The politics of the left in the UK

[Ariosto]

There is no left in the uk.

[ahinton]

There is no left in the uk.

Well not so's you'd notice, anyway. There's not much elsewhere in Europe either. I wonder if and/or to what extent the British example has assisted in its near-demise elsewhere...

[Serial_Apologist]

Well not so's you'd notice, anyway. There's not much elsewhere in Europe either. I wonder if and/or to what extent the British example has assisted in its near-demise elsewhere...

Then if what you say is true and indeed desirable the only thing left to the majority of the population in this country is to lie down and just let the rich and powerful walk all over them, as history has taught.

[ahinton]

Then if what you say is true and indeed desirable the only thing left to the majority of the population in this country is to lie down and just let the rich and powerful walk all over them, as history has taught.

It was actually Ariosto who said it; I merely agreed.

That said, the rich and powerful - or at least the rich - are, for the most part, of a rather different hue to those landed gentry, royals and the like of past generations, technocracy and rampant consumerism having largely overtaken all that. Moving squillions around internationally can now be done in milliseconds and, because that is so, ever more of its movement and the methodologies thereof risk being corrupt and oppressive. Never mind just the population of this country; the possibility that vast and hitherto unprecedented amounts of global capital can easily become the property of the very few is already well on the way to being a reality, the principal difference with the past being that anyone clever enough can now manipulate this situation to his/her own advantage largely unhindered by the rich of old or by governments. I don't think that we've ever witnessed this kind of thing on anything like so grand a scale before, the notion of "if you don't like the country's tax régime, move your assets and/or income elsewhere" having in certain contexts almost given way to one of "if you don't like the country's tax régime, buy the country and change it".

The problem with "the left" in Britain today - and I suppose that it might be similar elsewhere, in the West at least - is that it is more notable for its splintered and fractured minority nature than for its hold on policymakers. The following, extracted from Wiki, is surely as illstrative of this as anything:

The biggest left-wing party in the UK in terms of members and representation is the Labour Party. The party had 201,374 members on 31 December 2004 according to accounts filed with the Electoral Commission. The Labour Party grew out of the trade union movement and socialist political parties of the 19th century, and continues to describe itself as a party of democratic socialism. With the party's rebranding as New Labour under Tony Blair, however, the party adopted a number of Thatcherite policies – in 2010, the Political Compass website classified the Labour Party as being right-wing and authoritarian. Many observers describe the Labour Party as social democratic or neo-liberal rather than democratic socialist. Blair himself has described New Labour's political position as a "Third Way". The Socialist Campaign Group is a left-wing grouping of Labour Party members of parliament in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1981 by Tony Benn's supporters as a split from the Tribune Group. The Compass organisation has also attracted a number of members disillusioned with the New Labour project. In the 2005 General Election Labour won 9,556,183 votes.

Internal groups

In contrast to Tribune and Chartist.

Compass
Fabian Society
Labour Representation Committee/Socialist Campaign Group/Labour Left Briefing

Other organisations

The next largest Party is the Green Party, followed by the Respect Party which has the support of: Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee), the Socialist Unity Network, Socialist Resistance and the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). Respect allows its members to hold membership of other political organisations, and people of no other political organisation. Respect's only Member of Parliament is George Galloway who is also the leader of Respect.[1]

Respect's first electoral test was the 2004 Greater London Authority elections, in which Lindsey German came fifth. In the 2005 general election, the Respect Coalition won 68,065 votes. By the time of the 2008 Greater London Authority elections, the Socialist Workers Party had left the coalition amid an acrimonious dispute with George Galloway and instead contested the elections as the Left List with Lindsey German as candidate (coming eighth). Since the split the two factions have become Respect Renewal (now simply Respect) and the Left Alternative.

Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (won 26,765 votes in the English local elections 2011)
Socialist Labour Party (won 19,529 votes in the 2005 general election)
Socialist Party (England and Wales) stands as Socialist Alternative in elections (won 9,398 votes in the 2005 general election)
Alliance for Green Socialism (won 1,978 votes in the 2005 general election)
Workers' Revolutionary Party (won 1,143 votes in the 2005 general election)
Communist Party of Britain (won 1,124 votes in the 2005 general election)
Independent Working Class Association (won 892 votes in the UK general election)
Democratic Labour Party (won 770 votes in the 2005 general election)
Alliance for Workers Liberty stand as Socialist Unity in elections (won 581 votes in the 2005 general election)
Social Democratic Party (UK, 1990–)

Fewer than 500 votes
Including those who did not stand on principle or for practical reasons

Communist League of Great Britain
Communist League (UK, 1990)
Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (backed Labour under Thatcher to vote-out the Conservatives)
Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (formed from former members of the SLP)
Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee)
Communist Workers Organisation
Democratic Socialist Alliance
Economic and Philosophic Science Review
International Communist Current
New Communist Party of Britain (backs Labour)
Peace and Progress Party
People's Party (formed from former members of Labour)
Permanent Revolution (group)
Red Party (formed by former members of the CPGB PCC)
Revolutionary Communist Group
Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
Revolutionary Democratic Group
Socialist Action
Socialist Appeal (supports the Labour Party candidates)
Socialist Equality Party (formed from former members of the WRP)
Socialist Party of Great Britain
Spartacist League
Socialist Workers Party
Workers Power

Active only in Scotland

Scottish Socialist Party
Solidarity (Scotland)
Scottish National Party
Scottish Labour Party
Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)

Active only in Wales

Plaid Cymru
Welsh Labour
Socialist Party Wales

When, of all of the above, the only organisations capable of garnering more than a vanishingly small amount of popular support are SNP and Plaid Cymru and given that even these are principally nationalist rather than socialist organisations per se in any case, the prospects for "the left" anywhere in Britain can hardly be viewed as anything other than minuscule. Of all of the other organisations, only the Green Party and Respect have HoC representation in Britain and this is by just one MP each. That the remainder comprises almost three dozen isolated fringe organisations rather than just one or two is evidence of disunity and would therefore seem to do little to boost the evident credibility of "the left" in a Britain in which the Labour Party itself has not been a "left-leaning" one for at least a generation; those whose names include "Workers" rather than "Workers'" at least arguably deserve a place in pedants' corner...

You mention the desirability or otherwise of this kind of situation. What I think is undesirable, at least from the standpoint of political structure, representation and viable activity, is the danger inherent in the lack of any real "opposition". Not so long ago I recall reading somewhere (I can't now recall where) of the impression being conveyed of a Britain "governed" by just one overbearing and immovable political party with people like Dennis Skinner at its left and John Redwood at its right and with a lack of palpable and credible "opposition"; whilst that's clearly a gross exaggeration, there's no smoke without fire, methinks. At least in the immediate pre-Thatcher years, a sense of "opposition" and of party political identity was palpable but, since those days, all that seems largely to have been confined to the dustbin of the very history that you mention.

[aeolium]

That Piketty book looks very interesting, calum - thanks.

I don't think it is possible for groups with names and ideology that directly link them to the history of communism in the C20 to attract more than a very small minority of support, no matter how disastrous the operation of capitalism, simply because of the shadow of those appalling regimes. Few people will believe that the successful outcome of a class struggle as demanded by those groups will result in any of: a pluralist democracy, the rule of law, multiple parties with different points of view, human rights, free expression of opinion - or even, better living standards.

But I don't think ahinton's list of minority parties necessarily suggests that new parties cannot grow from small beginnings into quite serious contenders. Look at the growth of the SNP in the last decade or so, to become the largest party in the Scottish Parliament and seriously pressing for independence - which would have been pretty well unthinkable even a couple of decades ago. Also the electoral landscape is much more volatile now, with the widespread decline of support for mainstream parties and the rise of smaller ones, and greater swings (as in the Canadian election of 1993 when the governing party lost 154 seats to end up with just 2, or the Greek election in 2012 where the governing PASOK party lost 119 seats to end up with fewer than the relatively new left-wing Syriza party). Nationalist parties are on the rise, not just in the UK, but throughout Europe, and may be the leading parties - in terms of the popular vote - in several countries in the European elections this year. I don't think any of this holds out a lot of hope for parties of the left, but it does mean that the status quo will be far more difficult for the establishment to maintain (not least as quite a few of the nationalist parties are as hostile to big business as some of the leftist parties).

[ahinton]

But I don't think ahinton's list of minority parties necessarily suggests that new parties cannot grow from small beginnings into quite serious contenders.

Again, it's Wiki's list, not mine; I merely quoted from it and, in so doing, I did not in any case seek to suggest that, as you put it, "new parties cannot grow from small beginnings into quite serious contenders" - merely that, as indeed I mentioned, from that list of some three dozen organisations SNP and Plaid Cymru are the only ones successfuly to have proven themselves to be such serious contenders and they are by definition and intent nationalist parties more than they are identifiably socialist ones in any case. It's the disparate and fragmented nature of the organisations that purport to represent "the left" that continues to strike me as being at the heart of the problem that identifies that "the left" has a barely visible presence in Britain today, at least in the form of organisations dedicated to its promotion.

[amateur51]

With respect ahinton, those figures in the wiki quaotation are ten years out-of-date. They're probably the best there are but useless nonetheless.

I was still paying top-rate income tax in 2004 !! ;D

[aeolium]

Again, it's Wiki's list, not mine; I merely quoted from it and, in so doing, I did not in any case seek to suggest that, as you put it, "new parties cannot grow from small beginnings into quite serious contenders" - merely that, as indeed I mentioned, from that list of some three dozen organisations SNP and Plaid Cymru are the only ones successfuly to have proven themselves to be such serious contenders and they are by definition and intent nationalist parties more than they are identifiably socialist ones in any case. It's the disparate and fragmented nature of the organisations that purport to represent "the left" that continues to strike me as being at the heart of the problem that identifies that "the left" has a barely visible presence in Britain today, at least in the form of organisations dedicated to its promotion.

But they are not the only ones in Europe to have grown from a very small base to having significant electoral support in quite a short period - Syriza in Greece, for instance, definitely a leftist party, or Beppe Grillo's curious Five Star Movement in Italy (more populist than having any particular ideology). And I suggested a reason why openly socialist parties here - and elsewhere in Europe - have difficulty attracting support, that socialism has become a dirty word for many in the electorate because of its tainted C20 associations. You also have a point about the factional nature of many parties of the left, their tendency to suffer from internal factional conflicts. Incidentally, I think UKIP here has to be considered a "serious contender" (as a nationalist party) whatever you think of its merits, as it is regularly polling in excess of 10% and is likely to finish first or second in the popular vote in the European elections this year.

[ahinton]

With respect ahinton, those figures in the wiki quaotation are ten years out-of-date. They're probably the best there are but useless nonetheless.

Some are indeed nine years out of date, to be sure, but I am unaware of material evidence of any increase in noticeable popular supprt for any of those organisations or indeed any decrease in fragmentation and disparacy (if that's a word) of the clutch of splinters that seems to be all that - at least in any kind of organised form - represents "the left" in Britain today; indeed, for all that I know, such support might indeed have dwindled yet farther in the ongoing largely opposition-free political climate in which 21st century Britain apparently purports to function.

[ahinton]

You also have a point about the factional nature of many parties of the left, their tendency to suffer from internal factional conflicts.

The symptom of this factionalisation is the weakness and lack of credibility or persuasiveness of any of these small groups and this inevitably results at least in part from the sense of disunity that is illustrated by the sheer plethora of such co-existent left-wing organisations; that said, even in the vanishingly improbable event that they all merged into one, the total support for the newly unified left-wing party would likely garner would still leave it in electoral deposit-losing territory.

Incidentally, I think UKIP here has to be considered a "serious contender" (as a nationalist party) whatever you think of its merits, as it is regularly polling in excess of 10% and is likely to finish first or second in the popular vote in the European elections this year.

Really?! Not a "serious contender" in this thread, surely, given that it's about The politics of the left in the UK! Mr Farage's left-wing credentials are such that I can hardly even imagine him knowing quite what to do if his satnav advised him to turn left! I expect that the only "left" in his world is the side of the road on which he hopes British citizens will continue to drive...

[aeolium]

Really?! Not a "serious contender" in this thread, surely, given that it's about The politics of the left in the UK! Mr Farage's left-wing credentials are such that I can hardly even imagine him knowing quite what to do if his satnav advised him to turn left! I expect that the only "left" in his world is the side of the road on which he hopes British citizens will continue to drive...

No, but as you could have seen by reading my message, I was arguing that it was possible for small parties of whatever ideology to grow to become "serious contenders". And this seems entirely relevant to the thread title, which does not require that one should only discuss leftist parties and the different manifestations of left-wing ideology but reasons why the left has failed to take advantage of the massive crisis in capitalism in 2008. One reason, as I suggested, was the taint of communist regimes in the C20, but another is undoubtedly the still powerful appeal of nationalism and the parties that play on that appeal.

[ahinton]

No, but as you could have seen by reading my message, I was arguing that it was possible for small parties of whatever ideology to grow to become "serious contenders". And this seems entirely relevant to the thread title, which does not require that one should only discuss leftist parties and the different manifestations of left-wing ideology but reasons why the left has failed to take advantage of the massive crisis in capitalism in 2008. One reason, as I suggested, was the taint of communist regimes in the C20, but another is undoubtedly the still powerful appeal of nationalism and the parties that play on that appeal.

OK, fair enough, but the "appeal" of Farage and his cronies to the British public has yet to be put to the test at a General Election and, in any case, it is just as possible for "serious contenders" from the outside of mainstream politics to disappear as suddenly as they appear, especially if they are, broadly speaking, one-trick ponies as UKIP arguably appears to be. That said, however, UKIP is at least UKIP, as distinct from 30+ tiny factions that appear to share similar aims but cannot seem to find a way of unifying themselves into any kind of force with which to be reckoned and, in so being, the overall impression that the latter presents is one that might suggest that "the left" struggles to pull itself together these days whereas a decidedly non-left group with a loud-mouthed leader that seeks to extricate UK from EU, make massive cuts in immigration to UK but seemingly not a whole lot else can at least draw some public attention to itself and its aims for the time being.

For what it may or may not be worth, incidentally, the Wiki source from which I gleaned that list of UK left-wing organisations also gives a list of right-wing ones but, apart from the one thhat's currently in coalition government with the LibDems and UKIP which, for all its noise, still has no MPs in HoC yet, the only ones named are
British National Party
British People's Party
National Front
British Democratic Party
Christian Party
and, of these, BPP was wound up last year to morph into BDP and the Christian Party promotes a specific "Christian" agenda not common to the others, so there are really only three. Of these, BPP/BDP evidently seeks to overthrow BNP in any case (which gives some idea of the extent of unity between these groups), as it claims to believe BNP to have become a watered-down version of what it presumably thinks a modern right-wing political party in UK ought to be.

The list, though far shorter than that for left-wing organisations, still comprises tiny minorities in terms of public support. Very little seems to have been heard of the longest established of them, NF, for quite some time.

Once again, then, it might seem that the far right, like the far left, is largely put out to grass and I for one would be most surprised if either movement (if one can realistically call it such) makes any headway at the next UK General Election other, perhaps, than UKIP which, its claimed public support notwithstanding, would appear in any case to have no chance of forming a government and is rather obviously not up for entering into any coalition.

[Serial_Apologist]

Raising the spectre of the National Front reminds me of the days of the Anti-Nazi League, in the late 1970s, which brought many of us who had failed to make much political headway in black communities into contact with them through the Rastafarian/Reggae adherents involved in or headlining the huge demonstrations against the NF. All of a sudden - in Bristol at any rate - we were being invited into the black pubs to hold our meetings in back rooms or host Reclaim the Night fundraisers. As in the more recent instance of Respect being maligned as a front organisation for the Socialist Workers Party, the SWP was often implicated in the running of the ANL back then. The reality, today and back then, was probably more that the SWP's continuity of organisational experience has led to that impression, as witnessed by the number of their placards on display; to me the salient, mostly unintended success of movements like the ANL and the more recent Coalition Against the War has been social and cultural, or in other words, peripheral from the pov of the concerns of the organisations vying to head them - in the case of the SWP increasing their membership numbers. This is important, I think, because one of the main problems of the left's own making has been its general sniffiness about "cultural matters". The commonly uttered phrase of the late 1960s, "the personal is the poliitical", which was of anarchist rather than Marxist provenance, was probably granted lip service in recognition of the feminist critique of male dominance of leadership positions in most left-wing organisations, i.e. to get women on side, since it took an awful lot of pressure from the advocates of gender politics before a certain brand of thinking more common on the left than was acknowledged, namely that these cussed issues of gender politics (which by implication put of working class identification with us) would all be sorted out "in the wash" after capitalism had been overthrown.

What I am saying in a long and apparently roundabout way is that if, IF a left-wing party or movement is ever to garner the sort of support needed to counter the massive ideological hegemonic hold over the electorate, that challenge is only likely to come about if it is initiated as a cultural movement outwith the traditionally recognised channels of extraparliamentary industrial or civil agitation beloved of the left of old.

[ahinton]

Raising the spectre of the National Front

Were it not for the interesting response that it has elicited from you, I would apologise for having done so!

sorted out "in the wash" after capitalism had been overthrown

I cannot help but wonder whether anyone, however left-leaning, has ever really believed that this is actually possible given the exerience of every form of government that has existed anywhere in the world since the industrial revolution; the nature of capitalism and the manner in which it is practised can change and be changed but what seems to pertain nonetheless is that, whatever happens, the most that can be expected is that one kind of capitalism be exchanged for another. I remain to be convinced that the globe can actually be rid of capitalism unless it is first ridden of all capital and all exchanges of trade of every kind; it seems that someone will always take advantage of someone else whenever such exchanges occur.

What I am saying in a long and apparently roundabout way is that if, IF a left-wing party or movement is ever to garner the sort of support needed to counter the massive ideological hegemonic hold over the electorate, that challenge is only likely to come about if it is initiated as a cultural movement outwith the traditionally recognised channels of extraparliamentary industrial or civil agitation beloved of the left of old.

In theory, at least, I imagine that you would be right, but the ways in which such a goal could be achieved are dependent upon a majority trying to ensure that it somehow does so; if there's no real motivation for it and no obvious replacement for capitalism, I cannot see how it could come about. The left may indeed once have been "sniffy about cultural matters", as you suggest, but I think that the left-wing ideal of ridding the world of capitalism in any form whatsoever seems to transcend even these matters to the extent that, if thought through, it would have to be recognised as predicated upon the need to rid the world of capital altogether, yet I have never heard any left-wing advocate suggesting that this would indeed be a necessary component of the overthrow of the capitalism that every régime from the most exteme right to the most extreme left has continued to practise in one form or another and looks set to go on doing so.

[Serial_Apologist]

That would be true were the existence of capital inevitably synonymous with capitalism - a mistake which is often made. The issue is not one of capital, but its ownership.