Inside, against and beyond the Labour Party: Thoughts for the Left post-GE

[treelover]

The time line given in their background statement is hilarious - Leninism fails in 2013, give anarchism/autonomism/non hierarchical direct action a go for two years but then realise it doesn't work and Corbyn is the answer...

Presentation of Organisational Principles – Labour Transformed

I accept that as far as the conclusion of the 2020 conference but if the right are successful in regaining control of the party then, there should be wholesale defections in order to a) starve the party of money b) make the point forcefully that Corbyn was the solution, not the problem and c) concentrate on building a revolutionary socialist front to carry forward the struggle. That front already has a skeleton in peoples’ assemblies, stop the war groups, grassroots initiatives such as fans for foodbanks, trades councils etc. perhaps some trade unions, independent and socialist media allies and maybe even some Labour MPs.

This perspective is well articulated here by a politician this site quite rightly promoted, once upon a time.

Chris Williamson makes the case for a real grassroots movement - Labour Heartlands

People like Chris and others who have already been expelled (Marc Wadsworth and myself for example) would welcome a broad front that learns from south america struggles and particularly from France where a coalition of the the yellow vests, the trade unions, LFI and the Communist Party have eclipsed social democracy and the totally discredited French Socialist Party.

Things are finely balanced but if Labour goes the way of PASOK, the SPD and others, comrades would be well advised to get into the lifeboats before the ship goes down.

had to post this, from comments on Skwawkbox, Chris Williamson's as inspiration, delusional, does look like a lot of the older cranks wom't be renewing membership.

 

[LDC]

Related to 'getting rooted' and the hard work that often entails here's a short video from some Angry Workers...

Who Are The Angry Workers?

Who Are The AngryWorkers?

en.labournet.tv

 

[treelover]

Labour cannot solve an organisational problem with a political solution - LabourList

We are all looking closely at the candidates coming forward to be the next Labour leader. A lot…

labourlist.org

Similar ideas to many on here, not hearing much about this from the leadership candidates.

 

[redsquirrel]

Not really sure where to put this post - it could go on any number of threads including the one on Identity Politics thread, the one on Mason, or many others.

But just reading Ellen Meiksins Wood's Retreat From Class and despite it being 30 years old it is amazing how relevant to todays world it is.

A political force can be constituted and organized on the ideological and political planes, constructed out of various ‘popular’ elements which can be bound together and motivated by purely ideological and political means, irrespective of the class connections or oppositions among them.

Why should socialists be more obsessed with the ideological trimmings of Thatcherism – its so-called ‘authoritarian populism’ – than with its real practice in prosecuting the class war against labour?

The statement below summarises the politics of Mason and fellow travellers brilliantly

the struggle for power has increasingly meant electoral contests; and though the working class has been large and even preponderant, the ‘people’ or ‘masses’ has ceased to mean primarily an alliance of exploited classes, notably workers and peasants. Electoral strength has become the principal criterion of alliance, with little concern for whether the constituents of the ‘popular’ alliance can have as their objective the abolition of classes or even, more specifically, the abolition of capitalist exploitation, and whether they possess the strategic social power to achieve these objectives. The implications have been far from revolutionary and far more conducive to displacing class struggle and the working class altogether from the centre of Marxism.

And it emphasis why it is crucial that class has to be put at the centre of politics

The particular importance for Marxism of the working class in capitalist society is that this is the only class whose own class interests require, and whose own conditions make possible, the abolition of class itself

Brilliant writer

 

[redsquirrel]

Another relevant quote

Instead, the process is coloured by the immediate needs of political strategy and the attainment of political office. So, for example, Marxist theory seems no longer designed to enhance working-class unity by dispelling the capitalist mystifications that stand in its way. Instead, as we shall see in what follows, these mystifications have in effect been incorporated into the post-Marxist theory of class, which is now largely devoted not to illuminating the process of class formation or the path of class struggle, but rather to establishing a ground for alliances within and between classes as they are here and now, for the purpose of attaining political power, or, more precisely, public office

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Some people have no shame.....

This Land

A GUARDIAN, NEW STATESMAN AND SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A whodunnit political page-turner' Melissa Benn, New Statesman 'The best political book I have read for a long while' Rod Liddle, The Spectator From the No.1 bestselling author of The Establishment, an urgent analysis of where the...

www.penguin.co.uk

 

[Proper Tidy]

Probably had to rewrite the end. Tbf though I do think history - and I mean five years time or so - will be a lot kinder on corbyn than the current post defeat gloom and recriminations. Maintain that labour 15-19 a highly successful opposition

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Probably had to rewrite the end. Tbf though I do think history - and I mean five years time or so - will be a lot kinder on corbyn than the current post defeat gloom and recriminations. Maintain that labour 15-19 a highly successful opposition

Having acted as a student union style cheerleader for Corbyn, then abandoned him, then come back to ‘the truth’. All the while getting a gig at the guardian for his faux radical scribblings. You’d think he’d keep his trap shut and do some reading and thinking. But no. He publishes a book on what went wrong (whilst absolving himself and his Novara chums from any blame no doubt). He’s a massive wanker

 

[Proper Tidy]

The left is fucked



Btw I'm only an affiliated supporter, should I be getting this shit, I've had emails from every candidate for leader and dep leader and now this and a letter from long bailey