‘Organise to get working class people into parliament’

Been tried before, it was called Militant. Working class people can’t be trusted not to rock the boat over things like lobbying, expenses, or any of the other things that grease the wheels of democracy and make sure politicians get the comforts they deserve for their service. Militant even wanted MPs and union officials to be paid the average workers wage so they experienced the life that the working class led and weren’t isolated from the effect of their policies. Think of the chilling effect it would have on policy. Who’s going to vote for workfare for the unemployed or cutting services for local communities if they actually know people socially that it effects?

MPs should interact with the working class in the way they are meant to, photo opportunities, surgeries (if they do them and haven’t got someone else to take care of it) and when they serve you in shops or restaurants. If they want a deeper understanding they should read Polly Toynbees excellent book about spending a few months amongst the Morlocks to learn their ways, Working Life (which she published in 1970). Even Polly limits her interaction with the peons to when she is researching for a book.

Progress organise to get more people from a public school/banking/consultancy background into parliament in Labour Party seats, as only 20% of Labour MPs went to public school (their services are also needed in the Conservatives, who aren’t quite sitting pretty on 38% public school alumni).

Progress is dedicated to making sure the right sort of person is picked as an MP.

If you give working class people the notion they can aspire to become councillors or MPs you give them the idea that they can change society to improve life for the working class, and that simply isn’t a realistic notion.

The Labour party exist to provide an outlet for the political aspirations of the working class and the unions. It doesn’t exist to help them necessarily, but to prevent the peons getting ideas about changing things and make sure all the money they have to do such things gets spent.

‘Develop policies which stand up to scrutiny’

Many of the current governments polices are a continuation of the previous government, the vast majority of policies of a future Labour government will be the same as the policies of the Coalition.

While having 95% similar policies, there is some space for a little clear blue water between the Tories and Labour. However as this is window dressing it doesn’t really need a lot of thought put into it.

If you have policies people like Rupert Murdoch support, then you’ll get favourable press coverage. The simplest way to assure this is to just ask him what he wants you to do. If it’s good enough for Blair or Cameron, why change it?

‘Deliver locally’

The engagement with elites is generally how political parties deal with the Asian community. This recently failed in Bradford and large numbers, particularly of the young and women, voted for Respect instead of doing what they were told.

If communities want to benefit from the largesse of local councils, they can either keep their houses in order and make sure that voters turn out to vote for the right candidates, or make contributions to party funds or provide resources to show how right thinking they are.

The working class, particularly the white working class, don’t operate as a block like this with identifiable local leaders. They can’t deliver funding or votes. Most of them don’t even vote because ‘there’s nobody who represents them’ or ‘the candidates are all the same’. So no one cares about them, because they can’t deliver anything of value in return.

Political parties must be careful to deliver locally to those who matter. You can waste time keeping a leisure centre or a nursery open that serve a some inner city black spot open, then you’re missing out on helping those who would benefit from privatising it, or the private sector providers who have to put up with cheaper alternatives to their business. The sorts of people who can pay into party coffers, or help a relative out with a nice job.

All this sounds far too leftist. Next you’ll be arguing the capitalism is prone to crises and something should be done about it, when all that happens is that some adjustments are made at the bottom, while the top continues to enjoy greater prosperity year on year. And it’s the ones at the top, not the bottom, who pay for things like political parties (and indeed Progress), and you would do well to remember that.

Have to agree with the general thrust of this piece Don.

Don’t you sometimes wish we could just leave all this behind and have our own party for real socialists? Why should we have to campaign for Thatcherites? Surely the originators of the socialist movement would be appalled if they could see us now? Where is our belief? Where is our drive to fulfil the goals that socialists 100 years ago thought would have been achieved by now? If we’re socialists, why don’t we act like it?

The Labour party exist now to make sure no socialist party or workers party or working class movement can threaten the ruling class. The Labour Party is about directing the working class down channels that don’t threaten their betters, and whenever change is wanted by them, up blind alleys to make sure that desire is frustrated.

There are some pretty good arguments that this has always been the case, and explains the cap doffing and forelock tugging when there were working class Labour MPs, and the easy fit that the Labour party currently has in the establishment.

You want socialism, join a socialist party, but if it looks like you might succeed in changing things, expect the Labour party to support having you shot in the street, a bit like they are with trade unionists in Khazakstan at the moment, where half Blair’s kitchen cabinet (including the man himself) are advising on the public face of the necessary massacres and torture of strikers, trade union activists and religious minorities that have to be carried out to defend capitalism.

Don’t you sometimes wish we could just leave all this behind and have our own party for real socialists?

Good luck with trying to get elected with just appealing to around 15% of the population..

Tories manage it on less than 24%.

However Sunny is right, the only reason to enter politics is to get elected. That’s where the money is.

Principles just get in the way of that.

A better question would be, what is a socialist still doing in the Labour party? How come you’ve escaped being purged? Or do you just not mention it to anyone?

It is very hard to see Labour as anything other than the same old, same old. I know they would have slightly different policies from the coalition, but, come on, they would not challenge the consensus on things like bank bail outs, Trident, etc, etc.

I was very impressed with this:

http://current.com/shows/the-young-turks/videos/iceland-proves-that-bailing-out-the-middle-class-works-better-than-bailing-out-banks

It is quite surprising that this is not the model for so-called socialists. It even appeals to the so-called swing voters. And it attacks the people that caused the crisis. Quite why the Labour Party couldn’t adopt a strategy like that is beyond me.

It seems to me that the Labour Party has lost it’s way. They are about as original as a wet cucumber.

Ahem, the repetition of ‘so-called’ was exceptionally cheap.

It would be quite cute if this site adopted an ‘edit’ facility for posts. Is there a technical reason that this is impossible?

This is rather typical of the so called ‘progressive’ movement, in general and the ‘British Left’ in particular. The term ‘Socialist’ has became a general word of abuse in America, therefore we have de facto accept the abusive connotations, as the norm in this Country too?

Why is that? What is with the obsession with American politics? Barak Obama is considered a ‘Socialist’ in the USA, but is that fair? What ‘socialism’ has Obama introduced? Fucking none what ‘s so ever. However, the Republicans throw the word ‘Socialism’ at everything he has done. ‘Obamacare’ doesn’t look remotely like ‘Socialism’ as I understand the term, nor will it look like ‘socialism’ to anyone I would described as Socialist’ in outlook.

Vince Cable was labelled a ‘Socialist’ because he wanted to retain what little employment protection working class people still have. Sunny, are you saying that support for employment rights makes you a socialist? Are you saying that defending the NHS, makes you a socialist? Perhaps if we could defend issues on their merits could win us elections. Perhaps associating socialism with popular Campaigns could detoxify the brand?

What about gay marriage? What percentage of the population could give a toss, one way or another, about gay marriage?

I think Sunny has changed the ‘About LC’ section recently, but Liberal Conspiracy was stated as being explicitly non-socialist, and Sunny wasn’t interested in discussing socialist ideas.

Liberal Conspiracy is for people who feel that liberalism, as espoused in political ideologies like Thatcherism, Blairism, the Third Way, Reganomics, etc is the way the world should be run.

A lot of people seem confused by this, and the definition of Liberal. Sunny has moved between Conservative, Lib Dem, Labour and Green parties because there are elements in those parties that are exactly the same, and thus he can comfortably move between them with no change in belief.

I think the label ‘Left’ is used misleadingly. It is used in the way that the Conservative party has a Left wing, not in terms of beliefs that spring from Marx’s analysis of capitalism, or the desire for a socialist state or the notion that the working class should be able to take part in the political life of the nation or ideas of more direct democracy to reduce the size and power of the political class, but ideas like ‘not being openly racist’ or ‘privilege greater than the amount I have and will pass on to my children is bad, and society should be more equal though not in a way that reduces my privilege’. The liberal conception of Left, if you will.

People seem to think this site is about a lot more than it is.

For instance we’ll see a lot of articles in support of Progress, who are a party within a party in the Labour party, have no popular support and who are funded by pharmaceutical companies and Lord Sainsbury. Many people here will have supported the expulsion of Militant in the 80s and the internal witch hunts and show trials that were part of that (and that people who later became progress members were involved in), and Militant was an organisation with thousands of members, who did very large amounts of work for the Labour party and who raised funds from a largely working class base. However they had an entryist view of Labour, in that they worked for the common goals of the party while trying to raise and implement socialist ideas. Progress don’t necessarily sign up to the common goals of the party, but do try and raise and implement liberal ideas by getting Progress members into power as MPs and by giving money to people who support the ideas of Progress.

At this point Progress don’t have the backing of many people, and as they’ve never really bothered engaging with people they see as unimportant, like party members, then they may find themselves unable to purge their opponents, and may find themselves purged in turn.

If events unfold in that fashion, there will be lots of articles here calling the Labour party Stalinist and unelectable, and that a return to lukewarm social democracy in the face of the current depression is a mistake, and the answer is more liberalism.