Jeremy Corbyn to be elected Labour Leader?
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I do like that kind of SPGB analysis I must admit. It's more or less exactly what the right says, especially when it's trying to whip up fear of alternatives. I'm not making a polemical point – the right do have a point. But it amuses me that trade unions and your own party are the one and only thing that get ring-fenced from this analysis. As if a rise in trade union power or a rising vote for an extreme left party like yourselves wouldn't lead to exactly the kinds of things you're warning will befall a left Labour government! As revolutionaries, perhaps you should be prepared to risk radical breaks of all kinds, not just the ones that are not on the cards.
I take back what I said (on another thread) about the twittering yoof. They've obviously got their heads screwed on.http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/07/whos-backing-jeremy-corbyn-young
I see what you mean. Only a moron in need of a head transplant would vote for the other three who must be out-and-out cynical hypocrites. I can see that they will be pro-business(the Labour Party has long accepted capitalism and the profit motive) but I can't really believe that they can be anti-poor and want to make their conditions worse. Most Labourite politicians will have been attracted to Labour as they thought it was the party of the "welfare state" and will have wanted to end poverty. They will be no different. So they can only be pretending to be in favour of bashing the poor as they think that being this is a vote-catcher. The Tories are just bastards. The other three would-be Labour Leaders are hypocrites as well. As you say, it can't be bad that quite a few young people can see this.
One of those vox pop videos. This one is where people are asked what they think about Corbyn. It has its moments. Also has its moments of despair:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkPddtUUxEA&feature=youtu.be
Interesting, instructive and amusing. It confirms the polls (for what they're worth) that
Quote:Only 5 per cent of Mr Corbyn's supporters think he can win a general election.Without doubt a realistic assessment but what it seems they want is to protest against austerity and give the Labour Party a kicking. Of course we can't join in, just enjoy the passing show.
From behind the Sunday Times paywall:The Weekly Worker in the Sunday Times. Apparently Chairman Jack can command legions of lefties to ruin the Labour leadership election. www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/s…/news/uk_news/article1585822.ece… HARRIET HARMAN has been urged to suspend the Labour leadership race after evidence emerged that hard left infiltration is fuelling a huge surge in party membership. More than 140,000 new activists are projected to have joined by the deadline for registration to vote, a rise of more than two thirds since the election, with many signing up to back the hard left candidate Jeremy Corbyn. The Communist party of Great Britain has called on supporters to join and back Corbyn as part of its revolutionary “strategy” while Green party activists have also been discussing how to vote for him. Labour MPs say their local parties have been flooded with new members, most of them supporting Corbyn, the MP for Islington North, who polls have suggested is the frontrunner in the leadership race. Some of the new members have previously stood as candidates for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, an electoral alliance including the Socialist Workers’ party, founded by Bob Crow, the late hard left leader of the RMT rail union. A veteran of Labour’s ruling national executive committee said: “It is pretty clear that what is happening amounts to infiltration of the Labour party.” Shadow cabinet ministers have privately admitted they are worried about those who are joining. John Mann, the Bassetlaw MP, said the contest was “out of control, it is totally out of control” and called for Harman, the acting leader, to suspend it so proper checks could be conducted on new members. “It should be halted. It is becoming a farce with longstanding members . . . in danger of getting trumped by people who have opposed the Labour party and want to break it up, expressly want to break it up — some of it is the Militant Tendency types coming back in.” The call came as the Labour donor Assem Allam warned that the party would be out of power for at least a decade unless David Miliband returned as leader. “The only way I am prepared to accept it will be five years is if David Miliband comes back and wins his seat in a constituency and is elected leader of the party,” he said. Allam, who gave the party £200,000 before the election, said he would not donate again if Corbyn won. “I don’t believe I would join what amounts to a criminal action against the country by supporting any hard left trade union figure.” John Hutton, a Labour peer and former cabinet minister, said the party would split if Corbyn was elected leader.“The Labour party has got too much common sense to choose him as a leader because he can’t lead the Labour party,” he said. “He would immediately split the party.” The leftward lurch of Labour is partly blamed on the reforms introduced by Ed Miliband in the wake of the Falkirk vote-rigging row. The projected figure of 140,000 new voters is based on the fact that 52,000 full members have joined since Miliband’s defeat, to push membership up to 253,566. Assuming people sign up at the same rate, another 14,000 will have joined before the August 12 deadline to take part in the leadership contest, taking the number of new members eligible to vote to more than 66,000. Another 17,830 people have paid £3 to become “registered supporters”, a category that was introduced by Miliband. This is set to climb above 22,000 if they continue to join at the same rate. Unions have also signed up 25,338 “affiliate members”, who do not have to pay a penny themselves under the new rules. Another 30,000 affiliate applications are being processed, taking the total number of new activists who can vote to about 140,000. Many have been recruited by the union Unite, which is affiliated to Labour but also includes members from hard left groups on its ruling executive council, which has endorsed Corbyn. All have an equal say in the leadership election. The Communist party of Great Britain (CPGB) chairman, Jack Conrad — whose real name is believed to be John Chamberlain — called in a podcast last Sunday for people to sign up. “What makes sense from our point of view as revolutionaries is if we’ve got a strategy as regards Labour, just as in the same way we’ve got a strategy as regards the trade unions, then what we need to be doing is encouraging people to join the Labour party to vote in the Labour party, to participate in the Labour party,” he said. An article in the Weekly Worker, the official CPGB paper, also urged people to join Labour to turn it into a true party of socialism under Corbyn. “The aim should not just be electing Corbyn but transforming the Labour party from a bourgeois workers’ party that serves capitalism into a workers’ party that serves the working class to the cause of socialism,” it said.A shadow cabinet minister said the increasing numbers of new members from the hard left “is a source of concern”.“There are Greens and [Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition] and all sorts of people joining,” he said. One worried MP said: “MPs that I have spoken to who have represented their constituencies for 20 years say 70 people turn up for a nomination meeting and 35 of them — around 50% of them — are unrecognisable and have never been to a Labour party meeting before,” the MP said. “Some who are recognisable are vociferous opponents of the Labour party from the left. In my own constituency we have had people sign up as members who are Greens, who stood as Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidates.” Neil Findlay, Corbyn’s Scottish campaign manager, has urged leftwingers opposed to austerity and nuclear arms to “put aside differences for a short period” to become a registered supporter for £3. A Labour source said several thousand new members had been rejected for administrative reasons, such as not being on the electoral roll, but just a handful were turned away because of their political affiliations. A Labour spokesman said all applications were verified against the electoral register and those not sharing the aims or values of the Labour party were denied a vote.
Apologies for the lack of formatting. I tried to fix it, to no avail.I hope readers can get the gist of the latest ridiculous scare story about Corbyn. Has Kinnock intervened yet?
And the Daily Mail gets in on the act but it's another set of 'reds under the bed" this time:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3174731/Hard-Left-Militant-Tendency-activists-using-loophole-infiltrate-Labour-help-Jeremy-Corbyn-leadership-election.html
An opportunity for our media committee (hint hint ) to issue a SPGB press release that the leader of the Labour Party is none of our business….that we want to remove the organ grinder – capitalism – not choose its monkey…or at least something along these lines…
Stuart often criticises ourselves as purists and uses the term as an epithet rather than a virtue. We suffer from the vice of actual unity in our objective and an agreement in the means to that goal. Again he seems to view this as a crime even though this consensus is reached voluntarily without coercion. What is the alternative?An organisation such as the Labour Party that includes openly pro-capitalist reformists with genuine advocates of the working class in one political organisation simply introduces a form of the class struggle into its own ranks. Splits and internal clonflict is to be expected and such internecine struggles are dissipating and emasculating. They distance actual supporters and voters with their organisational disputes. If Jeremy Corbyn prevails,Labour is threatened by the withdrawal of donations, refusal of MPs to serve in government and even another SDP party.If Jeremy Corbyn is defeated, he has either brought disillusionment and despair to activists or legitimised the conciliators with capitalism camp and provided them with foot-soldiers for the next election.For me, the only important issue is can we benefit from the fall-out. Can we attract those sincere pro-working class members of the Labour Party, can we draw the traditional voters of Labour to our position of ant-capitalism.I am minded of Glasgow and of two class-conscious members of the Labour Party. One joined the Socialist Party. One joined the International Socialists (but acknowledged the educational role of the SPGB). We should be concentrating our activity in being a welcoming and receptive home for those who have come to reject Labour and we should be ensuring they do not slip under the influence of the orthodox Left. A tough task. But the first thing is to make sure they actually do know there is an alternative to both. We have to accept that many still do not know of our existence, much less our principles. We have to raise our public profile with publicity.
I don't think I've ever criticised the party as "purist", or if I have I'm happy to take it back. My argument with the party is not that it's purist, but that it's wrong.
alanjjohnstone wrote:We have to accept that many still do not know of our existence, much less our principles.What about you and me dressing as Batman and Robin (or their grandparents), climbing on the Houses of Parliament and protesting about misrepresentation of real Socialism by Corbyn and the capitalist mediaEveryone will hear about that! And I aint kidding
Then it is my mistake, Stuart, in assuming that you have, so my apologies. I shouldn't put other peoples words into your mouth. Obviously i have to agree with you, the party is wrong…but only in a few aspects of how it projects its ideas … which in my own feeble efforts i am trying to direct the attention of my comrades to…it could be that i am wrong myself…but in the basics, nope, i think the party is fundamentally correct in its principles, otherwise i wouldn't have re-joined and remained a member. I think the problem is one of appearance rather than substance and we should address the question of our identity and manner of communication. You will no doubt believe our malaise is far deeper and goes to the core of our ideas and ideals. Having engaged in all the various debates and discussions over time i have not been convinced of the need to resign and enrol in another party. My interests on the political sphere is served as best as it can be in present circumstances by the SPGB. But who knows what the future holds and what conditions may arise. Perhaps the best way at looking at it, is that the Party is less wrong than the alternatives, whereas you will say there are other parties that are perhaps more correct but not enough for yourself to actually join them…(i'm assuming after you left LU you didn't sign up another despite the opportunity of a 3-quid vote for the Labour Party leader.)If you are correct and we are wrong, perhaps you can describe the damage we are inflicting upon our fellow workers.
In the interests of positivity, and rather than repeat what I've already said on many other occasions, I'll say instead what the party gets right. Its internal democracy, its general attitude to and engagement with democracy, its support of trade union action "on sound lines", its encouragement of education and debate and independent thinking, its general friendliness with opponents, its refusal to engage in dishonest political activity. There might be many more that slip my mind at the moment. Whatever's on the other side of the balance sheet, all this is something to be proud of.
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