Re: M-TH: London Election - Left in a mess
Chris said that he we are going to have to learn how to use this proportional electoral system I predict over the next ten years a group will emerge that will put a more radical reasonably-coherent reformist position. I think the LSA already had put a radical reasonably-coherent reformist position and that even under a Proportional electoral system they were embarrassingly rejected. Also If it will take them ten year to be in a position to properly contest these elections, perhaps longer to win a seat, still longer to attain the position of official opposition, yet more years to gain control of the assembly. then there are all the other local authorities and the national and UK Parliaments. They would then have to move from a radical reformist position to a revolutionary one. Through out which them mustn't create further delays by internal disagreement. This may well be the right road to revolution but I don't suppose any of us will still be alive to confirm it. This should still not be about tailing behind bourgeois parties or bourgeois politics. But without the first past the post system, that is less of a danger. Countries which do have a PR parliamentary system still have marginalised and ineffectual Marxist parties. The Parliamentary 'Communist' Parties in France and Italy do not appear to be any closer to their non-Parliamentary equivalents in Britain. As i said the only place I can think that the electoral road did succeed was in Chile but it was a rather short-lived victory. How this can link up with revolution, the question John Walker poses, is that this radical party must articulate issues that make sense in terms of immediate tactics as well as with long term goals. One can articulate issues without running for governmental office. In the two issues that have been raise - the LSA and the MAy Day Protesters - it is the latter that have got the most coverage to the most people and have raised the wider political issues of Global capitalism and the environment. The LSA has reached virtually no-one outside London and where it has it has just criticized Blair. And in London itself they are hardly the key subject of conversation. The revolution may well be a slow process. but the Left seem to be still digging themselves out of a hole whereas the MAy Day protest does at least seem to have made it onto the first rung of the ladder. But Perhaps i am hoping for too much too soon. Meanwhile we will have to see whether the extra-parliamentary anarchist anti-capital protesters will find a more effective way of locating their direct action within the context of a larger political space which they have to open up with the help of serious radical reformers. They do seem to have open up a far larger political space with their direct action that the Left have with their electioneering. But to divert this activity into the narrow world of an local Assembly and pressurising of the Major to act upon his few power strikes me a severely misdirected. Don't expect the IMF to schedule its next major international conference here in London in the near future! politically I would prefer that they did meet here. Ken brave step to threaten to ban them (which isn't in his discretion anyway) is hardly a blow to global capital as they will probably just meet somewhere else more peaceful. Still unconvinced, John Walker --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: London Election - Left in a mess
At 15:19 04/05/00 +, you wrote: Dear comrades, I have been quietly reading the Left press in relation to the London Election and Ken Livingstone London's Mayoral candidate which is happening today. A large section of the Trotskyist Left and the Marxist Leninist CPGB are backing Ken Livingstone and have gathered themselves together into the London Socialist Alliance and will stand for the Greater London Authority (where if they are lucky they may win just one seat!). John Walker Proportional voting and tactical voting are becoming more important here. Although there are delays in the London counting, one result tonight shows massive tactical voting got the Conservative MP out in a Parliamentary by-election, with Labour voters switching to Liberal Democrat. Ken's vote is partly a protest vote and most votes are votes against someone. All this talk of entrism is a waste of time. Serious discussion of tactical voting is not. There is an advantage in having at least one radical left representative in the Greater London Assembly. Chris Burford London --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: London Election - Left in a mess
Chris replied: Proportional voting and tactical voting are becoming more important here. Although there are delays in the London counting, one result tonight shows massive tactical voting got the Conservative MP out in a Parliamentary by-election, with Labour voters switching to Liberal Democrat. I'm afraid the whole parliamentary system leaves me completely cold I really don't care if their are more Liberals or Labour or Tories - history, since universal(ish) suffrage, has shown that in office their actions are all much the same. Though some argument could be made that Labour gets away with a little more actually regressive acts than the Tories would dare to. Ken's vote is partly a protest vote and most votes are votes against someone. A protest against what - not capitalism, not privatisation (Ken want the Tube to be funded by the banks rather than business partnerships), not against cuts in services for the least well off and the least able in London. Its a vote for one manipulator of the media against another. In actual fact he is likely to get half of the votes from a turn out of only 30-40 per cent of the voters of London (ignoring those not registered to vote but including all those people with an extra home in London - like two-homes Ken!). So from this 17.5 per cent support we know that a significant number are people who actually cast their Assembly vote for the Tories, Liberals, New Labour and the Greens. It is a protest vote but it doesn't seem to be the sort of protest imagined by the Left. All this talk of entrism is a waste of time. Serious discussion of tactical voting is not. There is an advantage in having at least one radical left representative in the Greater London Assembly. Voting for the Left is not tactical voting its just a wasted vote which if you are merely anti-Tory (and I'm not) simply splits the vote. Unless I am much mistaken the Left has done so badly it will not even get the 5 per cent needed to get even one person elected. Yet the Greens may well get 3! All they have done is to follow on the coat-tails of Livingstone who despite all their complaints is still hoping to rejoin the Labour Party and campaign for Blair's re-election in next years election. My main argument (as I am not keen on just going over the old debates of anti-parliamentarianism) is that the Left in its opposition to New Labour either harks back to a false Golden Age of Old Labour which it cannot attain or cannot see beyond elections as the key way forward. One group which this will seek to alienate is the poorest sections of the working class (around here in the local election less that 9 per cent voted!) and the new movements of environmental protesters, refugee campaigns and the Anti-Capitalist activists. As more and more of them reject the parliamentary road as moribund and a diversion it is becoming more and more significant for the Left. It is not a question of prinicipled objection but just that tactically, at the moment, it does not seem to be very relevant. John Walker --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: London Election - Left in a mess
On Fri, 5 May 2000, J.WALKER wrote: My main argument (as I am not keen on just going over the old debates of anti-parliamentarianism) is that the Left in its opposition to New Labour either harks back to a false Golden Age of Old Labour which it cannot attain or cannot see beyond elections as the key way forward. One group which this will seek to alienate is the poorest sections of the working class (around here in the local election less that 9 per cent voted!) and the new movements of environmental protesters, refugee campaigns and the Anti-Capitalist activists. As more and more of them reject the parliamentary road as moribund and a diversion it is becoming more and more significant for the Left. It is not a question of prinicipled objection but just that tactically, at the moment, it does not seem to be very relevant. Turnout in elections is certainly falling and will probably fall further at the next general election, but IMHO this represents not a rejection of the 'parliamentary road' than a rejection of the possibility of any kind of change. I could well imagine that opposition to the government would not emerge under the banners of the revolutionary left but wouldn't we have seen some other sign of it by now? If anything it has been extraordinary how well the Blairite consensus has held together. As far tactics go, elections seem the high point of political activity. British trade unions are in process of becoming insurance salesmen and student politics is concerned either with issues of narrow self-interest (like tuition fees) or with politically correct causes like Tibet. What would you suggest for some alternative to contesting elections? --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: London Election - Left in a mess
David wrote: Turnout in elections is certainly falling and will probably fall further at the next general election, but IMHO this represents not a rejection of the 'parliamentary road' than a rejection of the possibility of any kind of change. Yes I agree. I may actively abstain from election but I am greatly in the minority. The mass of the working class either just see all politics as beside the point or think of partys that 'they're all the same'. Only the anarchists and those Marxists who have always opposed the Labour Party actually reject it (either permanently or temporarilily As far tactics go, elections seem the high point of political activity. They seem to be the high point of media interest in politics. And we mistake our interest in it for it actually being important. British trade unions are in process of becoming insurance salesmen and student politics is concerned either with issues of narrow self-interest (like tuition fees) or with politically correct causes like Tibet. What would you suggest for some alternative to contesting elections? I agree with that too. As i said i would look to the new movements which have sprung up separate from the Labour Party (and largely from the Left). The Anti-roads protestors, animal rights, campaigns against deportations, anti-racist and anti-fascist groups, prisoners rights, those anti-capitalist demonstrators, etc. People using new methods of stuggle and not relying on the offical Labour movement to pass motions and make election promises. If one compares the 'parliamentary road' to the non-parliamentary one then one can see how litlle progress the former makes. From the miners candidates of the 19th century who, as soon as they got into office we won over by the privelege and new lifestyle. The first Communist MP, R B Cunningham Graham, just spent most of his time being thrown out of the chamber. He raised various issues but was fustrated at not actually being able to DO anything in parliament. And John Burns MP great achievement was the march into the West End of London and throw bricks through all the windows. I don't know of anything he did in Parliament itself. In the 20th century the Communist Party only got a few MPs elected and they just operated as a left-wing section of the Labour Party (and seemed quite satisfied in doing so). Whereas outside the narrow confines of electioneering we saw the movement for the 10 Hour Day, the General Strike, the mass unemployed movement, the suffragettes, the fight against the Fascists, the Irish hunger strike, the Gay Liberation Front, the 1981 and 1984 uprising in the prodominantly black communities, Greenham Common women, the miners strike, the Poll Tax movement, the Strangeways revolt, opposition to the Gulf War, the anti-deportation campaigns, the anti-roads protests, the anti-capitalism demostrations. There are probably thousands I've missed. But these seem to me to be key to building a mass movement with the possiblility of leading in a revolutionary direction in a way that electing a handful of people to a bourgeoie talking shop just doesn't seem to. I honestly cannot see how one goes from elections to revolutions (without repeating the disasterous mistakes of Allende in Chile). Others may argue that electioneering is just a part of the struggle but in practice it does seem to overshadow all else. John Walker John Walker --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: London Election - Left in a mess
At 13:24 05/05/00 +0100, you wrote: On Fri, 5 May 2000, Andy Lehrer wrote: The results thus far are disappointing. The LSA's only chance at an outright first-past-the-post seat, Ian Page, has not been elected and as for the "top-up" PR returns the LSA seems to be running between 2-3% with half the votes counted, well below the necessary 5% threshold. The LSA got about 1.6% of top-up votes and 2.7% of constituency votes. Note exactly brillant. It's worth noting that in total leftwing slates in the top-up section got around 4%, all the parties were standing on broadly similar platforms so this isn't unreasonable. Yes, we are going to have to learn how to use this proportional electoral system. Hopefully next time round there will be still more serious debates about where the left should pitch its stall. Of course some groups would rather fight on their own to get 1% of the vote across London, but I predict over the next ten years a group will emerge that will put a more radical reasonably-coherent reformist position. This should still not be about tailing behind bourgeois parties or bourgeois politics. But without the first past the post system, that is less of a danger. How this can link up with revolution, the question John Walker poses, is that this radical party must articulate issues that make sense in terms of immediate tactics as well as with long term goals. At the moment it is the three green councillors who have got the chance. Meanwhile we will have to see whether the extra-parliamentary anarchist anti-capital protestors will find a more effective way of locating their direct action within the context of a larger political space which they have to open up with the help of serious radical reformers. The socialising of land in London would be a pretty radical agenda, and does indeed touch on the Mayor's few powers - over transport and vetoing certain developments. Don't expect the IMF to schedule its next major international conference here in London in the near future! Chris Burford London --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
