What would a working class socialist party look like?
There is not one now. And it’s badly needed too. Here are some views on how it should operate when formed.
By Charles James (Guest post).
Introduction:
There are lots of things that left-wing political activists can do WITHOUT having a working class socialist party. You can organise mass protests to halt deportations. On the cover, a May 2021 photo shows a impressively-large crowd in Glasgow who had surrounded a Home Office van to prevent the deportation of two Sikh men.
You can also organise petitions to send to the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer since 4 July. (Thankfully, fewer and fewer people today remain under the illusion that Labour is either socialist or pro-working class).
You can run for parliament as an independent MP. Hundreds did so at the recent general election.
But if we had a working class socialist party, not only could we do all of these things MUCH MORE EFFECTIVELY and with real impact, but do many other things that no single person or a small group could attempt. In other words, scare Starmer and his mates silly.
Take elections. Running as national party candidates compared to as “an indy” would not , in footballing terms, put us in the same league as Arsenal or Man City ( or the Tories or Labour). But it would raise us above the ranks of Sutton Hoo FC as we are at present. And having a party would offer us the possibility of campaigning under a nationally-known name and profile, with far more money and access to experienced campaign teams, electoral data, far less inter-left electoral competition and the like. And when the election was over, we would be able to keep on campaigning and organising and building for the long term on other political fronts. “Indys” simply can’t do that. Parties can.
But hold on. We don’t have a working class socialist party in the UK today. Why we don’t and how to build one are the subjects --- the complex subjects! --- of other articles that THE LEFT LANE hopes to publish in coming months. Here Charles James tries to answer the question:” What would a working class socialist party look like?”
Or to quote US author Norman Maclean, if there are plenty of parties for “them sons-of-bitches”, how might a party for the “rest of us bastards” work?
Alan Story
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IT WOULD BE LOUD, IT WOULD BE BRASH
If there already was a mass working class democratic socialist party, it would be impossible to ignore it.
It would be loud, it would be brash, it would be irreverent, it would be clever, and it would seem all pervasive.
It would support every strike by workers - without question.
The working class must liberate ourselves. Trusting the social democrats to help us would be fatal.
The capitalist media will lie about the party every day, as they did and do with Jeremy Corbyn.
The party would have a national paper, and a continuous social media campaign.
The party would have a high degree of internal education and training.
The party web site would have a library of information and training resources for anyone to use.
With modern information technology there would be a continuous flow of information, and much discussion among members.
As an activist party, the party would be continuously active in supporting the victims of capitalism.
WOMEN MUST PLAY A PROMINENT ROLE
At least half the elected positions would be held by women.
All candidates would be selected by the members who will be working with them.
Elected positions in the party would be subject to time limits, so people do not become entrenched and immovable. It reduces empire building. It also reduces possible burn out.
There would be an elected national leadership, but there would be great local autonomy.
Whether there would be a single leader or a collective leadership is not clear. Any single Leader tends to be put on an undeserved pedestal. Any group of leaders takes too long to decide anything, and often does not follow a consistent policy. I favour a single leader because it is much easier to replace a failing leader than to sack a failing leadership group.
There has to be an elected National Committee.
As a mass party, there is likely to be a group of supporters and adherents who simply receive emails and tweets but who are not involved in the party. The supporters and adherents would pay a relatively low token subscription, which is designed only to meet the costs of servicing them.
The individual members are likely to be grouped geographically, but also to have wider affinity groups or caucuses based upon their immutable personal characteristics (including youth and maturity) or occupations or trade union membership.
Members would be voting online frequently on policy and practical issues.
Members will contribute “from each according to their ability”. The poorer two thirds of the population would pay relatively low subscriptions. High earning or wealthy people would pay significant subscriptions.
I would like to see an instant comradeship. When members and supporters meet on a bus or train, or are stood in a queue, or we meet while shopping, we talk like long lost friends. Presumably there would be a pin or other emblem that helps us to recognise each other.
There would be fundraising to raise money for strikers, families of imprisoned demonstrators, and solidarity payments to socialists abroad and at home.
I like the idea that those holding public office should have to pay to the party all income over a certain figure. Those who earn income from outside activities should pay most or all of it into the party, even if they then draw on the party for associated expenses.
NOT A POLITE DISCUSSION GROUP
What the party will NOT be is a polite discussion group.
We are passionate. Some of us, in our passion, sometimes overstep the mark but unacceptable behaviour cannot be tolerated. Members attacking other individuals will be in a sin bin for an appropriate period. Repeat offenders will be told that they must not drive other socialists out of the party, and either they moderate their language or be muted or otherwise they will eventually be expelled.
How would the trade unions be represented in the working class socialist party?
Sometimes a trade union has a leadership change. If a union’s policy changes, sometimes the entire Labour Party is forced to change with it, regardless of what most Labour Party members wish. Most of the swings on the Labour NEC have resulted from changes within the trade unions.
How to prevent that problem affecting the new socialist party? My personal solution is to allow trade union representatives to be coopted onto the National Committee, as non-voting observers. The trade unions would be asked to get their members active in the party, and build their influence that way.
If you think about the old Clause 4 Part 4 “To secure for the workers by hand and by brain the full fruits of their labours…” It should be “the full fruits of our labours”.
That top down approach reflected the subservience of many people at that time. No more!
To quote Mick Lynch, “The working class are back and we refuse to be poor any more.”
Some comrades say, “the trade unions should set up a mass working class socialist party.” Or “Mick Lynch or Jeremy Corbyn or Zara Sultana should set up a mass socialist working class party.”
With all love and respect for those who say this, you are asking “them” to wave a magic wand. The sheer work and time that goes into setting up a truly democratic socialist party is unimaginable.
WE CANNOT EXPECT TRADE UNIONS TO SET UP SUCH A PARTY
The last thing any trade union wants to do is to create a political party that then becomes a constant drain on the union’s finances.
To ask active politicians, who are already incredibly stretched, to set up a democratic socialist party in their spare time, hits the immediate problem that they do not have significant spare time, nor spare emotional energy.
Trade unions and the high profile individuals will be much happier to support a party that is getting on fine without them.
The way forward is for those of us who are less pressed, to create a democratic socialist party that trade unions, Mick, Jeremy, and Zara will support when they are ready. This raises the opening question: “What would a working class socialist party look like?”
A socialist party has socialist policies.
If you look at the policies of the various leftist groups around, they are all fairly similar. We leftists are all more like each other than we are like Labour or the rightist parties.
We would all abolish the Monarchy, abolish the House of Lords, leave NATO, support Palestine, and bring in common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange as part of saving the planet. The 2017 Labour manifesto is by comparison soggy left.
The biggest difference between the left parties is in presentation.
The overtly Marxist parties understandably beat the drum for whatever strand of Marxism they represent. They present an analysis of what the political situation is today, how we got here, and what is the way forward. Too often, they seem to be writing for other Marxists than for ordinary people.
IGNORE BRITISH TRADITIONS
Many Marxists ignore British traditions around “William with the long beard” 1196, Wat Tyler and John Ball 1381, the Levellers, the Nottingham Cheese riots, the London Corresponding Society, the Luddites, the Chartists, the Spa Fields riots, Captain Swing, the Rebecca riots, Burston School, Cable Street, the post war squatter occupations, Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, Grunwick, Wapping, Croxteth School, the Brixton and Liverpool riots of 1981 etc.
When ordinary people in Glasgow and London, and passengers on aeroplanes, take direct action to prevent asylum seekers being deported, that is part of the British socialist tradition.( See cover photo)
Among the non-Marxist socialist parties, the most common problem is fudging whether we are for “the working class” in the Marxist sense - which is everyone who works for a living – or the social meaning of “working class”.
For many of us, we expect to support the nurses, but we are slightly disoriented by supporting barristers and hospital doctors. We should not be.
We know that 200,000+ socialists have already left the Labour Party.
There is a potential avalanche of supporters. Most of them would join a mass working class democratic socialist party.
We have to set up a working class democratic socialist party, and build it!
Charles James is a member of TRANSFORM. He writes here in a personal capacity. Charles worked for Labour in every General Election from 1966 to 2019. While he was in paid employment, he ran an immigration and political asylum solicitor practice. Charles´ email is chasjames19@yahoo.com .
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Two volunteers needed
As the poster above announces, almost 20 organisations are organising a Saturday 27 July anti-fascist march in London. Other than the ongoing pro-Palestine marches, it will be the first national protest event since the general election.
THE LEFT LANE plans to be there. We have raised £350.00 and engaged professional videographer Chester Yang of CY FILM PRODUCTIONS (https://cyfilmproductions.com/) to make a video of the march . We we will splash across social media the next day.
We need two volunteers to assist us in passing out flyers announcing the video at the march. If you could assist for about two hours, please contact theleftlanepolitics@gmail.com by 22 July.
Taking a brief break from THE LEFT LANE
I am in the midst of moving to a new home in another city in East Anglia. So over the next few weeks some guest posts, such as this one by Charles, are being published. In any event, THE LEFT LANE was never intended to be a sole author publication and some of the best posts since January 2024 when we launched have been written by other writers.
There were some excellent comments made in response to last week’s TLL on the general election. Today’s piece cries out for comments.
For info/ debate / discussion
(1) Copy and paste “ John Kelly The Left and Far Left in the 2024 UK General Election (substack.com)”
2) https://novaramedia.com/2024/07/11/what-can-the-left-learn-from-nigel-farage
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You can read all previous columns of THE LEFT LANE here:
Thanks Shaggy. As I said in introduction, I am preoccupied with moving home for next few days. And yes, would be a radical departure. Alan
While a supermajority of this is a good blueprint; there seems to be some confusion of "socialist" with "social-democratic" parties as the article goes on. The character of such entities would be rather different.
For my part, in the US I would like to have such a party as well, with a couple essential differences:
1. It would not be "loud and brash"; at least not as a matter of official posture. On the contrary, I'd prefer it "speak softly and carry a Big Stick"; maybe even be a little bit boring. Our enemies are already loud and brash and abrasive, and the din they make frankly wears most ordinary 'normal' people out.
Plus the hysteria they spread about their strawman "left" can be more easily refuted by a relatively quiet, low-drama party.
Better to shout less and slam more weight on a struggle when it counts, than to shriek endlessly and have normal people tune you out.
2. My ideal workers' left party would be coalitional and somewhat loose; yet also organized not only by region or occupation, but down to "maniples" of not over 6 people. This develops a level of "direct affinity" that the left is sorely in need of, and makes inter-group politics a healthy and normal (+ effectual on the individual level) habit. This also helps dampen some of the worst "fratricidal" tendencies of the left in general; as a lot of our "lashing out" is due to atomization and the frustration we feel for not being able to "make something happen". With politics as a habit, with people whose faces we see and names we know, our method of engaging in conflict will change for the undoubted better.
3. All people elected into office on our backs should/must serve as instruments of the party's will, + not as "directors" of that will. The party's putative "leaders" should not be those who we elect into general office, but a rotating cast of proven, trustworthy mid-level commiteepeople from various interests within the party. Fame should not be the sole criteria of their selection. The Party comes first; the "personalities" rise from it and come later.
This, oddly enough, would be a radical departure from the way politics is conducted today.