There has for some years been great potential for a left-of-Labour electoral alternative, uniting socialist and progressive forces around a common platform. Respect had considerable success for a time, but ended badly. The same conditions, however, still exist - indeed more so, considering the crisis of capitalism and disillusionment with Brown's premiership.
It is sad, therefore, to see the Communist Party of Britian, Socialist Party and RMT union using semi-nationalist rhetoric in its No2EU campaign for the European elections this June. What a wasted opportunity. While moves towards electoral unity on the left are welcome, the platform they advocate is confused. It echoes the opportunism many of the same people had in response to the wildcat strikes in the construction industry, when they adopted a largely uncritical position despite the 'British Jobs for British Workers' slogan.
It is also a peculiar approach to unity to deliberately exclude the largest left-of-Labour party in the country - the Socialist Workers Party - from negotiations. And surely, by now, we should have learnt that electoral success requires starting early and getting roots - leaving it until two months or so before the elections will not help anyone rise to the challenge.
Hey Luna17.
ReplyDeleteI think you raise some good points. However the SWP should not write off the No2eu alliance entirely. It is a good thing to see socialists and trade unionists uniting.
It is not good that it is a temporary alliance, or that they are writing whole parties off from joining (The Respect coalition still asked the SP and others to join and did not 'ban' parties).
The SWP certainly should not take a line identical to that of the CPB/SP/AWL towards Respect i.e.
'This is not a TRUE working-class movement'
'This is not a TRUELY left-wing/revolutionary movement'
The point is the SWP should definitely engage with this if we can and hope that we can prove to the rest of the far-left and the RMT/union movement that the SWP does support the working class and deserves to be apart of any working class project.
Also I'm not sure the fact that No2Eu's politics are limited is entirely exceptional. Respect had a very mixed bag of politics but we supported it nonetheless, hoping to draw in a bigger working class and left wing movement later.