BBC - Owen Jones

[ViolentPanda]

Lukehurst, apologist for Zionism and shill for neoliberalism. A total arsehole.

And bitter with it

He's not very well-endowed with reflexivity, is he?

 

[ViolentPanda]

What am I? I'm a socialist inside an increasingly bourgeosified workers party with neoliberal, anti-working class elements in the leadership. There needs to be much more serious thought given to the conditions under which an effective left break from Labour can sustain itself as a viable vehicle. The electoral system is a major impediment. Even AV could have begun to generate a progressive dynamic. But we're pretty much stuck with what we've got. So there has to be maximum attention paid to making the anti-austerity case to Labour voters, and building forces for a full scale battle against Labour cuts post-2015.

Have you been sniffing Tippex thinner?
If you're a socialist at all, you're a socialist inside a bourgeois party that is shot through, throughout the party structure, with neoliberal anti-working class elements. It's not just a disorder of the parliamentary party and the upper heirarchy of the party. Thanks to the "reforms" of party democracy in the '90s, Labour lost any remaining semblance of being a "workers' party".

 

[smokedout]

just as a point of info, owen claimed on twitter yesterday he is paid 20k a year by the independent, he didnt answer whether he is a paye employee or not

 

[sihhi]

And of course Labour are the natural rallying-point for anti-cuts activism, given what Balls has already said on the subject, and given what Labour councils have already passed in terms of cuts.

I for one look forward to Welsh and Scottish activists rushing to embrace an Owen Jones network whose author's whose main idea is:

1h Ian McNeill ‏@McNeill56
@OwenJones84 You still think the best thing for the Scots is to vote no to independence given your views on the Labour party in Scotland?

1h Owen Jones ‏@OwenJones84
@McNeill56 Nationalism is not a substitute for class politics

 

[sihhi]

A pictorial representation of the new alliance:

An ex-SWP type bored of being on the wilderness with dusty Ian Birchall pamphlets, a hard left Labour Tony Benn admirer, a young anarcha-feminist plus a confused anonymous Labour soft left.

 

[Balbi]

Ok, I have 3/4 on my radar - who's the chap on the right?

(All of them, lol)

 

[cesare]

Is the beige trilby standard SWP sartorial statement?

 

[brogdale]

I'm sure that a couple of them are in one of my sixth form sets.

 

[articul8]

But note a hard left Labour candidate would alienate more 2nd prefs from Lib Dems and other confused souls than the extra it would gain from the Greens' 2nd prefs (which are fairly automatic). In 2008 and 2012 it's been an automatic 'vote Labour 2nd Pref' from Green HQ. No iffing and butting about it. All London Assembly people are Labour centrists - Labour left has made no headway.

The Assembly candidates are no more centrist than any other set of Labour candidates - if anything some are marginally left leaning (Murad Qureshi, Tom Copley etc) - certainly isn't an argument against preferential voting systems (note that the Irish have a significantly better left representation under STV than we have over here).

 

[nino_savatte]

Still looking to woo those floating voters?

 

[nino_savatte]

He's not very well-endowed with reflexivity, is he?

Typical Nu Labour type tbh.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

The Assembly candidates are no more centrist than any other set of Labour candidates - if anything some are marginally left leaning (Murad Qureshi, Tom Copley etc) - certainly isn't an argument against preferential voting systems (note that the Irish have a significantly better left representation under STV than we have over here).

Don't try and muddy the wide waters between AV and STV.

Also the left vote in Ireland is generally about good, respected local campaigners working hard in their communities for years and building good local profiles to some extent - even the SWP there have kind of learnt that to some extent.

 

[articul8]

Actually, Sihhi was using SV as an example - but his logic about how to win transfers stands under any preferential system. I'd much rather have STV - but in any case of course a change in voting system isn't a magic wand that avoids the need for consistent community work.

 

[articul8]

In the context of Owen's argument, John Palmer's recent article for the RP website is worth a read:
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/facing-reality-after-the-crisis-in-the-swp/

 

[Pickman's model]

The Assembly candidates are no more centrist than any other set of Labour candidates - if anything some are marginally left leaning (Murad Qureshi, Tom Copley etc) - certainly isn't an argument against preferential voting systems (note that the Irish have a significantly better left representation under STV than we have over here).

out of curiosity, what do you do within labour to campaign for better left representation within that nefandous party?

 

[butchersapron]

In the context of Owen's argument, John Palmer's recent article for the RP website is worth a read:
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/facing-reality-after-the-crisis-in-the-swp/

The syriziation of the middle class left continues apace.

 

[articul8]

You don't think that a substantial section of the working class would welcome the emergence of a broad anti-austerity formation like Syriza here?

 

[articul8]

out of curiosity, what do you do within labour to campaign for better left representation within that nefandous party?

Ability to influence that is very limited, beyond NEC elections. Best option is to press unions to use their influence to block Blairite candidates and promote people with some kind of class instinct and backbone

 

[Random]

You don't think that a substantial section of the working class would welcome the emergence of a broad anti-austerity formation like Syriza here?

What's happening here is that some people from the far-left are hoping for a Syrizia style umbrella to work in. It's about realising their hopes and needs, not something that's coming as a response to a working class demand or building organically out of anti-cuts campaigning.

 

[butchersapron]

You don't think that a substantial section of the working class would welcome the emergence of a broad anti-austerity formation like Syriza here?

The middle class left licking their lips at owen and sensing a new leading role for themselves would for sure.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I for one look forward to Welsh and Scottish activists rushing to embrace an Owen Jones network whose author's whose main idea is:

Well, he has a point in that nationalism isn't a substitute for class politics, but he's entirely missing the point that in this case nationalism (in terms of the "national vision" of the Scotnats and Plaid) may well reinforce the "more-equitable-than-England" socialism-shaded politics they already have. Owen's analysis is baldly "nationalism always bad". I don't like nationalism, but you have to look at it on a case-by-case basis in our existing political world. What serves "the people" best? As opposed to "you can't have nationalism, it's bad, m'kay?".

 

[butchersapron]

Ability to influence that is very limited, beyond NEC elections. Best option is to press unions to use their influence to block Blairite candidates and promote people with some kind of class instinct and backbone

Yes, call on the unions to do something. The unions that are instinctively left-wing. Comes the reply: the leaders might be a prop of labour flavoured neo-liberalism, the members aren't, we must call on them to pressure the leaders to pressure the labour leaders. (of course, this say that there is no possibility of influencing the labour leadership from within the party - so bang goes the main argument for staying in, but that will be ignored). And there's yet another step, when it's pointed out that union members don't really care about and are not on the whole involved in this political stuff the next thing to do is pressure them to get involved in order to pressure the reps to pressure the leaders to pressure the labour leaders. I love this participatory democracy stuff.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Is the beige trilby standard SWP sartorial statement?

Fedora. A Trilby has a much skimpier brim.

 

[cesare]

Fedora. A Trilby has a much skimpier brim.

 

[butchersapron]

It's a mid-life crisis fedora.

 

[DotCommunist]

eye shadow or camera angle?

 

[cesare]

It's a mid-life crisis fedora.

I like hats, but it just looks a bit ... Out of place.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Typical Nu Labour type tbh.

That whole Progress milieu is filled with arseholes. Every time I see an article by Dan Hodges in the New Statesman, I know before I read it that it'll be puffing neo-Blairite ideas and rubbishing any other Labour current (snidely rather than openly). The spiritual heirs of Eric Hammond - rightists dressed up in vaguely leftist rhetoric.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The Assembly candidates are no more centrist than any other set of Labour candidates - if anything some are marginally left leaning (Murad Qureshi, Tom Copley etc) - certainly isn't an argument against preferential voting systems (note that the Irish have a significantly better left representation under STV than we have over here).

Wow, "marginally", you say? Well, that makes socialism a shoo-in, doesn't it?

 

[ViolentPanda]

You don't think that a substantial section of the working class would welcome the emergence of a broad anti-austerity formation like Syriza here?

This'd be the broad anti-austerity formation that would, of course, fall in behind the Labour party, as per your hilarious statement of a few months ago?