TopCat
Putin fanboy
You're repeating yourself. But I also think you're jumping to a conclusion. The IWCA's definition of working class appears to be narrow. That is to say, it is concerned almost entirely with the white working class. In other words, it cannot claim to represent the entire working class anymore than the SWP can make that claim. Then there's its use of language. It tends to chuck the phrase "lumpen proletariat" around without any consideration (see the thread titled "Dealing with the renegades").
But it's really the fact that those people who claim to speak for the IWCA are as sectarian as those they position themselves against. It continues to bang on about immigration without actually challenging some of the widely held assumptions and myths. Then it claims not to be part of the Left, then in another article it will claim that it is on the Left. Some consistency would be nice.
I happen to think the IWCA has done some good work but it also alienates a large number of people - many of them working class. If it was successful in reaching out to Britain's working class, it wouldn't be limited to the Blackbird Leys Estate as it currently is.
One thing that really pisses me off is this smug, superior attitude of the IWCA towards those that don't agree with them on every issue. In that regard, it is little different to the RCP or even the RCG, which initially helped to sponsor it.
I never got the impression that the IWCA only concerns itself with the white working class. From reading their literature, speaking to their members and supporters I always got the impression that they were solely concerned with working class interests without consideration to the wants and needs of the middle classes. I can’t recollect them asserting that they claim to represent the entire working class either. It’s a no brainer that one, huge numbers of the working class don’t have any time for politics let alone that of progressive or non progressive organisations.
The use of the term “Lumpen proletariat” being used “without consideration”? Consideration to who or what? I have argued enough to members of the IWCA that their approach and attitude to anti-social drug taking rioting members of the working class IE the Lumpen is too alienating and ignores a righteous tradition of dissent that the UK has been rather good at for hundreds of years (the mob, not getting stoned a lot).
I don’t know what point you are trying to make, do you support the rioters of 2 years ago and Brixton 1981/85 etc or not?
As for the IWCA being sectarian, I can see how you might view their constant assessment of the so called revolutionary left and the scorn they pour forth as being sectarian but given the utter shite that makes up most of the left in the UK it’s hardly a surprise and needs to be done, like kicking a ball into a empty net, kick it hard, top corner man!
I have known the IWCA to work with many different types, anarchists, ex anarchists, republicans, all sorts. Your assertion and dismissal does not hold water. the IWCA “banging on about immigration”, that’s not how I read their politics. I don’t think they ever did. They and I question who benefits from open borders, I don’t see it being in the interests of any one bar capital to have mass immigration to serve the needs of ever bigger profits and lower costs supplied by insecure cheap labour, who else benefits?
This does not mean supporting immigration controls or opposing immigration, just questioning who benefits? It certainly is not the working class of the UK, nor the working class of other countries.
My uncle who hardly gets any more work as a plumber (since the restrictions of Poles working in the UK ended) does not benefit. Nor would I assert the Poles in Poland who can’t get their pipes fixed. Nor the influx of people from the Indian sub-continent who got encouraged to go and work in Poland as bus drivers to replace the ones who all came to the UK, let alone the now homeless Poles who have no work in the UK and no recourse to public funds, begging and living hand to mouth.
Hey as long as middle class cunts with money can smugly assert that they get a better service for less when they employ tradespeople and the profits of cunts like Pimlico Plumbers go up as they can resist demands for pay increases from their workforce all is well.
Capital and the bosses all love having workers insecure, it keeps costs down as people are alienated and find it hard to organise against their exploiters. They have been doing it for hundreds of years. The knock on effects of people hating newcomers stretching already thin resources sits well with capital as well. It’s a win win for them.
PS. Did I mention the SWP are all cunts?