24.09.2015

From internet to the steel city

Red Labour, a group previously found only on social media, has taken physical form in Sheffield, reports Micky Coulter

Until recently, Red Labour was just a Facebook page owned by a small number of socialists on, apparently, only vaguely familiar terms with each other. It featured quotes and links to articles that implied a political outlook far to the left of the official positions of Labour. It had, quietly, been building up its followers, but had no real-world existence until the movement in support of Jeremy Corbyn prompted its founders to ask openly whether or not they should attempt to organise in the real world - a big step from a Facebook page, where implied support always exceeds considerably actual support.

In Sheffield the Red Labour comrades launched meetings under the ‘Sheffield4Corbyn’ banner. Here, as elsewhere around the country, such meetings drew in quite large numbers of those newly excited and enthused, together with those returning to Labour’s ranks, and were successful far beyond the structural organisational capacity, personnel and sense of political direction of the local Red Labour groups. In short, by looking as if they were the real thing they have, by getting a foot onto the Corbyn space elevator, managed to become, or perhaps be on the verge of becoming, something approaching the real thing.

How prepared they are for this remains an open question, although perhaps a few clues could be gleaned from the first meeting in the steel city of the Sheffield4Corbyn campaign in the aftermath of the new leader’s crushing victory, but also from the meeting hosted by the Sheffield Open Socialist Forum, in which we in the CPGB are active, which featured a Red Labour speaker, Dominic Riddler, alongside Martin Mayer of Labour’s national executive committee and Simon Hardy, Left Unity’s membership and communication officer.

Kicking things off was the firmly reformist and social democratic comrade Mayer. He offered a recapitulation of the long history of discontent within both society and Labour, going all the way back to the party’s 1997 election victory, upon which disappointment set in almost immediately, with Labour MP’s voting for Tony Blair’s attack on single mothers. However, despite the Blairites’ iron control of the party machine and the destruction of what democracy there was within Labour, the tide had turned, particularly after Ed Miliband alienated the unions with the manufactured non-controversy over the Falkirk selection. Following the traditional soft-left line, comrade Mayer played up the need for a Keynesian economic programme of government spending in order to restore (capitalist) “growth”.

Standing to Mayer’s literal and political left was the next speaker, Dominic Riddler of Red Labour. He recounted how the group had grown from its first tentative gathering above a pub, which then led to regular meetings of increasing size, and ultimately the Sheffield4Corbyn campaign. Red Labour now intends to organise a meeting to attempt to draw together those inspired by the Corbyn campaign, but things seem to be at a very early stage. The general aim, he said, is to unite the wider Labour left and help it become an effective force, which it will need to be, as the campaign to make Labour democratic and to oust the Lord Sainsburys and much of the Parliamentary Labour Party will be extremely difficult and will involve consistent work within the party’s structures - not half as exciting as attending large, enthusiastic rallies.

The comrade’s first remark was fairly standard left Labourism. Corbyn was correct to go for a broad-church cabinet, filled with hostile rightwing PLP members - not as a tactical question in order make it perfectly clear that it is the right that refuses to implement the democratic decisions of the party majority and is responsible for an eventual split, but, he seemed to imply, as a merit in its own right. He was effusive about the electability of comrade Corbyn and appeared convinced that “Jeremy can win in 2020.” Of course, Labour may well win in 2020 despite everything. They may not - at this distance it certainly appears an open question. But the issue is, as I pointed out in my contribution: suppose Corbyn is not ‘electable’, that the press attacks do see a drop in Labour’s ratings, or there is a war and a wave of patriotism, or any other obstacle that one could imagine - do we then get back on the slippery slope that led to Blairism and give away more and more of our programme to try and satiate our insatiable enemies and in order to become ‘electable’?

Standing once again to the left on the panel was Simon Hardy. He stated that the ‘capitalist realist’ consensus was breaking up, and that political frustrations going back decades were surfacing at last in the form of the Corbyn victory. However, he continued, the Labour Party remains a party of a dual nature, with both a left and a right, the latter acting as a guarantor for capital. This continues to apply to Corbyn, he concluded. The coming fight, within and without Labour, over the Conservative government’s Trade Union Bill, for example, would be “a fight to the death”, as the contradictions present were too intense to merely ebb away. Some signs do not look good, he added, observing that even though the aforementioned bill will shortly be law, there is not even the beginnings of real opposition to it from the trade unions.

Critically minded

The debate from the floor was certainly much more critically minded than the official Labourist optimism of Martin Mayer. Tina Becker of Left Unity’s Communist Platform was worried that we were already witnessing early signs of capitulation - the meeting took place shortly after the national anthem ‘scandal’. She commented that Lenin’s description of Labour’s dual character, a bourgeois workers’ party, was especially apt right now. That meant it was now futile for Marxists to pose as old Labour - which has just taken over the party’s “commanding heights” - and instead they should campaign for an openly Marxist party.

Others were confident that phenomena such as we were witnessing would soon manifest in other countries, and that we could begin to consider the reconstitution of some kind of real international movement that naturally viewed its struggle as international - a concrete reality, not an idealist aspiration.

All were agreed that the right wing in Labour had to go. Comrade Richard Belbin noted that it was not just the PLP that was the anti-party, anti-democracy, anti-socialist force in Labour - most of the party’s local councillors fell into that category too. The problem was that the left does not yet have the organisation or human resources to replace them straightaway, so essentially “We’re stuck with them”.

In response to a cheeky - but utterly pertinent - question from the floor about Left Unity’s attitude to the Labour Party, comrade Hardy stated that, though it is the duty of every socialist to show solidarity with the Corbyn movement and with Corbyn in the face of the media attacks, there was no need for everyone to join Labour. What matters is having a united front on particular issues.

Red Labour’s Dominic Riddler was adamant that Corbyn should not bow down to media pressure, or back-pedal for apparent expediency. On local councillors, he said they would prove to be a mixed bunch. Some would come over (some were already over), but most will not. On the need for a youth movement within Labour, the comrade noted that Sheffield University Labour Society did not do much, and that Red Labour itself did not really exist yet on the ground.

Martin Mayer was sure that Corbyn would survive the press onslaught, and pointed to the recent opinion polls in the days immediately following Corbyn’s election, which saw a slight increase in Labour’s support. He commented that not as many councillors are pro-austerity as people think, but simply feel that they have no choice. Indeed, for comrade Mayer, austerity is all that really matters - it must be combated in order to restore growth (of both GDP and profits). He sees Corbyn as the vehicle for this vision, which is “practical and popular”. Unlike the Marxists in the room, he commented that he was interested in “practical solutions” to the slump - meaning government spending, council houses and the like. Like all social democrats before him, he essentially believes that, if only he were in charge of the state, the system would run just fine, because he would make the right, practical choices for a fairer capitalism.

My guess is that this is not typical within the ranks of Corbyn supporters, which I do not see backing down on other central questions like Nato, the monarchy and so on, in order to maintain a monofocus on ‘austerity’. For the left, it is now a political necessity to organise the Labour rank and file for exactly these political struggles, without which there can be no victory. Red Labour means well, but contains comrades with views that are mutually contradictory. As a result its aims are too unclear to challenge the existing, longer established Labour left.