What Could "Left Unity" Mean for the Community Movement?

The other day I happened upon a new Facebook page and website for a group calling itself Left Unity. I was drawn to it because it spoke boldly of its desire to form a new political party of the left, severing for once and for all the irrational political umbilical chord that for so long has joined the British so-called “left” – reformist and so-called “revolutionary” - to the party that is called Labour.

It is by no means the first time such an idea has been mooted, of course. The recent history of our national politics has been littered with left groups which have half-heartedly gone it alone, with varying degrees of unsuccess. The problem has always been the same – the separation from Labour has been from the head but never from the heart, and as such any manifestations of independent activity have invariably been a cry for help rather than a serious and sustained effort to create a lasting left alternative both to the unashamed reaction of the Conservatives and to the capitalist establishment’s safety valve that is the Labour Party.

Left Unity has, from first impressions at least, the outward appearance of being something different. Mobilised around an appeal by television and film director Ken Loach for a new party of the left, it would appear already to have gained some considerable momentum, with a network of local and regional groups to which new names seem to be being added by the day. By any measure, and certainly by any comparison with earlier attempts to achieve the same end, this is pretty big stuff.

Personally I find myself wishing the new initiative every success, but from a safe distance. Although I reject the logic of capitalism and stand four-square with the forces of labour (small “l”) in its various battles I do not consider myself as being especially of the “left”. It’s not that I dislike what it stands for, I just seem instinctively to dislike the people it attracts.

In large part this could be a simple consequence of the treatment that I have personally received at the hands of much of it. A former extreme rightist who rejected unequivocally all things racist and fascist some two decades ago, I still have doors slammed in my face by local so-called “lefties” who seem to share an almost pathological dedication to the cause of keeping alive my 1980s incarnation as an NF rabble-rouser, for reasons which only a qualified shrink would venture to probe. Whilst this causes me no loss of sleep whatsoever it does make for an interesting psychological and sociological study of the mentality of those concerned.

There have, of course, been others formerly of the extreme right who have seen the light and whose bona fides have been accepted by the generally left-dominated anti-fascist movement. So why am I regarded differently?

The only possible, logical answer is that despite my unqualified rejection of racism and fascism I remained a fierce critic of the political establishment, and of Labour in particular (for the simple reason that Labour was the party in power in my own neighbourhood, to which I effectively retreated). There is absolutely nothing else that differentiates me from other former fascists who have gone on to be actively involved in the anti-fascist movement.

So in other words the “anti-establishment” left rejected me because I rejected the establishment! C’est la vie.

This enforced separation between myself and the local representatives of this peculiar tendency in British politics led me to the view, which I have held for so many years, that the “left” in this country is utterly incapable of disengaging itself in its own mindset from the Labour Party – a party which for the most part accepts the Tory austerity agenda, enthusiastically supports capitalist wars, competes with the parties of the right in a perpetual willy-waving contest over who can strike the most macho postures on immigration, and voted down proposals to diminish the power of the House of Lords.

But there is another reason why I do not feel I belong to the “left” and that is its obsession with economic issues seemingly to the exclusion of all else. Yes we should resist attacks on benefits, low wages, diminution of employment rights, privatisation, the dismantling by stealth of the NHS and all the rest of it, but the empowerment of people travels hand-in-hand with the disempowerment of capitalism and that is something that the “left” just never seems to show an interest in. Taking power out of the hands of the bosses and placing it into the hands of bureaucrats and political apparatchiks does not a revolution make.

Yet on the other hand there is something irresistible about the rapid progress of the Left Unity initiative. In this mass communications age it is just about possible to create a really viable alternative without having access to millions of pounds and the Murdochs. What is really needed to make it happen is a vacuum, and the vacuum that exists on the left of British politics with the betrayal by Labour is immense.

What we could feasibly see within the space of a few years is a complete readjustment of the political dynamic, with the right broadly aligned to UKIP and the left organised around something like Left Unity. Whilst I have no brief for UKIP I admit nevertheless to some excitement about the prospect of the old establishment losing its grip in such a way.

Coming Face to Face With My National Front Past...Almost!

This may seem a strange topic to choose for my first post of 2013, but I had a weird dream the other night which I want to consign to record, as much for my own sanity as for anything else, but also to provide some light amusement for those who find such things amusing.

I was somewhere in a run-down area of London, in a derelict back street. The road was busy, although it was in actual fact a cul de sac terminating at the gates of an old factory. I was lazing about on a wall, actually lying down face forward, awaiting the arrival of some people who were going to join me on a demonstration. The factory employed mostly immigrant workers, who were being exploited by their management. The purpose of the demo was to protest against their treatment by the factory bosses.

In very little time several hundred people had arrived. They were a varied and colourful bunch, made up of all types of people. There were men and women of all ages, and from a whole variety of ethnic backgrounds. There were gay people (they seemed to be there as gay people) and, strangely, there was a group of men with shaven heads and identically attired in gold whom I presumed to be a religious sect of some form or another. A similarly-clad group dressed in pink then arrived, to the apparent chagrin of the gold people. I assumed these were from a rival religious sect.

But the folk I remember most vividly were an assortment of left-wing types, not in the union militant or Rocking Russian sense but more your trendy student, look-at-me, faux alternative stereotype. Although we shared a common cause I recall feeling uneasy around these people, not so much out of fear but more a sense of insincerity and general debasement of the mission upon which I was embarked.

The protest involved a march for the length of the street, after which we would turn left into a busy main thoroughfare. There, from within the sunken depths of a major London underground station, a National Front counter-demonstration was going to emerge onto the sidelines of our route comprising two to three hundred shouting, angry neo-fascists.

There was nothing to be frightened of. The whole area was saturated with police, both either side of the march and all around the tube station where the counter demonstration would first manifest itself. Besides, I knew nothing serious was going to happen because I had been there before.

Yes, you read that correctly. This was in actual fact an identical re-run of an event that had already taken place some time previously. Only on the earlier occasion I had been a participant in, and presumably an organiser of, the counter demonstration. As such I knew the whole day was going to pass without major incident.

In fact my only fear as I approached the junction and the counter demonstration, and I recall it was a very real fear, was that I was going to meet myself!

As we turned into the main street there was, bizarrely, a “commentator” at the side of the road with a microphone, giving an account of events to the participants as it was happening. He announced something to the effect of (I can’t recall the exact words): “Of course not everyone here is really one of us, are they Phil?”.

Rather than be shaken or wrong-footed by this, I simply laughed and gave him an ironic thumbs-up as I passed without looking directly at him. One or two of those around me glanced at me, perplexed, but nobody seemed overly concerned. It was, after all, only a dream (and I am blessed/cursed with the ability to usually know that I am dreaming) and I knew this guy was completely aware of my sincerity in supporting the cause of the exploited workers and opposing the fascists, and that he was simply making mischief. Most of those around me seemed to know it too.

But notwithstanding all this I was genuinely troubled, dream or no dream, by the prospect of meeting myself as we passed the counter demo. I can remember this feeling very clearly indeed.

The feared encounter never took place thanks, I think, to the timely intervention of my alarm clock. Nonetheless I remembered the whole thing so vividly, and still do some thirty hours later, that I decided I wanted to write it all down, for posterity or for future reference.

Most people who know me at all will be well aware that I was indeed a prominent member of the National Front many years ago. Some critics of my work in the community would prefer it were still so, and like to pretend that the two decades and more that have passed since I first turned my back on the far-right and renounced its politics have never taken place. Anybody who matters, though, is well acquainted with the full facts.

There was, of course, a certain amount of licence involved where my nocturnal adventure was concerned. Even as a National Front organiser I would never, for instance, have opposed a demonstration in support of exploited workers, immigrant or otherwise. And I have never seen any significant delegation of Hare Krishnas on any anti-fascist protest of my acquaintance, although the middle-class, plastic revolutionaries in duffle coats do ring true a tad.

I like to analyse my own dreams and more often than not I am able to see where they are coming from but at the time of writing I admit to being at a loss to make head or tail of this one. Maybe a friend, or indeed a foe, would like to try and help me out here?

Thought for the week

"In conditions where large sections of the electorate are abandoning all the mainstream parties, for anti-fascists not to be supporting or initiating local projects that are prepared to confront rather than support the Labour Party is to politically abandon those communities to the BNP."

Acknowledgements to Red Pepper.