Tnx. Gary. Should never have happened in the 1st place. Lords of labor rubs one the wrong way! Dónal
On Tue 6 Apr 2021, 01:14 Louis Proyect, <l...@panix.com> wrote: > On 4/5/21 7:17 PM, Gary MacLennan wrote: > > Well Donal there is a long tradition in UK Labour of accepting > knighthoods and of course elevation to the House of Lords. And that > probably tells you all you need to know about the Right of Labour. > > comradely > > Gary > > In doing some research for the article I wrote about Ralph Miliband a > while back, I discovered that someone part of his circle turned out to be > Keith Starmer. Is this an indication that the idea of building a socialist > party in England is a process that is best left out of the hands of > academics and lawyers? Maybe so. Not as long as they know their place. > Starmer’s Socialist Alternatives > <https://www.thesocialreview.co.uk/2020/05/28/starmers-socialist-alternatives/> > By David Klemperer > <https://www.thesocialreview.co.uk/author/davidklemperer/>Labour > Leadership <https://www.thesocialreview.co.uk/category/labour-leadership/> > , Realities <https://www.thesocialreview.co.uk/category/realities/> 28th > May 2020 > > Musing on the future of the Labour Party in 1986, one twenty-four-year-old > activist denounced centrism, insisting that the future lay with the > grassroots Left. “Instead of heading towards an SDP Mark II”, he wrote, > “we would be better to go forward to re-build and develop the party as an > instrument of socialism, capable of integrating into its project the > emergence of the new social movements of the last twenty years”. That > activist was a young Keir Starmer, and he was writing for a journal called > *Socialist Alternatives*. > > Described by Chartist as the “human face of the hard left”,* Socialist > Alternatives* spent the period of its brief existence from 1986 to 1987 > seeking to promote a “redefinition of the socialist project”. In response > to the ongoing triumph of Thatcherism and the social changes of the era, it > sought to develop a “British counterpart” to the “Alternative movement” > then emerging across the continental European Left. Although it claimed to > be simply a “forum for debate” with an “editorial emphasis on open > questions rather than definite answers”, the magazine’s origins lay in > Pabloite Trotskyism, and it represented a minority libertarian tendency on > the British grassroots Left. Starmer was a member of the editorial > collective, and over the magazine’s five issues his name appears under > eight articles. > > Despite its fringe position, the themes and arguments developed in *Socialist > Alternatives* are worth exploring today. (And not just because > little-read publications in which earnest twenty-somethings debate the > future of socialism always deserve more attention…) Once again, a Labour > Party in opposition is forced to confront the hegemony of a new kind of > conservatism, and the ideas of the young Starmer and his comrades feel > strikingly relevant to an age of pandemic and climate emergency. > > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#7784): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/7784 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/81859518/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
