Chris said that he
> we are going to have to learn how to use this proportional electoral system
I
> predict over the next ten years a group will emerge that will put a more
> radical reasonably-coherent reformist position.
I think the LSA already had put a radical reasonably-coherent
reformist position and that even under a Proportional electoral
system they were embarrassingly rejected. Also If it will take them
ten year to be in a position to properly contest these elections,
perhaps longer to win a seat, still longer to attain the position of
official opposition, yet more years to gain control of the assembly.
then there are all the other local authorities and the national and
UK Parliaments. They would then have to move from a radical reformist
position to a revolutionary one. Through out which them mustn't
create further delays by internal disagreement. This may well be the
right road to revolution but I don't suppose any of us will still be
alive to confirm it.
> This should still not be about tailing behind bourgeois parties or
> bourgeois politics. But without the first past the post system, that is
> less of a danger.
Countries which do have a PR parliamentary system still have
marginalised and ineffectual Marxist parties. The Parliamentary
'Communist' Parties in France and Italy do not appear to be any
closer to their non-Parliamentary equivalents in Britain. As i said
the only place I can think that the electoral road did succeed was in
Chile but it was a rather short-lived victory.
> How this can link up with revolution, the question John Walker poses, is
> that this radical party must articulate issues that make sense in terms of
> immediate tactics as well as with long term goals.
One can articulate issues without running for governmental office. In
the two issues that have been raise - the LSA and the MAy Day
Protesters - it is the latter that have got the most coverage to the
most people and have raised the wider political issues of Global
capitalism and the environment. The LSA has reached virtually no-one
outside London and where it has it has just criticized Blair. And in
London itself they are hardly the key subject of conversation.
The revolution may well be a slow process. but the Left seem to be
still digging themselves out of a hole whereas the MAy Day protest
does at least seem to have made it onto the first rung of the ladder.
But Perhaps i am hoping for too much too soon.
> Meanwhile we will have to see whether the extra-parliamentary anarchist
> anti-capital protesters will find a more effective way of locating their
> direct action within the context of a larger political space which they
> have to open up with the help of serious radical reformers.
They do seem to have open up a far larger political space with their
direct action that the Left have with their electioneering. But to
divert this activity into the narrow world of an local Assembly and
pressurising of the Major to act upon his few power strikes me a
severely misdirected.
> Don't expect the IMF to schedule its next major international conference
> here in London in the near future!
politically I would prefer that they did meet here. Ken brave step
to threaten to ban them (which isn't in his discretion anyway) is
hardly a blow to global capital as they will probably just meet
somewhere else more peaceful.
Still unconvinced, John Walker
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