Building out of the ruins

It’s been remarked to me by several now, that the problem with Corbynism wasn’t so much Corbyn, but Labourism. One couldn’t muster up a better example of this then Labour’s current leadership election. "Party unity", "our path to power”, “listening to the electorate”, and “learning the lessons” are just some of the truisms and euphemisms thrown around by party grandees. The old nostrums of tradition die hard. But it is as if the dead weight of Britain’s social-democratic tradition is keeping itself alive just long enough to bury the one thing that stymied its slow decay: socialist radicalism.

Beginning as we mean to continue, let’s be absolutely clear. There exists no “continuity-Corbyn” candidate in this leadership contest. If Corbyn presented the promise of decades of unbroken anti-racist and anti-war activism rooted in firm socialist politics, only Richard Burgon in the Deputy Leadership election continues this tradition. Rebecca Long-Bailey, who has far stronger continuities with Corbyn than anybody else in the leader’s race treats this tradition and the ideas it embodies, with far greater expediency.

The 2015-19 coalition is over, and Corbyn's politics will struggle to find even the refracted expression in the Labour leadership that it had articulated in previous years. The constituents that coalesced around Corbyn did so on a variegated basis. Whilst originally in 2015, Unite and Unison were edged into backing Corbyn by their respective Executive Committees, they both now support different candidates for leader and deputy leader. Momentum, formerly heralded as Militant 2.0, favours a coalition between the Labour Left and soft left by backing Long-Bailey and Angela Rayner. And whilst the outcome of the race remains uncertain, both polls and CLP nominations have the 2015 and 2016 majorities for Corbyn fracturing.

As far as the tenor of the debate is concerned, instead of the desired “period of reflection”, we have had an incredibly mundane period of punitive ambiguity. Only the existence of a mass left-leaning membership and the need to appeal to such a body, has prevented this contests conversion into a full-throttle bloodbath. Instead, the calls to throw the architects of Corbynism under a bus are accompanied by the reassurances that it is definitely still a very red bus.

If we needed any examples of just how depressing this situation is then we should look no further than the fact that a BBC-journalist-turned-army-officer who once proclaimed NATO an institution emblematic of “collectivism, internationalism, and the strong defending the weak”, was the candidate least eager to commit to dropping nuclear weapons on civilian populations. At least he couldn't "conceive of any situation" where such an act would be carried out. Clive Lewis, the candidate in question, is no longer in the race, having been knocked out in the first round.

Also out of the competition early on was Jess Phillips. Contrary to her contrived image as a working-class woman sticking it to the man, Jess Phillips is about as proletarian as the daughter of a privateering NHS chief can be. Less a campaigner, more a former manager in the charitable sector. Less sticking it to the man, more pretending to stick it to the most racially harassed MP of our generation. A pretend-populist vacuity and a career of vitriolic red-baiting could only paper over the Labour Right's crisis long enough for her to give up in the second round. All the missteps and the flip-flopping only shed further light on the obvious: that the Labour right have no alternative. They have no answers to redress the problems of the world they created and the only alternative they can look to – Macron's France – is currently basked in a multitudinous crisis of its own making.

Last out of the competition was Emily Thornberry. Cherished by many a Corbynite after her barnstorming and resolute performances throughout the 2017 election, her faux-radicalism was quickly shed afterwards. Ardent defender of Israel and general enthusiast for liberal humanitarianism, her finest moment was revising and repurposing the heroic legacy of Cable Street as a stick to beat pro-Palestine activists with. Incapable of garnering either enough affiliate endorsements or CLP nominations, Thornberry didn't go through to the third round.

Third in the running of those left, Lisa Nandy represents a political current that at least has some pretence towards solving Labour’s present catastrophe. What is remarkably bizarre though is how little she has argued for her actual politics. Seen as an MP close to the culturalist Blue Labour faction who advised Ed Miliband all the way to defeat, and advised herself by an ex-UKIP strategist Ian Warren, she has largely closeted the racist and communitarian ideas which many may have anticipated. The Wigan MP, who once stated that "unrestricted free movement of Labour and capital is happening at the expense of some of our communities" now speaks in favour of Freedom of Movement. Her commitment to civic nationalism takes priority, with the "town" in particular taking pride of place.

Out of the contestants left she has easily displayed the most venom toward Labour’s 2019 manifesto. As far as she is concerned Labour promised the world and people didn’t buy it, spending too much of its time wittering on about free broadband when it should have been championing buses (word to the wise, it did both). What stands out about Nandy’s campaign is the dogged willingness to say exactly the things that front-runner Keir Starmer fears would lose him the race. She manages to provide both an outlet for the elitist Labour right’s frustrations with Corbynism whilst also cohering a narrative about how Labour lost its heartland seats. The past attachment to Blue Labour and the current adoption of Tory attack lines on economic policy, shows the Nandy campaign looking increasingly like a conveyor belt for converts to the Labour right, legitimising both its culturalist and centrist modes of thinking, and giving an added glimpse of what sort of pressures the victor of this race will be under come April.

Despite this, the right, centre and soft left turn to Starmer in droves. A man whose campaign began with pride at having stood on picket lines in the 70s and 80s defending striking workers on the streets and in the courts. A man whose propaganda aimed to move, with the backing of one of the Shrewsbury pickets* and renowned socialist actor, Ricky Tomlinson, only reinforcing its sentimental value – a value that Starmer desperately pulls the heartstrings on in order to appeal to a fatigued left-wing membership.

Yet, as Director of Public Prosecutions, we have a different story. A man who in his role as DPP refused to pursue justice for victims of state murder like Jean-Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson. A man who exhibited no remorse when pursuing severe jail sentences of up to ten years for those guilty of apparent welfare fraud. A man who refuted Corbyn’s democratic mandate not once, but twice. A man whose relentless and unimpeded outspokenness over a second referendum and obsession over Parliamentary manoeuvres might well have cost Labour the 2019 general election.

This is the man touted as Labour's next leader.

Fundamentally, the failure to challenge the story Sir Keir tells about himself is inseparable from the Left's continued inability to paint a picture of how neoliberalism changed this country, our everyday lives and the very political actors we see before us in this race. How does one go from writing for Socialist Alternative to letting Spy Cop rapists off the hook?

It is true that Starmer is representative of a generation for whom the abandonment of their youthful radicalism was par for the course, with many steering rightwards as the Labour Party acclimatized itself to the "new realism". Yet the journey of ex-Trotskyist to probable next leader of the Labour Party tells us something deeper about how presiding over an important judicial organisation and managing the public-legal controversies it deals with, effects a person’s worldview.

Starmer’s record as DPP also tells us exactly what so many in the Labour Party are accepting of. One doesn’t have to be particularly Marxist to have a problem with baiting welfare claimants and letting police brutality slide. Yet for many Labour Parliamentarians, ideologues and even members, the idea of a man who has re-enforced some of the worst aspects of capitalist juridicality doesn’t just sit quite comfortably, it is seen as a thoroughly positive quality. The respectability such a position affords is seen as a strength in the eyes of so many. Maybe for some this is a backlash to the non-politician qualities of Corbyn, maybe it’s a firm belief in the fairness and neutrality of the legal system, but either way, it should make us alert to the arguments we haven’t prosecuted effectively enough these past five years. It seems profound defeat has inspired a wanting for precisely the qualities that produced Labour’s "pasokification" in the first place. Not just someone who appears electorally respectable, emblematic of officialdom, but also, and let’s be honest about this, someone who seems internally amenable.

On the one hand, seeking to appeal to leftists once enamoured by insurgency, and on the other, posing as the consoling and appeasing face of the political centre, Keir Starmer is the physical embodiment of a political reality that has always plagued the Left in Labour – that of “broad churchism”. The spell-binding notion that whatever happens, whatever the larger disagreements at hand, all wings of the Labour Party must stick it out together for fear of self-immolation. However, if the past thirty years have told us that the Right of the party can quite happily dispense with this Labourist doctrine if the Left are to become too much of an annoyance, the last five years has taught us that they’d quite happily bulldoze the church if it prevents a left-wing bishop getting on the podium. It’s long overdue that the left assessed whether this particular article of faith really provides the possibility of creating the "New Jerusalem" that we so yearn for, because little evidence has borne this out as of yet.

Stuart Hall's aptly described "Little Caesars" of social-democracy - with their inclinations to "compromise political solutions", and their "temporary staving off of deeper currents" - have become considerably feebler as the strength of Labourism has diminished and its proximity to power stretched further away. Their value, which Starmer typifies most of all, is consigned to upholding the facade of internal accommodation whilst remoulding Labour back into a second party-political option for capital regardless of whether the 1% wants one or not.

The ease with which this process marches, represents precisely how far the Corbynite project was willing to go down the path of ideological struggle and political transformation. The failure to marginalise the PLP; the poor direction given to the membership; and the inability to build any lasting infrastructure, are all coming back to bite.

'Tactical attrition'?

As the protests which shook Britain and much of the world at the beginning of the decade ebbed, many drew the conclusion that street battles and occupations would not suffice. What was needed was a political articulation. The material and mental sediments of these movements found agency and expression in the revival of the party-form. In Britain, this logic found its home in the Labour Party. However, with the defeat of the 2019 general election, there is now a widespread sentiment on the Left – beyond the empty 'social movementism' platitudes which left many a Corbynites' lips – that a push towards reconstituting class organisation and power is absolutely vital. A recognition that the 'social' needs to actually encounter and entwine with the 'political'.

Yet, there is also another, maybe more widespread sentiment on the Left, that maybe, if we have an amenable more PR-friendly, less controversial candidate, we might not get such a rough ride. That maybe Starmer can unite the party, that maybe his left credentials are what he purports them to be, and that maybe he won't carry the same sort of baggage as Jeremy Corbyn did.

This, most likely possibility, renders the previously-mentioned confluence void. The calls to 'end factionalism' will become what they always were, cries to smash the Left. The 2019 manifesto will find itself slowly but surely dishevelled, not a hint of its former glory left intact. The days of abstaining on the welfare bill will return, they will just do so more gradually. The scope for agency will be turned over by a disorderly Left defeat. Our retreat won't be two steps back, it will be us crawling on all fours justifying our knee-ache to one another. The basic fact is, if Corbyn was slaughtered in the press on a daily basis and even he capitulated on principles such as solidarity with the Palestinians, then you can imagine every bit of leverage piled on Starmer all in the aid that he drops not only the Left's policies, but it's personnel too. And make no mistake about it, Keir Starmer has not a grain of the personal integrity that Jeremy Corbyn does.

The second outcome from this leadership election, the ascension of Long-Bailey to the leadership, places the strategic convergence discussed back in the realm of possibility. Long-Bailey is her own person. Meticulous on policy, a witty and charismatic politician with an emphatic personal narrative that marks herself out from the other candidates, she is the one contender capable of telling a story about exactly what neoliberalism has done to Britain. This is it though.

The truth is, Long-Bailey, despite being the best and most left-wing candidate, has already given much cause for doubt. By conceding that anyone who labels the state of Israel as racist is an anti-Semite, and by signing up to the Board of Deputies of British Jews ten pledges, she has acceded to a campaign of the Labour right which took Corbyn three years to give in too. Although it might be easy for comrades on the Left to disregard Palestinian solidarity as the preserve of cranks and has-beens, there’s been an outstanding failure to recognise three things. Firstly, that any Left worth the name should stand firm to its commitment to anti-colonial solidarity refusing to abandon our internationalism at our opponents behest; secondly, other than the Brexit debate, Palestine and the accusation of anti-Semitism has been the crucial motor through which Corbynism was divided, disorganised and demoralised. And thirdly, this will not go away no matter how much you concede to it -- if it has proven to be the battering ram which is most successful then our opponents will continue to attack you over it until you’re barely a threat. It normalises our project, blunts our sharpness, and dilutes it of the very radicalism post-imperial Britain despises. Additionally, it’s gives further cause for concern about the Long-Bailey campaign we saw in the first few weeks. Torn between the wish for electability and being of the mind that Corbynism was basically correct in its prognosis and outlook, Long-Bailey will struggle.

She has avoided Corbyn's enthusiasm for socialism's moral case by replacing it with talk of "aspiration" and "empowerment" - neither inherently wrong as ways of talking about socialism, but one wonders whether they rely upon a convenient ambiguity with how these words are utilised in both neo-liberal market culture and New Labour messaging. Anything it seems to circumnavigate the variety of registers wherein one might articulate a truly anti-elitist class struggle framing.

There is room for improvement too, in her prosecution of the culture war. The Left comforts itself with the notion that it doesn't fight dirty battles but avoiding the unavoidable one week and conceding ground to your opponents in that war the next; looks embarrassing. Long-Bailey herself looked far more comfortable joking about having gone to Amsterdam then she did saying that drugs should not be legalized. She looks far more credible defending migration than she does banging on about "progressive patriotism". The culture wars are part of the political terrain now and as we know, politics has its "own language, grammar and syntax. It has its latencies and its slips." The culture wars are transfigured and displaced ideological battles. By taking them on, Long-Bailey and the wider Left wouldn't just be resisting an assault on the co-opted and transfigured gains of past struggles against oppression, it would also be a struggle to elaborate an emancipatory future diametrically opposed to the socially sadistic barbarism of the Conservative Party and its allies.

Like Corbyn before her, but from a far more isolated position, Long-Bailey continues to straddle her own vision, the competing interests of the coalition she wants to build, and the rival party organisations she wants to tame. Balancing the socialist nationalism and weak-willed climate radicalism of Unite, alongside the increasingly disastrous undemocratic maneuvering and internal timidity of Momentum is a recipe for disappointment.

Long-Bailey's centering of a Green Industrial Revolution, the revival of old Bennite and New Left rhetoric around democratising the state, the economy and the media, are all admirable and welcome. Yet, in the event that she wins this leadership race, these ideas will be put to bed unless she seeks to forge new coalitions outside of the stale and conservative alliances which ultimately hampered Corbynism.

'And one always recommences from the middle'

The questions considered so far are vital in their own right, but they also matter because of the Conservative Party we’re up against. We underestimated the tangibility of Boris Johnson’s electoral proposition, and we’d be foolish to make a similar misstep now he rules with a majority. Strategically 'splurging' infrastructural investment in key Northern seats; ripping up the Treasury’s Green Book rules; giving greater emphasis to state aid and intervention in the economy; introducing further Draconian reforms into the migration system and recruiting far-right ideologues into the internal life of government; removing Sajid Javid on the basis that his Hayekian instincts might clash with the Johnsonian national conservative project; and refusing to attend the Davos conference in a symbolic act of disdain for the global elite – all show us the projected character of this government.

These decisions may be determined not by a grand ambition to reverse the decline of British capitalism, but more so by medium-term political objectives. Either way, they should inform the Left's strategy. This government won't be a continuation of the old neoliberalism but neither do I imagine it being a resolute break. An austerian approach to the social crisis will seemingly prevail and this cabinet will not just face structural tendencies toward recession, but also the vaccillatory course of a national polity torn between Europe, the US and even China on foreign policy and global competition. Yet, the ruthlessness and confidence it exudes, the obsession with national renewal, and the anti-elitist and popular language it cloaks its actions in, shouldn't just concern us all; it should propel us into serious rethinking.

In his meticulous account of Thatcherism, Alexander Gallas assesses the neoliberal offensive on two bases. The first is on “class politics”, that is to what extent was Thatcher able to defeat militant trade unionism. In this respect she was highly successful. The second is on what he calls “economic order politics”. That is, to what degree was Thatcher’s transformation of the British economy successful as an attempt to reverse the long-decline of British capitalism. On this front, unable to "cure the 'British disease' of 'boom and bust’, a weak industrial sector, a volatile currency" and Britain’s shaky relationship with Europe, Thatcherism was a failure.

We on the Left however, might use these two categorisations to assess our own strengths and weaknesses. The Corbyn project was a significant step forward when it came to developing and elaborating an "economic order" vision. Yet it's contribution to gestating a “class politics” which might make its "economic order" possible, was severely lacking.

As I've said previously, the 2019 manifesto and the policy work done by John McDonnell and those around him was a remarkable step forward for the Left in general. It wasn't the whole picture for sure. Electoralist nervousness and the fundamental commitment to some mediated class compromise with capital stifled its ability to be "as radical as reality itself". But it laid the groundwork for any future transitionalist programme the movement might formulate.

If a future Left vision is going to be tenable it must avoid the disconnect between activist practice and intellectual thought which characterised Corbynism. One of the great things about the Left I've come to know is the proliferation of think-tanks and political educational bodies such as Autonomy, Commonwealth and The World Transformed. These vehicles had a disproportionate impact on the 2019 manifesto, but also on the imaginaries of people right across the movement. And it is criticism not of them, but of the environment that they have operated in, which has seen little translation of their work into a wider activist context. Activists have been able to reimagine what their lives might be like through policy discussion, they've been able to sharpen up their politics through meetings and debate, but the context of Corbynism and Labourism has been debilitating for those processes to find some expression in precisely the sort of working-class contexts many are keen to transform.

The culture of Corbynism was stifled precisely because the internal life of Labourism is stifling. Be it internally or externally, electoral contests and the anxieties they create overwhelmingly govern what those involved prioritise. For five years, the Left was essentially a large collection of spectators, commentators and voting-fodder. The overriding emphasis was geared toward the disciplined formulation and dissemination of policy goals with little attention paid to how they could be won, to what extent they might be defended, and how the very process of self-organisation, collective struggle and mass empowerment could unleash the actions and desires which might sustain a socialist project. A central question posed by fighting to democratise the economic and political body of any national polity, is to what extent the agents of that struggle become not just it's vessels, but its very lifeblood as well.

With the way these harsh winds seem to be blowing in Labour right now, debates pertaining to strategy and organisation need confronting divorced from the obsession over Labour's leadership and its internal life.

Some, such as Marcus Barnett, have argued that the Left ought to "begin rebuilding a socialist infrastructure" which could reverse the profound atomisation and abandonment which characterises so much of working-class social life. This would include facilitating grassroots culture, running foodbank collections, and assisting those most in need. Developing this type of "associational power" according to Barnett, would show the Left as a force that can walk the walk, as well as talk the talk, proving that we’re not just here to plead for votes every five years.

Undoubtedly, these solidaristic impulses exhibit the bread-and-butter of the Left, but their feasibility is another question. Corbynism and its inability to create an active rather than passive Labour membership papered over the limited capacities of our movement. The "associational power" of Left movements like the German SPD tended to increase alongside the strengthening of these movement’s social and political power. With that in mind, it remains to be seen whether the Left should give priority to a field preyed upon by an NGO sector fulfilling the gaps left by a collapsing welfare state. Building the politics of solidarity across social movements, workplaces and communities through deep-organising and militant campaigning could enable the kind of "socialist infrastructure" Barnett like so many of us desires, and it could do so on the grounds that the Left isn’t trying to outdo the charity sector. It seems to me, this patient movement-building might also develop and produce the working-class educational culture Barnett like myself yearns for, but which, as he rightly identifies, is so inhibited on the British Left at the moment.

Others advocate a turn to socialist municipalism. For an electoralist project, national politics won't take the importance it has done now that Johnson will be in power for the best part of five years. Informing this turn is a reality that many activists have identified, which is that the technocratic, establishmentarian politics of local Labour councils at least had some influence on the party's general election performance. Much of the historical basis for this turn involves critical valuations of the Poplar movement, the Greater London Council, and the Militant council in Liverpool. The examples we have today are the Momentum-led Haringey council selling off the Latin Village, Sadiq Khan's progressive neoliberalism, and the welcome but tame Preston model with its reliance on "public procurement for maximum social benefit", prioritisation of the strategic economic role local government can play, and giving emphasis to social rights and alternative forms of ownership. Yet even these models show the immediate tensions this wager involves.

The biggest problem facing any socialist municipalism is the legacy of Thatcherism and her shredding of local government’s financial powers - an anti-democratic reform which was only accelerated under New Labour. The second is that Labour council groups are populated by-and-large with nefarious proto-Tories who routinely justify their commitment to a devolved neoliberalism with the lack of funding they receive. Even those councillors who see themselves as of the Left see no way to defy national government’s diktats toward municipalities. The two questions are inseparable, and the scope for creating a space within Labour’s council groups - traditionally the most right-wing pocket of the party - seems just as unlikely as Boris Johnson loosening the belts on local government funding. For a local government praxis to emerge, it will be found within those tendencies oppositional toward Labour councils just like the campaign to save the Latin Village. Labour members will face a choice about how they pivot in these struggles and looking at the way the wind is blowing inside the Labour Party, selection contests and passing motions might not be the most effective way to put working-class demands on local government. If however, opportunities arise where local Labour Left’s can build council slates with a strategy to deal with these issues, they should be embraced, but on the basis that they are done in tandem with campaigns and oppositional movements outside.

Both of these strategic turns contain a recognition that the Left needs to turn outwards to building class power. Likely this is informed by the general election disaster, but we should be absolutely clear it will also be informed by how claustrophobic and hostile Labour's internal life will become. How improbable "Corbynism from below", despite our best efforts, really was.

Even in the event of a Rebecca Long-Bailey victory, we have seen little evidence that she will be able to deal with this inhospitable environment better than Corbyn, far from it, her coping strategy seems to be predicated on accepting the terms of those to her right. If this is the case on Israeli settler-colonialism and other controversial questions, it won’t be long before the economic consensus in Labour is thrown into question too.

In this context, it would seem bizarre to me if the Left was to focus its energies on the Labour Party come the April result. Let's get Long-Bailey elected leader because she is the candidate radical politics and extra-parliamentary movements are most likely to have the ear of, but let's not be under the illusion she will create conditions in the party favourable to socialist radicalism. Frankly, there needs to be a discussion about what forms of socialist organisation can be constructed outside of the Labour Party, recognising the movement's current electoral incapacity, but committed to putting concerted effort into building class capacities through campaigns, trade unions and social movements.

It's a return to the depressing pre-2015 era in some respects, where the radical Left seemed politically voiceless, intellectually suppressed and without a social base. In fact, none of these have to be true if a broad and diverse array of constituents on the radical Left are committed to constructing a socialist organisation that might cohere at least some of the elements Corbynism activated, developing new democratic-theoretical cultures, and prioritising militant socialist activism.

Our ability to create the strategic confluence discussed earlier is severely hampered by the defeat of Corbynism and the electoral-centric notion of the 'political' sphere which warped us all this past half-decade. So what remains for us is to try and cultivate combativity in the 'social' spheres of life long abandoned by the Left without the luxury of a mass electoral project for cover and infrastructure, but also without abandoning our eye for the 'political' form a mass socialist project might take.

Now is precisely the time for the best aspects of the 2019 manifesto - a 4-day week; democratic ownership; reversing neoliberalism and austerity - to be systematised, thought out and elaborated upon on an intellectual and activist basis. Is the Preston model the height of a municipal socialist ambition or can we cultivate a working-class politics which might produce a more fundamental reimagining of the local commons? Can trade unionists and workplace militants conduct immediate, defensive battles whilst also elaborating plans and actionable strategies for how their workplaces might be run democratically? Is the height of our internationalism limited to passively watching whichever Left government might win an election in whichever country, or can we begin to rebuild a much neglected and eroded anti-colonial solidarity with the Palestinian people? Is the state a neutral body which we can repurpose for working-class interests or must we assert a much bolder, more liberatory vision of proletarian statecraft which revives the notion that any worker can govern? Are we limited to opposing the managed breakdown of the welfare state or can we construct and fight to establish a feminist, pro-worker, democratic way of socially reproducing ourselves? Why should the case for migrant solidarity stay an economic one when we can argue for one predicated on proletarian internationalism?

The questions raised in these ramblings were never seriously considered right across Corbynism as a total political project. They were routinely evaded for fear of internal tensions or electoral defeat, too often consigned to the meeting halls and corridors of The World Transformed. Their evasion explains a great deal as to why we were defeated so catastrophically. We can't afford to ignore them now.

*thanks to a comrade for correcting my original assertion that Ricky Tomlinson was one of the Pentonville dockers