[Peace-discuss] The vote on the bombing of Syria Labour's ongoing crisis

[David Johnson]

The vote on the bombing of Syria is just in, 397 for and 223 against. The first indication is that 67 Labour MPs voted with the Tories. This represents 29% of the PLP.

Richard



"Tim Heffernan permarev at gmail.com [socialistdiscussion]" wrote:

  

Pat argues that Corbyn was right not to have tried to force a whipped vote on Labour MPs. His argument:

1. You have to choose your battles carefully.

2. It's the wrong issue on which to take a stand. "Bread and butter" stuff will resonate more with the British public than foreign policy issues.

 

The class struggle isn't a menu from which, beforehand, you get to tick the items you wish to engage in. Sometimes you don't get to choose your battles. Of course, in an ideal world, it's always best to fight on the most favourable terrain but is the ground  here so unfavourable? To cite public opinion as a key factor in determining the stance that socialists should take on any matter is, in itself, sad. It's even sadder when the issue is that of war and peace. And apart from that, public opinion is a fluid beast. Today's Times reveals that now more people are against the bombing  (compare that to the pro-bombing figure of 60% that Pat cited a few days ago) "YouGov said that the decline equated to 5 million voters turning against a bombing campaign since Cameron set out his case last week."

 

What is Pat's objective? - to see Cameron defeated in Parliament or to temporarily paper over the obvious cracks in the Labour Party so that the battle against the Blairites can be conducted at a later stage on a domestic issue that Pat would deem to be more favourable to the left. And from some of the accounts I've been reading in the British press, the indications are that if Cameron does win in Parliament, it will be largely due to Corbyn's decision in allowing a free vote (taking into account that there are some Tory MPs ready to defy Cameron)

 

Imagine the birds killed with the one stone of a whipped vote, assuming the latter would have been instrumental in leading to Cameron's defeat:

1. The Tories, the warmongering media and the ruling class are given a bloody nose.

2. The left, inside and outside the LP, are given a boost - the anti-war movement, in all its forms, will justifiably claim some credit for shifting public opinion and in putting pressure on wavering Labour MPs.

3. The Blairites are also given a bloody nose and Labour's civil war is accelerated, leading to a faster cleansing of the right wing than would otherwise have been the case. 

 

Admittedly, this doesn't correspond to Pat's longer term scenario for reclaiming the LP bit by bit. To Pat's position of choosing one's battles carefully, I would reply that his position of appeasement amounts to "give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile." By allowing a free vote, Corbyn may have bought himself some temporary peace in the PLP but the net result of his decision will be to embolden the Blairites.

 

In wanting the acceleration of Labour's civil war, I don't accept the accusation of impatience and adventurism. It's more of a going along with the inevitable and getting on with it, in a Macbeth sort of way - as the wannabe king contemplates the murder of Duncan - "if it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly." 

 

Less morbidly, I prefer to see it more as the approach of French revolutionary, Georges Danton: "il nous fault de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace." (We need audacity, yet more audacity,  always audacity). 

 

One last point - It bothers me (I detect a patronizing, condescending tone) to see Pat making the distinction between foreign policy issues and domestic ones in terms of what will or will not engage the working class. He almost comes over as workerist. The implication is that workers are so materialist and self-obsessed with their own "bread and butter" issues that they are incapable of being mobilized around matters of war and peace. Flowing from that is a further implication - that the anti-war movement Is made up of liberal peaceniks, is predominantly middle class and  most workers will distance themselves from it - much like the accusations from some US comrades on this list re the social basis of support for Bernie Sanders. Apologies in advance if I have misinterpreted Pat on this issue.

 

Tim


On Wednesday, 2 December 2015, Pat Byrne patbyrneme at gmail.com [socialistdiscussion] <socialistdiscussion at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

  

Just to let you know that on 20th of February the Labour Representation Committee will be holding a conference at which the main discussion will be on repurposing the LRC as a left-wing force within Momentum. One of its aims should be to do what Dan and Bob are talking about. 

I don't know why it is taking so long for such a development to take place but better late than never.

Its something that I hope most of the comrades on this list will support in whatever way they can.

Pat

 

On 2 December 2015 at 14:13, dan.armstronguk at yahoo.co.uk [socialistdiscussion] <socialistdiscussion at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

  

For such political education to happen, someone has to give a lead. The Momentum website should ideally be transformed into an up-to-minute newssheet detailing every important event - nationally or locally - in the Labour Party and affiliated unions. The next stage could be to expand it into becoming a newspaper, reporting on national and global events and venturing into the fields of political economy and social history, linked into current events. Local Momentum-sympathiser websites could be started if the centre is too slow.

There should be public appeals in the party for volunteers to run such developments. Plus finding members to give talks and organise self-help groups against evictions and help mothers, pensioners, bus users and others to prevent cuts, getting solidarity groups going with local workers in dispute, linking theory and practice.

The great potential resources of the left nationwide can eventually be reawakened and harnessed into this great task, ignoring any shades of dissent, simply uniting all in re-establishing the fundamentals of the movement, linking all with the local population from the start in a great non-academic popular education drive and creating political action groups.

Who can do what? That is the question to be asked and answered in every town and city.

Dan A



---In socialistdiscussion at yahoogroups.com, <patbyrneme at ...> wrote :

On Dan's point about the need for political education in the Labour Party under Corbyn I completely agree. Indeed it echoes the same point in my article that I published just before Corbyn was elected. Here is what I wrote then about this subject: 
"Political Education:  

Hand in hand with this, there needs to be a special campaign of political education and discussion organised throughout the Party so that the hundreds of thousands of new members do not find themselves stuck in endless meetings limited to discussing the mechanics of election campaigns, fundraising and so on. The new members will be thirsting for ideas and answers and it should be a central task of the new leadership to provide an innovative structure and culture to achieve this. Not only should we utilise the power of social media to this end but we also need to lay the basis of our own television channel to provide a space for the party and its membership to continuously discuss and learn together with the wider public."

 

My article also goes many of the other problems we have been discussing facing Corbyn as leader of the Party. It lays out what we in the Socialist Network see as the key issues and charts a positive way forward on them. If you didn't get the chance earlier check it out here:

http://socialistnetwork.org/how-a-victory-for-jeremy-can-be-turned-into-the-transformation-of-the-british-labour-party/

 

Pat







 

On 2 December 2015 at 11:07, dan.armstronguk at ... [socialistdiscussion] <socialistdiscussion at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Pat is right to pick up the aspect of reformism and this is an essential problem today. My main point, however, is the need for the political education of active LP members and, by gaining influence in the party, to bring these ideas into the working class who mostly share the false consciousness of the ruling class. Momentum could serve as a vehicle for organisation of such a task providing marxists participate.

I see from a report today that one the first Labour MPs to face possible deselection is Stella Creasey in Walthamstowe, a safe Labour seat, on the grounds that she is supporting air strikes in Syria.

"... Creasy has come under pressure from within her local party in recent weeks over the coming vote on bombing Syria. Asim Mahmood, a Labour councilor in Creasy’s constituency, has called for any MP who votes for bombing to face a trigger ballot and reselection"

more ...
Stella Creasy targeted for deselection <http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2015/12/stella-creasy-targeted-deselection> 

	
	
 <http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2015/12/stella-creasy-targeted-deselection> Description: Image removed by sender. image

	 <http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2015/12/stella-creasy-targeted-deselection> Stella Creasy targeted for deselection 

Organisers on the left believe the Walthamstow MP is the ideal target for political, personal and geographical reasons.

	


 <http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2015/12/stella-creasy-targeted-deselection> View on www.newstatesman.com 

Preview by Yahoo 

	
						

 

Dan Armstrong



---In socialistdiscussion at yahoogroups.com, <patbyrneme at ...> wrote :

Without wanting to go too much into the birth of the German socialist movement (something I have studied in some detail) I would like to bring out a big contradiction in the approach of Marx and Engels towards the creation of mass workers parties in general. 
   In theory Marx and Engels were strongly in favour of building unified mass workers parties believing that as long as they were independent of the bourgeoisie and relatively democratic then they would develop in a revolutionary socialist direction based on the experience of the workers in struggle. This confidence was tied in with their economic perspective which was for an increasing pauperisation of the working class which would force them into more and more intense class struggle. However, things did not exactly work out this way and the latter half of the 19th century saw an increase in living standards in the more advanced countries. Of course this was not given to the workers but in most cases had to wrought out of the employers and the ruling class by mass action and agitation.

   In that sense the emerging labour movement proved that it could wring reforms from the system and this formed the basis of the emergence of reformism as a significant tendency within the movement. Not only that, reformism was also likely to be a major tendency in periods when capitalism was stable and could only be expected to be completely vanquished in a pre-revolutionary situation (and a post-revolutionary one of course).

The problem then was that a mass workers movement by its very nature was bound to reflect the various ideas within the working class which iincluded reformism. How to deal with this? Here I think the political practice of Marx and Engels was not thought through. And for this we can obviously partly excuse then for not being able to foresee how things were going to develop inside the social democratic parties and the trade unions. 

It is clear to me looking back to this period that while there was an obvious need to support and work for unified mass workers parties (and opposing this could only be a sectarian mistake) this was not enough. There was also the vital need to build within such a unified movement an organised platform for an end to capitalism and its replacement with a democratic socialist society, combined with an understanding of how best to overcome the inevitable resistance of the capitalists to such a change. Unfortunately it was only Lenin who in some way accidentally stumbled upon such a strategy and went on to organise the Bolshevik faction, and significantly refused to close it down when circumstances seemed to justify that. The result as we all know was the success of the Bolshevik faction in winning the leadership of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and from this strong position going on to overthrow capitalism. Sadly, none of Lenin's contemporaries including Trotsky, Luxemburg, Connolly etc. understood the need to organise such a faction and through this to win the leadership of the mass workers parties. 

This is not at all a discussion only of historical interest. In my view it remains the strategy we need today. And in the context of the Labour Party that means that we need to develop such a platform/faction today, working together in a united front with other left wingers in the Momentum movement.

Pat

  

 

On 1 December 2015 at 17:13, dan.armstronguk at ... [socialistdiscussion] <socialistdiscussion at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

One opportunity missed, says Julian. Abstractly yes. But imposing an unenforceable three-line whip on the Labour MPs would probably have changed little in the voting figures. A propaganda signal yes, boosting the morale of the committed left. But precipating the organisation called "Labour Party" into an organisational split with left and right pulling in opposite directions. Under certain circumstances, that could be the beginning of a momentous shift. But the left is led by confused keynesian pacifists who would be at home in the Green Party with Caroline Lucas. Such a new left party would vacillate and dither and begin to lose its way within weeks. It would be of precious little use to the organised labour movement. Such a split would therefore be premature. 

Nevertheless, in yesterday's opinion polls, Labour can still lay claim to between 22 and 29% of voters.

It has been said here that what is needed is a new First International, refounding class organisations. I disagree. The organisations are already there. What we need is the refounding of the Second Socialist International. What does this mean?
Well, certainly not the corrupt, neoliberalism of the recent past.
What is needed is a return to the roots of the young socialist parties. I am thinking of the SAPD, later the SPD, created by a merger of two wings of the labour movement in Germany and emerging as the sole party of the nascent working class. Into this party, Marx and Engels intervened with ideas, ideas and ideas. They held talks with all the main workers' leaders such as Lassalle and Wilhelm Liebknecht in their London homes. They studied and critiqued the party's manifestoes, they produced resolutions and journals and analytical works on the issues of the day.

The Labour Party, in common with most other workers parties, felt it had to expand into the middle class and small (and sometimes not so small) bourgeoisie, chasing a majority of the  popular vote in order to gain office and achieve small changes to please their members but accepting the existing system of production for profit not people. Eventually any pretence at socialist aims was ditched.

That wing of the LP susceptible to hostile class interests has been holding the socialist back for decades. And the present behaviour of its Parliamentary wing delivers proof that they are incorrigible, alien elements who need to be shed as soon as possible.

How to shed them? It has been repeated here again and again that the left must begin to cohere around a demands and around class fighters. For this to happen, we need to emulate the process which early social democratic parties went through. If the marxists could intervene energetically in Momentum and organise lectures and study classes, thousands of young militants could be educated in the basic approach of consistent socialists and prepare to stand for office and transform the local parties, a branch at a time. At the moment, it seems response is patchy but the membership continues to grow so there must still be opportunities. Within a few years, Marx and Engels succeeded in winning the new leaders in Germany they gained control of the whole apparatus with an explicit revolutionary programme and the perspective of gaining state power, a model for decades for the international socialist movement.

The coming phase could see the LP drawing in its horns. Not be afraid to repel the Blairites but not attempting coups by handfuls. The move against the right must rest on the hundreds of new militant recruits and their democratic votes. The new LP where the Momentum groups can gain the upper hand, resting on the 20 to 25% of the electorate, and staffed by hoinest new layers of members, can school its party activists (we were all trained well in this) to carry basic socialist propaganda and explanations to the mass of the people, rejecting and combatting the line that there is "No alternative", conscious of which line of march to follow and by dint of their convictions, carry the other social classes of the petit bourgeois along in their wake. In the 19th century Marx and Engels showed how such a party can be created and steered. A new historic opportunity is shaping up.

Dan A

 

 

 

__._,_.___

  _____  

Posted by: Richard Evans <redrichardevans at yahoo.co.uk> 

  _____  


 <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/socialistdiscussion/conversations/messages/32797;_ylc=X3oDMTJyZGR1OG84BF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzE4MDM1OTUzBGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDM3NQRtc2dJZAMzMjc5NwRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNycGx5BHN0aW1lAzE0NDkwOTYxNTA-?act=reply&messageNum=32797> Reply via web post 

•

 <mailto:redrichardevans at yahoo.co.uk?subject=Re%3A%20%5Bsocialistdiscussion%5D%20Labour%27s%20ongoing%20crisis> Reply to sender 

•

 <mailto:socialistdiscussion at yahoogroups.com?subject=Re%3A%20%5Bsocialistdiscussion%5D%20Labour%27s%20ongoing%20crisis> Reply to group 

•

 <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/socialistdiscussion/conversations/newtopic;_ylc=X3oDMTJmYTIzaWRoBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzE4MDM1OTUzBGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDM3NQRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNudHBjBHN0aW1lAzE0NDkwOTYxNTA-> Start a New Topic 

•

 <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/socialistdiscussion/conversations/topics/32715;_ylc=X3oDMTM3ZDRqNXJiBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzE4MDM1OTUzBGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDM3NQRtc2dJZAMzMjc5NwRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawN2dHBjBHN0aW1lAzE0NDkwOTYxNTAEdHBjSWQDMzI3MTU-> Messages in this topic (51) 

 <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/socialistdiscussion/info;_ylc=X3oDMTJmODVsMXZwBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzE4MDM1OTUzBGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDM3NQRzZWMDdnRsBHNsawN2Z2hwBHN0aW1lAzE0NDkwOTYxNTA-> Visit Your Group 

 <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo;_ylc=X3oDMTJldHQxbzZnBF9TAzk3NDc2NTkwBGdycElkAzE4MDM1OTUzBGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDM3NQRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNnZnAEc3RpbWUDMTQ0OTA5NjE1MQ--> Description: Image removed by sender. Yahoo! Groups

•  <https://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/groups/details.html> Privacy •  <mailto:socialistdiscussion-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe> Unsubscribe •  <https://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/> Terms of Use 





.

Description: Image removed by sender.
Description: Image removed by sender.

__,_._,___

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20151202/61e789df/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 568 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20151202/61e789df/attachment-0003.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 359 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20151202/61e789df/attachment-0004.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 332 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20151202/61e789df/attachment-0005.jpg>