A polite message to the Communication Workers Union.

[In Bloom]

what other interpretation can you give this:?

More of a rhetorical device than something to be taken literally. The stuff listed is the sort of thing the BNP would supposedly do if they got into power (a proposition about as likely as Hizb ut-Tahrir becoming the main opposition party over the next couple of months), the Labour party also does these sorts of things, admittedly not on the scale that an actual fascist government would do, but it does.

it means that calling for the CWU political fund to be scrapped...

Remind me, who argued for that?

 

[belboid]

I wouldn't have any real say in where it went even if I did pay it.

you don't participate in your union then? well, that rather undermines your criticisms doesn't it? you make no attempt to influence union policy, to go along and at least get your branch to do something useful? (lots do you know.)

abstentionism, its the way forward, apparently

 

[articul8]

Remind me, who argued for that?

Ok, even the call disaffiliation needs to recognise that the absence of any other viable working class formation makes the decision less clear-cut

 

[In Bloom]

*

 

[In Bloom]

Ok, even the call disaffiliation needs to recognise that the absence of any other viable working class formation makes the decision less clear-cut

The Labour party is not a "working class formation" and never has been.

 

[articul8]

it has had a mass working class membership, and millions of workers have voted for it and seen it as the potential vehicle for defending their class interests.

(Of course, its leaders have often pursued a different agenda altogether but that's another story)

 

[In Bloom]

it has had a mass working class membership, and millions of workers have voted for it and seen it as the potential vehicle for defending their class interests.

The same could be said about the Tory party, it doesn't change the fact that Labour is and (with the exception of the short period before it actually held any power) always has been a bourgeois political party. It is an organisation with working class members, but it is not a working class organisation.

 

[articul8]

The same could be said about the Tory party,

Not really - of course some working class people voted Tory - but in doing so they looked to the Tories not to defend their interests as a *class* but as individuals (or families), as loyal subjects of the British Empire etc...

Labour by contrast has had from the beginning formal links to workers' organisation in the trade unions, and was pitched at representating the class interest of workers (whether it did so in practice another question altogether).

It's history is that of a bourgeois workers party. To what extent this is still true is very debatable, but...

 

[In Bloom]

Not really - of course some working class people voted Tory - but in doing so they looked to the Tories not to defend their interests as a *class* but as individuals (or families), as loyal subjects of the British Empire etc...

Labour by contrast has had from the beginning formal links to workers' organisation in the trade unions, and was pitched at representating the class interest of workers (whether it did so in practice another question altogether).

It's history is that of a bourgeois workers party. To what extent this is still true is very debatable, but...

So the claims that an organisation makes for itself are more important than the material reality of it's actions?

 

[belboid]

So the claims that an organisation makes for itself are more important than the material reality of it's actions?

but that's not what he said at all. labour WAS a party of overwhelmingly working-class people. It didn't act in workers' interests in power, but that still made it a very very different beast to the tories

 

[In Bloom]

but that's not what he said at all. labour WAS a party of overwhelmingly working-class people. It didn't act in workers' interests in power, but that still made it a very very different beast to the tories

The overwhelming majority of Tory voters are and have been working class, the working class being the vast majority of society. The point is that the Labour party is not a working class organisation in the sense that it is not an organisation that builds class power or acts in the interests of the working class, it's membership and support base notwithstanding.

 

[belboid]

The overwhelming majority of Tory voters are and have been working class

were they bollocks

 

[nightbreed]

were they bollocks

agreed

 

[nightbreed]

The same could be said about the Tory party, it doesn't change the fact that Labour is and (with the exception of the short period before it actually held any power) always has been a bourgeois political party. It is an organisation with working class members, but it is not a working class organisation.

Are any Unions affiliated to the Tory Party?

 

[Nigel]

Are any Unions affiliated to the Tory Party?

I think the UDM(Notts Miners) during the 1984/5 miners strike definitely had some sort of agreement, if unwritten/unofficial.