How does the idea of 8+ more years of Conservative rule grab you? What does it mean for the left?

[butchersapron]

Maybe better Mps can make the system work better!

call their bluff - with fucking what? What are you going to to when they laugh in your face?

 

[articul8]

It's not just a case of better MPs - it's about realigning the party so that it resumes its claim to represent millions of working class people.
And then demonstrating why that claim entails rejecting "the system".

Well if you're right then they need exposing in the eyes of their members - so why not assume with faux-naivety they mean what they say, and press them to know what they plan to do?

 

[butchersapron]

And how are you going to realign the party? How are you going to 'patiently explain' how voting labour leads to the understanding of the necessity of overthrowing capitalism?

People know this, it effects the structural imperatives of the unions not a whit. They don't even say anything that cannot be/already is integrated with mainstream labour party neo-liberalism anyway. Do you actually want them to follow through on their social partnership with capital? Do you actually know what they say?

 

[butchersapron]

It's not just a case of better MPs...

Lol as fuck

 

[butchersapron]

(off out now btw)

 

[articul8]

And how are you going to realign the party? How are you going to 'patiently explain' how voting labour leads to the understanding of the necessity of overthrowing capitalism?

People know this, it effects the structural imperatives of the unions not a whit. They don't even say anything that cannot be/already is integrated with mainstream labour party neo-liberalism anyway. Do you actually want them to follow through on their social partnership with capital? Do you actually know what they say?

The TUC (or sections of it) might talk about social partnership, but I don't hear much of that coming from the likes of the RMT or PCS.

and don't misrepresent what I said - I didn't say voting Labour "leads to the understanding of the necessity of overthrowing capitalism" - patently it doesn't. I'm saying that for a party to remain true to its claim to represent the interests of working class people would mean it came into conflict with capital.

 

[coley]

The left is screwed, after labours capitulation all that is left is a collection of well meaning socialists and anarchcist nutters, we're doomed ah tell ya

 

[Libertad]

The left is screwed, after labours capitulation all that is left is a collection of well meaning socialists and anarchcist nutters, we're doomed ah tell ya

Who are you calling a 'nutter'?

 

[Random]

Well if you're right then they need exposing in the eyes of their members - so why not assume with faux-naivety they mean what they say, and press them to know what they plan to do?

You already know that they'll laugh in your face, though. So why not skip to the next section already? Plenty of people are there before you, mostly ex-Labour members and voters. For some reason you'd rather stay in the Labour party and try to "expose" the Labour aprty in the eyes of its remaining, die-hard supporters.

 

[trevhagl]

been listening to The Now's "Labour Party" written in 1978 and still frighteningly tru today

 

[articul8]

Skip to the next section? With who though? There aren't "plenty" of people in the general scheme of things. Even after the financial crisis, Iraq, and all the rest of it 8m people voted Labour. True some stayed at home and others voted for smaller parties - even the Lib Dems (few will be doing that again?) but still, the Labour party has a massive social weight that nothing else on the left can even begin to get close to at present, even if it's a base which is receding.

 

[butchersapron]

The people that you are building your inside/outside new 'party' with. Odd that they exist for you but not for other people.

 

[butchersapron]

Skip to the next section? With who though? There aren't "plenty" of people in the general scheme of things. Even after the financial crisis, Iraq, and all the rest of it 8m people voted Labour. True some stayed at home and others voted for smaller parties - even the Lib Dems (few will be doing that again?) but still, the Labour party has a massive social weight that nothing else on the left can even begin to get close to at present, even if it's a base which is receding.

And when you fail and effectively only make sure those people are stuck with voting labour? More 'serious work' to do the same thing all over again?

Frankly, you're insane - so is dynamicdog but at least he's at home in the insanity - you see clearly that you're talking out of your arse.

 

[butchersapron]

The idea that because something has a social weight you must join and support it is insulting. What else would you apply this crude logic to?

 

[Random]

Even after the financial crisis, Iraq, and all the rest of it 8m people voted Labour... the Labour party has a massive social weight that nothing else on the left can even begin to get close to at present, even if it's a base which is receding.

So you think it'l be easier to appeal to these people if you're inside the Labour Party? What if they're merely holding their nose and voting for the least worst party? Then you're diminishing your credibility.

 

[butchersapron]

Person a: I hate labour and what it represents
a8: join labour then.

Insanity, the same sort of political naivety that leads to the labour party running rings round the remnant of labour party left - the same sort of logic that leads to the lib-dems joining the coalition as the tories flak jacket and the same sort of logic that meant the AV vote was lost so humiliatingly.

 

[ska invita]

Which is exactly why the LP has spent time and effort making sure that entryism doesn't pay.

How so?

 

[butchersapron]

How so?

From one of the supporters of this sort of nonsense about changing labour from earlier in the thread:#

Even if the LRC did grow rapidly (I wouldn't discount the possibility altogether) there are next to no democratic structures to allow them to effectively challenge, let alone overthrow and replace, the leadership. The PLP, Victoria St, and local hierarchies will use their institutional power to wage all out war - keeping them out of candidate selection, policy development, national exec etc.

 

[ViolentPanda]

How so?

As I mentioned on another thread some time this last week, the party heirarchy, mostly from Kinnock's winning of the leadership-onward, slowly but surely eroded the scope of the power that the constituency parties, the trade unions and the NEC could exercise over policy and over party direction generally. This accelerated under Blair to neutering constituency parties into a "rubber-stamping" role whereby they showed approval of policy or otherwise find themselves being investigated by central office, repeated attempts to not only have placemen on the NEC, but to exert influence so that it comprised entirely of placemen, and the rendering of party conference from a foundry of policy-making to a talking shop to let the membership (such that remains) blow off steam while the leadership go their own merry way.

That, sir, is "how so".

 

[articul8]

Person a: I hate labour and what it represents
a8: join labour then.

But people don't ever only say "I hate Labour and what it represents" - they add "because they let all the Poles in" or "because they always put up tax and wreck the economy" or sometimes "now that it's just like all the rest and doesn't stand up for working people" etc.

The latter answer implies that Labour *wasn't* always like that (often a romantic picture of Old Labour but with a grain of truth in there too) and more importantly that Labour *shouldn't* be like that but should offer an alternative.

 

[butchersapron]

But people don't ever only say "I hate Labour and what it represents" - they add "because they let all the Poles in" or "because they always put up tax and wreck the economy" or sometimes "now that it's just like all the rest and doesn't stand up for working people" etc.

The latter answer implies that Labour *wasn't* always like that (often a romantic picture of Old Labour but with a grain of truth in there too) and more importantly that Labour *shouldn't* be like that but should offer an alternative.

And your reply is : join labour

 

[articul8]

So you think it'l be easier to appeal to these people if you're inside the Labour Party? What if they're merely holding their nose and voting for the least worst party?

That's exactly what they're doing, because the rules of the game leave Labour as the only default option. And they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future unless there is some structural earthquake. That's what makes Labour strategically central (though not exclusively so) to the future of the left.

 

[articul8]

And your reply is : join labour

My reply is "you're right" - I'm fighting to change Labour. But whatever you decide let's work together where we can agree and campaign for an alternative to what it (and the other parties) are doing.

 

[butchersapron]

My reply is "you're right" - I'm fighting to change Labour. But whatever you decide let's work together where we can agree and campaign for an alternative to what it (and the other parties) are doing.

You twat

Do you know what a hand-wringing liberal teacher clegg-a-like you appear with that? What the fuck does that platitude offer anyone?

 

[articul8]

I knew that would piss you right off

As much as you want to paint me as only interested in the Labour party and defending the position of "reclaiming" it I think the over-riding objective at the moment is industrial and community organising against the cuts. Obviously if I felt constrained to agree with Balls at every anti-cuts meeting that would be a problem. But since I reject his position as totally as everyone else it's not. The movement is definitely stronger locally for having LRC people involved in it, alongside Greens, SWP, TUSC and others.

So to suggest my position is just "join Labour" is a total caricature.

 

[coley]

My reply is "you're right" - I'm fighting to change Labour. But whatever you decide let's work together where we can agree and campaign for an alternative to what it (and the other parties) are doing.

And at what stage would you switch the life support off?

 

[ska invita]

As I mentioned on another thread some time this last week, the party heirarchy, mostly from Kinnock's winning of the leadership-onward, slowly but surely eroded the scope of the power that the constituency parties, the trade unions and the NEC could exercise over policy and over party direction generally. This accelerated under Blair to neutering constituency parties into a "rubber-stamping" role whereby they showed approval of policy or otherwise find themselves being investigated by central office, repeated attempts to not only have placemen on the NEC, but to exert influence so that it comprised entirely of placemen, and the rendering of party conference from a foundry of policy-making to a talking shop to let the membership (such that remains) blow off steam while the leadership go their own merry way.

That, sir, is "how so".

That's interesting. And then I guess you have policy coming from top down (oxbridge etc) think-tanks rather than from the grassroots. I imagine that the trade union leaders have more power than that if they really wanted to throw it about, despite what you say, but my impression is that the majority are ultimately on board with the direction new labour goes in, despite grumblings made predominantly for the sake of their members. Its all realpolitik, play the game and get what you can 'realism' at that top level.

I don't see anything wrong in principle with those who want to work to change the labour party - its no less a fantasy than any other counter political activity, and history tends to show that what seems impossible one minute becomes possible the next as circumstances change - but the structural problems of how the whole thing is set up seem like the biggest obstacle. No easy way around that.

 

[butchersapron]

I knew that would piss you right off

As much as you want to paint me as only interested in the Labour party and defending the position of "reclaiming" it I think the over-riding objective at the moment is industrial and community organising against the cuts. Obviously if I felt constrained to agree with Balls at every anti-cuts meeting that would be a problem. But since I reject his position as totally as everyone else it's not. The movement is definitely stronger locally for having LRC people involved in it, alongside Greens, SWP, TUSC and others.

So to suggest my position is just "join Labour" is a total caricature.

yes, at times you say join labour, at times you say smash labour, at times you say join labour to smash labour, at times you say reject labour to save labour, at times you say reject labour to smash labour.

And sometime you forget which head/face you're supposed to have on.

 

[articul8]

And at what stage would you switch the life support off?

I think it's more a question of giving them enough rope - the unions should independently decide a set of demands that each candidate would need to sign upto in order to get their support and cash. They can call the PLP's bluff - and if the MPs effective choose to break the link then it's clear for all to see. Patient is flatlining.

 

[butchersapron]

See - he wants to kill labour. By recognising the great social weight it carries and which necessitates keeping it alive.