A new party to the left of Labour?

This kind of ‘project’ has been undertaken before, and collapsed again and again. The last serious attempt was the Socialist Alliance, which almost looked promising until it was killed off by the usual sectarianism and the paranoia of the SWP.
I don’t think it’s the electoral system that is necessarily the major factor holding back a radical left party in the UK. UKIP and even the BNP have never achieved parliamentary representation, but have won enough votes at certain times and in certain places for them to have exerted enough pressure on the major parties that there has been some ‘appeasement’ of far-right opinion. The problem that the left faces when trying to exert this form of influence is that the media are less sympathetic ideologically to its arguments and many of the best left-wing activists and trade-unionists tend to stay loyal to Labour, as do many of the logical target voters.

So let’s say the UK revisits electoral reform and it passes (which, as I understand it isn’t happening, but let’s say otherwise for now). You form a new leftist party. They get 15% of the vote and a proportionate number of representatives. Labour gest 40%. Now what? You form a coalition with Labour and get as much influence in the government as the Dems currently enjoy (maybe less). And by the way, Labour moves further to the right as your new party is formed, mostly, of the leftmost elements of Labour. Is that a good deal? Maybe it is, but it’s not obviously so. Really to justify the effort to create a new party you need to demonstrate or argue that labour is not giving the left as much influence as their popular support warrants. Forming a new political party is a specific political tactic that ought to be discussed as such. It’s not the same as just arguing for a more leftist government.

@4: also Germany – where a red-red-green coalition is a no-no and votes for the PDS render a CDU-SPD coalition more likely…

I think mpowell is right; Labour is, if anything, further left than its voters. There is no possibility of a serious party further left than Labour unless the TUC supports it – that’s the only way to get enough “institutional slack.” For a while I thought the Lib Dems were going to try to be that party, but then they backed off. Perhaps that was wise; the institutional links between Labour and the TUC are broad and deep.

But ultimately, even if you could peel off the TUC and unite all possible voters behind your far-left party, what would you achieve? Labour used to be that party, and they moved away from that, because they kept losing elections. I see no reason why the Labour of 1983 would do any better today than 30 years ago, and plenty to think they’d do even worse.

You form a coalition with Labour and get as much influence in the government as the Dems currently enjoy (maybe less).

I know the current Coalition is a freak, an aberration which FPtP should not allow, a very unBritish thing accursed in the sight of gods (who always sound a bit Greek?) and men, but if some kind of PR is ever introduced, that’s how politics will look forever: two or three parties ganging up and stamping on the faces of the other parties… until the next election! And then, like the LibDems, they’ll ask you to vote for them, even though they compromised, instead of winning, or losing utterly! Bastards.

In other news, grow up.

I entirely fail to see how the facts about climate change are somehow the left’s problem alone.

Can we declare gravity a problem for the right, and then I can finally have my jet-pack after the next election?

Niall@9: You are grossly missing the point, I think. You can either try to influence the government as a part of a party that forms a majority (what leftists currently try to do as part of the labour party to some extent) or you can form a new party and try to influence the government by putting electoral pressure on other parties to move left or by forming a governing coalition with a much larger centrist party. As long as your politics have a small amount of popular support you will only have a limited amount of influence either way. But if you want to pursue a different strategic path, you have to at least come up with an explanation for why it would be superior. I am not aware of any groundswell of public support for leftist policies in the UK so I don’t think those votes are actually under-represented in the current system. I could be wrong though. This is the story that someone wanting to form a new party should be trying to sell (or perhaps a story where forming a new party helps to increase the popular support for leftist politics), not just voicing discontent with the current direction of politics.

While not sexy, a new party can be justified in terms of internal Labour Party politics, the party rules and party machinery simply means that a leftist tendency is marginalized. Leftists would be less marginalized with their own party machinery, even if the party is smaller and weaker, because Labor would have to compete with the new party for votes, pulling Labor to the left more than it could be pulled if the leftists were in the tent.

There are also other political systems where the “left” party in the system actually isn’t on the left, one party just got designated as the “left” party because it formed governments that adopted a few solutions that came from the left for some political problems. But the party itself doesn’t have its roots in any workers or democratic reform movement. The United States is the obvious example of this case, but there are lots of other examples (Japan for one), and this was the norm in European party systems before the various labor and social democratic parties were founded in the first place.

In these cases, the formation of an actual left-wing party at some point seems to be a necessary step towards both getting governments that will adopt left-wing parties, and the democratization of the system. Also in these cases going ahead and doing this is difficult precisely because the system has been only partially democratized, and the non-democratic aspects can be mobilized to stop the nascent political movement before it really gets started. This is not the case with the current UK situation, though its notable that Labour’s rise historically was closely associated with political reforms in 1911, 1918, and 1949 that democratized the system.

mpowell@13:

I could be wrong about this, but I think the left wing is underrepresented in some ways. Or at least that certain policies that are popular among the public are considered too left-wing by the political system.

For instance, I’ve seen several surveys of UK public opinion where large majorities support re-nationalizing the utilities (especially the railways). I’ve also seen polls where majorities support raising taxes on the wealthy.

So there is some room for growth here.

On the other hand, I’ve also seen polls which suggest strong support for capital punishment and strong opposition to immigration,as well as support for cutting welfare benefits. So, obviously there are several right-wing opinions which are popular as well.

Incidentally there seems to be some confusion about how politics works in a FPTP system. For complex sociopolitical reasons in the last few decades the Tories have `always` won in the South of England and Labour have `always` won in the North and Wales. And so politics becomes a struggle for small majorities in key marginals. Now, in the UK`s current system this leads to stasis because there are only two parties that matter (the LibDems don`t matter, cosmically speaking) and so if you don`t like either of them then you have nowhere to go. Therefore the Tories were able (rhetorically speaking at least) to tack Left before the election because there was nowhere for their natural supporters to go. This has obviously changed in recent years with the rise of the Nationalist parties in Wales and Scotland (both of which have explicitly positioned themselves to the Left of Labour) and the rise of UKIP. You saw it even in the last year. Only last year the Tories were telling people they were now the new cuddly Tories and hug a hoodie and blah blah blah. Since the rise of UKIP (and since Eastleigh) they have now reverted to type and are now pushing an aggressively racist immigration policy supported by the media which overwhelmingly leans to the Right. And this was without UKIP winning anything! A new left wing party even if it doesnt win any seats might be able to have a similar effect on Labour. Maybe.

Incidentally as my discussion of the media indicates, political parties can do things other than fight elections. They can open up websites and newspapers and magazines and social media sites that can be the basis for conversations outside the strict parameters set by the traditional corporate media.

I fear that, under the current electoral system, a new left-wing party would split the vote and the main beneficiaries would be the Tories. (In the same way that UKIP is a gift to Labour, by splitting the right-wing vote).

On the other hand, if you’re not hoping to actually win an election, just influence the policy of the main parties, threatening to split the vote might be an effective way to do it.

It’s a shame, because we really could do with new parties. All the main parties have done things that have seriously disillusioned a big chunk opf their voters (for Labour, it was Iraq etc. For the LibDems, it was their their alliance with the Tories that annoyed the left-leaning portin of their supporters. The Tories are seeing defections to UKIP, etc.)

What is rather strange, and worrying, is that new populist parties (of both the left and right) often seem crazier than the established ones. Too early to tell with this venture, but the precedents are not good. It’s strange, because a big part of the problem with Labour was that it got sucked into follies like thinking the Iraq war was a good idea. A more cautious and accountable-to-voters replacement for Labour could be quite attractive. But I fear what you’ll get is something even more prone to doing things that are dangerous and stupid.

Industrialism is the conflict between such parties and the Greens: this type of party wants more out of the industrial economy for its members. It’s a sort of reactionary party 19th-century socialists never dreamed of.

“It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”

I’m sorry, Raven, I don’t understand your comment. By “this type of party”, do you means the Greens? How does wanting more out of the industrial economy for its members (party members only?) make it reactionary?

Katherine@25: the non- or anti-environmentalist leftist party.

#23: “It’s a sort of reactionary party 19th-century socialists never dreamed of.”

Characterizing a proposed party in the UK to the left of Labour as reactionary and anti-environment makes no sense – especially in the absence of any policy statement. Examples elsewhere don’t support this view.

The German Left Party – Die Linke – was created from a union of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG). New members of Die Linke included leaders of the Greens. The approach may differ from the Greens but is no less activist.

In a recent Red Pepper interview, Katja Kipping, co-leader of Die Linke was asked “How do you think that you can take on the responsibilities of power without repeating the experience of, in recent times, the Greens, or historically, most social democratic parties that have existed?”

Her reply:

Concretely in the German context there can only be real change to German politics with participation from Die Linke. If we say we need ecological change, then this requires a focus on ecological and social components. It also requires a critique of capitalism, meaning in practical terms, independence from corporations. This is a position that is not held by the SPD or the Greens, but is essential to Die Linke.

The excellent site Green Left has in-depth posts on the progress of Greek “radical left” SYRIZA – an alliance on the Greek left that includes Synaspismos SYN (The Coalition of Left Movements and Ecology), Renewing Communist Ecological Left (AKOA) and at a later stage Ecological Intervention.

As with plans to create a third party in the US, I have to ask what makes creating a new party a better option than seizing control of the existing party? The example of what conservatives have done with the Republican party over the last fifty years shows that it can be done, and it would have been much more difficult for the right wing to have gained its current influence if it had had to do so while building new party machinery from scratch.

MPAVictoria@24

You’re welcome. Desolation is just one of the services I provide.

#32 – “considering that the party’s own statement says nothing about the environment at all, I think I’m justified in saying the party is non-environmentalist.”

What “party” are you referring to? There is no party as yet… the discussion relates to a possible network on the left in the UK that would offer an alternative to the coalition.

@34 If you had bothered to read the comments on the article linked to you would see that those points had been dealt with. It`s true that the Labour vote has declined but not as constantly and not as much. With the Tories it is more or less constant decline, decade by decade, for 70 years. And actually it gets worse for the Tories because (at the moment at least…assuming the ideas of the OP are not acted upon!) the Libdems are now openly a right wing party and UKIP are now nipping at the Tories` heels. In other words the Tory vote is now split 3 ways. The homophobic and racist wing can vote for UKIP and the socially liberal but economically `dry`wing can go to the LibDems. The Thatcherite alliance of economic `liberals` (in the 19th century sense) and social conservatives has come unstuck. On the other hand, for now at least, the Left vote is not split (Respect never went anywhere, and the SWP now seems to be tearing itself apart). The really crucial election was the last one-it was much more indicative of the way things are going than Obama`s narrow win over Romney. Labour had been in power for about a million years, and they were led by someone who was widely loathed and blamed for the worst economic collapse since the ’30s. The Tories should have won by a landslide. As it is they narrowly scraped in and only managed to put a coalition together with the help of the slippery snake Clegg. Moreover with their `austerity` policies the Tories have managed the difficult feat of now taking over much of the blame for a recession that began under Labour. Also much of the media is now openly to the Right of the Tories (the Daily Express for example is now more or less midway between UKIP and the BNP).

Chris Bertram: “But there’s a lot missing too. Loach et al focus on domestic bread-and-butter issues and don’t seem to have anything to say about Europe, let alone the wider world. And there’s nothing at all on climate and the environment, a silence that is all too common on the left…”

Perceived lack of environmental concern on the left really boils down to a matter of priorities and perspective. The Green approach leaves a lot to be desired. As Marcus points out in #30 in reference to the Netherlands “… the Green Left party has sunk to a very low point due to its attempt to marry a light version of neoliberalism and green politics.”

Not only in the Netherlands, elsewhere there has been similar collusion. The Greens often tend to attract those with specific, sometimes localized environmental concerns and can be somewhat undefined when it comes to political leanings, hence the mantra – “neither right or left.” By the same token many Greens who do take a position on the left understand that the fight involves a larger frame – I’m just dubious that the Green approach accommodates the type of comprehensive and far reaching political solutions required.

Lack of particular emphasis on the environment per se doesn’t imply lack of awareness or any effort to ignore environmental challenges. What it does reflect is the understanding that in order to bring about far reaching ecological change, there has to be a fundamental change of political direction. The environment is included in that change of direction – it’s not a concern that exists in a separate category.

As Oscar Lafontaine put it – “A system, that only focuses on expansion of profit, cannot solve the ecological questions. The green formula of the ‘ecological market economy’ is a fake. No, the question of the system is asked through the question of the environment… ”

It isn’t possible to discuss environmental problems and real solutions without discussing capitalism… without discussing the military industrial complex… without discussing war, global power games, resource pillaging and the whole engine of “growth” so-called. There is a misplaced idealism that goes along with the horror show we’re creating and it has to do with the naive belief that science will somehow or other make it all okay, if only we don’t abandon belief in that article-of-faith… “progress.” The belief that somehow we’ll be able to come up with needed prescriptions to bail us out of the hell hole we’re creating. But as people are rapidly discovering there is a large penalty to pay as it is for following this disasterous model – be it the price paid by those suffering the consequences of recession and austerity, those who have their homes and livelihoods wiped out by climate-driven disasters, those suffering the psychological and physiological consequences of a polluted environment.

The Raven @32: “Any attempt to “improve the lives of ordinary people” without environmentalism is doomed, and that doom is not distant.” – Couldn’t agree more… it’s a question of the means.

So no comment from CT panellists / commenters on the SWP train wreck?

Ok, should’ve read the second paragraph, lol, sorry