The Scotsman, 01/06/01 Rainbow comrades in new Left challenge GEORGE KEREVAN A COUPLE of years ago, I found myself attending the funeral of the Scottish miners' leader Mick McGahey, that crusty old follower of Uncle Joe Stalin. The gathering was attended by all the different denominations of the Left - Stalinists, Trots, Maoists, Social Democrats. Most of them, in earlier years, would happily have put each other up against the proverbial wall. Now they were huddling together for ideological warmth. There was also the odd apostate like myself, there for old time's sake. The affair was more of a wake for socialism than a simple tribute to Mick. There were too many of us to all get into the crematorium and, inevitably, it began to rain. Some romantic soul struck up a rendition of the Internationale in order to keep up the collective spirits. We all tried to join in, but it soon became apparent that few of us could remember the words. The exception was one individual who had long since abandoned the Fourth International for a berth as a Blairite Commissar. I noticed she banged it out in order to embarrass the rest of us. However, as Dr Marx himself noted, the Old Mole of the Revolution has a habit of popping up again just when you think he is well and truly written off. Now, amid the clouds of apathy generated by this general election, the comrades are on the march again. For this is the first British election in many long decades when Labour is facing a credible, if small, challenge from the Left. In Scotland, we are already used to Tommy Sheridan's Scottish Socialist Party. But after a strong showing in the London Assembly elections a year ago, a similar umbrella group called the Socialist Alliance is standing in nearly 100 seats across England and Wales. Ken Loach has directed their television broadcast. Three things make the SSP and the SA different from previous electoral forays of the far Left. First, they are rainbow coalitions bringing together all the different shades of red who, in earlier years, spent more time fighting each other than the bourgeoisie. Even old sectarians such as the Socialist Workers Party have joined in. Second, this new Left is actually winning votes. Sheridan was elected to Holyrood and the SA in England actually retained its deposit in the recent Tottenham and Preston by-elections. Third, because of this success, there is now somewhere for disgruntled Labour activists to go. Folk such as the former Labour Party NEC member, Liz Davis, plus a smattering of ex-Labour local councillors. And there is trade-union backing from the RMT general secretary, Bob Crow, and NUJ president, Dave Toomer. OK, so the SSP/SA are unlikely to overthrow capitalism, but that is not the point. They represent the British end of a recomposition of the international, anti-capitalist Left which has accelerated since the famous Seattle riots against the World Trade Organisation in 1999. It is already a pole of attraction for the young, for trade unionists and for intellectuals in a Western world where the democratic process is being poisoned by spin doctors. And, most seriously, it is starting to pose an electoral threat to the parties of the Third Way, by potentially splitting their vote and letting in the Right. This is already coming to pass in France. At the start of the year, the French socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, looked a dead cert to win next year's presidential election. Then came the municipal elections on 18 March, when the Right won dozens of cities from the Left and Mr Jospin's most prominent cabinet ministers were defeated. But dig down deeper and you find that in many areas a new alliance of the French far Left, similar to the SSP/SA in Britain, has been taking serious votes away from Jospin's coalition of socialists, moderate greens and the husk of the old communist party. Thus letting in the Right. Formed around two old feuding denominations of French Trots who have sunk their minuscule differences - Lutte Ouvriere and the League Communiste Revolutionaire - the new anti-capitalist slate is not only squeezing Jospin, it is winning seats. A white-haired and paunchy Alain Krivine, once charismatic leader of the Paris student uprising of May 1968, is now one of four French Trotskyist MEPs. Once upon a time, the French far Left happily stood down in the traditional second round of voting in each election, so as not to split the left-wing vote. But a combination of the gradual abandonment of even social democratic pretensions by the international Blairites, plus the scent of winning seats by the new far Left, has taken that old tacit alliance off the agenda. Hence the French municipal election results, where the anti-capitalist coalition was often clocking up votes in double figures and even electing local councillors. A similar fracture on the Left in the French presidential elections will dish Jospin's chances of the �lys�e Palace, and he knows it. Hence the workerist overtones to his recent speech on the future of the European Union. But the new Left is less willing to play ball than in the old days because it no longer believes that urging its supporters to vote reformist actually works. Across Europe, there is ample evidence that traditional socialist or communist voters who are turned off by Blairism and its clones will vent their frustrations, if given no other radical choice, by supporting the fascist Right. This process saw the rise of Le Pen's National Front in France and the Northern League in Italy. Much of Le Pen's support actually came from the disintegrating French communist party as the latter embraced Jospin's form of Blairism. One palpable reason why the French National Front and the Northern League are now losing support is that voters have a radical alternative on the anti-capitalist left. A neglected phenomenon in recent British politics is the non-appearance of any similar populist, racist, right-wing party. There are, of course, mechanical reasons for this. The absence of proportional representation in Westminster elections makes it difficult for new parties to get a foothold. But there is more to it than that. The much-maligned media has actually maintained a collective opposition to any such current. And while William Hague has displayed lamentable tactical skills in attempting to make banning asylum-seekers an election issue, nevertheless, the Tory party is not racist at heart. In general, it has policed any tendency for a fascist Right to develop. You might loathe William Hague, but during the petrol blockades of last autumn he resisted joining the protesters and calling people on to the streets. Image how Le Pen would have behaved. The result is that there might well be a big market in Britain for the anti-system sentiments of the SSP/SA. Blairism has created a nomenclatura of the affluent middle-class professionals. Those left out - farmers, truckers, those stuck in NHS queues - are looking for a radical alternative. The determining factor is whether the romantic cadres of the SSP/SA new Left try to teach Pebbledash Man the Internationale. Or whether they ditch their old Marxist liturgy for a serious contemporary populism that will remove Mr Blair's smug grin. /
