16 May 2009
report of the first meeting of 'non-aligned lefties for leftist unity'
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We had our first meeting last night. Bat later joined us, and we were also graced with the presence of my colleague who usually campaigns for the rights of sex workers. I will announce the second meeting on my blog.
Mark Richardson wrote this report:
'To begin with, I would like to point out that this is in no way an "official" or group-authored report on last night's first Non-Aligned meeting in London. What follows are my own subjective impressions of what was discussed. For courtesy's sake, I am keeping names out of this - if people want to claim their views as their own, they can do so by posting a response below.
The venue was poorly chosen (by myself). When I searched for a place to hold the meeting, I merely scoured Google for a pub near central London known as a meeting place for groups. Booking something would have been a little too ambitious, so we found ourselves at the mercy of the after-work run to the pub. The Camel and Artichoke was a little noisy, but the seven attendees made use of the beer garden out the back, where we talked about politics for an hour (with some early birds talking about politics for about an hour before that).
The issues which were raised were the following:
1. Diagnosis. There was discussion of the problem at hand: disunity of the left. I put forward the case for individually surveying the left-wing parties and working out a strategy for developing relations with each of them. We need contacts in each of the parties. Others mentioned previous and current attempts at left-wing unity. One comrade in particular is aware of some other projects similar to ours - he is going to furnish us with the details so we can follow it up... After all, if we can't unify the pro-unification groups, then we ARE in trouble!
2. The Labour Party. There was discussion about the current state of the Labour Party. One comrade put forward the problem of Labour's hegemony i.e. that people will vote Labour in order to keep the Conservatives out, no matter how right-wing Labour becomes. But another comrade believed that this problem might fade, as Labour have relied on the fear of the return of the Conservatives to power for two elections running - and the electorate are beginning to see through it. I argued that the solution to this problem of Labour's hegemony is to get left-wing alternatives to Labour voted onto local councils, so that voters in general elections have the confidence to vote for the radical option in the knowledge that others in their constituency are also doing so. All of which brings us to...
3. The relationship between local and national. There was discussion of how to reach out to independent, non-aligned lefties. Some comrades felt that grassroots activism in working class areas would be unrealistic, given that our group appears to be mostly composed of the slightly pretentious intellectual class. Personally, I think there are community workers in working-class areas who are already engaged in a kind of grassroots activity and who could be recruited into our movement. One comrade feels that because we have some journalists and writers in our group, we should use take advantage of their skills to make broad, national appeals for left unity.
4. The image of the left. One comrade mentioned the profile of the left in the mainstream media, specifically citing the way in which the G20 protests were portrayed as being dominated by irrational, troublemaking anarchists. The case was then made for creating a broad leftist movement which is focused on being rational and problem-solving rather than angry and troublemaking.
This list by no means exhausts the topics which were discussed. We also talked about some extremely practical things such as the need to make a banner for attending protest marches, trying to recruit people at these big protests etc.
On the basis of last night's success, Owen is going to organise a second meeting. Hopefully, even more people will attend. As always, I look forward to meeting some of you.' Me too!
