The Unrepentant Socialist: The left: losing direction?

I think it was Tears for Fears who sang ‘Everybody wants to rule the World’. They were wrong actually, most people are happy enough to be ruled they would just like their rulers to do so with a bit of compassion. The problem is that, as we now know, we have created a political class that is as incompetent as it is corrupt. A class that rules in the interest only of those who subscribe to their warped vision of society. Once upon a time it was feasible to argue that the U.K. was, in many ways, better than the USA because where they had a one party state with a red and blue option, we had a multi party system allowing for the electorate to choose between competing visions of the World.

No choice

Frankly, that was always a myth. The choice has always been between naked, profit before people capitalism or benevolent, care for the poor capitalism. The idea that it might be capitalism that was actually the problem has been kept away from public debate and relegated to the fringes of political discussion. Occasionally, you’ll certainly hear liberal commentators laying into the capitalist system. You might be fooled into thinking that they want radical change, but if they were genuine socialists I can assure you that their views would be ridiculed and marginalised.

Despite all the evidence that capitalism is responsible for massive inbalances of wealth and opportunity people, including people on the left, keep inventing ways in which they can make the system work simply by coming up with schemes to leverage the system for radical ends. I should be clear here. I discussed reform or revolution last week and, as a follower of Rosa Luxemburg I am not arguing that we cannot pressurise capitalism via legitimate extra-parliamentary means. The real problem I have with reforms is that they take a considerable effort to win only to be rolled back on a whim.

Of course, since the defeat of the Corbyn vision in December 2019 those of us on the left have been scrabbling around trying to find ways of regaining the initiative. This has mostly involved one of three options. The first is probably the most naive, in my opinion, but I have seen it touted on various left wing social media sites. Roughly speaking it involves remaining in a Labour Party which has now moved so far from Jeremy’s vision that it appears to be a completely different party altogether. The idea is that as the mostly left wing membership is still, largely, in control in the constituencies it will be possible to send left wing delegates and policies to conference in order to force the leadership to adopt a left wing manifesto.

Labour’s left losing streak

I admire the tenacity of those who refuse to leave, but I have to say that given recent events this strategy, promoted by Momentum amongst others, simply cannot be successful. I don’t know quite what World some people inhabit but the stitching up of the NEC, the appointment of the left hostile General Secretary David Evans, the ditching of all policy that was remotely left wing, the removal of the whip from Jeremy Corbyn, the suspensions of those who spoke out against this and the handing of a veto over parliamentary candidates to the General Secretary should tell you one thing. There is simply no way that the right are going to allow the left to hijack conference to promote any agenda, let alone one that SirKeith and his backers consider an electoral liability.

SirKeith and his majority PLP backers are very happy to take advice from expensive consultants on how to be more right-wing. Wrap yourself in the Union Jack, wear smart business suits and lay into immigrants and, apparently, disillusioned ex-Labour voters in the “Red Wall” will come flooding back. As I have pointed out previously this is entirely consistent with a view of the so-called “new working class” promoted by Labour’s Head of Policy Claire Ainsley. For those in the constituencies wanting to influence Labour my suggestion would be buy a smart suit, call yourself a consultancy and charge £3000 a day, and then and only then might you be able to dictate policy. Palestinian flag waving, scruffy lefties demanding nationalisation and more public spending represent everything that consultants hate about Labour. Well, that and democracy too.

The other options include leaving the party. For many what is needed is a new left wing party maintaining the policies that Jeremy promoted and which were far more popular than either Labour’s right or the media like to admit. Many hoped that the Peace and Justice Project would be that party. I have to be honest if Jeremy Corbyn was to leave the party and take 10 or more of the Campaign Group with him a new party could attract a considerable number of new members. But if Jeremy had any intention of leaving the party he would not be putting quite as much effort into staying as he is. And, realistically, far too many of the Campaign Group seem no less enamoured of their jobs than their right wing counterparts. In which case any new party would be one of the existing left parties or a brand new party.

Breaking through

It is going to be difficult for any new left-wing party to break through the current electoral system. Although people argue that we have almost 4 years to bring about this transformation and establish a new “People’s Party” it is not quite that simple. Recent internal polling by the Labour Party suggested that 77.8% of 2019 Labour voters were remaining loyal to Labour. To be clear 22.2% of Labour voters amounts to over 2 million voters, which is a lot more votes than any left-wing party has ever managed in England or Wales. Half of those voters - over 1.1 million people - are planning to vote for somebody other than the main parties. Again, that’s a lot of people. But, if you assume they are spread equally throughout the 572 constituencies (unlikely I know) that amounts to just under 2,000 votes per constituency.

Here’s a proposition. Were I in a party trying to inject socialism into the system I would have as a first rule that candidates should only stand in constituencies which had a minimum of 1,000 members. This might seem high, but frankly if the party cannot attract that many members how does it expect to attract enough voters to avoid being humiliated. I believe 1,000 would be the minimum needed in most constituencies to allow the party to canvass and leaflet effectively.

Let me add just a little more context. In 2015 the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition was the most successful of the various left of Labour parties. It received a total of 36,490 votes for 135 candidates. That amounted to an average 270 votes per candidate. To be fair TUSC (which is dominated by members of the Socialist Party, formerly the Militant Tendency) never expected to win and saw the election primarily as a propaganda exercise. But people on social media thinking of a new party are dreaming of replacing Labour and using parliament to implement some kind of socialist programme.

Members don’t win elections

Members don’t win elections but they provide the ground troops and, crucially, the interface with the public. In 2019 Labour attracted roughly 18 votes for each member. At that point there were approximately 560,000 members. So if, and this is a very rough rule of thumb each member translates into 18 votes, then 1000 members could result in 18,000 votes. In fact, 18,000 votes would have won in 54 of the English and Welsh constituencies. Any left party that won 54 seats would become a major parliamentary force, and it would be impossible for them to be ignored. Just think how many newspaper articles or broadcast pieces you saw in 2015 about TUSC. If it was more than one I would be shocked. It’s not because left-wing ideas are unpopular it’s because they are ignored. The only way to change that is to be in a position where you cannot be ignored.

I should add an important caveat to this calculation. Labour has what advertisers call ‘brand awareness’. Labour has dominated the centre-left political ground in the U.K. since, at least, 1945. No party to the left of them has really managed to threaten that hegemony. This has nothing to do with the policies or the leaders. Loyalty to Labour is, for want of a better word, tribal. Jeremy Corbyn seemed to change that and there is no doubt that the policies he outlined were popular. But, how many people voted for the policies rather than the brand? Many of those 2019 voters voted for Blair, Brown and Miliband and most of them could not have named a single policy they stood for. They were voting Labour because Labour was their party. It is not impossible that a particularly hapless leader could lose many of those voters, Corbyn didn’t incidentally, but whether they would move to a radical left party is debatable and highly unlikely. The task facing any new party chasing electoral success is Herculean.

Proportional Representation

The other way to change this is to campaign for a change of electoral system. A number of people on the left are advocates of proportional representation. It’s appeal is obvious. According to the Electoral Reform Society: “..across the U.K. over 22 million votes (70.8%) were ignored because they went to non-elected candidates or were surplus to what the elected candidate needed.” Given those figures it is hard to resist the call of PR.

The ERS model what would happen under a party preference PR system.

Under this system the Tories lose 77 seats and their majority. What’s not to like? However, strangely enough, the biggest advocates of PR - the Lib Dem’s - get the balance of power. Remind yourself. In 2010 there was a hung parliament the Lib Dem’s had the power to decide whether to support David Cameron’s Conservatives or Gordon Brown’s Labour. They chose the Tories and voted for the austerity measures that almost everybody now concedes were unnecessary. In 2019 Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson, part of that coalition government, made it clear that she would do a deal with the Tories but never make Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister. I take no pleasure from the fact she lost her seat. That was a lie. I take great pleasure in the fact she lost her seat.

Apart from my message of ‘never trust a liberal’ you might be interested to know that Swinson who, other than her political posts had briefly worked in public relations was given a professorship at Cranfield School of Management. In case you needed any reminder that the parliamentary right wing gravy train continues to reap rewards for the talentless and the unprincipled.

Fairness

But PR we are told is fairer. Let’s just consider for a moment what fairness in a general election means. A basic rule of democracy is that anybody can stand and be voted for. As far as I can tell, apart from having to raise a deposit of £500 there is no rule preventing any voter from standing in an election. This means that, in theory, an independent candidate can stand and win a parliamentary seat. In 2006 Dai Davies did just that in a by-election in Blaenau Gwent. In 2005 Richard Taylor won Wyre Forest as an independent. Presumably the ERS would prefer electors not to have the opportunity to stand as independents for in their formulation only parties should receive seats based on their percentage of the vote.

Imagine you were a candidate in a parliamentary election. It would be a fair election if you were able to try to convince voters to vote for you, and nobody did anything to prevent that. And, the result would be fair if the candidate with the most votes was declared the winner. If you don’t get the most votes how can anybody think it is unfair that you didn’t win? It would be made even fairer if the winning candidate received more than 50% of the vote. Please tell me if I’m missing anything. Advocates of PR will try to convince you that, so called, first past the post, is inherently unfair because if you vote for a candidate who does not win your vote is “meaningless”.

According to the ERS “Overall, 229 of the 650 MPs were elected on less than 50 percent of the constituency vote – in other words, 35 percent of all MPs lack majority support.” What they should say is that in two-thirds of constituencies the winning candidate won more than 50% of the vote. Both Northern Ireland and Scotland have unique voting environments so I’ll put them to one side for a moment but in England and Wales in 406 (71%) of constituencies the winning candidate had more than 50% of the votes cast.

Building the left

Of course, no socialist could favour a system that favoured the Tories, but in each of the alternatives presented by the ERS the major beneficiary is the Lib Dem’s, or to put that another way the Tories second team. In 2019 13,268,000 voters in England and Wales voted Conservative and presumably got the government they wanted. I don’t think they would have regarded their votes as meaningless even in seats where they did not win. Over 5 million Labour voters voted for a winning Labour candidate. Were those votes meaningless? In fact 66% of voters either got the government or the candidate they wanted. I disagree entirely with a view that says that many of these votes were wasted. Or, that any other system would not have resulted in a coalition dominated entirely by the Conservatives. Of course, people in so-called safe seats who favour another party’s candidate may think it unfair that they never get to vote for a winning candidate. But ‘safe’ is relative just ask Caroline Flint or almost any former Labour MP in Scotland.

PR is not a left-wing demand. It is simply a reformist demand using the concept of fairness to promote the Lib Dem’s. That people on the left are falling for this trick shows that even socialists are susceptible to falling for the lure of capitalist democracy as the only form of democracy open to us. As Yanis Varafoukis said at the Peace and Justice launch rally democracy has never been tried because in a capitalist democracy all we can do is shuffle the pack of capitalist reformists. If socialists get anywhere near parliamentary power the long arms of the establishment ensure that they are prevented from attaining it. Don’t think that what happened in Myanmar this week could never happen here.

The goal of socialists is not to prop up the system nor to provide left cover for corrupt capitalist institutions. Rather shouldn’t we be organising ourselves and working with ordinary people to build a movement that can be ready to step in and guide society toward true democracy if and when the capitalist state collapses. This is not to say we ignore parliament or take no interest in their outcomes but that we must lose the fetishisation of parliament as if it is truly a means of bringing about social change. Social action building pressure on existing parties could well be just as effective, even more so, than kidding ourselves and our supporters that all we need is a change of government and things will change. If it were that simple, we would have been living in a socialist paradise ages ago.

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