Labour Party (UK)

[TheGeekySocialist]

basically im interested to know what people think of the party, it's members and working in/with them.

[glescabhoy]

They no longer have the right to call themselves the party of the working class IMO, nor socialist.

Scotland was a Labour heartland until the recent elections and they were smashed by the Scottish National Party, clearly many were no longer happy with the direction the party was taking.

There are only a minority of genuine socialists in the party which is now choc full of careerist politicians looking to make a quick buck.

It's a sad indictment of the party that at times I feel the lines between the Tories and New Labour blur, it becomes difficult to tell between the two.

[Tommy4ever]

I look upon the Labour Party as a lost cause. It seems impossible to save the party from continuing on the path of neo-liberalism.

The party seems to be totally disconecting from the working class and has been paying the price as they have lost millions of votes and thousands of members over the New Labour era. Indeed, as the Scottish elections showed us, they seem to be reliant on being seen as the only alternative to the Tories to get people to continue to vote for them.

Entryism was tried in the past by Militant and failed - it would now be almost impossible to engage in such a tactic successfully.

[Thirsty Crow]

The Labour Party was influenced by the same string of events (the end of the post-war boom based on class compromise and a rise in workers' living standards, the breakdown of the Bretton-Woods, and the neo-liberal hegemony after it became clear that sustained growth is not going to happen, which meant that new strategies for raising the rate of exploitation had to be devised) as was the case with all the European social democrat parties. This entailed a sharp turn to the right, dictated in part by the newly established hegemony of the wight wing, but also by the specific phase in capitalist accumulation. Therefore New Labour, which is beyond lost, and the "Old Labour" was in my opinion a lost cause since the post-war two party exchange cemented the integration of this organization into the capitalist state and business circles.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It is neither a mass party anymore, nor a party that has even a modicum of interest in working class politics, nor a class analysis of society.

It is dead. I joined the party last year and discovered this for myself. There is little to no democracy in the party and even the grassroots only really range from New Labourites on the right to Social Democrats on its 'left'.

No point flogging a dead horse. It's not a labour party anymore.

[glescabhoy]

The Labour Party was influenced by the same string of events (the end of the post-war boom based on class compromise and a rise in workers' living standards, the breakdown of the Bretton-Woods, and the neo-liberal hegemony after it became clear that sustained growth is not going to happen, which meant that new strategies for raising the rate of exploitation had to be devised) as was the case with all the European social democrat parties. This entailed a sharp turn to the right, dictated in part by the newly established hegemony of the wight wing, but also by the specific phase in capitalist accumulation. Therefore New Labour, which is beyond lost, and the "Old Labour" was in my opinion a lost cause since the post-war two party exchange cemented the integration of this organization into the capitalist state and business circles.

Definitely agree with you here, it seems to me that any left wing party that aspires to gain election must distort itself and compromise some of its principles to appeal to a wider range of the electorate (Blair's third way for example). New Labour focused so much on pleasing the middle classes that it forgot its responsibility to the working class. It is forced into conforming to a capitalist framework to come to power and make a change.

[Wired]

I used to be a member of the Labour Party and actually voted for Ed Miliband to become its Leader because I felt that he was the most socially liberal (this is something that I now deeply regret; not because I care about their Leadership, but because it goes against my anarchist principles to vote for Leaders - I was going through a period of trying to convince myself that statism could be a short term answer).

As basically everyone else has already said, its a complete farce. They went the same way the Democratic Party did in the USA. Tony Blair actually modeled the Labour Party on the Bill Clinton Democrats. The destruction of Clause 4 should be enough to scare away any serious statist communist from the Labour Party.

[Shropshire Socialist]

Most of the socialists left the party when Blair took over, and formed smaller parties, such as the Socialist Labour Party and The Socialist Party of England and Wales. Others joined the Communist Party, while others went to the Greens or left politics entirely.

Miliband has not changed course and is no better than Blair.

This is why many trades unions and political activists are trying to form a new workers party to replace the Labour Party.

A few socialists remain in the party like Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner, but they have been in the party so long that they have no real desire to move anywhere else.

[Arlekino]

In my opinion Trade Unions are quite right wingers. Labour party is nothing for working class, working class gone and now we got middle class. I went on few demos demonstration and is nothing appeared to me as Socialist movement, well I understand public sector workers worry about jobs and is right to strike but is another side of public sector workers grabbing money for himself and I am not sure do public sector workers worry about private sector workers,I am not wish to accused everybody. So more we are loyal to conservative views more their suppress all us. Why we should strike with one red flag, one ideology. Not I fighting only for my job. Is that make sense?

[redmarxist90]

I used to be a member of labour, even helped my local constituency candidate do some canvasing. They no way represent who they claim to represent. Ed miliband only criticises Cameron in the commons and doesn't put any policy ideas forward as he has the same ones that are currently being implemented.

[L.A.P.]

Just wait until 'Blue Labour' becomes dominant. *shivers*

[TheGeekySocialist]

Just wait until 'Blue Labour' becomes dominant. *shivers*

read a bit about that, sounds alot like them giving up and virtually merging with the Tories to me

[L.A.P.]

read a bit about that, sounds alot like them giving up and virtually merging with the Tories to me

Not only that, their political strategy of "working class and 'squeezed middle' voters will be won back to Labour through more conservative policies on certain social and international issues, such as immigration and crime,[/URL] a rejection of neoliberal economics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Labour#cite_note-1) in favour of ideas from guild socialism and continental corporatism[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism"]." kind of sounds like something that would appear on a BNP brochure. Not saying they've turned into all-out fascists, but right-wing populism is a step closer towards that.

[North Star]

Not only that, their political strategy of "working class and 'squeezed middle' voters will be won back to Labour through more conservative policies on certain social and international issues, such as immigration and crime, a rejection of neoliberal economics in favour of ideas from guild socialism and continental corporatism." kind of sounds like something that would appear on a BNP brochure. Not saying they've turned into all-out fascists, but right-wing populism is a step closer towards that.
Even if Blue Labour became hegemonic in the Party, I think if it somehow won power on this platform, it would fizzle fast unless of course there was a serious crisis in the UK. Immigrants are needed by big business and the bourgeoisie of Britain, being very dependent on finance capital is not going to submit to coporatism unless capital is being seriously challenged by the working class. I actually doubt Blue Labour could win. If there was a serious crisis of capitalism in the UK the Tories would probably adopt some of these corporatist guild socialist ideas. There is a strain of Toryism that is skeptical of the unfettered market and its tendency to degrade traditional values. The success of the BNP and EDL is that they remain wedded to traditional "British/English values," this is where Mosley's BUF and the National Front failed in winning over establishment figures from the Tory hard right. So basically Blue Labour is premature fascism. :lol:

[Cencus]

Labours been shite since Kinnock took control(not that it was great before but there were pockets of leftyness in there {militant mainly}). Overly centralised, policies drafted from focus group bollocks, totally concerned with spin, utterly spineless on any issue except bombing people of a different creed/skin colour back to the stone age, too concerned with "middle England", run for and by careerist politicians, and just flat out shite in regards to do anything for the working class.

I expect there are still a few remotely left wing folks in there but fuck knows why.

[UnknownPerson]

IMO they don't seem to be against capitalism at all, all they do is instituting a few social programs.

[Dr Mindbender]

This is why we need a new electoral left wing voice. The Respect project was a load of fail. The british electoral landscape is starting to resemble that of America. Labour are the new liberals and the tories are well, tories. I predict the lib dems will be banished to obscurity come the next election.

[Thirsty Crow]

IMO they don't seem to be against capitalism at all, all they do is instituting a few social programs.
They are not and never have been, at least according to the dominant tendency within the party, a revolutionary organization.

[JustMovement]

I think that there are a lot of activists (at the base) in the labour party who have their heart in the right place. They might not be "socialists", although some are, but they are angry at the right people and cling to some hope that the labour party can be steered left from the inside.

[JustMovement]

doubt post

[TheGeekySocialist]

They are not and never have been, at least according to the dominant tendency within the party, a revolutionary organization.

very true, it's also true that even Tony Benn (arguably the most Socialist person ever to be prominent within the Labour party) says the party "is not and never has been a Socialist party", though that does raise the question of why Benn spent so long in the party if he considers himself a socialst, but there you go.

[Hit The North]

Anyone who wants to read a penetrating analysis of the Labour party and parliament and why neither are fit for purpose for workers and socialists, could do worse than check out the Marxist writings of Ed Miliband's dad.

Ralph Miliband (http://www.marxists.org/archive/miliband/index.htm)

[Tommy4ever]

very true, it's also true that even Tony Benn (arguably the most Socialist person ever to be prominent within the Labour party) says the party "is not and never has been a Socialist party", though that does raise the question of why Benn spent so long in the party if he considers himself a socialst, but there you go.

For the same reason that Militant entered the Labour Party, or why if you were a socialist in the 40s and 50s in France you would join the PCF - even if you were violently opposed to Stalinism. You are either in the working class movement or not, if you rejected the monopolist party of the movement then you were simply not a part of the movement.

[Zanthorus]

I think a lot of people on the British Left have some very strange illusions about the Labour party and it's history. In particular, some people still have this idea of the glory days pre-Kinnock when the party was a 'proper' working-class or socialist party or some nonsense like that. The reality is pretty much the opposite. When the Labour Representation Committee was formed in 1900 there initially wasn't even much of an idea of forming a separate party, it was basically a pressure group within the Liberal party which aimed to push forward the interests of trade-unionists and pro-Labour Liberal candidates. It's founding congress explicitly rejected a motion put forward by members of the Social-Democratic Federation to make socialism an explicit aim of the party. What little socialism there was in the party was almost entirely of the Bernsteinian revisionist or middle-class Fabian breed.

Like every party of the Second International, what little internationalist rhetoric the party had (Which was any always of the strictly pacifist variety) came crumbling down at the advent of the First World War when Labour's parliamentary delegates joined their cousins in Germany in voting in favour of the war effort. While communists were being thrown in jail for calling for the transformation of the imperialist war into a revolutionary struggle, and while even social-pacifists like the Independent Labour Party or the SPGB were under pressure from the British state, the labour fakers were happily supporting bans on strikes and wage increases and conscription in the interests of the unity of the nation as a participant in Asquith's wartime cabinet.

While it's true that to a certain extent the party 'radicalised' itself after the war adopting calls for 'public ownership' of the means of production in practice what that meant was what every honest Fabian would've understood by it, the state would take command of a few industries beyond which not much would be different, in particular Labour was never one to question the acquisitions of the British empire even stating in their 1918 Manifesto that they were for it's further extension! Even this meagre concession to socialism was basically a result of the fact that the working-class had become radicalised in the post-war period which led to the discussions over the formation of a British Communist Party. Incidentally, when the CPGB attempted to gain membership of the Labour Party as an affiliated organisation on the basis that the Labour Party was a broad federation of the organisations of the workers' movement, of which the CPGB was one, their offer was turned down and ever since the party has had a policy of expelling anyone with explicitly communist politics. The reason that groups like Militant were able to get in and stay in was because they abandoned any pro-communist rhetoric and used formula's like the nationalisation of the 'commanding heights'. And I'm sure everyone on the British left has had ingrained into them via the power of collective memory the incidents surrounding Militant and their position on the Falklands war and the poll tax riots. Nostalgia for the glory days of the Militant tendency is just as politically bankrupt as nostalgia for the glory days of old labour but I digress.

It might be useful to remember on the topic of 'entryism' that the position of the CPGB majority and the one supported by Lenin and the Comintern executive about affiliation to the LP was not the only one advocated at that time. There were dissidents from Guy Aldred and the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation to Sylvia Pankhurst and the Workers' Dreadnought group and the De Leonite Socialist Labour Party as well as sections of the Shop Stewards movement. A funny story about that actually, according to the ICP's (Il Partito Comunista) British publication 'Communist Left', one of the SLP members had written an article giving ten counter-arguments against the pro-affiliation arguments. One of the points was countering the idea that the Labour party was the equivalent of Soviets in Britain. The article in the ICP's paper mentions it in brackets as one of the 'arcane' ideas which would be crazy to hold today and for that reason doesn't reproduce Murphy's counter-argument. Unfortunately, it seems the ICP hadn't counted on a certain Jack Conrad. But I think I'm digressing yet again so to get back to my original point.

I think there's a case to be made that perhaps 'entryism' made sense in or around the early 1920's. I don't think it's very convincing, the Labour party had already, as I noted previously, taken part in Asquith's war-time cabinet and showed it's credentials as a party of capital. But certainly even among the anti-affiliationists there was confusion. According to '1917-1945: Anti-Parliamentary Communism: The movement for workers councils in Britain' by Mark Shipway Pankhurst's group had attended Labour party conferences and so on to distribute their materials. Even after the WSF moved to a strict anti-affiliation position they shared the idea that a Labour government would be fundamentally different from any regular government and during Labour's first term in power they looked for the immediate nationalisation of various services. The record of what Labour actually did whilst in power is there for everyone to see. In fact, while the left likes to rabbit on about how Thatcher began the turn for the worst in this country, it was under the preceding Labour government that monetarist policies began to be implemented. Does anyone remember the winter of discontent? I'm sure that was evidence of how much the working-class was enjoying the fruits of the Labour party being in power.

One fact which I think is quite pertinent is that in it's entire existence the Labour party has never, not once, officially supported a strike. There have been rogues who occasionally spoke out in favour of strikers, but on the whole the record is negative. The memory of 1926 is ingrained in quite a few people. The winter of discontent is another good example. They didn't even support the miners' strike during the Thatcher period! I'm quite aware at this point of rambling on in no particular direction, so I'd probably best stop, but I think you get my point - no support for the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class and their record of blood and betrayal from 1900 to the present!


For the same reason that Militant entered the Labour Party, or why if you were a socialist in the 40s and 50s in France you would join the PCF - even if you were violently opposed to Stalinism. You are either in the working class movement or not, if you rejected the monopolist party of the movement then you were simply not a part of the movement.

This is the worst kind of parliamentary cretinism. What party may claim to represent the workers' movement at any particular moment, even if workers might vote for it en masse, is irrelevant. The majority of workers' in 1918 supported the SPD and even voted SPD delegates as leaders of the German workers' councils, so were the KPD or the KAPD which rejected the co-option of the movement and it's being dragged back onto the parliamentary terrain not properly part of the workers' movement? I don't think so, in fact I'd say they were more faithful expressions (Particularly the KAPD) of the movement than the SPD and it's lackeys.

[Jimmy Haddow (SPS)]

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5194

I offer a 40 minute political introduction from the Deputy General Secretary of the Socialist Party from a meeting in July on how to fight the cuts, the Labour Party, is there a need for a new working class party, and the fight for socialism. See what you think?


The issue of Militant in the Labour Party now is a historical discussion and is not something that would be considered today, as you will see and hear if you watch the video. The Labour Party of today is totally different to the Labour Party 20 to 50 years ago. The Labour party today is no different from any other capitalist bourgeois political party in Britain. When in the past, the LP was a workers’ party at the bottom, and through the democratic structures, but with a pro-capitalist leadership. Left-wingers and socialists and trade unionists could work, and put socialist arguments, within the Labour Party in the past, they cannot today. I was a member of the Labour Party from 1980 to 1993 and while there was always a battle it was a battle of different socialist ideas on how one can interpret the ideological clause of the Labour Party, Clause 4 Part 4. That was the most important thing to the working class of Britain in the past and that the Labour Party was their party. Edward Miliband is putting proposals to reduce trade union representation in the Labour Party. I consider the Labour Affiliated trade unions should disaffiliate from the LP and use their political fund to set-up a new organisation for workers’ political representation.


Watch the video because I believe it gives a number answers to the genuine questions raised here and in the future over the question of the Labour Party

[Die Neue Zeit]

One of the points was countering the idea that the Labour party was the equivalent of Soviets in Britain. The article in the ICP's paper mentions it in brackets as one of the 'arcane' ideas which would be crazy to hold today and for that reason doesn't reproduce Murphy's counter-argument. Unfortunately, it seems the ICP hadn't counted on a certain Jack Conrad. But I think I'm digressing yet again so to get back to my original point.

You are not digressing at all. Please continue.


One fact which I think is quite pertinent is that in it's entire existence the Labour party has never, not once, officially supported a strike. There have been rogues who occasionally spoke out in favour of strikers, but on the whole the record is negative. The memory of 1926 is ingrained in quite a few people. The winter of discontent is another good example. They didn't even support the miners' strike during the Thatcher period! I'm quite aware at this point of rambling on in no particular direction, so I'd probably best stop, but I think you get my point - no support for the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class and their record of blood and betrayal from 1900 to the present!

Not even official support for a single strike? Well, that's Labourism, and of course what the UK workers and the left need today is at least Chartism, not Labour Mark II.


For the same reason that Militant entered the Labour Party, or why if you were a socialist in the 40s and 50s in France you would join the PCF - even if you were violently opposed to Stalinism. You are either in the working class movement or not, if you rejected the monopolist party of the movement then you were simply not a part of the movement.

"Monopolist party of the movement"? I like the sound of that, except that there's still no real party and no real movement. That is only the case when the two are identical.


This is the worst kind of parliamentary cretinism. What party may claim to represent the workers' movement at any particular moment, even if workers might vote for it en masse, is irrelevant. The majority of workers' in 1918 supported the SPD and even voted SPD delegates as leaders of the German workers' councils, so were the KPD or the KAPD which rejected the co-option of the movement and it's being dragged back onto the parliamentary terrain not properly part of the workers' movement? I don't think so, in fact I'd say they were more faithful expressions (Particularly the KAPD) of the movement than the SPD and it's lackeys.

The inter-war USPD was the best of both worlds. After the SPD's programmatic collapse, only the outstanding role model for left politics today that was the inter-war USPD could claim to be the German working class for itself, not just "claim to represent the workers movement" (keeping in mind mere labour movements vs. worker-class movements). The KAPD may have been properly part of the workers movement because it drew disillusioned members from both the KPD and the bigger parties, but not the ultra-left mistake that was the KPD. By immaturely splitting from the USPD and not using their majority within to boot out the renegades and SPD/MSPD ass-kissers, the KPD activists lost any claim to being part of the German worker-class movement.

[Zanthorus]

You are not digressing at all. Please continue.

Well there's not much more to continue. I couldn't find the ten points against Labour affiliation on the J. T. Murphy page on MIA. The article by the ICP which mentions them is on this page (http://www.international-communist-party.org/CommLeft/CL09.htm) (Skip to 'The Tactic of Affiliating the CPGB to the Labour Party' or alternatively search in the page for 'Soviet' and it's the fourth result). As I said the ICP thought the argument that the Labour party was akin to Soviets was too arcane to be considered seriously today so they didn't say anything more about it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ I was referring as well to Conrad's article(s) on the subject. How could he of all people think that Labour's branch meetings are like workers councils (it's a different story for branch meetings of worker-class party-movements, but we're talking about Labour here, which is neither worker-class nor a real party / real movement)?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Even if Blue Labour became hegemonic in the Party, I think if it somehow won power on this platform, it would fizzle fast unless of course there was a serious crisis in the UK. Immigrants are needed by big business and the bourgeoisie of Britain, being very dependent on finance capital is not going to submit to coporatism unless capital is being seriously challenged by the working class. I actually doubt Blue Labour could win. If there was a serious crisis of capitalism in the UK the Tories would probably adopt some of these corporatist guild socialist ideas. There is a strain of Toryism that is skeptical of the unfettered market and its tendency to degrade traditional values. The success of the BNP and EDL is that they remain wedded to traditional "British/English values," this is where Mosley's BUF and the National Front failed in winning over establishment figures from the Tory hard right. So basically Blue Labour is premature fascism. :lol:

Thankfully I'm not the only here who thinks Blue Labour is Britain's newest fascist tendency. :thumbup1:

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It's not a fascist tendency at all.

Firstly it exists only in theory, Ed Miliband has no expedited it as his official tendency.

Secondly, it has absolutely nothing to do with Fascism and that you think it does shows

>> your absolute ignorance of historical fascism, of its origins, definition and reality.

Shouting 'fascism' at any socially conservative, right-moving political turn does nothing to enhance our movement.

It's an insult to those who were gassed, shot and otherwise pillaged by fascism to use its name in such a callous, political manner.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't shout "fascism" at any socially conservative political turn. I am calling Blue Labour for what it is regarding its blatant call for corporatism in its "guild socialist" rehabilitation (not that Labour was never a social-corporatist dump), and only then when combined with socially conservative political turns can said corporatist turn be considered fascist.

[Feodor Augustus]

I don't shout "fascism" at any socially conservative political turn. I am calling Blue Labour for what it is regarding its blatant call for corporatism in its "guild socialist" rehabilitation (not that Labour was never a social-corporatist dump), and only then when combined with socially conservative political turns can said corporatist turn be considered fascist.

No, fascism is a mass movement that is predicated upon terrorism towards organised labour. Whereas Blue Labour is just good old fashioned social patriotism that has absolutely no influence over anyone bar a handful of bourgeois pseudo-intellectuals. That doesn't mean it isn't likely to hang around for some time like a bad smell though: the media seem quite found of giving Glasman's trite musings disproportionate coverage, the Guardian in particular.

As for the Labour Party itself, it was a broad church that drew in a number of different elements from the labour movement. This church, however, has been rapidly shrinking for most of its history, and for the past two decades in particular, the party has been led and controlled by people who are not in any way part of the labour movement. Yet this does not mean there are not still elements of the labour movement in the party, and how the most significant of these react over the next decade - i.e. whether the major affiliated unions will decide to keep funding the party - will have a big impact upon the shape and success of the next attempt at creating a new mass workers' party.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Whereas Blue Labour is just good old fashioned social patriotism that has absolutely no influence over anyone bar a handful of bourgeois pseudo-intellectuals. That doesn't mean it isn't likely to hang around for some time like a bad smell though: the media seem quite found of giving Glasman's trite musings disproportionate coverage, the Guardian in particular.

A lot of the detailed policies may not be popular at the moment, but the popular resentments fueling Blue Labour are, such as on immigration and crime. [I think Blue Labour's "family values" are artificial and not shared by most British workers, merely to cement socially conservative appeals overall.]

[Feodor Augustus]

A lot of the detailed policies may not be popular at the moment, but the popular resentments fueling Blue Labour are, such as on immigration and crime.

I don't disagree with this, but then this is not really what is under discussion.

What was under discussion was your classification of 'Blue Labour' as 'fascist', and while the 'popular resentments' you list can and do form the basis of fascist movements, they are not, in and of themselves, 'fascist'; and moreover, any political tendency that latches onto these resentments is also not 'fascist' by default. As I pointed out, fascism has a very distinctive characteristic: terrorism towards the labour movement. And while 'Blue Labour' is a cesspit of social conservatism, it is not a mass movement which aims to confront and attack the forces of organised labour.

German socialists too, in 1930-33, mistook social conservatism for fascism. However after the NSDAP seized power, they were under no such illusions. The difference was quite clear.

[genstrike]

For the same reason that Militant entered the Labour Party, or why if you were a socialist in the 40s and 50s in France you would join the PCF - even if you were violently opposed to Stalinism. You are either in the working class movement or not, if you rejected the monopolist party of the movement then you were simply not a part of the movement.

That's dumb. I'm not a member of my country's equivalent of the Labour Party, but I'm also a shop steward and an officer in my local. Am I somehow not part of the labour movement simply because I'm not a member of a political party which lied to me, increased my tuition fees, then froze my wages (which is essentially a wage cut)?