The struggle continues

While the Tory government descends ever further into chaos, our own Labour Party National Executive this week prioritised refusing to support the proposal that Labour MP, Jeremy Corbyn, should be readmitted to the Parliamentary Labour Party and also agreed that local Labour Party members should have less say in the selection of Parliamentary candidates.

Speaking as the chair of a Constituency Party whose members had almost no say in the selection of our candidates in the past two general elections, under a socialist leader, I sympathise very much with all those who are angry about the second of these decisions.

Speaking as a socialist who has been a member of the Labour Party for more than 40 years and had admired Jeremy Corbyn for his consistency and integrity for decades before he became Leader of our party I also have great sympathy with all those who are angry about the first of these decisions.

The question is, as of course it always is in politics, "what is to be done?” I admire Laura Pidcock, but I deeply regret her mistaken decision to resign from the Labour Party NEC. We hold elections in a party for a term of office and I generally think that those who have stood for election and sought the trust and confidence of those who have voted for them ought always, at the very least, to serve the term of office for which they have been elected no matter how they might feel.

I have far more sympathy for the position of other socialist NEC members, such as Gemma Bolton, who are proposing to stand their ground and continue to fight for what is right. 

The struggle to transform society is fought over lifetimes and generations not over years or months, and I have always thought that there are few things less appealing than those who engage in political activity only when they believe that they are on the brink of some sort of victory.

I appreciate that as someone with advanced cancer it isn't saying very much to say that I don't expect to see socialism in my lifetime. However, I don't particularly expect that my children will live to see socialism in their lifetimes. The transition from feudalism to capitalism took something approaching half a millennium. Human society does not evolve in accordance with the strength of our feelings but in accordance with what Marx called the "laws of motion”, which can be studied and understood.

For hundreds of years working people have struggled for socialism and have lived and died in that struggle always hoping that they may be contributing to a better future which they do not expect themselves to see. The struggle has been through many twists and turns and they have been many setbacks and there will be many more.

For socialists in Britain, or at least England, the Labour Party has been an important site of the struggle for socialism for more than 100 year. This has been true when the Party leadership and the policies pursued by the Party in Parliament have pleased the left-wing and it has continued to be true when, as in the 1950s or the 1980s and 1990s, the party has tried to eliminate socialism from its ranks. It remains true today.

For as long as the Labour Party retains an organic relationship with the trade unions, a feature which has long distinguished it from many European social Democratic parties, it will not be possible for the party leadership to eradicate socialism from our ranks.

The pioneers who created our party did not do so because they wanted to create career opportunities in politics for those who wanted to be slightly less reactionary than the Tories. 

In fact, when you think about it, they created the Labour Party precisely because that approach was not delivering for working-class people in the late 19th century any more than it can deliver for working-class people in the early 21st century.

For most of the history of our Party parliamentarians whose aspirations are limited to ameliorating slightly the conditions of existence of our people (whilst doing rather better for their own conditions of existence) have dominated our Party. It is to be expected that this will continue because, a labour movement determined upon fundamental change is a fundamental threat to the power of the ruling class. This is, of course, why the Corbyn leadership of the party faced such venom and such attacks. 

Just because defeat may be the most likely outcome it does not mean that it is inevitable nor that victory is impossible.

Opportunities for socialists to shift the direction of the Labour Party have always been and will continue to be as rare as hens teeth. One of the things that have been, and will be, even rarer will be opportunities for socialists to build a successful replacement for the Labour Party.

The struggle continues.