Left unity

Why is the left so divided? How can we bring about unity? Includes sections on the Socialist Green Unity Coalition and the (former) Socialist Alliance.

Left Unity: the tortoise and the hare

The Left Unity group, launched in late 2012 by Andrew Burgin and Kate Hudson after they quit Respect, and given a boost in early 2013 by support from film-maker Ken Loach, plans a conference on 30 November to constitute itself as an organisation and adopt a political platform. Burgin and Hudson are promoting a draft called the Left Party Platform. Its supporters include the Socialist Resistance group. Tom Walker, a former Socialist Worker journalist who quit early in 2013 and is now prominent in the SWP-splinter International Socialist Network (ISNers), writes, in support: “The Left Party...

Left Unity and the People's Assembly meet

Left Unity held its first National Coordinating Group meeting in Doncaster on Saturday 15 June. The meeting was attended by representatives from 36 local groups, as well as the 10 members who were directly elected at the 11 May national meeting. Much of the agenda was taken up with basic organising of the new coalition and with the timetable for a founding conference set for 23 November. Broader political discussions were had between delegates over lunch. The National Coordinating Group now has the remit to prepare the November conference. Policy Commissions have been set up to draft policy...

Left unity: reach out, don't just huddle

You are absolutely right to conclude that a whittled-down consensus will not inspire people to political activity (“How to make Left Unity”, Solidarity 284). If any of the groups on the left had an inspiring and coherent strategy they would be doing very much better and we would not be despairing at the state of the left. The left as a whole is weak and disorientated or in some cases stubbornly confident of success in the far-off future. We need unity, but not for the sake of unity. There is no point simply huddling together with those politically close to us simply to feel there are a few...

The left must debate its “big” differences

Many of the people who left the SWP recently, and some others who quit SWP longer ago, have formed an “International Socialist Network”. ISN said it was interested in left unity and broad discussion on the left, and many local ISNers are genuinely open-minded, so AWL wrote to ISN proposing discussions. ISN secretary Tim Nelson wrote back on 30 April: Dear AWL, In response to your email. We will not be holding talks with your organisation. Although we are devoted to unity on the left, we believe there to be far too many issues on which we differ. We see the anti-imperialist struggle as one of...

How to make left unity

The political situation makes a strong case for left unity. The letter below has been sent to SWP, SP, Left Unity, ISN, ACI, Counterfire, Socialist Resistance, Workers' Power, and Weekly Worker. Click here to download as pdf. Hi comrades, We believe that the best way to get a good result from the current discussions about left unity would be to start talks for the establishment of a transitional organisation - a coalition of organisations and individuals, organised both nationally and in each locality, which worked together on advocating the main ideas of socialism, working-class struggle...

Vacuum on the left?

The idea of a vacuum or gap on the left, much mentioned in discussions about the “Left Unity” project recently launched by Andrew Burgin and Kate Hudson, has been current, on and off, since 1968. Then, it was used by IS, forerunner of the SWP, as rationale for the unity appeal which IS made that year. “The old Left has been scattered, and a minority sucked up into the new corporate state. A new Left has to be created out of the existing fragmentary and divided opposition... If our differences inhibit what we can do, the Left is likely to be permanently condemned to irrelevance”. IS proposed...

Building a British Syriza?

Jim Jepps is the Camden organiser for the Left Unity initiative launched by Andrew Burgin and Kate Hudson and backed by Ken Loach. Jim is a former member of the SWP and then of the Green Party, which he left recently. He spoke to Martin Thomas of Solidarity about the initiative. Syriza shows that radical leftist politics don’t have to be fringe politics. People will vote for left politics, if they’re done in the right way. That means being inclusive, and to some extent being populist. Obviously, Rifondazione, Die Linke, Front de Gauche, Syriza all involved having had a mass Communist Party in...

NUS elections: why there is no united left

(Daniel is a National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts NC member; RHULSU President; University of London Union Vice President-elect; member of Workers' Liberty students) I am writing in a personal capacity to update everyone on the current situation with regards to attempts to build a united left challenge to the current NUS leadership at the upcoming NUS conference (24-26 April, Sheffield) - attempts which, so far, have sadly failed. Given the furore, I think it's important for everyone to be in the know, but there is not much information out there at the moment, so please share this statement...

Re-educating the movement

Everywhere the financial and economic crisis has brought discredit and odium on capitalism, on capitalists, on bankers, and on their snouts-in-the-trough politicians. Nowhere, in the election campaign just past, did that truth find any expression. Nowhere at all near the main flow of the contest was there any socialist critique of capitalism. Nowhere is there a strong movement animated by the conviction that there is a socialist alternative to capitalism, and fighting to win it. Nowhere is there a strong working-class movement armed with the the Marxist view of capitalism's transient place in...

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