John McDonnell, the left Labour MP who challenged Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership in 2007, has made an appeal for a distinctive left "slate" within the Labour campaign at the coming general election.
Writing in the Guardian, McDonnell declared: "The only responsible act in the long term interests of our movement would be to offer a real change in political direction by mounting a challenge to the political leadership of the party and letting the members of the party decide but this route would almost certainly be blocked again by MPs failing to nominate. Then the only alternative is Labour MPs making it clear at the next election that they stand on a policy platform of real change as 'change candidates'."
"These would be Labour candidates binding together as a slate, committed within Labour, setting out the policy programme they will be advocating as a group and supporting in Parliament if elected. Only in this way can we demonstrate to the supporters that want to come home to Labour that there is the hope and prospect of change".
The appeal is a variant of an effort initiated by forerunners of the AWL in the 1979 general election. We organised a Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory" - with a conference, a policy platform, affiliations from Constituency Labour MPs and union branches, a newspaper of its own. The SCLV produced its own "vote Labour" leaflets in the election, which also criticised the record of the outgoing Labour government and called for a working-class fight against the incoming government, Tory or Labour. Those leaflets were used officially by some CLPs and unofficially by campaigners in many more.
The SCLV was able to go on, after the election, to be the initiating force in the Rank and File Mobilising Committee for Labour Democracy, the organising centre for the big Labour left upsurge of 1979-82.
It is a sign of the weakness of the Labour Party's grass-roots organisation, after years of stifling by the leadership, that McDonnell's initial proposal comes as something "from above", a proposal for a group of MPs to get together.
But if MPs follow through on that - and win active support from unions who back their left policies - then the initiative "from above" may yet spark some mobilisation "from below".
Comments
A bit too much credit...
I would seriously question Martin's assessment of this latest move from McDonnell, and would suggest that he is attempting to imbue it with a better political character than it actually possesses in order to bulk out his paper-thin case that a substantial working-class, left-wing revival within the Labour Party is a realistic possibility within the next couple of years.
McDonnell isn't calling for an "SCLV"; he pointedly does not mention socialism or even basic ideas of working-class representation. He talks in vacuous, Obama-esque terms about "policy platforms of real change" and "change candidates" - buzzwords that people from right across the political spectrum within the Labour Party are using. This sounds more like McDonnell's past promises to "combine old Labour with New Labour to create Real Labour" than anything our tendency has initiated or been involved in in the past.
Presumably Martin believes that McDonnell's certainly very honourable and impressive record as a socialist MP automatically fills his empty phrasemongering with leftist content even when he deliberately eschews it, but if an SCLV-type operation really is what McDonnell has in mind, why not say so?
How many MPs, PPCs or CLPs does Martin believe, at best, that McDonnell's weak "Changeist Campaign for a Labour Victory" might be expected to attract support from? Labour Party "activists" - i.e. the people who knock doors, deliver leaflets etc. - are not the sort of people looking for an SCLV-type initiative, or even a much, much, much softer version of it. It's simply not the case that socialists, rank-and-file trade union militants and working-class community campaigners (our people, in other words) are glumly milling about in the Labour Party, grudgingly handing out Blairite/Brownite propaganda because no bright-spark MP has had the good common sense to launch an SCLV yet. Life within local Labour Party structures is now so atrophied that even if there was an inclination "from below" to respond to McDonnell's call "from above" (and there's nothing to suggest there is), the vehicles and channels through which such a response could be articulated (CLPs, etc.) are now either atrophied into practical non-existence or structurally prevented from having any real intervention into the Labour Party as a whole by, for example, the Bournemouth rule changes (or indeed both).
McDonnell's call sounds like more of a desperate death rattle than a new dawn or ray of hope.
Never bury too quickly the traditionnal mass organisations....
"Life within local Labour Party structures is now so atrophied that even if ..."
It is not the "good" or "not so good" initiatives of McDonnell's who will change that state of things but the effects of the crisis on the minds and feelings of millions of people, suffering from everyday blow of that crisis.
McDonnell's initiatives will perhaps give an indication of that changing mood, they will not be the shaping basis for that change.
Question : how much did the "left", the "far-left" in the last scrutin (European elections) ? How much ? Something tangenting forward zero ! And the dirty-nasty-stinking-fucking-New-Labour ? 15% ...and the Tories are on the verge to come back at the next coming general elections ?
In France, in 1969, one year after May 1968, the SFIO won 5% and Rouge titled "the social democracy is dead"....You should reflect about what happended after 1969. 40 years later, the main left party is still the PS and the NPA is just under 5%.... and had been outstriped by an alliance of the old-dying PCF with a piece of left-reformists lead by Melenchon...
You can't get rid of the stinking-dirty things so easily. And a "new" Socialist Alliance won't help you for that.
But to prepare the more you can workers in one union, in one workplace, in one campaign, in an educated-socialist cadre as the AWL, etc, will help things the day the motion of the class will regain some vigor ...Build what you can with the present available material but never bury too quickly the mass traditionnal organisations !
Don't bury the facts in polemic
Daniel: I gave a straightforward factual report on McDonnell's move, noting its limitations. You turn this into an occasion for polemic by submerging the facts into a preconceived and misrepresented argument.
Neither here or elsewhere have I predicted "a substantial working-class, left-wing revival within the Labour Party". You're adding on the "substantial working-class left-wing" bit for polemical effect. Some revival - yes, that is a "realistic possibility" after a big Tory election victory - and it may make openings for working-class left-wing interventions in the unions at least. Not quite the same.
Nor did I ever suggest McDonnell's political basis would be as left-wing as the SCLV's was.
But if we look for the specific reason that McDonnell is being weak about political platform, it knocks to pieces the basic pitch that the things of real left-wing interest must all be outside the Labour Party
The specific reason, on all current signs, is that he has in mind the CPB's People's Charter.
The main place where the People's Charter is being wheeled onto the stage is among the former partners in the "No2EU" slate.
The SWP, too, is a big advocate of the "People's Charter": it has proposed it in various union forums, and the "People's Charter" stall at the 28 March TUC march was staffed by SWP industrial organiser Charlie Kimber.
We should argue against the People's Charter, for a workers' plan. But the argument here does not run between "inside-the-Labour-Party" = right, and "outside-the-Labour-Party" = left.
The prediction I didn't make
Here is a report indicating that McDonnell does indeed have the People's Charter in mind as a basis. It's an issue we should take up, in the Labour Representation Committee at least.
The report also shows that the weakness here does not come specially from McDonnell's initiative being framed within the Labour Party. In fact the "weakness" originates from outside the Labour Party - in the promotion of the People's Charter by the CPB, the No2EU people, the SWP, etc.
Daniel, you attempted to use my initial report as an occasion for polemical axe-grinding in another debate, about the possibilities of revival around the affiliated unions and the Labour Party. That was out of place. And it depended on attributing to me a prediction - "a substantial working-class, left-wing revival within the Labour Party" - which I hadn't made, least of all in the article being commented on. That is even more out of place.
In future, please, no picking on such reports as occasions for axe-grinding. And no axe-grinding which depends on "doctoring" the views you're arguing against to make them easy to knock down. If you want to debate issues, do so directly, and in a comradely way.
Read what you wrote!
You wrote "John McDonnell proposes new 'Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory'". That makes it appear pretty straightforward and unambiguous what you think about it.
I think the statement is also straightforwardly and unambiguously not true. This has nothing to do with "axe-grinding" and I entirely stand by my assertion that your significant overstatement of the facts here represents an attempt by you to seize on something actually very limited and imbue it with a political character it does not possess in order to back up your particular personal position on the Labour Party. It is simply not true that McDonnell's "appeal is a variant of [...] the SCLV."
I also reject the accusation that it's somehow unreasonable of me, in the context of a debate about the possibility of a revival in the Labour Party and a consequent turn back towards it by our organisation, to comment on and criticise a report you wrote which I believe deliberately overcooks the facts about a centrally relevant issue (the perspectives and manoeuvres of the only active socialist MP in the Labour Party) in order to fit your particular perspective on that debate.
For someone who complains of being misrepresented, I would have expected you to rise above the kind of base demagogy that claims my view amounts to ""inside-the-Labour-Party" = right, and "outside-the-Labour-Party" = left." That is not my view and nothing I have written suggests that. But frankly, even if it was, that's not the argument here; the argument is whether you were correct to give McDonnell as much credit as you did in your initial report by claiming he is straightforwardly "calling for a new SCLV" or calling for a "left slate". It is also not true, contrary to your claims, that you were explicit about its weakness and limitations - your only critical note was to lament that such a proposal had to come "from above".
McDonnell's explicit attachment of this proposal to the People's Charter, if anything, strengthens my argument that you were wrong to report on the initial proposal in the way that you did.
I am debating issues "directly", Martin; I'm calling things just like I see them. You should respond "directly", rather than deflecting the criticism by claiming it's somehow unreasonable and out of order.
And if you find my tone uncomradely, I apologise. I am a very ill-mannered young man.
Smug
"Very ill-mannered"? Smug is more the word. Neither here or elsewhere have I predicted "a substantial working-class, left-wing revival within the Labour Party". You're adding on the "substantial working-class left-wing" bit for polemical effect. Your polemic is based on something said neither in the article you polemicise against, nor elsewhere.
You're boasting to the anti-AWL gallery about how "very ill-mannered" you can be in polemicising against AWL people, and implicitly boasting that you don't care whether your polemic is based on accurate quotation or not.
McDonnell made an appeal for a distinctive left "slate" within the Labour campaign. The only significant time that has been done before was by us with the SCLV in 1978-9. So I recalled the precedent and used the opportunity to tell readers a little about our achievements with the SCLV. To do that is not to suggest that McDonnell's initiative is a close replica of the SCLV in politics or organisation.
At that point McDonnell had not said what the political basis of that left "slate" would be. Arguably it could have been commented, even before the 16 June Lambeth meeting, that it looked as if the People's Charter would be the basis. But in any case it is I, not you, who supplied the information that it will probably be the People's Charter, and the criticism of the Charter.
You simply supplied a preconceived writing-off-in-advance based on the flat assertion that the not-yet-announced political platform would be "empty phrasemongering"; that there is no-one in the Labour Party of "the sort of people looking for an SCLV-type initiative", etc.
Look at the concrete evidence...
Obviously, on a certain level it's impossible to rule anything in/out in advance. But some possibilities are more possible than others.
What are the factors militating in favour of McDonnell's proposal taking place at all (let alone on a decent political basis)? There is McDonnell's own record, and arguably the recent statements from Kenny and Prentis who might, for example, be persuaded to only financially support MPs who agreed to sign up to McDonnell's platform. If that happens, even on the dreadful political basis likely, that would be a step forward; but the factors militating against it are much greater.
The utter historical inertia of the big union leaders hardly suggests they'd be ready to move at the next election. They've all talked tough about the Labour Party and working-class representation before and then capitulated - they all promised to fight tooth-and-nail against the Bournemouth changes and then proceeded to vote for them. And at GMB Congress 2008, when it came to the crunch on a motion committing the GMB to withdraw support from all sponsored MPs who refused to sign up to a very minimal, basic working-class programme, Kenny and the leadership voted against, arguing that delegates had to understand that "MPs sometimes have to answer to higher principles than GMB policy". Why will it be different this time?
Apart from Blairite manoeuvring, what have any MPs (even the so-called 'Socialist' Campaign Group MPs) done to suggest that they are prepared to back an initiative of this kind, which - given the Stalinoid regime inside the Labour Party - is likely to result in serious repercussions for them, even if it is on the softest of political bases?
If you have answers to these questions, tell me. Maybe I'm missing something. Convince me I'm wrong. But otherwise I maintain my initial argument that your positive assessment (a hopeful writing-in-in-advance, perhaps?) of McDonnell's initiative was misjudged and it would be wrong for us to look to it or place any hopes on it as a useful next step.
On my alleged polemical exaggerations, I'd say that if you don't think, Martin, that a "substantial working-class left-wing revival" in the Labour Party is a likely possibility (likely enough to obligate a reorientation of the AWL around work within the Labour Party), I think your perspective makes even less sense. If the revival you think likely is of a much lower level, or simply conducted "at the top" by trade union bureaucrats, or manifests itself only structurally without any revival of working-class political life through the Labour Party in day-to-day politics, then it wouldn't make sense for us to turn back to the Labour Party even if it actually happened!
And as for the "anti-AWL gallery" - frankly I'm proud that we have a robust enough internal culture to allow sharp public debates between members. The "anti-AWL gallery" (by which I presume you mean our crypto-Stalinist detractors throughout the rest of the "Trotskyist" left) isn't "anti-AWL" because of what goes on in public exchanges between AWL members; I don't think they're going to see me as a potential ally because of what I've written here, and if any of them did then they'd be stupid to do so.
Only alleged?
"Proud [of] robust... internal culture... sharp public debates"? There's a mouth-and-trousers question here.
I can see the show of being "robust" and "sharp", the "professional cheeky chappy" act. But where's the debate? Rather than just showing off how "very ill-mannered" you can be against AWL comrades?
At last you concede that I did not predict a "substantial working-class left-wing revival" in the Labour Party in the initial article, or anywhere else. Why did it take repeated "sharp" comment from me to get you to concede something so obvious?
Simultaneously you write of "alleged polemical exaggerations". Only alleged?
And you introduce another misrepresentation. I did not call in the article, or anywhere else, for "a reorientation of the AWL around work within the Labour Party". (It may come to that, to some degree, at some point; but some steps down the road).
Trying to beat down reporting of events, and reasoned sifting of future possibilities, by getting up on your "very ill-mannered" perch to denounce "straw men", may seem "robust" and "sharp", but it is not debate. It is, Daniel, a species of intellectual and political hooliganism.
The initial posting reported McDonnell's initiative. It noted its weakness. It implicitly warned that it may come to little, by its listing of what we would be needed for even "some mobilisation" around it - "if MPs follow through on that - and win active support from unions..."
Deliberately, it didn't dismiss it out of hand by insisting in advance that both the unions and MPs will do nothing. That's a matter of general approach - the same as was involved as when McDonnell announced in 2006 he would challenge for Labour leader on Blair's withdrawal, and we agitated for unions to back him rather than saying: "pay no attention, nothing will come of it".
If you want to debate that general approach, then first... read! Web links from previous discussions:
www.workersliberty.org/cnwp
www.workersliberty.org/node/1184
www.workersliberty.org/node/1823
www.workersliberty.org/node/1880
www.workersliberty.org/node/1974
www.workersliberty.org/node/2194
www.workersliberty.org/node/7423
www.workersliberty.org/node/12507
You can argue that everything is changed. But argue politically.
On paying no attention...
It seems to be a favourite technique of yours, Martin, to expend a lot of energy denouncing everything I say as a "straw man", and then put as your "punchline" a completely demagogic assessment of my view which is at best a mischaracterisation and at worst a total fabrication.
To be clear, I have not - at any point - "insisted in advance that both the unions and MPs will do nothing". Nor have I said "pay no attention, nothing will come of it" about this or any other initiative. Nor have I "dismissed" anything "out of hand".
On this specific question (McDonnell's initiative), I have argued - simply, and with reference to what you wrote - that you give him too much credit in advance, that you failed (contrary to your claim - now repeated but still unsubstantiated) to emphasise or even highlight its limitations, and that your only criticism was that it came "from above". I have not argued for dismissing it, or anything of the sort, but merely that all the available concrete evidence (McDonnell's politics, the union leaders' politics, their histories and records on these questions) should imply a far greater degree of caution and scepticism (not dismissal) about it than your initial report struck.
On the broader question to which this relates, my attitude is the same; no, we shouldn't dismiss or rule out possibilities, but not ruling something out is not the same as banking on it or putting other perspectives on hold just in case it happens. To the extent that it's possible to calculate, predict and assess, we have to make decisions about how to direct the activist energies of the AWL as an organisation, and I think it's wrong to direct them towards pursuing possibilities (a revival within the Labour Party) which are extremely remote and moreover preclude the pursuit of other possibilities (the development of extra-Labour Party political initiatives).
So can we please dispense with the false dichotomy you continually attempt to construct, wherein you are the advocate of flexibility and "keeping our options open" and everyone else wants to "dismiss out of hand" and "rule out in advance"? I agree that different outcomes and eventualities are possible; the debate should be about which are more likely, and which it would make more sense for us as an organisation to pursue the development of.
If anything, the greater degree of inflexibility has come from your side; whereas I openly acknowledge the possibility (extremely remote but nonetheless extant) of a revival of leftish trade union pressure inside the Labour Party, you dismiss (here) the idea of a new working-class party in the "next years" as "phantom" (also conveniently ignoring the possibilities and openings for political initiatives short of a party or which take other forms) and "rule in in advance" a Labour Party revival to the extent that you believe unions should refrain from breaking with New Labour for two or three years in case it happens (a choice that doesn't leave all other things equal but has clear consequences). In this article, you argue that "we should not base our tactics on insisting in advance that the big unions are certain not to stir against the Tories." Fine, but firstly it is not simply "the Tories" that the unions must "stir" against (easily enough done by any halfway decent labour movement bureaucrat with a few campaigns and some social-democratic demagogy), but against the entire weight of the Blair/Brown machine inside the Labour Party which, following the Bournemouth changes, is the Labour Party. And not just "stir", but fight sufficiently hard to reverse the last decade or more of structural and cultural changes - which we have characterised (here, for example) as qualitative - that some species of reclamation of the Labour Party, which to most young workers is a straightforward party of business and the bosses, as a vehicle for politically expressing working-class struggle is possible. A generational upheaval, in other words. History suggests that it is very unlikely that they will do this; we should therefore not base our tactics on insisting in advance they will stage such an upheaval.
As far as the specific points of alleged (yes, alleged) exaggeration go (your claim that you never predicted a "substantial, left-wing, working-class revival"), you are on record here endorsing Sean's view that "working-class people [...] may turn in some numbers to the unions and Labour." I apologise for inserting "left-wing", but that sentence looks to me like it's describing precisely a "substantial working-class revival".
And I repeat, if you don't consider the revival you predict to be substantial and/or left-wing and/or working-class then how does your position (that we should put our pro-disaffiliation policy and the contingent strategic perspectives on hold for two or three years) make sense? How small a revival will suffice for you? A slight upturn in membership? A greater quantity of angry press statements from Kenny and Prentis? Or even, as the caption to a picture in a recent issue of our paper suggested, simply a greater number of Labour Party meetings about "poverty" co-sponsored by Oxfam (something which they've actually been doing a lot of throughout the Blair/Brown era, but never mind...)?
You are the one arguing that everything has changed, Martin. I still agree with a position we've held for some time and spelt out as far back as April 2008 (see here).
Again, not debate, just showing off
Daniel, this is not debate. It is, once again, just showing off to the gallery how "very ill-mannered" you can be against other AWL people.
Having sort-of-conceded that that your presentation of me as predicting "a substantial, left-wing, working-class revival within the Labour Party" was false, you now say that any "exaggeration" was only "alleged". (Saying that "working-class people [...] may turn in some numbers to the unions and Labour" is obviously not the same.)
I did not call in the article, or anywhere else, for "a reorientation of the AWL around work within the Labour Party". No comment from you on that misrepresentation.
You add another misrepresentation. Neither in the original article nor anywhere else do I "insist in advance" that there will be even a limited revival around Labour and the affiliated unions, let alone "insist in advance" that there will be an "upheaval".
Your original comment said that "even if there was an inclination 'from below' to respond to McDonnell's call... (and there's nothing to suggest there is), the vehicles and channels... are now either atrophied into practical non-existence or structurally prevented..." The unions are definitely not "ready to move" and there's no real chance of McDonnell's "proposal taking place at all (let alone on a decent political basis)".
All that in "very ill-mannered" denunciation of an article that reported McDonnell's initiative while pointing out weaknesses and that it may come to little. "Pay no attention, nothing will come of it" is a fair paraphrase.
As to supposed "strategic perspectives" - debate with the substantive articles on that issue. There's an unanswered response from me to you on that issue at www.workersliberty.org/node/12507.
Unanswered responses?
Martin -
Nothing approaching a meaningful debate is remotely possible if you insist on ignoring the substantive political content on what I write and focus on your ridiculous notion that all I'm interested in doing is "showing off" about how rude I am to the "anti-AWL gallery".
"Pay no attention, nothing will come of it" is not a "fair paraphrase" of my attitude here; I'm telling you it's not. That is not my attitude. You have ignored my (repeated) explanations of my view on this and my motivations for critiquing your initial report, and you continue to repeat the claim that your initial report "pointed out its weaknesses and that it may come to very little". Which words in your report do you believe express this? I can't find them. As I've said (again, many times), the only criticism is of the proposal's potential limitation to "a group of MPs getting together" "from above". This is hardly a serious critique of its potential political weakness (or indeed non-existence).
It seems that almost anything written about your position can now be dismissed as "misrepresentation", and that you have a license to freely misrepresent everyone else's views and what they've written about yours! The point about your "ruling in in advance" of a union upheaval in the Labour Party is that this is the implied logic of your position; to put a fight to break with New Labour on hold (which, as I say, does not leave all other things equal but has consequences of its own) must necessarily imply at least some degree of confidence that a union upheaval will take place. Otherwise, why hold the position?
Given that you seem intent on ignoring what I actually write, preferring instead to complain about my "misrepresentations" (even when I quote directly from your previous articles), I'll let my last comment (the substance of which you have entirely ignored) speak for itself and followers of this debate can make up their own minds about the broader issue to which this all relates.
It is a little difficult to have the "comradely", "political" "debate" you keep exhorting me to engage in when you yourself refuse to engage with anything I write and just denounce it as "not debate", motivated by some bizarre desire to "show off" to "the anti-AWL gallery".
No answer on the misrepresentations
I listed three specific misrepresentations:
I did not predict "a substantial, left-wing, working-class revival within the Labour Party". (You quote me: "working-class people facing an onslaught from [a] new Tory government... may turn in some numbers to the unions and Labour"; but that is not the same.)
I did not call for "a reorientation of the AWL around work within the Labour Party".
I did not "insist in advance" that there will be even a limited revival around Labour and the affiliated unions, still less a "generational upheaval". I've said only that a revival is a possibility to be reckoned with.
Your answer on these misrepresentations? None other than strutting and squawking, and adding a new misrepresentation.
Or maybe it is not misrepresentation, but a political misunderstanding, when you accuse me of wanting "to put a fight to break with New Labour on hold".
Let's grant that you mean that by opposing disaffiliation I'm wanting to "put on hold" a fight by the unions to break with New Labour, and that you've dropped your earlier demagogy about AWL anti-disaffiliationists "preaching inertia" in general, offering "a recipe... for never doing anything, ever", etc.
Still, it makes no sense unless you equate a political break with New Labour with disaffiliation. Unions can "break with New Labour" positively, politically while remaining affiliated (in fact they can do so more effectively). We argue for them to take that break to the point of split. Disaffiliated or never-affiliated unions may well not "break with New Labour" politically at all, or "break" with it towards political disengagement or such ventures as "No2EU". You fetishise disaffiliation, giving it virtues it doesn't have. (Read here on the abortive SWP/SSP "make the break" campaign in 2000-1).
You say "pay no attention, nothing will come of it" is not a fair paraphrase of your comments on McDonnell's initiative. Let's look again at what you wrote.
You characterised McDonnell's appeal as "empty phrasemongering", and continued: "even if there was an inclination 'from below' to respond to McDonnell's call... (and there's nothing to suggest there is), the vehicles and channels... are now either atrophied into practical non-existence or structurally prevented..." The unions are definitely not "ready to move" and there's no real chance of McDonnell's "proposal taking place at all (let alone on a decent political basis)".
"Denounce it as empty phrasemongering, nothing will come of it" would be a better paraphrase.
McDonnell's politics are not ours. But he is not an empty phrasemonger. It is not obligatory, or even desirable, to denounce his politics every time he makes a move (like initiating the LRC, or contesting the Labour leadership). Noting that the way it came forward reflected "weakness"; that it would come to "some mobilisation" only "if MPs follow through... and win active support from unions"; that it looked like being based on the weak "People's Charter", was sufficient "caution" about his "left slate" idea. His record does not suggest that he doesn't intend to follow up on it at all.