2017 and the future of the left.

The arrival of the New Year 2017 provoked the biggest spate of dramatic projections of possible futures from academics and commentators across the western media, since the fall of the Berlin Wall. This was no doubt a result of Brexit and then Trump’s victory in the US. There was the odd gem among the buckets full of clinker. But most of the pundits extended characteristics of recent politics and amplified them. In their minds the future was simply a bigger version of now.

There were a few braver efforts published that attempted to provide a coherent explanation why the western world was evolving in the direction it is. The most imaginative of these was Editor of the Economist, Daniel Franklyn’s theory that the globe has entered into a new stage of capitalism, a second (or third?) ‘Industrial Revolution’, that was drastically reorganising both Capital and Labour. Digital communication, automation and, soon to emerge, artificial intelligence, were all products of this new revolution. As with the previous major shifts in technology, the new capitalism was producing social frictions and political fractures. Millions of traditional workers, especially in the west, were inevitably insecure and uncertain. But like previous periods where new techniques became dominant, it would all get sorted out with a new type of social contract, albeit quite different from the crumbling, traditional version that was now collapsing (and thereby causing all the populist angst so apparent in the west.)

Franklyn’s idea is an attempt to couple up the social and political world with the latest technology, spinning out of globalisation. But his idea is fatally flawed. Leaving aside his presumption that there is obviously a new technology coming out of what he sees as a new stage of capitalism, which is a proof of the endless fruitfulness of this apparently permanent system of society, his assertion that a new social contract between Labour and Capital will gradually evolve out of the new conditions demonstrates the lack of any sense of history. (Or any vision of the fundamental contradictions between the interests of Labour and those of Capital.)

In this year of all years it is surely blindingly obvious that millions of working class people had the most immense battles against Capital across history, from strikes to national liberation struggles, from revolutions to World Wars. Their huge efforts and monumental sacrifices across the globe have forced Capital to offer ‘social contracts’ to defend themselves and their system against Labour’s 100 year tsunami. It is not new technology that attacks the gains that Labour has made in the last century. (And before we are distracted by Twitter and robots that can talk – sort of – technological change between 1900 and 1960 was infinitely faster than the modern period of 1970 to today.) Capital attacks Labour, ceaselessly. The current economic mechanism for that attack is not I phones but the fact that Capital’s largest returns (profits) come from the sale of money and not from production. This is a gigantic machine literally designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.  

At the beginning of 2017 lots of observers rightly commented that a new right is winning political power in the west. In the US and in Britain a recomposed right wing has already taken mainstream political leadership and elections in France and the Netherlands are likely to show an increase in their strength in Europe as a whole.

While this fact throws the working class movement onto the defensive in the west it is not the same as the social defeat of the working class. Trump scored less of the popular vote than Clinton. In Britain the working class vote split, but nearly half the population of the UK, including some of the most progressive centres of the labour and trade union movement (in Scotland, in London etc) voted against the rightwing campaign of the Brexiteers. It is not true, even in the US and in Britain, let alone in Spain, Italy, Germany and even France, that the new right has won the leadership of society.  Key battles are still breaking out based on the social weakness of the new right’s agenda. For example in the UK there is a competition between PM May and the unions as to who is more likely to improve the lot of the ‘Just About Managing’. May makes speeches about raising the standard of life of ordinary people while making no concessions whatsoever. Meanwhile key unions battle for working class conditions, against the ‘gig’ economy, keeping employment, public safety and raising income as government ministers anxiously check to see if they can whip up a public mood for the strangulation of all strikes. The right in Britain does not (yet) lead society.

While social struggles continue, including the right to life movement in defense of black youth in the US, the new right’s grip on mainstream political leadership in insecure. The union action in Britain and the anti racist movement against the police in the US will be the first targets. Racism will be stoked up to divide the working class layers of society in order to isolate the right’s targets. The issue for the political left is first to renew its connections with the working class people in the western societies that are challenging globalisation, in many cases up to now by using political vehicles designed by the new right. But the right’s political leadership is still fragile. In the UK UKIP’s 4 million votes are still open to fluctuation. The left can still win the argument in society by openly recognising the reality of rationed services, housing and the use, by employers, of immigration to reduce wages – and denouncing it all; lock, stock and barrel. Second the left should openly fight any division among working class people in their social struggles as a gift to the rich and the road to a more and more wretched life for all of us. That will isolate the real racists. Thirdly the left should shout out the need for a new political system and the need for an economy that serves the people. Radical change and only radical change will get the attention of an alienated but politically mobilised working class.

In the US, despite his mistake in linking up to the Clinton Foundation, which still has to be worked through, Bernie Sanders offers a lead and others, like the occupy movement seem ready to follow. The situation in the UK is a dramatic paradox.

Britain’s traditional political system is collapsing and the first victim of that collapse is the traditional Labour Party. Even the Fabians now recognise that traditional Labour cannot win a UK general election. The Fabians, naturally, in line with their long history, make the most cautious and feeble recommendations to deal with the problem. The contradiction at the centre of Labour’s future is that as a mass party it is the largest in Europe. But two, entirely distinct class interests are at war in the envelope with the Labour Party address. Only one of those interests can speak to Britain’s working class in the context of the current terms of politics. Only one part of that party is capable of the presenting the bold vision of a totally new democratic politics and an economy for the people. But as the Tristan Hunts (Labour MP) drift off to other establishment sinecures, despairing that Labour will ever be able to provide a solid platform of ministerial advancement to one who is entitled, the left leadership of the party is as quiet at the Fabians and as cautious!

Above all, the left leadership of the Labour Party must lead. But they often lose sight of what it is that they should lead. They imagine that they should lead the Parliamentary Labour Party, if only the MPs would cooperate and settle down and stop lighting fires under Corbyn. The truth is that they have their moment and only their moment. Most Labour MPs will disappear like brother Tristan or fight with fury against their leadership. The left’s moment and its role is to use their opportunity to lead the working class, to use the massive, healthy and renewed base of the party to bring the message of the need to change society to the millions who reject globalisation, the rule of the super rich, the destruction of services and poverty of every day life.

Will the right MPs split the party? In some form or another, probably. But the left’s direct actions, over the heads of the MPs, rallying the conference and the most active unions behind it, could, in the here and now, create a solid political nucleus, with a sizeable caucus of older and newer MPs, at the centre of the biggest mass movement for social, political and economic justice in Britain since the Chartists.  

Labour's future under Corbyn

A short essay on the future of the Labour Party (LP) in Britain.

The dust has settled following Labour's conference. And the media's 'Corbyn hunt' has calmed down after Labour's new leader said he would never push the UK's nuclear button. Commentators like Andrew Rawnsley (see the Observer 4 October) have him installed for the long haul, despite the almost universal despair of Labour's parliamentary party. According to Rawnsley, Corbyn's huge and increasing following among the party membership will hold off any short term attempts at coups by Labour MPs. The vast bulk of Labour MPs are now left sincerely hoping for bad news in the coming elections in Scotland, London and Bristol to make their dirty work easier.

Meanwhile Corbyn's entirely genuine 'common man' persona continues to charm those who like the novelty of politicians in a human form. And some distinct political priorities have emerged through Corbyn's conference speech and in interviews, albeit not yet hardened into party policies.

At first sight Corbyn was cautious, inclusive, but a bit rambling at the party conference, as though still a little overwhelmed at his often mentioned 'mandate' from Labour members and supporters. The unsure commentators therefore sought in vain for Corbyn's analysis of Britain's deficit, or an explanation of Labour's recent defeat in the General Election. It is true that his speech did mainly focus on the future of the LP. It was therefore more significant than his absent thoughts on defeat at the General election and on the deficit, that Corbyn offered no explanation of his own dramatic success in the leadership race, despite the repeated reminders he gave of his mandate. His references to innate British values coming to the fore and the desire 'out there' for a new politics did not nail it. Yet he nevertheless drew out a most significant and dramatic political revelation for the future of the LP from his election as leader.

Corbyn, with a rare fire in his words, challenged those who argued that the social democratic British LP was going the same way as the 'hollowed out' European social democratic parties. In Britain, he enthusiastically insisted, social democracy was not only alive but was in a process of rebirth as tens of thousands of new members flooded into the party. The current LP was now the largest mainstream party in Britain for decades - and on its way to become a mass party and movement again.

There were therefore three key points that emerged out of Corbyn's first LP conference. First was opposition to austerity and the makings of a Keynesian type plan for growth; (undoubtedly a growing mainstream political and economic view in the world as the neo-liberal adventure remains stuck in the mud - especially in Europe.) It is common sense for Corbyn to stress the completely orthodox and coherent arguments against the Tory's fetish with austerity, especially as the danger of a burst UK property bubble increases. He judges, quite rightly, that the absence of the national presentation of a clear economic alternative so far, the failure to deal with the mantra that 'there is no alternative', is a major factor in the hesitation and retreat of Labour support in the country. Miliband's policy of 'austerity light' just encouraged people to think that as all British political leaders seem to agree austerity has got to be done, let's just get it done as sharply and quickly as possible.  Second was an affirmation, both personally by Corbyn and more generally, that British warmongering would be curtailed. Even the small Corbyn team (borrowed in significant part from Ken Livingstone's back room) are acutely conscious of the impending public emergence of the Chillcott Enquiry report on Iraq. The Iraq fiasco is now a hated memory for the majority of Britons. Corbyn's team hopes he will emerge as the one Westminster leader without bloodstains on his hands.

These two themes, developed into policy, are designed to establish a new Labour Party based common sense across the wider population in the years leading up to the 2020 election. And it is true that most political observers in the main media have generally underestimated the potential strength of these ideas to win popular support.

But a third theme emerged from conference - showing where the new leader's strength of purpose now lies. It lies in his mission to (re) build the LP.

Growing the party is certainly the main immediate means of holding back eager Labour MPs from their regicidal purposes. It is a crucial measure to bring enough pressure to bear in the constituency parties and from the left unions to hold the ring for the new leadership. But there is a more general proposition being made here. The Corbyn leadership are arguing that a rebuilt LP, a British social democracy in their own image, is the decisive instrument to deal with the list of British cruelties and inequalities, imposed both at home and abroad and currently experienced to some degree by everyone outside the 1%. This is nothing less than a plan to reorganise the whole of British politics, based on a reborn LP.

Unfortunately there are blind spots in this rosy vision.

There is a curious paradox in the thinking of Corbyn's team in their optimistic projections on the potential future of their new Labour Party. For decades up until about three weeks ago, the aim of Labour's minuscule left was to hang on to what remained of the dregs of the LP 'for fear of something worse.' (From this thinking has stemmed some of the Labour left's continued sectarian approach to developments like the Greens or the SNP - thoughts that are now being triumphantly magnified by their new internal success.) Yet the cosiest of roads to a progressive victory in 2020 is being laid out for the Corbyn led LP in its solitary glory. If we can just hang on to the LP leadership apparatus they suggest, then the Scottish question, the Greens, austerity and war, UKIP and mass voter abstention will all wash away in the progressive tide of History.

What period are we living in? What is the real state of our social and political systems and parties (at least in Europe) and the ebb and flow of the social classes' multitudes of frictions, contradictions and antagonisms?

The period of relentless defeat of working class movements, parties and organisations in Europe, a period which started in the 1980s, is over. Left, progressive and new working and middle class movements have arisen, albeit in the context of increasing global, social, political and economic polarisation. The biggest traditional social forces in society and the ancient monuments of cold war architecture and western global dominance are all weakening. The political landscape shifts and grinds and constantly reorganises itself. The new movements and the shifting political terrain spark intense collisions and fractures; even wars and the destruction of nations and the collapse of whole populations, as in the case of Yugoslavia or the Ukraine. Meanwhile the West, more and more belligerently, exports its domestic crises to the periphery (Greece, Spain, Italy and Turkey) and overseas. New powers emerge as traditional imperialism no longer dominates the world. All this turmoil and recomposition is associated with rapid shifts and vicious struggles as the tectonic plates of the last half century tip over and split against each other.

New leaderships emerge. Some of the most powerful so far have been born from a reactionary radicalism that refracts the mirror images of long distance violence, hatred and poison of imperialism into a ruthless, personal brutality; and that will continue to expand in the absence of any substantive, alternative insurgent perspective. Their necessity is solely to express fury and revolt. The slide from what often looked like bedrocks of imperious stability to war is sudden and unfocused. In essence a social system is cracking and its associated politics are in convulsion, first, inevitably, at the edges of the most powerful nations. The weight of the world's difficulties are far too great for societies' current organisations to bear (as the current refugee crisis demonstrates.) The results from this turmoil are not inevitable. But major social, economic, political and military battles will have to occur to establish any new 'normal.' Whatever else is true a slow, gentle and steady evolution to a new social democracy is not on the cards. Even in Britain! A period of sharp turns and dramatic political shifts is already underway - so far relatively peacefully but that is only in the most developed countries and, with the growing alienation from the West's democratic systems - not at all guaranteed.

Focusing on the British LP in this wider context; it is first immediately obvious that Britain's social democracy has not at all avoided the 'hollowing out' of its European associates. The recent collapse of Labour's traditional base in Scotland; the loss of five million Labour votes since Blair's ten year dominance, the four million who voted for UKIP, half from traditional Labour areas; the million that voted Green; the literal and political hollowing out of thousands of Ward parties and Constituencies and their power to alter anything; all of it has left the British LP in a state of near collapse. It is as a consequence of the tremulous fragility of the LP that Corbyn has been able to win its leadership! In the now desperate creation of a new Labour hinterland, a direct result of its increasing collapse as a party, hundreds and thousands of a new left, that had already started to fight austerity, that was tired of Westminster and its lack of real power as well as its increasingly self seeking ways, voted for Corbyn.

This new internal Labour 'electorate', at least that part who are not old party members returning, do not want to 'fix' the Labour Party. They want to stop austerity, to stop war and they want to change the British political system into one that provides political and social justice. The returning old LP members and the left unions, by and large, do see the reform of the LP as the decisive means to remove the Tories and change society. Whatever the tastes and predictions of the political commentators and theorists an experiment in and on the LP is underway - but in the most convulsive times since WW2.

Labour's MPs are almost universally hostile to the current party's leadership. Some powerful trade unions likewise. The whole of the rest of the British establishment is against the Corbyn leadership. We have seen already the immense pressure on Syriza in Greece, which had succeeded in winning the Greek people and is now carrying out the Troika's plans, on Podemos, which in May was level pegging with Spain's two major parties and is now at 12%. Corbyn's Labour Party will go through much more. And if it is not 'restored' to its post Blair anchorage by internal manouver it will be blown in that direction by its initial collapses in the polls. Corbyn needs to prepare a tremendous struggle, not a 'gentle' type of politics at all.

It seems therefore that the next stage of the 'hollowing out' of British social democracy will, in this case, pass through the social democratic party itself, the LP. When change is afoot however, all the old clothes are dug out and tried on for size first. All the old banners are waved at the start. But history only ever repeats itself in fast motion and because Britain has no vast Bennite current of the 1980s, nor a trade union movement of twelve million, the old clothes and flags will be dumped very soon.

Three decisive preparations (assuming the continued oppostion to austerity and war) need to be made by the Corbyn leadership for the battle to come. First, it needs to help bring the new working class into action, in a movement at the base of society; a movement that campaigns against austerity and war. That is the real source of the new working class political leadership - a leadership that in time and through experience might propose itself as the leadership of the whole of society - a recomposition of a new social class drawn from its new types of labour. And that is the context in which old time Labourist sectarianism against the Greens or the left of the SNP has absolutely no place at all.

Second, the Corbynistas have to fight (again alonside the Greens and the SNP) for the root and branch reform of the political system - starting with the clearest possible call for a fair voting system. Whatever comes out of the impending battle of the LP, the Corbyn leadership must stand for the real representation of the people with meaning for all votes and voters and an end to their Lordships. That means if the right decide to wreck the party then a core, with some real purchase on the political system, would remain.

Third, Corbyn and his supporters should form an organised current, trend, society, within the party. The right have them already. There is no need for such a measure to be exclusive or secret in any way. But such organisation is an absolute necessity among the new and returning members from the start. (Most of them know that they will be in a fight to the finish inside Labour. They are right.)

If those who seek progressive change in Britain are to benefit from the developments now underway in and around the Corbyn led LP, they cannot stand aside from, or worse, dismiss, the Corbyn victory. There is enough work to be done both inside and outside the LP to push this development as far as it will go and to help a nation wide, left political mass movement, emerge - even if the right and the establishment are able to break up Labour's current leadership. This fact, the fact of Corbyn's internal LP victory, can prove to be a decisive experience in the regroupment of a new working class movement and its political formation in Britain.