Britain: Left Unity discusses what politics for a new left party?

By Felicity Dowling

August 11, 2013 – Left Unity – We face the probability of a terrible decline in the social wealth of the working people in the UK, a critical change in the life experience of working-class people. Hunger, want and fear are coming back to this and other countries. Thousands have signed petitions supporting the call for a new political formation under the banner of Left Unity. On November 30, hundreds of founding members of this new party will inaugurate it, determine our political direction, our priorities and the nature of the organisation itself.

Three different political platforms have been published in the run-up to this founding conference of Left Unity to try to put forward the best way for us to move forward. A platform is a set of ideas that a group wants to put forward to be considered at the founding conference. Political discussion helps us all understand the tasks facing Left Unity, and the range of political opinion within the organisation. Solidarity and inclusiveness will help us all make the most of these discussions. Each member has a right to comment and any group of ten can produce an alternative platform.
What are the differences between the platforms? This post will, I hope, lay the positions of the three platforms side by side so that people can compare them directly.

Three platforms

I am a supporter of the Left Party Platform, but I write this post as an individual, not on behalf of that platform. I have tried to be open and fair in this comparison. The platforms are called the Left Party Platform, the Socialist Platform and the Class Struggle Platform.

They are presented in the order in which they were published. I have tried only to compare the three statements below to help in the process of people making their own decisions. I will share my personal political analysis of the platforms elsewhere.

The Left Party Platform was published alongside an additional explanatory document called “Towards a new left party” and in this article it has been treated as part and parcel of the Left Party Platform as they were written and published together. I have only used those documents that have been published as the platform themselves, as opposed to material published by members writing in support of platforms.

If supporters of the other platforms feel that those platforms have been treated unfairly, or that I have missed key elements in any way, please suggest amendments. This post is not intended as a partisan polemic but as an aid to collective discussion and hopefully will be updated as and when necessary.

What is striking and positive is that all of the platforms agree so much, on so many of the issues facing the organisation. While there are issues where some platforms have yet to comment, the fact that new contributions have touched on new ideas can only be a strength and shows exactly why open and fraternal discussion helps us bring to light the key political issues, to the benefit of everyone.

The issues that the platforms mention, that I have chosen to compare in all three platforms, are the party, capitalism, socialism, women’s rights and oppressed groups, internationalism, what we want to gain, campaigning, working in the class struggles, electoral issues, trade unions, anti-fascism, anti-war and the environment.

The Class Struggle Platform raises the issues of trade unionism which the others do not specifically mention. The Socialist and Class Struggle platforms raise the idea of a worker’s wage for elected reps, the Left Party Platform has the environment and more on women’s struggles; so from this we have much to discuss.

Nature of the party

Left Party Platform

"A party which advocates and fights for the democratisation of our society, economy, state and political institutions, transforming these arenas in the interests of the majority… Its politics and policies will stand against capitalism, imperialism, war, racism and fascism … socialist, feminist, environmentalist and against all forms of discrimination.

"The new left party will campaign, mobilise and support struggles on a day to day basis, recognising the need for self-organisation in working class communities” – Towards a new left party, the background document for the Left Party Platform.

Socialist Platform

The [Left Unity] Party is a socialist party. Its aim is to bring about the end of capitalism and its replacement by socialism.

Class Struggle Platform

We need an anti-capitalist, socialist party. We need a party that says the working class and the oppressed must not pay for the long economic crisis of the banks and corporations. It is the rich financiers and capitalists who must be forced to pay. We need a party that puts an end to austerity and brings about a massive transfer of wealth from the rich to ordinary people. We want a party that champions and strengthens the unions and every organisation of working class and oppressed people, freeing them from the shackles of the anti-union laws. We want a party whose members are active on every front of the struggle.

We need a democratic, anti-bureaucratic party. We need a party radically different from the undemocratic establishment parties funded by the rich and controlled by an unaccountable elite of MPs and bureaucrats.
We will build our party from the bottom up, from the workplaces and communities, from the midst of our struggles. We want it to draw in tens of thousands of ordinary people in every town and city across Britain.

Anti-capitalism

Left Party Platform

In reality these policies have been designed to destroy the social and economic gains working people have made over many decades, reducing wages and obliterating welfare states. The economic crisis has increasingly become a social and political crisis as people face poverty, hunger and even death, as a result of the catastrophic and government-imposed failure of health systems and social services. The environmental crisis driven particularly by climate change caused by the unending search for profit is wreaking devastation too, particularly in the Global South.

That face of capitalism was superseded – temporarily as is now clear – after 1945, as humanising reform elements were adopted under the pressure of the strengthened post-war labour movements and the social democracy that they gave rise to across much of Western Europe.

Following the pattern adopted in the Global South where post-colonial reforms were destroyed by the structural adjustment policies of the IMF and World Bank, resulting in poverty, environmental destruction, and intra-state conflict and increasing violence against women, Europe’s post-1945 social gains are now being brutally reversed. Governments use the excuse of "paying off the deficit" to cut public spending and redistribute society’s wealth in the interests of the ruling class, by reducing wages and destroying the ‘social wage’ of health, education, social services and welfare…..

The result is that whilst we see the rise of poverty, homelessness and unemployment, the wealth of the richest in our societies continues to grow at an exponential rate.

We have entered the age of austerity where in a topsy-turvy world those who are responsible for the economic crisis are making the vast majority, who are not responsible, pay for their greed and profligacy and for the fundamental flaws in their system.

Socialist Platform

Under capitalism, production is carried out solely to make a profit for the few, regardless of the needs of society or damage to the environment.

Capitalism does not and cannot be made to work in the interests of the majority. Its state and institutions will have to be replaced by ones that act in the interests of the majority

Class Struggle Platform
[It is very clear that the Class Struggle Platform do not like capitalism at all, however, they do not outline directly what they understand capitalism to be. This is not a problem as we can infer from their detailed account of socialism what capitalism might be from what it is not:] “It requires a fundamental breach with capitalism”.

Socialism

Left Party Platform

A party which advocates and fights for the democratisation of our society, economy, state and political institutions, transforming these arenas in the interests of the majority.

The urgent questions that faces us are, first, how to stop this offensive by the rich and defend the welfare state and, second, how to extend the social gains, making them permanent and using them as a basis from which to build a fully democratic society – not just political democracy, but social and economic democracy, run by the people for the people

Socialist Platform

It is the rich financiers and capitalists who must be forced to pay. We need a party that puts an end to austerity and brings about a massive transfer of wealth from the rich to ordinary people

Socialism means complete political, social and economic democracy. It requires a fundamental breach with capitalism. It means a society in which the wealth and the means of production are no longer in private hands but are owned in common. Everyone will have the right to participate in deciding how the wealth of society is used and how production is planned to meet the needs of all and to protect the natural world on which we depend.

Class Struggle Platform

Socialism means complete political, social and economic democracy. It requires a fundamental breach with capitalism. It means a society in which the wealth and the means of production are no longer in private hands but are owned in common. Everyone will have the right to participate in deciding how the wealth of society is used and how production is planned to meet the needs of all and to protect the natural world on which we depend. We reject the idea that the undemocratic regimes that existed in the former Soviet Union and other countries were socialist

Women’s rights and oppressed groups

Left Party Platform

Socialist, feminist, environmentalist and against all forms of discrimination

We are feminist because our vision of society is one without the gender oppression and exploitation which blights the lives of women and girls and makes full human emancipation impossible. We specify our feminism because historical experience shows that the full liberation of women does not automatically follow the nationalisation of productive forces or the reordering of the economy.

We fight to advance this goal in the current political context, against the increasing divergence between men’s and women’s incomes, against the increasing poverty among women, against the ‘double burden’ of waged work and unshared domestic labour, and against the increasing violence against women in society and in personal relationships, which is exacerbated by the economic crisis.

Socialist Platform
The [Left Unity] Party opposes all oppression and discrimination, whether on the basis of gender, nationality, ethnicity, disability, religion or sexual orientation and aims to create a society in which such oppression and discrimination no longer exist.

Class Struggle Platform

For women’s liberation

Women resisting domestic violence, the culture of rape and abuse, pay discrimination and poverty. On all our party bodies, we want to ensure equal representation of women.

We guarantee the right of all oppressed groups to caucus within the party and challenge all examples of discrimination and oppression.

Internationalism

Left Party Platform

It will recognise that international solidarity is fundamental to the success of any resistance and the achievement of any political progress; that the problems we face in Britain are systemic problems that cannot be resolved in Britain alone and which require an international response and an international alternative

Socialist Platform

Socialism has to be international. The interests of the working class are the same everywhere. The [Left Unity] Party opposes all imperialist wars and military interventions. It rejects the idea that there is a national solution to the problems of capitalism. It stands for the maximum solidarity and cooperation between the working class in Britain and elsewhere. It will work with others across Europe to replace the European Union with a voluntary European federation of socialist societies.

Class Struggle Platform

International solidarity against austerity, unemployment, racism and war.

Across Europe and around the world millions of people like us are fighting the effects of the crisis and the attempts of the capitalists to make ordinary people pay to save their system. New parties have been formed over the last decade to the left of the Labour and Socialist parties that will not break from neo-liberalism ... And we will propose and try to build a new international.

Campaigning

Left Party Platform

We recognise that support for a new left party and its electoral success will only advance to the extent that it is genuinely representative of working class communities, has no interests separate from theirs, and is an organic part of the campaigns and movements which they generate and support. The new left party will engage in the national and local electoral processes, offering voters a left alternative, while understanding that elections are not the only arena or even the most important arena in which political struggles are fought

Socialist Platform

The [Left Unity] Party aims to win support from the working class and all those who want to bring about the socialist transformation of society, which can only be accomplished by the working class itself acting democratically as the majority in society.

Class Struggle Platform

We will build our party build from the bottom up, from the workplaces and communities, from the midst of our struggles. We want it to draw in tens of thousands of ordinary people in every town and city across Britain.

What we want to gain

Left Party Platform

A party which advocates and fights for the democratisation of our society, economy, state and political institutions, transforming these arenas in the interests of the majority.

Socialist Platform

The [Left Unity] Party aims to win political power to end capitalism, not to manage it. It will not participate in governmental coalitions with capitalist parties at national or local level

Class Struggle Platform

Develop a strategy for taking real power into the hands of the people, forming a working class government, defeating capitalism and creating a world free of poverty, exploitation, oppression and war.

Working in the class struggles

Left Party Platform

The new left party will campaign, mobilise and support struggles on a day to day basis, recognising the need for self-organisation in working class communities. We recognise that support for a new left party and its electoral success will only advance to the extent that it is genuinely representative of working class communities, has no interests separate from theirs, and is an organic part of the campaigns and movements which they generate and support. The new left party will engage in the national and local electoral processes, offering voters a left alternative, while understanding that elections are not the only arena or even the most important arena in which political struggles are fought.

Socialist Platform

So long as the working class is not able to win political power for itself the [Left Unity] Party will participate in working-class campaigns to defend all past gains and to improve living standards and democratic rights. But it recognises that any reforms will only be partial and temporary so long as capitalism continues.

Class Struggle Platform

So we address our call to campaigners against the Bedroom Tax; trade unionists; disabled people campaigning against ATOS and benefit cuts; socialists; women resisting domestic violence, the culture of rape and abuse, pay discrimination and poverty; anti-racist activists confronting the EDL; Muslims resisting racist attacks; movements against war and in solidarity with revolutions in Europe and the Middle East; students fighting fees, course closures and sell-offs; unemployed activists.

We appeal to all to come together in big local gatherings to help form this new party and shape its policy, in an atmosphere of democracy, solidarity and taking action together On all our party bodies, we want to ensure equal representation of women, the fullest possible representation of black and Asian people, of the disabled, of LGBT people, of workers and youth.

[The Class Struggle Platform has considerably more on campaigning.]

Electoral strategy

Left Party Platform

The new left party will engage in the national and local electoral processes, offering voters a left alternative, while understanding that elections are not the only arena or even the most important arena in which political struggles are fought

Socialist Platform

The [Left Unity] Party will use both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary means to build support for its ultimate goal – the socialist transformation of society

All elected representatives will be accountable to the party membership and will receive no payment above the average wage of a skilled worker (the exact level to be determined by the party conference) plus legitimate expenses

Class Struggle Platform

We want all our representatives on councils or in parliament to be accountable to and recallable by those who voted for them, and to take only the average wage of the working class when in public office.

Trade Unions

[Only the class struggle platform mentions these directly.]

At the same time the leaders of the trade unions have shown themselves unwilling and incapable of mobilising these millions in an effective resistance to the attacks. Fearful of the anti-union laws that the Tories introduced – and Blair and Brown preserved – they have not called a single mass demonstration in defence of the NHS

Anti-fascism

Left Party Platform
Its politics and policies will stand against capitalism, imperialism, war, racism and fascism

Class Struggle Platform
Campaign to smash the EDL and defend Muslims from pogroms and fascist violence.

Anti-war

Left Party Platform

A new party of the left is needed to stand against war and military intervention, for a drastic reduction of military expenditure for the benefit of social spending, and for a foreign policy based on peace and equality

Class Struggle Platform

We will fight all wars and "interventions" planned by our rulers, we will support the Arab revolutions and the Palestinians, we will try to get all the troops and bases out of the Middle East and Central Asia

Environmental issues

Left Party Platform

We are environmentalist because our vision of society is one which recognises that if humankind is to survive, it has to establish a sustainable relationship with the rest of the natural world – of which it is part and on which it depends. We recognise that an economy based on achieving maximum profits at the lowest cost in the shortest possible time is destroying our planet. The current operation of industry and economy is totally incompatible with the maintenance of the ecosystem through the growing loss of bio and agro diversity, the depletion of resources and increasing climate change. The future of the planet can only be secured through a sustainable, low carbon industrial base designed to meet people’s needs on a global basis.

Summary

This post is intended to facilitate Left Unity supporters (future members) and meetings in the discussions which will be taking place over coming weeks and months in preparation for the November conference. It is clear, as has been observed above, that there is a huge amount of agreement between the various platforms. This posting has been constructed in the way that it has, to stress the similarities, but also highlight differences and gaps (which may well not constitute disagreement, so much as unintended omission) between the platforms, to facilitate the filling of gaps by all platforms, and the inclusion of unintended or apparent omissions – when we debate, let’s debate real rather than perceived differences where such exist. Where platforms want to emphasise differences, hopefully this post will support and help clarify that process too.