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BBC - Owen Jones

articul8 said:
I'd like to see unions take on a more directly political role - by bracketing altogether (for the time being) the quetion of electoral alignments - and working together with other forces, like non-aligned unions, tenants and residents assocs, community groups, pensioners groups, students, and - yes - beginning to rebuild indepedent working class organisation and capacity.
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You want people who argue for cuts to take on the task of rebuilding working class organisation? Or what?
 
It's total bollocks. I'm glad he's come out with this because I was beginning to resent having to stick up for him. Now he's written something that deserves some proper criticism. :D

What does he imagine such a "broad network" of lefties, nominally in the Labour sphere of influence, can do to push Labour to the left? If the Labour leadership feels like all the radical left is within their orbit, and that through this can neutralise it as a rival, then it's just going to make them feel even more secure in being able to continue with austerity after 2015. If you really wanted to put pressure on the Labour party's leadership, ie the Leader the PLP, to move to the left you'd be better off working outside, and against, them. Specifically targetting the worst right-wing Blairite MP's and councillors would be a good start

But then that leads to a more important question, is why should people have to constantly frame everything they do in relation to the Labour Party? Should people even be so limited in their thinking to just moving Labour to the left, rather than a more comprehensive project of re-building the radical left from the ground up. British left wing politics is utterly dominated by Labour, whether inside or outside it's always in relation to it. That's substantially a result of how our poiltical system functions, it's a systematic feature of first past the post and the unwritten constitution etc. That in itself is an obstacle to any meaningful socialist and democratic society, and Labour is fully integrated into that. It's not going to challenge the very setup which gives it a virtual monopoly on the British left.

and Owen Jones, although I don't think he's cynical (I notice he's getting some flak from the Labour right for supposedly recruiting from the SWP) I do think it's "all roads lead to the Labour party" and that is quite damaging. Even if every SWP member, or everyone who's been on the Trot merry-go-round for the last 30 years, all of a sudden decided "Right, we're all going back in, wahey!" then joined up, it wouldn't amount to fuck all. Labourism survived through periods where the working-class and socialist left was unimaginably more potent, and numerous, than it is today, so what makes these people think they've got a chance in hell? There's probably more chance that the SWP will lead a revolution and the CC will become our government than the Labour party suddenly embracing Soft Bennism.
 
Random said:
You want people who argue for cuts to take on the task of rebuilding working class organisation? Or what?
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No - make a clear call to everyone inside and outside Labour to oppose all cuts and work together where thay can on building a movement independent from any particular political party to sustain orgnaised protest, civil disobedience, and develop alternatives.
 
I can't even get onto Twitter. Get a message saying my IP has been blocked. My account hasn't been hacked and spam anyone so I guess...

Wankers. I'll have to restart my router.
 
articul8 said:
No - make a clear call to everyone inside and outside Labour to oppose all cuts and work together where thay can on building a movement independent from any particular political party to sustain orgnaised protest, civil disobedience, and develop alternatives.
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What makes you think anyone inside Labour will oppose all cuts? Like, ever?
 
articul8 said:
It's a danger, certainly - but I don't see it being inevitable.
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Of course you don't! To acknowledge the likelihood of it happening would be to acknowledge your own position as being one where yourself change to conform to your political surroundings.
 
frogwoman said:
I mean that somebody might go into the labour party or whatever with the intention of changing it but the higher up they go the more the party will end up changing them
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Which is historically why alternative movements only tend to thrive outside of a party environment. Inside, the inpulse will always be toward reaction - playing it safe, "building the party". The party becomes the end rather than the means.
 
well, that is more likely to happen if there's a broad movement of civil society actively mobilising in their communities. OK, then you might face a Benn-type situation, with no guarantee of success. But there'd be a new dynamic opening up.
 
articul8 said:
well, that is more likely to happen if there's a broad movement of civil society actively mobilising in their communities.
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The broad mobilising community movement is what's missing. Not "calls" to found new networks. We're knee-deep in those.

It's like some kind of socialist engineering project. If we get the call exactly right, if we get the meeting full of exactly the right people, if we appeal with the right demands, etc etc. The groundwork in the communities has to exist first, otherwise you're just putting the cart before the horse.
 
It's like candidates who get shocked they don't win local elections by just being a candidate. Without campaigning you're about as useful as a Lib Dem promise. All to do with profile raising etc - which is a twatty way of saying put the fucking effort into your area.
 
It's a bit chicken and egg - people tend not to be involved because often they don't see anything out there to get involved with. I've no illusion that there will be some perfect way of organising a "unity conference" which magics life into something. And just saying "we'll stand a no-cuts candidate in the election" and expecting any greater involvement or communitiy campaigning around that is similarly futile. But this is why the dissenting current within the Labour party is in a good position to say to the millions who might be thinking of voting Labour - don't just vote Labour and expect that to solve all your problems - to turn the tide it's necessary to create the maximum pressure possible on all politicians and political parties. An effective movement of the kind Owen is talking about would mobilise *Labour voters and supporters" in addition to, and along with, people who are pissed off at or sceptical of Labour. That's why some of the right wing on Twitter started to shit themselves and accusing him of wanting to launch a new party.
 
articul8 said:
It's a bit chicken and egg - people tend not to be involved because often they don't see anything out there to get involved with. I've no illusion that there will be some perfect way of organising a "unity conference" which magics life into something. And just saying "we'll stand a no-cuts candidate in the election" and expecting any greater involvement or communitiy campaigning around that is similarly futile. But this is why the dissenting current within the Labour party is in a good position to say to the millions who might be thinking of voting Labour - don't just vote Labour and expect that to solve all your problems - to turn the tide it's necessary to create the maximum pressure possible on all politicians and political parties. An effective movement of the kind Owen is talking about would mobilise *Labour voters and supporters" in addition to, and along with, people who are pissed off at or sceptical of Labour. That's why some of the right wing on Twitter started to shit themselves and accusing him of wanting to launch a new party.
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Why would right-wingers be quaking in their boots at his (misread) rhetoric? The right-wingers he was replying to are tories - why would they shit themselves as a potential labour split? Spinning madness.
 
no, he's been replying to the likes of Richard Angell (Dep Director of Progress), Jessica Asato (PPC and former acting Director of Progress) and Dan Hodges (Blairite and Torygraph)
 
And toby young and ...you. And he's been shouting his loyalty to labour and commitment to never setting up or joining a party outside of them. That's his response to criticisms from the people who have real power in your party people who you define as right-wingers and who lead your party - i'm a good boy really, we are on the same side after all.

Do you not see how fucking ridiculous your suggestion that the strength of the idea is demonstrated by the fear that a split would cause to labour right-wingers when you (and him) then go on to argue against any such split. Effectively saying, yes, we side with those right-wingers in their misreading. Madness.
 
Tories would probably fund a New Workers Party it if they thought it could prevent Labour from wiping out the Lib Dems and dominating the centre-left vote thereafter.
 
butchersapron said:
And toby young and ...you. And he's been shouting his loyalty to labour and commitment to never setting up or joining a party outside of them. That's his response to criticisms from the people who have real power in your party people who you define as right-wingers and who lead your party - i'm a good boy really, we are on the same side after all.

Do you not see how fucking ridiculous your suggestion that the strength of the idea is demonstrated by the fear that a split would cause to labour right-wingers when you (and him) then go on to argue against any such split. Effectively saying, yes, we side with those right-wingers in their misreading. Madness.
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No - neither of us aret saying "never a new party" - but neither are we saying "launch a new party now". The conditions aren't there. What is clear is that i) what limited progress can be made through the election of a Labour government will depend in part on the scale of the pressure they feel under from Labour-voting communities, and that ii) a movement built in opposition to austerity can draw active support from a range of forces who will be more effective if not fragmented at every level along party lines. Of course there will be a parting of the ways over electoral strategy. But there is loads we can agree and work on together.
 
articul8 said:
No - neither of us aret saying "never a new party" - but neither are we saying "launch a new party now". The conditions aren't there. What is clear is that i) what limited progress can be made through the election of a Labour government will depend in part on the scale of the pressure they feel under from Labour-voting communities, and that ii) a movement built in opposition to austerity can draw active support from a range of forces who will be more effective if not fragmented at every level along party lines. Of course there will be a parting of the ways over electoral strategy. But there is loads we can agree and work on together.
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What a surprise, cake and eat it too as normal. Rhetoric about the future - as normal, hedged in with a list of ifs and when's - as normal. Faith offered as strategy - as normal.

i) their has been widespread opposition to the cuts for two years - effect on labours policy? None. effects on their actions - none. ii) that opposition is not split on party lines - any electoral effect from it will go to labour. So iii) wasting time in corralling it to do something that it was already going to do and to do something that will have no effect is a big waste of time and betrays a lack of understanding of what's happening with both anti-austerity groups and the labour party.
 
D'ya reckon there's much scope for being able to con some thick rich Tory out of their inheritance by getting them to bung a load of money towards a new workers party? Gotta be worth a go, surely.
 
i)we are now seeing the emergence of a network of anti-cuts Labour councillors, and this will only continue to grow since cuts on the table are planned to run into 2018 and decimate local government - not everyone has wakened up to the realities of this, ii) opposition might be widespread, but as yet relatively weak in its organisation and unfocused in terms of strategic interventions, iii) too much of the last 2 years has been wasted on telling the TUC to get off its knees - the unions can throw their weight into a different kind of organising if they can break from their political deference to the Labour party, which isn't to say that the conditions are yet there for a total break.
 
articul8 said:
i)we are now seeing the emergence of a network of anti-cuts Labour councillors, and this will only continue to grow since cuts on the table are planned to run into 2018 and decimate local government - not everyone has wakened up to the realities of this, ii) opposition might be widespread, but as yet relatively weak in its organisation and unfocused in terms of strategic interventions, iii) too much of the last 2 years has been wasted on telling the TUC to get off its knees - the unions can throw their weight into a different kind of organising if they can break from their political deference to the Labour party, which isn't to say that the conditions are yet there for a total break.
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i) are we fuck ii) So what it needs to get organised is to get behind labour - but you know, keep it quiet iii) the unions are now going to throw their weight as far and as aggressively behind labour from now until the 2015 - they are are not going to do a damn thing to jeopardise that. A TUC break from the labour party? You're off your rocker, you really are.
 
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