14th November Movement for Left Unity
- Thread starter chilango
- Start date
ska invita
back on the other side
isnt percival films ken loaches (co-op?) company?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
sounds a bit dull, but what's actually funny?
Holyroyd-Doveton is a councillor in Huddersfield.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
naah, they're a new small company, also in Huddersfield
e2a: also, it's Percivale, not Percival.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Nope. That 16 films.
ska invita
back on the other side
Bit harsh that I think - there's
"The Policy Commission areas to include the economy, environment, energy, housing, transport, rights, equalities, immigration, welfare, education, health, foreign policy, war, solidarity, international relations, party structures and internal democracy"
im sure austerity/economics and all will be central to everything they are about
The Islington proposal was an addition to something missing from what was discussed, and what with whats been going on the last month would've been an oversite not to include for sure.
Not sure why im defending LU so much on this thread - Im not involved but I do know someone in one of the local groups and I trust his opinion that it has potential and that there's things worth fighting for within it at this stage
ah right. 16 suggests it was a name taken from Sweet 16, i thought the coop goes right back to the beginning of his career? Doesnt really matter...
ska invita
back on the other side
what does open borders mean please
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
It doesn't actually have an open borders position tho, that's just something you pulled out of thin air. So far there is nothing concrete to indicate it will. Sounds like you are just getting your excuses in early.
Opposition to immigration controls. For the right of labour to be able to move as freely as capital.
ska invita
back on the other side
ah right, of course - thanks.
Seems alright going by his annual report for 2011-2012
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
'For the right of labour to be able to move as freely as capital' - in the wake of capital, as a compliment to capital, and at the behest of capital.
http://leftunity.org/the-left-whats-the-point/
Report from Mark Perryman on Lewes LU meeting, very different and criticism already
Report from Mark Perryman on Lewes LU meeting, very different and criticism already
Criticism posted by you by any chance? I detect similarities in writing style and monomaniac obsessions and assumptions
Not only will it limit support, it is a completely unrealistic and ridiculous demand by a tiny, newly-formed party. This is the sort of thing I was worried about.
Judging by the report, that meeting is far too inward looking. Why are they talking about "the left"? No-one, apart from themselves and Nigel Irritable, give a shit.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
It would be great if people wasted their time on talking to an organisation they think are irrelevant about why they think their talking to irrelevant people is irrelevant?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
why are people in an organisation called left Unity talking about the possibilities of uniting left organisations? hmm, let me think....
The SLP, the SA and even Respect all came out of a real movement. They had a base from which to recruit members beyond the sects (even if, ultimately, they didnt do so). LU doesn't even have that. Which is why it is dominated by people from, or ex-members of, left groups in the vast majority of areas. Brighton is different, for what should be fairly obvious reasons, but elsewhere...
And what other policies should members disregard their own opinions on? If we shouldn't vote for our beliefs in migration because they might not be popular, there must be other such policies? And isn't that normally called substitutionism?
The SLP, the SA and even Respect all came out of a real movement. They had a base from which to recruit members beyond the sects (even if, ultimately, they didnt do so). LU doesn't even have that. Which is why it is dominated by people from, or ex-members of, left groups in the vast majority of areas. Brighton is different, for what should be fairly obvious reasons, but elsewhere...
And what other policies should members disregard their own opinions on? If we shouldn't vote for our beliefs in migration because they might not be popular, there must be other such policies? And isn't that normally called substitutionism?
No one is saying you can't have and argue for your own beliefs, etc, of course you can, open borders is a perfectly valid if idealistic position, it is that this group has only just started and already it seems to be attempting to tie down its membership to a strict set of policies, that is my understanding of what is happening
I really hope they abandon the term 'unity', its makes it all about them, insular, navel gazing, etc.
I really hope they abandon the term 'unity', its makes it all about them, insular, navel gazing, etc.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
History? What is the history of 'left unity' as a strategy rather than an organisation - the bringing together of the fragments - as a means transforming society? What are the histories of those fragments; are they characterised by success or failure, by location in the working class or distance from it?
If the answers to the above aren't that hopeful, then perhaps the first stages of any left unity project would involve a big dose of humility, intellect and soul searching, and going to the working class where they live and where they work to find out what they think is going wrong.
Then the left might be in a better place to start helping put right those wrongs with solutions which build equality, solidarity and freedom.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
Talk about being clinically obsessed with "immigration" ! Dearie me treelover (AKA, "*********"we've got to have immigration controls" poster ,on the LU site ?), so because Left Unity isn’t likely to embrace support for the entirely divisive and politically distracting (and completely unachievable under capitalism) policy of demanding immigration controls (and why would a radical Left party aimed at uniting all sections of the working class ever do so ?) you have already written the LU project off as ” a bourgeois style party similar to the early French Socialist Party” ! Immigration controls are certainly an absolutely key issue for you !
It is in reality perfectly possible for a party of the Left to work fruitfully on bedroom tax, anti cuts, pensions, hospital closure, anti redundancy and working conditions, campaigns, with people who have a range of racist or semi racist ideas, without having to make concessions to the distracting ideology which “blames the immigrants” – rather than the true cause – capitalism. Getting people with some confused racist ideas involved in joint anti austerity campaigns with people from ethnic minorities is the best way to fight racism – NOT making concessions to anti immigrant prejudices.
You are seriously mistaken in believing that embracing the anti immigration bandwagon wont be surrendering to the hysteria of the capitalist press. The entire historical experience of making “concessions” to anti immigrant sentiment right across Europe , as the “mainstream parties” have done in Greece for years now as an example, is that this simply legitimises the even more extreme racism of the Far Right. What starts as verbal concessions on a limited front – say, against EU migrants – is immediately outflanked by the ever greater , esentially unlimited, racist demands of the fascists. Witness the explosive growth of the Greek, Golden Dawn Nazis, or on a much lesser scale – the rise of UKIP here , riding the wave of irrational anti EU immigrant hysteria whipped up by the popular press, and “outflanking” the relatively petty racism of the Tories and New Labour.
Pandering to the irrational Islamophobia and anti immigrant prejudices present in some sections of the White Working class is simply a recipe for ever greater division within the working class – and a major distraction from fighting , across ethnic divisions, the austerity offensive on its various fronts. For a party of the radical Left to embrace a demand for immigration controls is political suicide. Standing up for the rights of ethnic minorities, women, gays, isn’t actually that slippery and euphemistic term “identity politics” , its basic civilised behaviour – and a core principle of socialism.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
what is the history of any organisation seeking to transform society? other than one, it's failure. and, as i am sure you are well aware, most of the mass 'workers organisations' actually came about from the mergers of smaller groups (albeit nowt like as small as the ones involved here).
I dont actually advocate it as a way of creating a mass workers party, but it is hardly surprising that it is being talked about by some of those in LU. Especially as this is a crap time to launch such an initiative.
Many of us do just that in our day to day lives already. It isn't a massive mystery. And the response is a mixture of national issues, local issues, some are 'progressive' some not.
likesfish
You can't park here sir
Theres nothing wrong with disliking political islam.
Open borders is a stupid plan.
Given the chaos of the immigration service that seems unwilling or unable to process applications in any timely manner and has been unable to do so for forever.
Actually thinking about immigration not banning it or making it a free for all.
But actually thinking about it, who wants to come?
why do they want to come here?
What is the uk going to do with them if they come?
Where are they going to live?
What services are they going to need the cost of these services?
What added value do they bring?
Immigrants arent a swan eating evil horde niether are they the best thing since slice bread.
They bring advantages and they bring problems.
So of the problems are real some are imginary.
Not listening instead responding with your a racist means people vote BNP
Ayatollah left partys in the uk dont get elected without power your political beliefs are worthless
Open borders is a stupid plan.
Given the chaos of the immigration service that seems unwilling or unable to process applications in any timely manner and has been unable to do so for forever.
Actually thinking about immigration not banning it or making it a free for all.
But actually thinking about it, who wants to come?
why do they want to come here?
What is the uk going to do with them if they come?
Where are they going to live?
What services are they going to need the cost of these services?
What added value do they bring?
Immigrants arent a swan eating evil horde niether are they the best thing since slice bread.
They bring advantages and they bring problems.
So of the problems are real some are imginary.
Not listening instead responding with your a racist means people vote BNP
Ayatollah left partys in the uk dont get elected without power your political beliefs are worthless
editor
hiraethified
Note: It is against the FAQ to use real names (unless the poster has his/her name as their user name).
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
1. Success can be a relative measure; how do the histories of the current LU participants (I'm thinking here organisationally rather than individually) measure up to the past experience of, for example, the NUWM, anti-poll tax unions or the NUM? I could have asked about the post war Labour government; I could have gone further back and further away to Spain, Russia or Paris, but that feels like over egging the pudding.
2. Then why are you seeming to defend it? Or am I just reading you wrong?
3. In the report from the Lewes meeting, there is not a hint of the self criticism and the turn outward from the fragments and their texts, which I'm suggesting needs to be a starting point; rather the opposite in fact.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
Film: The Condition of the Working Class
June 19, 2013
This documentary film, based on Friedrich Engles’ book “The Condition of the Working Class in England”, is made by Mike Wayne and Deirdre O’Neill, both members of Southwark Left Unity. Here it is reviewed by Mark Boothroyd.
“Well the way this government is at the moment, I’m afraid, I think its absolutely disgusting, they’re taking money off us here there and everywhere and they just don’t give a damn, not for the working class they don’t, and it’s the rich getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.”
http://leftunity.org/film-the-condition-of-the-working-class/
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