Jeremy Corbyn to be elected Labour Leader?
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My Facebook has become very boring recently with the number of communists/ anarchists/ revolutionary purists discovering that they are and have been social democrats all the while!its almost as if all the principles and detailed theories that inspired them and justified their various vanguardisms were actually mere smoke screens from behind which they really had no faith in the working class at all, and we're waiting for an opportunity to make their piece with a softer gentler capitalism.
Darren redstar wrote:My Facebook has become very boring recently with the number of communists/ anarchists/ revolutionary purists discovering that they are and have been social democrats all the while!its almost as if all the principles and detailed theories that inspired them and justified their various vanguardisms were actually mere smoke screens from behind which they really had no faith in the working class at all, and we're waiting for an opportunity to make their piece with a softer gentler capitalism.Hilarious isn't it? But it confirms what we believed all along. They haven't got a clue about the 'system' they rage against and they turn into sheep at the drop of a hat.The sad thing is, does Mr Dunn understand capitalism? He should know better.
Wasn't there a suggetion a few months back that Socialist Appeal – alongside Socialist Action one of the last vanguardist actively committed to entryism inside the Labour Party – were seriously thinking of leaving the Labour Party because it was seen as a dead end for political work? I think this was especially true of their experience inside the Scottish Labour Party. And, now, fast forward a few months and Corbyn is the new messiah. (I'm being a bit cheeky because of his initials.) It even puts the Bernie Sanders – who's intials are b.s. – campaign over here into the shade.
SPGB NEWS RELEASE
Quote:Campaigning in North London this week, Bill Martin, who stood for the Socialist Party against Corbyn in his Islington constituency earlier this year, said Corbyn was right to lay the blame for the slump on the economic system, but claimed he was “just a traditional Labour MP, who puts forward the case for state intervention in a capitalist economy: Harold Wilson 2.1.” “The cause of austerity is not the Tory government, or the absence of a Labour one. It’s the profit system which causes boom and bust,” said Bill Martin. “Governments can only spend at the expense of profits. Corbyn should know better. It was his Labour Party in the 1970s that tried to spend it’s a way out of a slump and it didn’t work then.” Joining him was Adam Buick, an editor of Socialist Standard magazine who commented: “There is a lesson in the failure of the left-wing Syriza government to end austerity in Greece. While capitalism is in a slump it can’t be ended. It was an impossible demand.” He said Corbyn and his supporters should “stop wasting time trying to reform the market system and instead join our campaign to replace the capitalist system of class ownership and production for profit by a socialist system of common ownership, democratic control and production directly to meet people’s needs. Only then will austerity be ended forever.”Mark Steel revealed in yesterday's i paper that he is one of those who have been barred from voting on the grounds that "we have reason to believe that you do not support the aims and values of the Labour Party". He is a former supporter if not member of the SWP. His riposte was to say that unless concocting false evidence to justify an invasion of another country is pary of Labour's "values" then Tony Blair and his supporters should also be banned from voting.It looks like the band of professional career(ist) politicians who control the Labour Party (and always have) are beginning to panic as they see their prospects of climbing higher up the greasy pole being diminished. After all, the only people to suffer from the Labour Party being out of office for a decade are them.Basically, to stop Corbyn, they've got four options: stop the ballot, rig the ballot, declare the result invalid, depose Corbyn if he wins and call a new election in which he won't be able to able to stand because he won't find 30 of them to nominate him.
Steel was a member of the SWP for 20 plus years. I'd recommed his Reasons To Be Cheerful. A genuinely laugh out loud book about being a political activist – for the SWP – through the 80s and 90s. It's even quite touching in places, and any political activist – whatever your brand – will recognise themselves in some of the anecdotes in the book.It may have even been reviewed in the Standard. I know at least one of his books was.
Found the review of Steel's book from the Standard:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2001/no-1163-june-2001/book-reviews#b
So he was actually a member of the SWP. The only book of his I've read is It's Not A Runner Bean about what stand up comedians have to do to get started (drag themselves around from pub to pub performing before drunken audiences, if there is one).There's hypocrisy on both sides here. He's ex-SWP. The SWP denounces Labour as a "rotting corpse" yet urged workers at the last election to vote Labour where TUSC and a few other weren't standing, i.e in most constituencies. So they do support Labour in this sense. On the other hand, the Labour Party doesn't reject their votes. Or, at future elections, will Labour election addresses say (like we say about support for socialism):
Quote:Don't vote for us if you do not support the aims and values of the Labour Party.That'll be the day.
Kezia Dugdale has won the Scottish Labour leadership election, beating outsider Ken Macintosh with more than 70 per cent of the vote – with 5,217 votes out of a claimed electorate of 21,000.No sign of any leftist entryism. No sign of any leftism whatsoever in Scottish Labour, actually. She said Jeremy Corbyn as leader would leave the party "carping from the sidelines"..hmmm??…and Scottish Labour’s general election success in Scotland was …ummm…one MP…
Do we know how many people in Scotland are entitled to vote in the election for the Leader of the UK Labour Party (or rather GB Labour Party) than were entitled to vote in that for the Leader of the Scottish Labour Party. I take it they didn't have the system of allowing supporters to vote?
700 plus meeting in Dundee.300 plus at a lunchtime meeting in Aberdeen.It looks like Corbymania has reached north of the border.
Exactly same procedure as the UK Labour Party election, with the same 3 quid democracy rule, ALBhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Labour_Party_leadership_election,_2015#ProcedureSimply wasn't any left candidate for Scottish Labourites to organise behind. They no doubt have all defected to the SNP and the Scottish Parliament gravy train. I see they have dragged Gordon Brown into endorsing Cooper. I wonder how many of the Scots audience listening to Corbyn actually voted Yes in the referendum and are ignoring that Corbyn is even against the compromise of increased taxation powers for the Scots.
There could be more to this. Here's Alex Salmond on Jeremy Corbyn:http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13462923.Salmond_says_SNP_could_strike_deal_with_Jeremy_Corbyn_to_oppose_welfare_cuts_and_Trident/Note Salmond saying he's more in favour of private enterprise, i.e more "business friendly", than Corbyn. Hint as to what a breakaway Scotland might be like. Painting the pillar boxes tartan.
ALB wrote:So he was actually a member of the SWP. The only book of his I've read is It's Not A Runner Bean about what stand up comedians have to do to get started (drag themselves around from pub to pub performing before drunken audiences, if there is one).There's hypocrisy on both sides here. He's ex-SWP. The SWP denounces Labour as a "rotting corpse" yet urged workers at the last election to vote Labour where TUSC and a few other weren't standing, i.e in most constituencies. So they do support Labour in this sense. On the other hand, the Labour Party doesn't reject their votes. Or, at future elections, will Labour election addresses say (like we say about support for socialism):Quote:Don't vote for us if you do not support the aims and values of the Labour Party.That'll be the day.
The Labour party clause I reads 'Name and objects' 'Its purpose is to organise and maintain in Parliamentand in the country a political Labour PartyThe party shall bring together members and supporters who share its values to develop policies, make communities stronger through collective action and support, and promote the election of Labour Party representatives at all levels of the democratic process. The party shall give effect, as far as may be practicable, to the principles from time to time approved by party conference'And the new Clause IV elaborates'The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few; where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe and where we live together freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect'Since the Labour party (and the Socialist party) can't stop people voting for them, wouldn't arguing 'don't vote for us unless you support us' be a pious instruction?The Socialist party Clause 8 merely says, 'calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner', perhaps more emphasis could be given to this? Maybe this is a fundamentalist rethink of the kind put at the recent summer school.
The thread about "Why Labour Lost" never got off the ground, but here's one analysis from the Labour Party itself, by MP John Cruddas. Here is what he says according to the Times (13 August):
Quote:Our enquiry findings show a deeply worrying trend. Labour is becoming more culturally exclusive in both its membership and which parts of the electorate it appeals to …. It is now largely a party of socially liberal, progressive-minded people who value universalist principles such as equality, sustainability and social justice. It is losing its connection with large parts of the voter population who are either pragmatic in their voting habits or who are socially conservative and value their family, their community and their country. On welfare, people value justice based on the principle of contribution.The enquiry found that a majority of people who vote are pro-business, pro-austerity and anti-welfare and don't believe or are not interested in the sort of policies Labour members and MPs would like to implement (and tell us we should support Labour to get "in the meantime").This presents a dilemma for a party that wants "power" to implement "universalist principles such as equality, sustainability and social justice". To get "power" they have to pretend that they don't want these things. I think Bill got this exactly right in his article in this month's Socialist Standard when he makes the point that about Corbyn that he is a traditional Labour MP and that
Quote:The only thing he does differently, is that he believes in putting the case openly, instead of pitching to a marketing strategy in order to win power to make reforms on the quiet.Corbynmania seems to be the revolt of Labour supporters against the duplicity that this marketing strategy involves. It is also finding an echo amongst the general public who value honesty in a politician but probably not enough to elect an honest Labour Party.
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