Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ The Labour Representation Committee was formed by, among others, James Keir Hardie in 1900. 

Between this year and 1906 the group worked with the trade unions and the Independent Labour Party to form, in that year, what we know today as the Labour Party. It has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists, Fabians and trade unionists and was (and supposedly is) an organisation to give working class people a voice in parliament. 

The modern variant of this party is open to serious questions as to whether that role has been fulfilled. In the 1906 General Election the Labour Party won 29 MPs to the parliament becoming the fourth party after the Liberals, who won by a landslide, and the Conservative opposition and the Irish National Party - who claimed 82 seats under the leadership of John Redmond and were the third largest party in Westminster. The Labour Party of the early 20th century was considered almost revolutionary because it advocated social democracy at a time when liberal democracy had yet to reach its full potential. The Labour Party did not stand candidates in Ireland for the 1914 election in defence of the newly formed Irish Labour Party (1912): it was to be a British Labour Party not a United Kingdom organisation.

With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, a split occurred within the second international, which the Labour Party was affiliated to, between those who supported the war and those who did not. The Irish, Russians and Bulgarians opposed the war while the Germans led by Eduard Bernstein, British and French to name but three suddenly forgot their socialist principles and weighed in behind their respective rulers to support the war. The Labour Party, although against the war right up until the outbreak, voted with the government of the day for £100,000 war credits once war broke out. This forced Ramsay MacDonald to resign the leadership of the party in protest against the war. 

Part of the Labour Party were the Fabian Society, a group of middle-class socialists, non-revolutionary. This group headed by Sydney and Beatrice Webb influenced the party and its future greatly. In 1918 the Webbs inserted the once celebrated Clause 1V into the party’s constitution. This was a very important piece, as it became the guts of the party for the next seventy-seven years it read: 

To secure for the worker by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service. 

This addition to the party’s constitution though not revolutionary, certainly not in its armed insurrection sense, was significant. There was now for the first time embodied in the constitution of the party a declaration of political principles, and these principles were, at least on paper, socialist in content and radical for their time.

In 1924 Ramsay MacDonald headed the first minority Labour Government, the first time the party had a taste of governmental power. They were to find out, as happened time and again in later years, that having Clause IV on paper and implementing it against the will of the minority capitalist class were two different things. Not until 1945, just as the Second World War was ending did a majority, by a landslide, Labour government come to pass. This was headed by Clement Attlee and included swathes of Clause IV in their manifesto. Much of major industry was nationalised, including the Coal Industry, the Railways and Transport, and a National Health Service (NHS) came into being in 1948 which is still in existence today, though a shadow of its former self due to government cuts and pushes towards privatisation. 

Attlee did not have the brick wall opposition of British capitalism to his policies due to the fact Britain was just coming out of a six-year conflict with Nazi Germany. The bourgeoisie saw these relatively modest policies as perhaps beneficial and they did not want a repeat of soldiers coming home from the fighting, as happened in the First World war, to poverty and no improvement in their condition. It was a way, perhaps as the ruling classes saw it, of staving off potential revolution. This was perhaps the closest any Labour administration has come to enacting clause IV of their constitution.

Clause IV was the guts of the party and differentiated them, again on paper, from the rest of the parliamentary parties and it served them well. In 1964 Harold Wilson's Labour were elected into government and Wilson, as PM, would find out the difficulties of taking Clause IV off the paper and enacting it into policies. British capitalism now would resist, and resist they did successfully as Wilson had to row back on many pledges. He was unfortunate enough to be in office when the first cuts to the NHS were enacted. In 1966 the party was re-elected, the year England won the World Cup, and once again capitalism would clip the wings of the Labour administration, reminding them once more who the real rulers were. Arguably in 1970 the same World Cup cost Wilson his Premiership, as England lost to West Germany, the team they beat in the 66 final, in the quarter-final stage. Many people blame Wilson’s handling of the Bobby Moore affair as the reason Labour lost. This is debatable. Labour would again return to power in 1974, Harold Wilson retiring in 1976 to be replaced by James Callaghan. In 1979 Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives won the election and Labour would be out of office for the next eighteen years.

In 1994 the Labour leader, John Smith, suddenly died and a man named Tony Blair was elected to the leadership. In 1995 Blair changed the wording and meaning, a new version of Clause IV, not committed to any form of socialism, the guts of the party, completely changing the party’s position and identity in the parliamentary spectrum. Blair, under “new Labour” continued to reform the party, killing off what was once the Labour Party which it was now in name only. When he tore the guts of the party out at the 1995 party conference – without Clause IV the party are indistinguishable from any other pro-capitalist party – Arthur Scargill, then President of the National Union of Mineworkers, stated outside the conference hall “that man in there has just declared war on the working-class.” He was not wrong, and this was the first death of the British Labour Party. Blair continued to enact policies more akin to Thatcherism than those of any Labour government as worker’s rights, lost under Thatcher and then John Major, were not returned. The exception being trade union membership rights were given back to the employees at the Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) lost under Thatcher. This was the only concession Blair made to the trade unions, one of the founding component parts of the Labour Party. Blair led the party to three consecutive electoral victories between 1997 and 2007, the most of any Labour leader. He was replaced by Gordon Brown, a Blairite, on his retirement in 2007.

On 12th September 2015 Jeremy Corbyn, a traditional Labour politician and believer in the old Clause IV, became the leader of the party. At last, a glimmer of hope existed for those of us, including my late father, who wanted a Labour leader worthy of the name, somebody who would not bow to capitalism and who would certainly not re-enact Thatcherite or Blairite policies. Corbyn’s biggest enemies were within his own party as may MPs were Blairites and did not want the Labour Party to be the organisation it set out to be back in 1900. Corbyn was often accused of not upholding Labour values, which was rubbish. He was the man who if anybody could would bring the party back to the age of Clause IV. In April 2017 then Prime Minister, Teressa May, called a snap election. She was hoping to strengthen her majority in parliament and her hand in the Brexit negotiations, instead she lost her overall majority. Jeremy Corbyn and Labour did surprisingly well, removing the Conservative Party’s majority and producing a hung parliament. May kept her premiership but with a much-reduced number forcing her to step down. The right-wing of the Labour Party were shitting themselves as they had hoped Corbyn would be humiliated. He was not. 

Because of Corbyn’s performance and not despite of it, he carried on as Labour leader, he had almost done it. The right-wing Blairites began their internal campaign to ensure at the next election, which would not be far away, Corbyn would not have the result he had achieved in the 2017 vote. They did everything to undermine him, along with the media, and this resulted in Labour being defeated heavily in the 2019 General Election winning just 202 seats to the conservatives 365 under Boris Johnson. This forced Corbyn’s resignation as leader of the party. There had been no repeat of the 2017 bounce, many of his own party ensured that. The Parliamentary Labour Party, almost to a one, were against their leader Jeremy Corbyn from the start. It was the membership of the party, the branches and trade union membership which catapulted him into the leader’s position and, all things considered, almost Prime Minister. The Parliamentary Party’s centre right MPs, people like Hillary Benn (whose father would turn in his grave), Stephen Kinnock, the son of former leader Neil Kinnock who would not give Labour party support to the Miners during the year-long strike of 1984/85, and Margaret Hodge all wanted the downfall of Jeremy Corbyn. Hodge is on record as saying she wanted rid of Corbyn as leader. They were like Roman Senators waiting to stab Caesar to death. Margaret Hodge even accused him of being a “fucking anti-Semite” which was untrue. The word “anti-Semite” has taken on a new meaning and is now applied to anybody who condemn any Israeli military action against the Palestinians. Margaret Hodge and the likes cost Labour - through their actions of backstabbing their leader - the election in 2019. In 2017 when Corbyn had, against all the odds, brought down the Conservative majority, Stephen Kinnock was on the brink of tears, not tears of joy but pure resentment because he nearly had to do a Labour politicians job - try to enact socialism.

Jeremy Corbyn stood down as leader of the party after the electoral defeat and on 4th January 2020 Keir Starmer was elected leader. He defeated Corbynista Rebeca Long-Bailey and the more moderate Lisa Nandy in the race. Starmer immediately began changing the party back to something more in line with Blairs “new Labour” and this meant not criticising the Israeli Government in their treatment of the Palestinian people, to do so is deemed anti-Semitic. He almost immediately denied Jeremy Corbyn the Labour whip which, I understand, is still the position. This delighted the vultures who had done everything in their power to rid the party of Corbyn. They think nothing of the 430,000 party members opinions, the majority of whom supported Jeremy. They think the Parliamentary Party should call all the shots. It should be noted Jeremy Corbyn won a re-election battle for the party leadership, a contest forced by the PLP, who lost. The membership overwhelmingly elected Corbyn again but, for the PLP, democracy can take a walk in their book. Under Corbyn it should be remembered the Red Flag, Labours traditional anthem, was once again sang at the party’s annual conference. This was previously discontinued under Blair.

With the Russian invasion of the Ukraine the major parties in the British Parliament are lining up to see who can be the most anti-Russian and pro-NATO. Starmer and his Labour party, many of whose members do not support the EU and NATOs position on the invasion while, at the same time, not being in favour of the actions taken by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin either, are trying to outdo the government in the anti-Russian stakes. Starmer, in true dictatorial right-wing fashion has now threatened any MP who equates the actions of Russia with those in the recent past of NATO with expulsion. This means, he will not “tolerate” any anti-US or NATO feelings or discussions in the Labour Party. Starmer is trying to outflank the Conservative government in pursuing an anti-Russian, pro-NATO position which is almost racist. Like Tony Blair before him, who grovelled his way into George W. Bush’s good books, it appears Starmer wants to be the pet poodle, should he ever get into government, of President Joe Biden or his successor. This looking up to the USA has often been a weak link in Labour party politics and, to my knowledge, only Harold Wilson stood up to the White House back in the sixties refusing British troops for the Vietnam war. He bluntly told US President, Lyndon Johnson, there would be no British troops involved in the war.

I lived in England, where I was born, for thirty-seven of my sixty-one years. I was brought up in a trade union and Labour supporting family and my late dad was involved with his local party and a shop steward in his union, the TGWU now part of UNITE, all his working life. What he would make of Keir Starmer I do not know. He was loyal to Labour even through the Blair years despite hating everything Blair had done to the party, so I would imagine he would have remained a loyal member. I voted Labour in 1997, my last vote in England, with many reservations because I could never in a month of Sundays even consider voting Conservative and Unionist, “blue nose bastards” as they were known. 

If I lived there now, would I vote Labour? No, I could not in all conscience look myself in the mirror if I voted for this variant of what was once the Labour Party! The denying of the former leader, popularly elected, Jeremy Corbyn the Labour whip was bad enough, changing the meaning of the word “anti-Semitism” and now threatening anybody who may criticise NATO, the Israeli Government or say anything detrimental about the USA with expulsion are bridges too far for me. I would probably spoil my ballot paper while exercising my only democratic right. Keir Starmer may share part of a name with party founder, James Keir Hardie, but the differences in their policies are wider than the one hundred or so years which separate them! 

In reality Starmer has become a dictator beyond the boundaries of even Tony Blair who, despite his huge lunge to the right, would at least tolerate disagreements and debate without the threat of expulsion to any MP who disagreed with him. Under Keir Starmer such differences which might upset the big boys of NATO and the USA will not be tolerated. He has brought the British Labour Party to new depths hitherto perhaps unimaginable. Can the Labour Party in Britain resurrect itself again? Probably, but will remain Labour in name only, unless this direction of political travel is changed and that would mean another change of leader!

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent 
Socialist Republican and Marxist

The Second Death Of The British Labour Party!

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ The Labour Representation Committee was formed by, among others, James Keir Hardie in 1900. 

Between this year and 1906 the group worked with the trade unions and the Independent Labour Party to form, in that year, what we know today as the Labour Party. It has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists, Fabians and trade unionists and was (and supposedly is) an organisation to give working class people a voice in parliament. 

The modern variant of this party is open to serious questions as to whether that role has been fulfilled. In the 1906 General Election the Labour Party won 29 MPs to the parliament becoming the fourth party after the Liberals, who won by a landslide, and the Conservative opposition and the Irish National Party - who claimed 82 seats under the leadership of John Redmond and were the third largest party in Westminster. The Labour Party of the early 20th century was considered almost revolutionary because it advocated social democracy at a time when liberal democracy had yet to reach its full potential. The Labour Party did not stand candidates in Ireland for the 1914 election in defence of the newly formed Irish Labour Party (1912): it was to be a British Labour Party not a United Kingdom organisation.

With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, a split occurred within the second international, which the Labour Party was affiliated to, between those who supported the war and those who did not. The Irish, Russians and Bulgarians opposed the war while the Germans led by Eduard Bernstein, British and French to name but three suddenly forgot their socialist principles and weighed in behind their respective rulers to support the war. The Labour Party, although against the war right up until the outbreak, voted with the government of the day for £100,000 war credits once war broke out. This forced Ramsay MacDonald to resign the leadership of the party in protest against the war. 

Part of the Labour Party were the Fabian Society, a group of middle-class socialists, non-revolutionary. This group headed by Sydney and Beatrice Webb influenced the party and its future greatly. In 1918 the Webbs inserted the once celebrated Clause 1V into the party’s constitution. This was a very important piece, as it became the guts of the party for the next seventy-seven years it read: 

To secure for the worker by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service. 

This addition to the party’s constitution though not revolutionary, certainly not in its armed insurrection sense, was significant. There was now for the first time embodied in the constitution of the party a declaration of political principles, and these principles were, at least on paper, socialist in content and radical for their time.

In 1924 Ramsay MacDonald headed the first minority Labour Government, the first time the party had a taste of governmental power. They were to find out, as happened time and again in later years, that having Clause IV on paper and implementing it against the will of the minority capitalist class were two different things. Not until 1945, just as the Second World War was ending did a majority, by a landslide, Labour government come to pass. This was headed by Clement Attlee and included swathes of Clause IV in their manifesto. Much of major industry was nationalised, including the Coal Industry, the Railways and Transport, and a National Health Service (NHS) came into being in 1948 which is still in existence today, though a shadow of its former self due to government cuts and pushes towards privatisation. 

Attlee did not have the brick wall opposition of British capitalism to his policies due to the fact Britain was just coming out of a six-year conflict with Nazi Germany. The bourgeoisie saw these relatively modest policies as perhaps beneficial and they did not want a repeat of soldiers coming home from the fighting, as happened in the First World war, to poverty and no improvement in their condition. It was a way, perhaps as the ruling classes saw it, of staving off potential revolution. This was perhaps the closest any Labour administration has come to enacting clause IV of their constitution.

Clause IV was the guts of the party and differentiated them, again on paper, from the rest of the parliamentary parties and it served them well. In 1964 Harold Wilson's Labour were elected into government and Wilson, as PM, would find out the difficulties of taking Clause IV off the paper and enacting it into policies. British capitalism now would resist, and resist they did successfully as Wilson had to row back on many pledges. He was unfortunate enough to be in office when the first cuts to the NHS were enacted. In 1966 the party was re-elected, the year England won the World Cup, and once again capitalism would clip the wings of the Labour administration, reminding them once more who the real rulers were. Arguably in 1970 the same World Cup cost Wilson his Premiership, as England lost to West Germany, the team they beat in the 66 final, in the quarter-final stage. Many people blame Wilson’s handling of the Bobby Moore affair as the reason Labour lost. This is debatable. Labour would again return to power in 1974, Harold Wilson retiring in 1976 to be replaced by James Callaghan. In 1979 Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives won the election and Labour would be out of office for the next eighteen years.

In 1994 the Labour leader, John Smith, suddenly died and a man named Tony Blair was elected to the leadership. In 1995 Blair changed the wording and meaning, a new version of Clause IV, not committed to any form of socialism, the guts of the party, completely changing the party’s position and identity in the parliamentary spectrum. Blair, under “new Labour” continued to reform the party, killing off what was once the Labour Party which it was now in name only. When he tore the guts of the party out at the 1995 party conference – without Clause IV the party are indistinguishable from any other pro-capitalist party – Arthur Scargill, then President of the National Union of Mineworkers, stated outside the conference hall “that man in there has just declared war on the working-class.” He was not wrong, and this was the first death of the British Labour Party. Blair continued to enact policies more akin to Thatcherism than those of any Labour government as worker’s rights, lost under Thatcher and then John Major, were not returned. The exception being trade union membership rights were given back to the employees at the Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) lost under Thatcher. This was the only concession Blair made to the trade unions, one of the founding component parts of the Labour Party. Blair led the party to three consecutive electoral victories between 1997 and 2007, the most of any Labour leader. He was replaced by Gordon Brown, a Blairite, on his retirement in 2007.

On 12th September 2015 Jeremy Corbyn, a traditional Labour politician and believer in the old Clause IV, became the leader of the party. At last, a glimmer of hope existed for those of us, including my late father, who wanted a Labour leader worthy of the name, somebody who would not bow to capitalism and who would certainly not re-enact Thatcherite or Blairite policies. Corbyn’s biggest enemies were within his own party as may MPs were Blairites and did not want the Labour Party to be the organisation it set out to be back in 1900. Corbyn was often accused of not upholding Labour values, which was rubbish. He was the man who if anybody could would bring the party back to the age of Clause IV. In April 2017 then Prime Minister, Teressa May, called a snap election. She was hoping to strengthen her majority in parliament and her hand in the Brexit negotiations, instead she lost her overall majority. Jeremy Corbyn and Labour did surprisingly well, removing the Conservative Party’s majority and producing a hung parliament. May kept her premiership but with a much-reduced number forcing her to step down. The right-wing of the Labour Party were shitting themselves as they had hoped Corbyn would be humiliated. He was not. 

Because of Corbyn’s performance and not despite of it, he carried on as Labour leader, he had almost done it. The right-wing Blairites began their internal campaign to ensure at the next election, which would not be far away, Corbyn would not have the result he had achieved in the 2017 vote. They did everything to undermine him, along with the media, and this resulted in Labour being defeated heavily in the 2019 General Election winning just 202 seats to the conservatives 365 under Boris Johnson. This forced Corbyn’s resignation as leader of the party. There had been no repeat of the 2017 bounce, many of his own party ensured that. The Parliamentary Labour Party, almost to a one, were against their leader Jeremy Corbyn from the start. It was the membership of the party, the branches and trade union membership which catapulted him into the leader’s position and, all things considered, almost Prime Minister. The Parliamentary Party’s centre right MPs, people like Hillary Benn (whose father would turn in his grave), Stephen Kinnock, the son of former leader Neil Kinnock who would not give Labour party support to the Miners during the year-long strike of 1984/85, and Margaret Hodge all wanted the downfall of Jeremy Corbyn. Hodge is on record as saying she wanted rid of Corbyn as leader. They were like Roman Senators waiting to stab Caesar to death. Margaret Hodge even accused him of being a “fucking anti-Semite” which was untrue. The word “anti-Semite” has taken on a new meaning and is now applied to anybody who condemn any Israeli military action against the Palestinians. Margaret Hodge and the likes cost Labour - through their actions of backstabbing their leader - the election in 2019. In 2017 when Corbyn had, against all the odds, brought down the Conservative majority, Stephen Kinnock was on the brink of tears, not tears of joy but pure resentment because he nearly had to do a Labour politicians job - try to enact socialism.

Jeremy Corbyn stood down as leader of the party after the electoral defeat and on 4th January 2020 Keir Starmer was elected leader. He defeated Corbynista Rebeca Long-Bailey and the more moderate Lisa Nandy in the race. Starmer immediately began changing the party back to something more in line with Blairs “new Labour” and this meant not criticising the Israeli Government in their treatment of the Palestinian people, to do so is deemed anti-Semitic. He almost immediately denied Jeremy Corbyn the Labour whip which, I understand, is still the position. This delighted the vultures who had done everything in their power to rid the party of Corbyn. They think nothing of the 430,000 party members opinions, the majority of whom supported Jeremy. They think the Parliamentary Party should call all the shots. It should be noted Jeremy Corbyn won a re-election battle for the party leadership, a contest forced by the PLP, who lost. The membership overwhelmingly elected Corbyn again but, for the PLP, democracy can take a walk in their book. Under Corbyn it should be remembered the Red Flag, Labours traditional anthem, was once again sang at the party’s annual conference. This was previously discontinued under Blair.

With the Russian invasion of the Ukraine the major parties in the British Parliament are lining up to see who can be the most anti-Russian and pro-NATO. Starmer and his Labour party, many of whose members do not support the EU and NATOs position on the invasion while, at the same time, not being in favour of the actions taken by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin either, are trying to outdo the government in the anti-Russian stakes. Starmer, in true dictatorial right-wing fashion has now threatened any MP who equates the actions of Russia with those in the recent past of NATO with expulsion. This means, he will not “tolerate” any anti-US or NATO feelings or discussions in the Labour Party. Starmer is trying to outflank the Conservative government in pursuing an anti-Russian, pro-NATO position which is almost racist. Like Tony Blair before him, who grovelled his way into George W. Bush’s good books, it appears Starmer wants to be the pet poodle, should he ever get into government, of President Joe Biden or his successor. This looking up to the USA has often been a weak link in Labour party politics and, to my knowledge, only Harold Wilson stood up to the White House back in the sixties refusing British troops for the Vietnam war. He bluntly told US President, Lyndon Johnson, there would be no British troops involved in the war.

I lived in England, where I was born, for thirty-seven of my sixty-one years. I was brought up in a trade union and Labour supporting family and my late dad was involved with his local party and a shop steward in his union, the TGWU now part of UNITE, all his working life. What he would make of Keir Starmer I do not know. He was loyal to Labour even through the Blair years despite hating everything Blair had done to the party, so I would imagine he would have remained a loyal member. I voted Labour in 1997, my last vote in England, with many reservations because I could never in a month of Sundays even consider voting Conservative and Unionist, “blue nose bastards” as they were known. 

If I lived there now, would I vote Labour? No, I could not in all conscience look myself in the mirror if I voted for this variant of what was once the Labour Party! The denying of the former leader, popularly elected, Jeremy Corbyn the Labour whip was bad enough, changing the meaning of the word “anti-Semitism” and now threatening anybody who may criticise NATO, the Israeli Government or say anything detrimental about the USA with expulsion are bridges too far for me. I would probably spoil my ballot paper while exercising my only democratic right. Keir Starmer may share part of a name with party founder, James Keir Hardie, but the differences in their policies are wider than the one hundred or so years which separate them! 

In reality Starmer has become a dictator beyond the boundaries of even Tony Blair who, despite his huge lunge to the right, would at least tolerate disagreements and debate without the threat of expulsion to any MP who disagreed with him. Under Keir Starmer such differences which might upset the big boys of NATO and the USA will not be tolerated. He has brought the British Labour Party to new depths hitherto perhaps unimaginable. Can the Labour Party in Britain resurrect itself again? Probably, but will remain Labour in name only, unless this direction of political travel is changed and that would mean another change of leader!

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent 
Socialist Republican and Marxist

12 comments:

  1. Caoimhin, Ronan Burtenshaw made this comment about the leader of the BLP and his cronies

    In Britain, our leaders have invaded sovereign states without provocation. They did in Iraq in 2003, taking part in the killing of hundreds of thousands. The people who lied to take us into that war faced no consequences. Their careers continued, as did their luxurious lives, as an entire region of the world was plunged into the depths of hell for decades.
    Can you seriously imagine Starmer doing any different?
    Not once has he called for Blair to be tried. Not once has he called Netanyahu a war criminal. But he would boot people out of the BLP were they to do either. The greatest victor the Tory Party ever secured was remoulding Labour in its own image.

    ReplyDelete
  2. In Margaret Thatchers own words, Anthony, "new Labour was my greatest achievement". Starmer, and I include "poodle" Blair here, is probably the worst thing to happen to the British labour movement. Starmer is a continuation of Blair, with a few right-wing modifications like intolerance of any offending comments against his wanabe mates! In my view, for what its worth, Arthur Scargill when forming "Socialist Labour" in 1995, I think, had perhaps left it ten years too late. If he had moved after the strike in 1985, he would have carried huge swathes of support from what were still mining and steel workers areas. Those areas today, often still referred to as "mining areas" have two things missing, a pit and coal miners. Militant trade unions as they were, could have paid into Socialist Labour instead of Blairs "new Labour". What the state would have done about it we can only speculate. Scargill had the embryo of what labour once were and a few names involved, like actor Ricky Tomlinson, himself once in jail for trade union activities.

    An opportunity missed perhaps?

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. would you really fancy the authoritarianism of Scargill? Before the Left achieve the world it wishes to see it will have to deal with the world as it is. I was always impressed by a comment Lenin once made about people who wave little red flags for socialism but who are bereft of a single idea for making socialism happen. The same can be said of other political projects as well. A Left minus a reasoned strategy hoping to get by on rhetorical sloganising is not going to make much progress. They end up sounding like the sandwich board men from the world of born again Christianity.

      Delete
  3. I never found Scargill authoritarian, in fact the structures of the NUM gave little room for the national leadership to be dictatorial. To understand what I mean an understanding of internal NUM democracy and the power of area over national is needed. It is a double edged sword, as certain ambigutues exist, as Notts tried to use it as an argument for a ballot. Fortunately the national conference of area delegates voted against the Notts delegates. Suggest you read Striling Similarities, chapters on the Miners Strike. If Scargill was the dictator you appear to think, no such conference(s) would take place, conferences I might add where Scargill or Heathfield had no vote on delegates motions.

    I never had you down as a "Leninist" Anthony. He was right about those who wave little red flags, but for me over the years that is not the major problem. The problems, as I have found, are the many diferent variants of socialism let alone how to achieve it or them. The basic rule for me, from which all other aspects spring, is the ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange along with a command economy. The problem is getting from where we are, under capitalism, to where we, or I, want to be under socialism, or think we ought to be. This is not an easy one, though I have my own ideas what strategy shoul3
    d be followed. Either way the state will resist and will shoot people if they feel threatened. Asking the bourgeoisie nicely to hand over power wil not work, I wish it would and would like to be proved wrong.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

    ReplyDelete
  4. Caoimhin - was talking less about the NUM and more about his post NUM history. He seems to be a Stalinist at heart.
    I am anything but a Leninist, was merely citing his insight rather than claiming it was an original thought from me.
    I think the waving of the little red flags is the problem insofar as it is a substitute for the main issue - strategy. Flag waving like sloganising is not a strategy

    ReplyDelete
  5. Very true Anthony, we have so many groups marching under a flag, calling themselves; "Marxist Leninists, Leninist, Trotskist, Stalinist, Marxist Leninist Maoist (a new one to the fold) Maoist, Gramscists" and the list goes on. Most of these, if not all, are possibly fronts for state suvellience, oh, I forgot, Spartacusts, none have a strategy for achieving their aims, aims which are vague let alone a system of governance.

    Yes, I supposse Arthur, as do many of his generation, holds Stalinist views, come to think of it, certainly regards dicipline of their members, central committees dicipline boards etc, most of these revolutionary groups do. I agree with the dictatorship of the proletriat, in its true sense, as we now live under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The problem is, when does this dictatorship dissolve, along with the party, and the class take over? All the parties I have come across substitute themselves for the class, or appear to. Democratic centralism, for example, is only democratic for those in the party, and the higher echolons at that. Do we need a party? Or revolutionary workers committees, based loosely on the shop stewards committees which would be my option. The shop stewards committees I have been on, from different directorates in a local authority, structurally had potential to become something much more given the correct conditions.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

    ReplyDelete
  6. Caoimhin - as I used to quip to a friend in jail, it was Trotskyites Against Trotskyism. He was a Trot and remains a committed Marxist. On my first trip to London after prison he and I visited the grave of Karl Marx. Marxism would be a great philosophy if it could find a way of dispensing with the Marxists.

    The Sparts, yes, how could we forget the Sparts!!

    On the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, this is one of my main problems with Lenin. He knew that once he replaced the dictatorship of the proletariat (which was based on the principal of universal suffrage) with the dictatorship of the party over the proletariat, it was to hell in a handcart. Rosa Luxemburg nailed it with her articulation of the Substitutionism problem.
    Poulantzas and Gramsci tried to address the problem, the former having even more difficulties with the problem of statism than the latter. Now capitalism is in the ascendency and largely unchallenged as a result of the Communists blowing the appeal of socialism with their power politics and oppression.

    ReplyDelete
  7. And that is the problem Anthony, the dictatorship of the party. A major problem indeed. Every party I have been a member and activist of, including the erps, I could not envisage relinquishing power to the elected workers councils. I may be wrong, and hope I am because of all the wanabe revolutionaries the republican socialist movement, desipite overwhelming difficulties put by two states, perhaps stood the best chance of delivering what they said. For this reason, disagreement on the role of the party, long and short term, I am no longer a party man, I can see the pitfalls. As for the other would be revolutionaries, forget it.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

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    1. Caoimhin - I prefer parties that eschew the authoritarianism of democratic centralism. The only way to get things done in almost every situation is through cooperation. And a party is an expression of a desire to cooperate in a political project. But they become managerial bureaucracies infused or infected by careerism that built the mechanisms best suited to protecting the careers rather than advancing the political project.

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  8. I'm not a lover of parties at all Anthony. Your theory about cooperation is, on paper, correct. In my own experience rarely work out that way, RSM were in a slightly different situation to parties operating in lands not under foreign occupation. For such parties, SWP, WRP, IMG, RSG, CPGB I could go on and on, were free to organise unrestricted thus taking a less authoritarian position, but did not do so. Probably because those in charge may well have been in the occupation of the state!!

    One group, styling themselves The Leninists, were more authoritarian than either SF of the day or IRSP. To hear them harp on it would be imagined they were the revolutionaries and the rest of us mere onlookers. Commical really looking back, they even tried to humilate one of their female members for daring to take a drink with us🤠, quite pathetic really. This was back in the late eighties early nineties. I asked myself, what society would be like with them in charge😱? Very bad examples of self styled Marxists, far removed from the real thing. I could not make head nor tail of what they were, but Marxists they were not.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

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    1. well, you know the old quip about the American Communist Party - when the FBI pulled its agents out membership dropped by 75%.

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