you can’t say that! ken livingstone as a barrier to working class organisation

Ollie Sutherland was not impressed by the common call on the left for us to vote labour.

What always strikes me as bizarre about elections is the importance the left places on them. Every few years working people get the chance to choose which part of the ruling class they wish oppress them; as it’s always the ruling class in power after the elections, why do most of the left encourage participation in them? Elections are an ideological cornerstone of capitalist ‘democracy’: that people have control over who governs the country and makes key decisions about society. Therein lies the problem: they give people the illusion of control, when people’s lives and society are actually controlled by their workplace and the economic system – not parliament or City Hall.

what can we tell from the scottish local election?

By Allan Armstrong

The Scottish local council elections, held on May 5th, have attracted much wider interest than would normally normally be the case for such an event. The primary reason for this is the mounting speculation arising from the SNP Holyrood government’s promised Scottish independence referendum in 2014. The media has become more aware that the current UK constitutional arrangements face a real challenge. Therefore, whenever any Scottish election occurs, the runes are carefully being read to see if support for independence is growing or falling away.

The usual presumption is that votes for the SNP can be directly interpreted as support for Scottish independence. There are a number of problems with this. A vote for the SNP represents different things in different contexts. This can be seen by examining the very different voting patterns in the Westminster, Holyrood and local elections; and also by comparing these to polls showing the levels of support for Scottish independence (however this is understood).

french and greek voters seek a way out of austerity

Adam Ford on the recent elections in Europe.

Hollande has spoken of his admiration for Greek destroyer-in-chief Papandreou

The financial markets went into a petulant sulk today, in response to the election results in France – where incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated by his ‘centre-left’ challenger – and in Greece, where two thirds of the electorate voted against avowedly anti-austerity candidates. It seems likely that we will now see some attempt at rebranding austerity – ‘neoliberalism with a human face’ – but this will be nothing more than ‘lipstick on a pig’. The international financial gamblers will allow no let-up in the transfer of wealth from the overwhelming majority to their own decadent and diseased milieu.

councils of despair

Sheila Cohen writes on the situation after last month’s elections

The May elections have left a smirk on Cameron’s face – or perhaps we should say deepened the one that was already there. But for the left the result was, once again, a mixture of predictability and despair. While the Tories got trounced in the Northern cities – and the LibDems , of course, everywhere –  any illusion of a return to sanity was flattened by the Tories’ overall performance.

ed miliband is fishing for conservative working-class support

The staunch battalions of the North, it seems, have never forgotten Thatcher and the wounds she inflicted – but in the supposedly affluent South-East, the dynasties that once fell to New Labour have once again reverted to at least the appearance of support for what our rulers love to refer to as “aspirational” policies.    

manchester class struggle forum, wednesday 24th

The first Manchester Class Struggle Forum will host a discussion on the Labour Party and the upcoming General Election.

We will discuss the 2010 general election and the position that communists should take towards bourgeois elections.

electoralism and crisis in the nouveau parti anticapitaliste

Ramate Keita reports from Paris on the cracks in the NPA’s electoral left unity strategy

Next March will see regional elections in France. These will elect the “regional assemblies” which control the budgets for transport, education and welfare. In the 2004 regional elections the [neo-liberal social democrat] Parti Socialiste won Paris and the majority of regions. At that time there was a Trotskyist alliance of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire  and Lutte Ouvrière which in spite of calls for a “pragmatic vote” secured one million votes. It was a pole for independent working-class politics.

In February we commented on the creation of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste. The LCR called for the formation of this party, and we said “that the stamp the leadership is making on the NPA is a dangerous ambiguity, marked by uncertainty and political and programmatic confusion, and more an electoralist project (with one eye fixed, in the immediate, on the coming European elections) than a tool for revolutionary class struggle”.

building from below: left unity and the case of northampton sos

by Dave Spencer

See here and here for leaflets from the campaign

The SWP’s call for Left Unity for the 2010 General Election should come with a “serious health warning” attached to it.  On February 5^th 2005 the SWP used its majority to close down the Socialist Alliance, which involved a number of different Left groups and individuals.  They closed it down to establish their own, more loyal front organisation, Respect.  And we all know what happened to Respect!

At the same time the SWP helped to organise the demoralising split in the SSP (Scottish Socialist Party).  They had “a platform” inside the SSP and encouraged Tommy Sheridan to break the broad and brave alliance of the SSP.  Why? Because the SWP cannot stand rival organisations.

the fantasy world of UKIP

by Solomon Anker

The results of the European Elections have lead to many people being very worried about the rise of the BNP, but few haveany fear for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) despite them having great success. While it is true that UKIP are far from the aggressive racists of the BNP, still the nationalism of UKIP as well as their right-wing agenda on other issues is all very damaging. UKIP came in 2nd in the recent European Elections ahead of both the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats, and due to this strength, in many ways they are even more dangerous than the BNP.

Out of the 16% of British voters who supported UKIP, very few of them know anything about what UKIP really believe in except for their anti-EU attitude. But in general these voters are not that ignorant of UKIP because as UKIP are a very shallow party there is not really much more to understand. In short UKIP’s basic ideas are based on a victim mentality that poor Britain is being oppressed by Europe and needs to escape from this occupation. In their fantasy, Britain is also this heroic country of Winston Churchill who defeated the Germans in World War II and is the home of freedom, peace and justice. This is of course the type of thing that all nationalists think about their country and it is a mixture of truth and non-truth. Britain has achieved many great things but Britain has also committed some of the worst crimes in history and its economic policies towards the 3rd World continue to be oppressive. But of course UKIP don’t care at all about the 3rd world.

communists and elections

The following article appeared in The Socialist, official organ of the Socialist Labour Party, No.18,  May 6, 1920. The SLP was founded by Scots/Irish revolutionary James Connolly, and was influenced by the American Marxist Daniel De Leon. The SLP however was never as doctrinaire as the American SLP and they developed pioneering ideas of ‘communism from below’ and a strong critique of state-socialism that anticipated many of the problems of the 20th century and today. The following article is a contribution to the discussion on communist attitudes to elections and participation in institutions such as local authorities. The issues addressed in this revolutionary period are very much alive today, not least of all the familiar picture of rotten Labour councillors. This article also helps inform our own discussions on these issues in the 21st century.

Chris Kane