12.06.1997

Where now for the left?

Labour’s victory certainly changes the political outlook of revolutionaries, but is there a crisis of expectations?

Sunday, June 15: 5pm, central London venue.

A roundtable discussion with:

Phil Hearse, Socialist Party: “Millions of workers who voted Labour expect some kind of change - not millennial, not earth shattering, not socialism - but at least some Improvement ... Eventually there will be a crisis of expectations, of unfulfilled expectations” (Weekly Worker May 15).

Sean Matgamna, editor Workers Liberty: “The death of the Tory government has given birth to hope, and released much pent up feeling. People want change. They expect change. They expect better from Blair and Labour ... The fall of the Tories has unleashed what is for the ruling class and the new government a dangerous mood of expectation” (Workers Liberty May/June 1997).

Jack Conrad, Communist Party: “The sad fact of the matter is that ordinary people have extremely low expectations; expectations no different from any bog-standard Tweedle-dum, Tweedle-dee bourgeois election” (Weekly Worker May 8).

Bob Pitt, editorial board What next?: “The crisis of expectations argument can certainly be exaggerated. To the extent that there are illusions in the Blair government, their breakdown could be an extended and uneven process.”

Dave Osler, Socialist Labour Party: [Labour’s] reforms are limited, partial, hidebound by caveats, and a watered-down version of what even Labour’s mld-80s soft left would have seen as adequate. Yet reforms they unmistakably are. What we have is rather ‘reformism with tiny reforms’. This can only fuel, well, expectations.”