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BritishLeft
1st August 2013, 01:10
Hi guys, I've just joined earlier today and have recently just posted one of my articles as a thread on the Politics forum on scandalous proposals for pay rises to UK MPs.

I just thought I'd put a post on here also to introduce myself!

I'm a 17 year old student from Derby in the UK, the leftist scene of Derby is quite big with a strong Labour voting base (if you can call them leftist anymore) and also has regular presence from parties such as the Socialist Worker's Party (SWP) who propose petitions in the city centre and also try to get members of the public to join.

In all honesty, I am not as far left as many of the people on here and I would appreciate it if people respect that as I am not a pro-Capitalist by any stretch of the imagination. My political viewpoint is mostly shared by that of the very early Labour governments in the UK such as Ramsay MacDonald and also Clement Attlee as I believe in state nationalisation of large industry and in the welfare system which was so revolutionary at the time. As well as, proletariat dominance and class system liquidation (equal opportunities). I am becoming increasingly distressed in more modern times however at the series of austerity measures being introduced in the UK as well as big government spending cuts and benefits caps which deprive working class people from the support which the state not only should provide but owes the person in question.

My main political heroes are people like Aneurin Bevan (creator of the NHS in the UK and also big housing reformist who helped to increase living standards for many working class people in the UK in the post-war era), Clement Attlee (as discussed) and also agree with much of Lenin's agenda despite me not being as hardcore left as him. I am very critical of Stalin's regime and the harsh and relentless regime of Margaret Thatcher in the UK in the late 70s up until the early 90s which left a quite resounding legacy. After all, in the UK you can often find somebody's political viewpoint by simply asking if they think Margaret Thatcher was a good Prime Minister.

I have been a Leftist almost immediately since I became interested in politics in my early teens perhaps at 13/14. I became fascinated with the Soviet Union which I was not being taught wholly in my history classes. I began to understand how beneficial a society could be without the chains of capitalism and for most of my life I have been very hostile towards the Upper Class and the Elite. in society. However, I do believe in a more liberal sense of socialism as I have said and can also be quite critical of the ways in which the Soviet Union operated.

I am also quite decisive on my opinion on the European Union which arguably dominates public opinion more so in Britain than in any other European country. I believe that the European Union does promote the Capitalist theorem of economics and it is an unnecessary group of nations which is led by Franco-German imperialists who like to stick their nose into other countries affairs and we all have to abide by their rules.
I believe the UK should exit the EU and simply establish trade relations rather than be a pawn on the French chess board.

So that's basically my views in a nutshell, get in touch and say hi!

Q
1st August 2013, 01:16
Welcome :)

If you have political questions, you can ask them in the Learning forum. That's why it's there after all!

If you have questions about your account, don't hesitate to send me a PM or ask here.

There's plenty I disagree with, but welcome none the less :)

Quail
1st August 2013, 09:33
Hi, welcome to Revleft :) I grew up near Derby, although the only leftists I ever noticed around were the SWP so I didn't think there was much of a leftist "scene".

Sam_b
1st August 2013, 12:55
To be honest, I'm pretty uncomfortable with the argument that the UK is a "pawn on the French chess board", as if there is some sort of homogenous British 'national' interest. The notion that Britain is some sort of underling to German and French imperialism is also silly.

UncleLenin
1st August 2013, 13:07
Welcome to RevLeft. I have many similar beliefs that you have. I too research more about politics and political systems because we are not taught enough about it in school.

BritishLeft
1st August 2013, 13:14
To be honest, I'm pretty uncomfortable with the argument that the UK is a "pawn on the French chess board", as if there is some sort of homogenous British 'national' interest. The notion that Britain is some sort of underling to German and French imperialism is also silly.
Yeah you do have a very valid point sam_b, I am personally in favour of Scottish independence myself and believe that in Scotland the views on the EU would be much more tolerant as if Scotland were to establish itself independently I can't see them progressing far without European support.
I do think people definitely in England and perhaps Wales do support withdrawal from the EU, for various reasons but I just see England as instinctively being an anti-EU nation in terms of public opinion.
Maybe I'm wrong but I do think that imperialism does still exist in most of the big EU countries including Britain but more in the EU with the French and Germans who have more influence in EU affairs.

Anti-Traditional
1st August 2013, 13:18
Welcome to RevLeft. I have many similar beliefs that you have. I too research more about politics and political systems because we are not taught enough about it in school.

If you heard about it in school you'd only be taught what they want you to know or a highly idealised version of it. It's better off that they don't teach it IMO.

BritishLeft
1st August 2013, 13:23
Thank you UncleLenin. This curriculum particularly in history is so focused on solving fascism with hardcore American capitalism which can be as oppressive.
I believe curriculum should certainly in England consider social change which has occurred from the more reformist Labour governments, policies like the NHS and the Beveridge Report have changed the life of millions yet this is not significant in Secondary Education?

Also I was wondering what the history and political curriculum is like in Ireland and also in a Catholic school?

Sam_b
1st August 2013, 14:10
Yeah you do have a very valid point sam_b, I am personally in favour of Scottish independence myself and believe that in Scotland the views on the EU would be much more tolerant as if Scotland were to establish itself independently I can't see them progressing far without European support.
I do think people definitely in England and perhaps Wales do support withdrawal from the EU, for various reasons but I just see England as instinctively being an anti-EU nation in terms of public opinion.

My point was more that the 'British interests' of the ruling class are not the interests of either workers in the UK or workers in Europe.


Maybe I'm wrong but I do think that imperialism does still exist in most of the big EU countries including Britain but more in the EU with the French and Germans who have more influence in EU affairs.

British imperialism is greater and more profound than the 'imperialism' of Germany and France's involvement in the Eurozone, even if we do take into consideration WSWS's (I think problematic) article 'The Return of German Imperialism' (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/02/21/pers-f21.html). Rather than using such language, and trying to base it on 'nation versus nation' little Englandism, we should be making the argument that the EU is a neoliberal organisation which is trying to entrench this by the crisis of capital which hurts all workers.

To say that Britain is a pawn of French interest is incorrect in the extreme and ignores centuries of history.

BritishLeft
1st August 2013, 14:27
Oh right! I apologise on the British 'national' interest part, personally I thought you meant that the views of the nations within the UK would differ rather than having a communal British agreement on the EU but you're right about the ruling class views differing from workers views just as Marx discussed when he talked about workers sharing more in common with people from different nations with the same class than people from the same country with a different social class.

The imperialism thing is something I have been mulling over and do take your point but also disagree with some of it.

Sam_b
1st August 2013, 14:38
If you disagree then let's hear it! This is a discussion forum after all - maybe consider making a thread on it.

BritishLeft
1st August 2013, 14:39
If you disagree then let's hear it! This is a discussion forum after all - maybe consider making a thread on it.
Good idea! I will make a thread sometime later on and I'll message you or reply to you on here.

OHumanista
1st August 2013, 16:52
Welcome to Revleft. I was kinda like you a few years ago before I radicalized my views. And though I am now a leninist (trotskyist) I do agree on you that one also needs to be critical of the Soviet Union. (not blindly critical but still critical)

Ace High
1st August 2013, 17:42
Hey, welcome! I disagree with alot of your views but I do like the fact that you are critical of Stalin and the USSR. Enjoy the forums :D

Petrol Bomb
1st August 2013, 19:46
Greetings, and welcome to RevLeft.

BritishLeft
1st August 2013, 20:40
Welcome to Revleft. I was kinda like you a few years ago before I radicalized my views. And though I am now a leninist (trotskyist) I do agree on you that one also needs to be critical of the Soviet Union. (not blindly critical but still critical)
Yeah I think that my views are probably what a lot of budding socialists would once have believed before adapting to Trotskyism and Marxist-Leninism, personally it's probably the other way round if I'm honest, I did fully relate with the ideas of the Marx and USSR but have become less radical in recent years

The real Fabians
3rd August 2013, 01:33
i was lucky as my history GCSE actually covered China 1946-76 around Mao.

The Idler
5th August 2013, 21:01
The USSR acted nothing like according to Marxist principles. Nor is British (or French) nationalism qualitatively different to Scottish nationalism. Me and Sam_b discussed this in a revleft topic a couple of weeks ago.

Popular Front of Judea
5th August 2013, 21:10
Any ways welcome to the forum. Thoughtful posters are always welcome.