Transform: The latest "new party of the Left.

[Fozzie Bear]

It was a launch newsletter, so we had something on work on the front and something on housing on the back with a broader middle section. The idea was to try and present the politics in a couple of wider contexts (work and housing were chosen as we thought nearly everyone can relate to one or both of them) that showed the politics and hopefully would resonate with people. We didn't want to jump in with things that were too specific and 'local', we wanted to just 'start the conversation' (urgh) rather than deciding what needed to be done, although we did know that broadly housing and shit work were 2 topics people locally really struggled with. If it has worked more succesfully we might well have done more issues with local specific topics on if they'd come up as issues with people.

It was also wanting to avoid getting too bogged down in local council type stuff right at the start (like all the corruption stuff people often get into with this kind of stuff) and avoid falling into the trap of a casework model where we just ended up spending all our time sorting hyper-individualised problems. We did do some home visits for local people having issues with landlords, but none of them got anywhere really. (It pre-dated Acorn.) We did a fair bit of geographically mapping the area and working out what workplaces and how the housing was there as well, as well as thinking about facilities etc.



We got criticism for the image as too lefty as it was, and despite it being a simple name we did spend lots of time discussing it believe it or not! We wanted something political but not too much so, something that related to the area (houses are mostly redbrick there) while not being too specific geographically, something that felt including rather than excluding and something that translated well into a mix of languages.

Thanks that’s interesting and makes sense.

The casework stuff is very time consuming but does make you more credible locally (if people you’re helping let you talk about it!) so there is a trade off.

 

[LDC]

Thanks that’s interesting and makes sense.

The casework stuff is very time consuming but does make you more credible locally (if people you’re helping let you talk about it!) so there is a trade off.

Yeah I think the problem with casework type stuff is the more subtle dynamic service/community helper stuff that often seems to run contrary to the more collective revolutionary perspective, and in some incidences we felt it might actually lose us credibility as it makes us sink into the 'charity do-gooders' hole in lots of people's eyes.

And honestly the thing that was the most popular on the doorsteps was saying something along the lines of, "We're anarchist revolutionaries that want to kick the cops, landlords and bosses out of our area, destroy capitalism, abolish money, seize control of everything and run the area collectively for the good of all. And we want others to do the same in their areas."

Does leave you with a big gap from where we are now to that though!

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Actually I think the critique they launched was more far reaching than that. ie. That the left had never had an interest in class politics and that this problem was more fundamental than some recent collapse into ID politics. Albeit there was a particularly pointed criticism of the SWP's alliance with the Muslim Association of Britain and of their anti-fascist circus.

Yes, the debate in RA that eventually led to the formation of the IWCA involved a comprehensive demolition of the left's theory and practise and a conclusion that "as constructed, the British Left, was without exception "neither revolutionary, nor working class".

But, I was replying to a specific point that a return of the IWCA approach could lead to a "real danger it'd be dragged into IDProle stuff".

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Yeah I think the problem with casework type stuff is the more subtle dynamic service/community helper stuff that often seems to run contrary to the more collective revolutionary perspective, and in some incidences we felt it might actually lose us credibility as it makes us sink into the 'charity do-gooders' hole in lots of people's eyes.

Yes agree. I've since learned that Hackney Community Defence Association organised a lot of their casework collectively - apparently people would come to open meetings and raise issues and the group would agree on possible solutions? Fuck knows if it actually worked but there was at least an attempt at encouraging people to participate - and come back next time to join in. Presumably for a few things you needed legally qualified people (as the main foucs was problems with the cops).

 

[Idris2002]

Trust. Actually having some power. Not being weirdos or loons. Listening. A focus on the day-to-day needs rather than Palestine etc. Coherent political ideas and a realistic program showing how they can be enacted.

Just to add that none of that is very difficult or mysterious. It's just been lost on a number of levels over the recent years.

You have to run classes in "how not to be a weirdo or a loon" then. I'm being serious.

 

[hitmouse]

Interesting thread, more than I thought it was going to be from the initial subject matter, got a lot of half-formed thoughts but not much coherent.
I suppose some qs would be: how does the recent strike wave relate to all of the above, if at all? And then something about, I think Acorn among others partially bears this out, the way that shitty landlords (and other issues) are so widespread that you can do a lot of good and valuable casework while also still not really breaking out of a certain cultural/demographic bubble, if that makes sense?

 

[JimW]

Well out of touch having been abroad so long but bit worried the loon-spudery will be even worse as social media has drawn so many into all that Brand/Icke/Freeman whatever bollocks who might have been interested/useful, just going off the rabbit holes some sound enough people I knew as a youth seem to have fallen into when I run into them on rare visits home.

 

[The39thStep]

You have to run classes in "how not to be a weirdo or a loon" then. I'm being serious.

Could really do with a thread for that in case posters cant make a meeting.

 

[Karl Masks]

Is it worth socialists joining/supporting the greens?

 

[ska invita]

The thread is ultimately about the possibility of a left of labour political party that can stand candidates in local and national elections and have a meaningful chance of either winning seats or forcing Labour to adopt positions it wouldn't otherwise. This requires substantial organisation, professionalism, scale and funding.

If you believe this is something worth having and supporting then they next question is which is the best vehicle for it. A new party which will be amalgamated from existing mini parties, or joining an existing party and trying to grow that to a position of real power.

The idea of a coalition party is not a bad one in and of itself when the options are so limited.
Here's my train stop....

 

[ska invita]

... Home now
All the mini left parties might as well come together. Even as a coalition it's still going to be very small though. It will take something impressive to get it to grow much beyond that. Chilango mentioned Corbyn. It probably does need some major personalities.
All highly unlikely I would say

That's why I conclude by pure default at this time and place the green party is best positioned, has the scale infrastructure and recognition, and also crucially the internal democracy to make eco socialist entryism worth while. It's one member one vote at conference and that sets the policies.

I see no better option for anyone wanting to put their time into a parliamentary political party project. The coming environmental disaster will increasingly help the status of the party, and the horrifying scale of the disaster will make communistic policies seems more reasonable to floating voters.

If that sounds wrong then what other parliamentary party option is there?
Of course not wanting to go down the party route at all is fine, but that's what we're talking about here.

 

[The39thStep]

... Home now
All the mini left parties might as well come together. Even as a coalition it's still going to be very small though. It will take something impressive to get it to grow much beyond that. Chilango mentioned Corbyn. It probably does need some major personalities.
All highly unlikely I would say

That's why I conclude by pure default at this time and place the green party is best positioned, has the scale infrastructure and recognition, and also crucially the internal democracy to make eco socialist entryism worth while. It's one member one vote at conference and that sets the policies.

I see no better option for anyone wanting to put their time into a parliamentary political party project. The coming environmental disaster will increasingly help the status of the party, and the horrifying scale of the disaster will make communistic policies seems more reasonable to floating voters.

If that sounds wrong then what other parliamentary party option is there?
Of course not wanting to go down the party route at all is fine, but that's what we're talking about here.

You a member Ska?

 

[Rob Ray]

You have to run classes in "how not to be a weirdo or a loon" then. I'm being serious.

Given how weird the general public can be (and tolerate) I'd reckon more "how to be a plausible weirdo or loon."

 

[LDC]

Given how weird the general public can be (and tolerate) I'd reckon more "how to be a plausible weirdo or loon."

Yeah, normal weird, not weird weird. No need to try and be some imagined identikit normie prole, down that road lies the loons of Workers Party of GB with their issue flat caps and insisting on only eating bacon sarnie's cos that's what the working class eat or something.

 

[hitmouse]

Yeah, normal weird, not weird weird. No need to try and be some imagined identikit normie prole, down that road lies the loons of Workers Party of GB with their issue flat caps and insisting on only eating bacon sarnie's cos that's what the working class eat or something.

Really enjoying reading Sheila Rowbotham's memoirs at the moment, in that she claims that when she was organising Labour Party Young Socialists social events in 1965 the Militant would refuse to dance to the Beatles cos it wasn't proper proletarian music like Jerry Lee Lewis.

Not wanting to be too catty, but when I see people talking about the Greens, it gives me flashbacks to when the exact same conversations were happening eight years ago, immediately pre-Corbyn:

The Green surge: is this the party that will decide the election?

The Green party is not just riding high in the opinion polls – it has signed up 13,000 new members in one week. If it keeps growing at this rate, it will be bigger than Labour by May. Is it really on the verge of a breakthrough? John Harris reports

www.theguardian.com

I don't think many of 2015's crop of enthusiastic new Greens stuck around for long.

 

[chilango]

Yeah, normal weird, not weird weird. No need to try and be some imagined identikit normie prole, down that road lies the loons of Workers Party of GB with their issue flat caps and insisting on only eating bacon sarnie's cos that's what the working class eat or something.

It's funny, I went to a drag bingo night tonight and felt more politically optimistic than I have done for a while.

 

[Rob Ray]

Apropos of earlier, I couldn't find anything directly written by the IWCA as a group on the Wayback Machine, but did come across this by Gary O'Shea:

In 2002, when the IWCA first contested elections, it did so under the slogan ‘Working class rule in working class areas’. It was regarded by us as an interim measure. For us, to fail to aim to be the dominant force in your own neighbourhoods would be akin to calling for Scottish independence without benefit of a Scottish membership while at the same time shunning any active engagement with the population in Scotland. But because the Left don’t see the working class as an agent of change, the combination of ‘working class’ and ‘rule’ appeared to be a genuine challenge for them for years afterwards.

Of all the lessons learned from the IWCA experiment (which in its purest form existed from 2002 to 2006) the most significant is this: taking seats from the mainstream parties is ridiculously easy. At street level, brand loyalty is literally zero. That a group the size of the IWCA could take four seats and come near to winning as many more is proof of that. That is not to say that it wasn’t hard work. It is, but that is mostly down to resources or rather lack of them. It needs to be remembered that at all times we were competing against national parties from a tiny base. One such under-resourced branch was in Glasgow. In 2003 it decided to contest a council by-election in the Strathbungo ward. In doing so it was taking on no less than five national parties (if you include the SSP then in their pomp). The IWCA candidate came in third in a tight field with just under 500 votes – about 75% of the successful Labour incumbent. And when I say ‘branch’ we are not talking about dozens and dozens of enthusiasts either but one or two key activists. In Oxford where the IWCA actually took seats the ratio of activists to candidates was better but not by much.

If there is a secret (though it is hardly that) it is working with the working class in pursuit of what they perceive as their immediate interests. Through adopting this approach the zone of influence of the branch can increase a hundred fold overnight; whether you are fighting against a £25 million pound gentrification scheme in Islington, a mugging epidemic in Birmingham or crack dealing in Oxford. In Oxford, so rattled were the authorities the police began to talk about the ‘human rights of crack dealers’ while Labour circulated the rumour that the IWCA Councillor who was a figurehead for the campaign was in reality ‘a convicted drug dealer and all they are doing is getting rid of the competition!’ (Eventually they would blunder and put that type of scuttlebutt in print which would cost them a hefty five figure sum to settle).

Elsewhere whether in the inner city or ‘white flight’ suburbs in London, the median return was about 25% of the total vote. In 2006 when the IWCA competed in two neighbouring wards in south Islington there were audible gasps of astonishment from Labour Party apparatchiks at the 3,000 votes accrued. When compared to the performances they had become accustomed to from smaller parties to their left over half a century this type of return was simply jaw-dropping.

‘The method at last discovered’? Discovery is only too strong a word because the previous history of failure is little short of perverse.

That is not to say that everything is smooth and easy. Politics is a dirty business even at local level. The terrain is littered with traps and ambushes. Maintaining trust is critical. So for me the biggest danger comes in taking on the more ticklish campaigns, where there is say a direct adversary, is that you get ahead of yourself and in your enthusiasm become the unwitting vanguard, which instantly alters the previous relationship from that of a partnership with the class locally to working for them. Self-evidently working for them means you are working without them. And working without them means that you either derail or can be presented by opponents as working against them.

Once more and with bewildering speed you can be put on the defensive with time and effort taken up in defending your own record, not much different in truth from the ‘socialism without the working class’ aficionados with their insistence that ‘Here is the truth, kneel here.”

 

[Puddy_Tat]

It's funny, I went to a drag bingo night tonight and felt more politically optimistic than I have done for a while.

but were the drag artists wearing flat caps?

 

[Brainaddict]

Really enjoying reading Sheila Rowbotham's memoirs at the moment, in that she claims that when she was organising Labour Party Young Socialists social events in 1965 the Militant would refuse to dance to the Beatles cos it wasn't proper proletarian music like Jerry Lee Lewis.

Not wanting to be too catty, but when I see people talking about the Greens, it gives me flashbacks to when the exact same conversations were happening eight years ago, immediately pre-Corbyn:

The Green surge: is this the party that will decide the election?

The Green party is not just riding high in the opinion polls – it has signed up 13,000 new members in one week. If it keeps growing at this rate, it will be bigger than Labour by May. Is it really on the verge of a breakthrough? John Harris reports

www.theguardian.com

I don't think many of 2015's crop of enthusiastic new Greens stuck around for long.

To they extent that people don't hang around with the greens I would expect it to be a lot to do with the depressing nature of FPTP and the poor electoral prospects it offers small parties. Which will be an even worse issue with any new socialist party.

Of all the things Blair said he'd do but didn't, not doing PR was the worst failure. Not that he cares. FPTP suits centrist authoritarians down to the ground.

 

[ska invita]

You a member Ska?

No. I do other (more grassroots) stuff with my free time.
But I do think the clock is ticking fast against us all, and it's important to be realistic and strategic about how to best create social change in Britain. I'm not really one for lost causes, however righteous. I don't think we can afford the time.

 

[ska invita]

in 1965 the Militant would refuse to dance to the Beatles cos it wasn't proper proletarian music like Jerry Lee Lewis.

That's brilliantly shit. It can only be a good thing this cultish behaviour has gone

 

[ska invita]

this is a lot of people who are clearly up for being in a political party

Keir Starmer oversees another 10,000 fall in Labour members in just two months

Labour Membership is now down 138,000 since Sir Keir Starmer took over as Labour leader.

www.express.co.uk

"

Labour Membership is now down 138,000 since Sir Keir Starmer took over as Labour leader."​

 

[Rob Ray]

I do wonder how many of those would be up for having their fingers burnt again via a no-hoper upstart.

 

[skyscraper101]

I thought the People's Alliance of the Left were the new big thing? Oh but they are so last year now, so they have become part of 'Transform'? Yeah, meh. Never gonna happen.

 

[skyscraper101]

Also I just noticed how similar the PAL logo is to TAP the Portuguese airline.

 

[Brainaddict]

I do wonder how many of those would be up for having their fingers burnt again via a no-hoper upstart.

Very few of them. People make their own assessments of what social movement theorists call 'political opportunity structure', and in this case the political opportunities available are meagre and most people are smart enought to know it.

 

[Brainaddict]

I find it mildly obnoxious that Left Unity/PAL have adopted the red/black/green of more genuinely diverse left wing movements when they seem to be a bunch of fairly orthodox reds.

 

[The39thStep]

I find it mildly obnoxious that Left Unity/PAL have adopted the red/black/green of more genuinely diverse left wing movements when they seem to be a bunch of fairly orthodox reds.

Could you put a motion up about it at the next meeting of your local Green Party ?

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I do wonder how many of those would be up for having their fingers burnt again via a no-hoper upstart.

Presumably there are a reasonable number of die-hards who are attracted to this sort of thing repeatedly like moths to a flame, but also a new generation of activists who were excited by Corbyn but have now left the Labour Party?

 

[Fozzie Bear]

"There has never been a better time to...."