Particularly since it expelled the bulk of its founders and trade union activists in 2006, the Workers Power [1] group has been notable for combining rhetorical ultra-leftism with opportunism and wild political zig zags. Now the r-r-revolutionaries have surprised even the most jaded sectarian-watchers by supporting a first preference vote for Ken Livingstone, rather than Lindsey German of the SWP/Respect, in the upcoming London mayoral elections. (For the article by Jeremy Dewar see here [2].)

Workers' Liberty is advocating a first preference vote for German and a second preference for Livingstone. While the threat posed by Boris Johnson is real and serious, Livingstone's record is too bad and his links to the labour movement too weak to over-ride the need to stand independent working-class candidates against Labour. Essentially a front for the SWP, post-Galloway Respect is a highly inadequate instrument for promoting a workers' voice in politics, but in this instance it is the only one we have.

The need to stand candidates against Labour is not something that Workers Power would, in general, deny. On the contrary: they have tended to take an ultra-left and sectarian attitude towards the Labour Party, declaring as long ago as the 2004 Euro election that, where there was no independent socialist standing, workers should not vote Labour but instead write "Troops out of Iraq" (yes) on their ballot papers. Long before Gordon Brown's abolition of Labour Party conference began the final (though perhaps not yet consolidated) destruction of the party's ties to the labour movement, Workers Power demanded union disaffiliation from the Labour Party, and they poured scorn on socialists who put serious effort into John McDonnell's leadership campaign. These issues were, in fact, an important part of the reason for the group's split and the expulsion of what is now Permanent Revolution.

But scratch an ultra-leftist and you find an opportunist. When it looked like McDonnell might get on the ballot paper, Workers Power, having abstained from the struggle, declared that the left should make the contest into a referendum on the future of the workers' movement. About the same time, they decided to support Socialist Appeal's pro-Chavez Hands Off Venezuela campaign and declared that Venezuelan socialists who, like victimised union activist Orlando Chirino, refused to join Chavez's bourgeois-populist PSUV party were hopelessly sectarian.

In other words, if they judge the wind is blowing a certain way, Workers Power bend to get in on the action. Which, of course, is exactly what they are doing here with Livingstone.

In his pro-Livingstone article, Jeremy Dewar does not even attempt to argue that Lindsey German/Respect's faults rule out voting for them; in fact, it does not mention the SWP candidacy at all! This is bizarre but not surprising, since any comparison between the records of German and Livingstone would clearly demonstrate the ludicrousness of Workers Power's position. Nor does Dewar attempt to locate support for Livingstone in terms of Labour's residual links to the labour movement. Instead he glosses up Livingstone's record and advocates a vote for him in lesser-evilist terms.

"Right wing go for wounded Livingstone," we are told. "The notoriously right-wing Evening Standard has led the charge..." And did you know that Boris Johnson is really, really horrible? Meanwhile "a broad coalition of Muslim, African Caribbean, lesbian and gay and trade union forces have rallied behind Livingstone". Sounds good, doesn't it? And don't forget the £7.20 London Living Wage (which is not even paid to most cleaners on the Tube), more "affordable" housing, cheaper buses, Oyster Cards and Livingstone's opposition to war and racism. These are things that any liberal or even conservative populist could have done, yet they constitute the basic justification for Workers Power's support. (Will they also be calling for a first preference for the unashamedly Brownite Labour GLA candidates who back these policies? Naturally, Dewar doesn't say.)

To be fair, the article does go on to indict Livingstone's shocking record, finishing with the usual sort of phrases about Livingstone "serving the capitalist system and its state" and the need for "a revolutionary programme aimed at the overthrow of the capitalist system itself and the transition to a socialist planned economy". But, Dewar claims, this goal can best be served by "putting Livingstone back into office."

By putting it in this way, and refusing to even discuss the issue of Respect, Workers Power evidently hope to benefit from the tide of pro-Livingstone sentiment about to engulf the left. Not very revolutionary, comrades!