The Slow Fix - IWCA on the rise of UKIP and decline of the left...

[Pickman's model]

It's a shame that this thread so quickly became dominated by a sled towards the "the Left are shit" "the IWCA are shitter".

Ideally it could stay on task and look at the IWCAs analysis of UKIP etc.

However, I would like to hear opinions from all sides about whether the IWCA has failed, if it has why? If not why not? And to do this with minimal reference to the Left. I'd rather it wasn't on this particular thread but...

of course the iwca experiment hasn't met with the success its proponents would have hoped: but nonetheless i'd far rather have had them try than to fall prey to the miserablism which seems to pervade so much of the 'traditional' left. i've always had a lot of time for red action and an interest in the iwca, and even where they've suffered defeat i think the campaigns they've run have been well worth it: at least they've walked the walk which so few of their critics have.

 

[framed]

No framed, I'm judging them by their record. Their ever quieter record as they recede into distant memory.

They "tested the ground" in a lot more than "one or two areas". They set up branches (or "pilot schemes") in quite a lot of places, pretty much all of which followed the same pattern. Intensive local work in one small area producing a decent council election result. And then, over a period, they weren't able to expand to neighbouring areas and weren't able to involve enough people in the original area to continue things as the initial activists got tired. So they disappeared. There were a few exceptions, where they never really got going in the first place for long, or, in the case of Oxford where they had more of an impact and consequently the whole process took a bit longer to play out. And resulted in a running club rather than complete disappearance.

I maybe wrong here, but IIRC, the 'pilot schemes' were set up in, at most, 3 or 4 areas so maybe not one or two but not far off it... so not 'a lot more' Nigel. My knowledge of the 'pilot shemes' is patchy, because I wasn't involved in the IWCA. Islington, Oxford, Glasgow and the West Midlands, I think, may have been the four 'pilot scheme' areas. Islington appeared to achieve quite a lot on the ground in terms of tenants and residents group activity and formed the backbone of the campaign for an IWCA London Mayoral bid. Glasgow was based in one area of the city's southside and saw the IWCA lead some very successful community campaigns. as well as a very good showing at the local elections. The West Midlands campaign was mainly around the Newtown area and, despite initial success, was conducted under a certain amount of threat at all times from gangsters who saw the area as their personal fiefdom and the IWCA as a threat to them. Oxford's Blackbird Leys is where the greatest success came for the IWCA and imho it still serves as a good example of what might be achieved in a working class community that asserts itself and takes control of, and makes good use of, the resources around it.

At least that's how it looks from the outside. The IWCA don't like to talk about how it looked from the inside, because that would undercut their preferred approach of sneering at everyone else, presenting their own approach as the way forward and never providing any possibly uncomfortable evaluations of how their approach has actually worked out.

I think if you read the IWCA website, particularly going back over Stuart Craft's 'councilor's diary' there is very much of the 'inside' exposed for all to see. Craft's own growing frustration and disillusionment as a local councilor is clearly mapped out. There are issues there with regard to what 'the left' can achieve at council level that merit political discussion on a site like this and where the experiences of others would be useful.

Do I think setting up an Athletics Club is a panacea for anything? Do I fuck. But it's Stuart's (and the local IWCA's) choice what they do. After years of graft on the council and in the local area I have nothing but respect for him. It's the same respect that I have for someone like Keith Baldessarra, the SSP councilor in Glasgow, the real grafter behind the scenes who looked for nothing for himself out of it.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I maybe wrong here, but IIRC, the 'pilot schemes' were set up in, at most, 3 or 4 areas so maybe not one or two but not far off it... so not 'a lot more' Nigel. My knowledge of the 'pilot shemes' is patchy, because I wasn't involved in the IWCA. Islington, Oxford, Glasgow and the West Midlands, I think, may have been the four 'pilot scheme' areas.

I'm fairly certain that there were more than four attempts to get a local IWCA branch going. Hackney was one, for instance. I note that you don't really say anything about those four that contradicts my general account of their trajectory. Initial success based on hard graft, no expansion beyond the small area, eventual burn out because even locally they couldn't replace those who eventually got tired out.

I think if you read the IWCA website, particularly going back over Stuart Craft's 'councilor's diary' there is very much of the 'inside' exposed for all to see. Craft's own growing frustration and disillusionment as a local councilor is clearly mapped out.

Yes that's quite interesting, but it's not what I'm talking about, which is an account of the IWCA's rise and decline, in a number of particular local areas and cumulatively, with an accompanying analysis of the things that work and the problems they couldn't overcome. That would actually be useful in a way that sneering at everyone else and proposing their same original ideas, unmodified by their actual experiences, a decade and a half on is not.

Do I think setting up an Athletics Club is a panacea for anything? Do I fuck. But it's Stuart's (and the local IWCA's) choice what they do. After years of graft on the council and in the local area I have nothing but respect for him.

It's not about respect or people's personal record or the amount of graft anyone does. I'm sure Stuart Craft is an admirable man. But none of us can learn anything about political strategy from the fact that he's an admirable man. Just as we can't learn anything from the unreflective boasting the IWCA always prefers to detailed accounts of what went wrong (as well as what went right). When you read the IWCA's comments on "the left" and the way in which they counterpose their ideas and approach to that of "the left", you would never think for a second that they spent 15 years trying to implement that approach and are now much weaker than when they started, would you?

Believe it or not, I am not motivated by some root and branch hostility to the IWCA when I say that. I do actually think that the IWCA have at various times said interesting things, and I think that if they were capable of more in the way of self-reflection they would likely have interesting things to say about the limits they encountered to their approach and possible ways to overcome those limits.

 

[chilango]

I'm fairly certain that there were more than four attempts to get a local IWCA branch going. Hackney was one, for instance.

I know that there were.

...but you could, perhaps, look at the reasons why the attempts to launch the IWCA outside the 3 or 4 named areas failed to even get to "pilot" stage and see if these same factors would later play a role in the fading of the pilot areas.

I suspect that there are two separate, but related factors to discuss.

One I would guess is uncontroversial. Logistics. A lack of resources, money, manpower etc. meaning that a small number of people bore the brunt of the project. Unsustainably.

The second (and how it relates to the first) is more open to contestation, and is what hasn't really been fully explored yet. Politics. Was the IWCAs analysis correct? Was its strategy to act upon this analysis correct? What were the political strengths and weaknesses of the IWCA approach.

I once ventured that perhaps the IWCA was the right idea, 20 years too late. Joe Reilly countered that perhaps the IWCA was the right idea 20 years too early!

For me, It boils down to what exactly is a "w/c community" and, right now, both the ideas of "working class" ness and "community" are pretty shattered and need re-composing/rebuilding/reaffirming.

 

[Citizen66]

Does the perceived lack of 'achievement' of the IWCA mean that their political analysis is wrong?

They don't want to engage in that point mate.

If the IWCA aren't successful, then how can their analysis be right?

How successful was Trotsky, btw? Funny how the IWCA can be ignored due to lack of success whilst bowing down to some cunt with an icepick sticking out of his eye.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I know that there were.

...but you could, perhaps, look at the reasons why the attempts to launch the IWCA outside the 3 or 4 named areas failed to even get to "pilot" stage and see if these same factors would later play a role in the fading of the pilot areas.

I suspect that there are two separate, but related factors to discuss.

One I would guess is uncontroversial. Logistics. A lack of resources, money, manpower etc. meaning that a small number of people bore the brunt of the project. Unsustainably.

[...]

For me, It boils down to what exactly is a "w/c community" and, right now, both the ideas of "working class" ness and "community" are pretty shattered and need re-composing/rebuilding/reaffirming.

These are both important points.

Beyond, the limited resources they started out with, there's also the issue of recruitment. Both in terms of an inability to recruit people in the next ward over, to spread the reach of the approach, and, distinctly but just as importantly, an inability to recruit enough people locally into involvement in the actual work to replace the people who fall away. Local activism is very hard work and it gathers votes much more easily than active involvement in a particular campaign and in turn active involvement in a particular campaign much more easily than active involvement in ongoing political organisation.

To some extent, I tend to suspect that this is what the constant polemical engagement with a left that should really by the logic of the IWCA's own arguments have been too irrelevant to waste such energy on was partially about. Trying to pick up recruits and money from disillusioned sections of the existing left activist base. Which reflected an inability to do that organically in the "working class communities" (in quotes to step around your second point for a moment) they were working in. There is a big difference between people welcoming a "service" that you are providing and convincing them to step forward to provide it themselves and then go further and join you in doing more stuff.

 

[framed]

I'm fairly certain that there were more than four attempts to get a local IWCA branch going. Hackney was one, for instance. I note that you don't really say anything about those four that contradicts my general account of their trajectory. Initial success based on hard graft, no expansion beyond the small area, eventual burn out because even locally they couldn't replace those who eventually got tired out.

Setting up an IWCA branch is not the same as a 'pilot scheme'. The pilot schemes were those areas that were assessed as being key areas for the IWCA to work in, where there was quality as well as quantity at a local branch level. The pilot schemes applied to a limited number of branches not to all branches.

Yes that's quite interesting, but it's not what I'm talking about, which is an account of the IWCA's rise and decline, in a number of particular local areas and cumulatively, with an accompanying analysis of the things that work and the problems they couldn't overcome. That would actually be useful in a way that sneering at everyone else and proposing their same original ideas, unmodified by their actual experiences, a decade and a half on is not.

I don't see the IWCA in terms of rise and decline. It was a political experiment that is worthy of analysis and further discussion. I haven't found anyone from the IWCA that believes the organisation or its work to have been an unlimited success or an abject failure. You interpret the IWCA analysis as 'sneering' at the rest of the left, I'd say it's a lot less sneering than many of the things that were put out in the name of Militant when I was a member of it back in the day... Disdainful and rightly sceptical of the left is how I would put it. That disdain is probably more forcefully put by the Red Action element within the IWCA based on their own past experience of the left and the inexplicable sectarianism of much of the left towards AFA.

It's not about respect or people's personal record or the amount of graft anyone does. I'm sure Stuart Craft is an admirable man. But none of us can learn anything about political strategy from the fact that he's an admirable man. Just as we can't learn anything from the unreflective boasting the IWCA always prefers to detailed accounts of what went wrong (as well as what went right). When you read the IWCA's comments on "the left" and the way in which they counterpose their ideas and approach to that of "the left", you would never think for a second that they spent 15 years trying to implement that approach and are now much weaker than when they started, would you?

Believe it or not, I am not motivated by some root and branch hostility to the IWCA when I say that. I do actually think that the IWCA have at various times said interesting things, and I think that if they were capable of more in the way of self-reflection they would likely have interesting things to say about the limits they encountered to their approach and possible ways to overcome those limits.

In general, I think the analysis is still sound. That the organisation didn't match up to the ambitions of the political analysis is not proof that the analysis is itself flawed. Of course there should be reflection within all political organisations, but initially much of that reflection will, for understandable reasons, be internal. The point about 'honourable men' is not the issue, but it does reflect an approach that is based not upon professional revolutionaries assuming positions on behalf of the class, but in genuine representatives of the working class establishing themselves based on hard work and good example, rather than the patronage of the party. Of the class, for the class, by the class...

 

[TopCat]

The biggest problem for the IWCA is/was the name. Given it's ambitions, something a bit more catchy would have certainly assisted in gaining a better/bigger profile.

 

[DaveCinzano]

The biggest problem for the IWCA is/was the name. Given it's ambitions, something a bit more catchy would have certainly assisted in gaining a better/bigger profile.

This is a job for...

THE CREATIVES!

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Setting up an IWCA branch is not the same as a 'pilot scheme'.

Which is why I pointed out that in lots of places they never even got to the point of intensive local work which could lead to a good local elections result in the first place.

I don't see the IWCA in terms of rise and decline. It was a political experiment that is worthy of analysis and further discussion.

Those two things are not contradictory. In fact, if you can't see the pattern of repeated local rise always followed by eventual local decline then you probably aren't going to have much of interest to say in terms of analysing their experience. It's a simple matter of fact that all these IWCA branches were set up. Some disappeared relatively quietly, some instead progressed to be "pilot schemes". Those pilot schemes generally met with some initial very localised success, and then they gradually started to decline to. And in all but the partial exception of Oxford, then disappeared. This is a pattern of rise and decline. The question is what caused that pattern.

You interpret the IWCA analysis as 'sneering' at the rest of the left, I'd say it's a lot less sneering than many of the things that were put out in the name of Militant when I was a member of it back in the day...

I interpret it as sneering because I have eyes in my head and am capable of reading. And yes, you are certainly right that Militant was also prone to sneering at the rest of the left. It had rather more to be arrogant about, in terms of track record, but it was still unseemly, unnecessary and quite out of proportion to Militant's scale and importance in the greater scheme of things.

That the organisation didn't match up to the ambitions of the political analysis is not proof that the analysis is itself flawed.

It proves that the approach is limited if you don't simply locate the repeated (universal) failures in some organisational failing or other. And if the IWCA really thought that all that went wrong was they were incompetent in some way it would be relatively easy to say so.

Of course there should be reflection within all political organisations, but initially much of that reflection will, for understandable reasons, be internal

You see, that sort of flew at least a little bit a few years ago when eventually a few IWCA supporters, if you backed them into a bit of a corner and really forced the issue, started muttering things like that. It doesn't really now. There isn't enough of an IWCA left for internal discussion about strategy to be meaningful. Particularly not when such internal discussion, if it's happening, is accompanied by the same rhetoric of a decade and a half ago externally, as if there had never been an IWCA. It's long past time for them to attempt to sum up their experience, explain what went right, what went wrong, what they simply couldn't surmount, and draw some tentative conclusions from that rather than haranguing the rest of us about how they already have the answers and had them all along. They've had their attempts to set up pilot schemes and their actual pilot schemes and those schemes are finished now with no immediate prospect of more. What did they learn?

I note in advance that, unfortunately, if IWCA people respond to this at all it will almost certainly be to sneer at the rest of the left and/or to demand to know why I think they owe me answers.

The point about 'honourable men' is not the issue, but it does reflect an approach that is based not upon professional revolutionaries assuming positions on behalf of the class, but in genuine representatives of the working class establishing themselves based on hard work and good example, rather than the patronage of the party. Of the class, for the class, by the class...

Leave the boilerplate out, thanks. Exchanging that kind of set-piece ready made caricature of each others' arguments isn't going to result in anything but further exchanges of the same sort.

 

[where to]

The biggest problem for the IWCA is/was the name. Given it's ambitions, something a bit more catchy would have certainly assisted in gaining a better/bigger profile.

Militant was a great name.

Another factor that ties in here is persistence. Ukip is not a great name but they stuck around and now their moment has come. Someone maybe on another thread was talking about the no2eu project as a failure. If ukip had walked away after one brief campaign and election we would not be discussong them now. It takes years to break into wider consciousness, not to mention gain credibility.

 

[Delroy Booth]

One I would guess is uncontroversial. Logistics. A lack of resources, money, manpower etc. meaning that a small number of people bore the brunt of the project. Unsustainably.

The second (and how it relates to the first) is more open to contestation, and is what hasn't really been fully explored yet. Politics. Was the IWCAs analysis correct? Was its strategy to act upon this analysis correct? What were the political strengths and weaknesses of the IWCA approach.

It's all very good venturing a guess, but wouldn't it be nice to hear from the IWCA themselves why these political projects failed? What about the analysis was wrong in retrospect?

I'm not commenting on the article here coz I've already commented on it elsewhere and for the record I liked it, even with the left-bashing (which is justified by the sheer awfulness of the TUSC results imo) and so on, but I would like to see some reasons why the IWCA project didn't work. I remember it being the new big thing when I was a younger and first getting interested in left politics, and now? They're hardly pulling up trees.

I might come back to answer Ayatollah's long post at some point there's things there I'd take issue with (although I appreciate the effort you go to with the long reply)

 

[where to]

Yeh that's true - strike out Italy - but Spain, Portugal, Greece, France - yep.

Strike out France too. Portugal also dubious, despite many big protests there.

 

[Delroy Booth]

Militant was a great name.

Another factor that ties in here is persistence. Ukip is not a great name but they stuck around and now their moment has come. Someone maybe on another thread was talking about the no2eu project as a failure. If ukip had walked away after one brief campaign and election we would not be discussong them now. It takes years to break into wider consciousness, not to mention gain credibility.

Makes you think what the Sociliast Alliance might've been capable of if the Trots hadn't bickered over it so much. I'd say the same for the Socialist Labour Party only I reckon there was some very serious problems with it from the outset...

 

[where to]

Makes you think what the Sociliast Alliance might've been capable of if the Trots hadn't bickered over it so much. I'd say the same for the Socialist Labour Party only I reckon there was some very serious problems with it from the outset...

Well, they'd be here and would be a potential electoral home for people who would not return to Labour. I don't think they would be taking too many Labour votes at this time though and would still be small.

The question is, where will the labour voters head towards come 2017/18?

 

[Delroy Booth]

Well, they'd be here and would be a potential electoral home for people who would not return to Labour. I don't think they would be taking too many Labour votes at this time though and would still be small.

The question is, where will the labour voters head towards come 2017/18?

We all know the answer to that - the far-right. You don't need the consult the IWCA crystal ball to see that. Assuming we get a Labour govt that continues to carry on making Tory cuts in 2015, and assuming the situation in the Eurozone continues to get worse, the civil war in Middle-east continues as it is doing, as these things will have a bearing on what comes next, then yes the place to go will be the far-right. And Britain is fertile soil for this - the only reason we're not in the worst of it right now is because of the electoral system lest we forget. But that just means that when it does break through it'll be more virile for it, and harder to dislodge.

That's why it's a matter of urgency to get something organised right now pre 2015 so there's a political position to go to other than the far-right for working class people. And even then, assuming a coherent group comes together, it's not going to win over vast numbers of people because scapegoating non-whites for unemployment is going to be far more electorally promising than trying to blame the bosses. That's where the class is right now and that needs to change first before any left unity, no matter how well put together, initiative will succeed.

 

[Lo Siento.]

As much as I can understand some of the defensiveness when some of the Trotskyists on here are being critical, I'd say that an insider's retrospective as to why the IWCA was unable to build on what looked like a promising start would be more useful than what is essentially "Filling the Vacuum 2013"... especially for those of us who thought that the organisation did a lot of good work and had some excellent points to make about the rest of the left.

 

[discokermit]

How successful was Trotsky, btw?

lead the only succesful workers revolution in history. commanded the red army in the civil war. namechecked by you over seventy years after his death. you're just talking shit.

 

[Delroy Booth]

Good contender for best amatuer general of all time.

Anyway seeing as we're discussing the left, I have good news. according to this TUSC's website hits have gone through the roof.

http://ukgeneralelection2015.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/latest-political-pop-chart-is-out.html

Now the TUSC rise seems phenomenal, only 2 months ago they had so little traffic it could not be found data for. Last month they joined the global ranking and this month they have shot up 7 places and have enough traffic to be counted by country. Wonder what is behind the rise in visitors to them?

 

[belboid]

They don't want to engage in that point mate.

I've answered several times, but you have ignored the criticisms. Your sole response was the nonsense that UKIP were close to winning in Middlesbrough, despite only winning 3% of the electorate.

 

[treelover]

We all know the answer to that - the far-right. You don't need the consult the IWCA crystal ball to see that. Assuming we get a Labour govt that continues to carry on making Tory cuts in 2015, and assuming the situation in the Eurozone continues to get worse, the civil war in Middle-east continues as it is doing, as these things will have a bearing on what comes next, then yes the place to go will be the far-right. And Britain is fertile soil for this - the only reason we're not in the worst of it right now is because of the electoral system lest we forget. But that just means that when it does break through it'll be more virile for it, and harder to dislodge.

That's why it's a matter of urgency to get something organised right now pre 2015 so there's a political position to go to other than the far-right for working class people. And even then, assuming a coherent group comes together, it's not going to win over vast numbers of people because scapegoating non-whites for unemployment is going to be far more electorally promising than trying to blame the bosses. That's where the class is right now and that needs to change first before any left unity, no matter how well put together, initiative will succeed.

Maybe the unreconstructed left will have to accept that open borders is untenable, the Dutch SP moved to this position and has had electoral success, no left group except maybe Syriza has by supporting O/B.

 

[treelover]

Good contender for best amatuer general of all time.

Anyway seeing as we're discussing the left, I have good news. according to this TUSC's website hits have gone through the roof.

http://ukgeneralelection2015.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/latest-political-pop-chart-is-out.html

Some sort of crawler/traffic redirector?

 

[belboid]

Maybe the unreconstructed left will have to accept that open borders is untenable, the Dutch SP moved to this position and has had electoral success, no left group except maybe Syriza has by supporting O/B.

so, no group except the most successful one...

 

[treelover]

I don't think that success will be sustained if the crisis recedes...

 

[emanymton]

Good contender for best amatuer general of all time.

Anyway seeing as we're discussing the left, I have good news. according to this TUSC's website hits have gone through the roof.

http://ukgeneralelection2015.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/latest-political-pop-chart-is-out.html

Due to the economic crises many young man are finding they can no longer afford Lynx deodorant and are therefore researching cheaper alternatives.

There spelling is just a bit off.

Actually there's an idea for names, you need something that people commonly search for so they can stumble across your website by accident.

 

[malatesta32]

useful info on far right election campaigns:
http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/article/2638/election-day

 

[The39thStep]

Haven't the IWCA also moved to the Right by arguing that immigration should be limited, i.e. the possibility of class conscious peoples entering the country is denied.

Sorry but I have yet to see an immigration policy based on class consciousness. Perhaps one for the future?

 

[The39thStep]

Jesus fucking Christ. The IWCA article starting the conversation is full of swipes at the rest of the left. Then the competitive comparisons were introduced by an IWCA fan who objected to me pointing out their inability or unwillingess to account for their own failings. I'd much rather have a calm, mutually respectful, conversation about the experiences of different approaches over the last few years, their successes and their failures. And I genuinely think that the IWCA would have something particularly useful to add to that kind of discussion. But that in my experience is completely impossible with IWCA supporters, who perhaps encapsulate the saying "they like to dish it out, but can't take it back" better than any other political group I've ever come across. They are habitually and aggressively dismissive of everyone else on the left, yet respond to any criticism as if their critic had just taken a dump on their grandmother's grave.

As for my "neck of the woods", I can exclusively reveal that UKIP are not a major electoral threat in Dublin.

This new you is going to take some time to embed you know

 

[articul8]

Of the class, for the class, by the class...

Are you a barrister yet Nigel_I?

 

[articul8]

The IWCA analysis blatantly overstates UKIPs strategic "orientating toward the working class". How many active branches do they have in working class areas, how many footsoldiers do they have? How many working class issues are they taking up locally? Barely any. Ultimately they are a convenient vehicle to a populist right wing media in making available a safe "protest" option that offers no fundamental threat.

Their popularity will peak at the next round of Euro elections, but will be back down to 5% or so by the Generals would be my guess. Farage might have half a chance of getting in if he picks the right target. The rest? But agree the danger is they pull the centre of gravity of "mainstream" debate over to the right.