BBC - Owen Jones

[Nigel Irritable]

When John MC had his leadership election rally it was packed with young people, etc...

This would be an election rally for a leadership campaign which never got to first base because even the Campaign Group's remaining MPs wouldn't all nominate him?

Presumably this alleged packed crowd of young people have all streamed into the LRC as a result and the LRC has since gone beyond a group which can mobilise a couple of hundred people? Or perhaps, none of that happened and the LRC is still an organisation of the size and significance of the AWL.

 

[articul8]

So you're "tiny, politically marginal" group has importance because...? No single group on the UK left has a legitimate claim to being important and relevant. How many council seats does the SP currently hold? I don't say this with any sense of triumphalism. Our class is facing the harshest attack for a generation - sectarian point-scoring from a position of abject failure doesn't help anyone one iota.

 

[dynamicbaddog]

This would be an election rally for a leadership campaign which never got to first base because even the Campaign Group's remaining MPs wouldn't all nominate him?

Presumably this alleged packed crowd of young people have all streamed into the LRC as a result and the LRC has since gone beyond a group which can mobilise a couple of hundred people? Or perhaps, none of that happened and the LRC is still an organisation of the size and significance of the AWL.

actually we have well over a thousand members at the moment, and we're growing. As well as the new youth wing, there are new branches starting up, several national unions and branches affiliated to us and we now have Briefing as our official journal.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

So you're "tiny, politically marginal" group has importance because...?

Did you read the post you are responding to at all? I made no claims for the importance of the Socialist Party at all.

The Socialist Party is one of only two reasonably sizeable clusters of socialist activists in Britain. It has some limited influence in the trade union movement. It is in a position to initiate quite a number of local campaigns in various parts of the country. That's about the biggest claim I'd make for it's importance in terms of size and social weight if really pushed, ie not a lot. As it happens, I'm not in the English and Welsh Socialist Party, I'm in the Irish Socialist Party. Which has an MEP and a couple of members of parliament and a few councillors. Not that having a few public representatives make us particularly politically significant. We're still a small, marginal, activist group.

No single group on the UK left has a legitimate claim to being important and relevant.

There are, as people used to point out repeatedly to Cockneyrebel when he tried out the same line of argument, degrees of irrelevance, degrees of unimportance and degrees of capacity to do anything useful. You may recall that particular gambit. The SWP and Socialist Party are small and irrelevant (true), his group of 30 was small and irrelevant (true), therefore there was no distinction to be made. It was stupid when he was trying it on and it's just as stupid when you do so.

The LRC can turn out about as many activists as the AWL. And what it does with those activists is not a whole fucking lot. It has no sensible or even slightly believable strategy to make itself politically relevant.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

actually we have well over a thousand members at the moment, and we're growing. As well as the new youth wing, there are new branches starting up, several national unions and branches affiliated to us and we now have Briefing as our official journal.

You are a clown.

The LRC has a "thousand members" in the same way that the CPB has a "thousand members". And it has various affiliations in the same way that UAF or Defend Council Housing has various affiliates. That is, they have them on paper. In actual practice, the LRC can't produce more than a couple of hundred people, just like the CPB. Or are you going to claim that there are a thousand LRC activists now, just to give everyone a good laugh?

As for having Briefing as your official journal, why on Earth do you think that's something to boast about? Labour Briefing is a deathly dull publication put out by jaundiced pensioners and read by nobody.

 

[articul8]

And although you've admitted your marginal and irrelevant status, you've not made any attempt to account for the fact you have lost what limited electoral gains you managed to make.

Small and going backwards. Not exactly a strong basis for denouncing other groups?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

And although you've admitted your marginal and irrelevant status, you've not made any attempt to account for the fact you have lost what limited electoral gains you managed to make.

Small and going backwards. Not exactly a strong basis for denouncing other groups?

The Socialist Party has lost a few council seats, sure. It's also larger now than it has been in fifteen years and has more influence in the unions than it has ever had previously (the latter, by the way, is at least as much due to the hollowing out of the union movement as anything else). I'm still not making any huge claims for the SP's strength and significance, but I'd rather be in its position now than in its position a few years ago when it had six council seats or whatever.

You really are pulling a cockneyrebel here, almost word for word. Yes, the SP is small and irrelevant to the politics of Britain. But it is substantially bigger and more relevant than the LRC, and it actually does some things that, on a small scale, matter, unlike our friends in the LRC. Where's your positive case for the LRC? Why does its continued existence make a blind bit of difference to anything? The core issue here isn't that the LRC is small and irrelevant - which it is - but that their strategy is bonkers. People of radical inclinations simply don't join the Labour Party, so there is no audience for them.

 

[JHE]

The sad descent of Trottery...

From: We are the world party of proletarian socialist revolution! Comrades, come rally!
To: We are small, powerless and irrelevant, but you are even smaller, even more powerless and even more irrelevant, so ner!

 

[William of Walworth]

The sad descent of Trottery...

From: We are the world party of proletarian socialist revolution! Comrades, come rally!
To: We are small, powerless and irrelevant, but you are even smaller, even more powerless and even more irrelevant, so neh!

I hate to at this, but and ( )

 

[imposs1904]

There's no such thing as a good assistant to a Blairite MP. Whether he's personally pleasant or not is about as relevant as whether or not a Tory is kind to animals.

Is that what he's doing nowadays? I had no idea. I guess that explains why his old blog had restricted viewing last time I tried to look at it.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The sad descent of Trottery...

From: We are the world party of proletarian socialist revolution! Comrades, come rally!
To: We are small, powerless and irrelevant, but you are even smaller, even more powerless and even more irrelevant, so ner!

One of the bigger flaws in the Trotskyist tradition has been the tendency of small groups to belt out inappropriate bombast of a sort that would be a little silly coming from much bigger organisations. That said, Trotskyism is the dominant strand by far of what's left of the British left. It's just that being the dominant strand of the British left isn't all that impressive an accomplishment, given that the Stalinists imploded, the left social democrats disappeared and the anarchists have always been entirely irrelevant.

I don't think that there's any point in sugaring the pill. The left in Britain is very small and very politically marginal.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Is that what he's doing nowadays? I had no idea. I guess that explains why his old blog had restricted viewing last time I tried to look at it.

I think he had one or two less than flattering comments about the guy who is now his boss on it!

 

[Roadkill]

The left in Britain is very small and very politically marginal.

It is. It might be a bit less so if it were slightly less hung up on class hate and ideological purity and spent a bit less time and effort sneering at people who, whilst they might not be perfect, at least have their hearts in roughly the right place. Such as Owen Jones, for instance.

Burying the festering corpse of Trostskyism ('ism,' not 'ists'!) and developing a body of theory that's not re-fighting the battles of the 1930s might be an idea too.

 

[treelover]

'left social democrats disappeared and the anarchists have always been entirely irrelevant.'


Thats a rather big statement, Boycott Workfare are obviously influenced by libertarian/anarchist ideas and they are very successful...

 

[audiotech]

It is. It might be a bit less so if it were slightly less hung up on class hate and ideological purity and spent a bit less time and effort sneering at people who, whilst they might not be perfect, at least have their hearts in roughly the right place. Such as Owen Jones, for instance.

Burying the festering corpse of Trostskyism ('ism,' not 'ists'!) and developing a body of theory that's not re-fighting the battles of the 1930s might be an idea too.

Austerity in the 30's, austerity now. Do we ignore it? Of course not. Nothing wrong with some good old class struggle. I'd prefer a classless society, as do the trots last time I looked. Who specifically on here is doing the sneering? Developing a body of theory involves studying past theories.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Thats a rather big statement

Yes, it's a big sweeping statement, which leaves out important nuances.

 

[articul8]

. Yes, the SP is small and irrelevant to the politics of Britain. But it is substantially bigger and more relevant than the LRC, and it actually does some things that, on a small scale, matter, unlike our friends in the LRC.

More relevant on what grounds? This hasn't been my experience locally, where the LRC - along with the trades council, SWP and a few Greens -have been central to the anti-cuts campaign. The TUSC people only came down to insist we stood against Labour in a by-election where the work hadn't been put in, and we haven't seen them since.

The core issue here isn't that the LRC is small and irrelevant - which it is - but that their strategy is bonkers. People of radical inclinations simply don't join the Labour Party, so there is no audience for them.

Your organisation's strategy is to repeat (ad infinitum or ad absurdam) the attempt to float the basis for a new workers party, usually on the basis of some new acronym, and despite repeated failures still repeat the same old failed formula in conditions even less likely to see a breakthrough.

I'd hope that the SP have a better sense of priorities than go in for these futile spates of sectarian oneupmanship.

 

[nino_savatte]

I'd hope that the SP have a better sense of priorities than go in for these futile spates of sectarian oneupmanship.

Hang on, isn't that what Labour did in Coventry? Rather than use all their efforts to fight the Tories, they instead attack a potential ally in the fight against cuts... or would the Coventry City LP rather side with the Tories and their programme for dismantling public services?

 

[articul8]

I'm certainly not going to defend that, and can't be held responsible for the actions of every Labour group up and down the country. I don't consider it any sort of victory that Dave lost his seat.

 

[butchersapron]

I certainly don't consider the actions of the party that i elected to join and now urge others to join and to vote for doing what they always do and will always do to be any responsibility of mine.

 

[nino_savatte]

Well, consider the Bradford West example. The following day, rather than use their energy to develop an identifiable alternative to the Tories, many Labour members (especially that Akehurst cunt) spent the next two days slagging off Galloway. There was a lesson to be learned there and Labour failed to learn it.

 

[butchersapron]

Well, consider the Bradford West example. The following day, rather than use their energy to develop an identifiable alternative to the Tories, many Labour members (especially that Akehurst cunt) spent the next two days slagging off Galloway. There was a lesson to be learned there and Labour failed to learn it.

Consider that articul8 himself wanted a labour victory there.

 

[nino_savatte]

Consider that articul8 himself wanted a labour victory there.

Now there's a surprise.

 

[articul8]

Consider that articul8 himself wanted a labour victory there.

I was fairly ambivalent about the outcome - Galloway didn't exactly transform Tower Hamlets and is unlikely to do much for Bradford

 

[Delroy Booth]

From my own experience, the LRC is an organisation that is quite small in number, and dominated by middle-aged men. What's more, they're brimming with dynamism compared to much of the Labour left I briefly got involved with, which felt moribund and decrepit at times. They may have more political influence than the SP, but didn't feel like it was a group on the up.

By comparison the SP branches I've come in contact with are much younger, less homogenous and less male dominated. They may be totally politcally marginalised, but the average SP branch meeting has more people, and more interesting discussion, than the typical labour party ward meeting. The problem they have tho, is keeping them involved, not attracting them in the first place. That's true of the SWP too, moreso infact, they have this revolving door where they sign up a few thousand freshers every year at red brick uni's, then they all leave and they sign up next year's freshers to replace them, ad infinitum.

Also, when I speak to ex Militant people who were in Labour, not all of which are currently in the SP btw, the consensus is that there's no audience at all for left wing idea's in the Labour party, that in many area's it's structures are hollow and decrepit, and that many of the attractive features that entryism once had simply aren't there any more. The Labour party isn't where the class is anymore, and joining Labour holds less appeal to sincere left-wingers than at any point in it's history.

It's also not a place you'd go to recruit people into a radical group. Thinking about some of the people who go to SP meetings, and anarchist meetings, that I've been too, most of the people there wouldn't really define themselves ideologically as either Trotskyites and Anarcho-syndicalists, and I have often thought that maybe a generation or two ago a lot of those people would've gravitated initially towards Labour party young socialists, and then perhaps become more radical later on. Today though, no-one with any nascent radical inclinations would think to join Labour, it seems totally inappropriate.

 

[butchersapron]

I was fairly ambivalent about the outcome - Galloway didn't exactly transform Tower Hamlets and is unlikely to do much for Bradford

Why must you constantly attempt to re-write history? You know damn well i can show you what you actually said.

 

[articul8]

I can't remember what I said - I was surprised that Galloway won. And not entirely delighted, that's true enough.

 

[articul8]

It's also not a place you'd go to recruit people into a radical group. Thinking about some of the people who go to SP meetings, and anarchist meetings, that I've been too, most of the people there wouldn't really define themselves ideologically as either Trotskyites and Anarcho-syndicalists, and I have often thought that maybe a generation or two ago a lot of those people would've gravitated initially towards Labour party young socialists, and then perhaps become more radical later on. Today though, no-one with any nascent radical inclinations would think to join Labour, it seems totally inappropriate.

Depends what you mean. I accept that at the moment there is no stampede to join Labour from young people or the wider class. That's manifestly true. But at the same time there is a) a desperation to get rid of the coalition parties and b) the belief that there should be someone putting a proper radical alternative to austerity on the table. In these circumstances it's entirely appropriate to direct demands towards the Labour party as a party which has historically claimed to exist to represent the interests of working people. And the more a clear pole of resistance develops within the Labour party the more people will look to it if not to the party as a whole.

I think the LRC has gained a new relevance in the wake of the crisis and the formation of the coalition - it has an energy and a relevance sadly lacking elsewhere in the party - and I accept that what there is now is pretty much a hollowed out shell.

 

[butchersapron]

I can't remember what I said - I was surprised that Galloway won. And not entirely delighted, that's true enough.

Perfect example of where your incoherence and habit of offering different logics and justification to different audiences gets you. I'm talking about your position before the election which was hostile, saying he opened the door to the edl, you then accused him of theft and fraud and so on, then continuing on to predict he would have no role to play in the final outcome. Afterwards you switched to being cautiously supportive.

If you can't even keep straight what your own positions were/are - and more importantly the logic that led to you taking them - then what do you think they look like to other observers? And this is why after each wrong position/logic (greens standing against BNP, AV, Galloway etc) you come back on here and try to re-write history (sometimes you even do i under a pseudonym in your mag).

 

[Delroy Booth]

I think the LRC has gained a new relevance in the wake of the crisis and the formation of the coalition - it has an energy and a relevance sadly lacking elsewhere in the party - and I accept that what there is now is pretty much a hollowed out shell.

This is where you've got your Labour goggles on. Only when compared to the rest of the Labour party could the LRC ever be described as energetic and relevant. I tell you now, when i was there they were the last two words on my mind.