UK - Fascists Beat Socialists / Comms in Elections nearly 10 /1

[00000000000]

Found these figures quite worrying and fascinating.

No of votes cast in UK general election 2010 - 29,691,780

No of votes for far-left / socialist / communist parties - 62,466
(Shared between 8 parties; inc Respect - Unity Coalition, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, Communist Party of Britain.
Total no of candiates for all parties; 101 )

No of votes for far-right / fascist / nationalist parties - 574,527
(Shared between 2 parties; British National Party and National Front.
Total no of candidates for all parties; 355)

Now, I know many will say that on the whole, the movement isn't about electoral success, it's for revolutionary change. But still, it's a strong indicator in terms of how many people were willing to support the fractured Left parties compared to the xenaphobic, homophobic, nationalist BNP and NF.

The Left are on the fringes of the fringe in terms of popular support, it seems.

[Tommy4ever]

You forgot UKIP.

Things are bad, very bad.

[00000000000]

You forgot UKIP.

Things are bad, very bad.

Ah, good point...including UKIP takes the Rights vote share up by another 900,000 or so

:crying:

[Die Neue Zeit]

No group seems to have the guts to form a British Die Linke with bits of Latin American "21st century socialism" here and there.

Such a formation should, by the way, reject coalitionism.

[citizen of industry]

How many on the left vote though? And how many leftists endorsed electoral candidates? Most socialist parties I'm aware of don't run candidates, and only occasionally support those that do run. And that doesn't take into account many anarchists who don't support any candidates. Plus, the ones that do run usually only do so to improve their party profile and get the word out, and that in local elections and not national ones. How about all the minors who can't vote and yet have political views? And what about the middle strata? That's where the majority is. How many petty bourgeoisie are being forced into the proletariat? I'm looking at only two fascist parties, how many parties exist on the left? How is the trade union situation? What are the barriers to registering as a party for voters? In the US they are very strict. The voting system is rigged towards the established parties and is not democratic in any sense. Bourgeoisie voting results are skewed. How tight is the united front between left-wing parties? What about activists who don't yet consider themselves socialist - environmentalists, LGBT, Feminists, anti-war, etc. I wouldn't guage the entire left based on these statistics.

[00000000000]

I wouldn't guage the entire left based on these statistics.

No sure, not saying this means the Left in the UK are completely dead in the water, but it does hint towards a state of affairs where they do not enjoy a great deal of support..various groups can get a fair few bodies on the streets for protests etc but compared to the established political parties and more liberal groups, their presence isn't really felt

[Matty_UK]

You forgot UKIP.

Things are bad, very bad.

But you're forgetting that a lot of Green voters are socialist, the vast majority of the Labour Party's support base is to the left of the leadership and at least in some parts of the country largely identifies as socialist, a great deal of socialists do not vote, and even the Lib Dems had a lot of confused social democrats voting for them in 2010. In Scotland, the SNP were elected as a left wing alternative to Labour.

The poor electoral performance of socialist parties merely reflects their failure to overcome a sectarian mentality and to get their house in order, and does not reflect an overwhelmingly rightist population. I would never bother to vote for one of these small leftist parties because they are too weak to be politically credible, and there are quite a few people who may even be activists for some of these groups who have the same attitude. If they could put aside their petty differences and create a united front as a credible electoral platform I think they could win a lot of support. In fact, support for the Labour Party is now so superficial, resting entirely on hatred for the Tory Party, that as soon as a credible leftist party is established it is almost certain that the Labour Party will disappear virtually overnight.

[Wanted Man]

No matter whether they are "united" or divided into 8 lists, the UK left's participation in elections is a bit of a joke. Elections are more than just a straight-up sum of support that one particular party or ideology enjoys. Voting for a party can be quite different from joining one. The left parties in Britain can activate a few thousand people, but the problem is that they don't enjoy any sympathy outside of that group of people that is already active for them. I'm willing to bet that most people here who are active in a left party don't have many relatives or friends who are, that they are isolated politically. So that's a pretty thin base. On the other hand, sympathy for the idea of socialism, as noted above, is probably a bit higher than the amount of votes for far-left electoral lists, but they vote for different parties for all sorts of reasons.

A party like the BNP is a household name, known for many decades, that offers a clear and coherent program and a base electorate that will get them this amount of votes, although a seat in Westminster is unlikely under the current system. The left parties, on the other hand, are either totally unknown parties on their own, or they've just formed some opportunistic "coalition" that nobody's ever heard of. Quite frankly, there's simply no reason to vote for any of those eight left lists if you're not a member of one of its constituent parties.

Of course, I'm also willing to bet that none of the left parties would really allow another the credits. If, in some alternate universe, the CPB was the only one that ran candidates, then I bet a lot of people here would be calling for a "strategic" Labour vote. If a new "coalition" was created including the SPEW but not the SWP (or the other way around; it's just an example), the same would probably happen.

[bricolage]

but how many workers have been on strike, have rioted through london, how many students have occupied universities and so forth and so forth...

obviously the strength of organisations claiming to represent the interests of the class will vary based on the strength of the class itself, I'd guess you could trace a chart of every left group going up starting at the end of the 60s, further up around the miners strikes of 72 & 74, peaking sometime between there and the winter of discontent and remaining at that level-ish during the miners strike but falling after and further falling after wapping etc, staying at dramatically low levels (or collapsing) throughout the 90s and early 2000s but going up slightly in the last few years. the point is that the 'far-left' and the 'far-right' see their strength of public support tend to go up during points of social/economic conflict and/or breakdown and how the class responds to it, the point them comes at whether the ball falls with the former and social insurrection or the latter and the forces of reaction. to seem contradictory I'm not sure how much the former actually depends on how well the left does in elections.

[bricolage]

No group seems to have the guts to form a British Die Linke with bits of Latin American "21st century socialism" here and there.
Probably because it's just something you've made up and noone else knows/cares about.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ That's not my exclusive idea. :glare:

[bricolage]

^^^ That's not my exclusive idea. :glare:
Ok, please explain what a 'British Die Linke with bits of Latin American "21st century socialism" here and there' would be, where it has been articulated by others, how you envisage the organisation coming into existence, how it would be any different to the pre-existing myriad of left groups and how you expect it to gain the support that said groups have been unable to attain.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

There is also the issue that many, many people who vote Labour are in actual fact left-wingers, and that it is an absolute failure of the revolutionary left not to have carried the support of such Labour voters, even as Labour has moved so far to the right that even Socially Democratic 'Capitalism with a smiley face' is too left wing for that wretched party to countenance these days.

We need to agitate amongst these voters in the Trade Unions and educate them in Marxist thought, in order to support any future effort they make to force their will upon the TUC in leaving the Labour Party. I imagine that the only way a new party of Socialists will be formed in the UK is if the Trades Union movement in its entirety leaves the ranks of the Labour Party.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

No group seems to have the guts to form a British Die Linke with bits of Latin American "21st century socialism" here and there.

That's because no group is stupid enough to believe that mixing the politics of turncoats like Bernstein and reformists like Allende and Chavez can somehow turn into revolutionary Socialism.

Well, some are stupid enough. Their entryism got kicked out of the Labour Party for their troubles and they now run a small party in England and Wales that advocates a 35 hour week and nationalisations here and there.:rolleyes:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Ok, please explain what a 'British Die Linke with bits of Latin American "21st century socialism" here and there' would be, where it has been articulated by others, how you envisage the organisation coming into existence, how it would be any different to the pre-existing myriad of left groups and how you expect it to gain the support that said groups have been unable to attain.

Like the Socialist Labour Party, the "British Die Linke with bits of Latin American '21st century socialism' here and there" might reiterate the Old Labour Clause Four. From there, though, radical economic planks would be fleshed out, unlike under Old Labour.

This has been articulated by some of the left chatterers in the Guardian who are pissed with Labour and the Lib Dems but who aren't supportive of the Greens, for example. The emergence of such a party could attract the hopefully-working-class "watermelons" (green outside, red inside) currently supporting the Green party, provided environmental issues are addressed adequately.

It would be different to the current left groups because:

1) It would eschew "trade union" links and be more like continental socialism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/there-difference-between-t159113/index.html?p=2202520#post2202520) (as noted by comrade Q);
2) It would reject coalitionism, unlike some tendencies in Die Linke;
3) It might set up union fronts of its own, like the Communist Party of Greece has done;
4) It might emulate the (albeit reformist) Japanese Communist Party's excellent work amongst the precariat; and
5) It might restrict voting membership to those who are in the workforce or who are pensioners.

I didn't mention above the possibility of the new organization setting up Alternative Culture institutions, because that would really set it apart from the stubbornness of existing left formations on this question.


I imagine that the only way a new party of Socialists will be formed in the UK is if the Trades Union movement in its entirety leaves the ranks of the Labour Party.

Which is what I opposed above.


That's because no group is stupid enough to believe that mixing the politics of turncoats like Bernstein and reformists like Allende and Chavez can somehow turn into revolutionary Socialism.

Like you said, though, "There is also the issue that many, many people who vote Labour are in actual fact left-wingers," but these people are more reform-oriented. I'm talking about a generic left-of-Labour formation.

[bricolage]

Ok, please explain what a 'British Die Linke with bits of Latin American "21st century socialism" here and there' would be
So all we've got so far is Old Labour without the trade union links?

where it has been articulated by others
Some vague allusions to Guardian journalists.

how you envisage the organisation coming into existence
Nothing.

how it would be any different to the pre-existing myriad of left groups
The point here was how it would get out of wallowing in its own ghetto like the left groups now do and I haven't seen anything to go either way yet.

and how you expect it to gain the support that said groups have been unable to attain.
The argument seems to be it would attract members of the Green party or provide alternative culture... despite the fact that such a minuscule group would be unable to do such a thing on the level you envisage.

[Hit The North]

I imagine that the only way a new party of Socialists will be formed in the UK is if the Trades Union movement in its entirety leaves the ranks of the Labour Party.

But that would hardly be a step forward if the trade union bureaucracy is again in charge of the agenda as it has traditionally been in the Labour Party. Any new party has to come from the ranks of ordinary workers. The question we need to ask is whether there is a demand inside the class for a new workers party based on socialist politics. The answer at the moment would sadly appear to be 'no'.

However, this demand usually rises during large struggles and so there is very chance things will improve over time. I therefore agree with El Granma's insistence that revolutionaries need to maintain agitation within the class, but this should be on the basis of drawing out the revolutionary lessons from the struggle, not on the basis of trying to provide electoral recipes. As revolutionaries the real knowledge we have for workers is not that they need better representation in the bourgeois state but that the bourgeois state must be confronted and smashed as a step to securing their interests.

[Die Neue Zeit]

As revolutionaries the real knowledge we have for workers is not that they need better representation in the bourgeois state but that the bourgeois state must be confronted and smashed as a step to securing their interests.

You lost me there. :confused:

An immediate "knowledge" is precisely that the broader working class needs robust representation (not delegation) in the political affairs of society to securing its interests. By "political affairs of society," this means both within the bounds of the bourgeois state apparatus and outside those bounds.

Further confrontation with the bourgeois state apparatus leading to the seizure of ruling-class power is a further step to securing more long-term interests. Your post comes across as anarchistic, to be honest.

[RED DAVE]

An immediate "knowledge" is precisely that the broader working class needs better representation (not delegation) in the political affairs of society to securing its interests.This is liberalism or social democracy. The working class doesn't need any fucking " better representation (not delegation)," it needs the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism by its own hand.


By "political affairs of society," this means both within the bounds of the bourgeois state apparatus and outside those bounds.Whatever the fuck that means. Doubtless you will explain it in your inimitable way.


Further confrontation with the bourgeois state apparatus is a further step to securing more long-term interests. Your post comes across as anarchistic, to be honest.The only way the working class can secure its long-term interests is the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism

You are coming across more and more as a social democrat.

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

This is liberalism or social democracy. The working class doesn't need any fucking " better representation (not delegation)," it needs the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism by its own hand.

It's liberalism or social democracy if the "representatives" are in fact not engaged in working-class occupations (or even have a working-class background at all), like consultants, lawyers, small business owners, office managers, tenured profs with subordinate research staff, the Student Left, etc.

I'm also referring to immediate goals, not long-term goals.


Whatever the fuck that means. Doubtless you will explain it in your inimitable way.

Spoilage campaigns, civil disobedience campaigns, etc.


The only way the working class can secure its long-term interests is the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism

You are coming across more and more as a social democrat.

The first part is correct, but the second is as off the mark as usual.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It would be different to the current left groups because:

1) It would eschew "trade union" links and be more like continental socialism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/there-difference-between-t159113/index.html?p=2202520#post2202520) (as noted by comrade Q);
2) It would reject coalitionism, unlike some tendencies in Die Linke;
3) It might set up union fronts of its own, like the Communist Party of Greece has done;
4) It might emulate the (albeit reformist) Japanese Communist Party's excellent work amongst the precariat; and
5) It might restrict voting membership to those who are in the workforce or who are pensioners.


Like you said, though, "There is also the issue that many, many people who vote Labour are in actual fact left-wingers," but these people are more reform-oriented. I'm talking about a generic left-of-Labour formation.

Luckily, you said that such a group left-of-labour you desire so much might be different to current left groups, rather than better, because the latter epithet would be absolutely wrong.:rolleyes:

Your 5 points essentially lay out your desire to see a new left party that isn't based on the support - economically and numerically [of the members] - of the largest organised section of the working class in the UK, that, in your own words, "emulates reformism", and restricts democracy to exclude the unemployed (who are clearly numerous in a struggling Capitalist economy such as we have now), to exclude students and others who cannot work yet are most certainly working class.

As i've said in other threads, such poor ideas are an absolute affront to democracy and are thus alien to Socialism. As someone said, your views are looking more and more like a mix of Social Democracy, Bureaucratic elitism and self-admiration for your own convoluted, confused, far-flung-from-reality views.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Luckily, you said that such a group left-of-labour you desire so much might be different to current left groups, rather than better, because the latter epithet would be absolutely wrong.:rolleyes:

It would be better, in fact.


Your 5 points essentially lay out your desire to see a new left party that isn't based on the support - economically and numerically [of the members] - of the largest organised section of the working class in the UK

Oftentimes the tred-iunion movement has interests apart from those of the working class as a whole.


that, in your own words, "emulates reformism"

You twisted my words. I combined a criticism of the JCP's blatant reformism with their otherwise excellent work amongst younger segments of the Japanese precariat, hence "emulate the (albeit reformist) Japanese Communist Party's excellent work amongst the precariat."

Look at the literature that the JCP's mass media apparatus has produced, for example. Amongst self-proclaimed left organizations, the JCP probably has the biggest in the world.


and restricts democracy to exclude the unemployed (who are clearly numerous in a struggling Capitalist economy such as we have now), to exclude students and others who cannot work yet are most certainly working class.

Not everyone in the workforce is employed. That's basic labour economics: Employed <-> Unemployed and looking for work <-> Out of the workforce.

Students with part-time jobs a very likely working class, so I'm OK with voting membership for them. You should know already what I mean derisively by "Student Left."

[Nox]

The right is getting dangerously popular over here in the UK, I heard that the BNP is the UK's fastest growing party.

[Hit The North]

It's liberalism or social democracy if the "representatives" are in fact not engaged in working-class occupations (or even have a working-class background at all), like consultants, lawyers, small business owners, office managers, tenured profs with subordinate research staff, the Student Left, etc.


Whether it is liberal or social democratic does not depend upon the class origin of the representatives, but on the position it takes on the questions of the nature of capitalism and its state and working class power. If a strategy operates on the basis that the working class can secure its interests through improving its participation in the political life of the nation, without opposing itself to the capitalist state, then it is liberal and social democratic (among other things), but it is not revolutionary.


Spoilage campaigns, civil disobedience campaigns, etc.

But both of these necessitate opposition to the capitalist or the state.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The right is getting dangerously popular over here in the UK, I heard that the BNP is the UK's fastest growing party.

No, it's about to implode.

I'd rather spend my time fighting the right-wing of the establishment - the Tory & Lib Dem government and the media propaganda machine - than spend time bigging up a threat which, whilst it exists, is not even comparable currently as a threat to working class people.

It seems as though some in our movement, whilst honourable comrades, seem to enjoy bigging up the fash just so they can go and have a fight with them in the street.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Whether it is liberal or social democratic does not depend upon the class origin of the representatives, but on the position it takes on the questions of the nature of capitalism and its state and working class power.

The latter was already a given when I posted "robust representation." I wanted to add class backgrounds because both backgrounds and program are important.


But both of these necessitate opposition to the capitalist or the state.

But they don't necessitate overthrow, contrary to what the sloganeering agitator Red Dave said.

[Sam_b]

I really don't understand this thread that much, if i'm honest. It seems boringly usual - a thread pointing to election figures of the left in the UK and being described as 'worrying', 'a defeat' or whatever. The fact of the matter, and OP i'm sorry if this isn't true but it smacks of it, is that these threads tend to be started by outside observers who have no real organisational or campaign basis amongst the class (and specifically anti-cuts) movement in the country.

First on the elections. The obvious point is who cares? 'We' as in the left should never have been in this game to try and amount a political challenge through a weighted ruling-class electoral system. We should be standing in elections - but what is the most important thing here? Elections allow us a platform - winning is indeed a bonus but not why we participate. We have to ask ourselves as revolutionaries how much of our aims we would actually achieve by being bogged down in such bureaucracy anyway.

Secondly, 2010 was an election where many opted to vote alongside their class interests. Why did the vote go up for Labour in Scotland, for instance? Because of the very real thread of a Tory government most people went back to voting what they know. Under Thatcherism many students and young people would vote Labour, but this time commanded a sizeable chunk of the Lib Dem/Green vote. The left was, unsurprisingly, squeezed out. This is not 'worrying' as much as it is annoying that no clear agenda was actually advocated by the left and visibility suffered.

But let's tackle the real question here - is the left in apparently some sort of crisis? Not particularly. If the students in December showed, or the fact we've had our biggest demonstration in Trade Union history on March 26th is anything to go by, there is an increase in class consciousness specifically around the anti-cuts issue; with more and more going out and organising to defend public services and to try and stop the Tories sending us back to Victorian times. Organisations can gripe that they've been outflanked at times by more autonomous strains, but this is an organisational and strategic question we need to engage with. In the East End of Glasgow on Saturday 500 people braved the rain to go to the Save the Accord Centre demonstration - a local service being axed by the council. October 1st's STIC demo will likely push 10,000 in Glasgow as well. Groups like Coalition of Resistance are increasingly pushing the question. So I think at a time where class consciousness has been higher than a lot of the tailend of the 1990s/early 2000s I'm not going to buy into scaremongering about how we do electorally. It matters what we do in our communities, Trade Unions - working class activity - rather than how we do on a so-called 'democratic' choice every four or five years.