Letters

John for leader

It’s been over two months now since John McDonnell MP announced his stand for the Labour leadership. From the very beginning, we made clear that this is not a stalking horse candidacy. This is a serious challenge for power which we can win.

We have been absolutely overwhelmed with support since the launch of the campaign. Huge numbers are rejoining the party. Trade unionists all over Britain are campaigning for a candidate who supports their union’s policies. In a poll conducted by the Electoral Reform Society at TUC congress, 59% of delegates backed John McDonnell. A focus group of Labour supporters convened by BBC Newsnight revealed that John was level-pegging with Gordon Brown. This is a tremendous achievement for a politician who was largely unknown before launching his leadership bid and whose campaign has suffered a virtual media blackout.

If you support the campaign, I hope that you will get involved.

l In order to vote for the next Labour leader, you need to be a member of the Labour Party or an affiliated trade union. Already, many have rejoined Labour in order to support this campaign. I know that this was a very difficult decision for many to make. However, it is the only way of replacing New Labour with a Real Labour alternative. I hope that you will also consider asking your friends and colleagues to join as well in order to have a say in this historic contest.

You can join online: www.lab- our.org.uk/joinus; or ring 08705 900 200. There is no cut-off point for voting in the election. All those who joined before a contest are eligible to vote. However, an election could take place at any time in the next few months. So - think about joining now. Let us know if you and your friends have joined.

l You won’t be surprised to hear that this campaign has no millionaire backers. If you support this historic campaign, we are asking you to consider sending in a donation. Ask your local trade union or party branch to consider sending in a donation. Any donation will help us in our efforts to win a Real Labour government.

To donate, go to www.john4lea-der.org.uk/donate.html. You can also send in cheques, made payable to ‘John4Leader’ to: John4Leader, c/o G10 Norman Shaw South, House of Commons, London SW1A 2JF.

l If you have a local Labour MP, please write to them as soon as possible and ask them to nominate John when a vacancy for the leadership arises. Let them know that you want a real contest to allow a proper debate that isn’t about personalities but is about policies. Let them know if you have rejoined the party or are considering doing so because of the campaign - and if you know others who are doing so. Sending a message to your local MP only takes a minute. Go to www.writetothem.com/ to find out who your local MP is and how you can get hold of them.

Please also write to your trade union leader and let them know if you back the campaign. If you don’t think that there has been enough coverage of the campaign in the media, write a letter to a newspaper or write to the BBC by going to http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_4030000/newsid_4032600/4032695.stm.

l From the very beginning, we wanted to make this a grassroots campaign and take it away from the Westminster bubble. We want people to get involved at the local level. Local groups could campaign locally and, for example, set up stalls in town centres to distribute material. Please get in touch with us at info@john4leader.org.uk to be put in touch with other local supporters.

John McDonnell is standing on the basis of policies supported by trade unions and indeed by Labour Party policy. Why not pass a resolution in your local branch supporting the campaign? Let us know if you need our assistance.

l We are currently producing a wide range of leaflets - including for specific trade unions in which John commits to implement each of their main policies; Labour Party members; and the anti-war movement. Please get in touch with us at info@john4leader.org.uk if you are able to distribute leaflets.

We also have John4Leader badges, t-shirts and even balloons. Get in touch at info@john4leader.org.uk if you are interested.

This is a hugely exciting and historic campaign. Over the coming few months, John will be travelling all over the country. Have a look at http://www.john4leader.org.uk/events.html for more information.

John for leader
John for leader

Bash the last?

Graham Bash is always optimistic about the prospects for the Labour left (‘Build support for McDonnell’, September 28).

This time we have a couple of defeats for the leadership at conference (which, of course, the leadership will ignore) and a campaign by John McDonnell for the leadership that, as Graham admits, is unlikely to get sufficient nominations to get on the ballot paper.

My question to Graham is, what would it take for him to leave the Labour Party? Or will he and Labour Briefing be the last people left?

Bash the last?

Best outcome?

A couple of years ago I read a press report about the state of Norwich Labour Party, in which an NEC member confided that the party will collapse when it loses a general election.

Isn’t the collapse of the Labour Party following its defeat in the next general election the best possible outcome for Marxists who want to build a revolutionary party?

Best outcome?
Best outcome?

Marxist party

I agree with Matthew Jones that there is a space for a campaign for a Marxist party, given the change in objective conditions - the collapse of both Stalinism and social democracy.

I would also agreed that, while it is important to be consistently politically hard on the ideas of the Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Party, it does not follow à la CPGB that it is necessary or right to belong to their small, politically awful, undemocratically run front campaigns. However, I do share some of Mike Macnair’s concerns about how such a campaign would be run in practice and, related to that, the likelihood of it attracting a sizeable number of authentic Marxists.

It is easy to say one is for consistent democracy, transparency, education, openness, accountability and recognise the need to combine practical activity with real respect for theory and ideas. But how many on the far left actually live by this ? Do you, hand on heart, Matthew, live by these ideas?

Where is there meaningful left unity across the organisational divisions on the left? I can’t find it. I welcome the new initiative and hope the conference is well attended. But if it is to be a success the campaign has got to take the practical side of Marxism as seriously as the theoretical side. And mechanisms for inclusivity, meaningful left unity in practice and honest debate about differences have to be more than just fine words in a constitution.

Marxist party
Marxist party

Any proof?

Has Phil Kent any proof that a new Communist Party for the UK would actually get any votes (Letters, September 28)?

Any proof?

Israeli nation

Comrade Tony Greenstein does not seem to be very good at actually reading, let alone understanding, arguments he disagrees with. A prime example is his reply to my article, ‘Fight for two states, fight for Arab unity’ (Weekly Worker August 3).

He starts off by claiming that the article “contained no analysis of why Israel moves from war to war, war crime to war crime” (Letters, September 28). In fact I made it clear that I largely agreed with the Socialist Workers Party’s Alex Callinicos, whom I quoted extensively, on this question:

“Israel is one of the greatest military powers in the world, backed and subsidised by the US …. Israel is a settler colonial state … All settler states face the problem of what to do with the people whose land they stole … The Zionist colonisers drove out millions of Palestinians, most to neighbouring countries. The rest are still subject to Israeli rule, which to differing degrees they resent and resist, with enormous sympathy from the Arab masses. The result is to leave Israel in a permanent state of insecurity. It lives alongside those it dispossessed, in a state of perpetual war with them.”

I commented: “This is undoubtedly correct”, and went on to add: “The ‘permanent state of insecurity’ is not just a propaganda ploy used by the Israeli political and military establishment to justify its latest act of aggression. The Israeli population does feel under siege for the very reason Callinicos gives and therefore tends to support even the most terroristic of actions committed by the Israeli armed forces in the vain hope that hitting out at ‘the dispossessed’ will make them go away and thus end the ‘perpetual war’.”

Comrade Greenstein’s own “analysis”, by contrast, can be summed up in the one sentence: “Israel is an artificial state, implanted in the Middle East by western imperialism.” And that is it. He does not believe there is such a thing as a class-divided Israeli society or an Israeli ruling class pursuing its own, independent, interests that do not always coincide with those of “western imperialism” (which itself is riven by divisions).

And what of the claim that Israel is “an artificial state”? Which state is not “artificial”? No state materialises ‘naturally’ out of the ether: every one of them results from a (usually bloody) struggle between contending forces.

But Tony goes one step further: between Israel and Palestine there are no “national antagonisms” and no “national conflict” - just “racism born out of imperialism and colonialism”. Very peculiar. Ask any Palestinian whether there is a national conflict and you will get a rather different answer. Of course, comrade Greenstein does not deny there is a Palestinian nation - it is just the Israeli Jewish nation he claims is a figment in the imagination of millions.

In the attempt to refute its existence he goes off at a tangent: “If it is true that British, French and South American Jews are all part of the same nation, despite speaking different languages, having different customs, etc, we are accepting the primary thesis of … world Jewish conspiracists …”

He is quite right to ridicule such an absurd notion. But why imply that is what I, or the CPGB, believe? In fact I wrote: “As for the Israeli Jews [original emphasis], they speak the same language, inhabit they same territory (most of them were born there), and have the same culture and sense of national identity. In other words, a nation.”

Why does comrade Greenstein not deal with this point instead of bringing up red herrings? Judging from his comments about British, French and South American Jews, we appear to share a good deal of common ground as to what constitutes a nation.

He writes: “No-one suggests that Israelis be denied the right to self-determination because of religion.” Unfortunately they do. Often. I am surprised that comrade Greenstein has never heard the contention, in relation to Israel, that ‘Self-determination applies to nations, not religions.’

But Tony wishes to deny that right for another reason: “As Pete Manson confirms, there can be no self-determination for a nation that will use its freedom merely to oppress another. The Israeli settler ‘nation’ is an oppressor.”

I said no such thing. What I actually wrote was: “The right to self-determination is not a communist blessing exclusively bestowed upon the oppressed. It is fundamentally a demand for equality. All nations must have the equal right to determine their own fate - as long as that does not involve the oppression of another people. Hence communists recognise that the US, German and French nations have self-determination. Today that is generally unproblematic. However, we desire to see that same elementary right extended to all oppressed peoples.”

Surely this is clear? All nations, without exception, irrespective of how they came into existence, have the right to self-determination. But no nation has the right to oppress another. So we energetically oppose Israel’s brutal oppression of the Palestinians - not to mention its frequent murderous assaults on other neighbouring peoples - but we do not propose denying Israelis the right to exist as a nation.

Comrade Greenstein does not deal at all with the core of the problem - how could a unitary, secular Palestine be achieved? My argument was: “Of course, it would be an excellent thing if both nations chose to live together in a single, democratic and secular state - why on earth would we wish to oppose such a thing? But the problem is, that possibility does not even occur to the vast majority of Israelis.”

Assuming Tony does not disagree with this basic premise, who does he think will bring such a state into existence? I know that he thinks the opinion of the Israeli Jews is irrelevant - they will be forced into a Palestinian state and that is that. But the point is, comrade, if that state is to be democratic, such a solution could only be brought about through the consent of the majority of both peoples - and that consent, quite patently, is not forthcoming.

The list of comrade Greenstein’s misunderstandings is very long indeed. Where, for example, did I “compare the … institution of collective worship in [UK] schools with the systematic racial apartheid of Israel”? And what exactly does he dispute about my statement that “Independence was gained from Britain through a combined war - against both British imperialism and the native Palestinians”? He himself talks of the “post-1945 fight of the Zionist terror militias against the British”.

But he goes on: “If Pete is correct, then socialists should have supported both the Boers in the Boer war and Verwoed in turning South Africa into a republic, to say nothing of Ian Smith’s UDI in Rhodesia!”

Come again? I presume comrade Greenstein is reading into my statement (about the Zionist combined war) the implication that all struggles against imperialism must be supported. At least this demonstrates that mine is not the only Weekly Worker article he has not read properly. We have published numerous pieces polemicising against those who support reactionary anti-imperialists and it does not take a genius to work out that Zionists and southern African oppressors could just about be squeezed into this category.

Finally, it is absurd to say that “The whole point of such a border [between Palestine and Israel: ie, a two-state solution] would be to cement Israel’s role as the oppressor.” Cannot Tony even imagine a different Israel, where working class, progressive and democratic forces win a majority?

Let me repeat the conclusion to my August 3 article: “…the two-state solution proposed by the CPGB has nothing in common with the version put forward by Tony Blair and George Bush, and reluctantly accepted by the PLO. We do not see ourselves as advisors to the current misleaders of either the Palestinians or Israelis - still less to the imperialists.

“The solution we envisage for Israel-Palestine will not be presided over by Ehud Olmert and Hamas. It is a democratic solution - to be fought for and won from below under the leadership of the working class.”

Israeli nation
Israeli nation

Left in denial

Peter Manson helps to clarify the most realistic resolution to the Israel/Palestine conflict in his article ‘Two nations, two secular states’ (Weekly Worker July 20), while Tony Greenstein (Letters, September 28) continues to minimise the returning threat of anti-semitism by writing an equals sign between support for the state of Israel and reactionary anti-imperialistic movements.

Since Hezbollah is not to be disarmed by the United Nations, the chances are that history will repeat itself, and thus we must return to a defence of Israel’s right to exist. Greenstein writes that the “anti-semitism of Hamas and Hezbollah” are “the minor reflections of the oppressed”, thus excusing and minimising their irrational hatred of Jews.

These movements are precisely the reason why the Palestinians have no state: they refuse to recognise the right of Israel to exist, and pledge to destroy it and establish an islamic state. “Israel is an artificial state,” we are told, when such a bland ‘accusation’ could be made at more or less any nation-state.

Another standard cry of anti-Israel leftism is to compare Israel to South African apartheid: this is a gross denial and distortion of the rights, health, welfare and educational advantages that Israeli Arab citizens have over their kindred in Arab states.

Until the left recognises, as Peter Manson writes, the need for “mutual recognition” of Israel and Palestine, the constant anti-Israel propaganda of the left will play into the hands of islamists and those who side with and appease reactionary anti-imperialism. Exactly when the left should be re-examining its history and learning from the mistakes of the past.

Left in denial