Left Unity?

[Jacky Hearts]

So my mate asked me to come along to some meeting with a group called Left Unity. After a quick Google around it seems they want to base themselves of Syriza, which, as you can see by the fact I've made an account on RevLeft, isn't something that appeals to me.

But does anyone have any input on the sort of crowd that might be going? Wondering if it would be worth my time when I'm in the middle of exam season, if I wasn't I'd probably just go to check it out myself anyway.

[#FF0000]

Ha, actually most folks on here take a dim view to Syriza (myself included). I think Left Unity is interesting, though and worth looking into. I know the folks at the Weekly Worker are involved with them, at some level.

[Jacky Hearts]

Ha, actually most folks on here take a dim view to Syriza (myself included). I think Left Unity is interesting, though and worth looking into. I know the folks at the Weekly Worker are involved with them, at some level.

I actually meant to say isn't something that appeals to me. And now I feel like a dumb fuck.

[#FF0000]

I actually meant to say isn't something that appeals to me. And now I feel like a dumb fuck.

Hahah, don't.

But I'd look into it, maybe. I'd look into it long before looking into the SWP or the other typical socialist orgs out there.

[Q]

Left Unity is an interesting initiative as it actually tries to unite people from different traditions into a common party. On that count alone it towers above something like TUSC, which only exists during elections. It also allows for multiple platforms, the Weekly Worker people have founded the Communist Platform (http://communistplatform.org.uk/) and regularly provide a critical opposition to differing positions of the party.

[Left Voice]

Left Unity sets out to be a 'broad church' left party, and I do think they try to be that. However, the party was formed on the back of Ken Loch's Spirit of '45 film, which is about the nationalisation of major industry and formation of the NHS by the Labour Party after the Second World War, and laments its destruction by Thatcherites. The party from the outset was intended to recreate the 1940s era 'old Labour' party. Thus, it is reformist from the outset. Their broad church 'unity' outlook is founded on the idea that the failure of the British left is due to its fragmentation (the old 'People's Front of Judea' problem), and how the left might be stronger in the UK if is wasn't for this. I disagree with this diagnosis, but it's a valiant effort to try to build a replacement for the Labour Party.

Like any such broad church party however, the leadership is significantly less revolutionary than much of the supporter base. There are various different platforms within the party such as the Left Party Platform, Class Struggle Platform, the Communist Platform etc., which seem to operate like debating factions within the party The Communist Platform is headed by the Communist Party of Great Britiain (Provisional Central Committee) and is the closest platform within the party to being a truely revolutionary one. An awful lot of their Weekly Worker (http://weeklyworker.co.uk/) publication is devoted to their struggles within Left Unity against the more reformist leadership such as Kate Hudson. They get a lot of stick for being quite assertive in challenging other members of Left Unity, get kicked out of meetings all the time for hurting feelings etc.

It pretty much demonstrates the inevitable flaw in any broad church party - it essentially operates on the basis that we can all eventually convert other leftists to our point of view if we were to just talk about it, because we're only a little different, right? This doesn't quite work when you have a mixture of revolutionaries and reformists.

I had a lot of hope for them as a Labour Party alternative, especially when some unions were talking about defecting, but their electorial success since formation has been dismal. They haven't even had the confidence to campaign on their own platform, instead campaigning as their member parties.