Re: Oppositional possibilities in the UK
very nice. astute. On Sun, Apr 04, 2004 at 08:40:06AM +0100, Chris Burford wrote: My understanding from the report was that Tariq Ali was calling for genuine oppositional movements, dissident currents from below My ear is not especially close to the ground on this, but I am not aware in England/Britain of anyone serious on the left lining up support for the Labour Party on the grounds that it's the lesser of two evils. I am not sure that it is even considered in these terms which may now be ahistorical, and of course the circumstances are different in the USA compared to the UK. You must remember that even many of those who opposed the imperialist war of aggression are fully signed up liberal interventionists. Indeed virtually every day there are stories of intervention by the European Union, the USA or the international community in one country after another. Blair may be pushed out within the Labour Party in favour of Gordon Brown, but that battle will take place there. One of Blair's techniques is to make the battles within the Labour Party semi-public, and to take up his stance within the Labour Party always with an eye to what the focus groups say nationally. Although the Conservative Party attacks him on untrustworthiness he has an extra card in his defence if Bush falls. Geopolitically the UK has for the last 50 years always had to adapt to US dominance, even though it had its own (imperialist) reservations, and Blair did enough to show he preferred a multi-lateralist rather than a uni-lateralist solution. And prefers a Middle East peace settlement. It would be just if he were dumped and many are no doubt calculating with the Labour Party whether this will enhance of diminish their prospects of re-election. Some oppositional forces on the left in the UK pin in my opinion too much hope on changing things within the Labour party, which I think is a fallacious strategy because a) it puts faith in one political party in the bourgeois two party system, and b) Blair and those around him are much more skilful at playing off oppositional movements within Labour that they are. So they always get subsumed and co-opted into the contradictions inherent in the system. It makes the revolutionary constituency the Labour MP's who get told quietly that if they break ranks too much maybe their seat will not be in danger at the next election, but their friend and colleagues probably will. It is clever stuff, and part of pretty developed policies for managing the Labour Party. Oppositional forces outside the Labour Party like the Alliance and Respect are hoping for votes in the elections for the European Assembly this summer where the voting is by proportional representation. This can give them a showing but has the disadvantage of appearing to put the main revolutionary strategy on an electoral system that is still bourgeois. The problem is not faith in particular political parties. Electoral support for Labour is very soft, and the issue at the election will be what percentage of its vote it gets out. It may lose because the disillusion is just so great. On the other hand voting has become very tactical in the UK for a politically alert 10% of the electorate. They are likely to vote against the Conservatives. Labour voters are likely to vote substantially in favour of Liberal Democrats to defeat Conservative candidates (particularly because Liberal Democrats opposed the war, and are revolutionary enough to suggest a tiny increase in income tax on those earning more than 100,000 a year) There will be a web-site to facilitate this. But this is so frankly tactical that I cannot see it runs risks of raising blind faith in a bourgeois imperialist party, even as the lesser of two evils. It is just one of a few things people can do who know they are powerless. But two million may be prepared to spend a day on the streets in response to a global crisis. Although the Conservatives are scrambling back to the centre of the beach with their ice cream stall, (they have just symbolically been promoting their new gay-friendly image), the centre of the political agenda is therefore likely to lie more between the Labour Party and the Liberal Party. No serious revolutionary in the UK is going to promote the Liberal Party as the least of 3 evils. Although some of its policies are more rational and progressive on paper, its activists are petty bourgeois discontents who tend to campaign effectively on local issues of a parochial nature, and may conceal a streak of fascism (sorry I cannot justify that in what is already too long an e-mail) What the revolutionary left, if it exists, and the non-revolutionary left as well as the Conservatives, have to adapt to, is the massive managerial competence of New Labour in the total management of the economy, and the total management of public opinion and the perceived parameters of debate. Yes Blair is
Oppositional possibilities in the UK
My understanding from the report was that Tariq Ali was calling for genuine oppositional movements, dissident currents from below My ear is not especially close to the ground on this, but I am not aware in England/Britain of anyone serious on the left lining up support for the Labour Party on the grounds that it's the lesser of two evils. I am not sure that it is even considered in these terms which may now be ahistorical, and of course the circumstances are different in the USA compared to the UK. You must remember that even many of those who opposed the imperialist war of aggression are fully signed up liberal interventionists. Indeed virtually every day there are stories of intervention by the European Union, the USA or the international community in one country after another. Blair may be pushed out within the Labour Party in favour of Gordon Brown, but that battle will take place there. One of Blair's techniques is to make the battles within the Labour Party semi-public, and to take up his stance within the Labour Party always with an eye to what the focus groups say nationally. Although the Conservative Party attacks him on untrustworthiness he has an extra card in his defence if Bush falls. Geopolitically the UK has for the last 50 years always had to adapt to US dominance, even though it had its own (imperialist) reservations, and Blair did enough to show he preferred a multi-lateralist rather than a uni-lateralist solution. And prefers a Middle East peace settlement. It would be just if he were dumped and many are no doubt calculating with the Labour Party whether this will enhance of diminish their prospects of re-election. Some oppositional forces on the left in the UK pin in my opinion too much hope on changing things within the Labour party, which I think is a fallacious strategy because a) it puts faith in one political party in the bourgeois two party system, and b) Blair and those around him are much more skilful at playing off oppositional movements within Labour that they are. So they always get subsumed and co-opted into the contradictions inherent in the system. It makes the revolutionary constituency the Labour MP's who get told quietly that if they break ranks too much maybe their seat will not be in danger at the next election, but their friend and colleagues probably will. It is clever stuff, and part of pretty developed policies for managing the Labour Party. Oppositional forces outside the Labour Party like the Alliance and Respect are hoping for votes in the elections for the European Assembly this summer where the voting is by proportional representation. This can give them a showing but has the disadvantage of appearing to put the main revolutionary strategy on an electoral system that is still bourgeois. The problem is not faith in particular political parties. Electoral support for Labour is very soft, and the issue at the election will be what percentage of its vote it gets out. It may lose because the disillusion is just so great. On the other hand voting has become very tactical in the UK for a politically alert 10% of the electorate. They are likely to vote against the Conservatives. Labour voters are likely to vote substantially in favour of Liberal Democrats to defeat Conservative candidates (particularly because Liberal Democrats opposed the war, and are revolutionary enough to suggest a tiny increase in income tax on those earning more than 100,000 a year) There will be a web-site to facilitate this. But this is so frankly tactical that I cannot see it runs risks of raising blind faith in a bourgeois imperialist party, even as the lesser of two evils. It is just one of a few things people can do who know they are powerless. But two million may be prepared to spend a day on the streets in response to a global crisis. Although the Conservatives are scrambling back to the centre of the beach with their ice cream stall, (they have just symbolically been promoting their new gay-friendly image), the centre of the political agenda is therefore likely to lie more between the Labour Party and the Liberal Party. No serious revolutionary in the UK is going to promote the Liberal Party as the least of 3 evils. Although some of its policies are more rational and progressive on paper, its activists are petty bourgeois discontents who tend to campaign effectively on local issues of a parochial nature, and may conceal a streak of fascism (sorry I cannot justify that in what is already too long an e-mail) What the revolutionary left, if it exists, and the non-revolutionary left as well as the Conservatives, have to adapt to, is the massive managerial competence of New Labour in the total management of the economy, and the total management of public opinion and the perceived parameters of debate. Yes Blair is a particularly brilliant and seductive tight-rope walker who is skilled at getting up on the line, balancing out the opposing factors and making you gasp as to when
