ALB
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So now there are two. Private Frasers, that is. And what’s the betting that the new one is from Scotland too ! No wonder they had to invent a new word up there that doesn’t exist in English English: dour (pronounced do-er, I think).
But seriously, last night’s discussion brings out the advisability of not projecting a doom scenario to get our case across. The reaction might not be a spur to action but, as was suggested, to party on. “Let’s eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”. What would be more constructive would be to offer hope, the hope of a solution. I wonder if our Extinction friends have thought of what hope to offer (their main aim seems to be to pressure governments into doing something now within capitalism). Of course they show by their attempt to change things that they don’t really think we’re all doomed. That human action can intervene in the course of events.
It is true, though, that “we’re all going to die”.
Oh dear, Robbo, what have you done? By posting this comment here, presumably by mistake, you have risked polluting this information thread. Is there anyway of transferring this to the thread where it was meant?
Some articles on the Party’s history as well as two on the Party’s theory have been added to the Gilbert McClatchie Internet Archive:
Commodity Struggle or Class Struggle?, November 1920
The Founding of the Socialist Party, September/October 1931
The ‘Transition Period’, January 1946
Notes on Solo Trumpet by T. A. Jackson, August 1953
Notes on Party History: The Trade Union Question, July 1954
The Socialist Standard in War Time, September 1954
Members in the Great War, September 1964
More bad news. Or is it good?
Something to cheer you up, Alan. Maybe a volcanic eruption will save us:
Talk about a lesser evil.
Playing the immigration card again?
Rather disturbing comment by the London Evening Standard City editor Jim Armitage in yesterday’s issue on May’s statement that “software developers from Delhi” are to be given priority over workers from Europe:
… it’s a sales pitch that makes little sense politically: those who voted for Brexit on immigration grounds did not want to replace Poles with Nigerians.
No doubt true, and is why a second referendum is to be dreaded as it will unleash another wave of xenophobia, with verbal abuse and physical attacks, not just against East Europeans but against immigrants from Asia, Africa and the West Indies and their descendants as both sides scramble for votes. Another example of us being collateral damage to this dispute amongst the capitalist class about their trading arrangements. Why don’t they leave us out of it and settle it amongst themselves?
Just had time to read through the leaflets picked up at Saturday’s anti-racism march. The Morning Star, which was being given away free, had the rather-too-clever headline “Devils Back Faustian Brexit Deal. Bosses’ union throws weight behind May sell-out attempt”. In other words, May was watering down Brexit to please the CBI and the Stock Exchange while what was required, in the reported words of the Communist Party’s General Secretary, Robert Griffiths, was
Rather than an anti-people’s second vote, we need a left-led Labour government to negotiate a People’s Brexit.
No surprise there, then, with Communist Party and Morning Star still on auto-pilot from the 1975 referendum.
I didn’t get anything from the SWP or SPEW but did from “Socialist Resistance”, the group in Britain affiliated to the original (they say) “Fourth International”. They say they voted “Remain” and call for a campaign to “demand a new referendum” and “defeat a Tory hard Brexit” and, presumably, a “People’s Brexit” too.
And so the Hard Left is also lining up behind one side or other of the capitalist class in their dispute over that class’s trading arrangements.
That’s a different, and better, argument — which group of protestors are more likely to be receptive to our message?
I am sure the Extinction Rebellion people are sincere (except of course for the inevitable undercover police men and women among them) and they are drawing attention to a problem and a danger (though, in my opinion, not as dangerous as their name suggests, though still something that would bring disruption and added misery to millions of people). One problem with direct action groups that deliberately break the law is that some of them get sent to prison and then they have to devote time and energy to highlighting the plight of those of their number in prison. It’s happened time and again with such groups.
Our message, unfortunately or not, is unlikely to appeal to new activists who want “something now”. The evidence from people who have joined in recent years is that they are people who were once activists but have concluded, after ten or more years of activism that brings no or meagre results, that on reflection something more positive is required than running around just trying to do something about all the fires that capitalism has started.
Aren’t we in danger of arguing like reformists amongst themselves as to which problem has to be dealt with more urgently — in fact have we not put the first step on this slippery slope by suggesting that global overwarming is more important than racism? This is an important issue for “activists” as they only have limited time and must decide what activity — what immediate issue — to devote their time to. Our time and energies are limited too and what distinguishes us, isn’t it, is that we have come to conclusion that these are better devoted to directly propagating socialism as the only framework within which can be lastingly solved most if not all of the problems that the different, competing groups of reformists.
A contribution from Gilbert McClatchie:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/mcclatchie/1972/materialism_vindicated.htm
Just added to the Jack Fitzgerald Internet Archive:
Socialism and anti-parliamentarism, January 1928
Thanks but that’s nothing compared to the Jains who we happened to be discussing in the pub after the anti-racism demonstration yesterday:
The Jain cuisine is completely vegetarian and also excludes underground vegetables such as onion, garlic, etc, to prevent injuring small insects and microorganisms; and also to prevent the entire plant getting uprooted and killed .
There’s nowt so queer as folk.
As a matter of interest, what is the vegetarian/vegan official line on eating insects. Are they kosher?
Did anyone go, officially or as individuals?
No, four of us were distributing the Identity leaflet at the beginning of the anti-racism march outside the BBC.
I am not convinced that this particular stunt was a good idea. Blocking bridges and disrupting the travel arrangements of ordinary workers. More likely to be counter-productive. In fact, if as originally envisaged, we had tried to get the stall from Head Office (south of the river) to the BBC (north of the river) by car we would have been prevented from doing so.
They need to chose better stunts if that’s what they want to do.
I am sure that on that point the UN expert (he’s just a “rapporteur”, i.e a committee member who draws up a report for a committee) is right. In fact I don’t suppose the effect on the destitute is even an afterthought. The major consideration is, and was only going to be, the effect on business and finance.
As to the director of that think-tank, the IPPR (which is a left-leaning one, as they put it), why has he waited till now to complain about the 21-month transition? This was agreed at an early stage in the withdrawal negotiations as both sides realised that a final trading arrangement could not be settled the day after Britain left, i.e on 30 March 2019. There will now be 21 months in which to negotiate this, so to that extent he is right there will continue to be uncertainty as to what exactly the deal will be.
Will a deal be negotiated by 31 December 2020? They are going to give it a go. I heard Michel Barnier, the EU negotiator, say on TV that these negotiations could/would start on 30 March and that they would not take as long as other such trading deals because the UK and EU economies were already so much aligned. Incidentally, I imagine that a leading Brexiteer like Gove has agreed to stay on in the Cabinet precisely to be able to influence what is agreed for after 31 December 2020. Unlike some of his colleagues he’s got his eyes on their goal rather than posturing about the transitional arrangements being the end of the world in order to better position themselves to further their political careers (not that he won’t have his eyes on the leadership too of course).
If a deal is negotiated before the end of the transition period then the famous Northern Ireland “backstop” won’t need to be invoked. So this is a fuss about something that may never happen. Naturally the backwoodspeople (new PC word) of the DUP are fixated on the Border but the other politicians are just pretending. After all, there is already a trade border in the sea between Northern Ireland and the mainland of Great Britain — it runs around the Isle of Man, which is in the EU for some things (the customs union) but not for others (the single market), without this affecting the territorial integrity of the UK they keep on about. Also, you wouldn’t think it the way they are going on, but a majority in Northern Ireland voted Remain, so presumably didn’t want to go back to the days when “the Border” was the only issue in politics there even if the DUP does.
I know this is only Brexit train-spotting as we’re not concerned with what happens (except temporarily in the unlikely event of no deal) but we need to know why it’s not worth getting heated up over the issue and to see through the arguments of those who say we should.
