This one is a bit of a heart opener. Get the hankie out.
I'm currently thinking about writing a second post to accompany this; I've been ruminating for a while. I thought I'd prefer a bit of background.
I love Labour. I love its culture, history, ideology and ethos. I love the people in it. I love the diverse backgrounds of trade unionists, liberal-left intellectuals, civilian agitators. Most of all, I love the potential that it has to be a force for good*.
But every day I think about leaving it. I have thought about leaving it every day since I joined it.
I joined the party in 2003 around a month before the British invasion of Iraq, to which I was resolutely opposed, an opinion by which I stand to this day. The war was my Vietnam. It defined my political development and continues to do so; I still believe it to be instituted against a mish-mash of illegality, dishonesty and convenient western benefits at the expense of convenient (and unacceptable) collateral damage. it has also undermined the goals of the struggle against islamist terrorist tactics. I compare the country to China, and Saudi Arabia; brutal dictatorships who in practise differ from Saddam's Iraq only in that we make a good deal out of them; for the moment. Accordingly, many of those who rightly accuse the SWP and their friends of moral relativism seem mired in it themselves.
The war did not radicalise me; I joined the party because I had given up on the ideology of revolution. But it did radicalise many of my generation, and it 'defined' a great deal more. We were the generation for whom 1997 was only a secondary memory.
Many young people in the Labour movement don't understand this, because they see each other and are convinced that this is all there is. They are not aware of the vastly larger population of people who, diverted from a reasonable centre-left option, were wasted to pointless revolutionary agitation. I regard this as tragic in itself.
Attracted by the celebrity of various ministerial personalities, many within the youth movement of Labour never held my values in the first place. The sort of people I'm talking about joined Labour for reasons such as 'they were the government', or 'I liked X, Y or Z person' - probably Blair.
These are not even values, yet alone principles or policies.
I can understand why one would respect Blair's abilities, but I'm not sure if he offers anything in terms of beliefs or conclusions. You only have to look at the amount of his own policies he reversed on or contradicted with others.
It probably sounds strange that I joined the Party and stayed in immediately after Iraq. If anything, I'm quite proud of the level of discipline I showed as a 16 year old, considering the fact that what happened back then still feels like a stab in the throat until this day. I was determined to tough it out.
I had joined the month earlier for reasons quite different to those of almost anyone I've met, at least, almost anyone my age. Having been through Trotskyism, but always without a party, one day I just thought to myself 'hang on, I'm a democratic socialist.'. I researched the then still active socialist alliance to find that they did not have significant trade union backing. They soon fragmented anyway, and I would have had to share what was essentially a party with revolutionaries who did not share my fundamental world-view. So I picked Labour, as even the meekest of Croslandites has, in my view, more in common with the campaign group than a standard Leninist.
Immediately I was a campaign group fan.
Being a democratic socialist, I wanted to see socialist policies brought into being through open methods based on voting, rather than hanging. Simple enough.
I spent around two years being a supporter of the campaign group, somewhere very close to old-style Ken Livingstone. I had absolutely no sympathy for Blair the man (despite my admiration for the 1997 manifesto as a starting point) due to Iraq, and even less for the policy. I was disappointed by his behaviour in the sense that he would decide what was 'right' (not 'socialist') first, then implement it, with zero reasoning given. The reasoning would change with the policy, often contradicting earlier manifestations, forcing one into an Orwellian doublethink. We were told that left and right were 'out of date' (I try to apply this concept during driving lessons and it gets me nowhere). Accordingly, the first tagline to this blog, when it begun, was 'Postmodernism is out'. I thought people were sick of this crap, ad wanted some principle. I found the idea that the philosophy that allowed Blair to arbitrarily declare things out of date had become an unfashionable one slightly comical, so up it went. I am of course aware that modernisation is a valid concept. What I objected to was words such as this ('progress' being an important other, along with the ubiquitous 'reform').
Further, all of the twisting and turning with public opinion showed an unwillingness to direct it. You can't really say you're doing what is 'good' when what is 'good' changes depending on whatever the most centrist people happen to think at that time.
All of this displeased me immensely. I had doubted my membership since Iraq, and a continued to so so.
When I hit university, I found many people of the 'celebrity' variety I described above; but also many good and substantial ones (no matter what malevolent trots may say), though of course a certain level of deviousness is required in student politics.
For a year I found myself sidelined. I wanted to contribute, but much of what I assumed to be fairly moderate Labourish activity, such as involvement with broad Unite Against Fascism campaigns, was frowned upon. I still regard this sort of thing as silly.
I was however determined to get involved. Though my politics appeared on a different world to many of the others, I was convinced that I had much to give, and that the Labour Club, as an organ of the only party of labour, was an appropriate organ to do it through. Luckily, the chair at the time, though strongly pitched to the right, was at least a pluralist (if an authoritarian one), and I was drawn into proper activism for the first time.
Labour Students drew me considerably to the right of where I had been, but I still considered myself on the left of the party, which put me quite close to the fringes of Labour Students. I grew to identify strongly with Compass, which is identifiably of the left, but rolls in some rather crucial differences with the post-Bennite 'hard left', which is where I previously placed myself.
Most importantly, Compass, in following from its Gramscian roots, notes that:
...the ‘Hard left had ‘no project for building a popular majority in society’and that
[the] ‘shallowness of their perspectives, gesture politics and authoritarian methods have helped set back the socialist project’.These differences spring from the Labour Coordinating Committee of the 1980s which was so influential in the formation of new Labour. If you're interested in why Compass differentiates itself from the 'hard' left, you could do worse that read from page 10 of this document.
The sum total of this is that for once in my life I found that I agreed with Blair. Electability and hegemony are crucial priorities. Where I differ from Blair is why.
I believe that these, as well as the exploration of new (electably) 'left' ideas are crucial going forwards for the very same reason that I joined the party. I am a socialist, and I want some variant of socialism democratically implemented. I think it evident that Blair did not. Compass, rather than spouting post-modern bullshit about there being no such thing as 'left', or instead sounding the retreat to the 'radical centre', is quite happy to chuck out loads of previously untested, often populist and generally 'left' (or at the very least, left of centre) ideas.
Now, to get to the point.
I want to implement left ideals. Left ideals. Implement them, please.
The cause of my (continuing) agonisation of late with regard to Labour membership is more than it has been before.
Previously, my concern was that left ideals were not being implemented.
As far as I can see at the moment however, it seems that there are many people, people who easily rise, often through Labour First (the trade unionist hard rights' Eton) , into the commanding echelons of the party, who don't want people here with any sort of leftish inclination. At all.
Take this guy/girl. Seriously.
So the Labour right spends its whole time fighting against the Bennite imposition of Leninism, then goes on to do it itself. You couldn't make it up.
In the world of Leninist parties, you agree a line democratically, then stick to it.
Labour doesn't even agree one democratically, but this guy suggests that we stick to it. All the time (While name checking Alan Milburn. Who tried to derail the Gordon Brown for Britain campaign. This is an idiocy in itself).
This, to me, is repugnant. It is one thing joining a nominally democratic socialist party and having it fail to deliver democratic socialism. It is another to be told by a comrade within this party that democratic socialists (such as myself) are not welcome there because of this.
The whole point in new Labour was to dislodge the left. But one has to wonder why they chose Labour if they were going to bring it into the centre. Why not enter and bring the Tories into the centre and leave the right unrepresented, rather than doing it to Labour and leaving the left unrepresented in the country?
So I suppose the sum total is that, while there are worse things than Labour, 'it could be worse than this' is not enough to justify my subsidisation, be it through tax or direct debit. In any event, for five years I have felt unrepresented. those on the right have continually asked those on the moderate left to leave.
So my question is, well, why don't we just bloody well do it? If the party doesn't want us, why not? If the party doesn't want trade unions, why do they hang around?
The reason, of course, that nobody has left, is that while Labour does not accurately represent the values and beliefs of substantive democratic socialists (or indeed social democrats - witness the 10p tax debacle), there is no alternative party which does. Further, because the unions retain some influence over Labour, there remains the constant glimmer of hope that you might get something progressive done; if you're prepared to endure being constantly slagged off by other members for even being a party member, or for having thoughts different to those of the isolated, disconnected, unchecked and unaccountable leadership.
I'm having a crisis of faith.
That's a pretty bad indicator, because for a leftie, I'm pretty damned moderate, and am often prepared to back the government when it is unpopular to do so, because I believe it, in some of those circumstances, to be right.
If I'm alienated by this sectarianism and top-down disconnect, along with the chronic lack of direction, what about everyone else?
And what is the solution? I've yet to post about who would be my second choice. But there isn't really a party out there for me. I want a socialist party, which is democratic with means and ends**, and prepared to engage with its members and the public. Once which will be prepared to get elected, but would do so to implement the values of its members, rather than disenfranchising them at the behest of the press.
Too much?
Perhaps I should retreat to pressure groups, where I can stick up for what I actually believe, rather than being bullied into sticking up for things which, as a democratic socialist, I abhor?
Your thoughts are welcome. If you've reached the end of this, you definitely deserve a listen.
As a side note, I'd just like to point out that I love what this party stands for in theory, and I love what it could be. I'd just like it if, at some point in my life, this amounted to more than a childish dream.
*what concerns me greatly is that it may never live up to this potential, and that I could, in retrospect, appear to be extremely naive in pursuing such a situation.
**Not insurrectionary!
14 rants:
As a frequent reader of your blog from a commmunist (marxist,non-stalinist) perspective, I always found it interesting in how you would reconcile yourself to the realities of the labour party, of electoralism and so on. My own political history thus far is somewhat opposite to yours. I started off as a social democrat (though I didnt know it at the time- as a politically unengaged person I literally didnt have the name for my vague set of beliefs) and tracked leftwards over a two year period, going through all the standard anti-socialism arguments I now get from others as a product of modern cynicism and suspicion of politics and organisation etc. Eventually I read enough marx, engels, milliband, luxemburg etc to understand capitalism in a concrete way I had never done before, with the real world constantly proving what they said correct before my eyes on a weekly basis. The first step to becoming a socailist is a critique of capitalism. This I now had. This you seem to have.
The next step is obviously real political activity. Whilst as an ex SWPer it is understandable that you were put off by their politics (they are, in all practice far from revolutionary after all) I think that writing off revolution as a 16 year old with an SWP background is a bit premature. Confusing revolution with 'insurrrection' is antother point where id disagree. However, when it comes to putting marxism into practice we need to go back to the late 19th and early 20th century - the beginnings of social democracy (revolutioanry marxism).
The split away from 'revolution' that you have been through mirrors the split from social democracy of the revisionists as opposed to the now named 'communists'. This historical rupture shaped the course of the 20th century and was based on, initially, a theoretical footing, its first and neccessarily also its last, as it represented the abandonment of theory as a guide to practice, abandoned socialism itself. The father was Eduard Bernstein, a man you claim as an intellectual inspiration. Eduard Bernstein leads to new labour and modern reformism and outright electoralism in a fairly direct way in terms of practical theory if not, obviously, exact beliefs as his were always shaped by the vestiges of his socialism. In short I would ask that you read, or re-read 'Reform or Revolution' by Rosa Luxemburg which, when one also takes into account the history of the 20th centruy, in my view, utterly buries Bernstein, and the basis of modern social democracy with it.
As for establishing hegemony etc, marxist social democracy was going down that road by sticking to its guns, not abandoning then in whole or in part, and winning increased power amongst the real basis of class power, the workers themselves, and also in the bourgeois state. The revisionists thought you could abandon socialism to make socialism, in whole or in part, abandoned theory and revolution in the process, and there began the long road of electoralopportunism, the raising up of 'parliamentarianism' as the be all and end all- the supposed seat of some abstract non class 'democracy', the craven abandonment of principle after the abandonment of theory, and top down statism of modern social democracy.
In your own way you seem to have cottened on, because you still have principles, but you still labour under the idealism and the abandonment of marxism by the earlier social democrats before the efects of their revision became fully clear through the course of history. This seems like an unsustainable halfway position, stuck between its historical origins, yet repulsed by where it lead in fact. We are where we are, what to do next? In my view marxism needs to, nay must, now be able to overcome social democracy by simply being marxist. Supporting the immediate improvemetn of workers conditions, opposing imperialism, critiqueing capitalism and fighting opportunism on a concrete theoretical as well as practical basis, only standing in elections openly as marxists, not fetishing bourgeois 'democracy', being the best fighter and educator for the objective interests of the global and national working class -all the stuff in the Manifesto all those decades ago. A back to basics approach seems to me the best route.
Obviouly as someone with markedly different politcal views as you this was always going to sound a wee bit hectoring, I hope it hasnt, and its good you feel as a labour member you can post your comments like this.
It's intersting to get a perspective.
It's not often that I come across marxists who don't treat me as a tabloid reader.
With regards to the history of Social Democracy, this is obviously something I take on board within my current position. I also think that the split in the international with regard to WWI is an important event to have taken into consideration, and I think it's fair to say that I would have taken a Leninist line over that issue.
In an earlier epoch I may have even been a revolutionary, but in my view, the modern Britain is a long way from revolutionary times.
Many of us have based our electoralism on a pragmatic approach which is also about witnessing the failures of Marxism as an organised phenomenon. Social Democracy may have failed, but I feel that the same argument is equally applicable to revolutionary Marxism. Of course, there is always the future, but then, that applies to both philosophical standpoints.
I don't confuse revolution and insurrection. But in my view, they have only ever really been seperable in theory. I don't have problems with fundamental changes, but I do have problems with their viability, and a huge problem with the violence and political suppression which accompanies them.
I do not wish for a dictatorship of the proletariat; I wish for the abolition of class and class rule altogether, and I believe that it can be done democratically.
There are also certain areas where I disagree with later constructions of Marx's own arguments. My favourite book at the moment is Hardt and Negri's 'Empire'; I have long believed imperialism as a holistic phenomenon to be an outdated explanation; I think that we have minor imperialisms within an already globalised overarching system of markets; further, these compete with sub-imperialist states also attempting to make their own grabs.
I seek to apply this theory with a social-democratic slant, and accordingly think it far more important to globalise reforming institutions and civil society mechanisms than it is to 'fight imperialism'. But that's just a side point.
The big question is, where do I as a reforming socialist go, if Labour does not represent me? What can I do?
By the way, I should point out that I was never SWP; but I did originally back StWC, before I came to see it as betraying Iraqi workers and oppressed minorities...
You end your comment as you begun it, the basic ground is that you are a reformist, it seems based upon sheer faith. Faith will not do. The question is not, where do you go as a reformist, but 'reform or revolution' as Luxemburg argued. In so far as you justify your reformism I will attempt to adress this, but again stress that only reading luxemburgs pamplhet will fully and systematically clarify these things for you as they did for me.
"the modern Britain is a long way from revolutionary times." - I concur, but then this is no different than at most time in the past hundred years, reformism only prolongs this and generates the anti-democratic and electoralism you complain about. Again, this all has its roots in Bernsteins attempt at revisionism. Centralism happens - thsi is a fact, where ther is power it will be exercised. This centralism can either be democratic- centralism or coercive centralism, ie labour party centralism, as there is no theory and no debate followed by unity in action. The Democratic Left is merely an extension of labourism packaged up superficially as 'not labourism' whilst retaing all the eseential characteristics, electoralism, refusal to admit democracy is class demcoracy (as you do), abandonment of theory, and so on.
"Many of us have based our electoralism on a pragmatic approach which is also about witnessing the failures of Marxism as an organised phenomenon. "
'Pragmatic'? Reformism only holds back the development of socialism, it seeks to have power beyond its principles, and refusing to build a democratic communist working class movement over a period of time, sacrifices the future forever for meagre gains Now under the whip hand of capital, managing capitalism and so on. It is not a differetn route to socialism, but the abandonment of socialism altogether.
"Of course, there is always the future, but then, that applies to both philosophical standpoints."
Not at all, independent marxism as a movement failed to exist much after Stalins counterrevlution and the murdering of the german regvolution by its own prematurity and the Reformists right wing militias. The collapse of the Soviet Union and statist social democracy as only now made the chance of real marxist recomposition proabable. This is only a hairs breadth away from the vulgar idea that 'socialism failed because the soviet union failed'.
"I don't confuse revolution and insurrection. But in my view, they have only ever really been seperable in theory. I don't have problems with fundamental changes, but I do have problems with their viability, and a huge problem with the violence and political suppression which accompanies them."
First of all a note, you or Compass in its little faux justification for its existance have claimed that lenninism is about a small minority taking power to wield, just as labourism is parliamentry lenninism. This is incorrect, the liberation of the working class will be an act of that class itself- the communist party is there to spur on this fight and to educate workers beyond reformism, as well as providing an organisation for the advanced or 'vanguard' workers - this is not about the rule of the party over the class, this is socialist democracy in offices, factories, communities, workers councils, and a workers state. All democracy is class democracy and a class 'dictatorship' (rule). By opposing the rule of the working class you accept the rule of the boureoisie, and you admit openly you would maintain this than see it done away with in, say, a General Strike, or the like. Needless to say all violence in a revolution is dependent soley on the actions of the ruling class -they, not us, will decide whether or not their is violence, though theirs is no doubt fine and ours in response to it is, you say, problematic.
"I do not wish for a dictatorship of the proletariat; I wish for the abolition of class and class rule altogether, and I believe that it can be done democratically."
If the working class does not rule how can class and class rule be abolished? The capitalists will abolish themselves? A mere parliamnetry vote will suffice as in Chile 1973? Electoralism will not forever preclude the possibility of this happening as this is a goal and goals are nothing? All democracy in class society is class democracy, so what democracy are we talking if here, democracy does not exist in a pure and abstract sense as you use it here, it must have a social content, ie Socialist Democracy, ie - Communism.
I'm considering some of this stuff at the moment, too.
Would I be wrong in assuming that part of your crisis in faith comes down to you having had some illusions in Brown?
Obviously I'm coming from a campaign group/LRC perspective and take really quite a different view from yours. (No less Gramscian, interestingly, but just reach different conclusions).
I hold quite a complex set of views on these matters, but some of the conclusions are quite simple:
a) You can't make decisions about your own organisational alliegances based on the views of Labour First-types. They are representative of really quite a small thread of party opinion; quite an influential bit, but small.
b) If you try to justify party membership over a protracted period of time on the basis of doing more good than harm and a sort of counter-hegemonic project, you will leave the party one day. We will have governments, Labour governments, that do 'Iraqs', benefit-cutting, anti-civil-liberty legislation, 10p-tax-band-abolitions again. The only way you could keep faith with such a party is if you lend it a semi-supernatural identity (aided by its history) as a party that you would never leave; and/or that you believe that there is a pendulum of power in the party and one day that pendulum will swing closer to your view of things and - if you're lucky - at that point you will be in a position to achieve something. Not comforting, but it gets us through!
c) You have to be prepared to be a rebel! The truth is that it was Labour that won concessions from the government last week. The Labour Party is more than a government, even when we're in government. The Tories or the Liberals were never going to help low-paid workers, and will never help trade unionists, and will never support and promote a genuinely ethical foreign policy. Labour will, even if to do so it must campaign against its own government. No left-of-labour party - even lent a degree of national representation in some future era of PR - could have had the effect that 40-odd Labour MPs had last week.
Obviously I don't think Compass holds the answers for you. I think Compass, unless it can be liberated from Lawson (who I don't perceive as being terribly far-removed from Labour First in anything but regard for Blair), will always offer a promise of an influence it can't fulfil, and hint at a compromise that it does not really even want to enforce.
Obviously you'll disagree with the last bit; but I've been bumbling around this party for quite a few years now, and I reckon I'm right about this one.
Complete and utter bollocks.
If you don't like the Labour party and are opposed to our leaders, the answer is simple: fuck off and stop moaning.
Recently you quite rightly spoke about your disgust at those sniping at Brown, reminding them that there were elections afoot.
This post shows that you're nothing if not an arrogant, self-righteous hypocrite.
The far-Left, the centrists, even the Blairites I can respect, but the Compassy wankers like you are beyond the pale.
Bugger off and join the Lib Dems.
Tom
I think, judging by your blog, that you are a sound guy. I don't share every political opinion, but you write a lot of sensible stuff.
Here a some thoughts:
1. you don't appear to have distinguished the party from the government. My party is the party of Ken Livingstone, of Rhodri Morgan, and thousands of very progressive councillors, community activists and trade unionists across the country. My loyalty is to the movement, not a here-today-gone-tomorrow government of questionable political merit. I want Labour Governments because they are better than any Tory Government, and they provide a framework from which to further advance progressive ideas.
2. One of my good friends defined her party membership thus: "I feel there is something humbling about being a Labour Party member. Its a statement that I can't do this 'political change' thing on my own." Party membership is the start of political engagement, not the end. And the smaller the political party, the less I see it as a serious player in doing this 'political change' thing. Similarly for all faults, I joined Compass.
3. Whenever I have some doubt about the Labour Party, I read some Nye Bevan. Particularly when he told Jennie Lee to get to a nunnery because its the Labour Party or nothing. I don't swallow it because its nostalgia; it has a modern truth. Despite all its faults, there is no viable route to progressive change in Britain that doesn't involve a successful Labour Party. A meltdown in Labour support (electoral and/or activist) can only equal a setback for progressive politics in Britain. It will depress and demotivate the left in general.
4. Yes pressure groups are good. Labour Governments need pressure from the left from both inside and outside the party. Political activism involves a balance.
5. The Labour Party has always been a bit crap. Throughout its history there have been disappointments. Yes Blair (and I always thought Brown) represent a particularly poor form of ultra-right undemocratic leadership. But running alongside that history of disapointments, lost opportunities and even shame (Iraq) is a history of a movement that brought social progress of a unique kind to the United Kingdom, from the National Health Service to Civil Partnerships, and its a movement I don't question my membership of for a second.
"Would I be wrong in assuming that part of your crisis in faith comes down to you having had some illusions in Brown?"
No, not really...
All good points Duncan and Daniel. You've perked me up.
As for the abusive wanker, you're pretty much the same kind of person I was writing about in my post.
I would join the lib dems if I was a liberal. But I'm not. So I won't.
"Oooh I'm Tom Miller I'm so cool I never answer any questions or admit I was wrong! I never had any illusions in Mr Brown in spite of the fact I supported him in the leadership election and was one of the chief protagonists in ousting Tony Blair.
"Now where's my boyfriend David Floyd to pipe up and agree with everything I've said?!"
This could help -
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index2.php/free/culture/arts/the_big_questions
Paul Foot, 1994:
1. Labour, which is linked to organised workers, is better at any time than the Tories, who are linked to organised capital.
2. ‘Without struggle there is no progress’: everything worth winning by the workers and the dispossessed has to be fought for.
3. The less Labour fights the Tories, the less it is likely to beat them at the polls or anywhere else.
4. The more Labour compromises and prevaricates, the more the fighting spirit of the people who vote Labour is dampened.
5. The more that fighting spirit is dampened, the stronger and more confident grow employers, racialists and reactionaries of every description.
6. The power of the elected parliament is all the time frustrated by the power of the undemocratic banks, corporations, judges and the media.
7. The more a Labour government tries to be fair to the banks, corporations, judges or media, the more it becomes their captive.
8. The more it becomes their captive, the more it attacks the people who vote Labour, thus ensuring a Labour defeat next time.
9. This vicious circle is written into the history of the whole century. Clement Attlee and Harold Wilson couldn’t avoid it. There’s no chance that Blair and Co, further to the right even than Attlee and Wilson, will avoid it either.
10. (Conclusion) Vote Labour, but keep up the fight down below to build the resistance into a force which is strong enough to dictate to the undemocratic elite at the top of society – and put an end to their interminable dictatorship.
Keep reading it until you feel better.
"I never had any illusions in Mr Brown in spite of the fact I supported him in the leadership election and was one of the chief protagonists in ousting Tony Blair."
Well, I certainly thought he'd be left of Blair. I also thought he'd be popular.
I absolutely supported everything ever done to get rid of Blair, provided the timing was appropriate for the party.
But as I say, I didn't have a leadership candidate to support.
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