BBC - Owen Jones

[butchersapron]

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

I don't think that you've managed to convince anyone that it exists. What years were you in the party from again?

 

[butchersapron]

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

These people exist physically - what this represents politically is being questioned. You say that they represent the labour left in one breath and that they "spend most of its time organising for internal elections and making procedural points about conference" in the next. In what sense then do they represent a really existing labour-left?

And for the third or fourth time, what is this 'radical left' platform that you think they represent - this is really quite important.

 

[articul8]

I don't have her candidate statement, but as I recall it was along the lines of her website which says, "On the NEC and the NPF I regularly raise issues such as using our huge financial stakes in banks to control their policies, rail re-nationalisation, ending the war in Afghanistan, the fourth option for council housing, and Party democracy."

Ok this is not the revolutionary expropriation of the capitalist class, but it is clearly "of the left".

 

[Streathamite]

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

This is kinda what i'm thinking, and the truth is, articul8 doesn't seem able to come up with any specifics or hard fact about this shadowy 'Labour Left'; I mean, where's the detail? The numbers? the specifics?
This isn't having a go at you, articul8, but you really do need more of those things

 

[articul8]

I'm the last person to claim the labour left is "fit-for-purpose" - even if the purpose was a given, which it isn't. But I'm just saying that the some people are so wrapped up in their own rhetoric that they can't even acknowledge what is there.

 

[articul8]

This isn't having a go at you, articul8, but you really do need more of those things

As you know, the leadership prevented McDonnell from getting on the ballot paper in the leadership elections, which presumably indicates they were worried about the extent of the support that he'd get and the impact he;d have had on the debate.

 

[butchersapron]

Jesus, we've gone from secret armies to secret generals - this is why people are saying that no labour-left exists.

 

[articul8]

You think it was a coincidence that Abbot got on the ballot paper and McDonnell didn't?

 

[Streathamite]

As you know, the leadership prevented McDonnell from getting on the ballot paper in the leadership elections, which presumably indicates they were worried about the extent of the support that he'd get and the impact he;d have had on the debate.

a) you may be right (I don't know) but that's still just a guess in part - 'presuming' isn't enough
b) it still doesn't really give those specifics or details

 

[butchersapron]

I don't have her candidate statement, but as I recall it was along the lines of her website which says, "On the NEC and the NPF I regularly raise issues such as using our huge financial stakes in banks to control their policies, rail re-nationalisation, ending the war in Afghanistan, the fourth option for council housing, and Party democracy."

Ok this is not the revolutionary expropriation of the capitalist class, but it is clearly "of the left".

It's of UKIP and the BNP and others isn't it? In fact, it's something that isn't specifically left. And, given that it's just rhetoric and that the party centre and leadership simply decides what to do and when, isn't it just another example of the labour-left not actually existing beyond these rhetorical demands?

The question surely is, can a labour-left exist today? The answer is a clear no.

 

[butchersapron]

You think it was a coincidence that Abbot got on the ballot paper and McDonnell didn't?

I couldn't care less. I do care about your secret left-wing armies just waiting to be called into action by a left-wing napoleon. And there non-appearance being evidence of their hidden power. You're crazy.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

As you know, the leadership prevented McDonnell from getting on the ballot paper in the leadership elections, which presumably indicates they were worried about the extent of the support that he'd get and the impact he;d have had on the debate.

The Labour leadership's paranoia over controlling their media representation as a party free from left contagion is not evidence of the existence of a Labour left. The actions of such a left wing would be evidence of its existence and those actions are minimal at best.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[articul8]

There are two questions
- an empirical one - does an identifiable Labour left exist (answer yes - in the LRC but also in the organisations I've listed above, in the votes for left candidates, in groups like "councillors against the cuts")
- is this Labour left in any way adequate to the task it has set itself?

It is possible to answer the second in the negative without denying the former.

 

[articul8]

I couldn't care less. I do care about your secret left-wing armies just waiting to be called into action by a left-wing napoleon. And there non-appearance being evidence of their hidden power. You're crazy.

That is a silly caricature of what i said - all I'm saying is that the leadership swiftly moved to prevent a credible left candidate from appearing on the ballot paper *because that would have allowed the membership to demonstrate a real choice for an alternative set of priorities, and this could have been measured reflected objectively* - not that some great leader would lead the masses like the pied piper.

Ironic to see the ultra left working in the service of the Blairite attempt to argue that socialism in the party has been killed off.

 

[butchersapron]

That is a silly caricature of what i said - all I'm saying is that the leadership swiftly moved to prevent a credible left candidate from appearing on the ballot paper *because that would have allowed the membership to demonstrate a real choice for an alternative set of priorities, and this could have been measured reflected objectively* - not that some great leader would lead the masses like the pied piper.

Ironic to see the ultra left working in the service of the Blairite attempt to argue that socialism in the party has been killed off.

No, your argument was silly and deserved nothing but the (slight) caricaturing i gave it.The argument that the labour leadership conspired to block a candidate because his success would then prove the real existence of a sleeping labour-left army is very silly. If it were true you would be able to point to the existence of this labour-left in the period since - you've been totally unable to. In fact, your straw grasping has just made it ever clearer.

Excellent, now onto the sweating desperate angry amalgamation. Never takes long does it?

 

[articul8]

Given that you won't accept that internal election results count as evidence, or the existence of numerous membership bodies, it's like someone persistently asking for proof that water is wet.

 

[butchersapron]

Given that you won't accept that internal election results count as evidence, or the existence of numerous membership bodies, it's like someone persistently asking for proof that water is wet.

If you managed to convincingly explain why they politically mean what you say they do and then place them within a set of other evidences of the existence of the labour left then I happily would. That you are struggling to do so tells its own story.

 

[sihhi]

Given that you won't accept that internal election results count as evidence, or the existence of numerous membership bodies, it's like someone persistently asking for proof that water is wet.

Given you've proved how left Labour is strong with that website statement - explain how such a 20,000 strong body can't block any single cut budget that a Labour council wants to make.

If you admit the Labour Left is ineffective - how can it be made effective to achieve significant left wing aims - by a pluralist coalition (which Cruddas types will quickly lead so as to neutralise it) and AV then PR?

No one really understands your strategy which is why your vote Labour in 2015 thing goes down like a lead balloon here. It makes people think you are being hypocritical.

Most try not to raise raise false hopes. You have a strategy which no one understands but raises false hopes.

 

[articul8]

You are inferring some political comment from my empirical claim that the Labour left exists - I'm not saying that it's going from strength to strength, or is adequately organised, or has real purchase on the party's direction. But it's there and hasn't simply vanished.

 

[articul8]

Most try not to raise raise false hopes. You have a strategy which no one understands but raises false hopes.

Let me try being clearer and perfectly honest

1) I think we need vehicle capable of giving electoral expression to anti austerity politics
2) At the same time, the overriding imperative at the next General Election will be to kick out the Tories and LDs - Labour will be the chief beneficiary
3) As yet Labour's policy stance is unformed, what little there is seems contradictory or inadequate, but is being contested from inside and outside the party and the wider labour movement.
4) The task is therefore to maximise pressure inside and outside on the Labour leadership and build confidence in and around the idea of resistance to austerity
5) The process of doing that ought to see what remains of the Labour left look outward and work around common aims with forces outside the party (building an anti-austerity bloc), whilst also maintaining pressure on, and exposing the inadequacy of, official Labour policy.
6) Pressuring the leaderships of the affiliated unions to demand influence in return for funding

What happens if, as is quite possible, the above fails to have achieved sufficient results? Well, then that will be the stage to reassess whether Labour has become so toxic that *tens, hundreds of thousands* are willing not only to break from Labour but can be won to a socialist alternative. Trying to pre-empt this only undermines credibility that such an alternative is possible. But having utilised the mainstream platforms opened up to Labour party members, and consolidated links with forces outside, such a left would be in a better position from which to think about how a new party could be built.

I don't claim this is any earth-shattering innovation or insight. It is by and large what is already happening. The Labour left isn't the alpha and omega of what's needed, obviously. But dismissing its strategic relevance altogether is to be blind to the roots of Labourism in popular consciousness. The fact that someone like Ken Loach - in the Spirit of '45 - is effectively looking to rehabilitate a version of classic old Labourism shows that.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Let me try being clearer and perfectly honest

1) I think we need vehicle capable of giving electoral expression to anti austerity politics
2) At the same time, the overriding imperative at the next General Election will be to kick out the Tories and LDs - Labour will be the chief beneficiary
3) As yet Labour's policy stance is unformed, what little there is seems contradictory or inadequate, but is being contested from inside and outside the party and the wider labour movement.
4) The task is therefore to maximise pressure inside and outside on the Labour leadership and build confidence in and around the idea of resistance to austerity
5) The process of doing that ought to see what remains of the Labour left look outward and work around common aims with forces outside the party (building an anti-austerity bloc), whilst also maintaining pressure on, and exposing the inadequacy of, official Labour policy.
6) Pressuring the leaderships of the affiliated unions to demand influence in return for funding

What happens if, as is quite possible, the above fails to have achieved sufficient results? Well, then that will be the stage to reassess whether Labour has become so toxic that *tens, hundreds of thousands* are willing not only to break from Labour but can be won to a socialist alternative. Trying to pre-empt this only undermines credibility that such an alternative is possible. But having utilised the mainstream platforms opened up to Labour party members, and consolidated links with forces outside, such a left would be in a better position from which to think about how a new party could be built.

I don't claim this is any earth-shattering innovation or insight. It is by and large what is already happening. The Labour left isn't the alpha and omega of what's needed, obviously. But dismissing its strategic relevance altogether is to be blind to the roots of Labourism in popular consciousness. The fact that someone like Ken Loach - in the Spirit of '45 - is effectively looking to rehabilitate a version of classic old Labourism shows that.[/quote]

Is Loach trying to do that within and through the Labour Party?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[butchersapron]

So where is the strategy for 4 and 5? You don't really consider stating what you ideally want to happen to be a strategy do you? Where is the strategy to achieve those idea aims? You must be able to outline i would have thought?

(Also, in passing: Loach is someone unable to find distribution in the UK for his films, who exactly is he a tribune for?)

 

[sihhi]

Louis MacNeice

This what Red Pepper think - that Ken Loach is trying to bring up something that doesn't exist now,

But the clue is in the title. Ken Loach has made a film about the spirit of 1945, not the institutions that were established or Labour’s shortcomings. It is the spirit among the people, the certainty that a better world was within their grasp, that Ken Loach wishes to record and to celebrate, in the hope that some of it will rub off.

articul8 thinks the optimism is already there are and voting for Labour so what needs doing is shifting the manifesto left.

 

[articul8]

a) Red Pepper, thought it has a coherent overall orientation, doesn't do groupthink. That is the view of the reviewer.
b) where does anyone say anything about optimism today? It's precisely the contrast between the ambitions of the 45 government, under mass w/c pressure, that contrasts so strongly with the abject poverty of the present Labour leadership.

In terms of contesting the "no money left" narrative we need to start:
1) building pressure around popular policies that don't need a big cash outlay or are even revenue positive - like scrapping Trident, eliminating subsidy for low pay, proper rent controls, or bringing back the rail franchises back in house and progressively restoring rail under public ownership, or utilising the existing stake in publically owned banks
2) continue pressure/exposure of corporate tax evasion, tax havens, introducing a FTT etc.

 

[butchersapron]

Stop saying pressure over and over and outline the strategy.

 

[sihhi]

scrapping Trident

Why did the leftist government of 1945 start <Trident>?

If the Spirit of '45 represents deep immovable Labourism what good is it for your strategy against <Trident>?

 

[articul8]

Hold on a minute, I'm not saying "let's do '45 all over again" - part of the problem of that generation is the Labourist assumptions I want to move beyond - I'm just saying that the idea of a radical Labour government is part and parcel of our present political consciousness so much that even opponents of Labour invoke it. I'm not saying that the assumptions of Labourism are "immovable" I'm saying that can't just be ignored out of existence.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Hold on a minute, I'm not saying "let's do '45 all over again" - part of the problem of that generation is the Labourist assumptions I want to move beyond - I'm just saying that the idea of a radical Labour government is part and parcel of our present political consciousness so much that even opponents of Labour invoke it. I'm not saying that the assumptions of Labourism are "immovable" I'm saying that can't just be ignored out of existence.

But is Loach invoking it as part of mobilising the Labour left to do something with the Labour Party, or for them to take up arms as part of much broader forces inspite of (and if needs be against) the Lbour Party?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[sihhi]

Hold on a minute, I'm not saying "let's do '45 all over again" - part of the problem of that generation is the Labourist assumptions I want to move beyond - I'm just saying that the idea of a radical Labour government is part and parcel of our present political consciousness so much that even opponents of Labour invoke it. I'm not saying that the assumptions of Labourism are "immovable" I'm saying that can't just be ignored out of existence.

You want to move beyond Labourism by doing Labourism in the political sphere.

Explain:

4) The task is therefore to maximise pressure inside and outside on the Labour leadership and build confidence in and around the idea of resistance to austerity
5) The process of doing that ought to see what remains of the Labour left look outward and work around common aims with forces outside the party (building an anti-austerity bloc), whilst also maintaining pressure on, and exposing the inadequacy of, official Labour policy.

Abbott is very anti-austerity wants a return to fiscal spending, was saying Kinnock would have saved Britain not ruined it like Thatcher. Do you not think "the Abbott left" (including David Lammy, Emily Thornberry, Katy Clark, Renewal etc) will be all over this anti-austerity bloc? Within this bloc, they will work to make the bloc a secondary external wing or a subs bench for the Labour party, whose Labourism we both oppose.

 

[butchersapron]

So where is the strategy for 4 and 5? You don't really consider stating what you ideally want to happen to be a strategy do you? Where is the strategy to achieve those idea aims? You must be able to outline i would have thought?

Stop saying pressure over and over and outline the strategy.

Any chance of doing this articul8?