Do not leave the Labour Party.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The thing that has really twisted the knife for me is a series of friends, genuinely nice people, repeating without thought the lines fed to them by centrists and centre-right commentariat.  The arguments which have inevitably resulted in them gaslighting.  One my oldest best friend who I don't think i've ever disagreed on anything said to me before election "the problem with the leftwing is it always ends up in nationalism".  This a brilliant feminist and leftwinger herself.

That's in direct contradiction to the 'Cobyn's not patriotic enough!' (critical of the UK's international actions and who it will do business with).

[holyzombiejesus]

Ronan Burtenshaw in Tribune.

Socialists: Stay in the Labour Party

Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 epic La Haine, tracing the lives of disenfranchised youth in the Parisian slums, begins with the story of a man falling from a great height. "So far, so good; so far, so good; so far, so good," the narrator assures himself. Then the screen is engulfed in flames. "It's not the fall that matters," we are told, "it's the landing."

At times in the past five years, the Left has scaled great heights. So much so, in fact, that a socialist Labour government seemed visible on the horizon. There were many achievements along the way – from overturning an austerity consensus that held total sway over British politics for years, to remaking Labour as a mass party with more than half a million members. Thirteen million people voted for a decisive break with neoliberalism in 2017; and ten million voted for a radical left-wing manifesto in December. More than had backed Miliband, Brown — even the last Blair government.

But the general election defeat was, nonetheless, severe. It has chastened the Left and this newfound timidity was evident in Rebecca Long-Bailey's leadership campaign. It suffered from many of the weaknesses of Corbynism. It was, in fact, born into the inertia that a lack of succession planning produced. Unfortunately, it had few of Corbynism's strengths – and could not inspire the kind of movement necessary to beat the odds.

Keir Starmer deserves congratulations for his victory. He stood on a platform of making at least some of the radical policies of recent years electable. It remains to be seen how durable his leftward commitments will be once they come under pressure from the media or the right-wing of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Regardless, there will no longer be a socialist as Labour leader – Starmer is a moderate figure and not one whose politics will threaten the wealthy or powerful.

For the Left, this cascade of defeats makes clear that we are in a fall. Today's results suggest that we have not reached terminal velocity. In the past, the Left has responded to these moments with the bitterness and recrimination of a movement whose hopes of changing the world were dashed. It has fractured and fragmented and given in to internecine factionalism. It has guaranteed, in other words, that its defeats were not temporary but generational.

That does not need to be the case this time. Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party revived socialism in Britain. It made it possible to call capitalism itself into question – and have an audience for your argument. Perhaps most importantly, it convinced an emerging generation whose material circumstances disposed them to fundamental change that socialism could offer solutions to the problems in their lives.

The arguments for socialism have not gone away. The coronavirus crisis means we face the deepest recession since the 1930s. This weekend even the Financial Times was arguing that four decades of neoliberalism had to be discarded in response. Already, we had seen years of economic stagnation and growing inequality. The climate emergency and resurgent far-right threaten further disaster in the years to come. Capitalism does not have the answers to any of these great questions of our age.

The task for socialists now is to learn the lessons of defeat, organise and rebuild. But we can only do this if we are clear-eyed about the reasons for our progress in recent years. Before Corbynism, the socialist Left was truly marginal. It played important roles in movements against war and austerity – but it was disparate, divided between a weak Labour Left and various radical groups who counted their memberships in the dozens or hundreds at most. We must not return to those days.

Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party brought socialist arguments back into mainstream politics for the first time since the conquest of neoliberalism in the 1980s. It is certainly true that, under Corbynism, extraparliamentary movements were not as strong as they needed to be. A return to the work of building those is necessary – but so is organising socialists through the Labour Party.

The sources of hope on the socialist Left in the past decade — from Syriza and Podemos to Corbyn and Bernie Sanders — have come through engagement in mass party politics. Before this, many years of focus on street movements and minoritarian radicalism had failed to grow our ranks or proliferate our ideas. Socialists should remember this, and stay in the Labour Party despite today's disappointment.

As this economic crisis deepens, the case for class politics will grow. With each passing week the inequalities in our society will be brought into starker relief, as will the nature of our economic system and who it is designed to protect. Despite its gentrification in recent decades, Labour remains the political wing of the trade union movement – and the only party which can reasonably aspire to represent the working-class as a class.

That must be the Left's anchor in the years to come. The great risk of Starmer's leadership is that it finally completes Labour's realignment away from a party based on uniting people across cultural divides on the basis of their class interests and towards one which unites people across class divides on the basis of liberal social views.

This would be a disastrous outcome for socialist politics in Britain, trapping us in a groundhog day of Brexit culture wars for a generation. And doing so at exactly the moment when systemic alternatives to capitalism will be needed most. The only way it can be avoided is for socialists to be active in the labour movement – rebuilding a Left within the Labour Party and renewing our unions, a focus which was absent all too often under Corbynism.

Today is a defeat for the Left. But the real victory for our opponents would be watching the forces we have amassed in recent years scatter to the wind. We cannot allow that to happen. The need for socialist politics is too urgent to give in to the temptation to wallow in self-pity. We have a responsibility to do better.

We are falling at the moment – the question now is how we land. That determines where the Left will be when we start climbing again.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/04/socialists-stay-in-the-labour-party?fbclid=IwAR2rPhWZ8yP38AvOwE7e2fp-Q639ZGpchGE7chM0wf54yHUfRjlvlgUpoYc

[Armin Meiwes]

Yeah that's a bit weird, of all the things I've heard the left get slagged off for "leading to nationalism" isn't usually one of them.

[Mr_Simnock]

She could have got that from articles like this - https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism

[Sebastian Cobb]

Yeah, Starmer is doing fuck all to inspire confidence on the left.

It's the left being tribalistic!!!!

[jobotic]

Burgon out.

Keep on unifying

[Buelligan]

Ronan Burtenshaw in Tribune.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/04/socialists-stay-in-the-labour-party?fbclid=IwAR2rPhWZ8yP38AvOwE7e2fp-Q639ZGpchGE7chM0wf54yHUfRjlvlgUpoYc

I like Ronan Burtenshaw, he's a great lad and speaks a lot of sense.

Here he is talking to Aaron Bastani about media impartiality.  Certainly not an idiot.

[Twit 2]

He's quite clever for a 12 year old.

[Paul Calf]

I'm not going to leave the Labour Party but I mean...canvassing for Sir Keir Starmer Of Remainshire anywhere north of Finchley: can you imagine it?

I don't think I could.

[Mr_Simnock]

I don't think you can imagine very much though :-0

[Johnny Yesno]

I'm not going to leave the Labour Party but I mean...canvassing for Sir Keir Starmer Of Remainshire anywhere north of Finchley: can you imagine it?

I don't think I could.

Yeah, it's not going to be easy. At least when people on the doorstep slagged off Corbyn, I had a lot to choose from in my reply as to why they were wrong and I could argue it with conviction.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Well centrists find conviction an unnecessary ideological burden so not having those should help if anything.

[Artie Fufkin]

Forgot to vote in these things altogether with all the shit that was happening the last few weeks along with some personal stuff, suspect I'm not the only one here. Definitely not leaving though.

Just couldn't make up my mind. Not leaving though.

[peanutbutter]

Just couldn't make up my mind. Not leaving though.

Nah, was gonna be a resigned vote for RLB and Burgon expecting both to lose, it's a bit bizarre I missed tweets and shit informing me of the deadline cos I'm sure I got them.

Honestly I didn't even know there were other votes going on and still don't know which ones were on that I could've voted in, so I can only assume that shit wasn't presented effectively by the people who needed to.


I don't actually know when voting opened either, from the turn of the year I was constantly getting a flow of these extremely long text messages from all of the candidates all saying roughly the same things and making zero effort to avoid blurring together.

[Schrodingers Cat]

I'm not going to leave the Labour Party but I mean...canvassing for Sir Keir Starmer Of Remainshire anywhere north of Finchley: can you imagine it?

I don't think I could.

You mean like in the sort of constituencies that voted Conservative in their droves back in December? Much as we don't like to acknowledge it, there is still a strong strain of forelock-tugging in the English psyche. Hate it all we like, it's still true that having the right accent and background counts for much more than ideas ever can here (especially when those ideas challenge the accepted order).

I have no doubt Starmer will do better than Corbyn did in his last election. You simply won't get the same arguments on the doorstep for a decorated lawyer and QC (and indeed Knight of the Realm) that you did for a (relatively, for a politician) normal bloke who actually wanted to change things.

I don't know, maybe I'm just speaking out of frustration, and I do actually think Labour will have more of a chance under Starmer, but if you're not going to actually do anything substantially different than the Tories, what's the point? I mean, Rachel fucking Reeves?! Christ.

At least we can all get back to the sensible, grown-up politics of urging everyone to accrue as much personal wealth as possible (along with the resulting personal debt).

[evilcommiedictator]

Nah, everyone join Tge Greens, stack their branches with people who aren't brain damaged and kick out all the shitheads in leadership, hey presto you have your own party in theory fit for purpose!

[Artie Fufkin]

I don't actually know when voting opened either, from the turn of the year I was constantly getting a flow of these extremely long text messages from all of the candidates all saying roughly the same things and making zero effort to avoid blurring together.

This

[Artie Fufkin]

I don't know, maybe I'm just speaking out of frustration, and I do actually think Labour will have more of a chance under Starmer, but if you're not going to actually do anything substantially different than the Tories, what's the point? I mean, Rachel fucking Reeves?! Christ.

And this.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Have I arrived late to the party from the news Keir Starmer's middle name is Rodney?

[Paul Calf]

Well, the unfortunate thing is that all you have to do now to be different from the Tories is not have your party stuffed with fascists, aristocrats and eugenics enthusiasts so desperate to perform mass human experimentation that they're actually just saying that.

[thugler]

Nah, everyone join Tge Greens, stack their branches with people who aren't brain damaged and kick out all the shitheads in leadership, hey presto you have your own party in theory fit for purpose!

purpose of winning the tories the next election?

[Replies From View]

Have I arrived late to the party from the news Keir Starmer's middle name is Rodney?

Yes and there is no lemonade left for you to have any.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Keir Starker should change his middle name to Del Boy to win over Tory voters and fans of OFAH.

[Mr_Simnock]

milliband is back, stop press, a new labor dawn is coming

[Johnny Yesno]

Nah, everyone join Tge Greens, stack their branches with people who aren't brain damaged and kick out all the shitheads in leadership, hey presto you have your own party in theory fit for purpose!

No thanks.

[chveik]

why not? it seems feasible

[Johnny Yesno]

No, it doesn't.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

milliband is back, stop press, a new labor dawn is coming

I did see that his image was trailed extensively everywhere and my immediate reaction was "oh ffs", as though a loveable but ultimately brand-damaging labrador with face defects had got out of the house.

[Wacky Homemade Badges]

No thanks.

I'm a Green!

[The Giggling Bean]

I've seen a lot of people in various JC supporting Facebook groups saying they've cancelled their membership due to Starmers election. As pointed out I'm going to stay in and use my votes to keep it as closely aligned to Jeremy's policies as possible. However if it looks like a losing battle or if theres a massive purge of Corbyn supporters then I'll be reconsidering.

I guess I'm saying I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now even though he was not my preferred candidate.