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There's a revealing explanation here as to how, contrary to the intention of those who presented LU's draft constitution, it came to be amended to allow permanent factions that are allowed to publicly campaign against the party's aims and policy. Scroll down to point 2 of Jara Handala's 2 December contribution:

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The draft (section 7b) allowed members to get together without the prior permission of anyone else, & it called them caucuses (Conference re-named them tendencies when the Lambeth amendment was passed). But the members weren’t to be totally free in how they chose to associate: the draft asked Conference to ban permanent factions; to restrict caucuses to promoting “certain specific concepts, ideas or policies”, thereby excluding contestation of LU’s aims; & forbad caucuses from publicly campaigning against LU policies or aims. http://leftunity.org/29248/  (draft Constitution, with proposed amendments)All these restrictions were rejected by Conference –  the Sheffield & Cardiff amendments. (The Commission, prior to Conference, had accepted the Hackney amendment to allow public campaigning against LU policy –  but not against aims.)Interestingly no amendment challenged the need for caucus meetings to be open to all LU members, something that Cardiff didn’t mention. However one speaker at Conference, Jack Conrad, did. He said “we” will have private meetings –  whatever the Constitution says. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa2xPJsh1HU  (vid #027, 7:15)He was ambiguous as to whether he meant either CPGB members of LU or the Communist Platform which they helped initiate but is also signed by non-members of CPGB. In either case a gauntlet.

No doubt the Sheffield and Cardiff branches are stuffed full of the various infiltrating Trotskyist groups.It looks like the revenge of the daleks. They now have a free hand to behave as they wish. It is clear that LU will be their second priority and that they will simply be using it as just another place to propagate their ideas and recruit new members. As usual.If I was a LU member I know who I'd expel first and which group to proscribe first: Jack Conrad and the "CPGB". His brazen declaration that he won't accept the constitution's requirement that faction meetings have to be open to all LU members can be found 6minutes 50 seconds into the video clip Handala links to.

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I think this applies more to the People's Assembly than to Left Unity. But I'd still expect LU members and maybe LU officially to say "Vote Labour" when there's no LU or other left-of-Labour candidate.  That will satisfy the Labour politicians as all they want is votes (however obtained and whatever the reason).Voting Labour is what most of them will have been doing up to now, thoughsome will have been voting for the Green Party.

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Here's a couple more accounts of what happened at the founding conference.This from those behind the "Socialist Platform". They don't seemed to be prepared to put their money where their mouth is and are staying in a party then accept aims to manage capitalism:http://www.independentsocialistnetwork.org/?p=2636I noticed of couple of things:

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Tina Becker moved an amendment from Sheffield enabling caucuses (platforms) to organize public campaigns against the overall aims or policy of the party was clearly agreed, as was a Cardiff amendment for caucuses to be allowed to be permanent.  An amendment from Lambeth on replacing the words sections and caucuses with caucuses and tendencies was also agreed. [Their bold]

I think the new party might live to regret this which gives carte blanche to the rival Trotskyist sects to behave in the new party as they do in the trade unions.And this requires no comment (once again, their bold):

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Before the vote on the amended Constitution was taken, Richard Brenner moved against its adoption because of a reference in the IDCC Aims to win a mandate to govern based on “a democratically planned economy… within which all enterprises, whether privately owned, cooperatives, or under public ownership, operate in ways that promote the needs of the people”.  The objection, if that was what it was, was overruled, and the amended Constitution was overwhelmingly carried on a hand vote.

The other report is from the leader of the breakaway from the SWP:http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/left_unity_a_report_from_the_founding_conferenceHe makes this point:

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This is the problem that Left Unity faces.  The UK has no significant communist or far left parties equivalent to those in Greece, France or Portugal.  It is therefore impossible to do what Left Unity wants to do unless there is a realignment in which a sizeable chunk of the Labour Party, including MPs and councillors, splits.

How likely is that? It looks as if the new party may be reduced to acting as an external faction of the Labour Party just as UKIP is of the Tory Party. After all, Ken Loach did appeal for  a leftwing equivalent of UKIP to be formed. 

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We don't think much of Holloway's politics, but perhaps this will help:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2010/no-1274-october-2010/book-reviewsWritten incidentally by someone who is now a member of the Left Unity party.

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I don't think we should be kicking somebody when they're down so let's get back to discussing the topic of the thread, where there seems to be a lack of clarity as to what is meant by the word "labour" in the phrase "division of labour". Does it mean division of the work or of the worker's (producer's) time?I would have thought that it was obvious that work processes will continue to be divided in socialist/communist society (that's the basis of the modern technology that can provide plenty for all). But a producer's worktime will be able to be divided between different work processes instead of being tied to one as is the case today under capitalism (unless, that is, he or she wants to stick to one job).I can't see that the "abolition of the division of labour" can mean anything but this. I don't think it implies either that everybody will be able to any job, only that they will be free (if they so choose) to work at different jobs in the same day or week or month or whatever.

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These remarks by current Labour MPs on begging has prompted me to dig out a press cutting from 1994 which I'd filed under "lying promises":

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Labour to end beggingBegging will be consigned to the history books under the next Labour government, Labour's London spokesman, Nick Raynsford, told a meeting of the Hampstead and Highgate Labour Party in Swiss Cottage.Mr Raynsford, MP for Greenwich, said that begging was the most disgraceful indictment of the present government's policies. "Our task has got to be to eliminate begging in London and create a memory of how bad life was in the late 80s and early 90s."He proposed a scheme to build more houses, using finance from both the private and public sectors.(Camden New Journal, 7 July 1994)

They didn't do it of course. In fact it got worse and still is a "disgraceful indictment" of capitalism and of parties that claim to be able to tame capitalism. It was also a lying promise. 

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I'm afraid he won't be able to reply for a week as he's been suspended.

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I wish I hadn't responded to this thread and just let it die the instant death it deserved. Now look where we are (again).Moderator, can't it be removed to the "Rubbish Bin" section and be continued there.

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As the 1978 Lambeth by-election has come up here and also on Ian Bone's blog I've just posted our candidate's recollections of this in the World Socialist Movement section here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/world-socialist-movement/1978-lambeth-election

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Gramsci is supposed to have said "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will". I've always thought that the opposite applies to us, i.e. "optimism of the intellect, pessismism of the will".Not sure what the political implications of this are, except that Gramsci's version is one for the Leninists as it sums up well their tactic of knowing that reformist campaigns won't succeed but telling workers that they can. We, on the other hand, don't doubt that the workers can establish socialism, but know that we can't establish it for them.

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Yes, navel-gazing. Socialist comradeship is something you do, not endlessly analyze. It has to be spontaneous and can't be contrived. So there's no point in drawing up guidelines about how to do it or trying to convince people to do it. You might as well gaze at your navel instead.

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LBird wrote:

now we need the input of admice, and other newcomers, to enter the conversation with their opinions.

Of course, but since she seems not too keen on "working class" and "comrade" I doubt if she's going to like "proletarian" !

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I hate this sort of navel-gazing, but for those who enjoy it there is this article on organisation from an Irish anarchist group:http://www.wsm.ie/c/solidarity-engagement-revolutionary-organisation-anarchismActually it does have some interesting ideas about organising in this age of social networks which we might be able to use, e.g we have more members of our facebook page, most of whom can presumably be classified as sympathisers to one degree or another, than we have paid-up members. How can they be further involved in spreading socialist ideas without necessarily have to join?

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LBird wrote:

Surely there'll be 'democratic organisation' within the proletariat prior to the 'glorious day'?

Of course, but now you're changing the meaning of the word "proletarian". Originally, you used it to refer to the sort of democracy that would obtain in a classless, socialist/communist society (extending beyond administration to the workplace). Now you are using it to refer to working-class organisation within capitalism. In which case "proletarian democracy" simply means workers organising democratically. Good idea.This opens another discussion (probably for another thread) on the usefulness of using the word "proletariat" and "proletarian" to describe the working class. We never have and any writer for the Socialist Standard who uses either of them risks getting it edited out. The same goes for "bourgeois" and "bourgeoisie" in relation to the capitalist class. We've got to be able to put over the case in simple everyday language, not as if we are 19th century French revolutionists.

LBird wrote:

Once more, perhaps a matter of 'only words', but I prefer the term 'economic democracy', because all workers can understand that they'll be running their workplace. 'Social democracy', in contrast, sounds a bit hippy-ish, let's be 'social' and nice to each other.

It doesn't sound hippyish to me. It means that socialism/communism would be a "democratic society" in which democracy would apply beyond both administration and work to other aspects of society too, e.g. science. "Economic democracy" has its drawbacks too as it could suggest "one person, one vote" in enterprises producing for the market, e.g. co-operatives.We'll get it right in the end. Society-wide participatory democracy? Or even "true democracy"?

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Fair enough it's only words, but I'm still not convinced that "proletarian democracy" is the best way of describing the opposite to "bourgeois democracy" (still because there will no longer be a proletariat when it's achieved).In fact, I'm not even convinced that "bourgeois democracy" is the right word either (too dismissive, as one person, one vote is an important gain for workers). The contrast is between limited, "political democracy" and full, dare I say it, "social democracy".

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