RE: [Marxism] New Scottish Socialist Formation

["Darren Williams" <dazza1970@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

www.leninology. blogspot.com wrote:

>...my assessment is that attempts to save the Labour Party are probably
>futile because the party no longer has the desire or the ability to attract
>a layer of people capable of pulling it in a new direction, dismantling
the
>apparatus of leadership control, reinvigorating the remaining democratic
>organs and so on.  I also think that structurally its ability to pursue
even
>the old strategy of reformism has been destroyed by the current condition
>of capitalism.  Since the Labour Party has been losing members hand over
>fist, since it has lost party identification in core working class areas
>(the East End, for instance), since they have been wildly unpopular on a
>number of issues, and since some of them have produced either mass strikes
>or mass movements (ie, civil servants strike and StWC) there is surely at
>least a stratum of people who would be open to building an alternative.
...
>You really have to be deliberately purblind to miss
>Respect's dramatic successes of late.  This is part of a Europe-wide phenonenon
>if you ask me, in which different forms of cooperation and unity are being
>tested, with varied levels of success.

There is some truth in this (particularly the inability of the party to pursue
the old strategy of reformism) but you exaggerate the party's loss of support
in the working class. More than 9.5 million people voted Labour in the general
election last year - 35.2% of the total - the vast majority of them undoubtedly
working class. This is a significant decrease on previous elections but is
not yet mass desertion. Moreover, while there clearly has been huge discontent
with many Labour policies - not least the war -  this has not generally 
expressed
itself in support for an organised political alternative. Respect's best
results were certainly far more impressive than other recent left-of-Labour
electoral initiatives, but they scored well only in areas with very heavy
concentrations of Muslim voters - in the East End and in Birmingham - and
even then, many Muslim voters in multi-seat council wards voted for Muslim
Respect candidates but not their non-Muslim comrades. While it is potentially
positive
that there is a progressive voice for the embattled British Muslim community,
this shows that Respect has failed in its objective of building a viable
party out of the mass anti-war movement.

Disaffection with Labour has more often been translated into increasing 
electoral
abstentionism and disengagement from any form of party politics (although
not necessarily from non-party campaigns). The British general election turnout
dropped to 59% in 2001, having been between 71% and 85% in every election
since the 1940s and increased only slightly to 61% in 2001.

This is the true 'Europe-wide phenomenon' (in fact, it applies to almost
all the advanced capitalist countries): since the 1970s, election turnouts
have plunged and this correlates to the rightward shift of the social-democratic
parties, as they have adopted neo-liberal policies. With no real alternative
on offer from any of  the mainstream parties (at least on economic policy),
working class voters have deserted their traditional parties in their thousands
- yet this disillusion hasn't generally been turned into active support for
new parties of the left. Some of the older left parties (eg, the Swedish
Left
Party and the Danish and Scandinavian Socialist People's Parties) have seen
a modest upturn in support and there have been respectable - but not 
earth-shattering
- showings by some new left parties (notably in Denmark and Portugal - as
well as in France in 1999, although this has not been sustained).

However, the only new left formations in the advanced capitalist states to
become
anything resembling new mass workers' parties - in terms of electoral support,
membership, etc - have been Rifondazione Comunista in Italy, Izquierda Unida
in Spain and now the German Left Party
- and all of these have been formed out of significant splits from the existing
mass parties (or the incorporation of an existing mass party into a broader
formation, in the Spanish case). In my view, this is the only way that any
substantial mass socialist party could ever be formed in Britain: by splitting
the Labour party from top to bottom.  Unless and until that happens, there
remain better opportunities for building a fighting left within Labour than
outside. Blair and his policies are massively unpopular with the majority
of party members and supporters, the Labour left is more united than it has
been for years, and  there is a declared left candidate for the party leadership
in the shape of John McDonnell - a committed and  principled socialist with
an impeccable record of standing up for the working class and oppressed.
While McDonnell is unlikely to win the election, his candidacy will galvanise
the left in the mainstream labour movement, showing that there IS an alternative
to the failed neoliberal policies of Blair & co. Already, dozens of former
Labour members have rejoined the party in order to support his campaign.




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