The politics of the left in the UK

[ahinton]

There are so many conclusions in this at odds with their premises, reached through accumulating heaps of verbal dung, that it's not worth blow-by-blow consideration. It's just dishonest defeatist nonsense, in my opinion, probably written by a jaundiced ex-Communist Party member who lost the plot somewhere around 1990 and 24 years on, meanwhile, having contributed nothing towards making the world a better place, just wants to pull the flush and bring the toilet cystern down on everyone's head, not just his own.

I almost mistook it for Peter Hitchens.

Hmmm - can't agree with you there, I'm afraid (as you'll no doubt have noted from my earlier post) - but could you be more specific about which conclusions strike you as being at odds with which premises, which paragraphs represent "heaps of verbal dung" for you and what it is about the piece as a whole that conveys to you the overriding impression of dishonesty and defeatism (and defeating of what in partiuclar, incidentally)?

[Serial_Apologist]

Hmmm - can't agree with you there, I'm afraid (as you'll no doubt have noted from my earlier post) - but could you be more specific about which conclusions strike you as being at odds with which premises, which paragraphs represent "heaps of verbal dung" for you and what it is about the piece as a whole that conveys to you the overriding impression of dishonesty and defeatism (and defeating of what in partiuclar, incidentally)?

Nope. Sorry!

It would take too long to disentangle any sense reached non-sequiturously at the end from detritus, myth and misrepresentation clinging to it.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well at least the right got it wrong

i see in the staggers that Ed's view is about election winning tactics .... he has a point but not one i care for

[aeolium]

The Right may have got it wrong, but the Left are not getting it right, either in the UK:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/07/ukip-not-gone-away-labour-problem-farage-immigration

or in continental Europe:

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/06/slavoj-i-ek-only-radicalised-left-can-save-europe

The latter article makes the point that the conservatism of the Left, their failed response to the catastrophe of 2008, has left the door open for the nationalist and populist parties who are now picking up votes from those who long ago would have been natural supporters of the Left. Ed Miliband cannot seem to see that only a radical programme which fundamentally repudiates the failed ideology of Thatcherism and its bastard offshoot New Labour can possibly stem the flow of disenchanted deserters from his party.

[vinteuil]

... Žižek with his customary baroque rhetoric can fustigate the failings of everyone else; he provides no answers. What I am still waiting for is something that would lead to a practical solution - a means of getting from A to a better B - which if I remember aright, o aeolie, you too asked for (in more stylish terms, I think... ):

I think any critic of capitalism as it currently operates (and it's not difficult to be critical of it) ought to try and formulate a clear idea of a better alternative and how we get to there from here. Marx had a clear idea of a better alternative - and one he believed was also inevitable - but did not imo have a good programme for providing a bridge from capitalism as he understood it to his alternative of the classless society.

Also, advocates of more planned economies and greater state powers need to define ways in which necessary constraints on the liberties of individuals (and corporations) can be combined with high levels of accountability and human rights, as well as the independent rule of law.

Not asking much, really...:-/

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[Serial_Apologist]

... Žižek with his customary baroque rhetoric can fustigate the failings of everyone else; he provides no answers. What I am still waiting for is something that would lead to a practical solution - a means of getting from A to a better B - which if I remember aright, o aeolie, you too asked for (in more stylish terms, I think... ):

In a general sense the answer comes when someone, some badly affected section of a population, steps out of line and says, enough is enough: we're not taking this any more. How they resist further erosion of civil and human rights, and how the ruling class in turn deals with that resistance, then determines if resistance turns into offensive, on the grounds that going on the offensive is tactically and propagandistically the best way in which to clothe resistance, because it gathers greater support than going on the attack, which can be seen merely as destructive. Once a momentum is created it tends to provide the example that triggers confidence to do likewise, or equivalent, elsewhere, as we saw in 1968 and 1975, which in turn gives rise to developments in political establishments, splits, new formations etc., standing on programmes and platforms we can only guess at in the present seemingly impotent circumstances. This is why asking to come up with answers, here and now, is just so much p*ssing in the wind, because there is no existing plausible argument to engage with (except to say: that wouldn't work because a,b,c etc) coming from the existing parties, and the forces just aren't yet there to translate abstract possibilities and dreams into practicable realities, and where they're going to come from, we don't yet know.





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[vinteuil]

How they resist further erosion of civil and human rights, and how the ruling class in turn deals with that resistance, then determines if resistance turns into offensive, on the grounds that going on the offensive is tactically and propagandistically the best way in which to clothe resistance, because it gathers greater support than going on the attack, which can be seen merely as destructive.. Once a momentum is created it tends to provide the example that triggers confidence to do likewise, or equivalent, elsewhere, as we saw in 1968 and 1975, which in turn gives rise to developments in political establishments, splits, new formations etc., standing on programmes and platforms we can only guess at in the present seemingly impotent circumstances.

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... but very possibly leaving a way forward for a Robespierre, a Beria, a Pol Pot. Are you surprised so few people are keen to follow you here?




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[Serial_Apologist]

... but very possibly leaving a way forward for a Robespierre, a Beria, a Pol Pot. Are you surprised so few people are keen to follow you here?

Indeed, but are we in the position of Cambodia in 1975, or any of the cases in which rebellions led to dictatorships? One of the problems always consisted in circumstances being unpropitious or insufficiently evolved to prevent either return to the existing order, and massive punitive repression from that source, or the rise of dictatorship. Even Lenin - with whose approach and strategies I am not these days in much agreement - rightly imv said as much regarding the readiness of the Irish to take and hold onto power in the Easter Rising of 1916, saying that absence of fulfilment of the requirements for success should not lead to its abortion but more and, crucially, critical outside solidarity. The way we saw the national liberations struggles of the 1940s-60s were not to do with race or nationhood per se - issues unresolved from the 19th century - but precapitalist societies caught up in global capitalism's territorial reach, and therefore only fully able to realise self-determination by throwing out dominating capitalism, which with the relative underdevelopment of industrial weight in agrarian societies could only be carried through by sectors of society other than the proletariat, most probably middle-ranking soldiers or guerrillas operating on a national liberation ticket (Castro providing a leading instance). Fulfilment of their mission would be more, if not inevitably, likely to fail because of not following the classic Leninist proletarian route of workers and neighbourhood councils for 2 reasons: inadequate checks on unnaccountable self-appointed armed officers at the head of such a movement; and poorly or only part-developed productive infrastructure (plus (imo) historical long=term social experience of successful operation) not allowing the time and space necessary for collective decision-making, available to an advanced proletariat in an advanced capitalist economy, and vital to maintaining accountabiluity and circumventing or forestalling dictatorial or corrupt tendencies.

Propaganda would be as necessary to instill collective self-confidence as it is was when the bourgeoisie took over wealth creating from the landed aristocracy, or in boulstering the power of the rich and irresponsible ruling elites we have today over the images they want us to have of ourselves as incapable of carrying out such an historical mission. They could of course turn around and join in, availing us of their unquestionably superior intelligence and organising skills without need of superior earning reward. Indeed, the one intelligent thing I ever heard Neil Kinnock utter was when, in advocating higher taxes on the rich, he asked (apparently non-rhetorically) if they really wanted to live privileged lives that were cut off from the rest of humanity? Unfortunately - or maybe fortunately? - history does not provide evidence that they think that way.

[Serial_Apologist]

Hearing what I did of Ed balls's speech to the LP conference today, only to learn that Labour's election to government next year, if as seems increasingly doubtful it is to take place, will mean no departure by a Balls Chancellorship from the austerity recipe, including the cap on Child Benefits, and ruminating on the Glasgow people's defection from Labour in last week's referendum, surely now if ever is the time for the left inside the Party to split away after consulting with the unions and form a new, SNP/Plaid Cymru-type left social democratic party?

[teamsaint]

ever increasing pension ages hidden deep in the text of the speech too.

verysadsmileything


he was long on not trusting the tories with the NHS, (true enough) a bit short on the things you can trust labour with.

[vinteuil]

surely now if ever is the time for the left inside the Party to split away after consulting with the unions and form a new, SNP/Plaid Cymru-type left social democratic party?

... well, by all means do so. But it will mean a Tory ascendancy for all foreseeable future :very sad erm not smiley thing:

[aeolium]

On the other hand, it's hard to see what the point of the Labour party is these days. Is there any area in which there is any meaningful difference between its proposed policy and that of the current Coalition government? Look at the derisory proposal to increase the minimum wage to £8 ph by 2020 - hardly more than a 2% pa increase.

I don't think Miliband et al comprehend the seriousness of the threat they face. They think they can carry on and rely on the unpopularity of the government to take them back to power (even if only as the party with the greatest number of seats) at the next election. But in England and Wales their traditional core vote is collapsing with defections either to UKIP on the right or the Green party on the left. In Scotland, their support which has been eroded in recent years by the nationalists is likely to come under even greater pressure following the independence referendum. Unless they can come up with a genuinely alternative ideology (as opposed to just a strategy) to that of the Tories then they might as well call it a day.

[teamsaint]

On the other hand, it's hard to see what the point of the Labour party is these days. Is there any area in which there is any meaningful difference between its proposed policy and that of the current Coalition government? Look at the derisory proposal to increase the minimum wage to £8 ph by 2020 - hardly more than a 2% pa increase.

I don't think Miliband et al comprehend the seriousness of the threat they face. They think they can carry on and rely on the unpopularity of the government to take them back to power (even if only as the party with the greatest number of seats) at the next election. But in England and Wales their traditional core vote is collapsing with defections either to UKIP on the right or the Green party on the left. In Scotland, their support which has been eroded in recent years by the nationalists is likely to come under even greater pressure following the independence referendum. Unless they can come up with a genuinely alternative ideology (as opposed to just a strategy) to that of the Tories then they might as well call it a day.

Absolutely.

despite everything, I can't stop myself wanting a labour victory. But perhaps it would be better , long term, if they disintegrated, as S_A suggests.

They lost me the day of the Iraq war demo in London. Foreign Wars, selling our students into massive debt, ( which THEY started), handing the economy to the BoE, bankers everywhere in their midst from Blair to the Shadow Cabinet, nuclear weapons, benefit caps, raising retirement age with no end in sight,and so on. Might as well be a tory manifesto, really.

But for all the politicians, it just seems to be a career move, between University and those all important directorships and consultancies.

[ahinton]

ever increasing pension ages hidden deep in the text of the speech too.

If by that you mean the state retirement benefit entitlement age, that's surely no news, is it, whoever's in government? It won't surprise me if it's gradually phased out altogether - indeed, that's what I expect, albeit not for quite some time.

As to who might form the next UK government, that was always going to hang in the balance even before the referendum outcome was known but, now that it is known, it's surely even more in the balance still. Despite Gordon Brown's sudden knight-in-somewhat-tarnished-armour eleventh-hour rallying cry last week, the position of Labour is almost certainly worse now than it was as the referendum got under way and the credibility of its current leader looks parlous indeed. The current coalition is also in no strong position and suchever chances as it or the Tories alone might have had pre-referendum are evaporating fast; no one seems to have any firm idea about devolution in Scotland and elsewhere, the discontent with Westmonster politics that is by no means confined to Scotland is only increasing as a consequence of those and other uncertainties. Clearly, the LibDems have no chance of forming a government and UKIP, while it stands still less of a chance of doing so, could and almost certainly will muddy the waters for all the others. It would not at all surprise me if no single party will be able to form a government following the General Election next Mayand no two parties willing to consider forming a coalition will be able to do so either; "go back to your constituencies and prepare for non-government" springs unbidden to mind...

[teamsaint]

If by that you mean the state retirement benefit entitlement age, that's surely no news, is it, whoever's in government? It won't surprise me if it's gradually phased out altogether - indeed, that's what I expect, albeit not for quite some time.

no it isn't news, but he did reiterate it, and it appeared to be an open ended thing.

There is almost no retirement provision worthy of the name for vast swathes of the population. abolishing it, or a decision to abolish it at some future point would provide a spectacular opportunity for somebody like UKIP, or the Greens .