SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon
In recent months the question of whether Labour ought to consider a “progressive alliance” with other anti-Tory parties has become a major talking point on the left. Clive Lewis, Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, has come out in favour of the position as has influential pro-Corbyn journalist Paul Mason. The exact formation of what a progressive alliance entails or who would be involved in one remain unclear. Continue reading
Since the leadership election, Jeremy Corbyn has made it his priority to turn Labour into a democratic socialist party with the support of social movements. To this end, British-wide meetings have been organised by groups such as the Labour Campaign for Free Education, whose party guide for newcomers is in circulation. But socialists are also attending to their distinctive situations in the regions and nations of the UK, where quick local organising could transform and radicalise the Labour party from the bottom up.
Can Corbyn activists grow socialism at a civic level in northern cities like Newcastle? What might London socialists do to resist a reactionary turn from ‘independent-minded’ Sadiq Kahn during the mayoral election? How should socialists penetrate the Welsh party where Carwyn Jones is sure to resist the anti-capitalism of this new movement? Continue reading
Then catch the moments as they fly
And use them as ye ought, man.
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not aye when sought, man.
Robert Burns, A Bottle and Friend
Here is surely a mutiny worth waiting for. Old hands and new recruits have swung into action for Jeremy Corbyn, the old sea dog of Labour socialism. A startled Captain Harman whipped her Labour MPs into supporting Osborne’s Welfare Reform Bill – Burnham dithered then walked the plank, and Cooper fell over a barrel. The media barrage will try and hit its mark, but, as Aneurin Bevan wrote soon before becoming Health Minister in 1945, “the national newspapers have become so accustomed to writing up personalities in place of principles that they have completely lost touch with the people.” It’s not a personality that’s winning popular support, but a set of principles both radical and realistic. Blairite gabs can only gape as 40% of members intend to vote for Corbyn, who last week became the bookies’ favourite to lead the Party, and secured the most nominations from Constituency Labour Parties across the UK. Continue reading
“We need a big tent plan, not a core vote strategy, to win again in Scotland.”-Kezia Dugdale, 7th July 2015
That foremost authority on Scottish Labour politics, Antonio Gramsci, once gasped, “The old world is dying away, and the new world struggles to come forth: now is the time of monsters.” Scottish Labour has now moved even further on the road of the withering old and the failing new. The monstrous period of Jim Murphy has passed, yet the fairy stories and fantasies of Murphy’s politics remain. Kezia Dugdale, the anointed successor, exemplified this with her prescription that Labour’s core vote has dwindled to the point of electoral disaster and must instead be replaced by a ‘big tent’ strategy. Scottish Labour has an image problem – it has become branded with representing ‘the most vulnerable’ and must now pivot towards those who wish to ‘better themselves.’ Continue reading
When the time comes to construct the pantheon of Scottish Labour leaders, Ken Macintosh MSP will surely stand shoulder to shoulder with Jim Murphy at its highest point. To Murphy’s visions of speedy boarding for veterans and booze at football games, Macintosh has, in the past few weeks, added two radical insights of his own: that the Scottish Labour headquarters should move from Glasgow to Edinburgh and that, instead of a general-secretary, we should have a ‘chief executive’.
It’s easy to laugh at things like this, but this point demonstrates two of the fundamental problems Scottish Labour faces: that its problems are political but are perceived in the ‘apolitical’ language of ‘organisation’ and that the membership can place no trust in the leadership for salvation. Continue reading
