So, um, anyway, yes, your host returns to the blogosphere after an extended absence. And he does so on the very cusp of a new year, brim-full of possibilities and dreams of tomorrow, threatened by regrets from the past. This surely calls for a special post, something gripping that will set the electronic world alight.
So I'm going to write about the internal politics of the Labour Party.
Before my one remaining reader disappears for a really urgent bit of nasal hair removal, I should qualify this by explaining that I want to say something about the position of socialists in the Labour Party. By 'socialists' here I mean people committed to the workers control of the means of production, and the like, rather than simply people who once voted for Ken Livingstone and try to buy fair-trade coffee. One has to be clear about such usages these days.
There are a good few socialists in the Labour Party, in spite of everything. Now, in my experience, anyone much younger than myself finds this frankly inexplicable, and probably laughable. In between my formative years and theirs fell Blair, Blairism, and the presidential project of identifying, in the popular imagination, the Labour Party with its leadership. Here is not the place to present a detailed argument in favour of socialists being in Labour. That argument needs to be had, and will no doubt find a place on these pages in future months. For now, to summarise: people like me tend to point to the peculiar situation of British labourism, to the working class base and trade union link of the Labour Party, to the need to heal the divide between the political and industrial implicit in labourism, and to both the party and the wider movement being important ground for socialist ideas. Thus the idea is not supposed to be that socialists join the Labour Party and do nothing, but rather that we actively intervene in Labour. How are we doing at that?
In fairness to the Labour Left, the entire British Left is in something akin to meltdown. Leaving aside the splintering and collapse of the SWP in the face of their leadership's resolute rape apologism, the Left has singularly failed to mount any kind of effective resistance to the Coalition government and its ongoing austerity-based response to the financial crisis of 2008. Lacking co-ordination and any sense that it could win, the best opportunity for a focus for resistance - the public sector pensions dispute - fizzled out. Meanwhile, the defeat of Unite at Grangemouth this year stands as an emblem for the weakness of an entire movement. So things are a bit rubbish in general.
That said, things are especially rubbish for the Labour Left. The Left has had no impact on the Labour Party, its policy, membership, or leadership, in opposition. It has singularly failed to transmit any of the struggles of recent years - the activism around UK Uncut, the student movement of 2010-1, or trade union disputes - into the Party. It has failed even to seriously facilitate conversations around these areas. There is a palpable feeling of lethargy in the air, of resignation to the inevitable triumph of the Right in both society and Party, without so much as a shot being fired in defence.
The reasons for this are myriad, and a proper analysis would involve detailed discussion of the nature and impact of Blairism. But one reason for our ineffectiveness strikes me as being an uncertainty as to whether we should be in the Labour Party in the first place, and about what, if anything, we should be doing if we are. A significant number of people in and around the LRC strike me as half-heartedly involved in Labour at best. Meanwhile a good proportion of the CLP-orientated 'old left' seem content to sit around grumbling that things aren't what they used to be, this activity being interrupted only by the occasional felt need to propose a resolution sent to them by the CLPD, a duty discharged in the solemn expectation of the motion's failure.
Now, this won't do. There is a perfectly sensible debate to be had about whether socialists in Britain should be in the Labour Party. Some of the best socialists I know and pretty much all of the best minds on the Left in Britain take a different view from me on the matter. But given that socialists should be in Labour, I can see no argument whatsoever for being half-hearted in our use of that membership. Our indecision and failure to commit ourselves in terms of activism to the implications of our continued membership - and I'm at fault as much as anyone here - is one important cause of our current malaise. We need to pull our finger out. As well as vital support for workplace and other struggles in the coming year, we need to put in a lot of party work, and make efforts to link the two. And in all respects we're playing catch-up.
And it's worse than that. Because we're not even playing catch-up on a stable basis. In March we face the unmitigated joy of Ed Miliband's special conference on the Collins Review. And depending on how that goes, we could face some very serious questions about the future. So, I suggest, defending the link has to be an absolute priority in the next couple of months.
But all of that is for the day after tomorrow. Tonight, dear, kind, readers, we drink. And I'm not talking latte.
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