Diane Abbott, the left and the leadership campaign

The news today that John McDonnell has chosen to stand down as a candidate in the Labour Party leadership contest raises a series of issues on the state of left-wing politics in this country. Even if he had chosen to continue, it seems unlikely he would have secured the necessary 33 nominations that would have allowed him to move forward to the next stage.

This is despite the fact he managed to secure the support of a number of trade unions, including RMT, BFAWU and Unison United Left. However, within the Socialist Campaign Group (the group most likely to carry John through to the next round) there was obvious division when Diane Abbott announced her own candidacy.

It would be easy to blame Diane for John’s demise, but in her defence, it was reasonable of her to want a woman and someone from an ethnic minority in the leadership hustings. Indeed, it is the very essence of our party rule book that we should positively encourage this to take place.

In a reply to a question I posed to Diane about her splitting the vote, she replied: “There always was a tendency to say that if women stood it split the vote. I think that there is the politics that I’m on the left, and have as good a voting record on left wing issues as John McDonnell, but there’s another issue which is about gender. It’s not so much that I stood against John, but that John stood against me.”

Now I think it is a matter of semantic as to whether John stood against her, or she stood against him – but the fact remains the left were not strong enough to sustain the candidacy of two strong nominees.

Why? Well it would be easy to lay the blame on Tony Blair and his Third Way approach that resulted in the stripping of Clause lV. It would be convenient to blame it on the undemocratic nature of party conference. And of course, it would be simple to blame the demise of the left on a savage campaign by the political right since the time of Neil Kinnock resulting in the departure of good socialists like Dave Nellist, Arthur Scargill, Ricky Tomlinson and George Galloway.

As important as all of these issues were, they are only a part of the problem. Undoubtedly, the shift in political culture after 1997 did little to help the left, but we cannot legitimately sit here and blame someone else for something we allowed to happen. After the demise of Clause IV, the party haemmorraghed members at a rate that no party could endure, least of all the Labour Party.

At the same, the left failed to fully engage with new technologies, which resulted in the left losing a vital avenue to outline its views. In days gone by members of the public would walk along any High Street and see vendors selling “Socialist Organiser”, “Socialist Worker”, “The Socialist” or, of course, “Morning Star”. But the hard left split and divided – the Communist Party, once one of the bastions of the labour movement fractured into so many pieces that few, if any, can truly understand the difference between them. Similarly, groups like Socialist Worker Party linked with Respect to create an united front .. then once they started to become a cohesive force, decided to split. As for the Respect Party itself, well Galloway’s appearance on Big Brother did little to promote their credibility as was shown in the last election.

Similarly, rather than stay and fight within the Labour Party, Arthur Scargill chose to leave and form his own party – the Socialist Labour Party. Unfortunately, although he was true to his word and helped develop a sound socialist manifesto, the party failed to achieve any significant results and is now largely in decline.
Finally, the left have failed to unify under any common themes – CND, although still active has failed to smobilize radical forces in the same way as it achieved in the 1980s; the Anti–Nazi League has gone and its successors United Against Fascism and Hope not Hate have done a sterling job in minimize the virulence of the BNP, but again haven’t managed to draw the left into a mass movement. Even the Iraq issue and the Stop the War campaign with the stalwart of modern socialism, Tony Benn at its helm have not managed to unify activists from a broad range of groups, as we saw in the Thatcher years.

Indeed, the sad but real fact is that although Tony Benn has campaigned endlessly for socialist causes, he is not the man he once was – the reality is Tony is getting older and understandably slower. He needs to be allowed to retire with dignity and respect and for a new generation of socialist campaigners to take over carrying the banner.

I mean no disrespect to Tony – he has done more than anyone and I stand in awe of him and his political analysis. If the labour movement is to truly respect Tony, we should carry on his fight … and fight with the same passion he has shown!
If the left are to have any chance of success in the future we will have to organize at two levels. Firstly, this should be through the normal democratic process with activists engaged at all levels of power – holding office in local branches, CLPs, trade unions, local authorities, county councils, national assemblies and the House of Commons.

However, there is another dimension of activity demanding our urgent attention and this is the extra-parliamentary route. The new coalition is intent on destroying our public services, pushing thousands into poverty, misery and unemployment. The left must oppose this! We should be mobilizing under the banners of the People’s Charter and the Right to Work Movement, whilst at the same time, encouraging the trade union movement to activating and organizing their membership to oppose these cuts wherever they occur.

The coming years will be hard – of this there can be little doubt, but we can win. If we refuse, we risk a Cinderella complex where we will always want to go to the ball, but never taking the risk and thus missing the chance of kissing the prince (who, of course, being a democratic socialist immediately renounced his title and redistributing his wealth to the poor).

This leadership election is the first stage in that process. We must put our differences aside and wholeheartedly support and endorse Diane Abbott and look to her to lead our party back to its socialist roots.