redundant. I am afraid it is the long haul whichever way things pan out.
I’d prefer my union to fund TUSC candidates.
I think there is a complete absence of analysis of the failure of Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and the Socialist campaign group to face down the right during the period of massive increase in membership. If ( this is not hindsight) the had stood firm the split would have been by the right, leaving the “Labour Party” in the hands of Jeremy Corbyn and his grouping.
As it is we are in the period of up the river surrounding by “monsters”.
I agree with Graham. I’m still in the Labour Party – 40 years on. Here in Scotland, the other big danger is Nationalism. Very little opposition to that or the Tories outside Labour.
The left inside and outside the Labour Party need to take on board what a ruthless and anti-democratic set of opponents they have in the Starmer team. And also, how truly right-wing they are.
Ask a lawyer for advice and they will give you a legal answer. So, Starmer’s answer to the Corbyn upsurge has been to use the rules within the Labour Party and the legal system without. To expell and financially impoverish any voices that oppose his dictatorship in the party or his Tory agenda for the country.
The right in the Labour Party have effectively punched us in the face and turned the law onto some of our leaders.
Worse than that, they’ve thereby denied the British electorate of an alternative to Tory policies regarding austerity, wars, and the NHS.
We need to take tough, exceptional, measures to either save the Labour Party from Starmer or replace it with another party.
Let’s take it on board … a Starmer government will literally be no better than a Tory government.
If a lickspittle Starmerite wins instead of a right-wing Tory then it won’t make any difference to the people of Margate or anywhere else, because Starmer’s policies are hard right-wing Tory policies.
And, if we face up to realities, the problem is that the election of a lickspittle Starmerite in Margate could lead to Starmer winning the election.
Starmer must lose or we won’t get rid of him.
If he doesn’t lose in Holborn & St Pancras, then him/Labour losing in the General Election will be the next best thing, because he will then be a failure and will be likely to resign.
He has given us no choice, he’s removed all our democratic levers of influence (well demo-bureaucratic). All that is left to us at
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Just been to view “The Big Lie” film(Ken Loach) The LP may not now be reformable under Starmer,Mandelson. The Trots have been Stalinised! Never realised I was a “Trot”…hope my late father isn’t spinning in his grave.
In practical terms, I think socialists need to be active where they can be – the relationship with Labour depends very much on local (and practical) circumstances. The key is to challenge both Starmer’s politics and articulate alternatives – whether this is in the unions, campaigns, communities, or even in the Party itself. As a practical aside – it’s worth mentioning the number of Councillors who have been removed from Labour selections and shortlists, the delegates blocked from attending conferences or becoming elected officials, and the ongoing imposition of anti-socialist representatives at all levels of the Party. The consequences of Starmer are the beyond-Labour candidates who are emerging that Graham says he would support. It matters that they succeed.
The Byline Times is not revolutionary paper but for weeks it has argued that the popular mood in Britain is in favour of fundamental change – as in 1945. We need a radical root and branch change now and the people are ready for it. They see after 15 years of Tory rule that capitalism actually has failed the people: homelessness, childpoverty, need for school meals ,food banks, a NHS for poor people, security for a home to live in , jobs that support a family, food security rather than EAT OR HEAT. ALL this is real life hardship that enough people feel needs a sweeping political change
We should be preparing for this by realising that Starmer will not provide it! We will have to provide the alternative ourselves . The most attractive rallying point would be A Peace & Justice Party based on the original LP Clause IV
I would only add that this is not just a traditional Labour Right vs Left issue but a manifestation of a global problem. Analysis of those trends should inform future actions.
The first noticeable example was the Clinton insurgency into the Democrat Party. Key individuals were subverted as lobbying money entered the Party. Then more carpetbaggers arrived for the free money and future directorships. Fake Democrats the Clintons presided over a Reaganite economic policy and redistributed from the general public and public commons – effectively dismantling what was left of Lyndon-Johnson’s Great Society Program and funding. Poverty increased as did the prison population but the Privatised Prison Industry was part of the capitalist Lobby.
Blair & Brown presided over a Thatcherite economy and exactly the same playbook, redistributing to the rich while spinning this process as positive and of course more carpetbaggers arrived. The same negative social consequences occurred
Macron and cronies tried to the same while in the French Socialist Party when Hollande was leader attempting to block limits on CEO pay and an increased tax burden on the super-rich but failed and with big money Macron started his own Party.
The SNP inherited the social-democratic vote in Scotland and was soon awash with lobbying money and carpetbaggers. The drive towards the Party’s principle function – Independence – stalled as big business had other plans.
What this tells us is that a future electoral formation – either in or outside of the Labour Party – must be structured and have sufficient internal democracy to resist carpetbagging entryism.
To paraphrase and precis “these people are really evil and malicious, so let’s give them all the power of the state and then try to challenge them”.
Excellent article, Graham. Thank you.
One thing you didn’t mention was the media. Getting the message out.
We desperately need a counter to the billionaire-owned right-wing propaganda – and the current news channels on our TV’s and radios.
Would the Unions – affiliated and unaffiliated – be interested in funding?
Or, even, the TUC, itself?
‘A word from our sponsor…’
The idea that voting for a red Tory to keep out a Blue Tory – the least worst – is like swapping deck chairs on the Titanic. The Labour Party is pro-war, pro-NATO, attacks workers rights to strike and picket, supports the draconian restrictions on civil liberty and the right to protest, pro US Atlanticism, institutionally racist, pro Israeli Apartheid, against increasing benefits and abolishing the two-child cap, pro NHS Privatisation……do I need to go on? This isnt the party I joined in 1976. I would rather vote green or left-independent than Labour. Graham mentioned the choice between UKIP and Labour in Thanet: whats the difference? The right has a home in the Conservative and Labour Party`s. The Labour front bench is no less racist than Braverman and her ilk in Government. Labour believes it can implement the current Governments racist immigration and asylum policy, by doing it “better”.
If Labour turned up on my doorstep, handed me a leaflet asking me to vote for those policies………No. We have to break the chains of this Tory / Labour thinking we have had drilled into us for decades. Ultimately we are protecting the status quo not changing it.
This is OK as far as it goes but (and I think GB will acknowledge this) that what is happening in the world with the rise of BRICS and the challenge to US (and UK) Imperialism will mean that the UK establishment is caught in a pincer movement – rising discontent at home. and a declining economic and political role on the world stage. We need to keep the powder dry but encourage skirmishes wherever we can.
I see no mention here of the Green Party who have policies to confront global warming within a recognition of the role that capitalism and its linked inequality. These are essentially socialist policies. They are an established party making inroads at local council levels where the idiocies of fptp matter less. I would like to know why they are not in the equation.
We have a problem that most have not responded to, and that is, the party has effectively been taken over, people have been put in place to ensure that the Labour Party remains on a Neo-Liberal trajectory. Anyone that stands against what this current party stands for automatically becomes a target for expulsion.
So how do we fight from within if we can’t raise our voices to speak?
Over the past forty years, a silent diktat has permeated every facet of our lives, and people have been selected to ensure that any dissenting voice is silenced. We are not faced with a set of well meaning people who just have a different point of view as to how to challenge the status quo, but those that serve their every interest. Need we ask how they are rewarded, how did Blair and Thatcher become Multi Millionaires over night? Why do we refer to the revolving door of those in government, business and the civil service.
When we are faced with what to me is clearly a corrupt system, how do we change that from within? What the trade union movement is faced with today, (and I only refer to genuine unions that currently are properly represented by their leadership), is what they were faced with at the beginning of the last century. Hence the need to form a political party to represent them in the House of Commons. Today we have come full circle because the party set up by the unions, no longer represents them or the people that vote for them.
So in real terms the clock has been turned back and we today are in the same place as we were over 123 years ago. The difference being though, that with the passing of time we have the …
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@ Malcolm Adkins … possibly because the Greens are the only established (though very tiny) UK party that COULD be a good home for Labour voters and activists who can’t stomach what Starmer’s done to the party?
To misquote from Orwell’s “1984”, where Winston muses on whether Big Brother can ever be defeated “If there was any hope it lay with the [Greens]”.
I feel it would make more sense for Labour activists heart-broken about the state of the party to work now for the success of the Greens and for a future strong coalition between the Greens and a revived Labour party.
I don’t see any sense in trying to start a new party (always very difficult) when there is so much common ground between the Greens and Labour and both sides have much to gain from the other’s input.
There is a bit too much vanguardism here. What is needed is to understand what is likely to happen and to prepare to respond.
It is very probable that a Labour Government will be elected. Rapid disillusionment will then set in as people realise that nothing much will change. The Labour leadership are already preparing for this. The one thing they most fear is a revival of the left within the Labour Party and their entire strategy is based around making this impossible. There is a large body of people, some but not all young, who think that there is something fundamentally wrong with the present organization of society and that radical change is needed. The leadership do not care if these people join Trotskyist groups or indeed (perhaps more probably) fascist groups as long as they can keep them out of the Labour Party.
The leadership’s absolute priority is keeping control of the Party. Their extraordinary venom against Corbyn is due entirely to the fact that he is rooted within the Labour Party and draws virtually all his support from Labour members and supporters. These people leaving the Party voluntarily would be exactly what the leadership wants.
My proposal would be to sit tight within the Party, continue to express our views and await events. A Labour Government will face continuing and growing crises to which it will find no solution within its current ideological framework. It is how it reacts to this situation, whether by compromise or by even greater extremism, which will determine the future course of events.
After the election, Starmerite Labour will claim all votes for the Labour Party as evidence of support for Starmer. If you vote LibDem, the LibDems will claim your vote as support for the Lib Dems, Either vote for a socialist, or do not vote. It seems that in Thanet your choice is between an ultra Tory or a Tory lite. Why vote for either?
Carpe Diem? Not on your nelly.
I agree, despite its move to the right the LP splitting from the unions at this point would be a mistake. I dont think a break away left party is strong enough yet to have the required impact, so the fight must continue within the LP, where l believe support for the left is in a renewed renaissance and must be built on. LPs expulsion of those on the left demonstrate the vulnerability of the right. This must be exploited. Its critical that demonised Marxism is revisited and rewritten, using today’s language which EVERYONE can understand. Sadly demonisation of Marx has been so successful that many workers, who he strove to help, remain fearful of him.
A very interesting read, thank you Graham.
My view is, that Starmer has made it impossible for the Left it fight back, suspensions are still happening and Left Candidates are being stopped from standing. The grip that Starmer has on the Party is so great that even if it has a really bad GE, there are not enough of us on the Left to win back Socialist policies.
I would advocate a big effort to get the Unions to Start a new Democratic Socialist Party, invite all well know Socialist MPs, Past and Present, there are millions of people out there that are desperate for a Party that will represent them. Talks with Union Leaders should be started before any announcement is made, to gain time to have everything in place. Once in place, the Unions to make the announcement that they will no longer be financing the Labour Party but will be financing the new Party.
I can still remember how the mood across the Country changed in a few weeks after Corbyn won the Leadership, we could see the same thing happening for a Party that was fully funded and with all the experience needed to Govern the Country.