Meacher Throws Hat In Ring

[Hit The North]

So, looks like loony leftwing socialist property developer, Michael Meacher has decided to contest the Labour Party leadership.

Guardian Unlimited (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,2018634,00.html)

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Politics/Pix/pictures/2002/05/19/128meacher.jpg

Is it me, or does he look a bit like Che in that picture? :D

[The Feral Underclass]

The guys a joke. He'll never succeed. Ever.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

Well, he is for £7 p/h minimum wage and re-nationalisation of the railways.

better than anything else labour can muster.

The undemocratic nature of the Labour party means that he's literally got no chance.

[()(]

If McDonnell wins Ill join the labour party

[Hit The North]

Why on Earth would you want to do that?

[Sir Aunty Christ]

Seriously, the Labour Party's a lost cause. There's an interview in this week's New Statesman with Alan Johnston - who's running for the deputy leadership - and I actually quaked with fury when I read that he was the only high-ranking union leader to vote for scrapping Clause 4.

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

Originally posted by Sir Aunty [email protected] 23, 2007 06:30 pm
Seriously, the Labour Party's a lost cause. There's an interview in this week's New Statesman with Alan Johnston - who's running for the deputy leadership - and I actually quaked with fury when I read that he was the only high-ranking union leader to vote for scrapping Clause 4.
Johnson is a contemptible cock shredder... My history of the labour party might be a bit suspect, was clause four the clause which promoted the goal of cooperative control of the means of production? And then Blair replaced it with some ambiguous mumbling about values and aims and long term goals...

Meacher sounds like a total douche, he's going to split the labour left vote and McDonnell, despite being another douche would have been far more suited...

If McDonnell were to win I'd probably consider voting labour just to cast an anti-tory vote... Although I'd probably just abstain.

[Sir Aunty Christ]

Clause 4 committed the Labour Party to nationalisation so, yes, without this it's not socialism.

McDonnell seems by far the most "socialist" of the potential candidates and because of this, unfortunately, he seems the most unlikely to win. Off course that's not a reflection on him - just on the moral bankruptcy of the Labour Party.

[seraphim]

Oh my life it just gets worse by the day the Labour party leadership race is just a farce, much like the entire party.

[Angry Young Man]

I've never quite understood why some Marxists feel the need to join the Labour Party. It is not socialistic: the workers didn't have control of the nationalised industries. That was put into the hands of bureaucrats. Furthermore, where was there a Labour govt that proclaimed Britain a socialist country? Did Attlee or Wilson a - do away completely with the old capitalist class, along with their hegemony and wealth; or b - make the workers a little bit more comfortable to avert revolution. No self-respecting socialist should ever have joined the labour party, even if it brings bnack Clause IV.

Love CG
x x

[The Grey Blur]

Why shouldn't we have joined the LP when it was a mass worker's party? You need to be with the working-class in it's day-to-day struggles to win their support and this is what Communists did in England. Communism has no "principles" other than revolution - compromise and differing tactics are part of this. Of course though we should always retain an independent political stance and the ability to criticise the bourgeois lackeys at the head of the party.

"We support labour like a rope supports a hanging man" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch09.htm)

Today I'm not so sure whether the LP is a mass working-class party, I am still coming up with my own thoughts on it.

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by Sir Aunty [email protected] 23, 2007 06:30 pm
Seriously, the Labour Party's a lost cause. There's an interview in this week's New Statesman with Alan Johnston - who's running for the deputy leadership - and I actually quaked with fury when I read that he was the only high-ranking union leader to vote for scrapping Clause 4.
Johnson is a **** for what's been outlined above. However in recent years there's been a swing to the left in the unions. Jeremy Dear for instance of the NUJ is very left wing as is the PCS leadership. As the working class has reawakened and strikes have come about unsusprisingly so the leadership has been forces to change.

The reason marxists work inside the Labour Party is that it is the traditional mass working class party. No it has never been a socialist party as such. However we are not purists. We are meant to fight alongside the working class and attempt to radicalise within their ranks, thats what work in the Labour Party is all about. The John Mcdonell leadership campaign has attracted significant support, and rekindered the left thankfully. Meacher is a farce, him standing is a ploy to take votes from Mcdonell. We should be supporting John Mcdonell. He has a far more left wing program and over and above that enjoys the support of the trade union movements broad left, and other consciousworking class elements.

[bezdomni]

You need to be with the working-class in it's day-to-day struggles to win their support and this is what Communists did in England.

The workers don't need communists to engage in their day-to-day struggles at the workplace or in the labor party. They have historically done that perfectly fine without communists, and the continue to unionize and such perfectly well without us.

That's not to say that we should be completely detatched from the daily struggle of the workers, but it is not our primary means of organizing the working class - nor will it bring us any closer to revolution.

I agree with you that our ultimate goal is revolution, but this is better achieved by organizing the masses outside of the traditional parties. Our job is to antagonize the capitalist system and propagate among the masses to work up support for a communist revolution.

Class consciousness does not mean spending all of our time bickering in the unions about wages - class consciousness means understanding the nature of the wages we are paid and fighting against it.