14th November Movement for Left Unity
- Thread starter chilango
- Start date
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
The last timeMatt was involved in any thing was Milton Keynes Respect until two posters on here hacked their bulletin board
coochie coo
I'm tempted to go along to a local meeting and see what this is about, but their Facebook page seems to suggest they will focus on the usual lefty stuff. They're advertising demonstrations against the EDL, in support of the Turkish people etc. Nothing on working within the local community on issues that directly affect them.
http://leftunity.org/
yes, I've notice just over the last couple of weeks the move to the usual, but have you looked on the website, its a bit more concrete, the members and organisers appear to have lots of experience of working on campaigns, housing, NHS, benefits, etc.
yes, I've notice just over the last couple of weeks the move to the usual, but have you looked on the website, its a bit more concrete, the members and organisers appear to have lots of experience of working on campaigns, housing, NHS, benefits, etc.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
From the comment section on the IWCA site:
“It speaks volumes that in a period of a prolonged capitalist crisis that it speaks to and for only itself.” Paul B
DD: "Watching the development of LU is instructive. As the name suggests it once again sees left unity as the solution even though it has repeatedly been demonstrated, adding one former trot to another former trot does not make for prescience. But once more they have rallied around unity rather than an analysis, much less a strategy. The siren voices, as the majority see, or will see it, calling for some type of IWCA lite approach will be silenced if they haven’t already been.
For the loudest voces the starting point is as usual all about ‘we must be’ (‘internationalist’…tick…)rather than than look at the situation objectively first, and then declare ‘what we must do’ and let the political programme follow from that. Instead they are starting with the checklist, so regardless of the intentions of at least some to learn from the past blunders, the box ticking will lead them right back to where they started."
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
They've already heard, and dismissed, them.
only online by a few prolific posters on the site, but yes, cries of 'racist' 'xenophobe' would go up.
only the few have
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
The "few" who are setting the tone/agenda etc.
Christ that pretty much sums up exactly what I'm thinking. I can't complain though; I should go along to a meeting and see for myself. Maybe there are others there who would advocate an "IWCA lite" approach that I think would be more worthwhile.
The "here we go again" moment happened when I read that Loach thinks Left Unity should declare itself as explicitly socialist. The fact that this is even discussed as relevant at this point is disheartening.
ska invita
back on the other side
can you explain that a bit more please
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
but without that, it'd just be another Greens at best, or Respect at worst. No?
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
Being "explicitly socialist" isn't going to change the actual character of the organisation either way, is it?
ska invita
back on the other side
the character of the organisation is still being formed - from what I hear there's real debates going on there over that.
So what exactly is this , highly euphemistic, "IWCA lite" approach you are advocating Left Unity adopt, in a little more specific policy detail , Mk 12 ? It implies a bit more than simply "getting out on the landings" on working class estates now doesn't it, let's be honest ? Left Unity's various component groups are doing that all over the UK already in a host of campaigns. And, yes, we've already had the dodgy suggestions about supporting immigration controls made . Didn't go down well.
The overwhelming majority of Left Unity supporters who have responded to the Ken Loach Appeal to form a new radical Left party to replace Labour are socialists, of one stripe or another, revolutionery, radical, or reformist. This was quite overwhelmingly clear from the views expressed at the 11th May London delegate meeting, and are therefore intrinsically, against immigration controls under capitalism, thoroughly internationalist in outlook in seeking to build solidarity action with workers all over the world, and perfectly comfortable with our multicultural society (in its conventionally understood meaning - rather than the special IWCA "its all a state conspiracy to undermine working class consciousness" interpretation).
It is therefore difficult to see how the avowedly non socialist ( indeed consistently , abusively, rabidly, anti-Left), pro immigration controls, dodgily positioned on "multiculturalism", failed old IWCA project , with its peculiarly restrictive, entirely localist, self help within capitalism , solely unskilled manual white working class, focus, actually has any potential political or philosophical "point of contact" with any of the key objectives of the majority of Left Unity's supporter base.
Always thought you were a thick mental old cunt, now you've just proved it
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Is the second paragraph supposed to be an example of the sort of "specific policy detail" that you demand in the first? A series of well-worn platitudes?
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
The IWCA haven't actually ever called for immigration controls have they?
They didn't exclusively organise white working class unskilled workers either
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Nor are they strasserites. I think we can see where ayatollah is coming from here can't we?
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
Nor did the IWCA say immigration is a state conspiracy but suggested it was something closer to an inevitability in modern Western capitalism. Hence the 'Migrants Welcome' style slogans, without demands to actively press the interests of both sections of the w/c were not likely to be very productive.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
Another comment from IWCA site that is even more 'disheartening' though that depends on how you look at it.
Huejack Says:
26 May 2013 at 9:38 pm
Jacob,
Hard to tell at this stage. Although the fact that they [LU] appear to be struggling to agree on how to address the working class/’working people’ suggests they have a fair bit to go. They also seem unduly excited by the 8,000 likes they got following their call to arms. However what does that translate to on the ground – say, maybe at best, 800 activists? Which is not ordinarily to be sneezed at. But then UKIP are approaching the 30,000 actually membership, while EDL scored over 60,000 Facebook likes the other day. The point being that if any sort of impact is to be made is has to be done against prevailing political winds, which makes access to resources even more relevant. Big boys games big boys rules.
All that before you mention strategy and tactics. And the inevitable fall-out from that. As I understand it some within are calling for the adoption of the IWCA strategy without probably fully understanding that this will require more than simply orientating toward the historic constituency. It also requires policies, at a macro and micro level, to be calibrated accordingly. For example the Left as whole are currently trapped behind the 8 ball on identity politics. Treating everyone the same is something the working class understand. Sub-dividing working class forces on the grounds of colour; a house being constantly divided against itself, is understandably a harder sell. So good luck with that.
2) Are the IWCA still active ‘on the ground’? If so, have they abandoned the electoral arena for now?
The IWCA has demonstrated how very very easy it is, on even the flimsiest budget, to fill the vacuum in working class areas. Though they are attention grabbers, having elected Cllrs are not in themselves the name of the game, especially given the limitations of the councils themselves. But what putting up candidates proves is how well or badly the core task of of reconnecting with the working class has been implemented in between the elections. So in that sense having done the pioneering bit we are waiting for the second foot to fall.
Sometimes, as in any other walk of life, you simply have to be patient.
http://www.independentsocialistnetwork.org/?p=2256
First big committee meeting, lots of work done and it looks like a serious project, but I get the impression it will go for a open borders position, and Islington LU put forward a proposal, accepted, to focus on anti-racism(in itself laudible, but where are the resources?) hardly anything on austerity, nothing on working class orientation(as opposed to abstractions about w/c) appearing in many ways a bourgeois party, (early days of the French SP, rather than the Dutch SP) I would reckon they are looking at maximum of 4% of vote at present stage
First big committee meeting, lots of work done and it looks like a serious project, but I get the impression it will go for a open borders position, and Islington LU put forward a proposal, accepted, to focus on anti-racism(in itself laudible, but where are the resources?) hardly anything on austerity, nothing on working class orientation(as opposed to abstractions about w/c) appearing in many ways a bourgeois party, (early days of the French SP, rather than the Dutch SP) I would reckon they are looking at maximum of 4% of vote at present stage
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