explain something to me re: trade unions and labour

[Random]

Yes but do you think that the people who vote Labour or pay money to it via their unions share the same Blarite views?

The Labour leadership has been aggressively distancing themselves from their own base for about 20 years or so now. They know full well that, as much as they pile abuse on the working class, anti-Tory voters have nowhere else to go. It doesn't mean that this will make Labour more socialist, far from it.

 

[dynamicbaddog]

The Labour leadership has been aggressively distancing themselves from their own base for about 20 years or so now. .

I agree. However isn't walking away what the leadership want us to do? They really don't want new people joining and getting involved they know the party needs to increase it's membership but they don't like it at all.

 

[belboid]

Yes but do you think that the people who vote Labour or pay money to it via their unions share the same Blarite views?

Of course not - that's why they won't rejoin! (even if they do vote for them as the least bad alternative)

 

[Streathamite]

A8 and DBD: guys I admire your optimism and faith, but I fear you are in for a very nasty awakening

 

[Random]

I agree. However isn't walking away what the leadership want us to do? They really don't want new people joining and getting involved they know the party needs to increase it's membership but they don't like it at all.

They want to turn the party into a professionalised organisation out of teh control of activists, but they still need door knockers for elections. If you join and do their leg work you're helping them survive as a party and you will get precisely zero influence as a result.

 

[articul8]

A8 and DBD: guys I admire your optimism and faith, but I fear you are in for a very nasty awakening

Can't speak for DBD but I don't have a great deal of either optimism or faith re Labour - but given the grip it has on the electoral field and will continue to have in the short-medium term I can't see that there is a plausible strategic alternative to organising within it

 

[dynamicbaddog]

They want to turn the party into a professionalised organisation out of teh control of activists, but they still need door knockers for elections. If you join and do their leg work you're helping them survive as a party and you will get precisely zero influence as a result.

I think sometimes the left in the party still can make a difference, like last week when LRC campaigning helped ensure that Labour MPs voted against the Welfare Reform Bill ( previously they had abstained )

 

[Stay Beautiful]

you really believe this don't you?

Quite frankly I'd settle for a government that simply facilitated and made fighting back a bit easier, ie get rid of the anti-union laws and combine it with some basic social democratic stuff. That'd do. This should be the aim for the Labour left rather than worrying about introducing an enabling act to swiftly nationalise the top 165 monopolies, or whatever it is these days.

 

[frogwoman]

Does labour show any signs of doing that tho?

 

[Random]

Quite frankly I'd settle for a government that simply facilitated and made fighting back a bit easier, ie get rid of the anti-union laws and combine it with some basic social democratic stuff. That'd do. This should be the aim for the Labour left rather than worrying about introducing an enabling act to swiftly nationalise the top 165 monopolies, or whatever it is these days.

The aim of mild social democracy is equally unrealistic as nationalising the top 165 companies, but believing you're being 'realistic' is just going to keep you hanging in there longer.

 

[Random]

I don't have a great deal of either optimism or faith re the Democratic Party - but given the grip it has on the electoral field and will continue to have in the short-medium term I can't see that there is a plausible strategic alternative to organising within it

See?

 

[Streathamite]

The aim of mild social democracy is equally unrealistic as nationalising the top 165 companies, but believing you're being 'realistic' is just going to keep you hanging in there longer.

Precisely

 

[dynamicbaddog]

just got the heads up that Rob Sewell, editor of Socialist Appeal and author of many books/articles on the labour movement will be on Talksport tonight to discuss nationalising the banks, he's scheduled to go air around 11ish

 

[Stay Beautiful]

Does labour show any signs of doing that tho?

Not yet but if I'd said a couple of years back that the Labour leadership would be won by a guy who, rhetorically at least, would attack New Labour and would be making very social democratic noises, I think you would have thought this highly unlikely too. The long declining fall in membership has also been halted since the election. Again, I think you would been surprised about that. Along with the numbers that came out in the election in Labour strongholds when faced with the possibility of a Tory government and the numbers that returned in the local elections.

 

[frogwoman]

He might be attacking his predecessors but he's not got substantially different policies to theirs. At the march demo he said cuts had to be made ffs ...

 

[Stay Beautiful]

He might be attacking his predecessors but he's not got substantially different policies to theirs. At the march demo he said cuts had to be made ffs ...

Well, that is where the LP is right now. Loads to his right are attacking him for 'too far, too fast' arguing that the cuts should be accepted lock stock. In time, the chances are he'll come under pressure from a different direction.

 

[Random]

Not yet but if I'd said a couple of years back that the Labour leadership would be won by a guy who, rhetorically at least, would attack New Labour and would be making very social democratic noises, I think you would have thought this highly unlikely too

No, I would have said that this was the most likely outcome, and plenty of people on here went on the record as saying so iirc. Any party that has been in power fo a long time and become unpopular is going to have a new leader who criticises the old leadership. You're seeing mirages here, out of desperation.

 

[articul8]

Yes - but what isn't a mirage is the financial dependence of the party on UNITE - which has a leadership that - verbally at least - runs in exactly the opposite direction to that pursued by New Labour. It needs to be pushed to either act to pull the rug out from under all the Labour MPs who don't back a series of pro w/c demands.

 

[butchersapron]

Yeah, how far can it be pushed? Not very far and not to breaking point. This is you now, pushing stuff till non-breaking point.

Now what?

 

[articul8]

We don't yet know - McCluskey talks a good game. Let's call him out on it and see what he's prepared to do.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Not yet but if I'd said a couple of years back that the Labour leadership would be won by a guy who, rhetorically at least, would attack New Labour and would be making very social democratic noises <snip>

Are you sure about that?

 

[articul8]

Yeah, how far can it be pushed? Not very far and not to breaking point. This is you now, pushing stuff till non-breaking point.

I wouldn't be so sure - the right wing know they are exposed and are already alarmed at Dave Prentis's (FFS!) suggestion that unions should only back Labour candidates who support them:
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2011/06/27/you-cant-cherry-pick-solidarity/