Clive Lewis wrote an article supporting Jeremy Corbyn for leader of Labour yesterday. It was candid. And as I know and like Clive I read it with respect for his honesty.
One group of paragraphs stood out to me. They said this:
[There is] an existential crisis of Labour and social democracy happening the world over. To try to find the one leader who can somehow solve the crisis for us is to miss the point.
Twentieth-century social democracy was always about electing other people to do our bidding. It's the parliamentary road to socialism we have heard about recently (rather than the revolutionary road). And this is underpinned by the role MPs played in that process.
But that worked when MPs and the central state could make the political weather. Increasingly, we can't. Increasingly, power is both global and local, with corporations and citizens — not with MPs.
The link in the middle paragraph is to a speech by Neil Kinnock that was made a couple of weeks ago where he made a passionate case for a Labour leader who sees his primary role to be as leader of a parliamentary party. For anyone who has believed, as I do, that Westminster is the place where national politics play out it seemed like an eminently sensible demand: the whole balance of our constitution and our parliamentary democracy depends upon there being an official opposition that is willing to undertake the day to day detailed and often tedious programme of holding the government to account on its detailed legislative plans for the sake of the people of this country. If such an opposition does not exist a government can, bluntly, do what it likes.
Labour, right from the time of its creation, and within its constitution from 1918 onwards, has explicitly been committed to socialism through parliamentary democracy. The result has often, I admit, been mildly social democratic and not socialist, but that is what Labour chose. Clive's sentence construction is a little opaque, but implies what I think he is really saying, which is the revolutionary path whether within or beyond one state was explicitly rejected by Labour.
What Clive then clearly suggests, without quite saying it, is that this binary choice of parliament or revolution was that of the last century. I think he is saying there is a third way now, as I read it. And this is something where he suggests that the parliamentary party is subservient to the greater party. He puts it like this:
Changes that are being enhanced by technological innovation (social media being a case in point) are happening at an increasing rate. The top-down, vertical power relationships of the past are being replaced by a more evenly distributed, bottom-up variety.
It could be reasonably argued the current fault line between the “membership” and the parliamentary Labour party (PLP) is in fact a symptom of this changing power relationship.
And what he concludes is:
So let me be clear — Corbyn is the best candidate because, in his own way, he understands some of the economic and moral challenges we face, and is the product of a deep desire for something new.
This is interesting because it seems clear that what Clive is saying is that actually there is simply an alternative and new revolution to hand now; he just does not name it as such. And he might imply it's a new way, but I doubt that; it's just a different revolutionary route.
The nature of that revolution as he sees it is profound and clear: it makes the MP not the servant of the electorate in their constituency but of their party, as I read it.
But that also means that the MP is not a representative agent as Burke would have put it, able to use their conscience as they saw fit and accountable for how they did so when due for re-election, but makes them instead a mandated servant of an interest group, which is the party membership.
Let's not pretend that if Clive really means what he says that this is not radical, revolutionary and a complete break from the past, because it is. And I think many who support Corbyn do think that this change is what they want. As one person on Twitter put it to me yesterday in response to my suggestion that Corbyn has failed to deliver policy:
@RichardJMurphy the 'movement' Corbyn finds himself heading is dynamic & not sure it concerns itself with policy/political detail, but need.
I strongly suspect the person who write that is as sincere as Clive, and I have long felt her opinion to be honest, but three things stand out.
First, she thinks that this is a movement, not a political party. And if Corbyn is heading it then that's implied by the word 'finds' to be the result of some sort of chance: the opportunity has arisen in this way but it might have done in another.
Second, this movement will not concern itself with detail as political oppositions and governments do. It is instead driven by a different sentiment, which is to meet need.
Third, this is not essentially about Labour but something else altogether which is beyond it, as the 'buy a vote' option has permitted.
This, however, then loops back to Clive. In effect what the Twitter commentator and Clive are both saying is that we are seeing is very radical change that might represent a fundamental shift in Labour's perception of what democracy and parliamentary engagement might mean. A political party whose sole goal has been to secure democratic control at varying levels of government in the UK, and to be the opposition within those elected chambers when not in power itself, might now see itself as something quite different.
I accept that this new perception is fluid. But if I can tentatively draw conclusions, and given that I would rate Clive as being close to Corbyn I think that fair to do, then I would suggest there are five.
First, in this view of Labour the role of MPs is markedly downgraded.
Second, it is somewhat sidelining the electorate.
Third, it is treating the legislative process as secondary to a higher purpose.
Fourth, it is deciding that the higher purpose is determined by a movement to which some of its members belong.
Fifth if this is true it is not said as yet how the decision making process of this movement is to be manifested beyond its ability to elect a leader, who is accountable to that movement as a consequence, and not anyone else.
I stress, I think those are fair conclusions even if I have had to draw them out from what Clive and the Twitter commentator, whose comment in fairness seems representative of a very great many I have seen, seem to be saying. But if they are true then it is much more obvious, to me at least, why there is the 'struggle' that is going on.
That struggle is real. It is for power. It is for control. And it is fundamental.
On the one hand - and Owen Smith is the person who now represents this although the ideas clearly belong to a very long tradition and not his campaign - there is the role of parliamentary democracy that is democratic because of accountability (albeit, I admit, flawed) to an electorate. In this tradition once elected the MP has multiple duties, including of representation of all constituents but also, and as much, to the democratic process of which they are a part.
On the other there is a movement that has taken control of Labour at present through the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn that seeks to make MPs representative agents of a movement to which the greatest loyalty is due in which obligations to parliament and an electorate are secondary and where democracy refers to the decisions taken by that movement and not in any wider context. The language and actions of so many, from Jeremy Corbyn downwards, only permit interpretation of this sort a far as I can see it.
I stress, I offer this for debate as I struggle to understand what is going on. I could apply some political theory to this, bit I won't. I do not think it would help, at least as yet. And of course I may have got things wrong. In addition I am sure some of my interpretation may not be agreed, but Clive's language does certainly not permit me to think that anything like the traditional relationship between Labour, its MPs and parliament is expected to survive this process. And he sees that as inevitable, it seems. His conclusion is:
Ultimately we must use the campaign to seize the future and help Labour escape from its past — or it will die, whether Jeremy Corbyn is leader or not.
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Consider the Greek origins of democracy and politics:
Politics, policy – from the Greek polis (city state) and politaea (effectively the “establishment” of the city state)
Democracy – from demos (the people, with an undertone of “the mob”)
This is the faultline that Labour has built itself across. The Conservatives are unambiguously about politics – democracy in the classical sense has no place there – which is why the Conservatives keep winning elections.
The only compensation is that UKIP have also built right over the faultline, and as they have no members smart enough to understand the dangers of mob rule, they will founder.
‘The Conservatives are unambiguously about politics — democracy in the classical sense has no place there — which is why the Conservatives keep winning elections.’
You hear that, uppity Labour members? Know your place! Don’t go thinking that you have any legitimate role in crafting party policy; just leave that to your overlords and masters, who possess far greater wisdom in such matters than you could ever hope to acquire! Just deliver your leaflets and keep your traps firmly shut, and don’t forget to prostrate yourselves before them whenever you see them and remind them of how indispensable their judgement is!
Whoever said deference was dead, eh?
‘prostrate yourselves before them whenever you see them’
*prostrate yourselves before your masters, just to be clear.
Interesting analysis, but you end up with a false dichotomy.
The conflict is ideological. The ideology creates the platform for a manifesto. The manifesto provides the context
for what is offered to the electorate and then subsequently how opposition or government is conducted.
A neo-iberal manifesto with lip service paid to socialism has been tested at election and has failed to win the electorate twice, and the Tory manifesto delivered a narrow majority of seats on a pitifully small
percentage of votes from the electorate. It seems that neither party lit up the electorate.
A socialist manifesto based on answering needs has not been tested. That is what is available now – has a return to Socialism become appropriate – I believe it has.
When the Parliamentary Party has an ideological template with which to test its own policies in government or to guide its opposition to policies if in opposition, it serves the movement and the electorate
through parliamentary democratic process. Progress and Labour First are movements too – no more representative of the electorate at large, but interest groups.
And if you cannot show you are capable of managing an opposition no one will believe you can deliver that manifesto so what it says is inconsequential
The vision you lay out Richard is one I find particularly disturbing. It involves converting MPs into delegates, but delegates who are not representing their constituents, but the “movement”. How long before the movement organises itself into committees, to whom MPs are answerable.
Is this not the beginning of a road to something approaching Stalinism?
That is not the model I would have suggested
I suggest you also read Julian Bagginni article about populism which suggests if Corbyn wins one of the three pillars on which our democracy stands on will have been destroyed.This truly would be revolutionary but as I see it not for the better leaving Labour in the wilderness and working people at the mercy of the free market.Which as we all know cannot defeat the five ills which Corbyn seeks to base his campaign for re-election on.
It was an excellent article
Just read it
Missed it three days ago
Goodness me.
Stalinism is discredited and dead. I find it facinating how some of us reach for historic parallels immediately and forget about the present. Mind you, this is modern Britain – where history keeps us going………just.
The undermining of democracy by rich businness interests is what concerns us now and there is evidence of it is all around us.
It is as pernicious and as calcualting as any Trotskyist cell – and because it uses money, it is downright more successful.
That to me at least is more worrying.
Thank you. I am pleased that you’re highlighting how important this Labour leadership contest is not only in terms of the future functioning of the Labour party as an effective parliamentary party, but more importantly in terms of any sort of effective functioning of representative parliamentary democracy in the short to medium term. This goes way beyond policy stances and policy programmes.
But I fear that the minds of the selectorate, in the main, are already made up and Owen Smith, as the candidate asserting the primacy of representative parliamentary democracy, hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of winning.
Hi Richard, I think you make a lot of important points and bring out a lot of things.
I would suggest that the point of view you outline (ie. the movement over MPs etc) isn’t necessarily a conscious ‘plan’ but rather it is the logical result of having a ‘movement’ that is quite divorced from the electorate in that if you passionately believe in your cause, and you believe therefore that you have a right to power, then you are going to believe that things that maximise your power and minimise the power of opponents are on the whole good.
This view is problematic (and perhaps perverse) for the reasons you said. It turns non Corbynyst Labour MPs into opponents to be marginalised at the expense of the movement, but also, it effectively says that there is a politically engaged movement that know how the country should be run, and then there is the wider non politically engaged electorate who don’t really know what they want and are leaning towards Toryism, Brexit, Welfare cuts etc and are to be turned or ridden around.
The contradiction in that view is that the movement are trying to do what they think is best for the country and the electorate, but are prepared to marginalise the electorate because they think they know best.
My main thoughts after I read the article though is that I’m always very sceptical when someone says things like ‘the old power relationships are being replaced, and that is because of technological change’. Power relationships are always fluid and evolve, but I’m very sceptical when people say that these changes mean invevitable changes. Eg. a lot of the rationale for globalisation in the 1990s was that these changes are inevitable, when they simply werent.
This is a great piece of writing – fine grained – it has inward looking and outward looking components showing great awareness of both and should serve as an emollient to this heated debate. In fact nevermind ‘should’ – it must.
My instant observations on it is based on some key paragraphs:
“But that worked when MPs and the central state could make the political weather. Increasingly, we can’t. Increasingly, power is both global and local, with corporations and citizens — not with MPs”. (Clive)
“But that also means that the MP is not a representative agent as Burke would have put it, able to use their conscience as they saw fit and accountable for how they did so when due for re-election, but makes them instead a mandated servant of an interest group, which is the party membership”. (Richard)
These two paras stand out for me because I relate them to the corporate capture of Parliament.
Increasingly, Parliamentary MPs seem to be going the way of Senators on Capitol Hill: corporate lobbying (a form of interest group) is really intense now. Not only that, we see MPs coming from backgrounds such as finance, the City business etc., who are then seen to be leading so called change which only seems to end up with the MPs former places of work benefitting from the taxpayer.
It also explains in my view at least why we get bad policies that hurt people such as austerity because these policies suit the big corporate interests that dominate MPs lives (the paying down of debt; the opportunity to acquire state assets cheaply for example). It also tells us why online movements like 38 Degrees are increasingly important in order to counter act corporate capture. Also, this blog.
So I see a lack of trust between the voter and the politician as a result. There is surely a form of cognitive dissonance here endured by the majority who are living with increased insecurity. They are saying ‘Hang on – the Governemnt is there to look after me but I do not feel that they care about me anymore; so why are they there?’.
The membership of Labour obviously feel they are taking back what is theirs as they feel that their MPs and Parliament have let them down and are more interested in business lobbying. This is sort of revolutionary in my view – it is a revolt against a party machine which they see as no different to the Tories.
Also there is another warning from history for Labour. As angry as I am at Blair (and beleive you me if I bumped into him on the street………) I also cannot refute that New Labour actually did try to do some good things and succeeded,
However, people very soon forget – and in NL s case this is because (arguably) they did not do enough to change things – they were not revolutionary enough – not different enough from anyone else – just anothert bunch of politicians.
“Second, it is somewhat sidelining the electorate”. (Richard)
I don’t agree – I don’t get it. In order to win the FPTP election, Labour has to go to the country with its ideas – it has to involve the electorate in these ideas so that it can be elected – or to stand a chance of it being so. It will continue to ‘side line’ perhaps if Corbyn cannot express what he stands for to the country and not just Momentum? But sooner or later Corbyn has to tell the electorate what he will do and why they should vote for him. That is the crossover point from ‘movement’ to ‘in power’ – a severe test by election result. I do not see the electorate as side lined at that point – but maybe up to the point if they are not involved in policy development beforehand.
Another paragraph I find interesting is this one (Richard):
“On the other there is a movement that has taken control of Labour at present through the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn that seeks to make MPs representative agents of a movement to which the greatest loyalty is due in which obligations to parliament and an electorate are secondary and where democracy refers to the decisions taken by that movement and not in any wider context. The language and actions of so many, from Jeremy Corbyn downwards, only permit interpretation of this sort a far as I can see it”.
I can’t argue with this: it is reasonable. But this paragraph sums up what is wrong with politics in this country as a whole – not just Corbyn and Momentum. It also tells us what the Corbyn ‘phenomenan’ actually is – it is reactive because it is reacting against PLP and Tory MPs (plus others) behaving in exactly the same way on behalf corporate lobbyists who are actually leading the country using Theresa May and latterly David Cameron (and sometimes others) as proxy leaders.
My view is that all of politics and Parliament itself has been brought into disrepute by the idea that it must serve markets. Corbyn and Co are just the flip side of a bigger malaise.
As I said at the beginning this is a great piece of writing from you and I’m not sure that my rushed response (I need to go to work now) has done it justice. You have certainly got me thinking.
There is no doubt whatsoever that a new deal has to be struck between the British people and parliament – our democracy needs to be renewed and only radical surgery will do. Labour baulked at this once and it seems to be paying the price internally.
No, I understand it’s not your vision or model. Nor mine.
Could it not be both? The parliamentary party aims for democratic representation in a more representative parliament using PR to elect actual representatives, alleviating the need for MP’s to represent (or more often not) people with whom they fundamentally disagree. You can then have the “movement” who via worker representation democratise the workplace, via direct social enterprise create new models of economic endeavor (for instance local power generation by clubbing together to implement local solar networks) and campaign to raise awareness of issue.
The only reason that representing the “movement” is an issue is because of fptp and more often than not those mps won’t represent constituents who have differing points of view. We have the worst of all worlds currently where by we have “representative democracy” where very few people are actually represented.
And without winning in the existing system how are you going to effect change?
Well as I said you need both, but if the movement part can produce results then surely that enhances the former as it can boast that it can generate results.
I have no problem at with participatory democracy
I repeat I have massive problems with threats to parliamentary democracy
And that is what we are getting
Richard
I agree that Clive’s article was not as clear as it might have been and that it lends itself to different interpretations.
What Clive really thinks is unknown to me, but their are points that I take from the article that differ from yours.
You make reference to the tradition of our parliamentary democracy without ackowledging the changes that system has seen over the years and the changing political economic context.
Members of parliamnet have become distant not only from the party members but from the elecorate as a whole. I fear few people feal they are represented by today’s parties. Feeling that neither party really offers anything significanlty different from it opponents and casting a vote with little real enthusiasm for the beneficiaty of that vote.
While MPs must have scope to make decisions and not be bound by rigid and specific instructions, they certainly should be taking their aims and objectives from the movement they represent.
Our current situation arises in a context where power in the state has steadily accrued to the executive over parliament, a process Tony Benn and many others had worried and warned about since the 1970s.
We find ourselves in the condition that Colin Crouch describes as post democracy.
What I believe Clive was getting at is the urgent need for deomcratic revival and creativity. New form of democratic participation that make democracy vibrant and in touch with the people.
No party now commands the level of support that parties did in the past, but the current two party system does not lend itself to change, hence the emphasis coaltions of parties that Clive refers to. A party that does not have to compete in a winner takes all system has more scope to articulate alternative visions while compromising with broad allies to form a government.
We are in a situation where democratic influnece needs to move both up and down from the level of the state. In a globalised world there is a need for the exercise of democratic power above the level of the sate, one reason why I was a remainer in the referendum.
But at the same time power needs to be disseminated downwards with opportunities for a range of forms and arenas of democratic participation.
While I agree that Corbyn needs to do a lot better in forming and communicating policies, he is the only one who is putting the question of democracy into play.
I don’t think Clive’s refernce to revolution is the best choice of words, but there is no doubt that there is a growing desire and need for very significant change.
There are very difficult questions here in terms of forging a strategy that has coherent policies to put before an elecorate while at the same time working for the democratic transformation desired.
Sorry if this has been a bit rambling and not well structured but I am just writing something on the fly.
Hope it has been sufficent for you to see what I am getting at.
I disagree
Corbyn is taking democracy out of play and replacing it with populism, at best
And that is very different
That unequivocal statement is entirely unjustified. It is not for the PLP to wag the tail of the constituency dog. An invigorated membership will enhance policy making as well as votes. It will make choices based on the community it represents.
It can already
Richard
The charge of populism is ill founded, those in the PLP who forge their narrative from focus groups to formulate a message with maximum electoral appeal are arguably the greater populists..
We’ll have to disagree
I can only see populism from Corbyn and not a hint of policy or accountability
Politics is always about power and control but to present the current struggle is the Labour Party as between parliament and revolution is nonsense. Rather it’s between two concepts of democracy, ‘managerial’ and ‘participatory’.
In the managerial model, favoured by yourself and most MPs, the role of the people is reduced to placing an ‘X’ in a box every five years, often choosing between hard to distinguish alternatives, then going away until being asked to repeat the exercise in five years’ time. In the meantime, MPs, working with policy wonks and corporate lobbyists, get a free hand to make up the rules for the rest of us. If we choose to join a political party, then our role is to give money, campaign in the cold and rain, and apologise to electors for our representative, in return for which we might get to ask some questions or even occasionally express a view, but never to actually determine policy.
The participatory model sees a much more active role for citizens, engaging continuously in informal means of influencing policy makers, whether through social media or more traditional methods. For party members, it offers the opportunity both to make policies for the party to pursue and to decide democratically who should be the party’s officers and its candidates in parliamentary or other elections. This isn’t a question of strict mandates, but anyone who wants to stand in the party’s name should be chosen through a fair and equal process, with incumbents being assessed on their record without the presumption of a job for life.
Meaningful social change has always depended on the interaction between people, party and representatives. The 1945 Labour government was able to achieve what it did because it stood on a generation of struggle in unions, unemployed movements and communities. Labour will only become a party of power if it is first prepared to be a party of protest. Yes, we need to develop policies but that cannot be delegated to a self-appointed “great and good”.
Why does participatory democracy frighten you?
Participatory democracy does not frighten me in the slightest
Labour had such a model of late
But populism is something entirely different and wholly unrelated which undermines both politics and democracy
And that is what Corbyn is offering
Sorry Richard but you are throwing about the charge of populism in a rather crude manner that I think unbecomes you.
Populsim is a notoriously slippery term which you are using as a smear.
On a more sophisticated analysis of the concept, like the late Ernesto Laclau’s, a populist logic is not damaging to democracy and doesn’t have to carry the negative associations you want to attach to Corbyn.
I have long respected your contribution to tackling the problems of taxation, if only your analysis of Corbyn and your take on the democratic issues were as sophisticated as your work on taxation.
Go and read this
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/25/jeremy-corbyn-populist-democracy-mps?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I am far from alone
But feel free to disagree
Richard, I read Julians article 3 days ago, it is a tendentious presentation that not only doesn’t to justice to the concept of populism. Even within the limited terms of Julian’s definition of populism (employed entirely in it’s negative sense)it fails to hit the mark.
I think we will have to disagree on this topic. But I note that in your defence of your limited consideration of parliamentary politics, you have entirely failed to engage any on the substansive points I made in my first poet.
Maybe because of time constraints
The best present I was given for my 50th birthday was a selection of outstanding books from 1966. There were some great titles in the list, but the one which should be considered compulsory reading was “The Proud Tower” by Barbara W Tuchman — a portrait of the World before the war (1890-1914).
This remarkable book exposes the storm of social, political and economic changes which was raging through Europe and America at the dawn of the 20th century. Of course the greatest Global crisis that we face today — that of Global warming — was unknown at the time, but that aside the parallels with our own times is remarkable. The World had just gone through the greatest period of Globalisation in history, creating unprecedented levels of Global wealth, and a new class of capitalists who’s power depended no longer on land, but on ownership of the means of production. This in turn had led to rising inequality with workers living in abject poverty whilst a self-serving political elite conspired to conserve the power and privilege of the few. All public confidence in elected representatives collapsed in France after 510 members of parliament, including 6 ministers were accused of taking bribes to cover up the Panama scandal which resulted in the loss of almost a mlllion Francs. Nationalism was on the rise everywhere, and public disaffection with Globalisation and the conspiracy of the political elites was further compounded by the Dreyfus affair, which exposed the depth of lies and deceit which operated at the highest levels amongst those who enjoyed wealth and power. Sounds familiar?
My point, apart from thoroughly recommending this book for its direct relevance to our current times, is the subject of chapter 8 “Death of Juares – The Socialists 1890-1914”. In her final chapter Tuchman describes with great drama. the battle for the heart of the Socialist movement. It was a time when “the twelve hour day and seven day week were the norm for unorganized labour. Sunday rest and the ten or nine hour day were the hard won privileges of skilled labour in the craft unions, which represented barely one fifth of the workforce.” There was however, a huge gulf between the reformers, led by Juares, who saw the priority as getting elected to achieve “the conquest of political control through universal suffarage” and the revolutionary Syndicalist movement who rejected advancement through political power as if it were supping with the devil. Their view was that the elite would never yield control, so revolution was the only way forward. Any compromise made to achieve political control was simply undermining their mission.
Tuchman describes how the battle came to a head at the London Congress of the Second International in 1896 — the most “tumultuous and chaotic” of all. The French unions, including the steelworkers of Amiens, sided with the Anarchists and made their last stand for membership of the Socialist family. “The French factions split apart in frenzied antagonism over the issue, and when they caucused before the plenary session a “pandemonium of savage clamour” could be heard through the closed doors. After six days of strife during which the old quarrel between Marx and Bakunin was fought all over again, the conference ended by excluding the Anarchists once and for all. A phase of Socialism had come to an end. Few doubted that new issues would not arise to divide the right and left wings of Socialism and keep open the schism between the absolute and the possible.”
Plus ca change!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Proud-Tower-Portrait-before-1890-1914/dp/0345405013
I believe in parliamentary democracy and the recent Brexit referendum has reinforced my view, an extraordinary ugly affair where a very complex multi-stranded relationship was reduced to banal sound bytes with potentially disastrous consequences.
It was interesting you refereed to Edmund Burke a proud Irish Whig and some would say the greatest parliamentarian ever.
I find this a profoundly worrying analysis which will cause even greater fracture of British society. We need better and stronger MPs and not delegates. We absolutely have to push for a PR system. The delegate model is profoundly flawed and will lead to increasing factionalisation. I can vote and certainly will not be voting for Corbyn.
Thanks Sean
I’ve no doubt your analysis and concluions are correct. They certainly chime with the views that have been expressed to me from Corbyn supporters over the past month or so. I think they are also borne out by these two quotes:
‘Democracy gives power to people, “winning” is the small bit that matters to political elites who want to keep power themselves.’
and
‘The big test of a leader is to grow the party, to make the party more active, to challenge the party in parliament – and to take part in all electoral contest.’
The former is attributed to Jon Lansman, now of Momentum. The latter attributed to Corbyn (both reported in Private Eye No. 1423). Neither suggests the basis for a political party that provides an official opposition to a sitting government in a parliamentary system of democracy.
Interesting and fair analysis of Clive Lewis’ article.
I also respect Clive very much and am fortunate to have him as my MP.
I see this leadership battle as primarily a struggle for power between the traditonal way that Parliament has worked in the past and a new way where MP’s are more accountable to the people who put them in that position. You may say that is the electorate and not the membership of a Party, but let’s not forget that if the membership of a Party did not select them to go onto the ballot paper in the first place, then the wider electorate would not have the opportunity to vote for them. That is not say that they should not also be accountable to non-Party members of the electorate they represent, I don’t think Clive or Jeremy Corbyn are suggesting that.
To understand why this current struggle has occurred, one has to understand why we are where we are.
For me and many others, politics has broken down in recent years. It worked fine when we had two major Parties with distinctly different policies and ideologies, a time when there was clear blue water between the Conservatives and Labour. That clear blue water became muddied when New Labour was launched and by the end of Tony Blair’s reign, both Parties had converged into what some simplistically refer to as “the middle ground or centre”. A lot of people felt they had no real choice any longer, the lines between what the two major Parties stood for became very blurred. Margaret Thatcher has been quoted as saying that her greatest achievement was Tony Blair and New Labour. I don’t know if the quote is accurate, but the inferrence behind it is certainly true – New Labour drifted perilously close to the Conservatives in terms of policies or at least that is the way a lot of the elctorate viewed them.
Then 2010 election was decided on who could be trusted to run the economy better and in the aftermath of the 2008 world-wide financial crash, which unfortunately for New Labour, happened on their watch, the Conservatives were seen as more financially competent.
It was during the 2010 – 2015 government that traditonal politics appeared to many, to break down. As you say Richard, our parliamentary democracy depends upon there being an official opposition to hold the government to account, otherwise it can, quite bluntly, do what it likes. Well, during that period there were many ocassions when New Labour were not seen by many not to oppose the government, especially on austerity cuts aimed at the poorest in society, the very people that Labour have traditionally defended. All too often there were abstentions that came across as acquiessence, particularly on wefare cuts. Fortunately, it seems that the LibDems were able to provide at least some opposition to some of the more right wing Conservative proposals.
It has been said that Labour lost the last election because Ed Miliband tried to pull the Party too far to the left and the electorate rejected it. That is the version that the Progress-type Labour MP’s would have people believe. The truth is that Labour lost the last election because they didn’t move far enough to the left. People were given a choice between what many saw as Tories or Tory-lite and, given that choice, then it is no surprise that enough swing voters went for the real thing rather than the Labour version. How many times have you heard people say in the past few years, “they are all the same”, “there is no difference between them”?
And so we come to the current power struggle.
On the one side you have the Labour MP’s, a significant number of which belong to the “Party within a Party”, Progress, who are on the right wing of the Party and often referred to (rightly or wrongly)as Blairites. They have most of the MSM on their side and have used that very effectively against Corbyn snce the day he was elected leader. They want to maintain, what is seen by many to be, the cosy status quo, where there is little difference between the two main Parties, just different shades of blue.
On the other side you have Jeremy Corbyn. A man who comes across as being honest and having integrity, qualities that are seen as a veritable rarity amongst politicians these days. He has Momentum on his side, another organisation that is accused of being “a Party within a Party”. Corbyn has reconnected with people who were disillusioned with direction that politcs has gone on the past couple of decades. He promises change, he promises a return to more traditional Labour values. He makes noises about policies, but polcies are not all that important, at this stage (they can come later), to those in the ‘movement’ that he has created. His message is more about change and taking away some of the power of MP’s and making them more accountable to the people who made them MP’s. He is an underdog and the British love an underdog who comes through against all odds, as he did in last years leadership election. Since his victory, critics in his own Party and the media have served to elevate him to martyr status in the eyes of his supporters. Attacking him and undermining him from day one was not a good decision by those who oppose him, especially as some of that criticis was blatantly unfair and over the top. The machinations of the Labour Party in trying to keep Corbyn off the ballot paper and then denying 130,000 members the right to vote just add to that sense of injustice. It meant that Corbyn’s supporters could righlty claim that he has never been given a chance and that the whole of the establishment is unfairly against him.
Make no mistake, this is a life or death struggle for both sides. If Corbyn loses, then there is no way that anyone like him will ever be given the chance to run for leadership again. MP’s will only put forward candidates who will maintain the status quo in future. If Corbyn wins there is a real likelihood of de-selections and a decimation of those Progress MP’s on the right. There are also likely to be ule changes to prevent MP’s on the far left (or even the far right) being frozen out in future leadership contests.
The British do not love and underdog called Corbyn
And you ignore the middle ground in Labour, which is large
So you analysis is flawed
Not least because Labour could be of the left and parliamentary
But you think a left unfocused movement is fine and I despair at that
It seems to me that politics is undergoing a fundamental change and has been for some time. I can understand this best with reference to some of the ideas of Hannah Arendt.
Two factors seem to have coincided. The first is the stress placed on image and appearance at the expense of political thought, policy or even political speech (which I would distinguish from the conjuring of emotion or the effective soundbite). This change of emphasis came strongly into play when Tony Blair bid for and achieved power. It has now reached a point at which serious political commentators focus at least as much – and often more – on image and appearance than they do on political ideas or on what is feasible and how it can be managed. They then blame the voters for doing the same thing. Arendt talks about this in The Human Condition but what she observed in the 1950s has accelerated furiously in the past twenty years.
The second factor which has come strongly into play for good reasons during the era of austerity and forced migrations is the factor of what Arendt terms “raw material necessity”. In her analysis of the French Revolution she notes that hunger, need and pity took over from the politics of liberty and were crucial in the movement to tyranny under Robespierre. (I’m summarising from memory and it’s a long while since I read On Revolution.) The force of need and the emotional response to it, in various contradictory ways, is becoming a very powerful force in politics.
These two strong factors, taken together, work against anything we may have been taught to expect of parliamentary democracy and probably make it impossible for parliamentary democracy to carry on as before. Throw into the mixture the great power of global corporations, who sell not only the necessities of life but also desire and aspirations which cannot be fulfilled – and which are more skilled than any politician in the marketing of images and appearance – and we have a situation which endangers the reality of democracy in any form. Corporations these days are such abstract entities with no definable centre of power but a strong impulse toward their own perpetuation that it’s hard to tell where their exercise of force will next be displayed.
I can see no easy solution to any of these problems, which form the backdrop to the debates, rows and splits within both Labour and Tory parties – and within other parties across the world. I don’t know how we salvage political debate which has previously tended to work on the assumption that we can stand outside the world and look on it impersonally – these days we know we are either, confusedly and confusingly, part of the world with only a partial view and understanding or we set ourselves up as some kind of external authority.
There is far too much here for a blog comment, I know, but the political situation is, I think, more blurred and difficult than most of us can bear to acknowledge.
I am not willing to support any movement that threatens democracy
And I do not think for a minute we need to go beyond it
I don’t suggest you should. However I think that democracy has been under threat for a long time for the reasons I outline and that we need to turn to the vital question of what democracy requires if it is to be both sustained and retained. This might mean considering what in democracy is most valuable – because at the moment it is being promoted by many chiefly as an instrument of a vague concept called “Britishness” so that, under the Prevent strategy, questioning democracy becomes a trigger for reporting someone to the security services. This locks down debate and adds an additional threat to democracy. So I think we all need to say clearly why democracy is valuable and consider whether the way it functions now is the best way forward – and that means looking at much larger questions. For instance, is the emphasis on individual leaders and leadership itself a challenge to democracy?
Oh come on
Get real
Debate about democracy has not been shut down
Stop talking nonsense
If there was a much greater role for members in the policy making process; if members both recognised the need to respond to voters’ existing opinions and the desirability of persuading them to consider alternatives; if MPs then committed to the policies determined in this way; and if these policies are then put to the electorate in the manifesto the relationships between members, MPs and voters would be much more satisfactory I think
And all that ignores the role of parliament
And of wider democracy
If Labour wants to be a pressure group – and I know about them – what you say might be fine
But you cannot run an opposition on that basis. That depends on trust and that is the element missing in this equation
My comment wasn’t intended to ignore the role of Parliament but to suggest some significant rebalancing in powers of Party members and MPs. I am not a great fan of Edmund Burke and suggest that MPS might take a part-representative-part delegate role.
Then you destroy parliamentary democracy and reduce bit to the charade of a mandated conference that could never hold a government to account
Edmund Burke wrote at a time when it widely believed [albeit not by Thomas Paine and his supporters] that the feudal aristocracy were the best judges of the interests of the poor or “the swinish multitude” as Burke described them [although his supporters have of course claim that this infelicitous phrase has been taken out of context by his detractors.]
Anyway turning to the current situation although this may be unfair on many hard-working MPs, they have in general not had a good press recently. We have had financial scandals, sickening behaviour at Prime Ministers Question time and claims that in many cases MPs simply vote the party line for careerist reasons or because they lack the time, interest or knowledge to understand the issues they are voting on. My feeling is that in many cases they are unaware of the severity of the problems faced by the poor and disadvantaged and that they could in general learn a great deal from the population at large who are now much better educated than in Burke’s time and , on particular issues, perhaps better informed than MPs themselves as recently indicated for example when Mrs Leadsom felt the need to ask whether Climate change existed or not.It seems clear, therefore, that MPS need help.
One source of such help , in my view, is the party membership and it ought to be possible to channel membership expertise in a way that improves party policy making without undermining the processes of parliamentary democracy or preventing MPs from holding government to account. I have already written quite a lot and so will leave this problem “hanging in the air” but I think it is a problem which can be solved.
I will not comment on Tory MPs
I know quite a number from other parties
And I think your comments on most absurd
Might I remind you what Jo Cox died doing? And what all her colleagues still do?
As for policy – Labour has a process already
I read Clive’s article yesterday and was struck by it’s balanced and hopeful tone. He talked of a progressive alliance and cross-party cooperation. No one can doubt that a drastic change is coming to our governance. The fact that so many feel voiceless right now means change is needed. Labour has no right to exist if it cannot speak for those with no voice. I am afraid right now the PLP does not do this, hence the fight for Corbyn.
Any parliamentary party will always have to use its own judgement
Labour is specifically a parliamentary focussed party
If its members try to take control of the PLP it will fail
And the U.K. could be left without a functioning opposition
Is that what you want?
I think you have constructed a false dichotomy here.
The Labour party is not an immutable thing. It is, in the most basic definition, a grouping of MPs, supported by a membership and affiliated organisations, who are sent to Parliament to represent the interests of the constituency in which they were elected. Now there are necessarily differences of opinion as to how best to represent those interests (not least because there are many different interests in any one constituency – not to speak of the country – which are rarely aligned and frequently contradictory). Those differences of opinion are why we have political parties, as well as movements, single-issue campaigns, pressure groups, party donors and lobbyists. These are groupings that share a common opinion or set of opinions.
On that understanding, an MP is both a representative of their constituency (if a minister, they also must consider the broader constituency their department is concerned with) and a promoter of the policies agreed by their party. There’s no contradiction there, and it’s how parliament has always worked.
Now the Labour party is democratically structured such that its opinions are supposed to be in part shaped by the membership in two significant ways – through their input into forming of policy via the National Policy Forum and party conference, and through the selection of parliamentary candidates. Oh yes, there’s also the election of the leader, but that should be much less significant, in terms of policy at least. The leader does not make policy.
Labour’s current impasse stems from the fact that those democratic processes have not been working to the satisfaction of a large part of the membership. Feeling frustrated by their MPs and by the policies the party has adopted, they’ve seen Corbyn’s candidacy and leadership as their best chance to make their voices heard.
Why the frustration? In a general election, the electorate, in large part, does not vote for an individual. It votes for a party. Let’s call it the pig-in-a-red-rosette problem (could equally be blue, yellow, green, purple etc). So the selection of candidates becomes incredibly important, and a major locus of the struggle for control over the direction the party’s heading in. Where you end up with someone like Tristram Hunt being MP for Stoke-on-Trent, something’s gone awry in that selection process.
I don’t know much about the National Policy Forum – I’m a Green Party member, not a Labour Party member – but again, something’s clearly gone wrong where you now have just two leadership candidates trying to win over the membership on platforms that are well to the left of the party’s existing policies. If Owen Smith were to win on the slate of policies he’s just laid out – and there are serious trust issues working against him – there’s still no resolution to the misalignment between the PLP and the membership.
That misalignment is the ‘fault line between the “membership” and the parliamentary Labour party (PLP)’ that Clive Lewis is talking about. I don’t think he’s suggesting anything other than a vision of an improved parliamentary democracy, with the Labour Party within it, that works the way it’s supposed to – ie democratically.
On the broader level, if the full range of opinions held in the country are not part of the debate in parliament, then parliament is simply not representative. Policies like renationalisation of the railways, ending PFI, ending academies – nationally popular policies that you support and I support – have just not been on the table. That means parliament isn’t working as it should. Yes, parliamentary democracy’s a great thing, but our instantiation of it is very far from perfect. Let’s make it better – PR would be a great step forward, but also an opposition that actually offers an alternative to the party in government. I think that’s why some people say that having the right policies has to come before winning – to be clear, not that winning isn’t important, but that it must follow policy, not the other way around. As a Green Party member, I’m obviously of that opinion!
Sorry this comment is long – maybe too long for you to publish! – but I hope you consider it a reasonable argument.
Thanks for the comment
That may have been how things were
But there is no way that is what Clive is talking about
It seems to me a mutiny, if not quite the revolution, has already started. There is an arrogance among the PLP, it manifests in a belief that Labour has a right to exist and will be shaped by MPs. I assume that this is because it is they that are closest to the levers of power so they determine how to use them. How has this has been perceived by the many erstwhile Labour supporters?
Owen Smith has started with fine words although I could do with fewer favourable comparisons to Nye Bevan. Corbyn is a closer match in all but his national origins. It remains to be seen whether Smith also walks the walk. Corbyn is berated for not engaging with the realities of politics so I turn to Smith’s stated aims and find no policy outline on immigration. It matters little whether either candidate wins while neither addresses this issue. The Westminster clique ignored the concerns of Scottish Labour and the party there revolted. The Westminster clique ignored the concerns of Labour voters on immigration and gifted UKIP and its fellow travellers a sackful of votes. Chasing the votes of the soft right has proved electorally expensive.
The problems of disconnection with Labour voters on the issues of immigration and Scottish disaffection were not of Corbyn’s creation. Responsibility for that lays at the feet of former Labour cabinet members many of whom are to be found now driving the anti-Corbyn vehicle. If Smith wants to unify Labour his rhetoric, designed to warm the hearts of the faithful, needs to expand to encompass and address the concerns of the absent sceptics. Core Labour voters have demonstrated they will no longer be told what to support. The PLP must learn to listen.
I entirely agree the PLP must listen, much better
But Corbyn and many of his supporters are going somewhere else entirely
Don’t praise Kinnock too much. He helped cause this crisis by bringing in measures which prevented – many highly competent – left candidates from ever becoming parliamentary candidates. It started with the baseless attacks on Liz Davies and since then few leftists have got through the ideological selection net.
He made Labour parliamentary democracy possible again
Neil Kinnock was given 10 years and suffered two general election defeats before he resigned. Jeremy Corbyn has been given less that 10 months, with a respectable electoral record to date, before the PLP have demanded his head.
Kinnock was competent
Where is the evidence of competence in the failure to stop Thatcherite economics, declining party membership and election defeats?
Where is competence in a 27% opinion poll rating at this stage in the election cycle?
That divided parties lose support is well established, which is why the PLP coup at a time when Labour needed to unite to rise to the challenge of the post-Brexit crisis and the new Tory leadership has caused so much anger in the membership.
Lyn
We are not going to agree
In that case thanks for your comments but I will not be posting any more
They are now just wasting my time
Richard
It seems to me that judging by his record Corbyn is not and never has been a parliamentarian by conviction. Compare for instance such redoubtable specimens of that breed as Foot, Churchill, Tony Benn and Powell: the one thing they all had in common – apart from (not coincidentally) the power of their oratory – was upholding the unrestricted sovereignty of parliament. Lewis, following Corbyn’s lead, seems to be arguing in favour of abandoning that sovereignty (because “outdated”, allegedly) and subordinating parliament – to what, exactly? The party?
A perilous road indeed: that was exactly what Lenin set out to do. When can we expect to hear “all power to the soviets” from the Corbyn camp?
You seem to understand the risk
“Fifth if this is true it is not said as yet how the decision making process of this movement is to be manifested beyond its ability to elect a leader, who is accountable to that movement as a consequence, and not anyone else”.
This was the single most distinctive hallmark of both fascism and bolshevism, and is the absolute antithesis of parliamentary democracy.
The telling thing for me is the mention of alliances and the wish to work with Caroline Lucas.
But no other party is going to want to work with a movement
As Paul Mason has noted, a Progressive Alliance is about parliamentary parties working together and Labour seems intent on destroying the PLP
In that case the option goes away
Hi Richard,
I’m new to commenting here. I came across your blog and have been reading it for some months now. I sense there is a lot of truth spoken which in my experience is fairly rare. If I come across as a little politically naive I hope you will forgive that. I am one of the ‘recently awakened’ politically and there is much to discover.
I must say I tend to agree with Clive Lewis when he says that the existential crisis of social democracy is happening the world over. We now want something more direct and than ‘electing other people to do our bidding.’ What we have worldwide is an ever-growing number of people who, rightly want a hand in their own governance. With instant access to so much information electorates are becoming savvier about the issues that affect them most and want to make their voices count. At the same time politics more polarized and adversarial than ever before because people often feel the things that are important to them have been marginalized by party lines or vested interests.
More than ever I think, the words of Thomas Jefferson ring true. “Democracy is nothing more thn mob rule where 51 percent of the population may take away the rights of the other 49.”
When you look at the substantial groups who have recently lost out through the democratic process it seems hardly fit for purpose any more- e.g. the 63 percent who didn’t vote Tory in the UK at the last election but ended up with a Tory government anyway.
The 45 percent of Scots who voted for independence and are still on fire for self governance.
The 25 percent who didn’t feel their views were represented by any of the main parties and didn’t vote at all.
The ones in constituencies with such large majorities that didn’t vote because it wouldn’t have mad any difference anyway.
The Greens and Ukip who got more than 5 million votes yet got only 2 seats between them.
The 55 percent Scots who voted to remain in the UK at the last referendum and are now afraid that the next one will split the union.
The 62 percent of Scots who voted to remain in the EU and are being dragged out against heir wishes.
Add your own!
I agree with Clive Lewis. It is no longer the politicians who are in the driving seat. With politics struggling under the weight of escalating complexities, is it possible to find one person, or even one party who can possibly represent the interests and expectations of the ‘majority’ any more. No wonder over a million and a half people signed an online petition for political reform after the last election.
There must be fresh creative solutions available. Would it not possible somehow to transcend and include the truth of democracy whilst allowing people to have a more direct or enhanced form of democracy – a kind of crowdocratic approach? Not the same as mob rule. The wisdom of the crowd is well documented. Groups (when they are suitably diverse) are remarkably intelligent and often smarter than the smartest people in them. Think ‘ask the audience’ in Who wants to be a Millionaire —reportedly correct 92 percent of the time or think Wikepedia which is rendering encyclopedias redundant. It is essential that the crowds are suitably diverse and independent. If they are too conscious of the opinions of others the tendency is to begin to emulate each other and conform rather than think differently.
But really. I can feel it coming in the air tonight. Something has to give.
So how does your alternative work?
It’s not my alternative so I don’t have the answer to that, but there’s an interesting book called Crowdocracy by by Alan Watkins and Iman Statenus at least starting the conversation about how it might work. https://www.amazon.com/Crowdocracy-Future-Government-Governance-Wicked/dp/1910692158
The authors suggest it would have to be created from within the system and would be evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary but at the same time radical because it would be crowd-centric as opposed to top-down. Perhaps something like an open-sourced web application to bridge the gap between citizens and their elected representatives. People could start contributing to policy and legislation perhaps in a small way at first.
I believe this book is a good starting book to further the discussion of how it might happen in practice.
Parliamentary democracy is always a representative democracy
I do nit trust any other version: the evidence is it leads to abuse
Some would say the evidence is that parliamentary, representative democracy has itself led to abuse….
There has to be change, is my observation. A better connection between electorate and representatives. And labour must drive this.
I want PR first and foremost.
I want PR too
But without winning in the existing system Labour can’t deliver that
And Corbyn will not consider it
Please remember that
‘I agree with Clive Lewis. It is no longer the politicians who are in the driving seat.’
Wrong Grace, as is Clive Lewis. Tory politicians are still well and truly in the driving seat – and they are mostly to the right of those that frequented Cameron’s government – and they are set to stay there for a very long time now we have no effective opposition party.
So, before I hear much more from all those who want more participatory forms of democracy (which I have nothing against), more “movement” based politics, etc. I want to hear exactly what we put in place in our existing form of parliamentary democracy that can function as an opposition while we “transition” to this new form of democracy.
And let’s also not forget while we are doing this that the Tory party exists and has no interest in such a journey, or indeed in PR or any form of mechanism that will enable it. So without an opposition party (or an alliance of parties) gaining power – becoming a government – we can talk about more participatory forms of democracy, and indeed pursue them within the confines of some political parties – as Corbyn and his supporters obviously want. But we can’t deliver them more widely. And most worryingly of all we create a void in the existing political system which will be exploited ad infinitum by the Tories at deep and tragic cost to the majority of people Corbyn and his supporters claim they wish to protect.
I read your comment before your name Ivan – I try to do that to avoid prejudice if I can
I wondered who the voice of sanity was after getting through the first line
The questions you ask appear of no concern to those in Corbyn’s movement
I have no idea what they think the plan is. Plans don’t seem to matter and that is part of my cause for despair
I fear Richard has been blown off course by the Twitterer mentioning need.
As I read it Lewis not arguing for the drift and dissonance of recent Labour opposition — only saying that they must take more account of their supporters. He doesn’t ever propose MP’s become delegates.
Broadly I think the article says that MP’s are now effectively subject to some other pressures – most MP’s have, after all, already been captured by the corporations and almost all of them by the banks. Lewis thinks a bit more capture by constituency parties would be a good idea. It could certainly be argued that this would get a lot more people interested in politics.
If he had proposed open to all primaries to select candidates to get on the Parliamentary election ballot paper in the first place then I’d agree even more.
The Twitterer is one of a great many
They were confirmatory, not persuasive
And let’s be clear, you are just wrong. It’s just insulting to say most MPs have, after all, already been captured by the corporations and almost all of them by the banks when there is no evidence for that
I’d call as evidence that corporations often pay tax that seems as tho’ it was ostensibly legally inadequate and that banks are also too lightly regulated and we still subsidise them. One can argue whether or not this is desireable but when allegedly 90% of MP’s are suposed to be ignorant of where money comes from I think ‘bank capture’ is overt. Pensions are the only reason for borrowing when you could print!
The claim on tax is not now nearly as true as many think
There are massive problems with tax abuse still – but taking UK examples I say with a very large company today that is paying almost exactly the expected rate of UK tax on its profits, does not use tax havens and is not into tax avoidance
Don’t get me wrong: some do, but much less than they did
Banks are another issue, I agree though
But when 90% of MPs don;t know about money you can’t blame banks: the Bank of England only admitted the truth in 2014. The reality is that most economists still don’t recognise the truth. That;s not because they’re all captured by banks: they just don’t know
I am sorry to say that you are making the most massive jumps to conclusions that cannot be justified
I am not disputing we need many more changes on tax, banking and economic education but saying that is not evidence of corruption amongst MPs
Hi Richard after reading your article I’d be interested to know your views on the SNP who have a system of mandatory re-selection in place for their MP’s.
And how does it work?
I think Grace makes a valid point. Direct Democracy is not a new idea and has, of course, been an important aspect of Swiss government for a long time. ‘Democracy’ in any form is a man-made construct and so can be reconfigured at any time to meet the evolving needs of a particular society. No one size fits all. Our current system of representative democracy has done its job reasonably well but, as Grace states, no longer meets the expectations of the general population.
For it to work effectively populations need to be broken down into smaller constituent parts – as per the Swiss model. I’ll not go into it further here as it’s a major topic in its own right. However, there’s plenty of info out there, viz. http://iddeurope.org/direct-democracy-what-does-it-mean-and-how-does-it-work/1210. For anyone seriously interested I would recomment reading Leopold Kohr’s 1957 classic ‘The Breakdown of Nations’ which is available free on-line. And, given the opportunity (like now), I always recommend revisiting E F Schumacher’s ‘Small is Beautiful – A Study of Economics As If People Mattered'(1973) which is was well ahead of its time, even though the data is now out of date. But the principle is ever more valid.
Not one for predicting the future but I’d say this is the direction in which advanced nations will have to go, either willingly (unlikely) or screaming & shouting. Since the UK establishment is still not in favour of PR, I’d say it will take a generation or two before we’ll get there. Once upon a time … we led the world in socially progressive ideas but, for whatever reason, have seemingly become almost infertile in this area.
I have long argued for reform
We need proper PR
But without a doubt we must keep representative democracy
And you are threatening that
Parliamentary parties have always expected ‘their’ MPs to back declared party policy. Momentum grew as a response to the barrage of criticism in the media of Corbyn by some PLP MPs. It seeks to work within party procedures to develop the policies that the party adopts, the same as other groups within the Labour Party – Unions, Fabians, Progress. Perhaps it is only because it has a large member base, and so could possibly wield a large influence that MPs adhering to the other groups are worried?
Momentum is not the party that I know of
But that is not the point: read what Ivan Horrocks had to say
How are you going to secure change?
Tell me?
Could you post the link to the Ivan Horrocks article you mention?
Thanks
Search I am afraid…
Paul,
I think Richard means Ivan’s post just a few posts above this one. You don’t have to look far!
I don’t see it as threatening. We would still retain the basic principle of representative democracy but devolve much more power out to the regions, which themselves become mini-democracies (possibly back to the 9 regions created in 1994).
There would be no need for so many national MPs and Parliament would convene less frequently. People would become more involved in local politics and whatever national government was elected would be held to account on an ongoing basis. Properly managed referenda could be held for all major issues with voters using their bank-cards or other i/d via ATMs.
Of course I’m having to hugely over-simplify a description of the process which is necessarily a complex issue. The objective is to engage everyone of voting age in decisions that affect their daily lives and from which they increasingly feel separate. I think it would be a move towards a more authentic and efficient democracy.
People do not want to be involved in government
90% of new labour party members don’t go to meetings
And as Brexit proved referenda are a disastrous way to make decisions – and people do not want to be asked
As for regionally run government – all would be households in economic terms and none would have the power to create money. The most powerful weapon in the economy would be lost
Do you really want to move to a system that shackles us to neoliberal thought and the pain that the Euro imposes? I hope not
My reading of Lewis’ remarks it is clear that he has given up on parliament as a means of change and wanted to use non-parliamentary action as well or instead. implied in his analysis is a threat that non-parliamentary action will be violent and that parliamentary representation made up of `pound shop Guevaras` will be used to legitimise non-parliamentary action. It was news to me, a labour party member, that the party had fallen that far.
From the way things stand at the moment – and from recent experience – I agree that referenda could be seen as ‘inappropriate’. That’s because we have little experience of how to organise, manage and even design them in a constructive manner. Not all issues are suitable.
There’s a lot to learn about how to devolve power away from the centre. Maybe there’s something we could import ideas from the US state-based system, the German Bundesländer or the Swiss cantons. In this respect the central government would still be the issuer of the sovereign currency as it is in the US and Switzerland.
I appreciate your point about the current apathy among the English (in particular) re. involvement (less so I believe in Scotland). It’s a bit of a vicious circle. Currently they see no way of having any sort of say other than at GEs which is hardly a form of evolved democracy. Hence they don’t bother with day-to-day issues other than maybe reading, watching or listening to the malevolent MSM. The UK is probably one of the most centralised, consumer product orientated nations on the planet, not least due to our sophisticated expertise in marketing, advertising & PR. Not only is the public continuously distracted but also subconsciously brainwashed.
But shift happens. Nothing remains the same. There can be no progress without an initial ideal. Some issues can be ‘fixed’ in a relatively short time scale. Radical change takes longer which is why I originally suggested 2 generations, i.e. 70 years. It’s the long march, single step metaphor.
In the meantime your practical suggestions would hopefully mitigate against neo-liberal excesses until that dysfunctional ideology can be binned once and for all. I was just looking further into the future. A long-term plan!
The excitement surrounding the Corbyn campaign is very simple to understand, and closely reflects the Sanders phenomenon in the USA. We are citizens who have watched the world being run, poorly and for personal gain, by the rich and powerful. Corbyn and Sanders have consistently called this what it is; injustice. The opportunity arose for both of these men to spread that message further and to right some of the countless wrongs we have witnessed.
Their subsequent vilification has not only highlighted how right they were about the injustice of the status quo, but also the depths to which the establishment would sink to protect the unjust situation over which they preside.
So yes, this is about revolution. And no, we haven’t got all the details worked out. That doesn’t mean that we can’t create clear coherent plans for the future, and this is a work in progress. This isn’t about revolution within the Labour Party, it’s much bigger than that. Perhaps that’s why people don’t ‘get it’; we’re not interested in having a Labour leader that the Guardian likes, because the media should not be able to decide who is electable or not. The Corbyn leadership has brought to light so many fascinating issues and terrifying truths, not least the power of propaganda and the dangers of a biased media.
We want drastic change, not a reluctant step in the right direction. Owen Smith does not offer anything other than the status quo; he is a weathervane when we demand a signpost.
I too want change
Desperately
And I promise you I have worked for it
But I tell you – go down this route and I promise you one thing – which is a free ride fir the right wing and all they stand for
I wish I could see something else but I can’t
One ill ion people may agree with you
The rest will walk away
And you will fail so many as a result
I cannot and will not stand by and see that happen without comment
There’s one word I haven’t seen- pragmatism. I think Jeremy Corbyn could learn a lot from Bernie Sanders.
So is this a disagreement about the demographic of Corbyn voters?
You think that the outcome of a Corbyn win will be a free ride for the right wing, because (enough) people will not vote for Corbyn and we will lose the next election.
But my experience is that, despite the media onslaught of slander and bias, the Corbyn-led Labour Party were gaining popularity with the electorate (polling neck and neck at referendum time), and we were holding the tories to account on many issues (Tax credits, Saudi contracts), rather than pretending that the tories were largely right about everything. In short, I did not see him as an ineffective opposition. I was very disappointed when I read your article describing the silence from the leadership; I think that is a great reason to ensure that the Labour machine works properly and that clear effective leadership comes through the ranks. But I don’t think we ought to get rid of him because of it. I’ve seen people who are normally completely disenfranchised by politics, suddenly taking an interest not just in Corbyn but in their own role in democracy. He has made people realise that they too deserve a say in what’s happening, and that they can, and ought, to be able to participate in making decisions.
As Clive Lewis said, Corbyn is by no means perfect. But his supporters never said that he was – simply that he is (in EVERY way) better than the repulsive Tory alternatives. Smith falls too close to the tree of sleek, polished PR politicians that say whatever they think will work on the day. And he’s not even amazing at that. Whereas Corbyn represents a new passion and engagement, empowering people to make their voice heard and to stand up for what’s right.
Read what I wrote this morning
You clearly are not following my arguments
Where politics are framed by an ‘us and them’ mentality as it is at present it is far too easy to shift the blame to the politicians or the systems or to parliament. A crowdocratic approach would fundamentally change all that. Instead of being ‘your’ problems or ‘their’ problems they become ‘our’ collective problems. How else are we going to see that the problems we face belong to all of us to solve and that we are all responsible for shaping our world? We are all interconnected and sooner or later most of society’s problems are going to come knocking on our door.
I am hardly seeing the evidence of that
All I see is closed mindedness on a massive scale from Cobynistas
I have taken part in a great meeting of traditional Labour, Greens and LibDems which really worked and all felt Momentum would destroy the chance of working together
I am sure that was genuine
Richard, you seem to have a view of Momentum drawn from the wilder imaginings of the media and some MPs. I’m secretary of a Momentum branch in a medium-large city and I simply can’t recognise the picture you are trying to draw.
We had a great meeting on Tuesday of over 100 people, many of them new to political activity but keen to get involved in a movement (a term I’m proud of) that welcomes them and wants to develop policies and activities that recognise the reality of life for too many people and aspire to change that. Policy is certainly immature in many areas but any process that seeks to engage people takes time. It has been an exceptionally busy period with local elections, the EU referendum and now an unnecessary leadership challenge, all of which gets in the way of developing policy.
Nobody proposed at our meeting that we should abolish representative democracy, destroy Parliament or elect soviets. Where do these fantasies come from? We do believe that members of a political party should have the right to choose the leaders of that party and the candidates that will stand in its name in elections for Parliamentary or other representatives, and why not?
Please get out of the London policy bubble and talk to people who are actually engaged in this.
Drawn more from what Labour party people at branch level tell me
Nice to have members they say
Nicer still if they did something other than make the party unelectable
It’s usually considered good research practice to investigate both sides before coming to a conclusion.
Making the party unelectable? Let me give you a counter example. I am also secretary of my local Labour Party branch, having re-joined a year or so ago. In the most deprived section of my ward, there is considerable dissatisfaction with the party, which runs the Council and, rightly or wrongly, is widely not seen as doing anything for ordinary people. Losing the Council seat next May is a real possibility. So I have got involved in a local issue (parking) which has been generating a lot of anger. Working with the Councillor and local community workers, I managed to get the local residents group to agree on statements that won broad consensus on what was wanted, then wrote that up into a petition which the residents took around and gained several hundred signatures. Today we organised a polite lobby of a council meeting, delivered the petition to our Councillor, cheered him loudly when he presented it, then left quietly, with everyone feeling good and much more confident as a community. Participatory democracy in action, and we’ve started to restore some local credibility for the party. More work and perhaps we’ll hold that seat.
Facts are much better than innuendo and slander. I recommend them.
Facts are a funny thing. The simple exercise of observing them changes them. That is, in fact, just about the only thing we know with certainty about many of them. And when it comes to politics there are only judgements. That is a fact. They can be honestly held but are still judgements. That’s what the passion is about.
Judgements have to be based on what is actually happening. You are happy to claim about Momentum “Nicer still if they did something other than make the party unelectable”. I then provide a real-world example of how I, as a leading local Momentum activist, am taking practical action to help my community improve their lives and boost Labour’s standing. But you feel no obligation to consider that, just to repeat your by now fixed prejudice.
I repeat: get out of the policy bubble and talk to those involved.
I do
Hi Richard,
I have to agree with Lyn, my experience of the Momentum members, supporters and meetings in my local area is very good. Everyone seems like normal decent people, discussion is polite, if at times passionate, and the more active members are amongst the most active campaigners in my CLP. All are to my knowledge LP members, some old returning ones, some new and a few ‘entryists’ who have resigned from other parties to join. I haven’t ever witnessed anything that fits the ‘Trot’ description, although I do understand there was a small group of about 3 more revolutionary attendees, at a larger regional meeting, out of about 100. I didn’t attend but a friend in my CLP said the reaction to their calls for taking things to the streets was very bad from the other people present and they were told to shut up in no uncertain terms by the vast majority present. The meeting was open as far as I know, so I have no idea if they were even members of momentum. I’m not and was planning to attend for example.
I would also say the ‘Corbynistas’ I know personally are more open minded than the most vocal members of the CLP old guard, some of whom seem very bitter and intransigent. Some of Corbyn’s dubious past associations and his alleged ‘electability’ seem the biggest stumbling blocks though, more than his politics, and the actual political beliefs of the hostile group vary and aren’t all on the right. Discussion with this group and the ‘Corbynistas’ is usually civil but not exactly friendly. Although interestingly many of the most hostile are also very active campaigners and campaign with the same people they argue with online.
This atmosphere hasn’t made my CLP FaceBook group a pleasant place and most of the ‘Corbynistas’ have quit the group or no longer post messages. There is also a Momentum group, which is much friendlier despite some members still being quite critical of Corbyn but in a more constructive way. The hostile attitude certainly isn’t true of all the older members, I should hasten to add, many of whom have been very welcoming, just a small but vocal group.
So I think we need to be wary of stereotyping a lot of well meaning and politically engaged people. The idea Momentum is some kind of Stalinist junta in waiting is the stuff of Daily Mail fantasy. Not that I am accusing you of believing that.
In that case, why are you in denial of the work being done by Momentum activists to rebuild Labour in our communities? Instead, you just repeat media slurs.
I am not repeating any slurs
You may have noticed I am capable of creating my own evidenced based opinion
And I have
Really interesting. I would suggest that our parliamentary system has worked to the advantage of a subsection of the population, and at times helped to raise people outside that group up into better circumstances – at other times it has failed those in the periphery and sent them back into the dark. What proportion have benefited as against those who have not? Depends on which period I guess – several times during the 20th century great progress was made in improving the lot of poorer people. More recently other forces have been at work whereby corporations have gained ascendancy in many spheres of life, and their goals are indifferent to quality of life. As far as consumers are needed to keep them going, they will operate to the benefit of some. But people who are superfluous to the bottom line may as well forget it – they can die in the most horrible circumstances and it will not matter.
Corporations and multinationals now have far more power than individual governments in affecting our lives, and we see many of our leaders beholden to these powerful organisations through financial inducements and ‘lobbying’. It looks very much like our politics have been bought.
But now we have mass activism – social networking – coming into the mix. Corporations see their all important bottom line threatened by international campaigns which can tarnish brands and reduce profits. ‘People power’ – thanks to the internet and the flow of ideas – has arisen to challenge the excesses of the goliaths of our world.
I see no evidence that the same level of responsibility has been levied on corporate bodies by elected – democratic – governments (perhaps with the exception of BP in the US – but then that didn’t happen in an African backwater or an Indian rural community. Meanwhile, however, Nestle carries on extracting millions of gallons of water from a drying aquifer so it can bottle it and sell it back to thirsty Americans).
If a large section of the electorate are simply too unconcerned about the welfare of ‘others’ – especially when the ‘others’ reside outside ‘our country’, then why should democratic governments ‘care’? Yet looking after everyone on this planet is the only way this planet will survive. We can see the truth of that now. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle and its a very pissed off genie. Thinking we can build walls to keep it out is a massive, terminal, fail.
Its possible one could point to large events such as ‘Live Aid’ or this famine relief or the other to refute my point, to claim that there is always a mechanism whereby greater good can be derived in the traditional system. But I believe that many of these grand gestures simply placate guilty consciences or create the impression that lasting good is being done in our name elsewhere, when it seems that in most cases there is no lasting good and meanwhile corporate capitalism carries on unchecked.
There is a sense that our planet is approaching a real threshold of chaos and danger, a situation so grave that global bodies issue alert after alert and yet democratic governments have not found it in their power or nature to seriously address the issues at hand. Where is the greater good in a system that uses an apathetic mass of voters as a fig leaf to hide from ecological, environmental and social disaster?
The activism that Corbyn represents, that you question in your piece, is the very real voice of millions of normal people who may not form an electoral majority, but who know (and I say this advisedly, because there can be no doubt about it in any rational mind) that our parliamentary system is failing to protect us against forces that will ravage the planet. Perhaps that sounds over-pessimistic: I’m sorry. Everywhere around us our precious biosphere is collapsing. Our leaders have failed – over decades – to prepare for energy security, social cohesion in the face of large scale migrations due to war and poverty, climate degradation, resource depletion, mass unemployment due to automation… all the ‘electorate’ are ever asked to respond to are issues of consumption and comfort, framed in ways in which a reduction is seen as heresy or ridiculous – laughable! – and therefore every time the answer comes back: We want more! Meanwhile our mass media, consolidated into a few powerful bodies with their own corporate agenda, reinforces the orthodoxy.
In a way government has been acting as the dysfunctional mass you seem to say ‘activism’ represents (apologies if that’s not correct), riding a wave of radical consumerism to the detriment of good ‘husbandry’ – making things worse for current and future generations of this country. Instead, with obvious financial inducements and corporate lobbying, our governments seem intent on playing this inexhaustible electoral orthodoxy to its very deadly end game.
Its very obvious to me that our current political system has failed. And I guess I wonder like you how this – or any – alternative will make out. But I believe people have every right to demand something different to the pantomime of party politics as they stand, because they merely represent the visible aspect of dead-eyed corporatism – which is destroying our planet.
I’m sorry this argument may seem disjointed and haphazzard – I have tried to be as truthful to my thoughts as possible but I’ve spent too long now on this and must go and feed the dogs, It’ll have to do.
I agree that in the neoliberal era people have voted (and I stress, they have) for parties that have failed us
Labour, Tory and LibDem
So what do you want?
To let that continue?
Or withdraw from the process?
I would argue that it is only by reclaiming parliamentary democracy that we have a hope
A progressive alliance could well be part of that
But can a mass movement that has no policy, no representative status and no authority to act, let alone challenge a government a role to play other than in a support capacity? I’d argue not
But that movement is destroying Labour and the result will be Tory government
I am aware plans aren’t popular right now. But surely there is a better plan that this?
.
You say:
“But can a mass movement that has no policy, no representative status and no authority to act, let alone challenge a government a role to play other than in a support capacity? I’d argue not”
You seem to have dismissed the book I suggested out of hand but I would urge you to take a look at it. Perhaps it was the subtitle – The end of politics-that put you off. it would have been better titled ‘the end of politics as we know it’- But that wouldn’t have been so appealing to the publishers no doubt.
I certainly wasn’t suggesting that a crowdocratic approach is the same as populist mob rule or politicians responding to the voice of the crowd as in the European refugee crisis that forced the government to think about taking thousands more into the UK. Agreed that is no way to create policy even if we agree with the end result.
But I also agree that with a previous comment that the genie is out of the bottle. People are used to expressing their opinion on a wide variety of subjects.
You may feel that in general people are ill equipped for political participation but the evidence would indicate otherwise. Though I only speak from my own experience of the Scottish electorate but I can say with assurance that the engagement from ordinary people is greater than at any time since I can remember.
The crowdocratic approach would exist within the parameters of a strong constitutional framework- (think Iceland)
I quote from Crowdocracy:
“It is therefore vital that we start to organise this development, and the desire and willingness to participate, so that we can give the crowd a forum to make their voice heard. This forum must exist within a strong and ethical governance framework, underpinned by democratic principles that cannot be swayed simply by whatever hot topic ignites the crowd at any given time or whatever section of the crowd shouts the loudest. Without that framework, including a strong constitutional guidebook that all participants co-create and adhere to, we won’t actually evolve t a better system. Instead we will simply have a noisier version of what we have now. Crowdocracy would facilitate the very best of what the crowd has to offer while mitigating our less helpful group behaviour such as groupthink, conformity and bullying.”
I ru this blog in what is pretty much my spare time
You expect me to secure and read a book in an evening at your whim?
Come on, please!
No. With respect I wasn’t suggesting you do it right now. I thought that might have been obvious!
It wasn’t from your tone
A cheap shot Richard. It’s impossible to accurately read tone via the written word, especially when you don’t have a full appreciation of someone’s personality. I had hoped you would respond to the content of my posts rather than attacking my ‘tone.’
You set a pre-condition I could not meet
Malignant Capitalism is often a firm of Stalinism but it can only be reformed democratically. To do otherwise is to copy the same Stalinistic tactics and probably later yourself and others fall victim to such tactics. In other words our animal instinct for dominance has to be balanced by our human ultra-social instinct for co-operative counter-dominance.
In the leadership election last year you appeared with Corbyn at a rally in Nottingham. I attended that event purely to hear you speak. It was so well attended that the hall was full and a sizeable crowd of a few hundred were left outside. You and Corbyn spoke to the outside group before going into the hall. At the time you seemed in favour of him and so did your blogs. What happened?
He did not deliver
What is more he is clueless on how to deliver
We found that out only because he became leader
I learned that and changed my mind
Would the tenor of this interesting observation change if it was couched in terms of a continuum rather than a polarity? Mr. Lewis’s point could therefore be couched in terms of more or less rather than either/or?
Seeking a break from Labour’s past is not an either / or
Richard,
Thank you so much for maintaining your endless flow of common sense from this website, this blog. It is noticeable from the previous responses to your posting today, that you are read by divergent viewpoints, which is refreshing and stimulates debate.
Keep up the good work.
Bob
All [most] people want is a life.
A job paying enough to live on and have a bit of fun, for most.
They also want politicians to do politics.
Unfortunately, politicians seem to want to be financial gurus’ and social scientists as well.
Mr Corby, whose approach you dislike, seems to have had some good advice, or more likely, some good thoughts, on how to approach people as people, rather than as objects.
You seem, from what I read, to favour the Smith approach, which is [from my viewpoint] built on the Blair approach [more of the same but on steroids].
People (well, not all, but a large amount) rather like the grassroots approach…
As for no policies…we have all seen that good policies are mentioned by one, and stolen by all.
And there is four years to go before an election (and yes, I think that Mrs May will go the term…she has few other options other than repealing the five-year-term act).
Maybe it is just that the Blair/Cameron approach is outdated, or has been “rumbled”?
Maybe, just maybe, people do not want to be treated as cattle anymore?
Talk is cheap though…..and politicians are widely regarded less favourably than anyone, regularly topping the list of “most disliked”
Funny how people list Owen Smith as “soft left”, while I regard him as “soft right” and Corbyn as “soft left”
Maybe the cattle are revolting?
It’s the revolt that is the biggest threat
See my blog just published
You seem to be objecting to the extra-parliamentary aspect of the Labour Party.
The Conservatives’ extra-parliamentary dimension is business and private donors who require their party to fulfill their expectations.
The Labour Party’s extra-parliamentary dimension is the tens of millions of people who are maltreated by the free market system or at least made subject to widening inequalities.
It is quite reasonable for Corbyn’s leadership to propose and galvanise such a force as a social movement.
That is a far more serious kind of opposition and scrutiny than recent Labour Party incarnations that have drifted from any real social base.
Admittedly, there is a need for the PLP to step up to the plate of scrutinising government actions. But the reason for not doing it so far is the majority of MPs hostility to Corbyn’s politics, not because Corbyn’s leadership is unable to scrutinise per se.
I have no problems with social movements
But they cannot run the Opposition
Influence by all means
But Opposition requires something else and Corbyn cannot supply it
It strikes me that there’s really nothing new in this discussion – just lots of people discovering old truths for the first time.
The choice between the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary routes has confronted each in succession of the whole spectrum of grass-roots movements to have arisen (within the democracies, broadly defined) over the past couple of hundred years: the Chartists, the Socialists (who split between Communists – non-parliamentary – and Social Democrats – parliamentary), the trade union movement. etc. Meanwhile various largely peripheral (so far as the democracies, although not the autocracies, were concerned) revolutionary movements such as the Anarchists and their offshoots (eg syndicalism) adopted as their starting-point the complete repudiation of parliamentary democracy, either as an alleged bourgeois con-trick or because it was not an available option for them anyway.
As recently as the ‘eighties a majority of the members of one of the largest of British trade unions, the Mineworkers, consciously repudiated the parliamentary and chose the extra-parliamentary route: they attempted to halt in its tracks and to reverse in direction the policy of a democratically-elected government to which they were opposed, by means of illegal industrial action the aim of which was nothing less than to bring the entire economy to a halt – in effect an attempt to repeat the 1926 General Strike (which was the then most recent excursion of the trade-union movement in an extra-parleamentary direction).
Meanwhile their principal ideological opponents the neoliberals were adopting an altogether more subtle approach, which did not confront “collectivism” (the so-called “road to serfdom”) head-on by extra-parliamentary action but instead worked quietly and doggedly over two or more decades at creating a (seemingly-academic) thought-collective aimed at winning-over influential adherents within right-wing political circles (eg Keith Joseph) to their ideas. As we know, they succeeded brilliantly – and the defeat of the Mineworkers was one of the early results of that success (the defeat of the air-traffic controllers by Reagan was another).
The battle is one of ideas but the dilemma. always, is means vs. ends. That’s the dilemma, it seems to me, which is now engaging the obsessive attention – to the exclusion of all other concerns however immediate – not just of the Labour party but of the entire Left in this country. Just as it has on many previous occasions. Eventually comparitive sanity will be regained but not until it is will we have a credible parliamentary opposition, having ANY credible policy alternatives to offer.
I am getting a sense of my democratic wish labelled populism and thus invalid.
Which compounds my democratic wish and makes it appear ever more sensible.
Or destructive if attached to unfocused demands with no plan for delivery
Just reading Clive’s article the first thing I agree with is that he is not falling victim to what Chris Dillow calls Bonny Tyler syndrome – i.e. waiting on a hero – or a leader that will provide all the answers in policy terms and personality.
Clive’s point that the central state cannot make the political weather is also something I agree with. If this was not the case then Scotland would not now be in the position that it is in – an increasingly different country from England at least politically but perhaps socially too – and the EU referendum would have had a different result.
I think he is calling out what is happening. But he is also clearly looking for parliamentary alliances to form a government. He probably thinks that PR, which he supported against the Party whip, will more effectively reflect the disparate range of views that exist in the country.
Increasingly people are not listening to politicians and feel less ties to one (if any) political discourse or world view. Corbyn’s victory last year was a symptom of that too – fueled not by Trotskyites but former Green and Liberal Democrat voters, former Labour members and the young. And, like the loss of Scotland, it has knocked the PLP for six.
I also think that his view about forming alliances with activists across the political spectrum also makes sense when you consider that people’s connection with the trade union movement – in the past a significant form of activism in society – is nowhere near as significant as it was.
But generally I think that Clive is raising questions rather than mapping out a firm direction, in fact it would be inconsistent with the view he is formulating to do that.
I think Clive is floundering
I said I like him
I am on record as being in favour of a Porgessive Alliance. – but I promise you JC is not
But between all that there is what I said which I see
And which I stick by because it is what I am observing
Baginni’s excellent article https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/25/jeremy-corbyn-populist-democracy-mps makes a solid statement of the dangers to our form of representative parliamentary democracy of Cobynite populism.
Just as ‘populism’ is one stream that challanges representative parliamentary democracy one might argue that the weak minded capitulation of the PLP to a broadly ‘neo liberal’ ideology is another such challenge. This for me became starkly real when Harriet Harmen stood as the leader at the dispatch box on July 12th 2015 and stated that that the PLP would not oppose the governments welfare bill.
Corbynite populism is not a solution. Equally the rump of the PLP, as is, is not fit to serve its role in our representative parliamentary democracy.