Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

14th November Movement for Left Unity

This sounds interesting and I imagine a fair few LU groups will show it, only thing is the participants were largely self referred and a number are SWP, hope we don't get lectures, and most are uni educated and not from the worse parts of Salford, etc.
 
Louis MacNeice said:
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.
Click to expand...
well, quite. This is why I said (in the next bit) that I thought this was a rubbish time for such an initiative to be launched. They all grew organically from real campaigns and mass struggles. This is being launched following a film. It's hardly the most auspicious start. Brighton is the only place something interesting might really spring up, given the disillusion with the other soft left alternative to Labour.

2. Then why are you seeming to defend it? Or am I just reading you wrong?
Click to expand...
I'm unemployed at the mo, fuck all better to do (actually, i lie! i do have to go and sign on in twenty minutes). My point is, given the fact that it isn't coming on the back of any real mass movement, it isnt surprising that it starts from an inward-looking perspective.

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
Click to expand...
I think you're being a tiny bit harsh on that report, but only a bit. It's straight out of the old Marxism Today politics, pretty much going 'we had it right all along.' Some of the comments, if read without knowing exactly where Perryman is coming from already, can be read in a more open way than you (or I) are doing.

In one of his comments he writes the more promising:
It is absolutely vital we explore the reasons why so many who consider themselves on the Left or thereabouts belong to no organisation, let alone a party, and don’t find the cult of activism appealing either.

Shame he rather spoils it by then adding 'But for the sake of providing some space, time and participation we could actually get it right this time' - which makes it sound like he wants it to be a talking shop for a good while yet. (Although being a talking shop might be a slightly less bad scenario than the rushing into being an electoral body standing in next years Euro's that some want it to be)
 
Joe Reilly said:
Providing political support for '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.
Click to expand...
We heard you the first time, joe. If you want to start a thread on your preferred pro-working class migration controls, go right ahead.
 
belboid said:
we've just had this discussion on another thread, I dont see the point in rehashing it again on another one. If you want to discuss it, start another thread.
Click to expand...

Someone asked a question. You answered it in one way. And I expanded on it. If you didn't feel sufficiently confident to discuss it further you shouldn't post the type of answer that invites clarification.
 
treelover said:
http://leftunity.org/the-left-whats-the-point/

Report from Mark Perryman on Lewes LU meeting, very different and criticism already
Click to expand...

Whole new level of shite, this, from the attempt at channelling Marx (and Bragg, LOL) to the 'four principles'. Favourite bit might just be this:

  • Today’s inspirations: Caroline Lucas, Glenda Jackson’s speech on Thatcher’s death, Margaret Hodge on taxation, Salma Yaqoob. All women!
Click to expand...
Two Labour MPs and a Green scab as inspirations? and does "all women!" include Thatcher?
 
I hate the way it's framed as a "questioning" of the left, the left's purpose, etc. while simultaneously reinforcing everything shite about left.
 
Joe Reilly said:
Someone asked a question. You answered it in one way. And I expanded on it. If you didn't feel sufficiently confident to discuss it further you shouldn't post the type of answer that invites clarification.
Click to expand...
I'm perfectly confident in answering your rather simplistic and partial argument, its not as if its one that hasnt been made and dealt with a thousand times before over the years. I just dont see the point on doing so on every thread. If you want to start a thread on the problem with no borders and what you would do instead, please, go right ahead.

For the purposes of this thread, the way the argument is directly relevant is through the wider argument (within LU) about whether it should be an immediately electoral body, and particularly whether it should stand in next years Euros. Because if it does stand it will obviously need some policies to stand on, and that will include a policy on migration rights, particularly for those from the new accession countries. To simply put an argument about the role migration plays In modern capital wouldn't be good enough at all. That's fine for an abstract propaganda society, but if you are standing for election, you have to say what you would actually do.

The irony, for LU, is that the people who are pushing for such an electoralist strategy are also the people who would least want it to have a no borders policy. But given the current make up of the organisation, if they do push it to a vote, they'll probably lose.
 
standing in the Euros next year would be suicide for LU.
Obviously contesting elections should be a key part of their strategy long term if they have a future but they need to build some bases first - this isn't Italy.
 
belboid said:
I'm perfectly confident in answering your rather simplistic and partial argument, its not as if its one that hasnt been made and dealt with a thousand times before over the years. I just dont see the point on doing so on every thread. If you want to start a thread on the problem with no borders and what you would do instead, please, go right ahead.

For the purposes of this thread, the way the argument is directly relevant is through the wider argument (within LU) about whether it should be an immediately electoral body, and particularly whether it should stand in next years Euros. Because if it does stand it will obviously need some policies to stand on, and that will include a policy on migration rights, particularly for those from the new accession countries. To simply put an argument about the role migration plays In modern capital wouldn't be good enough at all. That's fine for an abstract propaganda society, but if you are standing for election, you have to say what you would actually do.

The irony, for LU, is that the people who are pushing for such an electoralist strategy are also the people who would least want it to have a no borders policy. But given the current make up of the organisation, if they do push it to a vote, they'll probably lose.
Click to expand...

You can try and assume the air of effortless superiority if you want but you had your arse kicked on the threads to which you refer. What's more it was you when on the IWCA thread on UKIP who tried to badger someone who isn't in the IWCA to fess up to an IWCA policy on immigration controls that dosen't exist - by using his apparent lack of enthusiastic political support for 'Open Borders' as proof positive of opportunist backsliding/or proto Strasserism as your fellow traveller Ayatollah would have it.

And when this fictious policy was introduced within LU it was denounced with a moralising flourish and a maximum of self-righteousness. Naturally.

Nice to see the old traditions living on in even the newest formations.

PS: Also amusing too to see your constant self-conscious employment of the term 'migrant'. You may think of this as being uber PC (and a harmless little code word to set you apart) but for me it brings to mind the way 'coloured' was habitually used by racists in 70's.
 
Joe Reilly said:
You can try and assume the air of effortless superiority if you want but you had your arse kicked on the threads to which you refer. What's more it was you when on the IWCA thread on UKIP who tried to badger someone who isn't in the IWCA to fess up to an IWCA policy on immigration controls that dosen't exist - by using his apparent lack of enthusiastic political support for 'Open Borders' as proof positive of opportunist backsliding/or proto Strasserism as your fellow traveller Ayatollah would have it.

And when this fictious policy was introduced within LU it was denounced with a moralising flourish and a maximum of self-righteousness. Naturally.

Nice to see the old traditions living on in even the newest formations.
Click to expand...
All guff meaning nothing. You would think I had my arse kicked, wouldnt you? No matter what the actual outcome. Likewise you can try and put other peoples words into my mouth, but its a bit rich when you are accusing me of doing the same.

And I didnt 'accuse' the IWCA of having any policy, I said what follows logically from your, Joe Reilly's, argument is....

And it is, I'm afraid, true. Tho you refused to be drawn, when it comes to immigration policy there are only two basic positions, you either have open borders or (at least partially) closed borders. There is no third way. And if you are so vehemently opposed to no borders, you must support some kind of controls. Show where I'm wrong.

PS: Also amusing too to see your constant self-conscious employment of the term 'migrant'. You may think of this as being uber PC (and a harmless little code word to set you apart) but for me it brings to mind the way 'coloured' was habitually used by racists in 70's.
Click to expand...
it may do to you, but that's cos you're obsessed.
 
Going by the claimed 8,000 figure registered LU will have some mileage. To where is Keynesianism without Keynes and to quote the old fella in reply to Spanky Longhorn's missive: "In the long run we are all dead". What he meant by that and pointed out in the article linked to is that rather than waiting till the storm is over and the sea flat something can be said in the middle of the storm to be able to weather what's actually happening. "Head in the sand", "can being kicked down the road" is leading nowhere and may exacerbate the situation to where this corrupt, decaying body ends up floating into one hell of a rough storm to catastrophe. 'Hooray' I hear, don't kid yourselves, it won't be sweet. Cynicism from the sidelines and waiting for some Clapham Omnibus to turn up is all very well, but I'm afraid that's likely to make you the undead too, or even worse perhaps? Have you some dacha stuck away in the Icelandic hinterland to escape to? It's not the left that's a joke here it's what's left of the left - casualties from past defeats. And before someone jumps down my throat I include myself in that category.
 
I'll let you off as this is clearly 4.25am drivel.

What you essentially seem to be saying is that critics of LU are simply carping from the sidelines.

Which you know by now isn't the case.
 
You see your one off remark, "undead" as not drivel I take it? Nevermind LU, it's carping full stop about the "left" building any initiative to cuts and austerity. It's mindnumbingly tedious, arrogant and actual real drivel, at whatever time of day you choose to post this bollocks. Meanwhile, 4,000 at the people's assembly held yesterday. Oh look, I can see workers.

1013524_10152945172835434_1393706078_n.jpg
 
This must have been a key moment of bringing key campaigns tigether

Social movements such as Occupy have recently brought alternative models of decision making and an anti-systemic critique into the public eye. As a complement to resisting cuts, privatisations and all out attacks on the welfare state this sub-assembly will examine how the People's Assembly might develop a programme of demands to fix our political system while also building a participatory alternative. Its format will be a combination of brief presentations on key reforms and a more participatory discussion about how to take forward a democracy reform programme and building local People's Assemblies.
Featuring: Mark Barrett (Peoples' Assembly Network), Natalie Bennett (Green Party), Loz Kaye (Pirate Party UK), Richard Bagley (Morning Star), Naomi Colvin (City Reform Group), Corinna Lotz (Agreement of the People, Campaign for a 21st Century Constitution), Bill Greenshields (People's Charter)
Click to expand...
 
Joe Reilly said:
Providing political support for '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.
Click to expand...
laws against working class people, to help working class people. riiiiiight......
 
The key moment will be if that lot featured, along with a core constituency at a community and workplace level achieve a result, with an alternative to the present austerity measures, that is supported by the vast majority of the British public and the present con dem shambles is no more surely?
 
Joe Reilly said:
like the closed shop you mean?
Click to expand...

Advocating campaigning for immigration controls (with its implicit , hugely diversionery, assumption that it is fellow workers ,rather than the capitalist class and their capitalist system that are responsible for mass unemployment, housing shortages, low wages, welfare cuts) , is hardly a direct parallel to supporting the "closed shop" now is it, let's be honest. There's rather a lot of poisonous extra "political and ideological baggage" attached to demands for immigration controls, compared to support for trades union imposed "job entry restriction" structures. (Not that many features of "entry restrictive" trades unionism ,particularly Craft Unionism, have historically been particularly progressive, in terms of building politically conscious class solidarity, across occupations, and genders, and ethnicities). Socialists have always had a somewhat ambivalent attitude to "entry restriction" dependent trades unionism - basically because it is divisive of the overall class, and though undoubtedly often effective in securing better wages and conditions for craft unionists, it actually reinforces the idea of the perpetuity of capitalism as a system - within which different sections of the working class just have to forever struggle to "grab their share" , even at the expense of other , perhaps less skilled, or simply less well organised, workers. Rather than working together to replace the entire corrupt system.


It also always strikes me as peculiar that the claim that restrictions on immigration can be "pro-working class" totally ignores the literally hundreds of thousands of UK workers making a very good living working overseas every year - who would stand to lose their livelihoods if "tit for tat" controls were imposed on their free movement. In addition, it definitely isn't only the bosses who benefit from free labour movement in all circumstances. Anyone cared for in hospital by a "foreign" nurse or doctor, or using the services of a Polish plumber or dentist or builder can attest to the benefits well beyond the capitalist class.

We can approach the fight against the power of capitalist "globalisation" in a number of ways. One route is towards various kinds of "national autarky" - restricting jobs to "our own folks" (but who's in, and who's out - very dodgy, divisive, territory in a multi ethnic society), eg, see the programmes of most nationalist Far Right movements. The other route is the socialist one - having a vision of a better society beyond capitalism , and trying to build solidarity in struggle , across all the multitudinous divisions in the broad working class, and building solidarity with workers overseas too - with the aim of replacing the capitalist system with a democratic socialist one based on workers control.
 
Race relations law is little used and if brought before the courts can expect a fine in most cases. Racially aggravated assault is another matter.
 
ayatollah said:
Advocating campaigning for immigration controls (with its implicit , hugely diversionery, assumption that it is fellow workers ,rather than the capitalist class and their capitalist system that are responsible for mass unemployment, housing shortages, low wages, welfare cuts) , is hardly a direct parallel to supporting the "closed shop" now is it, let's be honest. There's rather a lot of poisonous extra "political and ideological baggage" attached to demands for immigration controls, compared to support for trades union imposed "job entry restriction" structures. (Not that many features of "entry restrictive" trades unionism ,particularly Craft Unionism, have historically been particularly progressive, in terms of building politically conscious class solidarity, across occupations, and genders, and ethnicities). Socialists have always had a somewhat ambivalent attitude to "entry restriction" dependent trades unionism - basically because it is divisive of the overall class, and though undoubtedly often effective in securing better wages and conditions for craft unionists, it actually reinforces the idea of the perpetuity of capitalism as a system - within which different sections of the working class just have to forever struggle to "grab their share" , even at the expense of other , perhaps less skilled, or simply less well organised, workers. Rather than working together to replace the entire corrupt system.


It also always strikes me as peculiar that the claim that restrictions on immigration can be "pro-working class" totally ignores the literally hundreds of thousands of UK workers making a very good living working overseas every year - who would stand to lose their livelihoods if "tit for tat" controls were imposed on their free movement. In addition, it definitely isn't only the bosses who benefit from free labour movement in all circumstances. Anyone cared for in hospital by a "foreign" nurse or doctor, or using the services of a Polish plumber or dentist or builder can attest to the benefits well beyond the capitalist class.

We can approach the fight against the power of capitalist "globalisation" in a number of ways. One route is towards various kinds of "national autarky" - restricting jobs to "our own folks" (but who's in, and who's out - very dodgy, divisive, territory in a multi ethnic society), eg, see the programmes of most nationalist Far Right movements. The other route is the socialist one - having a vision of a better society beyond capitalism , and trying to build solidarity in struggle , across all the multitudinous divisions in the broad working class, and building solidarity with workers overseas too - with the aim of replacing the capitalist system with a democratic socialist one based on workers control.
Click to expand...

First I haven't seen anyone campaign for immigration controls on here. Secondly the closed shop was not restricted to craft unions. It was a hallmark of any industry where the working class were organised. Moreover contrary to the notion that they were exclusive - they were inclusive. Either you joined or you didn't get the job. Apart from the bosses, the other section of society that definitely benefits from the Polish plumber, or the Latvian nanny is of course the middle class - who have the same relationship to immigration as they do to multiculturalism - which is that of 'the consumer'.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

PTK
What is a “Grassroots Movement”?
2
Replies
30
Views
838
Dogsauce
Dogsauce
Kid_Eternity
Collective - new left wing party?
2 3 4 5 6
Replies
154
Views
6K
PR1Berske
PR1Berske
danny la rouge
Left conversion
2 3 4
Replies
118
Views
4K
PTK
PTK
Kid_Eternity
“Left-wing anarchist guilty of terror offences”
2
Replies
30
Views
2K
brogdale
brogdale
hitmouse
Niche left candidates thread
2 3
Replies
83
Views
4K
emanymton
emanymton
Back
Top Bottom