i'm leaning towards rejoining the labour party

[redarmyfaction38]

"new labour" is gonna get smashed at the next general election, the tories or worse are gonna get elected.
out of the debris of "new labour" failure, the old labour party could be resurrected, literally, the raising of the dead.
perhaps, given the total failure of us rev lefties to agree on the date and time, let alone a coherent "revolutionary programme" or formation of a "new workers party", this is the only viable option open to us?

[Vanguard1917]

out of the debris of "new labour" failure, the old labour party could be resurrected, literally, the raising of the dead.

You can't revive a corpse. The Labout Party has been dead for over two decades. And even when it was alive, it was nothing more than the party of the labour bureaucracy and, in that capacity, the substitute, back-up party of the British establishment, there to lull working class resistance and maintain the stability of the status quo. Thus, good riddance. We need something better.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Wait and see. Labour is going to get utterly crushed in the next general election - maybe even drop to third party status behind the Lib Dems. Under these extreme conditions, anything could happen. They might return to social democracy (i.e. Old Labour), they might move further to the left, or they might implode altogether or decide to merge with the Lib Dems into an all-out liberal party.

Joining the Labour Party right now isn't even like joining a corpse - it's more like joining a ticking bomb.

I honestly believe this is the end of Labour, and that the party will split and die after the next general election. Perhaps we can gather some of the pieces into a new workers' party.

[scarletghoul]

I seriously doubt Old Labour will return any time soon. The process of moronisation of the major parties is not yet complete, and I think they will probably just blame all their failure on Brown and elect a young and annoying Tony Blair clone as their new leader, just like the conservatives and lib dems did. Major parties are churning out these politicians and I don't think it will stop for a while.

Maybe wait until old labour actually does return before you rejoin...

[scarletghoul]

Or the SLP? They seem cool.

[Tower of Bebel]

I don't believe in either the revival of the old labour party nor the death of the party as a whole. In other European countries "New Labour" equivalents survived set-backs because there was no alternative, and because there is still an organic link between parts of the workers movement and Labour. Of course, if you could prove to me that the British case is different then I could change my opinion. But right now I don't have a clue why the electoral failure of New Labour would innitiate a new phase.

Also Redarmyfaction38, you forgot to mention why it is strategicly a good choice to join Labour. You only mentioned the failure of New Labour. That's the negative part of your claim; where's the positive part (the alternative)?

[Demogorgon]

Wait and see. Labour is going to get utterly crushed in the next general election - maybe even drop to third party status behind the Lib Dems. Under these extreme conditions, anything could happen. They might return to social democracy (i.e. Old Labour), they might move further to the left, or they might implode altogether or decide to merge with the Lib Dems into an all-out liberal party.

Joining the Labour Party right now isn't even like joining a corpse - it's more like joining a ticking bomb.

I honestly believe this is the end of Labour, and that the party will split and die after the next general election. Perhaps we can gather some of the pieces into a new workers' party.
The way the electoral system is set up here, Labour will manage to stay the second party no matter what. Indeed they may even come out with the most seats in Scotland even though the SNP will get considerably more votes. Combine that with the fact that the Lib Dems will lose ground n Scotland (generally where they have their safest seats) and Labour will not be in danger of slipping into third place. Indeed I would not be surprised if the Lib Dems lose seats and it isn't outwith the bounds of possibility they could be pushed into fourth place in parliament behind the SNP/Plaid Cymru group, though that is unlikely.

The fact is the electoral system in the UK is set up to protect the main parties no matter what. They are essentially unkillable. The only thing that can conceivably kill a major party is the emergence of an alternative party from similar ideological ground. That's how Labour reduced the Liberals to a rump all those years ago. But there isn't really anything there to replace them like that. Especially with the Lib Dems moving to the right under Nick Clegg. In Scotland there is a rival party of the moderate Left overtaking Labour-The SNP. But Scottish politics works differently to the rest of the UK because the Conservatives are only a minor force here.

Anyway as to the point of rejoining Labour-I don't see it. I should point out I am biased of course, I hat Labour with all I have, not merely for the awful politics they have pushed but for the way Scottish Society has been in so many places where the Labour Party basically fulfilled the role the Masons fills elsewhere giving friends a leg up, making sure party members got the best job and so on. It used to be the case that if you were a teacher for instance, Labour Party membership was almost essential when it came to rising up the ranks. This wasn't down to political control incidentally, it was the case regardless of who was in Government, but rather it was down to the cronyism that bred in the party. Something I think was poisonous.

That isn't so much the case out of Scotland however and it is changing here too, so let's try and be a bit more positive. How the Labour Party develops in opposition will be very much down to who becomes leader. A party leader here can put his and her stamp on the party to a pretty amazing extent. So who will be the next leader. From the left John McDonnell will run, but he can't win because of the way the Labour Party's internal electoral process works. So the realistic candidates will be Alan Johnson, David Milliband, Harriet Harman, Jack Straw and so on. All members of the Cabinet and all part of new Labour. Don't be surprised if Peter Mandelson resigns from the Lords and runs for the Commons to try for the leadership himself incidentally. He is already de-facto co-leader of the party and de-facto co-Prime Minister as well for that matter. The only alternative besides them is Jon Cruddas and he would be an improvement, but only insofar as he would take the party back to where it was under Kinnock. Which is hardly a huge improvement.

Bare in mind also that Labour isn't going to be too mindful of changing that much in opposition. It will blame its failures on Gordon Brown and not on its policies and not change a great deal. It will focus on its more populist policies in opposition of course. The Tories are bound to step up privatisation and there will be token opposition from labour and it will suddenly rediscover its concern for policy in opposition, but it won't be anything it will take back into Government. Indeed it may not actually be in opposition that long despite its current predicament. David Cameron is not going to be a popular Prime Minister. His Government will have to implement severe spending cuts which means service cuts. He will spend a great deal of time trying to keep the lid on the right of his party who will feel that taking office means they should be abolishing Labour's gay rights legislation and whatnot. Also watch the Tory right through a tantrum when Daniel Hannan gets expelled (and he most certainly will be-unless of course he leaves of his own accord first-he won't be able to resist criticising David Cameron after all.) Also of course the Conservative Government is going to be in serious trouble dealing with Scotland. It will win almost no seats here and immediately be forced to deal with a pro-independence Scottish Government who will use a a hated Conservative Prime Minister to drum up support for independence and generally make things very difficult. They will probably get out of it by offering Scotland more autonomy in return for Alex Salmond (Scottish First Minister) agreeing to keep a lid on the issue for a while. But that will enrage the Scottish Conservatives who may leave the party because of it splitting the party and leaving it without an arm in part of the country. With all that going on Labour might not be in opposition very long and hence won't see much need to change itself.

[BobKKKindle$]

out of the debris of "new labour" failure, the old labour party could be resurrected, literally, the raising of the dead.

I don't know about you, but as a revolutionary socialist my primary objective is not the revival of the "old Labour Party". I don't want to see capitalism reformed slightly. I don't think the kind of Keynesian measures that the Labour Party once advocated as an economic policy are viable, given the context of a global economy in which capital flows are beyond the control of national governments, and it's wrong to assume that a party operating within the framework of capitalism instead of seeking to overthrow the system will ever be able to put an end to mass poverty and insecurity, because capitalism is a system that inherently produces crises of profitability, despite the efforts of governments. I want to see capitalism completely overthrown, through the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, and a better society based on democracy and planning established in its place, and for that objective we need a revolutionary organization that recognizes and exposes the fact that Labour has always been a party which represents the class interests of the trade union bureaucracy and British finance capital, and has nothing to do with the interests of ordinary people. The uselessness of Labour as an agent of revolutionary change is becoming clearer with each passing day as more and more trade unionists acknowledge that a decade of government under the Labour Party has not led to any of the reactionary reforms that were pushed through under Thatcher, such as the anti-trade union laws, and privatization, being repealed, but has instead involved an intensification of the neo-liberal offensive, as part of a global trend, with more privatization, more cutbacks, more imperialist wars, and more attacks on our civil liberties. To give just one example, in 2007, firefighers at the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) annual conference in Southport in Merseyside voted against reaffliation to the Labour Party, after having disaffiliated in 2004, due to the failure of the Labour government to support the workers when they went on strike over pay and bad conditions. These are the kinds of decisions that we should be fighting for, instead of encouraging trade unionists to continue their ties to such a reactionary organization.

By joining the Labour Party and calling for a return to "old Labour" you are on the wrong side of the debate between reformism and revolution. Of course, this is a key characteristic of the CWI. Your party argued in favour of a transition to socialism after an "enabling act" had been passed in parliament by a majority of "socialist" MPs - in other words, you accepted that there can be such a thing as a peaceful and parliamentary transition to socialism. We in the SWP stand in a different tradition - we refuse any compromises with the corrupt edifice of bourgeois politics and want to get rid of the capitalist state in its entirety, as a state based on the interests of the bourgeoisie. That's why we're a revolutionary party, and don't waste our time calling for the revival of old Labour, hidden under the guise of a "new workers party".

[Zurdito]

Personally I don't see any revival of social democracy, its decline is a Europe-wide trend and it is hard to see where the space for it is going to come from, the European bourgeoisie is moving towards the abolition of the welfare state in its current form, looking to move to a US style model. The ruling class is stripping away the last remnants of social democracy, leaving the old centre-left parties to ideologically remodel themselves on the Democrats.

Let's remember that Labour has a very short "golden age" when it actually could implement reformism: 1945-1974. This is because in those years capitalism was undergoing the productive boom made possible by the destruction of excess capital in WW2. If we look at the 1930's, a period of depression like the world is entering into now, Labour had no answers at all and only covered for possibly the worst decade (including up to 1945) in the british working class' history. That is a better comparison to the period we are in today rather than Labour's "golden age", which was based on the system being able to incorporate reformism: something it cannot afford today.

If workers in Britain want a party that fights for their interests I think they will need to break with Labour for good.

[n0thing]

I don't see why Labour would move to the left. They're being thrown out by the Conservatives, who are even further to the right.

It's all about image anyway. They'd be pretty stupid to make any serious political decisions in response to this inner-party power struggle. We'll probably see them back again in 12 years or so. They'll go through a few more leaders, but I think the ideology will be fundamentally the same.

[Lolshevik]

I'm not an expert on British politics, but I see no reason why Labour would suddenly move to the left after its defeat. If anything, this shift would be only in words, and only as long as it remained in opposition, and even if 'Old Labour' did magically return, this is not what is needed to further the class struggle in Britain.

However, I disagree with the idea that calling for a new mass workers' party is wrong. The CWI does not want a return to Old Labour. As other posters in this thread have pointed out, that form of social democracy is historically outmoded - the ruling class will no longer grant these kinds of concessions. By calling for a new mass party of labor, the CWI's British section is trying to build a party that can become truly revolutionary, one that will draw in the activist layers of the proletariat, learn the lessons of the LP's failure, and really fight in its own class interest.

[Pogue]

"new labour" is gonna get smashed at the next general election, the tories or worse are gonna get elected.
out of the debris of "new labour" failure, the old labour party could be resurrected, literally, the raising of the dead.
perhaps, given the total failure of us rev lefties to agree on the date and time, let alone a coherent "revolutionary programme" or formation of a "new workers party", this is the only viable option open to us?

This doesn't suprise me, you do seem to hold some utterly reprehensible views in general.

[Pogue]

I'm not an expert on British politics, but I see no reason why Labour would suddenly move to the left after its defeat. If anything, this shift would be only in words, and only as long as it remained in opposition, and even if 'Old Labour' did magically return, this is not what is needed to further the class struggle in Britain.

However, I disagree with the idea that calling for a new mass workers' party is wrong. The CWI does not want a return to Old Labour. As other posters in this thread have pointed out, that form of social democracy is historically outmoded - the ruling class will no longer grant these kinds of concessions. By calling for a new mass party of labor, the CWI's British section is trying to build a party that can become truly revolutionary, one that will draw in the activist layers of the proletariat, learn the lessons of the LP's failure, and really fight in its own class interest.

But they do effectively want a party with social democratic demands. I don't see how this can or will become revolutionary.

[Lolshevik]

Who says we want a party with social democratic demands?

[Pogue]

Your party does. A new workers party, complete with a prototype list of social democratic demands.

[*Viva La Revolucion*]

Labour have been moving to the right for a long time. I can't see that changing anytime soon, especially now that they're trying to emulate the conservatives' 'success'. I'd say New Labour is centre-right, and its policies are too moderate and capitalist-friendly. The Labour Party will never lead a revolution. Ever. If the smaller socialist and communist parties could ever find similarities and started working together to create one larger party then I think they'd be in with a genuine chance. But labour? Never!

[Lolshevik]

Your party does. A new workers party, complete with a prototype list of social democratic demands.

What do you mean? A new mass workers' party in Britain doesn't exist yet, so obviously it doesn't have a programme. Or are you referring to the whole idea of the transitional programme?

[The Ungovernable Farce]

How much evidence do you need that a tactic's failed before you'll give up on it? Entryism was tried in the 80s, when the Labour left was way stronger than it is today. The militant was expelled, and since then we've had 20 years of anyone with any kind of a conscience leaving and any slimy prick who wants to build a career for themselves joining. Why would a tactic that failed so miserably 20-odd years ago in relatively favourable terrain work any better today, when the prospects inside the party are so much worse?

[Lolshevik]

How much evidence do you need that a tactic's failed before you'll give up on it? Entryism was tried in the 80s, when the Labour left was way stronger than it is today. The militant was expelled, and since then we've had 20 years of anyone with any kind of a conscience leaving and any slimy prick who wants to build a career for themselves joining. Why would a tactic that failed so miserably 20-odd years ago in relatively favourable terrain work any better today, when the prospects inside the party are so much worse?

This is absolutely a good argument for not working inside the British Labour Party. It does not, however, say anything against entrism in a new workers' party. Like it or not, these formations (like NPA and Die Linke) are where the militant, activist layers of the working class are at. Why wouldn't we want to bring our arguments & policies right to them, as opposed to soapboxing from our own little sect?

[ls]

This doesn't suprise me, you do seem to hold some utterly reprehensible views in general.

I wonder if he's planning on trying paki-bashing again like he used to as well?

[Tower of Bebel]

Your party does. A new workers party, complete with a prototype list of social democratic demands.
Not necessarily. But a conscious referring back to the old Labour Parties of Europe as organizations of the working class dispite their leadership does imply that the CWI has no problem with both working within such a party and campaigning for it. The problem with the CWI is not that it theoretically aknowledges the probability that broad Labour parties must [or: are going to] be set up first before the class becomes more conscious; the problem is an organizational question: how does the CWI campaign for such parties and what does the CWI do once it works within such formations?

[Revy]

Well, Militant tendency tried that for decades.
Any new attempt is likely to far less spectacular.

Socialists might in fact have more success with entryism in the UK Green Party than they ever would have with Labour.

Not that I support that either.