Category Archives: Democracy and the Labour Party

The left

Time for a Rethink

Derek James rounds on John McDonnell for his pusillanimity and the official left for its silence over the expulsion of Graham Bash

News that veteran Labour left activist Graham Bash has been expelled by Labour for supporting Labour Against the Witchhunt had been long expected and was met with a predictable and entirely justified wave of protest from the left.[1] The fact that a Labour member of over 50 years standing, editor of Labour Briefing and a leading figure in organisations such as the Labour Representation Committee and Jewish Voice for Labour could be expelled for the ‘offence’ of signing a LAW petition before it was proscribed is Kafkaesque – but sadly not at all unusual nowadays.

That this form of retrospective charge, which runs counter to any democratic principles or sense of natural justice, can be so widely used by the Labour bureaucracy shows just how firm a grip they now have. While the usual suspects on the left vigorously protested about the expulsion of comrade Bash, the other usual suspects who claim to be on the left – the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, for example – kept to their now customary vow of silence. However, one valiant member of the SCG, John McDonnell, a long-time comrade did manage to tweet about his treatment:

I’ve known and campaigned alongside Graham Bash for over 40 years. He is one of the finest socialists I have met. I do not believe it can be just to expel someone from the Labour Party based upon actions or associations with an organisation before it has been proscribed.[2]

Given their political association within the London left in the late 1970s, and more recently through the LRC and Labour Briefing, for which McDonnell once wrote a regular column, these comforting words are the least that he could do for an old comrade – but they are not nearly enough. It might seem churlish to criticise this gesture of support: after all, given the vehemence of these attacks on the left should we not be grateful for even this rather lukewarm expression of solidarity?

No, we should not! This type of hand-wringing ‘support’ is simply not good enough, given the scale of the witch-hunt we now face. Leaving John McDonnell’s personal feelings aside, his tweet is not only woefully inadequate in defending comrade Bash, but is worse than useless in fighting back politically against the attacks of the Labour leadership. The type of statement McDonnell should have made would not simply have defended Graham Bash’s character and political reputation, nor would it merely raise a query about the ‘justice’ of the charges and procedure of his expulsion. What we need is more than a muted ‘condemnation’: the situation demands a political defence of party democracy and free speech and a real explanation of why Keir Starmer and the right are using trumped-up accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ against the left.

However, as the last five years have shown, what the situation requires and what we get from the leaders of the official left are two very different things. Thus, John McDonnell’s rather tardy apologia on behalf of comrade Bash runs very much true to form in its oh so faint criticism of his expulsion. It also sheds light on the political duplicity and slavish compromises with the Labour right that characterise the politics of the official Labour left. So, McDonnell is concerned about the shabby treatment of his erstwhile comrade and rails, albeit sotto voce, against the terrible injustice that has been done to him. Comrade Bash is one of the finest socialists John McDonnell has ever met, so he tells us, and we agree that the expelled comrade is a genuine socialist who has been grotesquely smeared. But Graham Bash is not alone in facing persecution by the right: many other Jewish socialists are currently being attacked in this way. The question is: aren’t these and other leftwing comrades equally worthy of McDonnell’s support? Why the silence about the thousands of others who have been expelled? Are they not also ‘fine socialists’ who have been treated unjustly? Why no outcry about the reintroduction of bans and proscriptions?

The answer is that McDonnell is rather selective in whom he offers support to and who he is prepared to sacrifice when the right demands it. In conceding to the right that the left does have some form of anti-Semitism problem, as he did recently in Solidarity, the paper of the pro-witch-hunt Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, he is simply preparing the ground for yet more attacks and expulsions.[3] He ceded similar ground to the Labour right during the Corbyn leadership that only acted to undermine the left and embolden the witch-hunters.[4]

In this period he perfected an ability to speak out of both sides of his mouth at the same time. So, when activists were pushing to deselect rightwing anti-Corbyn MPs, McDonnell equivocated, offering a degree of public support for party democracy and the accountability of MPs to their Constituency Labour Parties, whilst at the same time privately urging restraint and attempting to broker compromise at every turn. John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn both acted behind the scenes to hold back the left in the CLPs. McDonnell in particular traded upon his left reputation in the CLPs: he was very active in personally persuading them that it was clever strategy not to move against rightwing MPs in a vain hope that such concessions would buy peace and secure the cooperation of the Parliamentary Labour Party. We all know how well that worked and where it ended up, don’t we?

Pointing out the contradictions and the failures of this strategy, and the disastrous role of the official left since 2015, is not simply point-scoring or a personal attack on McDonnell. Rather the failure of the Labour left – both during the Corbyn leadership and since – has not even been really discussed, much less understood, by the left. We know how those on the official left like McDonnell failed and continue to fail, both in taking the fight to the right and in really defending leftwingers like Graham Bash. For all his fine words, John McDonnell is quite willing to throw even his closest comrades under the bus.

This is not simply a flaw in his character or a personal betrayal. The fault lies not in the stars, but in the politics and the strategy of the official left and its inherent Labourism. Put simply, the sole strategy of this ‘left’ is to pursue ‘socialism’ (in reality a managed and reformed capitalism) through the election of a series of Labour governments and utilising the existing state to bring about the ‘transformation’ of society. Such a ‘strategy’ places a premium on the continued existence of Labour as an electoral force and a potential government and is in turn quite fundamentally predicated – in fact and ‘theory’ – on the essential unity of the left with the Labour right.

Maintaining that unity as a matter of course necessitates that the Labour left must make concessions and thus make itself completely subservient to the pro-capitalist right. The whole history of the left has been one of subordination to capitalism, the existing constitutional order and the Labour lieutenants of capital on the Labour right. Corbynism was no exception to that rule, as its failure and continued disintegration shows. However, until we understand these inherent historical and political flaws, and why it produces a completely useless strategy, the Labour left will continue to remain enchained by both its own politics and its trust in duplicitous ‘left’ MPs like John McDonnell.

Sadly those who fail to learn from their mistakes will be doomed to repeat them .

Notes

[1] www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2021/11/07/graham-bash-tells-the-canary-the-labour-witch-hunt-will-not-stop-until-it-guts-the-party.

[2] twitter.com/johnmcdonnellMP/status/1456923121215320070.

[3] www.workersliberty.org/index.php/story/2021-10-19/trade-union-struggle-and-political-struggle-interview-john-mcdonnell.

[4] www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-45035341.

The left

Feeding the revolving door

Andrew Byrne, Gerald Wiley and Derek James report on an all too carefully choreographed event staged by the Socialist Appeal comrades

Last weekend’s Revolution festival, organised by Socialist Appeal and the International Marxist Tendency, provided a good snapshot of the politics and the state of the contemporary left, both inside and outside the Labour Party.

The IMT put on a tight show and talked a good talk: in contrast to many on the Labour left, the tone was buoyant, if downright apocalyptic, and morale seemed high. The casual observer who wandered in might easily have concluded that this was a group that was really starting to take off. Certainly, the leadership and committed members of the IMT must have been happy with both the turnout and the tenor – an overall attendance of 400-500, mostly young, people, who listened intently and, when the occasion demanded, warmly applauded the calls for revolution and the overthrow of capitalism. What’s not to like?

The mood was set by Rob Sewell, editor of Socialist Appeal, at the opening rally. He argued that “this is an age of convulsion, an age of turmoil and an age of crisis”, which will only “intensify, because it is rooted in the impasse of capitalism”, the “anarchy of the market” and the “capitalist system”. The result of this pressure on the working class, he predicted, will be a social explosion: a wave of strikes and “Titanic battles” on the horizon. For comrade Sewell, there is “enormous disenchantment in society, especially amongst young people”. The ruling class is “forcing down the lid, but this pressure is continually building up and building up …”

Having set the scene for this impending crisis, he then reviewed the recent history of the Labour left and Corbynism. Here comrade Sewell went over familiar and, for us, uncontroversial ground about the failure of the Corbyn leadership and the official left to take the fight to the right on open selection, along with the disastrous compromises and concessions it made during the witch-hunt against the left. He argued that such compromises and retreats were inherent in Labour left reformism, but did not explain the structural reasons why such conciliationism is inevitable. This was strong, barnstorming rhetoric and correct condemnation, but no analysis whatsoever, beyond ‘Corbyn movement good, left reformism bad’!

The culmination of the peroration went to the heart of the IMT’s politics and current strategy. Because there can be no lasting reforms during a capitalist crisis, the Labour right and trade union bureaucrats will crumble, since they cannot deliver anything for the working class, we were told. In the coming period the workers will look towards the industrial front to defend their living standards rather than the Labour Party and “we will be with them”. But the crisis will also produce radical changes from which, comrade Sewell assured the meeting in his conclusion, a new, stronger, more determined left will emerge. However, these developments, in and of themselves, were not enough to produce a socialist revolution:

We still need the forces of Marxism in order to steel it and direct it. Our task, surely, is to … be there … with the right ideas. We have to build our force of five or 10 thousand Marxists. At the moment we have about a 1,000. We have to get to 5,000, we have to get to 10,000. Then we can become a factor in the situation … we can provide not just the backbone, but also the ideas and perspectives. And these ideas can grow and develop on the basis of the events themselves.

Consciousness will change. It will be transformed. And the ideas of Marxism will become more and more attractive, despite the attacks of the right wing. We stand for the idea of socialist revolution … But it depends on us, no-one else … our task is to build the forces of Marxism and prepare for the future, lead a successful revolution in Britain as the stepping stone for a successful world revolution in the coming period (our emphasis).

Mechanistic

Whether discussing historical materialism or the lessons of the Paris Commune, variations on these themes would be heard in the various sessions throughout the weekend. This theory of crisis and the idea of spontaneous, economistic transformation of consciousness “on the basis of events themselves” has been very much the common currency of Trotskyism since the late 1930s at least and is all too familiar as a guiding strategy for many on the left today. Its combination of passivity produces a sense of inevitable determinism: for these comrades Marxist political consciousness is either generated spontaneously simply by the mere fact of exploitation in work or by “events”.

This mechanistic schema of how the consciousness of the working class will be transformed and thus produce the desired revolutionary outcome has now become the common sense of far too many of those claiming to be Marxists. As we see here with the IMT, paradoxically it is often combined with a heightened sense of urgency, agency and activism, which substitutes the building of a mass party of millions committed to the self-emancipation and self-activity of the working class with an enlightened group of a few thousand leading the bovine masses towards ‘revolution’.

This emphasis on ‘building the revolutionary party’ was the central theme and the main purpose of the whole event. It was clear from both the opening contributions and resulting discussions that the Revolution festival was part of a process of what one leading IMT comrade described as “building a revolutionary and theoretically trained cadre who could intervene in the struggles ahead and lead the masses to victory”. However, the ‘theory’ on offer was pretty thin gruel and ultimately rather unsatisfactory if you wanted more than the familiar slogans and appeals for action.

Thus, the session on ‘The life and ideas of Lenin’ was a rather potted and distorted account of Lenin’s politics and the development of Bolshevism during the Russian Revolution, which emphasised “the rapid growth of the party” in a few months from a small minority to a force capable of taking power. Similarly, ‘How to build a revolutionary party’ , although ranging far and wide over the history of revolutionary politics in the 20th century, just repeated many of the same canards about the nature of these parties and why they succeeded – or, in most cases, failed. The lesson was that “cadres are the bedrock of the revolutionary party and the key to a successful revolution” rather than the conscious hegemony of the class acting as class for itself. So the message here was loud and clear: “We need a party of thousands”, so, join, join, join!

Given the IMT’s origins in the old Militant Tendency, we were not surprised to see Militant’s historical economism rear its ugly head in a complete lack of serious analysis of the important political question of the state and constitution. In sessions whose topics ranged from the climate crisis to the monarchy, we found the same unMarxist formula, “the market dictates to the state, and not the other way round”. Whilst the IMT comrades were drilled well on the need to abolish the monarchy, the state, standing army, etc, speakers and chairs were vigilant in reminding listeners that such demands, whilst relatively popular now, should not be made in the current context, as such institutions can “only be overthrown by the socialist revolution”.

Thus, the IMT not only finds itself at odds with over 170 years of Marxist tradition: it also adopts a position with its own internal contradictions. The comrades simultaneously recognise that in times of revolutionary crisis state institutions like the monarchy are given “unlimited and unchecked power”, yet at the same time characterise it as a mere “reactionary relic” – something that is not really worth dealing with now. As one of the comrades put it, “We’re not going to abolish the monarchy under capitalism and, to be honest, abolishing the monarchy under capitalism wouldn’t change anything.”

As an event, this was all about recruitment and consolidating the IMT’s periphery, especially the students around the Marxist Student Federation, as well as getting existing members to “step up” and commit themselves fully to the group. It was not really designed for the seasoned cadre and made no attempt to engage with the wider left, who were frequently disparaged as mere discussion circles. Most of the sessions were ‘introductions’ to the relevant topics and seemed to assume quite a low level of prior knowledge. Moreover, the sessions were clearly highly choreographed, and scripted in a rather obvious and crude way.

Thus, in the session on the revolutionary party seven IMT comrades, one after another, were called in to the ‘discussion’ simply to amplify the main points addressed by the speaker. How do we know this? Because the chair called them by their first names and they read from prepared scripts, which was a feature common to the other sessions as well! In the sessions where we were successful in getting into the discussion, our contributions were curtailed by the chair and our very polite, democratic heckles were regarded as disruptive interruptions to the smooth running of the event!

Despite these limitations, it was worthwhile. But where were the rest of the left? Shouldn’t we be talking to each other about the way forward? In the corridors and outside during the breaks we engaged with many of those who attended, distributed copies of the Weekly Worker and had many interesting conversations with some genuinely friendly comrades. If we are going to build a genuine Marxist party, refusing to talk to, debate and work with those who already identify themselves as Marxist is not going to be the way to go about it.

On this showing, in its calls to build a revolutionary party, Socialist Appeal has moved to the left and away from its previous unremitting Labour loyalism. However, if this new focus on working outside the Labour Party has meant some changes in orientation and demands, the underlying political assumptions about the nature of crisis as a trigger for the growth of revolutionary consciousness have remained the same as the Militant forebears of the IMT over half a century ago.

What has changed? Simply, a new round of recruits has entered what is too often a revolving door!

Conference 2021, The left, Witch-hunts and expulsions

Right firmly in control

The Labour left is still clutching at unity and refusing to face up to defeat. Derek James looks at the sorry results

The smell of decay and disintegration that has hung over the Labour left since the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn has only got stronger since last month’s party conference. Although some on the left have tried to spin the conference votes on Israel/Palestine, Aukus and the Green New Deal as victories, the truth is that Sir Keir and the Labour right are now in complete control of both the party machine and policy, and can safely ignore such left votes.

Taking some small comfort from passing resolutions is understandable, given the continuing dominance of the right, but it really does not do anybody any favours to pretend that the Labour left is in any state to fight back against Starmer. As the party continues to haemorrhage members, the Labour left simply does not have the numbers to effectively fight back, but – most importantly – it does not have either the strategy or the coherent politics to resist.

If we are going to build an authentic, militant left in the Labour Party, we have to tell the truth, not tell ourselves fairy stories. So, despite attempts to talk up the continuing strength of the left in the Constituency Labour Parties, it is plain that Corbynism cannot be revived: we have to be honest and admit that its moment has passed, and that no amount of wishing it back into existence or hoping that the king over the water will return to lead us, will bring it back to life again.

The Socialist Campaign Group of MPs and the Momentum leadership constitute simply the official, licensed left, which can be relied on to say nothing and do even less in the face of the witch-hunt and the proscriptions against the left as a whole. A combination of careerist opportunism and a political ‘strategy’ that prizes party unity and the election of a Labour government above all else means that these ‘leftwingers’ will continue to keep their heads down and accommodate to the Labour right on every occasion. They are wedded to the idea that any Labour government, no matter how rightwing and pro-capitalist, is better than the Tories and that ‘socialism’ can be delivered incrementally through a series of left Labour governments.

The latest incarnation of this tendency is Labour Left For Socialism – primarily an initiative of left trade union bureaucrats and assorted hangers-on, which has distanced itself from proscribed groups, such as Labour Against the Witchhunt, despite its verbal opposition to bans and proscriptions. Like the official left as a whole, there they stand: they can do no other; compromise and subordination to the pro-capitalist leadership are in their very DNA.

If the official Labour left has shown its true colours, what of the various groups of activists that have arisen to try to rally the left in the aftermath of the defeat of Corbynism? Although made up of genuine and committed comrades, the discussions within groups such as the Labour Left Alliance, Labour in Exile Network and LAW show that many comrades still have not really come to terms with why Corbynism failed and the nature of the current moment.

Amidst the rather contradictory trends and moods expressed during the online meetings since the conference, two broad currents can be discerned: those comrades who cling on to the glory days of Corbynism and seek to revive it through ‘grassroots campaigning’ against austerity or in defence of the NHS; as opposed to those who either want to form a new party immediately or believe we are already in a transitional phase in which such a party is in the process of being formed. Chris Williamson’s Resist is just the latest such attempt at a new direction and if, as seems likely, it takes the form of a broad left amalgam of the lowest common denominator or an unprincipled popular front, it too will follow Respect, Left Unity, and the Scottish Socialist Party into the dustbin of history.[1] Repeating the mistakes of these failed left parties of the past is no answer. But neither is simply recreating a Labour Party mark two, as the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition has so lamentably failed to do.

Socialist Appeal

What is lacking in both positions is a clear understanding of the nature of the Labour Party, both as an historical formation and in its contemporary form. Supporters of Labour Party Marxists have argued for a continuing strategic orientation towards the Labour Party, given its links with the trade unions, its base of support in the working class and the identification of the class with Labour as an electoral force. Given this, we cannot simply wish Labour away: our strategy must be to work through the Labour Party if we are to build a genuine Marxist party.

However, we have no illusions in the nature of the party or that, as presently constituted, it can be a ready-made instrument for achieving socialism. Labour remains a bourgeois workers’ party with a pro-capitalist leadership and working class base: both in organisational and political form it is committed to capitalism. Even under Corbyn’s ‘left’ leadership, the party’s manifesto in 2019 merely stood for a form of managed capitalism and the continuation of the constitutional status quo, not the self-emancipation of the working class and the socialist transformation of society.

In calling on Labour members to stay and fight, LPM is not simply repeating the mantra of Labour loyalists or arguing for staying put faute de mieux (for want of a better alternative). Our argument is that the fight for a Marxist party goes hand in hand with the demand for the refoundation of Labour as a united front of a special kind, open to all socialist and working class organisations. Moreover, given the nature of Labourism and its focus on purely electoral politics, if such a process is to be successful, it cannot be simply generated spontaneously or organically within the Labour Party itself. The history of the party from its very foundation in 1900 shows that such a transformation requires the development of a hegemonic Marxist party and a revolutionary programme that can act externally as a galvanising force and a pole of attraction for the inchoate Labour left.

Debating this strategy is now vital for the genuine left, both within and without the Labour Party. In particular, it is a question that Socialist Appeal supporters are now facing, as they suffer one expulsion from the party after another following their proscription by Labour’s national executive committee. We agree with them that we cannot simply ignore Labour or abandon the fight within the party. What about this argument?

What is needed is a powerful Marxist tendency, to provide a genuine, bold strategy to defeat the right. Only the forces of Marxism can provide the necessary backbone for the left. We fully understand that there can be no compromise with capitalism or their rightwing agents. We have no truck with patching up capitalism. We stand for revolutionary change in society; for the abolition of capitalist rule.[2]

Despite this apparent rousing call to arms, Socialist Appeal has not actually had a Marxist strategy towards Labour at all. In reality its comrades have been content to act as Labour loyalists, arguing that their rather economistic version of ‘Marxism’ is fully in accord with the old, Fabian-inspired 1918 clause four. In framing its politics around the election of a Labour government committed to a socialist programme, Socialist Appeal clearly stays within the framework of ‘parliamentary socialism’, with politics that are simply a logical extension of existing left reformism.

Moreover, although sharply critical of the current state of the Labour left, Socialist Appeal’s own politics cannot explain the structural reasons why the Labour left continues to hang on to the coat-tails of the right and is thus ultimately tied to the capitalist class. So, rather than analysing the left’s failure to overthrow the right as an inevitable result of their reformist politics and electoralism, the surrender of the left is merely attributed to an inexplicable unwillingness to fight and vague “political weakness”.[3]

Until we seriously explain why Corbynism failed and analyse how the Labour left continues to subordinate itself in practice to capitalism, we are doomed to simply repeat the tried-and-failed politics of the past. And that is not going to take us very far forward at all, is it?

Notes

[1] ‘Unity without principle’ Weekly Worker October 21: www.weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1368/unity-without-principle.

[2] R Sewell, ‘Where is Labour heading?’ Socialist Appeal October 15 2021.

[3] Ibid.

 

Conference 2021, Democracy and the Labour Party, Labour Party conference

Sir Keir’s second eleven

Derek James says keeping heads down does not amount to a viable strategy

After a shaky start, and a few hiccups and protests along the way, Starmer has clearly emerged as the winner. He has secured his two main objectives: one, to prove to the ruling class that he is a reliable, safe pair of hands; two, to show that Corbynism is dead and safely buried.

Although the red card protest during his speech showed there are still a large number of left delegates from the Constituency Labour Parties, when it really mattered Starmer had the votes he needed to get over the line.

His success is not just measured in votes won or in changes to the party’s constitution and rule book that consolidate the power of the Labour right. No, his success also lies in the demoralisation and disorganisation in both the official left – as represented by the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs – and amongst left activists in the CLPs and trade unions. Left victories over the £15 minimum wage and other such questions will simply go ignored when it matters: drawing up the next general election manifesto.

That is not to say that the left were silent or simply acquiesced – far from it. There were angry speeches at fringe meetings – Richard Burgon’s contribution at the final SCG rally was a particularly well-received example, along with some excellent interventions by left delegates from the CLPs during the stage-managed conference debates. But what was lacking on the left at all levels of the party – and what ensured Starmer’s victory, in the final analysis – was a clear strategy for a serious, militant Labour left that really takes the fight to the right.

For Starmer and the Labour right, conference was vital, in all senses of the word, in their campaign to finally purge the taint of Corbynism. Although the focus was on winning the next election, the primary audience for this performance was not potential Labour voters catching the headlines on the evening news. No, the people to whom Sir Keir has to prove himself is not the electorate, but the real wielders of power: the ruling class in London and Washington. The reliability Starmer has to demonstrate, of course, lies in upholding the capitalist economic system and repudiating the excesses of Corbynism, such as public ownership of the utilities. Thus, the shadow chancellor, the unspeakable Rachel Reeves (a politician with the voice, but not the warmth and empathy, of a Dalek) reassured the ruling class that Labour had finally said goodbye to Corbyn’s legacy and was now “the party of long-term economic stability, of secure public finances and of economic growth”.1

However, the most important reassurance that the Labour leadership had to offer was to the imperialist hegemon, the United States, and its clients. They got it when John Healey, Labour’s defence spokesman, echoed Boris Johnson in his call for a “new and powerful role for Britain in the world” and reiterated Sir Keir’s unconditional support for Nato and the US-imposed international order.2

In the saddle

There were other signs that Starmer and the right were firmly in the saddle. Despite criticism from the left, David Evans was ratified as general secretary with a 59% vote in favour. There was also a marked shift within Labour’s internal regime, where Starmer succeeded in imposing major rule changes, which undermined party democracy and accountability by doubling the threshold of MP nominations needed for candidates to reach future leadership ballots, and by making it harder for CLPs to deselect MPs. These were attacks clearly aimed at the left and were designed, as Peter Mandelson put it, to ensure that there will be no repeat of Corbynism. Well, to show that there will be no repeat of Corbynism, might be a better way of putting it.

The other key rule change endorsed a new ‘independent’ complaints process, initiated following the Equality and Human Rights Commission report on ‘anti-Semitism’ in the party. All part of the ritual humiliation of the left. Conference performed an act of collective penance, in which the lies equating anti-Zionism and the left with anti-Semitism were yet again repeated as verity by Margaret Hodge and Ruth Smeeth. This is now the official version of Labour’s recent history.

The explanation most widely heard in Brighton to account for Starmer’s successes was the support of the trade union right and the bloc votes of the GMB and Unison. The figures support that analysis up to a point. The successes that the left had in card votes came on the rare occasions when key delegations switched sides. The pressure the union leaders exerted on Starmer over last weekend that forced him to water down his proposed ‘reforms’ of the leadership election system also shows the key role of the trade unions in the party.

Although the left remains strong in the CLPs, its position is not overwhelming. Through various manoeuvres, suspensions and expulsions (in some cases while delegates were actually at the conference!) the right has a sizable presence in the CLPs – which rarely speaks in debates, but knows when to put its hands up. The stage management, manipulation and suppression of debate and points of order by such blatantly partisan chairs as Margaret Beckett had to be seen to be believed, and proved decisive in swinging votes. Although the left could point to some victories, such as the condemnation of the Aukus deal and the overwhelming support for a motion attacking Israel as an apartheid state, these were crumbs of comfort in an otherwise grim conference for the left. It was clear, however, that like the £15 minimum pay, they will not find their way into any Labour manifesto.

Much of what happened was not only expected: it was easily predictable and so could have been more effectively countered. For all the powerful cards that Starmer and the right hold in their hands, they are not invincible, as some of the conference votes showed. No, in assessing what happened at Brighton, the left needs to ask how we got here.

A long series of defeats since 2019 have allowed the Starmer leadership and his Victoria Street bureaucracy to get a tight grip over the party. The exodus of 100,000 or more matters not to them. In point of fact it is music to their ears. But it is the compromises, the retreats, the betrayals of the official left in the SCG and Momentum leadership, that have been the major factor in the disorientation and to some extent the disintegration of the left.

Left response

In the aftermath of the real defeats inflicted on the left and the further attacks promised in Starmer’s speech, debate on the Labour left remains confused and inchoate. However, both in the pre-conference period and on the fringe at Brighton, two broad positions seem to be emerging.

One is simply to double down on Labour loyalism and cling on to party membership for dear life. The ‘theoretical’ justification for this approach is the belief that the only road to socialism lies through the election of a Labour government and the ‘transformation’ of capitalist society through incremental reform. Such a strategy relies not only in maintaining Labour as a broad party, uniting both the left and the right, but also necessitates compromise and effective subordination by the left to the right to preserve that unity. In effect the Labour left functions as a licensed ‘official opposition’ within the party at the sufferance of the right, taking solace from their self-imposed impotence with the comfort blanket of ‘resolutionary socialism’ and the self-reassurance that they really are dangerous leftists after all. The whole history of the Labour left, at least since 1918, has been to play second fiddle to the right – the open agents of capitalism within the workers’ movement.

The second strand calls for new parties and movements, either completely separate from Labour or a combination of inside/outside organisation. Given the trajectory of Labour after this conference, the call for a ‘new party’ of some type will surely grow: the disaffiliation of the Bakers Union (BFAWU) can only add further impetus to these demands and spark similar moves to break the links with Labour in other unions.

But the history of such initiatives is not an encouraging one and any attempt to exploit the current hostility to Starmer amongst leftwing trade unionists is likely to produce stillborn initiatives, which only create further demoralisation and disillusion. Any attempt to simply replicate the Labour Party through a ‘new party’ based on leftwing activists and disaffiliated unions, such as has been unsuccessfully attempted by the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, is just a dead end and should not be attempted by any serious socialist, no matter how angry they are with Sir Keir and his crew. Emotional spasms of this type are not going to get us anywhere. Similarly, initiatives for a broad party that unites the left outside of Labour will go the way of Respect, the Scottish Socialist Party, Left Unity, and the countless other unity projects that sought to bring the ‘real left’ together by compromising principles and adopting the politics of the lowest common denominator.

Notes

  1. ‘Reeves vows to bury Corbyn’s fiscal legacy’ Financial Times September 28.↩︎
  2. labourlist.org/2021/09/a-new-and-powerful-role-for-britain-in-the-world-healeys-conference-speech.↩︎
Elections in the Labour Party, Labour structures and programme, The left, The right

Eighteen theses on Labour

Disputation on the self-defeating common sense of governmentalism and the illusions of broad left alternatives

1. The December 2019 general election defeat and Sir Keir Starmer’s subsequent leadership victory shows the bankruptcy of the reformist strategy for socialism. With Jeremy Corbyn they had their ideal leader, with John McDonnell they had their ideal shadow chancellor, with It’s time for real change they had their ideal manifesto.

2. Labour’s poor performance in 2019 is not only explained by ‘getting Brexit done’. Jeremy Corbyn faced unremitting hostility from the mainstream media, which did everything it could to feed and promote the ‘Anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ smear campaign. But to have expected anything else would have been naive. The mainstream media “carry out a system-supportive propaganda function” (Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky). In the absence of a full-spectrum mass media in the hands of the labour movement, Corbyn was forced to undergo trial by the bourgeois establishment’s papers and journals, radio and TV stations, and news and blog sites. He was never going to win.

3. A Corbyn-led government was not a prospect that the ruling class was prepared to countenance. Economically, they deemed its programme grossly irresponsible. It could, they feared, trigger a crisis of expectations. More than that, they considered Corbyn and his close allies totally unreliable when it came to international politics. So, if by some fluke a Corbyn-led government had taken office, their response would have been such tactics as an organised run on the pound, wrecking operations by the Parliamentary Labour Party right, MI5 subversion, an army mutiny, US ‘pushback’, a royal-blessed coup, etc.

4. While the chances of a Corbyn-led government were always exceedingly remote, that cannot be said of the possibility of making changes to the Labour Party’s rules and structures. Yet, whereas Tony Blair carried out a (counter) revolution, all that Corbyn managed to achieve were a few tinkering reforms. That need not have been the case. With a more determined, more politically clear-sighted left, there really could have been a revolution in the party.

6. However, the left is politically weak. Too often it was determined to simply tail Corbyn, while Corbyn was determined to maintain unity with the openly pro-capitalist right in the PLP. That meant dropping open selection of parliamentary candidates, leaving Blair’s clause four untouched and refusing to confront and call out the ‘Anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ smear campaign.

7. Corbyn did not protest, even as friend after friend, ally after ally, was thrown to the wolves. Instead of taking the fight to the Zionist forces, such as Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement (formerly Poale Zion), and championing the Palestinian cause through promoting the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign, on his watch there was a concerted drive to increase the number of expulsions and suspensions. The Corbyn-Formby regime itself became an agent of the witch-hunt. To even deny that Labour has a real, a significant, a widespread problem with anti-Semitism became a disciplinary offence in its own right.

8. Not surprisingly, with the December 2019 general election defeat, many disorientated former Corbyn supporters variously concluded that: there needs to be a safe, acceptable, suitably centrist Labour Party that can ‘rewin the trust’ of the so-called Jewish community; that Labour can never be changed; that the fight for radical social change lies not in permanent political organisation, but in ephemeral street protests, economic strikes, tenant campaigns; etc.

9. Also not surprisingly, Starmer – former member of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency and editor of Socialist Alternatives – stood for leader promising to remain fully committed to It’s time for real change. A cynical lie designed to pull wool over gullible eyes. Apart from getting himself into No10, he has no master plan nowadays. The latest round of the witch-hunt under Starmer owes nothing to defeating, finally seeing-off the left, that is for sure. With Corbyn gone, Rebecca Long-Bailey soundly beaten, David Evans as general secretary, a rightwing NEC majority, the PLP overwhelmingly dominated by the right and the three big union affiliates, GMB, Unite and Unison, unlikely to rock the boat, he has a controlling grip on the Labour Party.

10. No less to the point, the left in the CLPs is much reduced and organisations such as the Socialist Campaign Group, Momentum and the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy are cowardly and display not the least appetite for a concerted fightback. Self-serving careerism counts for far more than the principle of solidarity: there is, for example, still a steadfast refusal to call out the ‘Anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ big lie.

11. No, the suspensions and expulsions under Starmer are a matter of display. He wants to prove to the capitalist media, big business, the City, the establishment, the armed forces and the US state department that, as prime minister, he would be trustworthy, utterly loyal to the constitution, the UK state and its international alliances. That is why Starmer promises to “uproot” anti-Semitism, why Jeremy Corbyn remains suspended from the PLP, why Labour Against the Witchhunt, the Labour in Exile Network, Resist and Socialist Appeal have been banned and why Ken Loach was auto-expelled.

12. The failures, the cowardice, the treachery, the constantly repeated pattern of the official Labour left becoming the official Labour right has to be explained in materialist terms. It cannot be put down to individual oddity, personal weakness or some congenital tendency to betray. The Labour left is still the natural home for many trade union militants, socialist campaigners and those committed to radical social change. But Labour’s position as the alternative party of government also makes the official Labour left a breeding ground for careerists, who, often starting off with good intentions, slowly or speedily evolve to the right. The lure of elected positions, generous expense accounts, lucrative sinecures, sly backhanders, mixing with the great and good and eventually entry into the lower ranks of the bourgeoisie all smooth the way.

13. Both the official Labour left and the official Labour right share a ‘common sense’ that politics are about winning elections. Therefore, policies are limited to what can be ‘sold’ to the electorate. But it is the mainstream capitalist media that, ultimately, decides what is to be regarded as sensible and what is to be dismissed as sectarian craziness. Anything that gets in the way of winning elections must therefore be avoided like the plague. Hence it is not only the Labour right which attempts to restrict, muddy and segment debate, and impose bureaucratic limits and measures to sideline awkward minorities. The official Labour left behaves in exactly the same anti-democratic manner.

14. The Labour Party, as presently constituted, is certainly not a “true mass organisation of the working class”. Doubtless, although it is down by a hundred thousand, Labour still has a mass membership and relies on trade union money and working class voters. But, in the last analysis, what decides the class character of a political party is its leadership and its programme.

15. The election of Corbyn did not produce fundamental change here. Neither For the many, not the few (2017) nor It’s time for real change (2019) questioned the monarchical constitution, the standing army, judge-made law or the US-dominated international order, let alone the system of wage-slavery. So, even under Corbyn, Labour was neither a democratic nor a socialist party. It was, and remains, a bourgeois workers’ party, which has its place in capitalism’s many defensive moats, ramparts and walls.

16. Despite the failure of Corbyn and the election of Starmer, we remain committed to the complete transformation of the Labour Party, forging it into a permanent united front of the working class and equipping it with solid Marxist principles and a tried-and-tested Marxist leadership.

17. However, this positive perspective for Labour can only be realised through the struggle to unite the left inside and outside the Labour Party – but not into a broad front based on soggy, middle-ground compromises, like the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, Left Unity, Respect or the Socialist Alliance. Sadly, all these have been wasted opportunities. No, we need to unite in building a mass Marxist party – a party that applies to affiliate to Labour, but can operate within the party despite bans and proscriptions.

18. Without a mass Marxist party, the left is doomed to suffer one Sisyphean defeat after another.

Democracy and the Labour Party, Labour structures and programme, Transform the Labour Party

Labour as a united front

Once all working class and socialist organisations were welcome – obviously no longer. James Marshall looks at the past, present and future

We are in the midst of a terrible witch-hunt – a witch-hunt fully backed by the Labour right, the capitalist media, the courts, the Israeli embassy and the forces of the deep state. Three examples:

  • Jeremy Corbyn was suspended from membership of the Parliamentary Labour Party in October 2020, thereby preventing him from standing as a Labour candidate in the next general election. Why? He dared tell the truth: “accusations” of anti-Semitism have been “dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media”.1 Constituency Labour Party chairs and secretaries who allowed debates on, or resolutions protesting against, his treatment faced suspension or expulsion.
  • Hundreds, if not thousands, have been purged, many charged with anti-Semitism, and predictably a hugely disproportionate percentage of them are Jewish: eg, Jackie Walker, Tony Greenstein and Moshé Machover. Their real crime is opposing the Zionist colonial-settler state of Israel … and Labour’s pro-capitalist right wing.
  • The July 20 national executive committee banned Labour Against the Witchhunt, Resist, the Labour In Exile Network and Socialist Appeal. Anyone deemed a member or supporter of one of those proscribed organisations faces auto-expulsion. Amongst the first to fall foul of the new rule was celebrated film director Ken Loach. He refused to renounce support for LAW.

It is all too clear what Sir Keir Starmer and general secretary David Evans are up to. Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership victory in September 2015 owed much to historical accident; little or nothing to the strategic acumen, ideological hegemony and organisational strength of the official left. With his ill-judged resignation following the December 2019 general election and the resounding defeat suffered by the hapless Rebecca Long-Bailey in the April 2020 leadership contest, the Labour right has been firmly back in the saddle. The witch-hunt is no longer about undermining Corbyn, driving him into complicity, forcing him to sacrifice one friend and one ally after another and ensuring that he never enters No10 Downing Street as prime minister.

No, the witch-hunt is about Sir Keir demonstrating his unquestioning loyalty to the UK state and its international allies – crucially the US and its most important strategic asset in the Middle East. Bans, expulsions, character assassination and riding roughshod over basic democratic norms have a potent symbolic value. They show that Starmer is worthy of the establishment’s trust. That way, he hopes to ingratiate himself with the capitalist media, boost Labour’s poll ratings and calm the fears of the army top brass, MI5, the City and the US state department. If – and it is a big if – Brexit comes to be commonly regarded as a Boris Johnson-driven car crash, then Sir Keir has the distinct possibility of getting that summons to Buckingham Palace and being asked to form a government by her majesty the queen.

Class against class

Labour Party Marxists has actively joined with those many others fighting the suspension and expulsion of socialists, trade union activists and anti-Zionists. All of them, without exception, should be immediately reinstated. There is surely nothing uncontroversial about Marxists making such a demand. After all, what is going on inside the Labour Party is a clear and unmistakable manifestation of the class struggle.

What then should we make of those self-declared ‘leftwingers’ who have turned a blind eye, excused, complied with or even promoted the witch-hunt? Painful though it may be for many, the fact of the matter is that it was under the pro-Corbyn regime of Jennie Formby that Labour HQ ‘fast-tracked’ expulsions. ‘Denialism’ – ie, what Corbyn was charged with – first became a crime with general secretary Formby (denialism, in this context, being a refusal go along with the big lie that Labour has a widespread, politically significant problem with anti-Semitism).

Yet, as the witch-hunt ripped through the ranks of the Labour left, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs maintained a studied silence. None of them defended Ken Livingstone, Chris Williamson, Pete Willsman or Marc Wadsworth. The principle, ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’, became an alien concept. The Guardian’s house-trained Owen Jones was little different. Nor did Momentum lift a finger. Indeed Jackie Walker was surgically removed as its vice-chair.

Then there is Dan Randall and the social-imperialist Alliance for Workers’ Liberty outfit. They might as well be paid agents of the foreign office. Perhaps, though, the most revolting of all is Robert Griffiths, leader of the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain. He actually wrote to the Labour Party’s witch-hunter-in-chief, Iain McNicol, asking him to name the names of any members of his who had entered the Labour Party “or engaged in any similar subterfuge”, so that “action can be taken against them”.2 Not to leave a shadow of doubt, Griffiths signed off: “With comradely regards”.

Exactly how Griffiths’ sorry excuse for a communist organisation arrived at its ban on Labour Party members joining the CPB and the ban on CPB members joining the Labour Party need not concern us here. Its roots, though, surely lie in the ‘official’ Communist Party of Great Britain and its turn to the cross-class politics of the popular front, sanctioned by the 7th Congress of the Communist International in 1935 under Stalin’s direct command.

Despite CPB claims to be the unbroken continuation of the CPGB going back to its foundation in 1920, nothing could be further from the truth. A fundamental break occurred. The same goes for the Labour Party.

Beginnings

From its beginning Labour was a federal party, which sought to unite all working class and socialist organisations. It was a united front of a special kind – special because, as with the soviets in Russia, unity was not tactical, fleeting or episodic. True, especially at first, political aims were decidedly limited.

JH Holmes, delegate of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, moved this historic resolution at the 1899 TUC:

That this Congress, having regard to its decisions in former years, and with a view to securing better representation of the interests of labour in the House of Commons, hereby instructs the Parliamentary Committee to invite the cooperation of all cooperative, socialistic, trade unions and other working class organisations to jointly cooperate on lines mutually agreed upon, in convening a special congress of representatives from such above-named organisations as may be willing to take part to devise ways and means of securing the return of an increased number of labour members in the next parliament.3

His resolution was opposed by the miners’ union on the basis of impracticability, but found support from the dockers, the railway servants and shop assistants. After a long debate the resolution was narrowly carried by 546,000 votes to 434,000.

The TUC’s parliamentary committee oversaw the founding conference of the Labour Representation Committee in February 1900. The 129 delegates, representing around 500,000 members, finally agreed to establish a distinct Labour Party in parliament, with its own whips, policies, finances, etc.

An executive committee was also elected. It would prepare lists of candidates, administer funds and convene an annual conference. Besides affiliated trade unions, the newly formed NEC would also include socialist societies. In fact, they, the socialist societies, were allocated five out of the 12 NEC seats (one for the right-reformist Fabians, two for the centrist Independent Labour Party and two for the openly revolutionary Social Democratic Federation). Given the diminutive size of these socialist societies compared with the trade unions, it is obvious that they were treated with considerable generosity. Presumably their “advanced” views were highly regarded.4

For Keir Hardie the formation of the Labour Party marked something of a tactical retreat. He had long sought some kind of socialist party. However, to secure an alliance with the trade unions he and other ILPers were prepared to programmatically limit the Labour Party to nothing more than furthering working class interests by getting “men sympathetic with the aims and demands of the labour movement” into the House of Commons.5

SDF delegates proposed that the newly established Labour Party commit itself to the “class war and having as its ultimate object the socialisation of the means of production and exchange” – a formulation rejected by a large majority. In the main the trade unions were still Liberal politically. Unfortunately, as a result of this vote, the next annual conference of the SDF voted by 54 to 14 to withdraw from the Labour Party. Many SDF leaders came to bitterly “regret” this sectarian decision.6

As might be expected, this was part of a wider pattern. For example, faced with the great industrial unrest of 1910-14, Henry Hyndman, the SDF’s autocratic leader, rhetorically asked: “Can anything be imagined more foolish, more harmful, more – in the widest sense of the word – unsocial than a strike?”7

Of course, it is quite possible to actively support trade unions in their struggles over wages, conditions, etc, and to patiently and steadfastly advocate republican democracy and international socialism. Indeed without doing just that there can be no hope for a mass socialist party here in Britain.

Nonetheless, the SDF is too often casually dismissed by historians. Eg, Henry Pelling describes it as “a rather weedy growth in the political garden”.8 True, its Marxism was typically crude and, with Hyndman, mixed with more than a tinge of anti-Semitism. For him the Boer war was instigated by “Jew financial cliques and their hangers-on”.9 Yet the SDF was “the first modern socialist organisation of national importance” in Britain.10

Karl Marx disliked it, Fredrick Engels despaired of it, William Morris, John Burns, Tom Mann and Edward Aveling split from it. But the SDF survived. The various breakaways – eg, the Socialist League, the Socialist Party of Great Britain and the Socialist Labour Party – either disappeared, remained utterly impotent or could manage little more than regional influence. Meanwhile, the SDF continued as the “major representative” of what passed for Marxism in this country till 1911, when it merged with a range of local socialist societies to become the British Socialist Party.11

The first conference of the newly formed BSP voted, by an overwhelming majority, to “seek direct and independent affiliation” to the Second International.12 In other words, not through the Labour Party-dominated British section of the Second International. Despite that, however, the BSP began to overcome its Labour-phobia. Leading figures, such as Henry Hyndman, J Hunter Watts and Dan Irving, eventually came round to affiliation. That was vindication for Zelda Kahan and the internationalist left. Withdrawal from the Labour Party, she argued, had been a profound mistake. Outside the Labour Party the BSP was seen as hostile, fault-finding and antagonistic. Inside, the BSP would get a wider hearing and win over the “best” rank-and-file forces.13 Affiliation to the Labour Party was agreed, albeit by a relatively narrow majority. Efforts then began to put that into effect. The formal application for affiliation was submitted in June 1914. And in 1916 – things having been considerably delayed due to the outbreak of World War I – the BSP gained entry into the Labour Party. Almost simultaneously, in Easter 1916, the BSP in effect expelled the pro-war right wing. Hyndman went off to form his National Socialist Party.

Communist affiliation

The October revolution found militant and unstinting support in the BSP. A number of its émigré comrades from Russia returned home and took up important positions in the Soviet government. Bolshevik publications were soon being translated into English: eg, Lenin’s State and revolution. Money too flowed in.

The Leeds conference of the BSP in 1918 enthusiastically declared its solidarity with the Bolsheviks and a wish to emulate their methods and achievements. And under the influence of Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin, etc, the BSP adopted a much more active, much more agitational role in the Labour Party and the trade unions. In the words of Fred Shaw, instead of standing aloof from the “existing organisations” of the working class, “win them for Marxism”.14

Needless to say, the BSP constituted the main body that went towards the historic formation of the Communist Party of Great Britain over July 31-August 1 1920. Given BSP affiliation four years earlier, and the fact that in 1918 the Labour Party introduced individual membership, there can be no doubt that the bulk of CPGBers were card-carrying Labour Party members. Dual membership was therefore the norm, as with the Fabians and ILP.

However, instead of simply informing Arthur Henderson, Labour’s secretary, that the BSP had changed its name, the CPGB, following Lenin’s advice, applied for affiliation. Lenin thought the CPGB was in a win-win situation. If affiliation was accepted, this would open up the Labour Party rank and file to communist influence. If affiliation was rejected, this would expose Labour leaders for what they really were: “the worst kind of reactionaries”.15

With 20:20 foresight it would probably have been better for the CPGB to have presented itself merely as the continuation of the BSP. True, that would have tested to the limits the CPGB’s own unity. Its First Congress had a surprisingly large minority opposed to Labour Party affiliation: eg, the Communist Unity Group.

Nevertheless, securing a divorce is undoubtedly far harder than turning down a would-be suitor. The Labour leadership would have had to expel a renamed existing affiliate rather than reject a brand new prospective affiliate. Note, the BSP was allowed to affiliate in 1916, despite its long established commitment to Marxism, and, as far as I know, there were no moves to expel the BSP because of its newly adopted opposition to the ongoing inter-imperialist war – a position shared, of course, by Keir Hardie, Ramsay MacDonald and the centrist ILP.

After World War I and the 1917 Russian Revolution, however, Labour’s grandees were determined to distance themselves from Bolshevism. The revolution had put terror into the soul of the bourgeoisie. Their system was mortal. In defence of their system of exploitation they reinvented capitalism as ‘democracy’, while the communists, in defence of the isolated Soviet republic, championed ‘dictatorship’. A strategic blunder. A gift. Arthur Henderson therefore replied to the CPGB’s first application for affiliation by counterposing democracy and dictatorship. The principles of the communists do not accord with those of the Labour Party, he flatly declared. To which the CPGB responded by pointing out that:

… it understood the Labour Party to be so catholic in composition and constitution that it could admit to its ranks all sections of the working class movement that accept the broad principle of independent working class political action, at the same time granting them freedom to propagate their own particular views as to the policy the Labour Party should pursue and the tactics it should adopt.16

A good many local Labour Parties, particularly in London, forthrightly rejected Henderson’s characterisation of the CPGB as, in effect, mad, bad and dangerous to know. Nonetheless, Labour’s apparatus experienced no difficulty in marshalling crushing majorities. Eg, in June 1921 there was an overwhelming 4,115,000 to 224,000 conference vote against CPGB affiliation.

A minority Labour government was now a real prospect. Towards that end Labour had to be made acceptable to the Liberal Party, the capitalist press, the army high command, the City and George V. Britain and its vast empire of exploitation, pillage and extermination would be safe in Labour hands. That was the essential message that the Labour and trade union bureaucracy wanted to convey by rejecting the CPGB.

Lenin had, in 1908, optimistically called Labour the “first step towards socialism and towards a class policy”.17 As it was, Labour took one step forward in 1900 and one step back with its support for British imperialism in World War I … and still another step back with its refusal to accept communist affiliation. The united front of the working class was thereby disunited. The Labour Party dishonestly continued to call itself by that name, but in reality Labour was sabotaged as a party going towards socialism and a class policy. It continues, of course, but akin to soviets without Bolsheviks: soviets subordinated to the capitalist state; soviets as a career ladder for colourless, clueless, professional politicians.

Bans and defiance

Not that the CPGB could be easily seen off. Affiliation might have been rejected, but there remained dual membership. In 1922, two CPGB members won parliamentary seats as Labour candidates: JT Walton Newbold (Motherwell and Wishaw) and Shapurji Saklatvala (Battersea North).

Subsequently, Labour’s NEC was forced to temporarily drop its attempt to bar CPGB members from being elected as annual conference delegates. The June 26-29 1923 Labour conference had 36 CPGB members as delegates, “as against six at Edinburgh” the previous year.18 Incidentally, the 1923 conference once again rejected CPGB affiliation, this time by a narrower 2,880,000 to 366,000 margin.

Nonetheless, the general election in December 1923 saw CPGBers Ellen Wilkinson (Ashton-under-Lyne), Shapurji Saklatvala (Battersea North), M Philips Price (Gloucester), William Paul (Manchester Rusholme) and Joe Vaughan (Bethnal Green SW) stand as official Labour candidates, while Alec Geddes (Greenock) and Aitken Ferguson (Glasgow Kelvingrove) were unofficial Labour candidates, there being no official Labour candidate in either constituency. Walton Newbold (Motherwell) and Willie Gallacher (Dundee) alone stood as CPGB candidates. Despite a considerable increase in the overall communist vote, none were elected.19

A ban on CPGB members standing as Labour Party candidates swiftly followed. Yet, though Labour Party organisations were instructed not to support CPGB candidates, this was met with defiance – not the fawning compliance nowadays personified by the miserable Robert Griffiths. In the run-up to the October 1924 general election, Battersea North Labour Party overwhelmingly endorsed Shapurji Saklatvala, Joe Vaughan was unanimously endorsed by Bethnal Green SW CLP and William Paul similarly by the Rusholme CLP executive committee. And Saklatvala was once again elected as an MP.

The 1924 Labour Party conference decision against CPGB members continuing with dual membership was reaffirmed in 1925. And, going further, trade unions were “asked not to nominate communists as delegates to Labour organisations”. In response, in December 1925, the National Left Wing Movement was formed. Its stated aim was not only to oppose bans on communists: it also sought to hold together disaffiliated CLPs. Basically a model which today’s LIEN seeks to emulate.

The NLWM insisted it had no wish or thought of superseding the Labour Party, but, instead, it sought to advance the generally held aspirations of Labour’s leftwing militants. In this it was considerably boosted by the newly established Sunday Worker. Despite being initiated, funded and edited by the CPGB, the Sunday Worker served as the authoritative voice of the NLWM. At its height it achieved a circulation of 100,000. The NLWM’s 1925 founding conference had nearly 100 Labour Party organisations sending delegates.

Following the defeat of the 1926 General Strike, the Labour apparatus and trade union bureaucracy wanted the movement to draw the conclusion that the only way to make progress would be through cooperating with the capitalist class in the national interest – Mondism. As a direct concomitant of this miserable class-collaborationism there was a renewed drive to exclude communists. Yet, despite these assaults on the Labour Party’s founding principles, at the end of 1926 the CPGB could report that 1,544 of its 7,900 members were still individual members of the Labour Party.

The struggle proved particularly sharp in London. In the capital city around half of the CPGB’s membership were active in their CLPs. And despite claiming that it was the communists who were “splitting the movement”, the labour leadership palpably strove to do just that. Battersea CLP was disaffiliated because it dared to back Saklatvala and refused to bar CPGB members. Similar measures were taken against Bethnal Green CLP, where the communist ex-mayor, Joe Vaughan, was held in particularly high regard.

Yet the Labour leadership’s campaign of disaffiliation and expulsion remorselessly ground on. The NLWM therefore found itself considerably weakened in terms of official Labour Party structures. Hence at its second annual conference in 1927 there were delegates from only 54 local Labour Parties and other Labour groups (representing a total of 150,000 individual party members). Militant union leaders, such as the miners’ AJ Cook, supported the conference.

However, external factors came into play – negatively. With the counterrevolution within the revolution in the Soviet Union, the CPGB was, in many ways willingly, reduced to being a slave of Stalin’s foreign policy. The CPGB’s attitude towards the Labour Party correspondingly wildly zigged and zagged. During the so-called ‘third period’ leaders such as Harry Pollitt and Rajani Palme Dutt denounced the Labour Party as nothing but “a third capitalist party” (shades of Peter Taaffe and Hannah Sell and their Socialist Party in England and Wales).20

As an integral part of this madness, in 1929 the Sunday Worker was closed down and the NLWM was wound up. In effect the CPGB returned to its SDF roots. Ralph Miliband comments that the CPGB’s so-called new line “brought it to the nadir of its influence”.21

Third period left sectarianism could only but spur on the Labour right’s witch-hunt. In 1930 there came the first proscribed list. Members of a whole variety of organisations became ineligible for individual membership of the Labour Party, and CLPs were instructed not to affiliate to proscribed organisations. Needless to say, most of them were associated in some way or another with the CPGB.

Latest round

What began as a witch-hunt against the CPGB in the 1920s nowadays not only includes LAW, LIEN and Socialist Appeal. There is the catch-all ban on “racist, abusive or foul language, abuse against women, homophobia or anti-Semitism at meetings, on social media or in any other context”. The Victoria Street thought-police can, at a whim, expel anyone. Members live in fear. They silence themselves. They keep their heads down. They fret, worry and sometimes experience profound mental distress over nothing more than past Zoom appearances, social media posts, likes and dislikes. Naturally, often they simply despair, and leave in disgust. They scatter to the four winds and turn to social dust.

However, there is a growing fightback. Twelve NEC members have declared the ban on the four proscribed groups “unfair”.22 The SCG even summed up the courage to organise a statement, signed by 20 Labour MPs and five Labour peers, urging that Ken Loach be reinstated as a member.23 In a similar fashion a range of groups have united as Defend the Left to oppose the bans and proscriptions – whatever the many political faults and inadequacies, a positive development. Even better, there are those now committed to the “refoundation of Labour as a united front of a special kind open to all socialist and working class organisations” (LAW).24

Here a really valuable lesson has been learnt. Yes, comrades, to fight against the witch-hunt we need a clear vision of what we are fighting for. The struggle continues.

  1. The Independent October 29 2020.↩︎
  2. Morning Star August 12 2016↩︎
  3. BC Roberts The Trade Union Congress 1868-1921 London 1958, p166.↩︎
  4. Ibid p167.↩︎
  5. Quoted in R Miliband Parliamentary socialism London 1960, p17.↩︎
  6. M Crick The history of the Social Democratic Federation Keel 1994, p97.↩︎
  7. Ibid p230↩︎
  8. H Pelling Origins of the Labour Party Oxford 1976, p172.↩︎
  9. M Crick The history of the Social Democratic Federation Keel 1994, p159.↩︎
  10. Ibid p8.↩︎
  11. Ibid p8.↩︎
  12. Ibid p8.↩︎
  13. Ibid p248.↩︎
  14. Quoted in M Crick The history of the Social Democratic Federation Keel 1994, p281.↩︎
  15. VI Lenin CW Vol 31, Moscow 1977, p258.↩︎
  16. Quoted in J Klugmann History of the Communist Party of Great Britain Vol 1, London 1968, p168.↩︎
  17. VI Lenin CW Vol 15, Moscow 1977, pp234-35.↩︎
  18. JT Murphy, ‘The Labour Party conference’ Communist Review August 1923, Vol 4, No4: www.marxists.org/archive/murphy-jt/1923/08/labour_conf.htm↩︎
  19. J Klugmann History of the Communist Party of Great Britain Vol 1, London 1968, pp361-62.↩︎
  20. N Branson History of the Communist Party of Great Britain 1927-1941 London 1985, p5.↩︎
  21. R Miliband Parliamentary socialism London 1960, p153.↩︎
  22. labourlist.org/2021/09/labour-implementing-ban-on-groups-in-unfair-way-say-12-nec-members.↩︎
  23. labourlist.org/2021/08/socialist-campaign-group-of-mps-urges-labour-to-reinstate-ken-loach.↩︎
  24. www.labouragainstthewitchhunt.org.↩︎
Conference 2021, Democracy and the Labour Party, Labour Party conference, Witch-hunts and expulsions

Limbering up for Brighton

Derek James assesses the prospects for the left at the party’s annual conference. originally published in Weekly Worker 1363

What a difference an election defeat, a new leader and a pandemic makes! The last time the Labour Party met face to face in Brighton in 2019, the left seemed to be in the ascendancy, winning some key policy positions and seemingly up for a fight with the right, which dominated the Parliamentary Labour Party. A clear majority of the Constituency Labour Party delegations came from the left, Palestinian flags were everywhere and there was growing pressure on the rightwing deputy leader, Tom Watson, to resign.

However, as we approach this year’s conference, the picture could not be more different. The left is in complete disarray, after nearly two years of demoralising defeats across the board. Reports from CLPs throughout the county suggest many are either selecting pro-leadership delegations or simply not bothering to send anyone to Brighton at all. It is clear that the resurgent right in the CLPs, aided by regional officials, have used all sorts of manoeuvres to prevent the election of left delegates and to try to stitch up the conference for Keir Starmer. While these attempts to ‘manage’ the conference are underway, the purge and ‘auto-expulsions’ go on apace, with suspensions and expulsions for such heinous offences as appearing in a photograph with Ken Loach or attending an online meeting of a proscribed organisation like Labour Against the Witchhunt. It seems that a veritable army of Labour bureaucrats are trawling through social media accounts and recordings of online meeting to turn up evidence against the left, and then use it to exclude CLP delegates.

However, if all this points towards a very difficult conference for the left, some have noted a few bright spots on the horizon. They suggest that the unanimous decision of the Unite executive not to endorse the appointment of David Evans as Labour’s general secretary could mean that the main architect of the purge might be rejected by conference. Others also argue that similar votes on the national executive committee and conference arrangements committee reports could see defeats for the Labour leadership that offer some hope. The rumour mills are working overtime, speculating about how trade unions delegations might vote, in the light of a shift to the left on Unison’s NEC and the GMB’s new general secretary’s decision to scale back on political funding for Labour.

It all adds to the gaiety of the nation, but such micro-analysis of the internal balance of forces within the trade unions, or the CLPs for that matter, is a somewhat hopeless clutching at straws and in any case rather misses the point. In comparison with 2019, the left is in headlong retreat. Not only is it in no position to score any meaningful victories, but, in the face of the continued onslaught of the Labour right, it does not have either the politics or the strategy to do so.

Starmer has pursued the witch-hunt not because of the strength of the left but its weakness. Though there are, amazingly, those who fool themselves into thinking otherwise. The targets chosen so far, such as LAW or Socialist Appeal, have been ritual sacrifices, chosen because they are marginal, not because they pose some immediate threat to the leadership.

The conference will probably see an intensification of the purge, maybe with staged showdowns to demonstrate how the left has been put in its place: the mantra will be beating the Tories in the next general election, putting an end to off the cuff policy making and seeing the back of anti-Semitism (ie, anti-Zionism).

Mode

It is almost certain that Starmer’s speech on the last afternoon of conference will be designed in the mode of Neil Kinnock or Tony Blair, showing who is now really in charge of the party. As the current political cliché has it, Starmer will hope that his speech will be a ‘defining moment’ and set his leadership on the road to electoral success. Note, Labour has just scored its first opinion poll lead over the Tories after eight long months.

The prime audience for this speech, however, will not be in the conference hall or the living rooms of viewers catching the evening headlines. No, the main object of Starmer’s attention is the ruling class – both here in Britain and in the USA – and their media, to whom he wants to show that he can be trusted as a safe pair of hands, a reliable captain of capitalism’s second eleven. His attacks on the left are not some personal aberration or irrational vendetta: Starmer desperately wants to be prime minister and for him the war on the left is an essential part of that electoral strategy. As he works on his conference speech this week, these aims will be to the fore, but he will also be emboldened by the complete surrender of the official left in the Socialist Campaign Group (SCG) and the Momentum leadership.

But their cowardly evasions and studiedly ambiguous statements in the face of the witch-hunt are unlikely to save them if Starmer deems it necessary to expel Jeremy Corbyn, proscribe Momentum or remove the whip from individual SCG MPs – all possible options to ram the point home.

If it is unclear exactly at which point we stand in this ‘strategy of tension’, we can at least safely predict how the official left will respond to any ratcheting up of the purge in Starmer’s leader’s speech at conference, if their pathetic capitulation to date is any guide. Thus the ‘Labour Left for Socialism’ amalgam – the ‘Chatham house left’ – now seems to be falling apart, as the left trade union bureaucrats and official left careerists who sponsored it either run for cover or, in effect, abjectly surrender before the assertive Starmer leadership. Likewise, the Momentum leadership has gone down the same road and has done absolutely nothing to oppose bans and proscriptions. They hope that by keeping quiet they too can cling on to party membership and become the face of the acceptable left. Given their record, we can expect no fight from them whatsoever.

The result of this is confusion. Large numbers have either resigned or lapsed into inactivity, allowing the Labour right to regain the initiative. We will see the fruits of these failures in the weakened position of the left at Brighton and the opportunity it will give Starmer to further step up his attacks. It will be a difficult conference with a very different mood in comparison with the last gathering at Brighton.

However, that will not stop Labour Party Marxists and their supporters intervening at the conference and working alongside other comrades on the left committed to actually fighting the witch-hunt. But the politics of LPM do not stop there: we link the struggle against the purge to the need for real party democracy and the refoundation of Labour as a united front of a special kind, open to all socialist and working class organisations. The whole history of the Labour left – especially in its most recent Corbynite incarnation – shows that such a transformation cannot be internally generated. All that Labourism can produce is yet another ‘broad left’ party based on the ‘politics’ of the lowest common denominator, or – worse still – simply a Labour Party mark two.

Without a mass Communist Party that rejects reformism and participation in bourgeois governments and is committed instead to the self-emancipation of the working class, all that will result will be yet more stillborn initiatives and wasted opportunities.