Don't mourn, organise

Of course, Scott, it has let the Socialist Party off the hook, too, as you might have had to explain why you were so busy looking for a way around the Labour Party that you weren't prepared to join in the struggle going on inside it. Now that McDonnell will not be on the ballot paper, that struggle will continue at a much lower ebb, sufficient that you can justify your aloofness from it.

We knew, all of us who genuinely wanted McDonnell to get on the ballot, that it was always going to be an uphill struggle. Did we focus on how hard it was going to be? No, we talked about the tasks necessary to making it happen. It's the same with everything, Scott. The people who say "I do want a revolution, really, it's just that it would be so difficult, and it probably won't happen, and besides, I'm a bit busy this week" are not, actually revolutionaries. And activists who say, "we did want McDonnell to get on the ballot, only we thought it was impossible so we did nothing to help" are not actually activists, they are political commentators - and so should get jobs at the BBC and leave the politics to people who try to make a difference.

Fundamentally, nothing has changed. The Labour Party has proven its lack of democracy. Well, our unions are not democratic. The Labour Party has proven than the clique assembled around the leader can dictate terms to the entire membership. Well, the same is true in many trade unions. The Labour Party is dominated by capitalist ideas. And so are all our unions. That's a reflection of the lack of self-confidence amongst working class people. Yet the SP talk about taking over the leadership of the unions, in the same way you used to talk about taking over the leadership of the Labour Party, whilst having a disdainful attitude to the one serious attempt in twenty years to shake the leadership of the labour movement.

Simon is right - the left in the Labour Party is tiny, weak and often irrelevant. But the anti-Labour left is wrong. And that is a far worse condition. What is needed is a united, democratic and activist left, which views the struggle in the Labour Party as one aspect of the overall struggle against capitalism and capitalist ideas, not some kind of contagion to be avoided at all costs. The McDonnell campaign, limited and cut short as it has been, has played an important role in re-awakening some individuals who might well play a role in that, and I hope that other campaigns, Like the LRC, will take that process further. What will you and your comrades be doing to help that?

"only we thought it was impossible so we did nothing to help"

Nothing! Nothing like lobying the one local MP I thoght may vote for McDonnel, Nothing like asking our union members to vote for McDonneld if he got on. Nothing like being the first non-Labour member in Leicester to join the vote for McDonneld campaing set-up by the AWL in Leicester. Nothing like trying to get others to lobby there MP's.

NO I DID NOTHING DID I! what may I ask did the AWL do that I didn't do? comeon Nick out with it just what else short of joining an orginisation I don't agree with did I not do?

BTW I also even *serously* thorght of joining the Labour party for just long enogth to cast my vote for him. hence the "saved my self £12" jib in my earlyer post.

Scott, if you don't think my criticism of the SP applies to you personally, then there's no reason for you to take it so personally.

The SP "line" throughout the John4Leader campaign (not just the last two weeks, but since last summer when John declared his intention to stand) has been to profess support. But the practical conclusions of that have always been absent. The SP advocates unions disaffiliating from Labour, which would directly undermine the idea of a "labour representation" challenge to Blairism. The SP celebrated the FBU's decision to disaffiliate, even though the FBU has been significantly less militant and less political since disaffiliating. And every week, on every stall and every issue of their paper, the SP explain why people who agree with John McDonnell should leave the Labour Party.

It makes no sense, though, for you to say you wanted John to win, but that you continue to support the SP's line - if John had got on the ballot, and re-inspired the Labour left in large numbers it would have directly contradicted the SP's theories about the Labour Party and their current campaigns, such as the CNWP. When the SP (and the SWP) say "we wanted John to win" they are either being dishonest in order to "talk to" Labour lefties, or they are being confused.

Clearly it is easier to be a revolutionary outside the Labour Party at the moment - you can shout slogans at Blair with no feeling of responsibility for the defeat of the Labour movement that he represents. Young people who are rightly disgusted by Blairism will be more easily attracted to a 'clean break' with such politics. But the John4Leader has shown significant numbers of such people working out that they need to roll their sleeves up and get stuck in to the political element of the class struggle, and that means taking on the Blairites across the whole of the actually existing labour movement - in the unions and in the Labour Party as well.

I really hope that when the dust settles from the J4L campaign, some more of those who have been trying to "find a way around the side" of the Labour Party will realise that there isn't a way round it - we have to organise against the Blairites. You might think that's easier to do by relying on external political challenges, but the logic of that is to campaign for unions to disaffiliate and follow the FBU into the political wilderness. No socialist who actually wants to see the working class throw off its chains can think that's a good idea.

"if John had got on the ballot, and re-inspired the Labour left in large numbers it would have directly contradicted the SP's theories about the Labour Party and their current campaigns, such as the CNWP." Yes and we would have had to hold our hands up and said we where wrong.
Unlike the AWL, nick, the SP admits when we are wrong, we don't decided that just because someone else was right, they where sabotarging what our plan's.

"I really hope that when the dust settles from the J4L campaign, some more of those who have been trying to "find a way around the side" of the Labour Party will realise that there isn't a way round it" Yea right what ever, I really can't be fucked to debate with people who, despite all the evidence, think that because what they wanted to happen (what we all wanted to happen) didn't happen then it's not there anaslyis that wrong it's everyone else, If I wanted to do that I'd e-mail the Christan Voice.

I don't blame the SP for McDonnell failing to get on the ballot, Scott. I blame the Parliamentary Labour Party, or, more specifically, the pathetic careerists who queued up to be Gordon Brown's two-hundred-and-whatever nominator rather than allow the wider labour movement to have a say in who the next leader of the Labour Party should be.

But the SP say they wanted McDonnell to do well - yet spent years beforehand telling everyone to leave the Labour Party. If we'd all listened to your propaganda there'd have been no-one left to organise McDonnell's campaign.

The SP have said for years that the LP was dead, that it was a block on the road to socialism that had to be "got around" by encouraging left activists to leave. To think that, and yet want McDonnell to do well in the leadership campaign was incoherent. It's not that McDonnell doing well would have proved the SP wrong, Scott. It is that wanting him to do well would imply that you thought it mattered who led the LP, and that a left-wign LP leader (or even a campaign for a left-wing leader) would be a good thing. That cannot make sense if the effect of such a campaign is to encourage people to stay in the LP, which you believe is already dead.

It is simply not true to say that the AWL ever thought that McDonnell's chances of getting on the ballot paper were high, or that an assessment of the Labour Party as a bourgeois workers' party stood or fell on whether or not the PLP delivered enough nominations to get him on the ballot. It seemed likely at all times that McDonnell would fail, given the nature of the Parliamentary Labour Party. But predicting his likely success or failure was never the point - agitating for the maximum possible support for his campaign was the point.

Finally, your slur on the AWL is bizarre. The AWL's history of correcting its errors is second to none on the left, Scott, as you should well know. No other group has re-thought its positions in as open and public a way, and no other group routinely has articles in its press about lessons it has had to learn from making mistakes along the way. As a little exercise, I searched the AWL website for the phrase "we were wrong" and found links to 19 articles - including some on Ireland and Israel where the AWL has famously changed its position following lengthy open debates. A similar search on the SP's website produced just 3 results - all of which ascribed the phrase to someone else! If you can find me an link to an article in which the SP openly retracts a mistaken position I'll be quite impressed.

"if you don't think my criticism of the SP applies to you personally, then there's no reason for you to take it so personally."

"as you might have had to explain why you were so busy looking for a way around the Labour Party that you weren't prepared to join in the struggle going on inside it"
This states the comment is directed at me.

"It's the same with everything, Scott. The people who say "I do want a revolution, really, it's just that it would be so difficult, and it probably won't happen, and besides, I'm a bit busy this week" are not, actually revolutionaries. And activists who say, "we did want McDonnell to get on the ballot, only we thought it was impossible so we did nothing to help" are not actually activists, they are political commentators - and so should get jobs at the BBC and leave the politics to people who try to make a difference."
This also confirsm your comments where directed at me, and emplys 1) I did nothing and 2) :. I'm not an activist but a commontator.

So nick the reasion I took t personaly was because it was aimed at me, and you still haven't answered my questron what did the AWL do that I didn't? Until you answer that or appoligise for your "Everyone hates us" mentality when things don't go as the AWL hoped then I really can't see the point of carrying on this conversation.

I personaly think one of the most important things a revoloutanary should do it not lye to the working class, and that includes admiting when you have been wrong, sadly it seams the AWL take the same position that the SWP do. "It's not us that where wrong, you didn't work hard enogth!"

Perhaps it would have been better if we'd been debating in French, Scott, except for the niggling problem that I can't string more than about two words together in any other language but "Lester"! But in French, I understand, there are two words meaning "you" - one that can apply to individuals in friendly conversation, and a formal or collective "you" akin to the Biblical "thou".

The first half of the sentence you have half-quoted was specifically directed at the Socialist Party. That's the "you" - in arguing with a member of a particular group about their politics that seems a reasonable way to address them. I am sorry you thought I was having a go at you personally. In my experience, you've always been a thoughtful and serious activist, and my only criticism of you in respect of McDonnell's campaign is that you didn't split from the SP and rejoin the Labour Party.

But I do have massive criticisms of the SP, for which you personally bear some collective responsibility unless you're in a minority within your party on this issue. Socialist Party members have a majority on the PCS executive, a union for whom John McDonnell has done more than any other MP. Yet the PCS was incredibly slow and feeble about backing his bid for the Labour Party leadership, and I understand that attempts were made by your comrades to rule out of order a motion (submitted by AWL members, incidentally) to the PCS conference calling on the union to back McDonnell unequivocally.

In other unions, members of the AWL played leading roles in efforts to force the unions to declare for McDonnell, and pressurised MPs in the various unions' parliamentary groups, to nominate him. I'm not aware of SP members helping with that work anywhere. Instead, the SP restricted itself to making predictions about whether he'd make it on to the ballot paper, and promising that if he did, you / they would advocate trade unionists voted for him against Gordon Brown. But everyone knew that would almost certainly be too little, too late.

The SP's coverage in their paper was repeatedly journalistic, commenting on how difficult it was proving for McDonnell to build a campaign, but never advocating (so far as I can tell from the SP website) that readers of your paper actually did anything to build the campaign.

For instance, here is the editorial from the Socialist in the week Blair resigned - just one paragraph mentioned McDonnell, and I'll incude it in full: "The weakness of the left in the Labour Party is indicated by the difficulty, as we go to press, of John McDonnell reaching the 45 required nominations. Brown's acolytes are reported to be struggling to prevent McDonnell appearing on the ballot. This is clearly because this would then put many trade union leaders on the spot in the Labour leadership election. While these leaders, almost to a man and woman, are prepared to drag behind Brown, their own members could exert pressure for a vote for McDonnell. However, even if John McDonnell gets on the ballot, this will not prevent a Brown 'coronation'." The editorial concludes by saying that Blair has already succeeded in destroying the Labour Party, and that the only way forward is to build the CNWP instead. Great - that would really have encouraged people to contact their MPs demanding nominations for McDonnell, wouldn't it?

On April 7th, exasperated by the inconsistencies in the SP's approach, the AWL wrote you / them a letter specifically asking the SP to declare clearly whether it was in favour of McDonnell's candidacy or not. Sadly, there's been no reply, and no statement from the SP. In the Socialist editorial the following week, before the nomination period had even opened, the SP had written off McDonnell's chances, and called on him to leave the Labour Party to join in with the CNWP project. Can't you see, Scott, that this performance rather undermines your own personal high level of commitment to McDonnell's campaign? 

"A stopped clock is right twice a day."

Ummm... right.

"(I don't know anyone in AWL who said the 44 votes were "in the bag") "

Chris to me at the no sweat stall at moat college.

"The idea that the failure of the J4L campaign somehow vindicates the extra-Labour left is a fantasy and a delusion."

No the fantasy and delusion belongs to throses who some how think there any point smashing your head against a brick wall.

"The reality is that the Labour left is pretty irrelevant, and the extra-Labour left is even more irrelevant."

Well your half right anyway.

Scott,

"No the fantasy and delusion belongs to throses who some how think there any point smashing your head against a brick wall."

This is rhetoric, akin to 'I know you are, but what am I?". It doesn't really get us anywhere.

I could just as easily say, "the SP came last in Braunstone despite having stood there several times before, and lost one of their three counsellors in Coventry. Why do they think there's any point smashing their head against a brick wall?"

Nobody actually literally believes that there's any point to "smashing their head against a brick wall" so it doesn't help debate.

I know you're annoyed, but people on the Labour left get annoyed with apparent gloating (I know that wasn't your intention, but you recognised yourself it can be percieved like that) over the defeat of the J4L campaign.