The Labour Left currently divides into three distinct groupings. Firstly, there is a very small, Stalinoid grouping around Corbyn himself, comprising also his Stalinist advisors, backed externally by the Morning Star, and internally by its fellow travellers. It also includes the traditional economic nationalist, Bennite Left, of people like Ian Lavery, Dennis Skinner, Rebecca Long-Bailey et al. Then there are all those forces that came into the party as part of the Corbynite surge in 2015. Many of them did so on the basis of also holding an internationalist position hostile to Brexit. They have tried to retain their support for Corbyn, during this period, in order not to give succour to his Blair-right and soft left opponents, within the party. This group now seems to be represented by former Corbyn loyalists such as John McDonnell, who has been gradually distinguishing his position from that of Corbyn, and particularly distancing himself from Corbyn's Stalinist backers. Thirdly, there is that group of socialist internationalists that are involved in a number of groupings such as “Another Europe Is Possible”, some of which exist as front organisations for sects such as the Alliance for Workers Liberty that have associated themselves with the demand for another referendum, and so attempted to insert themselves into being the left-wing of The People's Vote Campaign, mostly without success. There are other prominent individuals such as Paul Mason, whose position is a combination of these last two.
The position of Corbyn and his Stalinist backers is not only reactionary, but it is also electorally suicidal. It threatens to destroy Labour as a political force for a generation, and to end the forward movement of the whole of the Left, in the Labour Party, that has been our best opportunity for more than half a century. Looking back over the last four years, since Corbyn became Leader, there was what, at first, appears to be a strange reluctance by him, and those around him, to move forward with the democratic renewal of the party, by the introduction of mandatory reselection and so on. It could be viewed as merely a reluctance to confront the right, to avoid them splitting from the party – the likelihood of which, given the conditions, was actually very slight – in the same way that Corbyn and McDonnell backtracked on a series of issues of principle such as the attitude to the Monarchy, to the British occupation of Ireland and so on. On the other hand, and with hindsight, it can be seen as a reluctance to introduce a democracy that itself could be used against a leadership itself characterised by a Stalinoid, bureaucratic mindset.
In 2017, the Corbyn leadership, for example, showed it was prepared to utilise the same bureaucratic methods to prevent the issue of Brexit being discussed at party conference that the Blair-rights have used to control conferences, and which is the stock in trade of all Stalinised organisations. The following year, unable to achieve the same result, the overwhelming number of anti-Brexit resolutions, were neutered in compositing, using the same old reliance on the trades union bureaucracy that the Labour Right have used, in the past, against the Left. This year, with the issue reaching fever pitch, we have had the bureaucratic manoeuvre against Watson, thrown on to the table like a dead fish, to distract attention, whilst the latest piece of Stalinoid bureaucratic manipulation has come in the form of a proroguing of the NEC, preventing NEC members from discussing the NEC composite on Brexit, and asking them to vote on it by e-mail, without discussion. This again is a mirror image of Johnson's tactic of proroguing parliament as a coup to prevent democratic debate.
Corbyn and his Stalinist backers know they are in a minority, and so they are resorting to the same old Stalinist, bureaucratic tactics to try to ram through their positions over the heads of the vast majority of party members. That process, seen up close by Corbyn's long-time advisor, Andrew Fisher, has resulted in him quitting, commenting that he no longer thinks that Labour can win, and in disgust at the behaviour of Corbyn's Stalinist advisors in the Leader's office, saying, they showed a “lack of professionalism, competence and human decency which I am no longer willing to put up with daily”.
Corby's reactionary, pro-Brexit economic nationalism has also been electorally disastrous. Labour has lost around 20% of its membership from the peak, or around 100,000 members. In the EU elections, and local elections, earlier this year, Labour sunk below the Liberals, and in places also below the Greens, or Plaid. In many places it came in fourth or fifth position, with its vote share dropping to around 13%. Recent surveys show that only half of those who voted Labour in 2017, would do so today, whilst, in these earlier polls, even 60% of Labour members, not to mention Labour voters, voted for the Liberals, rather than vote for Labour's reactionary pro-Brexit position.
You would have thought that that would be evidence enough to convince Corbyn to shift his position. And, for a very brief period, it looked as though he had. He came out to say that Labour would now back a referendum in all circumstances, and would back Remain in that referendum. It was, in any case, too little too late. On the back of it, Labour got a slight bounce, but by this time any possible justification for backing a referendum, because a General Election was not possible, had gone, because it was obvious that Johnson was going to need a General Election, if he was going to get enough votes in parliament to push through his proposals. Moreover, it was obvious that the Liberals were going to shift to an outright revoke Article 50 position, now that it became obvious that a General Election was only weeks away. For any party opposing Brexit, it is obvious that, in a General Election, the only rational position is to propose revoking Article 50, and to seek a governing majority on that basis. That is what the Liberals did, whilst Corbyn reversed in the opposite direction.
Corbyn, using the false argument about the number of Labour voters in northern Leave voting constituencies, argued that these Labour voters could not be ignored. The reality, of course, is that, even in these Midland and Northern Leave voting constituencies, the proportion of Labour voters voting for Leave is only around 35-40%, with 60-65% voting Remain.
There is a stubborn refusal on the part of Corbyn and his Stalinist advisors to recognise as working-class, or Labour voting, those that support Remain. As others have pointed out, it is rather ironic that these Stalinist advisors who come from aristocratic and elite backgrounds, having been educated at Winchester and Oxford, should be so restrictive in their identification of who are real workers and who are not! Corbyn, under cover of a slight recovery in Labour's poll ratings, and the prospect of a General Election, promptly reversed up, and began to emphasise that, although Labour would continue to argue for a referendum, this would only be after Labour had won a General Election, and after the resulting Labour government had negotiated a Labour “Jobs First Brexit”, which it would put to the electorate in a referendum alongside Remain.
At this point, the Corbyn fraction comes into conflict with the second fraction around McDonnell, Thornberry, Lewis et al. Labour's position, from 2016 on, had been that no possible deal could be better than remaining in the EU. Labour seized upon the comments by David Davis and others that Britain would negotiate a better deal, or at least as good a deal as it currently had inside the EU. That was impossible, and Keir Starmer cleverly used that fact to draw up Labour's Six Tests, by which they would judge any deal the Tories negotiated, thereby ensuring they would never have to support it. Of course, the other side of that was that no deal that a Labour government might negotiate would be able to meet those Six Tests either, but, with Labour in opposition, that was not an immediate issue.
Faced with the question what would Corbyn say in a General Election, he returned to this nonsensical position that he would negotiate a Labour “Jobs First Brexit”, which would then be put to voters along with Remain in a referendum. But, that necessitated the thorny issue for Corbyn of what he would then recommend voters do in that referendum. Would he recommend they vote for the Labour deal he had just negotiated, or for Remain. In 2016, Labour had correctly said that no Brexit deal could be better than being in the EU, and it still held to that position in 2017, but in an act of political cowardice and stupidity, it committed itself, nevertheless to “respecting” the referendum result, and its reactionary conclusion for Brexit. Many voters, fearing a hard Tory Brexit, looked at Labour's position that any Brexit would be worse than Remain, and saw in it the hope that Labour would at least be best placed, given the near death experience of the Liberals, in 2015, to prevent a hard Tory Brexit. On that basis Labour mobilised a large number of radicalised young voters, angry at the Brexit vote, as well as drawing behind it a cohort of Liberal, Green and other Remain protest votes. Corbyn's reactionary pro-Brexit stance has squandered all of that support that it gained in 2017.
Holding to the logic of Labour's 2016 position that no Brexit deal was better than remaining in the EU, the faction around McDonnell, Thornberry, Lewis et al argued that if a Labour government negotiated a deal with Europe, either some application of May's Deal, or something like the fantasy deal that Labour had been proposing, as an alternative to it, of remaining in the Customs Union and Single Market, whilst demanding the right to negotiate its own trade deals and so on, then, even this deal, would still not be as good as remaining in the EU. That is correct, but they then ludicrously argued that, in that even, what Labour would have to do, following an election, was go through the process of negotiating this deal, put it to a referendum, but that, in that referendum, they would ague for voters to reject the deal they had just themselves negotiated, and instead vote for Remain. Although this is ludicrous, it was the only way they could square their position with Corbyn' position of negotiating a Labour deal following a General Election. But, of course, it was only a matter of time before Corbyn was himself pressed on how he would vote in such a referendum, which leads into all of the dithering, and suggestions of taking a neutral position, and so on. During all this time, votes continue to haemorrhage to the Liberals, Greens, Plaid, and SNP.
Corbyn's Stalinoid backer McCluskey, attempts to rationalise Corbyn's refusal to say whether he would recommend support for any such negotiated deal, or would back Remain, by a typically false argument. On Sophie Ridge, McCluskey said that if he, as a union negotiator, went into negotiations with an employer, no one would expect him, prior to the negotiations, to say whether, after those talks, he would ask his members to vote for or against the result, because it would depend upon the outcome of the negotiations. That appears reasonable, but, of course, the difference is that no union negotiator asks for talks with an employer, and goes into them asking the employer to reduce the pay and conditions of their members. But, that is precisely what Brexit does. It is precisely what Labour recognised, and has said for the last three years, which is that no Brexit deal can be better than remaining in the EU!
The group around McDonnell, Thornberry, Lewis et al, which probably reflects the position of a majority of Labour members is that they recognise the reactionary nature of Labour's current pro-Brexit position, they recognise its damaging consequences for party membership and morale, and on Labour's electoral prospects. But, as Corbyn's long time allies, and as opponents of the Blair-rights, who have tried to utilise opposition to Brexit, via the People's Vote Campaign as a weapon, along with anti-Semitism, against Corbyn, they have been timid in confronting Corbyn's disastrous stance, and the role of his Stalinist advisors, though McDonnell is said to be furious at the role of Seamus Milne.
But, its clear that, in refusing to clearly break with Corbyn, they are being dragged down along with him. When Emily Thornberry appeared on Question Time, and tried to make this argument that Labour would negotiate its own Brexit deal, and then ask voters to reject it, you had to feel sorry for her, because she must know that this is pure nonsense. The members of the audience clearly knew it was nonsense and responded to it with the derision it deserves.
Finally, then we come to the last group of the progressive internationalists. But, oddly, because of the way things have transpired, they find themselves in the same position almost as the previous group. The only difference is their demand that a referendum be held prior to a General Election. That is an odd demand, because it implies that such a referendum be conducted by Johnson's government. Few can believe that Johnson would not use all of the levers at the disposal of government, to ensure that the result came out the way he wanted. In that case, a subsequent General Election victory for Labour would be a Pyrrhic victory, because it would then find itself in the position of having to implement a reactionary Brexit that it opposed, but which was the result of a referendum it had demanded be held! Alternatively, it would require that Johnson's government resigns or falls from a no confidence vote, and a caretaker government is put in its place. But, it will take the best part of a year to organise another referendum, during which time this caretaker government would have to govern, and face all of the contradictions that entails from the conflicting positions of its component parts, or, in the case of a minority Corbyn government, all of the opposition to its policies that the other parties in parliament would continually level against it. If Johnson's government were to fall, the logical position is to have the caretaker government either revoke Article 50 straight away, or else to call a General Election. But, in that General Election, the only rational position for Labour to take, especially with the Liberals already having done so, is to revoke Article 50. At no point now, does another referendum have any logical role to play for parties that have correctly said that Brexit is reactionary, and will leave workers worse off.
As I wrote the other day, if Labour continues with its current position, of arguing for a General Election, followed by a renegotiation of Brexit, which will inevitably be seen by voters as a pro-Brexit stance, but one that is confused and confusing, compared to the clear pro-Brexit stance of he Tories, the inevitable consequence will be that, whilst Labour will not win or retain any votes that might go to the Tories or Brexit party, it will certainly lose millions of Labour Remain voters, plus all of those Liberal and Green, and Plaid Remain voters it gained in 2017. That loss of votes, to these other parties, may not, of itself, be enough for the Liberals to win an election, though latest polls show they are on a tipping point of supplanting Labour as the second party, behind the Tories, but, it will be enough to ensure that Labour loses dozens of seats in Labour-Tory marginals, as the anti-Tory vote is split.
Take the situation I find myself in. My local Labour MP, Paul Farrelly, is strongly pro-Remain, in what is now a Labour-Tory marginal, with the Liberals way behind. Although I would have many disagreements with Farrelly's Blair-right politics, on this central class issue for our times, of Brexit, he is in the right class camp. I have no problem supporting his campaign and voting for him, and I doubt, any other progressive Remain voters in the constituency will have such a problem either. I would expect that the Liberal vote, come the election, will be heavily squeezed to ensure that the Tories are kept out. However, across the border in Stoke North and Stoke Central, we have two right-wing nationalist MP's in Ruth Smeeth, and Gareth Snell, who have, on several occasions, supported the Tories reactionary Brexit positions in parliamentary votes, and have intimated they would vote for May's Deal if it was brought back by Johnson. They are in the wrong class camp, and should be treated as if they were Tories.
In Stoke North in 2017, Smeeth polled 50.9% compared to the Tories 45.3%. Smeeth's vote was up from 39.9% in 2015, reflecting, no doubt much to her chagrin, the effects of the Corbyn surge, and of the fact that Liberals and others lent Labour their votes in protest at a possible Tory Brexit. Similarly, in Stoke Central, Snell polled 51.5% of the vote as against the Tories' 39.8%. Snell's vote was up from his by-election win earlier in 2017, when he polled 37.1%, and from Tristram Hunt's 39.1% in 2015. But, despite what the Lexiters, and other nationalists would have you believe about Leave voting constituencies such as Stoke, around 60-65% of Labour voters in these seats backed Remain. The majority for Leave in seats like Stoke came from a slightly smaller percentage of Labour voters voting Remain than the national average for Labour, whilst a slightly higher proportion of Tory voters voted for Leave than the national average, whilst the Leave vote was also supplemented by those that support the BNP, or who traditionally do not vote.
In the elections in early 2019, 60% of Labour members, never mind Labour voters, voted for the Liberals. Recent surveys show that only half those that voted Labour in 2017, will do so now. If only half of Labour's 2017 voters in Stoke, who backed Remain, ditch the party to vote Liberal, as a clear Remain party, then, in both Stoke North and Central, Labour will lose, and the Tories will win. In Stoke North, Labour scored 50%. If it loses 30% of its vote to the Liberals that takes its vote share down to 35%. It would take the Liberals up to around 17%, leaving the Tories to win with their 45%. The same situation more or less exists in Stoke South. The pro-Brexit stance is a sure fire way, in seats like Stoke, to allow the Tories to win, and to enable them to form a majority government. The only way that could be stopped is if Labour voters themselves recognised that, and deserted Labour entirely for the Liberals. If I was in Stoke, not only would I not be able, in conscience, to vote for its right-wing nationalist Labour candidates, but, in order to have the best chance of keeping the Tories out, I would be hoping that as many voters as possible deserted Labour for the Liberals, in the hope of the Liberal beating the Tories.
As I wrote the other day, the only hope now seems to be that Labour's activists can come together to forge a Socialist Campaign for Europe and a Labour Victory, which would commit Labour to revoking Article 50, using retrospective legislation or taking Britain back into the EU, if necessary, combined with a progressive, social-democratic campaign for ending austerity in Britain and the rest of Europe, for a radical transformation of the EU, as part of a struggle for a Workers Europe. But, the problem, even when it comes to the progressive internationalist left can be seen from the response to this argument, I received from Andrew Coates, when I set out this argument on his blog the other day
He wrote,
“An interesting position and in many respects right (especially on Bonapartism), but politically unfeasible given that nobody is campaigning for this line.”
And, of course, there is the problem in a nutshell, because part of the problem is that the Left has failed to calmly and rationally analyse the situation, and draw up a rational response to it. Instead, driven by factionalism, and a silo mentality, what the Left, and different factions within the Left, argue for becomes solidified around what certain sects and groupings decide upon, within their own bunkers, and those decisions are themselves heavily influenced by sectarian party-building motives, and factionalism, meaning that any plasticity in developing positions responsively is prevented, so that existing positions simply become ossified as the party line, which all of the adherents of the particular sect or faction must parrot.
So, it looks like, to answer the question, no there is little hope for Labour's Left. It is doomed to repeat the mistakes and suffer the defeats once more of the past.
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