14th November Movement for Left Unity

[articul8]

We were talking about the left outside Labour.

 

[butchersapron]

We were talking about the left outside Labour.

But those nine million votes are what attract you to labour and keep you there. Why are you talking about LUP or TUSC as being attractive to you?

 

[chilango]

It signifies there is a measure of distance between the left and the class in whose name it pertains to speak. This is not a claim as much as a measurable fact.

There isn't .

The Left just thinks there is.

 

[articul8]

But those nine million votes are what attract you to labour and keep you there. Why are you talking about LUP or TUSC as being attractive to you?

I was saying LU was not in the least attractive. If I was inclined to think a new left party was viable at this stage, I would be less put off by TUSC. But I don't.

 

[nino_savatte]

The problem is not (per se) that LU contains the types above, but that it's priorities and methods are determined by what kind of an organisation *they* want to create for themselves, not what kind of an organisation the people they are trying to reach might want.

You're an apologist for the Labour Party, aren't you?

 

[mk12]

There isn't .

The Left just thinks there is.

Please expand...

 

[butchersapron]

I was saying LU was not in the least attractive. If I was inclined to think a new left party was viable at this stage, I would be less put off by TUSC. But I don't.

So that's it basically, you'd prefer one failure that you - as someone bureaucratically linked - to rather than another. Nothing else. No reaching out.

 

[articul8]

You're an apologist for the Labour Party, aren't you?

No!

 

[butchersapron]

You're an apologist for the Labour Party, aren't you?

He's like a right wing dan hodges.

 

[chilango]

Please expand...

The majority of Left activists are part if the w/c.

They're already in, and of, the class.

They're just rubbish at, to paraphrase Ferris Bueller, stopping and taking a look aound themselves once in a while.

 

[articul8]

He's like a right wing dan hodges.

shouldn't that be a left wing dan hodges?

 

[butchersapron]

shouldn't that be a left wing dan hodges?

Is there no end to your self obsession?

And no. Oddly enough, i manged to write what i wanted to.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I said less populated not 'didn't include' - and these people are on the whole not tied to any organisations - or ones incapable of the normal tory attempts at domination.

I think you are wrong about the less populated by part. As far as I can see its entirely populated by them, or near enough.

It looks just like what's sometimes called the Teachers Club left in Dublin. Grey haired ex members of this group or that group, sprinkled with a few thirty something ex members of groups. Always looking for something broad, always at meetings in the Teachers Club. Nice people by and large, but not people who are going to build anything and people who are entirely of the existing left, just more ineffectual than most. I could be wrong about LU, but it all smells very familiar to me.

You are right about organisational domination, in that groups like SR are simply too feeble to pull off anything like that if they were so inclined in the first place. But then again the old hands in the lead don't need to be that crude when broader/shallower/less radical is the shared common sense of most of the rank and file too.

 

[articul8]

priceless

Oddly enough, i manged to write what i wanted to.

 

[imposs1904]

More the latter than the former, I'd guess. I have no idea what discussions the SP over there has had about Left Unity, so this is just an opinion from afar and shouldn't be taken as representing their views, but from where I'm sitting this looks like an elephants graveyard.

(I'm a bit curious about a definition of "usual suspects" that doesn't include Loach, Burgin, Felicity Dowling, Tom Walker, Kate Hudson, Alan Thornett, Liam McUaid , Nick Wrack and just about everyone else prominently involved. Also a little baffled at the surprise over leading figures sitting with the plebs. Do people here think that John Rees used to preside over SWP conference from a throne of skulls?)

No, he used to preside over SWP conference from a throne of unsold copies of Socialist Worker? Or was that Bambery?

 

[Awesome Wells]

Is there a danger of Ledt Unity splitting the labour vote?

This wouldn't bother me, but it is paramount to get the tories out and LU won't do this alone if they stand in two years (assuming they plan to).

 

[belboid]

Is there a danger of Ledt Unity splitting the labour vote?

No

 

[chilango]

 

[butchersapron]

Is there a danger of Ledt Unity splitting the labour vote?

This wouldn't bother me, but it is paramount to get the tories out and LU won't do this alone if they stand in two years (assuming they plan to).

It would bother you - this fantasy scene - and you explain why.

 

[DotCommunist]

I really don't see why getting labour in would be any better. Red Ed has already said he won't reverse any of the cuts. Its just lube.

 

[butchersapron]

I really don't see why getting labour in would be any better. Red Ed has already said he won't reverse any of the cuts. Its just lube.

People keep saying this - it's not true, there are loads of stuff they have pledged to reverse (they are very unlikely to though). They're not total idiots and do know what's need to win/keep certain support - and which ones are nice and cheap to make as well.

 

[DotCommunist]

People keep saying this - it's not true, there are loads of stuff they have pledged to reverse (they are very unlikely to though). They're not total idiots and do know what's need to win/keep certain support - and which ones are nice and cheap to make as well.

Pledges are worth fuck all though

 

[DotCommunist]

You can guarantee there will be no sure start centres re-funded and re opened for one, despite the likes of Chuka preaching big about them

 

[butchersapron]

Pledges are worth fuck all though

Of course, but it doesn't mean that he/they are going around saying what you're saying that they are. They're not.

 

[butchersapron]

You can guarantee there will be no sure start centres ref-funded and re opened for one, despite the likes of Chuka preaching big about them

Irrelevant - if you're going to attack them then do it right - make the argument that their pledges are worthless based on a b and c - not that they don't exist. The pledges exist to stop you doing that, saying they don't exist allows them to sidestep you and fob off the questions.

 

[DotCommunist]

Of course, but it doesn't mean that he/they are going around saying what you're saying that they are. They're not.

no its not what they are saying openly. but it has been said. At the moment they are just doing very little save a bit of posturing cos they have an open goal next GE

 

[DotCommunist]

Irrelevant - if you're going to attack them then do it right - make the argument that their pledges are worthless based on a b and c - not that they don't exist. The pledges exist to stop you doing that, saying they don't exist allows them to sidestep you and fob off the questions.

Demonstrating that pledges are worthless should be enough of an argument backed by the ltany of ones failed to be honoured

 

[butchersapron]

no its not what they are saying openly. but it has been said. At the moment they are just doing very little save a bit of posturing cos they have an open goal next GE

What's not being said openly? What has been said?

If there's an open goal, why insist on hitting the corner flag. Why help them?

 

[butchersapron]

Demonstrating that pledges are worthless should be enough of an argument backed by the ltany of ones failed to be honoured

What did i just say that you should do? As opposed to what you've been doing which is saying not only that pledges don't exist, but that if they do they say the exact opposite of what they actually do. They love people coming at them with that stuff. Attack them on what they say will do backed up by what they have done - not made up shit or they will make mince meat out of you.

 

[DotCommunist]

Mr Miliband said Labour must face up to the "hard reality" that it will not be able to reverse spending cuts scheduled by the coalition for 2015-16.