What have Respect delivered for their constituents?

[dennisr]

a question for dennis and CR
what would you regard as succesful for a new workers party?
electorally or intervening in ,as you say cr, the low level of class stuggle
or when the class struggle takes off again...
are you like a stopped watch we were right NOW is the time for a new workers party

I think you can see from CRs reply where we would differ. I should say that is in a fraternal way - I understand and have time for CRs viewpoint - we are all asking the same question - how do we rebuild an independent worker's movement. At this moment our opinions differ, that does not mean there should not be room for both (and plenty of other) viewpoints.

I don't see putting forward demands for a new worker's party as a way of building a revolutionary party. I think the most likely scenario is the rapid growth of a party with both revolutionaries (such as me and CR claim to be) and reformists in it. Crudely, a 'left labour' style party - but one with open groups - like the SSP had been, or PSOL in brazil, left party in germany, in italy etc. That growth would come out of trade union movements and battles in all likelihood. it would provide the platform in which all these ideas can be genuinely discussed and genuinely tested in practice Like urban said though - i would not proscribe a number of other possible sources of growth of a new workers party - we have to keep our eyes open to the various possibilities.

The SP raised the CNWP as a response to the confused movements that already exist - the calls of the RMT leadership and thier walking out of New Labour, movements within the FBU, in UNISON the ongoing battle over paying subs to a party that is destroying members lives, the various attempts at left electoral Alliances (yes, even Respect in its limited way), and the various small splits of local labour councillors looking for a new organisation - as well as the McDonnell campaign. I would agree with CRs comment that one cannot simply call a new party (as a wee left group) - its growth would come out of wider movements. But what we can do is lay down a marker that can be taken up. We are not simply raising a slogan without reference to what is already going on.

I think it would be a mistake to see this work as either 'building a revolutionary party' or 're-building the labour party'. Its about building an independent workers movement (with the advantage of hindsight - the experience of new labour etc) - i don't think the working people that would come into the party will either be fully-fledged revolutionaries or daft enough to want 'old' labour. Crudely, they can work out what is necessary through practice and experience not through being lectured or through waiting for someone else to 'save them' (ie to simply vote for). Revolutionaries involved in such a movement would have the advantage of being able to openly put their ideas to these folk (and openly organise thier revolutionary organisation within the wider formation - so the heirs of trotsky can rest easy and have those ideas tested alongside others.

 

[cockneyrebel]

I think that sums up the differences and the possibilities. As dennisr has said there are many different thoughts on the matter but where we definately agree is that any changes will come through practical initiatives and struggle. As well as the McDonnell campaign there is RESPECT, CNWP and tactics such as the IWCA are using. And the many united fronts which are already mass resistances - Defend Council Housing, Save the NHS, the Stop the War Coalition and the RMT initiative about rebuilding the a stewards network as examples. There we will work together with a fraternal spirit.

I have a lot of time for dennisr I have to say and can see the logic of the CNWP even if I disagree with it.

New Labour is an organisation I should have saved the word "bankrupt" for (sorry again for sounding dismissive earlier), and one way or another an alternative is badly needed. All the more so given the growth of the BNP.

 

[dennisr]

Of course this has little attachment to reality. But if that's what you think I guess the NWP tactic would make a bit more sense.

In the case of your seperate critisism of WP CR - i think the mistake is their's to believe that the new formation that can grow out of CNWPs call would be a 'revolutionary party'.

Why would a revolutionary party call for the building of a newer bigger revolutionary party?

The SPs arguement is to re-build an independent workers party in which we would work arguing our own ideas alongside all the other trends you would find within any workers party. Looking at those other formations we have seen coming out of the old 'workers' parties - non can be described as revolutionary parties even if revolutionaries work within them.

 

[cockneyrebel]

You're right that you and WP differ not just on the economy but also on what the tactic means.

I think that as WP think that class struggle is becoming so intense that the need for a revolutionary party would quickly be posed within such formation. So they can pose it now as a united front between revolutionaries and reformists but with the view that the push to a revolutionary organisation would come about very quickly. No disrespect to WP but I think they are living in an alternative reality given the level of class struggle in reality.

I don't see the formation of an new reformist organistion as a positive thing, but the differences are outlined above on that on.

 

[dennisr]

I think that sums up the differences and the possibilities. As dennisr has said there are many different thoughts on the matter but where we definately agree is that any changes will come through practical initiatives and struggle. As well as the McDonnell campaign there is RESPECT, CNWP and tactics such as the IWCA are using. And the many united fronts which are already mass resistances - Defend Council Housing, Save the NHS, the Stop the War Coalition and the RMT initiative about rebuilding the a stewards network as examples. There we will work together with a fraternal spirit.

I have a lot of time for dennisr I have to say and can see the logic of the CNWP even if I disagree with it.

New Labour is an organisation I should have saved the word "bankrupt" for (sorry again for sounding dismissive earlier), and one way or another an alternative is badly needed. All the more so given the growth of the BNP.

Funnily enough the sort of folk I would see being an important part of any new workers party would be exactly the folk CR mentioned. Just one example, up in Huddersfield the SP has a councillor elected last year on a 'Save our NHS' platform. This election I think there are three other Save Our NHS campaigners standing (only one is a member of the SP - the two others are independent folk - just decent working class people who have had enough) alongside this we are campaigning alongside and for another independent in Ashbrow ward - anti-cuts campaigner Mel Mills. In SouthLakes, Cumbria five broadly left-wing 'Save our NHS' candidates are standing (one is an SP member and one of the leades of the campaign that stopped a hospital closure there).

There was a serious threat of the BNP making inroads in Huddersfield - the initial SO NHS vote cut across this completely - i hope we will see the same with the other candidates this time around

There is the 'other side' of the general disollusion with 'organised politics' - increasingly voiced in the 'one-issue' (but not non-political) and independent candidates in elections such as these folk - i think thats healthy and I am pretty sure that the likes of both PR and WP would support these developments as well

 

[dennisr]

I don't see the formation of an new reformist organistion as a positive thing, but the differences are outlined above on that on.

And i would agree - if we were talking about a new 'old labour' - but if we are talking about a party in which revolutionaries can openly organise, openly put thier ideas across to a much wider audience than they presently have. What would you think then?

To put it another way - The new movements in other countries have not been revolutionary parties - would you say that these are therefore not a positive development? (I don't think you will but hope you can see the point i am making)

ps i think WP are seriously deluding themselves as a result of tending to apply abstract schema to what actually exists in practice if that is what they seriously believe - but like any set of ideas they have to go through the practice. I think the internal battle what is now PR has had with them reflects PR members greater contact with lived reality - even if I don't reach all the same conclusions (I think you folk are tending to 'bend the stick' too far in the other direction - but at the very least that is based on weighing up actual economic and social realities)

 

[cockneyrebel]

And i would agree - if we were talking about a new 'old labour' - but if we are talking about a party in which revolutionaries can openly organise, openly put thier ideas across to a much wider audience than they presently have. What would you think then?

To put it another way - The new movements in other countries have not been revolutionary parties - would you say that these are therefore not a positive development? (I don't think you will but hope you can see the point i am making)

I think that the CNWP would inevitably have an old labour programme as the vast majority of workers are currently reformist. The only difference would be that it would hopefully have more internal democracy.

Are the new organisations that have come up such as the Left Party a good thing? I’d say yes. But the Left Party, for example, has come about through the workers movement and struggle and as such revolutionaries should intervene into that. But that doesn’t mean I think it’s a good idea for revolutionaries to set up a reformist organisation themselves, I think it’s better to try and build united fronts and build a revolutionary organisation. And even something like the Left Party, if there isn’t a split to a mass revolutionary organisation in the short to medium term then there is the danger it will only end up re-enforcing illusions in reformism, actually setting struggle back.

As for PR there is always the danger of bending the stick after a faction dispute. But what I would say is that a lot of empirical evidence has been put into the stuff that PR has produced which is almost entirely lacking with WP (if you read their statements then it’s nearly all assertions). But have to say that the SWP and SP are a bit light on using empirical data as well.