It isn’t, partly because of the effectiveness of the Chinese state in blacking out mainstream media coverage of the region, but also because of residual left-wing quietism when it comes to criticising a stalinist state: one could safely assume that there would be far more banner headlines if the oppressor state involved was the USA.

But, as with certain bloggers’ treatment of the inspiring protests in Iran, for some on the left a state’s opposition to the Great Satan trumps the blood of the working class as a cause for support and solidarity.

For those who weren’t aware, the Uyghur are a Turkic people, overwhelmingly Muslim and with a language related to modern Turkish, Azeri, Uzbek and Turkmen. Many Uyghur look strikingly different to the majority Han Chinese ethnic group, and their cultural traditions differ immensely.

Uyghur and Chinese history has been intertwined for centuries as the fortunes of the Turkic empires, the Mongol Khanates and the various Chinese dynasties ebbed and flowed. However in recent times the Uyghur regions have been under the firm control of the People’s Republic of China.

This is not a popular state of affairs, and pro-independence groups within the region include two main groupings, the East Turkestan Liberation Organisation and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. These groups are themselves quite nebulous and formed from common historical antecedents. There have been periodic uprisings throughout Uyghur history, with the latest surge beginning in the late 1990s and continuing to this day. All of these have been brutally repressed, by successive states.

In addition to the obviously Islamic influence on Uyghur nationalism, nationalist sentiment has also been bolstered by the rise in pan-Turkism (not a trend automatically friendly to Islamist politics) in recent years. This has, in common with other Turkic “exile” groups such as the Karamans in Canada, led to a growth of interest amongst diasporean Uyghurs in pan-Turk groups. Even more so than amongst many ethnic groupings, diasporeans are important amongst the Uyghur due to their compatriots’ isolation in Xinjiang itself.

Over the past few days the Uyghur have taken to the streets in an extraordinary show of defiance towards the Chinese state’s project (as in Tibet) of allowing them to be displaced from their lands by members of the national-majority Han Chinese population.

The state has responded with force and with predictable accusations of outside agitation, leading Rebiya Kadeer of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and World Uyghur Congress to issue a press statement angrily denying any involvement whilst at the same time condemning the state’s actions.

The number of arrests now exceeds 1400, and over 150 people have died in the crackdown following the protests. In a particularly sinister turn, Han reprisals have begun, with armed mobs going into the streets of the city of Urumqi to hunt down Uyghur protesters. The Uyghur have not given up, however, and in shades of Iran, the protests continue.

News reports from Xinjiang are sporadic at best, and likely to become more so over the next few days. What we do know however is that women and children have been prepared to defy all the forces of one of the most powerful co-ercive states in the world, in order to demand that their compatriots be released from jail.

We know that hundreds continue to be arrested for peaceful protest in the face of that same state’s attempts to eradicate one of its own ethnic minority cultures. As in Iran, the people are beginning to stand up. We stand with them.

What has been surprising though, is the reaction of the liberal political classes to the call. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s performance on Thursday’s Question Time was a case in point. Not only did she oppose calling an election, she did so on the grounds that such was people’s “anger”, they might “vote to spite”, and return BNP MPs to Westminster!

It is, of course, highly unlikely that the fascists could corral enough votes even in their strongest Westminster constituency to win an FPTP election. But even that isn’t really the point.

The point is that the most patronising thing possible for a political establishment, London “circuit” figure to say to a populace boiling with anger at the misuse of its own money by MPs feathering their own nests at a time when the country in general is facing house reposessions, redundancies and homelessness, is “oh no dearies, you can’t have an election because you’re all a little wound up, and being the stupid proles you are, you might vote the baddies in by mistake”. It made me angry to see her say it, and I’m presumably one of those politically-aware types whom Alibhai-Brown does believe can be trusted with a vote.

And now we have the Archbishop of Canterbury (regular man of the people, he) calling for an end to the “systematic humiliation of politicians” because it is destroying our “confidence in our democracy”. Nothing so sweet as seeing the establishment pull together when its grip is seriously threatened, is there. “No dears, you mustn’t keep being nasty about MPs spending your money on duck islands and second homes miles away from their constituencies, you see if you get too angry you might throw them out and who knows what that might lead to?”. The sight of the liberal middle class falling over itself to protect its privileges really does tug on the old gag reflex.

The bottom line here is this. The current crop of Westminster MPs do not have the trust or confidence of the public. They do not deserve it. They are all culpable for that lack of trust, even those who did not fiddle their own expenses – but who allowed others to do so without whistleblowing to the public. The public have a right to use their democratic right to elect a new government, and they should be allowed to do so. The very worst thing that a corrupt and discredited political elite can do right now is to deny them that right. An election should be called, at the earliest reasonable date: then the people can elect whomsoever they wish. The political elite may not like the result, but they have no moral right to withold the choice.

Tories have an easy if rather peculiar alternative in the UK Independence Party (UKIP), and that group’s support is rocketing predictably. For disaffected Labour voters however, the choice is not so easy. Those on the left who half-heartedly call upon people to vote for “the political expression of the working class” are wasting their time, and in any case are selling people a turkey. The idea of asking the working people of the UK to vote for a party that has overseen their houses being reposessed, their jobs being lost, their children being sent to war and their public services being privatised, has me reaching for the sick bucket. I cannot conceive of the thought process that allows people to continue reciting the same tired old doctrines about “historic ties to the labour movement” which lead them to call for a Labour vote. In any case, the electorate are not going to listen on June 4.

What, then, of the alternatives? The Liberal Democrats in many northern cities form a right-of-Labour opposition, and nationally the Lib Dems have aligned themselves somewhat closer to (US-style) libertarianism under Nick Clegg’s leadership. Respect is a declining political force in much of the country, and is not an electoral option for most at this election, not that it was a particularly savoury or politically consistent one in any case.

The Stalinist-Socialist Party-RMT hierarchy lash-up that is “No2EU” is nationalist and backward looking, and is trying to re-fight the battles of the 1975 referendum. That of course was a referendum held before this author was born. No2EU conjures up the politics of black and white TV, dripping sandwiches and the Ford Anglia – it is an anachronism. Furthermore, the Communist Party element of No2EU appears disturbingly over-comfortable with the idea of immigration controls, and the Socialist Party’s platitudes about “engaging” with the politics of those involved in the slate in order to change it (by… supporting it) simply do not wash. No2EU smacks of political reaction and desperation, and as such it should not be supported at this election. Furthermore, on a tactical level No2EU’s numbers are likely to bomb spectacularly, making a No2EU vote a wasted vote.

Which brings me on to the Green Party. At the last Euro-election, the Greens gained representation in the South-East and London. In my own region, the West Midlands, the Greens came within 2.5% of the BNP, who were themselves just single percentage points away from reaching the European Parliament. It is entirely feasible that the Greens could, with a little extra support, pip the fascists to the post and gain a seat. Respect has thrown its support (which is negligible across most of the region but which retains considerable strength in Birmingham) behind the Green slate, in the hope of helping towards this goal.

The Greens’ manifesto is forward-looking and progressive. Amongst its promises are:

- A new architecture for the financial system so that it serves the ‘real’ economy, this includes breaking up the big banks so they are no longer ‘too big to fail’ and a massive clampdown on tax avoidance to generate £10 billion in revenue.

- Energy efficiency measures for UK homes, schools and hospitals to create 80,000 jobs, reduce harmful emissions and cut fuel bills.

- Free social care for the elderly to improve quality of life and create 60,000 jobs.

- Massive increase in the proportion of electricity that comes from renewable sources – raising wind energy production to the same level as Denmark by 2020 would alone create 200,000 jobs.

These, rather than withdrawal from the EU or other nationalistic rhetoric in “socialist” clothing, are the sort of pledges that progressives and socialists of all stripes should support.

The orthodox anti-fascist campaigns such as Unite Against Fascism and Hope Not Hate are making unfocussed calls for people to cast their votes for any party other than the BNP. This call is based on the premise that a raised turnout will make it more difficult for the fascists to get representation. That premise is false: there is no chance in the current political climate that turnout in general will rise. The last, best hope of stopping the BNP in their tracks is to elect another minor party instead. The Greens are the best of those options politically, and the best placed to succeed electorally.

Vote Green on June 4.

Its aim was to call for a one-off “earned amnesty” for migrants who live and work in the UK without legal status, and who have been here for over 4 years. But there is a sting in its tail.

The campaign argues that there is a strong case for such a legal change.

On grounds that it:

- recognises the dignity of human beings who have made new lives in Britain;
– extends and reinforces the rule of law;
– levels the playing-field for low-paid workers;
– enables businesses to employ legally the labour it needs;
– recognises the role that migrants already play in society;
– ensures that tens of thousands of British workers receive the protection of the law;
– shrinks the black economy;
– frees up billions of pounds in taxes for the Exchequer;
– enables local authorities to plan better;
– solves the expensive, inhuman delay in processing old asylum claims;
– builds a more cohesive British society;
– turns outlaws into neighbours – “strangers into citizens” –in the best British tradition of pragmatism and justice.

All apparently reasonable points, but is it something that people who (as I do) believe in open migration across borders as a moral right for all, would be able to support? It is possible to argue that this is a step towards that goal. However I believe there is a sting in the tail.

You see, the proposed amnesty would be a “one off”, which makes it remarkably easy for some very interesting people to endorse it. In the UK, supporters of an earned amnesty include Boris Johnson. In the USA, similar proposals have been endorsed by that well known friend of progressive causes, 2008 Republican Presidential nominee John McCain. We will return to why endorsements from the political right should be easy to garner, later on in this post.

The rather mealy-mouthed way in which this campaign argues its case – based not so much even on the usual quibbling over stats so much as upon emphasising how non-universal the amnesty would be and stressing that it is just a one-off – should ring alarm bells in and of itself. In reality there should be no question of “earning” the right to live and work in the UK. Indeed, it is only because the conservative press have been allowed to frame the terms of debate that we consider “economic migrant” to be a pejorative term at all.

The real basis for a pro-immigration argument here isn’t one of compromise or even of statistics. It is political and it is moral.

As far as I am concerned, as a rule if someone wishes to come to the UK in order to improve upon the quality of life which they and their families currently have, then there is no good reason why they should not be allowed to do so. There is nothing dishonourable in them having that wish. People rightly want to live in comfort and security, and when they do, most of them become productive within their environment. This campaign evidently does not take such a stance as its premise. Furthermore, given some of the nonsensical rejections of asylum claims which I have seen in my time, it also strikes me that people wrongly slip into “illegal” status more often than they should. There is no future safeguard against this continuing to be the case, which leads me on to my next point.

Now, let us return to that “sting in the tail”. What happens after this amnesty? As it stands, the proposal would cover people who have been in the UK for more than 4 years. So, if someone has fled here from Afghanistan and is currently working in (say) a restaurant in Birmingham, and has been here for 2 1/2 years, then they are not covered.

What happens to them, once either the current government (you know, the one that spent last week trying to stop a Commons amendment to allow retired Gurkha soldiers to settle in the UK) gets another term or (as seems likely) a Tory government is elected? Neither party has any cynical political gain to make from making immigration laws more liberal, and nobody that I am aware of is predicting that either party would break with public expectations if elected.

And of course, if you’re anti-immigration then an amnesty gives you the perfect opportunity to shout “clean slate” and place walls of steel around the UK. I don’t believe that this is the intention of most supporters of Strangers Into Citizens. But neither is it antithetical to the campaign’s main aim, especially given the somewhat Uriah Heep-esque manner in which its arguments are posed, presumably to mollify perceived xenophobic sentiment.

An one-off amnesty now leaves the door open for a clampdown at a later stage.

An amnesty is a proposal that I would not stand against, but neither will I give it active support. Those who support the welfare of all those who choose to make their lives in the UK should support campaigns and demands which unequivocally put positions which defend the right to move to this country in and of itself. The No Borders Network puts it thus:

No Borders is a network of groups struggling for the freedom of movement for all and an end to all migration controls. We call for a radical movement against the system of control, dividing us into citizens and non-citizens. We demand the end of the border regime for everyone, including ourselves, to enable us to live another way, without fear, racism and nationalism.

… and I couldn’t put it better myself.

The central demands here are simple and clear: no to national borders, yes to the right to freedom of movement. It’s time we stopped apologising for wanting to end the global apartheid of immigration controls, and I hope that more and more of us will do so.

More
The Third Estate – A Critique of Strangers into Citizens

One of the lower-profile social policy questions of the moment is the funding of voluntary sector organisations via the state, and nowhere is this more acutely felt than in the homelessness “industry”. Since 2003, organisations providing housing support services to the vulnerable homeless and ex-homeless have been overwhelmingly funded and regulated via the Ministry of Communities and Local Government, previously part of the ODPM. The stream in question goes by the name of “Supporting People”, or “SP” to use the usual shorthand.

The idea of  SP as it was sold to organisations, was that it would sharpen up good practice and provide a measure of regulation to an industry where excellence relied upon the good will and skill of an individual provider. In return organisations working to house and support the vulnerable would be offered relatively lavish and secure, renewable funds conditional upon reasonable reviews by SP’s inspection teams. Initially this worked very well from the perspective of front-line workers: I can certainly remember the way in which the advent of SP spelled doom for several examples of bad practice in the West Midlands, either by force of the inspections or indeed the mere threat of it. Furthermore, new and more specialised teams working in specific areas began to spring up, replacing the old, giant, depressing hostels in a number of instances.

However that was not the whole story. At the same time as providing new funds, SP also began to create a dependency on the part of providers. Organisations which had previously had diverse funding, cobbling together jobs and services from various streams, began exclusively to rely on SP. After all, why scrabble around writing ten bids for £50,000 when you can comprehensively fund a service from top to bottom with a single £500,000 bid to SP? For entirely understandable reasons, SP rapidly became a near-hegemonic funding regime, turning voluntary sector organisations which relied on it into de facto public services, albeit public services with little or no direct accountability to either the public or its elected representatives. Instead charitable providers remained technically accountable to boards of trustees who at best now formed an extra tier of management, and at worst appeared to exist merely for tax purposes. Ultimately of course those providers were actually accountable to the growing bureaucracy of SP, especially its local authority-based but largely autonomus commissioners and inspectors. The ethos of provision within the sector shifted as SP regulations were tightened and incremental cuts made (£15 million in SP’s second year of existence, and further amounts in most subsequent years), so that services began to exist on a hamster’s wheel of difficult and competitive funding renewals. Ticking category boxes became the name of the game, an an effort to sustain organisations which were now by and large solely dependent upon SP funding. If the SP funding went, then so did the charitable provider – thus showing that “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is to this day a truism. The consequences of a poor SP review, both for staff whose jobs were already less secure and often worse-paid than their public sector counterparts, and for service users accustomed to a settled key worker, could be disastrous.

This model of centralised “voluntary” sector funding has been called “nationalisation by stealth”, particularly by right-wing commentators and thinktanks. Up to a point this could be said to be true, in that public funding and regulation dominates out private donations and laissez-faire attitudes to working practice. However it is the case to that point and no further. In my view what we increasingly have in regimes such as SP, is the worst of both worlds. That public funding comes with precisely zero public accountability, and even “service user involvement”" programmes in many organisations are often little more than effective window-dressing, as vulnerable people are expected to go toe-to-toe with managing directors. It also comes with all of the job insecurity of the private sector, made worse by the fact that the determinant factor is often the back-room politics of full-time government officialdom rather than that great myth which is “market forces”. No public service ethos is encouraged, and debates about future strategy are kept away from the public sphere. That is no kind of public ownership which I would recognise – if anything it is nationalisation of the purse-strings, with none of the perks. Further, it could be (and has been) alleged that the partial handover of public service provision to the voluntary sector in many different sectors over recent years is in fact privatisation by stealth, not nationalisation at all.

What would I do instead? It seems to me very clear that the homelessness sector does need public accountability and regulation. Housing and supporting vulnerable people is not, and never will be, akin to running a donkey sanctuary or rescuing stray cats. I therefore do not automatically buy into the notions of “independence” and “freedom” which so often cover bad practice in the voluntary sector as much as elsewhere. I certainly would not wish to return to the days when sharp operators (by no means all of the sector, but certainly a notable few) could effectively treat funding streams as a pig’s trough from which to feed, in return for very little service delivery. But along with this accountability comes a requirement that continuity and security be provided to staff and service users, and this is made a nonsense by the transient nature of two-yearly bidding processes for services. What is more, if we are unwilling to entrust the education of our children or the care of our sick to the “third sector”, then why should we do so with people who are often too vulnerable to speak up for themselves?

The answer then, for me, is either full and democratically accountable public ownership of the UK’s homelessness support provision, or at the very least a far more direct structure of democratic accountability for the voluntary sector, coupled with more secure and stable funding from government. By all means retain individual organisations’ forms, structures of provision, names and unique characters where they are worth preserving. Further, by all means keep independent the self-organised service user groups and services which give a voice to those vulnerable people when they need to speak out against those who house and support them. Let charities do what they do best in the modern age - namely providing “value added” services over and above the statory provision, rather than replacing it. The homeless of this country owe no loyalty to a “sector”, and nor should they be held hostage to competing ideologies which either sell their vunerabilities to often unscrupulous private-sector landlords or to a “third sector” which relies on the state for funding whilst having few of the benefits (for staff or service users) that the state provides to its own employees or those under its care. It seems to me a basic social-democratic idiom that the state is there to catch people when they fall. It is time for that to happen.

Jewish Voice for Peace joins millions around the world, including the 1,000 Israelis who protested in the streets of Tel Aviv this weekend, in condemning ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza. We call for an immediate end to attacks on all civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli.

Israel’s slow strangulation of Gaza through blockade has caused widespread suffering to the 1.5 million people of Gaza due to lack of food, electricity, water treatment supplies and medical equipment. It is a violation of humanitarian law and has been widely condemned around the world.

In resisting this strangulation, Hamas resumed launching rockets and mortars from Gaza into southern Israel, directly targeting civilians, which is also a war crime. Over the years, these poorly made rockets have been responsible for the deaths of 15 Israelis since 2004.

Every country, Israel included, has the right and obligation to protect its citizens. The recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza shows that diplomatic agreements are the best protection for civilian life.

Moreover, massive Israeli air strikes have proven an indiscriminate and brutal weapon. In just two days, the known death toll is close to 300, and the attacks are continuing. By targeting the infrastructure of a poor and densely populated area, Israel has ensured widespread civilian casualties among this already suffering and vulnerable population.

This massive destruction of Palestinian life will not protect the citizens of Israel. It is illegal and immoral and should be condemned in the strongest possible terms. And it threatens to ignite the West Bank and add flames to the other fires burning in the Middle East and beyond for years to come.

The timing of this attack, during the waning days of a US administration that has undertaken a catastrophic policy toward the Middle East and during the run-up to an Israeli election, suggests an opportunistic agenda for short-term political gain at an immense cost in Palestinian lives. In the long run this policy will benefit no-one except those who always profit from war and exploitation. Only a just and lasting peace, achieved through a negotiated agreement, can provide both Palestinians and Israelis the security they want and deserve.

There is, as most readers here will know, a long-standing fault line between green and left-wing politics, which has never been fully resolved. On the left, the vast majority of us (myself included) acknowledge the reality of environmental issues such as climate change, species decline or pollution, and we would seek political action to support these problems. Similarly, most (though not all) greens would count themselves as part of the progressive wing of politics, having long ago and rightly dispatched most of the misanthropes and population bombers who infested their movement in the 1970s. However the two movements have never fully married, for all of this apparent convergence, and periodically we see why.

Just to give one anecdotal example, I can remember attending a No Sweat gathering a couple of years ago, where an academic whose name I forget was giving a lecture on the immediacy of the climate crisis. He made, and kept returning to, the point that many of the world’s industries are environmentally unsustainable and will have to change if the crisis is not to become a calamity. This point is plainly true. However I raised the “then what” question, to which he did not appear to have (or want, or indeed think it particularly important to have) an answer. What, I asked, would he suggest as an alternative mode of employment for a coal miner in West Virginia who had never known anything other than the coal industry since he was young. “Well, he’ll have transferrable skills”, came the answer. Like what? “Digging”, the definitive answer delivered with a shrug to suppressed giggles among the assembled audience.

The point here is that whilst green politics does appeal on the left, it only appeals strongly to a certain, overwhelmingly metropolitan and middle class, section with jobs and lifestyles that can easily absorb a switch from cars to public transport, a bit of recycling and buying organic. This is fine if you are within the public sector professions, but rather harder to wear if you are an assembly line worker at Land Rover whose job has to go in order to promote the virtues espoused by others.

And this brings me back to Bennett. She is usually a humane and witty writer, however she treats the jobs and lives which would be shattered by a collapse at Jaguar Land Rover, almost as an afterthought. There are two main points where she mentions the workforce at all:

So, when assessing the plight of Jaguar Land Rover we should ask ourselves – once we’ve thought about all the poor workers – whether we want to live in a world without the 4.2 litre V8 petrol supercharged Jaguar which emits 299g of CO2 per kilometre

So, “once we’ve thought about the workers”, we should get rid of the evil cars anyway, albeit with a certain nostalgic guilt about the union members now swelling the unemployment rolls. There again, maybe their livelihoods are a worthy sacrifice given what bastards Land Rover’s customers tend to be. After all, what’s a few unemployed car monkeys if you get to laugh at Gaunty over drinkies in Farringdon?

Which is not to say Jaguar Land Rover’s workers deserve to be abandoned by the government, like the unfortunate staff of Woolworths. In the unlikely event of the brand’s collapse, public money may be used, instead, to train its former workers to make sustainable vehicles: the recession’s long-awaited green dividend.

Ergo, they could re-train to make Toyota Priuses, in factories that don’t exist, in a region where as far as I know not one major manufacturer is planning to expand. It won’t happen. They’ll end up either on the dole or working in service industries for less than two thirds of what they earned in manufacturing, just like much of the ex-Rover workforce in Birmingham. Substance misuse (primarily alcohol) rises amongst manual workers when they become unemployed, as I and my overworked colleagues can attest to from the bitter experience of people who lost automotive jobs in Coventry. The consequences are devastating.

Unite, my own union and also the one most heavily organised in the automotive sector, has called for a large-scale bail-out of the car industry. For me that would have to be tied (at least) to government ownership of majority stakes in the firms which receive the cash. There would also have to be environmental targets, and longer term I would indeed advocate a change to more sustainable vehicles. However that has more to do with governmental pressure on bosses, than it does with throwing workers onto the scrapheap whilst mouthing green platitudes about how this will not be such a bad thing in the long run.

Unite’s solution is far from perfect. But it is a more humane plan than that offered by “progressives” more concerned with feeling good about their own lifestyles than thinking properly about the human consequences of the policies which they advocate. Workers in the Midlands and elsewhere have suffered enough: it is time to remember who the left is there for.

This is a strange one. I hadn’t noticed until earlier today, but apparently the Continuity Eustonites have a bee in their collective bonnets… about two book reviews in the New Statesman. Whilst Eustonalia afficionados will be familiar with their having chosen odd demon-figures to rail at in the past (my personal favourite was Amnesty International, that fearsome institution whom the Eustonistas felt the need to target for reasons I never was bothered to fully fathom), even by their standards this is pretty weird.

According to David T’s original post at Harry’s Place about it, there would seem to be two articles that have upset them. One is a review of Richard “Lenny” Seymour’s book “The Liberal Defense (sic) of Murder” by somebody whom I’d never previously come across called Owen Hatherley. The other is Seymour’s own review of Chris Harman’s “A People’s History of the World”. I have not read either book, and I have no immediate intention of doing so; therefore I cannot know whether either Seymour’s or Hatherley’s reviews are fair and accurate, although I would hazard a guess that both are essential at-length regurgitations of the SWP’s line on the topics that they cover. Put them on somebody else’s Christmas list please, I would prefer a decent bottle of wine.

So, what’s the biggie?

Apparently the issue is that Seymour is a member of the SWP, reviewing another SWP member’s book. Similarly Hatherley writes for Socialist Worker, although he maintains that he is not a party member. HP rather ties itself up in knots over this, coming to the eventual conclusion that Hatherley may not be a member of the SWP but must have some agreement with its politics in order to write for SW:

However, ask yourself. How many people do you know who would write for the newspaper of a totalitarian and anti-democratic organisation, without being substantially aligned with its politics?/

As it happens I don’t think this is true, either of the SWP or any other left-wing group. Certainly my old comrades in the AWL regularly print articles by people with whom they disagree on other questions of politics, and whilst the SWP are far from as pluralist I still can’t see why it is impossible to believe that they might print an article by a non-member without exercising some kind of influence over that person.

On Seymour, David T is far more emphatic:

Here’s Richard Seymour reviewing a book by his party boss, Chris Harman. Seymour does not mention the fact that that Harman is a Socialist Workers’ Party activist, and the New Statesman doesn’t disclose Seymour’s membership of the Socialist Workers’ Party.

What contempt for its readership.

It would, of course, be something of a stretch to see the smirking proprietor of Lenin’s Tomb publicly dissing SWP Generalissimo Harman’s work, even if he did disagree with it in whole. However I daresay he doesn’t, and is in no way misrepresenting himself bywriting a positive review. They are both members of the same Marixist organisation, and therefore that they broadly agree about questions of politics is hardly surprising. Whilst that does make conversations with SWP’ers about other SWP’ers rather dull, I fail to see why it provokes such outrage on the part of Mr T et al.

Oliver Kamm appears just as exercised about it:

My point remains, however, that he (Hatherley-VP) is a contributor to the newspaper of a Leninist organisation, which is not a normal democratic party even of the radical Left, and in which he urges “a foundation for genuine class politics”. This is a material point in evaluating his review, and as such I consider he ought to have disclosed it both in his piece and in his comment on this blog.

It may or may not be the case that Seymour and Hatherley are not being totally transparent with regard to their political affiliations. However it seems to me that it is not particularly important either way: we are afterall talking about book reviews in the Staggers, not candidates for Prime Minister. The question then, is why do the Euston people care so much about it?

Seymour himself has written a response, which is also worthy of quotation:

On the one hand, all of this is immensely encouraging. If the deranged political cult of liberal bombers didn’t find the book in some sense threatening, they would not waste so much energy on vain attempts to undermine it. On the other hand, this petty, spiteful attack comprises a maniacal McCarthyite troika. It not only seeks to have a positive review of my book retracted and a ‘correction’ published. It also attempts to hound someone who did absolutely nothing wrong out of a livelihood, and to establish an ominous precedent of surveillance for actual and supposed members of the Socialist Workers’ Party on the basis of ignorant claims about it made by David T and his cohort.

My own blog (Shiraz Socialist) was of those which supported Harry’s Place when it was temporarily shut down as a result of complaints by one Jenna Delich, a UCU activist with whom the authors had taken issue. Regardless of our opinions of Delich and HP (which differ), we felt that this was a question of online freedom of speech. As such we offered our solidarity to them. I believe we were right to do that then, and that we should do so again were a similar situation to arise in future. However I for one find the attacks on Seymour and Hatherley very disturbing, and I can also detect the same whiff of McCarthyite sulphur that Seymour does. Think about it: would the Eustonites have gotten so worked up if the review was of a book by, say, Nigel Farage, and written by another UKIP member who (rightly or wrongly) failed to declare his or her own affiliation? I think not. 

I cannot speak for my fellow bloggers, either here at Liberal Conspiracy or at Shiraz Socialist. Speaking for myself however, I can say that Seymour and Hatherley have my support on this issue. The SWP have never been to my political taste, but neither should they or their writings be hounded out of the mainstream press. Furthermore, if it is the case that the Eustonites really are trying to hound Hatherley out of his job then that is to be deplored. The comparison which David T makes between Hatherley and Dilpazier Aslam (sacked extremist Guardian writer) must presumably be predicated on an equation between the SWP and Hizb-Ut-Tahrir, the theocratic party with which Aslam was associated. That equation alone has the feel of red-baiting about it, and as such I find the Eustonites’ actions in this case unconscionable.

Free speech online and in the political media must apply fairly and evenly, or it is not free speech at all. Seymour and Hatherley deserve theirs, and as such I feel we all owe them our backing.

What has surprised me, has been some of the commentary about this from liberal and left-wing bloggers. I can obviously understand that there are legal concerns about publishing the list, and I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to face prosecution for having revealed the list in public.

My own understanding is that publishing the entire list would breach data protection legislation, but that the public interest overrides data protection where the information revealed is something that people in general would need to know. Therefore partial publication where the BNP member concerned is in a job whose day-to-day practice affects the public, would be in the public interest. Nevertheless I can understand the legal concerns. People need to protect themselves.

Anyhow, you would think that overall the left should be welcoming the publication of the list, an event which has dealt a body blow to the fascist movement in the UK. But no, instead there has been an outbreak (amongst online commenters at least) of handwringing and concern for the BNP members’ “right to privacy” or the BNP’s rights as a “legal political party”. Some of the sources of said handwringing were predictable enough, but others ought to know better.

Do you people not get it? This isn’t some bastardised version of Pastor Niemoller’s famous speech, which as I recall did not in fact begin “first they came for the fascists”! The people whose rights you are so concerned to protect are the political inheritors of a tradition which runs from Kristallnacht, through the Holocaust, via the NF marches of the 1970s and random acts of violence against non-white people in the UK, through Nick Griffin’s anti-semitic rant “Who Are the Mind Benders”, to today’s “respectable nationalism” and the sick-making “Racism Cuts Both Ways” campaign. They are the ultimate enemy of socialists, liberals and democrats everywhere, and if you think they would have the slightest concern for your rights were the situation to be reversed then you are utterly deluded.

I would not endorse or encourage acts of physical violence against anyone on the BNP members’ list. But frankly if the publication of this list results in these sickos being driven out of politics completely then that would leave me unequivocally delighted. They are a poisonous presence on deprived estates across the nation, and they are a malignant parasite upon politics in the working class. I have none of the middle class, beltway liberal concerns about their destruction that have been written over the past few days, and neither should anyone else.

For those of you who don’t know, the Obama campaign agreed to a compromise whereby the disputed delegations from Florida and Michigan would be seated, but with half a vote each. In the case of Michigan (where Obama did not appear on the ballot paper) the impressive 40% of ballots which were cast for “uncommitted” delegates will instead be allocated to delegates for Obama, presumably on the basis that these ballots were cast as “anyone but Hillary” votes.

Given that due to deliberate breaching of party rules aroung the timing of primaries these states were originally barred from voting at all, by consent of all the candidates including Clinton, it would seem that this is extraordinarily magnanimous on the part of the campaign that has legitimately won within the rules.

But of course, we are talking about Hillary Clinton here. Her surrogates are now talking about how terribly unfair this all is, and threatening to appeal the decision yet again. Harold Ickes has reserved Clinton’s “right” to appeal to yet another party committee, on the basis that the uncommitted Michigan delegates should not be allocated to Obama. Of course, he neglects to mention that the technically correct thing to do would be not to seat any Florida or Michigan delegates at all, and thus leave Hillary even further away from the nomination than she is now.

As an outside observer, what has really struck me about all this is that I have actually begun to understand why Republican voters seem to despise the Clintons so much more than any other pair of Democratic figures. There is a sheer naked lust for power and sense of entitlement to high office that has run through Clinton’s announcements and choices throughout this campaign. The bitterness that has become evident following Obama’s meteoric rise from distant also-ran to front runner at the beginning of this year is distasteful to watch, running from her own unlikely reinvention (how many is that now?) as champion of the hillbillies to her husband’s mutterings about supposed media conspiracies to deprive her of the nomination that is rightfully hers.

It is behaviour like this which has built up Clinton’s negatives to the point where the late Jerry Falwell felt able to state that the Democrats could not pick a better candidate than Clinton to galvanise the core Republican vote – even if the alternative candidate was Lucifer. The irony is that by playing the game of anger and reaction in such a transparent way, Clinton may have provoked a backlash against the very “white working class voters” (ie Appalachian uneducated rural dwellers of Scots-Irish descent) whom she claims to champion. Examples can be seen on the internet, including comments such as this from a user on Salon.com:

If they’re not ready for the 21st century that’s their fucking problem. The rest of the country won’t be held hostage by the ugly, racist, backwards-ass beliefs of a bunch of broke-ass losers. Let them keep voting for the GOP who only screws them anyway. If they can’t see beyond their racism and xenophobia and bitterness to see who actually offers them the best program to address their economic interests, then they’re too fucking stupid to care about anyway.

This is not, obviously the sort of sentiment that the Obama campaign or anyone around it would endorse. But it is evidence of the destructive sentiments which Clinton continues to stir by pointlessly remaining in the race. Elements of the Democratic coalition could fracture off, thus allowing John McCain an unlikely victory in November, in what should by all normal indicators be a Democratic year. Is indulgence of Clinton’s sense of entitlement to the keys to the White House really worth risking such an outcome?

Drop out now, Hillary. For all our sakes.

Sunny adds: A Hillary Clinton supporter at the delegate seating convention:

It does however raise the ongoing problem for “heartland” working class Labour voters of being stuck without a viable alternative to arrogant and ossified local Labour machines. If Tamsin “the hereditary MP” Dunwoody is beaten, it is likely to be by patrician Tory Edward Timpson.

Timpson may well be a nice man, jolly charming at parties and a regular giver to charity or whatever, but he is still a Tory and thus no more capable of representing working class voters in Crewe than the various Blair/Brownite pillocks who have spent the past few weeks either running around the city in top hats and tails, or else handing out shameful leaflets which come at the Tories from the right on immigration. The Labour campaign is utterly disgraceful, as commentators have rightly pointed out.

What it does mean, however, is the beginning of the end for this government. The Tories have not taken a by-election seat from Labour in decades, and certainly not one so rock-solid as Crewe and Nantwich, which does not even rank inside the top 150 Labour “marginals” in the UK. As someone originally from Southampton, whose first real experience of a general election was watching Labour sweep the board in 1997, it hardly bodes well for the party’s few remaining outposts on the south coast if it cannot even hold on to its northern heartlands.

What is more, defeat in Crewe will offer proof positive (if any more were needed) that Gordon Brown is not a credible leader for what was one the political party of the working class in the UK.

The sad thing is, the structures of the party have been so successfully destroyed by its dominant Blair/Brownite wing that it is impossible to see a way in which the internal forces to its left could come back, even if they weren’t so shattered and directionless as they are. Which leaves the likes of the average Crewe voter stuck where they always were – between a rock and a hard place.

In the article, McDonnell begins with his ususal rallying cry “New Labour is dead” and seeks to take us forward via the construcation of a new set of economic policies (dare one say an Alternative Economic Strategy?) based on left-wing and socialist politics. He appears to be offering the notion that thus we will be able to take control of the Labour Party’s political direction via victory in a sub-Gramscian war of ideas.

There is a great deal of descriptive content in his article that is entirely true; attacks on the poor by the Government, rising household debt, public sector pay capping, etcetera. McDonnell has been one of the most consistent and honest opponents of the Government in areas such as these, and concern for those most vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of a neo-liberal economy formed the basis for his courageous challenge to Gordon Brown last year, of which I was proud to be a supporter.

And I have no reason at all to doubt the sincerity behind his appeal for people to attend the Left Economics Advisory Panel (LEAP) conference on May 24th at Birkbeck College, in order to further the alternative strategy for the left that he seeks.

However, with the best will in the world, that’s all it is: a conference. McDonnell (like Labour leftists responding to my previous article on a related subject) offers no means via which these ideas could actually find their way into the Labour mainstream, other presumably than that they’ll just be so good, and New Labour so bankrupt, that the party will have to accept them. If he believes that, then he’s living in a land of cabbages and kings, or at the very least a now similarly remote world of resolutions and accountability.

Marx was always very concerned not only with what should be done and why, but also with how and by whom. In other words with agency as well as concept and structure. Unfortunately there is no remaining mechanism within the Labour Party via which new, progressive policies can take hold, other than by convincing the (right wing) hierarchy that they’re a good idea.

That is highly unlikely to happen, and even if it were possible I very much doubt whether that would be the sort of politics that anyone on the Labour left would want to promote. Progressives are not about back-room deals and baronial supporters, after all.

Again therefore, I’m bound to wish people well with no hope whatsoever that they’ll succeed. Until someone can show me a realistic way for the sorts of ideas that will be talked about on the 24th to take hold within the Labour Party, then I can see no point in the exercise unless it is treated as a more general forum. For all that, I wish all the participants in the conference well, and if something specific and focused does come out of it then I’ll be the first to hold my hands up and retract the contents of this article.

I was never totally comfortable with attempts by sections of the left to pull away from the Labour Party, which I had been brought up since childhood to see as “my” party, and which latterly I had come to see as a vehicle via which the Labour Movement could exercise its influence in the party political field: Lenin’s classic formulation of the “bourgeois workers’ party” could not describe it better.

In spite of a brief spell as a member of the Socialist Alliance, I quickly rejoined Labour and argued tooth and nail with comrades that things hadn’t changed so very much. It is now self-evident that I was wrong.

The sheer scale and weight of the evidence of the past few years demonstrates that the Labour Party is not now, nor feasibly ever could be again, a vehicle for working class participation in politics. Not only do I refer to the nauseating and shameful policies of the past decade, from University tuition fees to the war on Iraq.

I do not merely seek to address the unbelievable corruption in “our” government, from the dodgy dossier to cash for honours at Westminster, to “our” Ken’s lavishing of telephone-number salaries on the coterie of Socialist Action members in his administration. That is all important, but I do not merely refer to those things. I also refer to the fact that there is clearly no way to improve things within the Labour Party.

Even back in the days of Callaghan, Wilson, Jack Jones and Frank Chapple, or even going back previously to Gaitskell’s time, Labour leaderships and governments would routinely ignore the decisions taken by “democratic” party conferences. The membership would become outraged, but nothing much would happen. The brief, failed flare-up during the Benn era was an exception to this rule. What I think the shrinking remnants of the Labour Left have to accept, is that such a rising will never and could never happen again.

With the “Bournemouth Deal”, the unions surrendered even the right to pretend to influence decisions made over party policy. Further, their leaderships (with notable exceptions) still seem happy enough to be used as cash cows within the party structures, whilst even left-controlled Executives conduct such struggles as they can manage outside of that arena. And anyone who believes that the CLPs are anything other than the driving force of the party’s right, is deluding him/herself beyond belief.

Further, the complete bankruptcy of the party in the eyes of the public is demonstrated by Thursday’s electoral melt-down. This was capped off by a man who struggles to tie his shoelaces beating “our” Ken Livingstone to the London mayoralty. This in spite of a Labour campaign in London which at times was so hysterical as to give the impression that we were witnessing an election between the SPD and the Nazis in 1933, not a fight between a tired and tarnished mayor and an upper class fop in 2008.

A lot has been made of the fact that Livingstone’s vote in London was better than Labour’s nationally. Not only is that a false comparison (had he been running for Sheriff of Surrey, one imagines he would have had a total kicking rather than losing narrowly), but it also fosters delusions on the left. Some people almost seem to be under the impression that Livingstone got as good a vote as he did because of his left-wing political stances. Now, whilst it is undoubtedly true that Livingstone’s stance on the Iraq war did him no harm, it is simply untrue that Britain’s richest city is a giant reservoir of left-wing voters.

The fact that the left tends to be a closed circle not only politically but in terms of people’s whole lives (it is dominated by relatively secure, unionised and middle-class public sector workers), we don’t see quite the same picture of what a broad spectrum of the public thinks, as those people actually do. The reality is that it’s highly unlikely Livingstone would have gained those extra votes (with which he still lost the election) on the back of being marginally to Brown’s left.

Why then do people stay in the Labour Party?

The usual answer from LP members (including my friends Stroppy, Dave and MarshaJane) is something along the lines of “what else is there to do”? Well, that is not an adequate answer, comrades. You need to come up with a reason to be in what is very much New Labour’s party, a party with a shattered “left” that is impotent and, in many cases, not that left wing, and a party which has no moral authority at all to lay claim upon the loyalties of ordinary working people in this country. I and others who remain outside (my own LP membership expired last year and I have not renewed it) need not explain ourselves – the evidence is there for all to see.

Indeed, the best I have seen thus far in terms of strategies offered by online Labour leftists is “J4L 08″?, AKA a repeat of John McDonnell’s 2007 attempt to launch a challenge to Gordon Brown. Even the aforementioned MarshaJane Thompson, who worked on McDonnell’s first campaign, appears in her post on the subject to concede that not only would McDonnell not win but also that his candidacy would rely on the endorsement of right-wingers even to get on the ballot paper. A flop in the making therefore, even if McDonnell should “succeed” in losing to Brown on a cross party vote rather than “failing” even to get to that stage.

There is, it seems to me, no alternative to the slow and patient work of building a working class political movement outside of the Labour Party. Such a stance may even entail endorsing a vote for certain Labour candidates at times, or candidates from other parties such as the Socialist Party or the Greens.

I’m prepared to cherry pick in that sense. What I’m no longer prepared to do is pretend that the right-wing husk which is today’s Labour Party in any sense represents me or my interests. Time to wake up and smell the coffee, comrades.

Update: in response
Bob Piper is not impressed;
Charlie Beckett isn’t either

Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate that there are policy differences on things such as affordable housing targets, not to mention the burning lifestyle issue of bendy buses versus routemasters, and that obviously the latter is a life-or-death matter which should have me up all night in a cold sweat. But again, these differences are at best the differences between a centre-left liberal and a centre-right economic libertarian. At worst (as with BusGate) they’re no more than a question of gimmickry and posturing – emblematic of shallow metropolitan politics at its worst.

The tone of the campaign is also rather unpleasant at times – it may be a sign that Livingstone’s supporters are desperate when stories emerge in the press making barely veiled accusations of racism towards Johnson, either directly or via the proxy of accusations against those who happen to support him. Similarly the same old Evening Standard campaign alleging all manner of misbehaviour on Livingstone’s part seems also to be raising its ugnly head. Darren Lilleker has an interesting article on the dangers for a less-than-universally popular incumbuent like Livingstone “going negative” and playing the race card. For the record, I don’t believe either man is a racist or indeed any less scrupulous than the average politician; I think that such playground accusations are what rush into the gap left by the absence of a serious policy debate over serious political differences.

Even where there are serious political differences, these are over issues that the Mayoralty cannot directly affect. Livingstone’s record on the Iraq war, for instance, is an honourable one whereas Johnson’s is appalling. However neither man will be able to do any more about it from the Mayor’s office than they could from the House of Commons when both were maverick backbench MPs. So again, whilst I recognise the differences, somehow I just can’t seem to care.

What then of the other candidates? My friends in the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty are, albeit distinctly half-heartedly, backing Lindsey German, the SWP candidate. This is presumably on the basis that she’s the sole candidate of the left, to Livingstone’s left. Doubtless her campaign, whilst essentially worthy, will be a token effort at best. Sian Berry, the occassionally impressive Green candidate, has already effectively subordinated her campaign to Livingstone’s. Brian Paddick is a light-weight choice for the Liberal Democrats, being little more than a NOTA vote for people who really can’t stand both Livingstone and Johnson.

So Londoners are faced with a choice between an increasingly tired-looking Mayor who (in spite of “going negative” indecently early in the campaign) can’t crack 40% of first preferences, a Tory who is closing in on 50% virtually by default, and a procession of flaky fringe candidates.

All I can say is I’m glad it’s not my choice.

“The Turkish Armed Forces, which attach great importance to Iraq’s territorial integrity and stability, will return home in the shortest time possible after its goals have been achieved”

Whether this is to be believed or not remains to be seen. Indeed, if the “achievement of its goals” is the elimination of the PKK “threat” then even taken at face value the statement is cold comfort for the Kurds – previous failed attempts by the Turkish army to eradicate Kurdish nationalism resulted in a bloody and drawn-out conflict between 1984 and 1999 which is reckoned to have claimed over 30,000 lives.

This is not a case of the military launching an operation in defiance of a civilian government, either. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an’s AK Party government in fact ordered the attack, it is believed with the tacit support of the USA – in spite of some muted protests. The US will certainly be loathe to enter a direct confrontation with a NATO partner, particuarly a regional superpower of Turkey’s standing in a part of the world where the USA is not overwhelmed by huge numbers of Muslim friends.

The Kurdistan Regional Government, headed by Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Masud Barzani, has issued a statement condemning the invasion whilst making clear that it does not support the PKK. For the time being this will suit the Turkish troops, whose lives wouldbe made considerably more difficult if Barzani were to order the mainstream Peshmerga in the region to fire on the invaders. It is, however, quite clear that the Peshmerga’s neutrality in the conflict is far from guaranteed in the longer term.

The conflict has escalated within the last 24 hours, with the Turkish army claiming to have killed 44 rebels and the PKK responding with a claim to have shot down a Turkish helicpter. The death toll will undoubtedly continue to mount over the days and weeks to come, almost certainly without any “clean” outcome one way or the other. Conventional ground forces have found since time immemorial that they can hold an area, only for it to be reoccupied by guerillas once they leave. The PKK may not have the forces to drive the Turkish forces out, but neither do the Turkish army have the means to eradicate the PKK. The result will be a bloody mess.

In a situation like this, progressive and left-wing people worldwide should stand with the people of Kurdistan whose territory is being overrun by invading troops. We should condemn any civilian deaths that the Turkish troops inflict, and we should call for those troops to be withdrawn. The Kurdish people have the right to their own territorial integrity, and the language being used by the Turkish government to justify the invasion (“terrorists” in particular) is eerily remniscent of the language used by US administration to justify the war in Iraq. We on the left stand with oppressed peoples, against such aggressors and we support the right tonational self-determination. It is for that reason and with those principles in mind that I believe we should be calling for Turkish troops out of Kurdistan.

Yet I think there is a difference, and one which goes beyond the obvious fact that Edwards’ political stances are well to the left of Clinton’s. Unfashionable though it is on today’s left to mention such things, I think there is an issue of character that would prevent me from advocating a Clinton vote.

It’s not only me who suffers with a deep unease when it comes to Hillary Clinton. Christopher Hitchens (who admittedly has a rather odd political relationship to the Clintons) has an excellent article in the latest Slate magazine which explains the point in eloquent fashion. He begins with a small but telling anecdote from 1995 when, after meeting him, Clinton announced that her mother had named her after Sir Edmund Hillary. Of course, the only problem here is that Clinton was born in 1947 and Hillary’s name-making ascent of Mount Everest was in 1953. When challenged on this rather obvious fact, Clinton spokespeople palmed off the inconsistency on to Hillary’s mother, claiming she had made it up to inspire “greatness” in her daughter. In fact, as Hitchens points out:

For Sen. Clinton, something is true if it validates the myth of her striving and her “greatness” (her overweening ambition in other words) and only ceases to be true when it no longer serves that limitless purpose. And we are all supposed to applaud the skill and the bare-faced bravado with which this is done.

For me this certainly rings true of Clinton’s “emotional” moment in the New Hampshire primary. This is one of the most establishment-driven Democratic candidates in that party’s history, with a campaign so vicious that aides keep drawing attention to Barack Obama’s youthful drug use whilst the campaign publicly denies responsibilty. If you think for a second that that the Clinton campaign would be unaware of such tactics, read James Carville and Mary Matalin’s book “All’s Fair: love, war and running for President”. It’s straight out of the spinner’s playbook. To go from this to “sincere striver tears” stretches my credulity beyond endurance, albeit not it would seem the credulity of New Hampshire’s electorate.

Hitchens goes on to detail Hillary’s role in helping Bill Clinton to recover from scandals by, he asserts, covering up her husband’s extra-marital sex life and thus placing him in her political debt. Hitchens believes that Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky et al were telling the truth, and that the Clintons used their political machine, private detectives and federal employees to besmirch these womens’ charaters and to shut them up. If this is the case, and particularly if Juanita Brodderick (the woman who alleges that Bill Clinton raped her) is telling the truth, then the facade of feminism around Hillary Clinton’s candidacy melts away like so much ice.

This is all not to mention the many issues with Clinton’s vote on the Iraq war. On the question of the war itself Hitchens agrees with Clinton’s vote, whereas I would disagree. Where he and I would both criticise her however, is in her inconsistency since. When questioned on the issue, Clinton uses the tortured phrase “If I knew then what I know now” to suggest that she would not vote to authorise the war if she could take that decision again. Note the difference between this and John Edwards’ straight-out recantation of his own vote, which states quite clearly that it was the wrong thing to do and that he made a mistake. From Clinton’s phrase, one is drawn to wonder what it is that she “knows now” that would change her vote – is she referring to the devastation that the war has brought about, or to the war’s unpopularity in the USA?

In sum, there is something about Clinton that simply leaves me uncomfortable, which goes beyond the insincerity one expects of all those who are involved in electoral politics. I’ll leave the final word to Hitchens:

Indifferent to truth, willing to use police-state tactics and vulgar libels against inconvenient witnesses, hopeless on health care, and flippant and fast and loose with national security: The case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut.

Both of these factors having withered on the vine over the past ten years, most of the left (barring a few real no-hopers) have pulled back from automatic support for Labour, and indeed have ended up in many cases in something of a state of confused hopelessness as a consequence. Some indeed have ended up wandering down blind alleys such as the laughably misnamed “Respect” coalition, following quixotic figures such as George Galloway in the desperate hope of being led to a new dawn. Of course, that dawn will transpire to be a mirage, and most have already seen it. But such is the myopic faith even of ex-trotskyists in their will to follow a “line” that some will continue to do so – even as they spend every passing day tearing each other to pieces and opening themselves up for widespread mockery on this blog amongst others. It’s hardly an edifying spectacle.

So in light of such an extraordinary fiasco, what on earth could a refugee from such a risible political community possibly have to contribute to a debate being held on a far larger arena, in the USA? One of the reasons is because I like to think that people can and do learn lessons, and that therefore they are not doomed to carry on repeating the mistakes of the past.

The classic leftist arguments against voting for Democrat candidates surround the fact that the Democratic Party has no organic link to the US working class, and further that it does not represent a movement of that class either. The first argument is not in dispute – many US trades unions do fund the Democratic Party, but they have no constitutional link into that party in the way that the old trades union link technically worked (or could work) in the Labour Party. The second is also not disputed, at least in the sense that the Democrats are not and do not pretend to be a left-socialist or Marxist group in the sense that Marxist-educated European left-wingers would understand one.

That having been said, I do not believe that either of those two points in and of itself gives anyone a reason not to advocate for a Democratic vote, if it is even temporarily in the interests of working people to do so. In fact, in the grand traditions of the left, both points are in fact tangential to that central question. The reality is that this Presidential election is one where principled fence-sitting will not do.

I advocated a vote for the Democrats in 2004, not because I held any great (or indeed any) faith in John Kerry’s ability to make or stick to a principled statement, but because I believed that in the midst of the Iraq war and in an atmosphere of whipped-up racial hatred towards Arabs and Muslims across the West, there was a need to put a brake on an administration increasingly blind to anything beyond overseas objectives directed by political fanatics, and domestic policies directed by religious fanatics. As flawed and weak as Kerry was, he represented the opportunity to put a brake on those political directions, and I still believe that the world would have been a better place if he had won. The left who refused to take that stance were left with the choice of supporting a far-left wacko from a selection of Stalinists (Workers World Party) and Barnesites (US-SWP), supporting little-guy-populist-without-the-popularity Ralph Nader, or abstaining. Most chose Nader or abstention. Kerry lost, and the rest is history.

This time, I am advocating for the same position, but for a different reason. 2008 I believe will be the first “post-war” election, in the sense that there is no longer the paranoid sense of post-9/11 siege that still dominated in 2004. National security is still an issue, but the Bush administration’s foreign adventures are now widely despised, and social libertarians are beginning to boil with resentment at the administration’s domestic security policies. Beneath those, the population continues as it always has to favour Democratic positions on welfare, healthcare, and sexual freedoms.

The precursor to the conditions in which we see the 2008 elections shaping up, was the 2006 congressional elections, which saw Democrats swept to power in the House of Representatives and eking a majority in the senate – both of which majorities are likely to rise in November of next year. The elections in the senate (which the Democrats were not expected to win, even by many of the DLC types involved in running the campaign) were particularly interesting. I was struck by Montana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Minnesota and Ohio. Three of these (Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Ohio) are bell-weather states in Presidential elections, whereas the other two have historically been Republican. All of them elected Democrats, and all of them are now trending Democrat in other match-ups.

They were marked by a different kind of campaigning to the tacking, slick ad-driven machinery that usually characterises Democratic efforts in recent years. All of them were marked by a renewed populist style, that was not too much concerned with what had played well with DC focus groups prior to the campaign. In particular Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Bob Casey Junior in Pennsylvania (both of whom won with huge majorities over hapless right-wing incumbents Mike DeWine and Rick Santorum) do not fit the Democratic stereotypes. Casey is pro-life and therefore would be automatically unlikely to pass muster at any North-Eastern Democratic gathering, ironically often composed of people who are broadly speaking more right-wing than he is. If that example leaves progressives a little queasy then let us move on to Brown, who had one of the most left-wing records in the Ohio congressional delegation, and who was swept along as a Senatorial candidate on a tidal wave of cheers and applause from the left-wing “netroots” of the Democrats such as those at the famous Daily Kos. Some populist flavour could also be seen in Jon Tester’s campaign in Montana and Jim Webb’s in Virginia, alongside other factors (both had opponents with serious credibility problems, and both states were already beginning to trend Democratic, having elected Democratic governors within recent years).

Further, there is an increasingly evident fissure in the GOP vote between classic Reaganite minimal-state libertarians in the West, and the Christian, conservative, partly old Southern Democratic vote in the former confederacy. The current of opinion in parts of the west to oppose government intrusions in private life never did sit well with the Bush administration’s imposition of the Patriot Act, and their disinterest in overseas adventures (not to mention lack of outright hatred for Muslims) never left them quite as gung-ho for the Iraq War as other parts of the Republican coalition. However whilst they were faced with a Democratic “opposition” in congress that agreed with more or less everything the GOP said about these issues, and differed from them on the issue of taxes (the one issue were the libertarians did endorse the GOP), they remained as part of the Republican coalition, albeit a disaffected one. The 2006 elections marked an ongoing shift in that stance. From New Mexico to Colorado, to Montana to Washington State, rural western state have begun to trend Democratic. That trend has been sped up by the GOP’s alienation of Hispanic voters via its anti-immigrant stances on issues concerning non-certified workers in the USA. The Hispanic vote, of which some 40% had gone to Bush in 2004, split around 70%-30% for the Democrats in 2006. For the first time in some time, an overall majority of electors in fact voted Democratic.

So… what to do in 2008? We are faced with a US electorate that is trending away from the GOP, and which is willing to listen to liberal social policies. We are faced with a working class who do turn out to vote, as in Ohio – when they think there’s something worth turning out for. And we are faced with the opportunity to break and destroy the Republican hegemony over US politics for a generation, in a way that Bill Clinton (who won with less than 50% of the vote in 3-way presidential elections, and who never won a congressional election as president) never could. I believe for that reason a Democratic vote is justified – it is a proven political fact of the past 20 years, certainly in the US and UK since the 1990s, that political space to the left only opens up when the right is not in power. This election gives us an opportunity to ensure that the right is not in power for a very long time.

Which moves me on to the question, what sort of Democrat? The old DLC tendency is represented in this election, quite clearly, by Hillary Clinton. No amount of waffle about the political significance of a female candidate for President can seriously make Clinton look like anything other than the right-wing machine politician that she is. Her right-wing record on foreign policy, even at times trying to come at Bush from the right, her track record of accepting corporate donations, or indeed her ridiculous claim to be the candidate of “experience” (due to having been married to Bill Clinton, presumably), all should leave progressive voters cold.

For some time, I felt that progressives should support Barack Obama, the Illinois senator who swept into office in 2004 on the back of an electrifying speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention. The only Black American in the US Senate, and with a proud record of having opposed the Iraq war from its inception, as well as a record of accomplishment in the state senate in Illinois, and with a talent for oratory that invited favourable comparisons with Jack Kennedy, Obama seemed like the ideal antidote to Clinton’s stale brand of “DINO” (Democrat In Name Only) politics. And yet, since initially blasting into the race, Obama has always seemed unsure of himself, and at times has made peculiar statements seeming to suggest that he would engage in further overseas military action against perceived security threats, even if they were to come from with countries that are technically US allies, such as Pakistan. On the other side, he seems to some degree to have lost his populist touch, instead beginning to play the game of celebrity endorsements and thin politics that lead one to wonder just how deep his commitment to progressivism really runs.

That of course leaves John Edwards. Edwards does not have an untarnished record – he was Kerry’s running mate during the failed election campaign of 2004, he was a one term senator from North Carolina who did not actually carry his home state in that election. He also voted to authorise the Iraq War.

However, he has, unlike Clinton, fully recanted that vote. Further, during the 2004 campaign, he consistently outpolled Kerry in terms of popularity. He faced the Republican spin machine down and came out unscathed. Since 2004 he has elaborated upon his theme of “two Americas”, which he has developed into a genuinely populist challenge to corporate power. Adding a second theme, “America Rising”, he has spoken out with clarity, fiery passion and consistency against a system which he himself says is governed by “corporate power”. He makes calls to fight that corporate power, and for people to “rise” by fighting to change a system that leaves 47 million people with no healthcare insurance, 37 million in poverty, 200,000 military veterans homeless on the streets, and 35 million people going hungry in any given year. He wants to reverse tax cuts for the rich, and to break the influence of drugs industry lobbyists over health policy. Again in a marked departure from normal Democratic politics, Edwards makes a big play out of “never having taken a dime” from any lobbyist during his time in Washington DC. Perhaps the most poignant story he tells is a single anecdote about a man named James Lowe, who could not speak until he had an operation for a cleft palate. He had no health insurance, but still had the operation. At the age of 50. It is staggering that a man in a western nation should go without a voice for half a century for want of a simple operation. Edwards thinks so too, and so supports universal health care.

Furthermore, it is worth pointing out that (contra DLC wisdom) Edwards outpolls most Republican candidates by margins significantly larger than Clinton’s and on a par with Obama’s.

It may be that Edwards will not win the Democratic nomination, still less the presidency. He is currently running third nation-wide, and is in a three-way battle in Iowa that he absolutely has to win to remain in the race. But I for one hope he does stay in. Because sometimes someone comes along and refreshes a debate by doing something very simple. And he’s done that. By doing what? By telling the truth.

Sometimes we on the left would do well to remember just how big changes arise from such small beginnings. That’s why I hope Edwards wins the election, and that’s why you should as well.