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Coalitions, the LRC and the Peoples Charter:

Marie Lynam
9th December 2009 at 11:11
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Perhaps we do not want coalitions, just now, so much as building the LRC. Although, I am sure coalitions are useful too.

On Sunday 6, there was The Wave march, a very large demonstration of Environmental campaigners. They collected in Hyde Park and marched to Parliament. At Hyde Park, John McD spoke to them, explaining the financial and economic crisis which the workers and the environment are supposed to pay for (twice, in bailout and through public service cuts). John also raised the opposition to the third runway, etc. He was very well received.

In the crowd, two Vestas workers held a banner above their heads and received great applause when they were mentioned from the podium. Everybody in the crowd knew who they were, and what they had done on behalf of human rationality.

The Morning Start reports 60,000 demonstrators, adding London and Glasgow together. The mass of the crowd in London was young, painted in blue - scores of teenagers, some grown ups and plenty of children.

The Wave is a coalition of groups organised by the Stop the Climate Chaos. The day before the demo, their representatives succeeded in being seen by Gordon Brown at No 10. And Ed Miliband was in this Sunday demo I just spoke about. Both Brown and Miliband felt the need to appear in agreement with the crowd.

Let us leave aside what may or may not be achieved at Copenhagen. The important thing about this demo is that people are neither apathetic nor defeated. This is what the young people are telling us. The fact they accepted a Labour MP to speak to them (John) is quite important. It shows that they reason. They do not have the attitude of rejecting Labour because of Blair and Brown. Their attitude is to demand, explain, convince, and bring as many people as possible round to their views. They feel the importance of a Labour MP taking their part. Their anger is organised and reasoned; they want to influence, to win, to persuade and reason. Note that this is the way the mass of the people generally behave (when there are no provocators). The mass of the people is objective and constructive.

The other important point is that there were several Trades Councils (Camden TC was there) - I noted particularly Plymouth who took 100 Charters, but I seem to remember the Portsmouth TC too. There were quite a few Union banners too. People had come from many major towns in the Midlands and I think Scotland too.

Tracy Worthy, one of the Camp for Climate Action organisation, said: “We need system change, not climate change”. She denounced carbon trading and “the elitist talks in Copenhagen”.She called for more direct involvement on the part of ordinary people. She said the camp was a way to denounce “a political and economic system that puts corporate profits before the needs of people”.

The Peoples Charter attended and intervened with hundreds of leaflets. The aim of the Charter on that occasion, as I see it, was to show to the young people of The Wave, the Trade Unions and the Trades Councils present - as well as the Vestas workers and all the Workers Parties - that it is necessary to unite all the different organisations. The uniqueness of the Charter is that it unites them in a manner that makes it easier to revolutionize Labour.

It may be that the Charter will not fulfil that role. But that is the role it could fulfil. A lot depends on comrades taking the decision to make it work in this way.

Those who do not agree with the pathway I describe (through the Charter), could then propose alternative courses

But to them I would say: The era has ended when bourgeois society can preside over any further human progress. Hence, the era has ended when the bourgeois machinery of Labour can preside over any further social advance. The forces to accomplish this are in the Labour Centre (but outside the Labour machinery) and outside Labour (in the Unions and potentially in the Charter).

As long as no-one proposes an alternative to the Charter in this role of revolutionizing Labour, I believe that it is ‘an ideal campaigning tool’* to draw the mass of the population towards the revolutionizing of Labour.

What comes next, whether this will revolutionize Labour, is a matter for the future!

But it would not hurt giving it a try, don’t you think?

Had the LRC prepared an intervention in the Wave and the Climate Camp, I would have gone there both as LRC and Charter. 

This debate is fundamental. Our Conferences are not enough to determine orientation. The LRC needs to become aware of itself and of its potential. ‘Aware of itself’ means that it is not enough to happen to exist. One must wonder ‘Why do we exist?’. Are we there to pave the way for elitist and self-seeking people to advance their own careers? Or are we there to inject intelligence, reasoning and rationality in the economy and society, so that society functions in the interest of everyone?

If we are there to help intelligence and reasoning, then we need to collect the force of the mobilised people, through the Charter, and make it weigh politically and organisationally inside the Unions and the Labour Centre (not the Labour machinery) - via the LRC.

In other words, the LRC is not another organisation. It is the link between people like The Wave (up to fairly recently unorganised) and the Labour Centre (not the machinery).

The aims of the LRC and those of The Wave do not differ substantially. This means that we are not 1000, but tens of thousands.

If so, we are not an isolated left grouping. We are the future: Those who see where the light switch is, in a darkened room. 

Two things therefore about coalitions. For a start, let us animate the Charter a bit more than we are doing. Two, lets bring the LRC into all the Charter activities, and into all the demonstrations: Environment, Green Issues, Women’s issues, Repeal of TU laws issues, CND, StW, Labour CND, Military Families, Irak/Afghanistan support groups and solidarity actions. Let no organised action happen without LRC presence! (Does not have to be ‘the leaders’, it can be people like me, with no power, briefed by and reporting to the LRC).  Let the LRC leave, if it can, the start of a Charter Group in the wake of everything it does.

If we remain with so little functioning, a few individuals at the top of our organisation will make pals with some Centrists, and one day, the LRC as a whole will be put in front of the fait-accompli. Though as long as John Mc is around, this will be hard to do, I reckon.

It is not wrong to make coalitions with Centrists. But right now, the Centrists need us much more than we need them. They need our ‘purity’ to make themselves credible. The ‘lingo’ they use is not enough. Very often, the lingo is a mask.

It is a fact that, as the struggle advances, the Centre is going to lean genuinely to the Left. Or more precisely, the Centre will split, and its more genuine sectors will turn to the Left. But we are not there yet, that I know of.

We shall need to consult each other closely, confer and remain cohesive. The day might come when the Labour Centre (presently outside the LRC) will want to capture our less-Leftwing LRC side. Why should the ‘Labour Centre’ do this? To use the growing forces that our hard work has built. And to give itself left credentials to attract the vote of the Left, whilst its leaders advance little but themselves.

This is the history of the workers movement, so far, in every capitalist country. Bourgeois politics is characterised by lack of courage. It simply corrupts and buys whomever it can on the Left. When it can no longer to that, it beats people up. What has the G20 demo illustrated once again? A State that sends men armed to the teeth to beat up people in public, women included. The bourgeois State is strong when everyone is disarmed. From the State, it is all cowardice. Never any attempt at convincing demonstrators, inviting them to sit down in the road, or some square, to speak, put their views, get the State’s views. This never happens. It cannot happen because the bourgeois State has only ‘exploitation’ to give as a justification for what it does.

But back to our subject:

When it comes to an alternative to Brown, am I right in thinking that our alternative is John McDonnell?

Myself I have no doubt. I do not think any coalition is needed for this purpose. 

Some comrades may object, not without some justice, that John may not win. True. The balance of forces in the Labour/Union machinery may not allow John to win.

But as long as he stands, and the LRC remains, the Labour Centre is forced to incline to the Left. The LRC is not a group, it is the voice of the millions who repudiate New Labour. This is what inclines the centre to the Left, not the LRC. The LRC is the mouthpiece. One of the poles that keeps attracting and influencing the Centre leftwards, is the existence, permanence and doggedness of the LRC, because it is the voice (to a degree) of the future.

Marie Lynam

Yes, it is me again, but no one else posts things on this blog.

* Phrase from Christine Shawcroft

PS - Did you see that doctors demand a new Kelly inquest?

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