The Left Should Operate Inside Labour As Though Its a Police State

In the past, I have criticised the Left sects for their playing at being revolutionaries with the use of “party names” and so on, in conditions where, unlike Tsarist Russia, there was no police state. However, with Starmer's provocation of the Left, in the suspension of Corbyn, not for anything he has done, but simply for expressing an opinion, its clear that Starmer has introduced police state conditions inside Labour, in preparation for large scale expulsions of the Left, the closing down of branches, CLP's and so on, if they resist, and if he cannot provoke them into leaving voluntarily as the Militant did in the 1990's. The Left inside Labour must now operate on the basis that it is a police state, where the thought police are standing by to use any pretext to suspend and expel members of the Left.

It was under those conditions that Lenin wrote “What Is To be Done”, as a manual for how revolutionaries should deal with that kind of police state and censorship of thoughts and ideas. Starmer's removal of Rebecca Long Bailey from the Shadow Cabinet, followed by the sacking of Nadia Whittome, was clearly the warm up for Starmer's suspension of Corbyn, as he seeks to provoke the Left into leaving or waging the kind of response that would create the pretext for him expelling large numbers of activists, and closing down party organisations. This is a forerunner to pulling back in all of those Tories and scabs that left Labour to join the TIGs. Starmer's police state tactics, and denial even of basic bourgeois-democratic rights to free speech to party members follows hard on the heels of his support for the illiberal measures and withdrawal of civil liberties by Boris Johnson's Bonapartist regime. Its quite clear what the Left is now facing whether it comes in the guise of Johnson or Starmer.

Those like Paul Mason who naively called on us to back Starmer have again seen the consequences of such an approach, consequences that, as I have set out in my response to Paul, over the last few weeks, any Marxist who has studied history could and should have foreseen. Paul Mason has a heavy responsibility on his shoulders to engage in some serious self-criticism for his error, and to come out strongly in defence of Corbyn. But, he should beware that in doing so, he will put himself in the firing line to be also suspended by Starmer's stormtroopers and thought police. After all, when the Right were developing the anti-semitism meme as the spearhead of their attack on the Left, he too had been the subject of such scurrilous accusations.

But, for the rest of the Left, the most important thing now is not to respond to the Right's provocation. It is important to stay and fight, and not to give Starmer and the Right the opportunity to expel and suspend people either individually or wholesale. In Tsarist Russia the Social-Democrats (Marxists) had to ensure that in their public utterances they abided by the rules of Tsarist censorship to prevent their journals and printing presses being seized, and to prevent themselves being locked up or exiled. The Left has to operate in the same way in Starmer's police state Labour Party.

Lenin proposed that the Russian social-democrats at the same time operated illegally to get around the Tsarist police state, in conjunction with their open legal activities. That was the purpose of the party names to hide the identity of writers in the illegal publications that went outside the limits of Tsarist censorship. Today, the internet makes that an easy task. It is easy for the Left to circulate its ideas entirely online, and for those writing in those journals to use party names to do so. It seems incredible given the advance that the Left made after 2015, that it now becomes necessary to do so, but is probably an indication of just how much that advance put the shits up the right-wing establishment of the labour movement, and its bourgeois backers, and masters.

It is necessary to build a massive online and anonymous resistance to Starmer's police state tactics, and his relentless drive to hand the party back to the Right, and the bourgeoisie. But, at the same time, the Left should ensure that in its public utterances, they say nothing that could be used to suspend or expel them. Instead, we must simply get on and do what Corbyn should have done after 2015. That is, we must educate, organise and agitate amongst all those hundreds of thousands of new party members, to draw out the lessons for them of what has just happened. To show why walking away cannot be the answer, and why, instead, its necessary to double down, to draw in even more activists, including all those who will be appalled at the action of Starmer and his right-wing cronies in suspending Corbyn, and undertaking this provocation of the Left. We need to calmly, quietly and efficiently, just get on with the task of removing all of the existing right-wing, Blair-right, and soft left councillors and careerists, and promoting the kind of democratic reforms and rebuilding of the labour-movement required to clear out all of this rotten dead-wood for good, including Starmer himself.

Let's reclaim the Party for the working-class, and clear out all of these open apologists for capital, and begin the process of promoting the interests of the working-class and of Socialism.