Peter Tatchell and voting Labour
The news that long-standing gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will be the Green Party’s candidate in Oxford East at the next general election has generated some debate on the left.
Tatchell was the hard left Labour candidate in 1983’s infamous Bermondsey by-election, losing as a result of homophobic, red-baiting sabotage by the local Labour right and the party’s national leadership. He is a member of the Greens’ “ecosocialist” Green Left caucus and at least as radical on most issues as most Labour left-wingers. He is a committed, politically courageous and physically brave campaigner for LGBT liberation. Political disagreements aside, he is clearly a highly respect-worthy activist.
Oxford East’s sitting MP, Andrew Smith, by contrast, is former cabinet minister and down-the-line Brownite apparatchik with a 100% loyalist voting record.
Nonetheless, I believe that — painful as it is — socialists in Oxford East should vote Labour.
If Tatchell were standing as part of a socialist and working-class coalition (such as the old Socialist Alliance) or even perhaps as an “ecosocialist” independent, it would be a different matter.
The problem is the Greens are not a working-class organisation of any sort. They do not orientate to the labour movement, nor do they have labour movement affilates.
They do orient explicitly to a certain section of small business, promoting the benefits of local as against large-scale capitalist production. Their programme has a sort of radicalism about it, but little to do with the workers’ control, democratic planning and provision for need advocated by socialists.
Nor is their record radical in practice. In the last elections for Oxford City Council, one in five people voted Green, strengthening the Green group to eight. Yet the Green councillors have at various points entered a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, who in the absence of Tory councillors in Oxford have acted as a focus for the right, making the the kind of cuts and privatisations the Greens claim to oppose — and with Green support.
Labour’s record in office is appalling. But as the fight around the Labour-union link, most recently in terms of the John McDonnell campaign, shows, what remains of Labour’s working-class links provides a certain amount of space to fight. Oxford East CLP has repeatedly taken left-wing, anti-government positions, with a number of its prominent activists and even councillors supporting the McDonnell campaign.
These stances do not go nearly far enough — evidently, since Andrew Smith has not been deselected and replaced with a socialist. But there is opposition and space for organising within Labour. Tatchell, by contrast, has praised the record of the Green councillors and so far been silent on their alliance with the right.
Advocating a Labour vote here is not about supporting Andrew Smith — and no AWL member or sympathiser should campaign for him at the next election, or do anything but debunk the anti-Tatchell propaganda which will no doubt be spewed forth even by Labour activists who should know better. Saying vote Labour is part of an overall orientation to a struggle for independent working-class politics within the labour movement — something which cannot always be judged on a candidate-by-candidate, issue-by-issue basis.
It is right to want to deny the Blairites’ their electoral monopoly by supporting left-wing candidates against them. But this has to be done in a way that is consistent with maintaining the overall perspective of class politics.
The Green-Labour confrontation in Oxford East is not the only situation in which such a difficulty exists. The apparent contradictions exist because we live in a strange period — one in which the main working-class party has been hijacked and is now in the process of becoming something other than a workers’ party, and in which most of the “radical” alternatives to it are not working-class but populist. Voting Green in Oxford East would no doubt feel better than advocating a vote for a Blairite Labour scumbag — but it will do nothing to help our central battle, the fight for working-class representation in politics.
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Support Peter Tatchell
From Richard Preece
This article is a short reply to Sacha Ismail’s “Peter Tatchell and Voting Labour” (“Looking Left”, Solidarity vol. 3 no. 111). I take a position on the issue of voting Labour in elections which is different from Sacha’s, but more than that I think that the specific issue of whether or not to support Tatchell serves to clarify a number of positions upon which the AWL’s line in the past has been something of a fudge.
The first argument that Sacha puts is that “If Tatchell were standing as part of a socialist and working-class coalition (such as the old Socialist Alliance), or even perhaps as an ‘ecosocialist independent’” then the AWL would be in a positon to support him, but that in the meanwhile socialists in Oxford East should vote Labour, because Tatchell is standing for the Green Party. The Greens, of course, do not have the organic connections to the organised working class (via the union link) that the Labour Party does.
However here I think Sacha is talking at cross purposes with himself. If what matters is that the Labour Party has the said connection with the organised labour movement, then there should logically be no situation in which the AWL would offer backing to any extra-labour candidacy, unless the campaign was backed by a significant section of (at least) the local labour movement. This would rule out, for instance, supporting candidates such as Dave Nellist in Coventry, or other principled left-wing candidates around the country, who nevertheless do not have significant labour movement backing for their extra-Labour electoral challenges. It was, of course, the AWL’s line to support candidates such as Nellist at the last local elections. Nevertheless, if the strand of Sacha’s argument about the Labour Party’s connections with the unions is the one that the reader is to prioritise, then that line should be changed to support for Labour candidates in most of those cases. I would not agree with such a change of line, but it is nevertheless one which would make the AWL’s politics on this issue more consistent.
This then brings us on to the next part of Sacha’s point, which is more about political platforms. By Sacha’s own admission, Tatchell’s record is a principled one, albeit one that the AWL would not agree with every dot and comma of. Nevertheless, as far as I can gather the man is a “principled eco-socialist” and an outspoken campaigner for gay rights who is not afraid to take on an adversary in support of those goals. How then backing him is any different from backing some of the candidates who the AWL was quite happy to back in the SA, still less any different from backing an “ecosocialist independent”, is not quite clear to me. Again, presuming that his platform accords with his previous political record, I don’t see any of these arguments as a reason not to back him.
In terms of the respective records in office of the Greens and Labour, Sacha makes my argument for me. Both parties have poor records in local government – the main difference being that the Greens have never held national office and have therefore not had the chance to do anything like starting wars. Again, the real difference here brings us back to the nature of each party, not its record – in which case Sacha really ought to be arguing for auto-Labourism.
The final thing that strikes me as odd about the argument which Sacha puts, is that he seems to be disinclined to exhort people to act based on his argument. He asks people to quietly vote for Andrew Smith, the Brownite MP for Oxford East. However, he makes quite clear that he doesn’t want anyone to actually campaign for Smith, and also that if people see nasty things being said about Tatchell, then they should publicly debunk them! This may enable Sacha to square a circle in his own political worldview about voting Labour, but how such quietism helps what he calls “our central battle, the fight for working class representation in politics”, is beyond me. You can either take the view that supporting Smith by campaigning for him (and fighting within the LP) and building Labour as the party of the organised working class will help you to do that, or you can take the view that supporting Tatchell positively helps to advance the same goal by building a radical left challenge to the Blairites. But taking a stance as Sacha does, that seems to advocate doing nothing much at all, would seem not to advance things in the slightest.
At the end of the day, I can see arguments for supporting Tatchell, and I can see arguments for supporting Smith. However, those arguments on either side have to be consistent, and consistency is what this debate has lacked thus far.
maybe...
Sacha Ismail’s conclusion that it would be ill advised for socialists to support Peter Tatchell’s Green Party candidacy for the Oxford East constituency throws up a number of questions in relation to both the Labour Party itself and political advance for the left.
The electoral orientation of the left over recent years has not been littered with success, nor does it appear to have had any focus to have driven forward any kind of meaningful project. Despite the ruptures in Labour Movement over Blairism, from PFI hospitals to the Iraq war the response of the left has been unable to move beyond the type of meagre votes it has received outside of the Labour Party for decades. Questions socialists should be asking themselves lie around whether or not candidates, independent of the Labour Party can make any headway and if so what interests will they serve in developing socialist politics and workers’ representation.
Arguments against anti-Labour Party have revolved around it giving the right
wing the green light to expel and witchunt. Standing against Labour, so the
Argument goes ducks the serious fight to transform the political arm of the
Labour movement. It is true that there have been significant changes within the Labour Party and that the process underway implies a de-labourisation of the party. Under these conditions, all manner of left leaning electoral alternatives have crystallised, some organised by the activist left, others independent of this.
In this situation Workers’ Liberty has sought to orient itself towards a
changing situation where automatic support for Labour ebbs and
experimentation with independent candidates exists as a concrete reality
with a focus on rebuilding working class political representation. It would seem that if there is an argument for standing independent candidates, it should be with a view to political practice actually meaning and leading to something other than the opportunity to simply flog a few left wing newspapers.
The Green Party would seem to have benefited from the changes in the Labour Party, existing as it does as a more coherent and focused electoral machine. The Greens appear to have gone through a certain shift to the left in recent months and appear to emphasise themselves as being an alternative to Labour from the left. Sacha points to some negative aspects of the party, such as
support for small business and clearly its lack of roots in the Labour
Movement or socialist politics are problematic, however it is necessary to examine this in more detail.
The Greens have been relatively successful, over 100 councillors elected and
a string of other electoral advances. As this process takes place the party
swings leftwards. Both principal speakers of the party are part of the
ecosocialist Green Left caucus and individuals such as Peter Tatchell
clearly have a historic and existing commitment to socialist politics. Ecosocialism also presents a challenge to more traditional Marxism in terms of its conception of how a post capitalist society would be organised, criticising notions of super abundance as the pre-requisite for socialism.
In this context it is certainly necessary to engage seriously with ecosocialists in the Green Party and pull this wing as imperfect as it may be towards the perspective of independent working class politics. The likes of Green Party principal speaker Derek Wall or Peter Tatchell will instinctively and actively support workers in struggle and other progressive causes and certainly have a less authoritarian socialism than the majority of those in the old Socialist Alliance, that Sacha would have had no trouble supporting in the past. We need to engage with ecosocialism and develop a coherent programme for the environment as the central issue of our times. This needs to move beyond an extra ticky box on the programme, but also needs to be central to our thinking and practice. If we support candidates outside of the struggle in the Labour Party (which is a question in of itself) then we certainly should support ecosocialists in the Green Party, as part of a strategy for winning them to our politics and perhaps engaging in a process of learning ourselves.
A reply to the reply
Richard writes, explaining my position: "The Greens, of course, do not have the organic connections to the organised working class (via the union link) that the Labour Party does." He doesn't quote what I actually say in the article, namely: "The problem is that the Greens are not any sort of working-class organisation. They do not orientate to the labour movement, nor do they have labour movement affiliates."
Whether an organisation's basic character is working-class cannot, clearly, be determined just by whether it has a formal structure of affiliations from unions and other labour movement organisations. The AWL, SWP, SP etc are obviously (broadly-speaking) working-class organisations in terms of their membership, politics and orientation, but they do not have affiliates. Ditto the old Socialist Alliance. And in fact, the great majority of working-class parties in most countries have never had a formal affiliation structure; my understanding (correct me somebody?) is that this is something unique to the Labour Parties of the UK and some of its colonies (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada). The German Social Democratic Party in its formally Marxist period never had affiliates - but who would deny it was a working-class party?
Of course there are blurred edges in the task of defining what is, and what is not, a working-class political organisation. Structure, affiliations, membership composition, electoral support, orientation and political programme can all play a role. But surely having working-class activists who explicitly regard and experience their membership in the party as a form of working-class representation is crucial? That's why the French Socialist Party is still a bourgeois workers' party, while the ANC and the US Democrats never were. And why the Green Party isn't either: it's not a straightforwardly bourgeois party like the aforementioned, the Lib Dems or the SNP, but it's not a working-class party either: more of a radical petty bourgeois organisation, oriented to certain sections of small/alternative business.
Between Labour and an independent working-class/socialist candidate, who to vote for is a tactical question. Between Labour and the Greens its (at least much more so) a question of principle. That's why backing Tatchell is a different matter from backing Socialist Alliance candidates of whom we had major criticism.
When someone is standing as an independent, of course, the issue is more tricky. But the point is that Tatchell is not an independent, but a member and representation of a radical petty bourgeois party. He will be standing as a Green Party candidate, endorsing the Green Party platform and, apparently, endorsing the Green Party's record in Oxford.
Richard: "Both parties have poor records in local government – the main difference being that the Greens have never held national office and have therefore not had the chance to do anything like starting wars."
But my point is that many use/will use the Green Party's supposed radicalism in order to justify a vote for it. I was attempting to debunk that. In fact, the Greens' record in Oxford is in some ways worse than Labour's, since they helped bring to power a Lib Dem administration that was well to the right of Labour. However, I don't want to rely on that point, since you're right (we're right!) that Labour's record is awful. If a left-wing Labour candidate were selected for a constituency, wouldn't you'd hope that he'd criticise the right-wing record of a local Labour council? I acknowledge that many Labour lefts don't, preferring to present councillors as well-intentioned victims of central government policies (see McDonnell's statement on 3 May), but again the point is that Tatchell, who unlike Labour candidates is not the candidate of a bourgeois workers' party, continues this unsavoury practice by not only keeping quiet about but actively endorsing the Oxford Greens' record in his launch statement.
In this connection, it's worth pointing out that there appears to be far more left opposition in Oxford East CLP than in Oxford Green Party.
Richard: "The final thing that strikes me as odd about the argument which Sacha puts, is that he seems to be disinclined to exhort people to act based on his argument. He asks people to quietly vote for Andrew Smith, the Brownite MP for Oxford East. However, he makes quite clear that he doesn’t want anyone to actually campaign for Smith, and also that if people see nasty things being said about Tatchell, then they should publicly debunk them! This may enable Sacha to square a circle in his own political worldview about voting Labour, but how such quietism helps what he calls “our central battle, the fight for working class representation in politics”, is beyond me."
I'm not advocating that we do nothing: Oxford East is not the entire general election, and general elections are not the whole of politics! We felt we should comment on the issues raised by Tatchell's candidacy both because a layer of left activists (in the Greens, on the Labour left and among independent socialists) are talking about them and because the issues raised by it are important for broader socialist politics. We were right to do so, even though unfortunately our conclusion here has to be (in my view) that there's not much we can do. There's plenty of other stuff for us to do, including in the Labour Party and including at the next general election.
Why does it follow that if we say vote Labour in the absence of alternatives, we must mobilise activists (ours and others) to actively campaign for a Blairite MP; we don't do this in seats where there is no left-wing Green candidate, so why should we do it against Tatchell? And why does saying this mean that we are inconsistent and logically mandate a vote for the Greens?
I suppose if the AWL had a big branch in Oxford East the issue might pose itself more as a contradiction. Though in that case I imagine we would either be able to shift the balance of forces decisively in the CLP (in which case, even if we didn't manage to get Smith deselected, the focus on work in the LP would be a weightier factor) OR we would stand our own candidate against Smith in the election.
Sacha