Does the left understand the working class and how would they answer their concerns?

Ok prepare for a rant!

If the BNP is to be defeated then it's pretty obvious that a whole new strategy is needed. Media campaigns and political campaigns telling (working class) people not to vote BNP because they are racist/fascist has failed miserably and the BNP will only grow in strength from here (in fact there's a good chance that the support the BNP won was a big two fingers up to those campaigns)

I think a massive problem for the left is that they don't seem to understand what the working classes actually want. There's the misguided assumption that because socialism aims to empower the working class, that the working class must automatically support left wing policies - well last night showed that more of the working classes support an extreme right wing party than those who support left wing parties (in fact that was something experienced all across Europe)

I admit that I don't know a great deal about the BNP's policies (in detail), I've never been spoken to by any of them, I've never read any of their literature (despite it being delivered to me) and having a quick glance through their main policies on their website saw that they all had references to immigrants, foreign control, etc. However, listening to Griffin's speeches from last night (and today) it's obvious that the people he appeals to are "old" Labour voters (his contempt for New Labour selling out on their Old Labour values mirrors many opinions on U75 and further afield in the left). What the BNP has demonstrated, perhaps putting a silver lining on this sorry affair, is that real working class people still yearn for those Old Labour values.

Fascist parties come to power by playing on people's emotions, but first they need to fully understand what will play effectively on those emotions and that is where the BNP have been so successful and that is where, imo, the left have failed miserably.

And that brings me to the question of my post: Does the left understand the working class and how would they answer their concerns?

The only time I ever hear the left wing parties is then they're marching for Palestine or Iraq or Afghanistan. They're at full voice as well when the topic turns to welfare reforms or civil liberties. But are these issues the working class actually give two shits about? For the wars, they care about British soldiers not about Iraqis or Afghanis. The working class care about jobs of course, but do they care that people who don't want jobs get handouts every week? And civil liberties, do the working class care that they're constantly on CCTV or do they want their estates flooding with it and police on every corners?

However, there are issues that the BNP have triumphed that the left could equally have no problems in supporting. I think the main policy would be massive investment in our public services. People want investment in transport, they want investment in the NHS, they want more police and better equipped armed forces (this is something the left need to swallow their pride over and actually pay more than lip service to "the democratic will of the people") - how on Earth have the BNP managed to sway people with their promises of investment into our public services and not the left?! (Other issues more important that the working class don't care about?)

The left, imo, either don't know or don't care what the working class actually want. Or when they do seem to have gotten it right other issues take precedence. Possibly this all comes down to priorities. The left seem to put an awful lot of effort into campaign issues that the working class either doesn't care about or has the complete opposite opinion (not to say that these issues aren't important, but this is politics isn't it?)

It's a sad state of affairs but this is something people need to accept if things are going to change but the BNP have showed they are more in tune with the working class than the left have, and that's something they need to learn from.

Anyway, I know I'm generalising and the entire working class doesn't support the BNP, but it just seems that the type of person that voted BNP should be the type of people the left are targeting

/Rant over (and last night's results called for a rant!)

ps the above is my opinion of what the working class wants, it could be right, it could be wrong, you may have a different experience

People want security and incentives and justice.

They dont want greedy undeserving bastards getting too much money.

British Jobs for British workers. Until the left can come to terms with that then they will remain an irrelevance. God I am tedious about this point but its what I see as being the primary reason why the left and the working class diverge and there seems to be no chance of that gap being bridged.

good post

i'll reply to this in more detail when i have chance

Brilliant post CyberRose.

The left tell the working class what their problems are, they don't listen, and sometimes sneer at the views of the working class.

As was shown tonight on CH4 news , the vast majority of BNP supporters and members, come from Labour, and not as some on the left have suggested the middle classes. The leadership such as Griffin are obviously middle class.
I doubt your average BNP member or supporter know what a fascist is, never mind being one.

The problem for the left, is they come across as unlikable people, take the rabble outside Manchester hall last night. With their clinched fist salutes, how do the left think that comes across to Joe public?
The BNP seem to be able to tap into support from the working classes, because most them are from the working class.

A good example of the left was that BNP meeting they picketed in Barnsley a few weeks back. About fifty of the left were bussed in, who abused the locals going to the meeting. Great tactic.
As was the one in Barnsley town center, where anti fascists chanted abuse at the BNP, who according to a poster on here, did not respond and carried on talking to the public. Very telling.
The SWP web site referred to everyone going into the meeting as a Nazi, another great tactic.

The left never learns, they know everything.

CyberRose said:

And that brings me to the question of my post: Does the left understand the working class and how would they answer their concerns?

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Not sure they even want to try and understand working class people. Too often it seems the Left are anti working class. They want to impose their views on people not support peoples views and aspirations.

Good post, but you are wrong about the Left campigning on welfare issues: overall with a few exceptions it hasn't, even John McDonnell didn't mention it today when he confronted Brown at the PLP meeting. Yet, it affects millions including many who have just been made redundant and uptill recently were bemoaning the 'scroungers' till they became one.

tbaldwin said:

People want security and incentives and justice.

They dont want greedy undeserving bastards getting too much money.

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Prime example of using the w/c as a tabula rasa onto which one's one predilictions are projected.

In my experience the main thing w/c people is more money (from whatever source) so they don't have to work any longer.

Well you have some good arguments Cyberose but you also need to consider that there is a far larger group who simply did not vote and were perhaps Labour voters in the past. As others have pointed out the BNP vote didn't increase at all, but a lot of former labour voters probably have given up.

EddyBlack said:

Well you have some good arguments Cyberose but you also need to consider that there is a far larger group who simply did not vote and were perhaps Labour voters in the past. As others have pointed out the BNP vote didn't increase at all, but a lot of former labour voters probably have given up.

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Well the problem now is that they have a huge platform on which to strengthen their support. As much as I hate the British media, they've never really made much of a habit of publicising the BNP's arguments, in fact probably the opposite. We have a BNP councillor in Leeds but I never read any press releases or anything else he's had to say in the papers and perhaps that is something that is the same around the country?

But now that's all changed. There are now two very high profile BNP representatives who will be in the press week after week giving the media soundbites about the EU and immigration - two areas the media love to stir up feelings about cos they sell papers.

Look at how much press UKIP get. That's what the BNP can now look forward to.

What "left"?

Far left = "Bad stuff is happening and it's the fault of the imperialist capitalistic aristocratic public-schooled bosses who are violently oppressing the proletariat and the expenses shennanigans is a symptom of a corrupt political class exploiting the working classes, though the theories of Trotsky do not entirely align with the initial writings of Marx in Das Kapital volume II in his observations into the plight of the industrial labourers in Manchester in the eighteen-hundreds. However, we remain seized of the matter and believe that only the overthrow of the imperialist capitalist system replaced by a system of democratically elected workers soviets based on the principles of autonomouse collectivist communalism is a suitable solution to the situation that the peoples oppressed republic of England finds itself in at this very moment in time."

The thread title is a fucking embarassment, firstly the notion that there is a homogenous working class with a fully formed and articulated outlook, then the fact that the left is presented as some sort of outside Youth worker.

Fucking patronising shite!

CyberRose said:

Well the problem now is that they have a huge platform on which to strengthen their support. As much as I hate the British media, they've never really made much of a habit of publicising the BNP's arguments, in fact probably the opposite. We have a BNP councillor in Leeds but I never read any press releases or anything else he's had to say in the papers and perhaps that is something that is the same around the country?

But now that's all changed. There are now two very high profile BNP representatives who will be in the press week after week giving the media soundbites about the EU and immigration - two areas the media love to stir up feelings about cos they sell papers.

Look at how much press UKIP get. That's what the BNP can now look forward to.

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Yeah it isn't good, but it would be even worse if people continued to support labour just to stop the BNP, because that would be endorsing them. That would be supporting traitors (not all but most of them).

The majority don't vote, and I wonder why that is? Because all the parties with any kind of profile are right wing, labour included.

I don't know the figures, but isn't it something like two thirds didn't vote in the last two general elections?

I mean, all these damn "whither the left" threads always end up the same. They build some strawman "left" as a combination of Polly Toynbee and the SWP and Wolfie Smith and any stupid thing anyone has done ever while calling themselves A Bit Lefty, and say "how can this possibly work omg look the left in this country is broken". Anyone who says "well actually this group does this and that one does that" is rejected because, oh, the Straw Left doesn't.

revol68 said:

The thread title is a fucking embarassment, firstly the notion that there is a homogenous working class with a fully formed and articulated outlook, then the fact that the left is presented as some sort of outside Youth worker.

Fucking patronising shite!

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well, yeah ...

revol68 said:

The thread title is a fucking embarassment, firstly the notion that there is a homogenous working class with a fully formed and articulated outlook, then the fact that the left is presented as some sort of outside Youth worker.

Fucking patronising shite!

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Not so much "patronising" as "simplistic and unhelpful".

ViolentPanda said:

Not so much "patronising" as "simplistic and unhelpful".

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no it's extremely patronising as well.

FridgeMagnet said:

I mean, all these damn "whither the left" threads always end up the same. They build some strawman "left" as a combination of Polly Toynbee and the SWP and Wolfie Smith and any stupid thing anyone has done ever while calling themselves A Bit Lefty, and say "how can this possibly work omg look the left in this country is broken". Anyone who says "well actually this group does this and that one does that" is rejected because, oh, the Straw Left doesn't.

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Don't destroy tbaldwins' dreams, dude. He's based all his political analysis around the existence of a straw left, so drawing attention to the fact that it's a nonsensical construct is cruel to him.

Qualities of the Straw Left:

* talks about The War all the time
* calls everyone rascists
* rants about the BNP being Nazi facists
* ignores labour disputes, housing issues, benefits, community support etc etc
* ignores everything the working class says, wants or does in general
* made up of the middle classes "parachuted in"
* obsessed with doctrine and dogma while ignoring any serious analysis
* encourages identity politics
* reads the Guardian
* probably students

ViolentPanda said:

Don't destroy tbaldwins' dreams, dude. He's based all his political analysis around the existence of a straw left, so drawing attention to the fact that it's a nonsensical construct is cruel to him.

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Well, he's a Tory anyway.

Wait, he's not?

edit: nah, I'm being rude there and I'd rather not personalise it really, I'll take that back.

revol68 said:

no it's extremely patronising as well.

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That's why I said "not so much". I wasn't saying "it's not at all patronising".

FridgeMagnet said:

Well, he's a Tory anyway.

Wait, he's not?

edit: nah, I'm being rude there and I'd rather not personalise it really, I'll take that back.

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How very dare you!!! Everyone knows that tommy-boy is an AUTHORITARIAN SOCIALIST, and anyone who thinks he's a tory is obviously a LIBERAL SUPREMACIST!!

And whether or not most working class people support British Jobs for British Workers doesn't change the fact it's reactionary shite that should be opposed by anyone who takes internationalism seriously!

FridgeMagnet said:

Qualities of the Straw Left:

* talks about The War all the time
* calls everyone rascists
* rants about the BNP being Nazi facists
* ignores labour disputes, housing issues, benefits, community support etc etc
* ignores everything the working class says, wants or does in general
* made up of the middle classes "parachuted in"
* obsessed with doctrine and dogma while ignoring any serious analysis
* encourages identity politics
* reads the Guardian
* probably students

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Does each member of the straw left have to meet all those criteria, or is there a "critical mass" over which they qualify?

Oh, if someone doesn't do one of those things we ignore them as an isolated case, because everyone knows that's what The Left are like overall.

revol68 said:

And whether or not most working class people support British Jobs for British Workers doesn't change the fact it's reactionary shite that should be opposed by anyone who takes internationalism seriously!

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Problem (IMO) is that internationalism seems to mean different things to different people, which appears to run the gamut from unquestioning support for any foreign left movement to very selective picking and choosing of support. To me internationalism means supporting your fellow workers overseas in the same way you help you fellow workers at home, and for the same motives, but obviously other folk have different ideas.

Don't forget "constantly apologises for Islamist terrorism/racism against white people/fascism" (delete as appropriate)

revol68 said:

And whether or not most working class people support British Jobs for British Workers doesn't change the fact it's reactionary shite that should be opposed by anyone who takes internationalism seriously!

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The people currently spouting 'British jobs for British workers' are reactionary shite, I agree with you there.

But as for maintaining jobs for British workers, instead of selling everything that was previously nationalised and all else besides to the Neo-Liberal globalists, I think that is what the left should be more straightforward on.

EddyBlack said:

The people currently spouting 'British jobs for British workers' are reactionary shite, I think would agree with you there.

But as for maintaining jobs for British workers, instead of selling everything that was previously nationalised and all else besides to the Neo-Liberal globalists, I think that is what the left should be more straightforward on.

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Actually I think we need to get beyond talking about protecting jobs and all the rest of that crap and just be fucking honest, capitalism simply can't deliver secure stable employment (nor should we desire it) and what is needed is not a lot of wanky demands that set out ways of managing capitalism in some 'saner' more 'stable' manner' but rather demands that extend beyond this or that workplace or occupation. The Socialist Parties 'jobs not dole' stickers are a perfect example of bollocks lefty rhetoric. Why not demand higher benefits instead of more jobs, they're only going to be minimum wage ones anyway?

If the working class is to not sink into cut throat sectionalism it's going to need more imagination than simply wanking on about protecting jobs.