Confessions of a confused socialist

It's a strange time to be active as a socialist in Britain. Hence, in part, the absence of much recent activity on this blog. I've written previously about my disquiet with the state of the left since Corbyn's welcome victory last autumn, and the uneasy feeling remains.

Back in December I think I saw the fundamental issue as being how we relate a bottom-up socialism that doesn't fetish parliament to the reality of a left-wing candidate having won the leadership of the Party. That is still at least of much of an issue as it was then. Fundamental questions have been asked: do we believe that capitalism is incompatible with human flourishing? If so, and if a socialist alternative is needed, how does a left-reformist Labour Party fit into with a strategy for moving in the direction of that alternative? Quite apart from this: what are we doing, individually, as a Labour left (organised in groups like Momentum and the LRC), and as the Labour Party to support the concrete grassroots opposition to Tory attacks? The junior doctors' strike is a prime example of something around which a good deal more organising should be happening

At the same time, of course, we can't ignore the reality of the Corbyn leadership, content in telling ourselves that the Labour Party or parliament don't really matter. If I believed that, I wouldn't be a Labour member; I won't bore you all on this Easter evening by rehearsing the reasons this is the case. The problem is precisely that these things matter, and that the left has, in an outcome slightly more antecedently improbable than Dapper Laughs turning out to be an expert in Jane Austen, won the leadership of the Labour Party. Its hold on this leadership is, however, at least as precarious as Laughs' actual grasp of Sense and Sensibility; if it loses that leadership, through pre-emptive backbench revolt or electoral failure, that will count against the intra-Labour left for years to come. "Your strategy has been tried and failed", the refrain will go, "now shut up, and listen to Dan Jarvis". And it may seem as though our critics would have a point.

The knives are being sharpened for Corbyn. Here's Jamie Reed's subtle Twitter account, for instance:

If the improbably named Rebel Alliance are not to have their way, the Party membership has to exert counter-pressure, making it clear to the PLP that we will not accept a coup. This will involve voicing our support to more sympathetic MPs, arguing the case with those who can be persuaded, and using mechanisms of accountability against those whose contempt for the membership is such that they want to reject last year's decisive leadership result. In this last respect, it is a serious tactical mistake for the leadership and elements of its organisational support to have downplayed talk of mandatory reselection. This is a basic democratic demand, whose time has come. Similarly, the present situation, where the left has the leadership and the membership without controlling the Party, is unsustainable. It's imperative that we organise to contest elections at CLP and other levels and, crucially, that we get Corbyn-supporting conference delegates sent this year: this conference will be a chance to consolidate his position, back left-wing policy, and set in motion democratic reform of the Party.

And the urgency of this task doesn't undo my initial point about not losing sight of the extra-parliamentary. There's a lot to be done.

Green? Stay red

So, you're considering voting for the Green Party?

I suspect I like you. I suspect, at least, we have a great deal in common politically. I mean there is just the outside possibility that you're some Barbour-clad NIBMYish eco-fascist, in which case I have nothing to say to you. Vote Green, for all I care, they're welcome to you. But you're probably not like that at all.

In all likelihood you're the kind of person who ends up in the bottom left hand corner of those 'what's your political alignment?' quiz things. You are probably anti-austerity, supportive of feminism,  clear about migrants' rights, anti-Trident, and in favour of public ownership of utilities. You, like me, realise that things need to be done to safeguard the environment, but you will want those things done in a way that makes big polluting business, rather than ordinary people, bear the brunt of the cost. You, like me, will have been underwhelmed by the Labour manifesto launch earlier today. Sure there was some welcome stuff - commitments on health, education, zero-hours contracts, and non-doms. But the broader context was set by acceptance of the iron-logic of austerity, and that's before we even get near the horrible, indefensible, pledge about immigration controls. It's not good enough. We agree on that.

Yet I am suggesting you don't vote Green, but vote Labour instead. Isn't this madness? Don't the Green Party's policies fit much better with those you and I would both like to see? I don't deny it for one moment. But I don't think elections should be viewed as a form of policy bingo.

More about that in a moment. First, it is at least rehashing one of the tired old objections to voting Green in a First Past the Post electoral system. Like many tired, old, objections there is something to it. Do you really want to help a Tory or Lib Dem candidate? In only a handful of seats are the Greens realistic contenders; elsewhere, in an incredibly tight election, you are in danger, by voting Green, of helping your least favourite parties. Because, and here I will part company with the more fundamentalist anti-Labourites, there is a difference between the Tories and Labour. Not enough of a difference, to be sure, but a real difference. A difference that will be felt most by those in our society least able to afford it. As the local elections last year in the notorious Tory borough of Barnet demonstrate.

But that's not my main argument. I think that the impulse to vote Green often arises because someone, not unreasonably, thinks: there's an election coming up, whose policies most fit with my own preferences? If you're in any way left-of-centre, and live in England or Wales, the Green Party are likely to be the best fit.

Yet there's a basic contradiction here. You are minded to vote Green because you think there is something fundamentally wrong with the world, and that radical change is needed. Perhaps you might go so far as to describe yourself as an anti-capitalist. Certainly, you are likely to be hostile to the individualistic, market-driven nature of our society. And yet you are, I claim, adopting an approach to elections that is a product of that society. You, the isolated individual political consumer, pick the product from the shelf that best fulfils your bespoke requirements.

The politics I am interested in starts from a very different perspective - not with lone electoral consumers, but with the recognition that real social change comes through movements of people, through our collective strength. It is about more than voting once every five years. It is about winning change in our workplaces and local areas; about exerting pressure continuously on those at Westminster and elsewhere who claim to represent us. This has to be a collective endeavour, and so the question arises, which movement of people is best placed to win the change we want to see, and how does this relate to voting?

The trade union movement, for all its imperfections, is the only millions-strong movement of working class people in Britain with the history and present capacity to win any serious level of change. The Labour Party was its hard won creation; and what makes the worst Labour government better than the best Tory government continues to be the pressure to which it is susceptible from trade unions. It was this that made even Blair introduce a minimum wage. It anchors Labour in working class politics in a way that the Greens, ecclectic and unpredictable as they have been in local office, are not. Electing Labour representatives strengthens the union's voice, and empowers us to fight for ourselves 365 days a year outside parliament. A Labour vote is a vote for a movement, for our collective strength - whichever political inadequate standing on a lightly-rewarmed neo-liberal ticket might have the Labour candidacy. (And if you're, rightly, angry about that, why not join the LRC and help to change Labour?)

You may or may not be convinced. But at the very least I want to hear your alternative. Not simply your alternative on voting day. That's one day in five years. I want to hear about your alternative movement for transforming society at the root. That's my truth - the working class and its institutions - you tell me yours.