BBC - Owen Jones

[butchersapron]

There are two questions here which can't just be conflated
1) How many people in the party hold radical left views and
2) How well are they organised, and to what end?

I'd be the first to accept that the left in the party doesn't punch its weight sufficiently, or sufficiently often. But even so the fact that Shawcroft is on the NEC and Akehurst isn't is a political indicator that there is a left out there which can mobilise to win positions of influence.

I wasn't arguing that the left doesn't punch its weight and that it should, i was saying that the vote that you offered is a sure sign of a desperate moribund dying labour-left, reduced to voting for elections to a body it doesn't accept the legitimacy of, appearing to punch above its weight - when the lack of interest in labour-left organisation is a truer indicator of how things stand. This vote (and you've still not addressed how the vote was in support of a 'radical left platform) actually indicates that this is the last and only option open to the labour left - that it has, in fact, been defeated.

 

[Streathamite]

That alone would make the Labour left around 8-10 times as big as even the biggest Trot group around today.

tbh, the trot left is such a marginalised, tiny, irrelevant and altogether pitiful thing that that comparison really doesn't amount to very much at all - if anything.

 

[Pickman's model]

So the number of votes candidates get bears no correlation to the political support they enjoy? It's just a random number generator?

no, you're stupid. political parties don't start from a level playing field. in addition, relatively few members of the electorate familiarise themselves with the detail of the political platform parties stand on: i doubt that many people voting conservative in june 1987 were voting for a great change in the way local government was financed from the rates to the poll tax. and i could have the best set of policies modern britain had ever known but if i don't have the money to put forward sufficient candidates - call it £1.75m - then they have no chance of becoming law. oh - and the number of votes a candidate gets may show the political support that party has as you say in the post i quote but it doesn't follow that the number of votes represents support for the platform, which is what you said in your previous post.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It exists then? In what sense? Where?

It inheres in articul8. He is the essence of "the Labour left". Through him, all things Labour left shall be made manifest.

HTH

 

[Pickman's model]

It inheres in articul8. He is the essence of "the Labour left". Through him, all things Labour left shall be made manifest.

HTH

i think you mean he, er, passes the labour left

 

[ViolentPanda]

How do we make w/c politics revolve around the labour party? We pretend that a real substantial labour left exists within in it and has the potential to either win the party as a whole to its positions or is such a poweful force that it can both force a large scale split to the left and attract enough support from outside the party to establish itself as a long-term challenge to labour.

Remind me, who are the fantasists here?

Wouldn't that beg the question as to whether the Labour party have any interest whatsoever in working class politics, in an era when it's fairly obvious they don't, and merely see as as voting fodder?

 

[ViolentPanda]

At a bare minimum there's there 22,000+ who voted Christine Shawcroft onto the NEC. That alone would make the Labour left around 8-10 times as big as even the biggest Trot group around today.

I'm not sure that you actually understand the dynamics behind election to the NEC. It's not a marker of the "leftness" or "rightness" of party members when they vote for a particular candidate. It's about chess - about blocking people - as much as it's about electing someone who might represent a particular wing of the party. Look at the Cashman debacle in the '90s for a fine example of such chess.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Oh come on - seriously? How does the fact she received the votes of over 20,000 Labour members when standing on a radical left platform show there are people who support these ideas? FFS. It might be inadequately organised, bureaucratically out-manoeuvred, and without real purchase on party policy - but it still exists and has a presence in national internal elections. (and that's before we get to the size and influence of the left in Labour aligned unions - like UNITE).

Ask yourself this: "Who else was in contention, and which interests would he have represented?".
Answer that, and you answer your own question above.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Mystified (again) why Ed Miliband didn't say social security spending could be brought down with a living wage and by building housing

Mystified.

 

[articul8]

Ithe vote that you offered is a sure sign of a desperate moribund dying labour-left, reduced to voting for elections to a body it doesn't accept the legitimacy of, appearing to punch above its weight - when the lack of interest in labour-left organisation is a truer indicator of how things stand. This vote (and you've still not addressed how the vote was in support of a 'radical left platform) actually indicates that this is the last and only option open to the labour left - that it has, in fact, been defeated.

well, yes and no. The NEC vote was just a way of getting a handle on the sort of numbers involved. Actually it's precisely the limits of internal democratic processes which mean that there is a section of Labour activists who are prioritising work with forces outside the party and involving themselves in the anti-austerity movement throught the trade unions or at a local level (against NHS cuts/reforms, free schools etc). Certainly in my local group, LRC activists are among the most active campaigners on this score. Now, where this is going is a longer debate - but, for now, the Labour left clearly does exist - and in a more relevant form than the left sects.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Yes, that's exactly what i'm asking you to outline - what 'radical left' ideas these are would be helpful too. It would also be interesting to hear why labour

briefing can only get a 100 people to a AGM that would decide if it was to exist as an independent voice of the labout left or not. That sort of thing is rather more important than a few votes isn't it?​

This is actually overly generous to the "Labour left". The LRC - as in the only remaining institution of note of the Labour left and the body that unites it, such as it is, - is lucky to get 200. Its attempt to found a youth wing was smaller than Revo. We are talking about a current here with approximately the same ability to get activists out for the day as one of the runts of the Trot litter, like the AWL say. In fact, the AWL would regard it as a bit embarrassing if they could only produce LRC numbers.

Which won't stop one of our resident clowns from bleating on about the tens of thousands(!) of Labour leftists hiding under some rock outside Northampton. It's like dealing with some super-credulous new recruit to the SWP who will earnestly tell you that they have 8,000 members. Although, to be fair, that would be markedly less mental. It's like arguing with a religious believer: His narrative is unshakeable by argument or experience.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

tbh, the trot left is such a marginalised, tiny, irrelevant and altogether pitiful thing that that comparison really doesn't amount to very much at all - if anything.

Even after the most dramatic crisis in its history, a major split, while total demoralised, and being generally ostracised, the SWP will turn out a large multiple of the number of people at its main public event that the Labour left can produce.

 

[Streathamite]

I'm not sure that you actually understand the dynamics behind election to the NEC. It's not a marker of the "leftness" or "rightness" of party members when they vote for a particular candidate. It's about chess - about blocking people - as much as it's about electing someone who might represent a particular wing of the party. Look at the Cashman debacle in the '90s for a fine example of such chess.

Is it not about a mixture of tactical blocking and voting positively for a candidate/programme/agenda etc?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

12.5% of Dublin voted for a Trotskyist candidate standing on a transitional programme in the last European elections. That doesn't mean that there are tens and tens of thousands of Trotskyists here.

 

[articul8]

I'd ask how many votes made Peter Taaffe your General Secretary for the last few decades, but it would of course be totally rhetorical

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I'd ask how many votes made Peter Taaffe your General Secretary for the last few decades, but it would of course be totally rhetorical

More to the point, it would be a typical example of you moving from crazy claims to irrelevant jibes when you can't defend your fantasies. Really, the main differences between you and some "we've got 8,000 members" SWP student fool are (a) that your delusion is on a larger scale, almost an order of magnitude nuttier, and (b) that the SWP student will probably grow out of it in six months.

 

[articul8]

This is actually overly generous to the "Labour left". The LRC - as in the only remaining institution of note of the Labour left and the body that unites it, such as it is, - is lucky to get 200. Its attempt to found a youth wing was smaller than Revo. We are talking about a current here with approximately the same ability to get activists out for the day as one of the runts of the Trot litter, like the AWL say. In fact, the AWL would regard it as a bit embarrassing if they could only produce LRC numbers.

If you are looking for crazed semi-Trot sects no wonder you only see a handful of AWLers and Socialist Appeal. That's not what a "Labour left" looks like

 

[articul8]

More to the point, it would be a typical example of you moving from crazy claims to irrelevant jibes when you can't defend your fantasies. Really, the main differences between you and some "we've got 8,000 members" SWP student fool are (a) that your delusion is on a larger scale, almost an order of magnitude nuttier, and (b) that the SWP student will probably grow out of it in six months.

so 22,000 people voted for the most left wing of the NEC candidates - this is verifiable, objective evidence of the scale of support for the left inside the party. No fantasy involved. Unless you are claiming people just liked the name "Christine" or something

 

[Nigel Irritable]

so 22,000 people voted for the most left wing of the NEC candidates - this is verifiable, objective evidence of the scale of support for the left inside the party. No fantasy involved. Unless you are claiming people just liked the name "Christine" or something

Less than 200 of these 22,000 people can be convinced to go to the main events of the only remaining Labour left organisation of any size. That's what you are fucking working with, you deluded fucking imbecile. That's the scale you are operating on. That's what you have. That's what you are. I don't know how many different ways I have to point out the bleeding fucking obvious before you get it through your thick fucking skull.

Do you know that the Grantites managed to get thousands of votes in the last French Communist Party internal elections? Now, would you say that they are a group of a few dozen or a group of many thousands? Which of those answers would be meaningful and which would be mental? Try working it out in a context you've less of your identity invested in first.

 

[articul8]

again you confuse support for one or other particular sub-grouping, with support for the Labour left as a whole. The Labour Left is much broader and larger than the LRC, Socialist Appeal, NextGeneration Labour, or whatever other component of it. (Eoin Clarke has cheekily called his group "Labour Left"). But I'm not talking about them. By and large the Labour Left doesn't operate in the same way as a Trot group - you might as well ask how many papers Labour lefts sell on their weekend sales!

 

[Nigel Irritable]

again you confuse support for one or other particular sub-grouping, with support for the Labour left as a whole. The Labour Left is much broader and larger than the LRC, Socialist Appeal, NextGeneration Labour, or whatever other component of it. (Eoin Clarke has cheekily called his group "Labour Left"). But I'm not talking about them. By and large the Labour Left doesn't operate in the same way as a Trot group - you might as well ask how many papers Labour lefts sell on their weekend sales!

The LRC is not merely "one sub group" of the Labour left, it is the umbrella body of the Labour left to the left of Cruddas. It isn't as if there are dozens of other left factions, squabbling with the LRC and getting hundreds to their rival events. There's nothing. There's a desert. There's the LRC, an ageing clump of a couple of hundred useless people, and then there are few smaller clumps of exactly the same ageing people who can gather together a few dozen.

I'm not comparing them to a "Trot group" in the sense that I expect much activism from the intrepid couple of hundred. In fact, a couple of hundred at some runt of the Trot litter's event is much more meaningful than a couple of hundred at the LRC's flagship event, as most of the couple of hundred Trots can be expected to actually do something. You can't even hope for that from your useless associates.

But really, I'm not going to waste my time explaining that the cherubim and seraphim don't exist to a religious believer any further for today. Go pray for their intercession with God somewhere else.

 

[sihhi]

again you confuse support for one or other particular sub-grouping, with support for the Labour left as a whole. The Labour Left is much broader and larger than the LRC, Socialist Appeal, NextGeneration Labour, or whatever other component of it. (Eoin Clarke has cheekily called his group "Labour Left"). But I'm not talking about them. By and large the Labour Left doesn't operate in the same way as a Trot group - you might as well ask how many papers Labour lefts sell on their weekend sales!

How does the Labour Left operate - genuine question?

Their means of operation have been pretty cruddy if they can't even get Left MP Diane Abbott to oppose workfare - which Haringey Labour is using for its estates programme.

 

[William of Walworth]

Is it relevant that she's a Hackney MP though?

(Not defending her or anything -- just saying!)

 

[muscovyduck]

If anyone in Labour Left was near achieving any actual change, they'd be gotten rid of by now.

 

[sihhi]

Is it relevant that she's a Hackney MP though?

(Not defending her or anything -- just saying!)

Yes but she is Labour Left Campaign Group unlike Lammy who is also pro-workfare but not Labour.

 

[articul8]

How does the Labour Left operate - genuine question?

Their means of operation have been pretty cruddy if they can't even get Left MP Diane Abbott to oppose workfare - which Haringey Labour is using for its estates programme.

Diane doesn't really represent anything or anyone but her own career ambitions - that's way Blairites were happy to include her (but not McDonnell) on the ballot paper, to make sure the relevant diversity boxes were ticked and leave the membership with an unappealing "left" option. Not excusing her but she abstained because she is a minister - and given that they've booted out PPS's for breaking the whip, it would effectively have meant resigning.

The Labour left is quite amorphous and hard to make generalisations about - I don't dispute that it could be a hell of sight more effectively organised or effective, but that doesn't mean it simply doesn't exist! One section of it (the CLPD/Grassroots Alliance) seems to spend most of its time organising for internal elections and making procedural points about conference. But even the more externally active sections like the LRC don't prioritise recruitment, party building and selling the paper etc. But it's there fostering initiatives like "councillors against the cuts".

 

[Louis MacNeice]

The Labour left is quite amorphous and hard to make generalisations about - I don't dispute that it could be a hell of sight more effectively organised or effective, but that doesn't mean it simply doesn't exist! One section of it (the CLPD/Grassroots Alliance) seems to spend most of its time organising for internal elections and making procedural points about conference. But even the more externally active sections like the LRC don't prioritise recruitment, party building and selling the paper etc. But it's there fostering initiatives like "councillors against the cuts".

Perhaps it is hard to make generalisations about because it is so amorphous that it cannot cohere in any sustained way; i.e. in practical terms, rather than as a rhetorical flourish or imagined sleeping army, it doesn't exist.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[articul8]

It clearly exists in the form of LRC; Grassroots Alliance/CLPD; "Labour Left"; Labour CND, Next Generation Labour...etc.etc..even before you get to the unions - I don't overestimate what this amounts to, but I do object to isolated sects (on the fringes of the Labour movement ) somehow conjuring 20,000+ people out of existence

 

[Streathamite]

At a bare minimum there's there 22,000+ who voted Christine Shawcroft onto the NEC. That alone would make the Labour left around 8-10 times as big as even the biggest Trot group around today.

no it wouldn't. The one simply doesn't follow necessarily from the other, there may be loads of different reasons why Shawcroft picked up votes, from all sorts of different people. Also, one candidate getting onto the NEC - ain't big potatoes.
(and you STILL haven't outlined that all-important 'platform' of hers which was oh-so-persuasive, and such 'proof' of a healthy 'Labour Left'. As you were the one flagging it up, it's up to you to outline it.

 

[Streathamite]

so 22,000 people voted for the most left wing of the NEC candidates - this is verifiable, objective evidence of the scale of support for the left inside the party. No fantasy involved. Unless you are claiming people just liked the name "Christine" or something

It's still, when all is said and done, ONE vote, one slip of paper, one two-minute effort. Hardly to-the-barricades stuff