Contemporary and not: Socialism and the Independent Working Class Association February 14, 2008
Posted by WorldbyStorm in British Politics.trackback
Have you hard of the IWCA? I know I had only vaguely done so at the time of the last UK local elections. They were one of the storm of leftist acronyms down the end of the results… although unlike many other such parties they actually had one significant attribute, the ability to capture seats.
The Independent Working Class Association is a small left wing party established over a period of time from the mid-1990s. The jettisoning of Clause Four by the British Labour Party appears to have been a catalyst to their formation – although its worth noting that it wasn’t until 2001 that IWCA actually registered.
In a way they have quite a sophisticated analysis. On their website Neil Stanton who is chair of the IWCA National Co-ordinating Committee is quoted as saying that:
One calculation was the collapse of the Labour Party as an organisation with mass working class support. Another was that without a political voice the working class would go down the route of its American counterparts and become politically extinct.
After lengthy discussion it was decided there was a need for a new type of organisation. But rather than mimic existing political parties a series of pilot schemes were set up around the country in order to test and refine the theory, strategy and tactics.
It’s gloomy stuff, but note how it is rooted in experiment and progress. As revealing is the answer to the question “Is the IWCA socialist?”
Well, in the context of those who would still describe themselves as socialist—from New Labour to the student left—the answer has to be no.
It is only necessary to look at the history of the 20th century to conclude that socialism has failed. Many socialists give the impression that it is the working class who have failed the left. However, if blame were to be attributed it would be more realistic to conclude that it is the left who have failed the working class. In any case we are in a new century now and many of the old dogmas are no longer relevant. We need fresh thinking, fresh strategies and fresh tactics.
Student left? Hmmm… who on earth could they be talking about?
In order to clear the conceptual terrain consider the following…their definition of ‘working class’ is parsed out… fairly evidently this is one rooted in classic Marxism, although not presented as such.
…on one level the answer is fairly straightforward. When people think of themselves in terms of class they tend to think in terms of background, education, occupation, income, and culture. According to recent research, if people are asked those questions in Britain today, the overwhelming majority define themselves as ‘working class’. And when you consider that only 7% of all school children go to private schools it is easy to see why the majority view themselves as working class and why they are also correct to do so…clearly, the thinking behind the white-collar/blue-collar grading is deeply flawed, particularly when you see that bank clerks, nurses, and even teachers, who in the past would have been considered middle class, are today in terms of pay and conditions far nearer to those occupations that are considered firmly working class….Ultimately the core working class fall into two main categories: those whose work produces a direct profit for their employer (obviously by no means just blue-collar workers) and those engaged in supplementary occupations essential to the functioning of the economy who put in long hours for low pay. Most often these are the same people who most want change and so serve as the natural constituency of the IWCA.
Still the fresh thinking mentioned above is interesting because it has led them into controversy. For example, their concentration on crime.
When on top of this you are faced with a situation in many working class areas where the police fail to offer effective protection from crime within the community, it is clear something must be done. Politicians often argue when police fail to respond to routine calls in working class areas that it is down to lack of manpower. But this is not necessarily the case. More often it is to do with the police deciding other, usually better off areas, must take precedence. This is a situation that is not likely to improve so the community must put up with it or step in to fill the vacuum here too. What this means is that the onus is on the community to protect itself from the criminal element, and in some cases as a consequence, particularly in drug-related crime, from victimisation by the police.
This leads to the question:
Q: Doesn’t all this leave the IWCA open to the charge of vigilantism?
A: It does, but what we are actually talking about is something entirely different. In repeated surveys in the disparate areas in which the IWCA has run pilot schemes, crime has come top of the agenda. This reflects the fact that fear of crime has a deeply corrosive effect on working class people as they suffer from it disproportionately, but as well as that, their inability to compel the authorities to respond makes them despair of real progress being achieved in any other area either.
This requires that:
…our political task is to make the existing system conform to the wishes of the people it is constitutionally accountable to. Where, over time, a system of administration has proved itself hostile to the interests of the local population, then the community will have to face up to the challenge of replacing it with the type of administration that adequately reflects its interests.
IWCA sees the future as the extension of working class control of local services and local communities. Establishment political parties will lose support in such communities and IWCA will step in.
Q: So how will the IWCA respond politically to the situation described?
A: As the state gradually withdraws from areas of social responsibility, rather than condemn their desertion and plead for them to come back, the IWCA will seek to fill the void both socially and politically.
So in any area where the establishment wants to break the working class from reliance on the state socially—‘break the culture of dependency’—rather than rely entirely on an often futile resistance we must instead seek to compliment this development by bringing it a step further and using the momentum to break the working class from any reliance or allegiance to the state politically. What we mean by this is not the rejection of existing state social provision but the working class taking increasing responsibility for all areas of policy implemented in its name.
In the long run they want “Total social change”, or “The means to bring it about is the self-conscious independent movement of the immense majority in the interests of the immense majority.”
But linking into the approach on crime is one on race. They are profoundly sceptical of multi-culturism or ‘official’ anti-racism.
The IWCA is not a racist organisation. For us, skin colour is of little relevance politically so we do not feel morally obliged to support aspects of race-related policies with which we do not agree, particularly when we believe them to be wrongheaded and divisive. Examples abound.
Up until around 1980 anti-racism was all about opposing discrimination on the grounds of colour or nationality: ‘treating everyone the same’. It was a limited measure but contained an element of fairness most people understood then and would probably agree with today. Since then, under the banners of ‘identity politics’, ‘positive discrimination’ and ‘promotion of diversity’, agendas have been adopted for treating different races differently.
This has led among other things to the case being made for separate housing and schooling; in other words for racial exclusivity. All too predictably this perception of preferential treatment has resulted in confusion and serious resentment.
For them class is all. Their approach on immigration is, in light of the above, predictable. It is one rooted in class.
There are those who complain about asylum seekers and immigrants as being partially responsible for housing problems, over-crowded classrooms, and hospital waiting lists. This is wrong. These problems existed long before refugees started arriving in significant numbers. The counter position is to argue in a politically correct way that in terms of waiting lists and so on, the interests of the new arrivals, as those with the greatest need, must supersede those of the established population. This too is wrong.
Given the way society is structured, it succeeds only in polarising the argument along the lines of nationality or race, often setting the poor against the poor, while leaving the decisive question of how resources are allocated and priorities defined fundamentally unchanged.
Still, to me all this sounds very familiar. Very familiar indeed. Because in the very constituency where I live Working Class Action based in the north city centre had an almost identical approach. Strong on crime. Entirely intolerant of drugs. Sceptical about approaches other than integration for immigrants. A discourse rooted in concepts of the working class that could sometimes be surprisingly hard edged (indeed, true story, the first time I read a local WCA publication I wasn’t entirely sure that it wasn’t right wing vigilantism until I reread it carefully. Having known people involved subsequently I can put that idea to rest).
And this is hardly surprising because the WCA also had strong links with Red Action and Anti-Fascist Action. I’ve been critical of WCA and successor organisations in the past, most notably because of their approach to crime which seemed to be de facto lead to the export of it to other areas (for more on this check out their still extant but not updated website) and secondly due to their subsequent approach to general election. but, their community based approach is one that has worked time and again in an Irish context from Fianna Fáil onwards. That they foundered was perhaps due to the very disparate membership drawn from various left strands ranging from Maoism to Trotskyism and one which encompassed both reform and revolutionary approaches (also worth noting that at one point they were in serious discussions about merger with ISN – and although I can’t quite recall it either got to a vote or was close to one). I was sorry to see them go, despite the criticisms, if only because they were extremely active and committed activists.
And the IWCA appear much the same and also seem to take an approach directly opposite to that of the SWP and both flavours of Respect. The centrality of class over all other formal identifications is telling. Whether it works is a moot point. They’re certainly not setting the world alight and my own instinct is that while their community based politics is sensible on many levels, it is open to obvious criticisms of being too linked to a rather glum sort of ‘classism’ that is no more reflective of contemporary concerns.
It’s not entirely the most attractive way forward if only because it is so determinedly realistic and pragmatic on a micro level (whatever the more utopian ‘total social change’ idea. It offers little in the way of relief from a long hard struggle. It is notable (and very telling) that they have no reference to broader ‘international’ working class struggles on their website. Everything is rooted in the community… “Antisocial behaviour” “Community Restorative Justice” “Drugs”, “Education”, “Housing”, “Local Democracy” and so on and so forth.
To be honest it’s also a programme that reminds me a lot of the old Workers’ Party one, shorn of the internationalism and the residual Republicanism. And that might be problematic on a broader level. Simply put there is always a need for some hint of a brighter day to come. The near eschatological approach of some on the further left provides all the excitement one might ask for (Hey! The global system is collapsing!), but even the calmer approach of other mainstream left parties leaves room for the occasional nod to other more potent struggles abroad… there’s more than Finian McGrath who find solace in Havana, and in parties of the left that scream democratic respectabilty. Can that work? My instinct is that it can on a local level, but that as we scale up it becomes more and more difficult. Community problems are – per definition – rooted in community, and community politics is much the same. Those who have watched our more successful Independent TDs will have noted that they tend to concentrate on that level rather than concern themselves overly with the ideological, and an interesting argument I have heard from some who might know about the loss of the single Socialist Party seat in Dublin was the idea that a certain lack of focus – despite enormous work on a range of issues – was partially responsible. But Joe Higgins was in a difficult position of being both sole representative of the Socialist Party in the Dáil and also having to be it’s standard bearer in every other public context.
The point being that larger formations are necessary to carry both the local and the national. How large – or perhaps more relevantly, how small can they be before disintegrating – is the key question. Perhaps the future course of the IWCA will provide at least some answers.
Cieran Perry of WCA (and latterly an Independent election candidate) is quoted in an interview on The Blanket as saying:
CP: The WCA, as a loose alliance of community activists, republicans and socialists, has used it’s influence in the areas where we are active to organise and promote the anti-bin tax campaign. Because we have a history of activism within our areas we can give the campaign a credibility it might not have due to the visibility of the ‘professional’ Left!! Unlike most of the Left, we do not believe the working class needs to be led. In general, in campaigns such as this the Left is left running far behind the working class. There have been a few good examples of this during this campaign. Our role is confined to working with our communities in whatever battle the community chooses. In this case the community has chosen the double taxation of the bin tax as the battlefield.
In a way I wonder if the extremely direct line the IWCA takes on multi-culturalism and issues of race is because they believe their anti-facist, and therefore anti-racist, credentials are beyond criticism due to their political backgrounds (indeed one sees something of the same approach in what Cieran Perry says later in the Blanket interview “CP: Not in the least. I was involved in that hackling of Kane. My record on anti-racism/anti-fascism speaks for itself. I’ve being involved in Anti Fascist Action since it’s foundation 10 years ago. I have always been upfront in my opinions on racism even though it has not been popular in the last few years.”.
And even perhaps a hint of the sort of depoliticised left politics that the IWCA promotes when he suggests that “The content of Kane’s speech was typical of the left. The huge turnout on the march was due to the anger in working class communities against both the jailing of Higgins and Daly, and the constant attacks on the living conditions of working class people as typified by the Bin Tax. Yet Kane’s speech concentrated on issues that were of concern to her and her like, not the ordinary working class people who populated the demonstration. The problem with the demonstration that night was that it was effectively hijacked …, resulting in a load of irrelevant leftist speakers rather than those that represented the majority of people on the march, working class community activists’
In quoting this I don’t mean to be negative about either WCA or the Socialist Party, but perhaps to contrast them with each other and to demonstrate a sort of space that opens in the context of in some sense de-ideological left groupings such as the former which rest on ‘class’ as their analysis.
In some respects this seems to me to represent a rupture with the prevailing approaches we have seen expressed by a myriad of other seemingly disparate but often curiously similar movements of the left since the 1960s. There is – to be honest – something refreshing about a group which pays no obeisance to such pieties. How it works in practice, indeed whether it is a good idea to ignore social and/or other movements is an interesting question, and perhaps worth teasing out further.
Heard of the IWCA? Get on with you. Back when I was Culture Editor for Red Pepper, the only thing I wrote that ever got spiked was a magazine review raving about Red Action (“in the battle of ideas, Red Action are a bit tasty”) – I don’t think it was spiked on stylistic grounds, although I suppose that’s possible.
Seriously, I had more respect for RA than any other group I can think of, with the possible exception of Big Flame or Solidarity (both a bit before my time). RA were never libertarian – and they did that Provo-tailing thing, which I didn’t really go for – but what they did have in common with those earlier groups was taking Marx and Marxism seriously. I remember long articles in RA* devoted to showing that Lenin and Leninism weren’t true to Marxism – from which it followed pretty directly that the Leninist left was irrelevant and the working class would have to start from first principles. Then on the next page there’d be a story about chasing BNP members out of some pub somewhere. It’s a winning combination.
*Which came in some huge format, despite only being about eight pages long – it was the Beezer to the Socialist Worker’s Beano – and would be a nightmare to scan, even if I had a scanner.
I just missed them, since they first won council seats in Blackbird Leys in Oxford shortly after I stopped living there.
I’d probably have voted for them. However: they’re basically a party very sectarian and hostile in outlook to anybody else on the left, and inclined to make very large and aggressive rhetorical claims about what the working-class wants, and does, which don’t usually have much to do with reality.
They’re also hostile to everything that isn’t simply definable as a matter of class, as if all other issues were solely the province of middle-class leftists. Now it’s always seemed to me that the more politically-interested working-class people are, the more they’ve been interested in other issues. The IWCA’s approach is rather the opposite.
Too much rhetoric about middle-class people and how awful they are, too much aggression, too narrow-minded. Essentially, a very small leftwing sect.
Hello Phil.
Is the “Solidarity” you mention the same group that Maurice
Brinton and Andy Anderson were in?
“also worth noting that at one point they were in serious discussions about merger with ISN”
Can you quote sources for this? Honestly as the national organiser of the Irish Socialist Network I have really never, ever heard this before. We worked with WCA and others in the Anti Bin Tax Campaign and we would have ‘differences of opinion’ on a wide spectrum of issues.
“I don’t mean to be negative about either the WCA or the the Socialist Party”…
I’m not actually sure how this could be read as particularly hostile to the Socialist Party, unless you think that Rosie Kane was somehow associated with the SP. She wasn’t. She was a member of the Scottish Socialist Party (and I believe she still is a member of its rump).
Her speech at that demonstration was ill-judged, and very different from the speeches given by Socialist Party members. It was a bizarre decision to spend most of her time talking about asylum, given that the demonstration was about an unconnected issue, and particularly given that she largely assumed her audience shared her views rather than seeking to persuade them.
That said, the fact that some “leftists” heckled her in an aggressive way was in my view crass and risked reinforcing and legitimising anti-asylum seeker attitudes. What’s more, echoing ejh’s point earlier, Perry seems to assume that Kane was some middle class liberal when in fact she was a single mother from a particularly rough part of Glasgow.
“unless you think that Rosie Kane was somehow associated with the SP. She wasn’t”
She just happened to be passing and hopped up on stage to make a speech?
No, as I recall, the SSP were asked to send over a speaker because of the roll their predecessors had played in organising the campaign against the poll tax.
Remember that at that stage the SSP was truly hegemonic on the Scottish left and just about everybody who had been prominent in the poll tax campaign and who was still well known on the Scottish left was involved in it. This included people who had been in Militant and people who had not been. Scotland of course was where the poll tax battle was longest and bitterest and a significant number of people who went on to be in the SSP had been jailed during the campaign, including elected representatives.
They sent Kane, I believe, although I’m not sure, because she had recently been in contact with Joe Higgins (about a family of asylum seekers they had both been involved in helping, incidentally). Kane was not a member of the Socialist Party’s sister organisation in Scotland (which was then a platform of the SSP). Nor, as far as I am aware, had she ever been in Militant. Having someone on a platform does not mean that you endorse all of their politics, as the WSM can no doubt attest.
By the way, I see in a copy of Workers Solidarity that just dropped through my letter box a reference to the organisations involved in the Hands of the People of Iran campaign. One of the groups they mention is Working Class Action. Does this mean that WCA still exist, or that some WSM member saw a couple of the WCA heads there and assumed that they were still a going concern?
Brian – yes, that’s the one I was thinking of. British Socialisme ou Barbarie fans, but none the worse for that.
they’re basically a party very sectarian and hostile in outlook to anybody else on the left, and inclined to make very large and aggressive rhetorical claims about what the working-class wants, and does, which don’t usually have much to do with reality.
I much prefer left-wing groups that aren’t like that. Not always easy to find one, though.
“he first time I read a local WCA publication I wasn’t entirely sure that it wasn’t right wing vigilantism until I reread it carefully. Having known people involved subsequently I can put that idea to rest”
Yeah, it’s left wing vigilantism. You know, the good kind where only bad people get kneecapped.
I much prefer left-wing groups that aren’t like that. Not always easy to find one, though.
The Socialist Caucus in CPSA used to be a bit like that. Never got anything done, mind.
I came into contact with the IWCA about four years ago when they decided to target the area I lived in; and in truth I found them an impressive bunch. They are extremely methodical and do their homework well, understanding they are a very small outfit and their activist need to target areas where they will do the most good.
They contacted me and a number of other leftists and asked for a meet, they were open and honest about their aims and made it clear they had no wish to tread on anyones toes. Since then I have watched them diligently leaflet and canvass the estates and by so doing slowly build a presence. At the last local election they stood in a ward and for a first time out they did not do to bad.
They are not into grand gestures nor marching up and down crying the workers united will never be defeated, they simply concentrate on building a local base. In this they are very much like SF was when it was at its best in the 1980s and the independents in Dublin WBS mentioned.
Unlike much of the non LP left they are not here today and gone tomorrow merchants. They understand that if we socialist are to gain working class support we must campaign and act locally in support of the class. Whereas the likes of the SWP are happiest when they are rerunning their student days and are most comfortable amongst middle class leftists.
The IWCA weakness is their lack of an internationalism, but I feel that is as much down to the small number of activists they can put on the street etc and husbanding their resources as anything else.
Red Pepper published an excellent article last year about the IWCA in its first by monthly issue or the last monthly edition. In truth they are one of the few outfits on the left who do not treat working class people with arrogance if not contempt. They are not perfect but I wish them well as I found them sound.
Red Pepper published an excellent article last year about the IWCA
I missed that – I’ve missed most issues since I stopped working for them, to be honest (rearrange these words to make a well-known phrase or saying: OUT BURNT). It suggests a bit of an editorial change of heart, which is good on general non-sectarian principles – an awful lot of what you can say about the IWCA, you could have said about RA.
Phil, sorry, I was really talking in an Irish context as regards the ICWA. I sort of, like Mick, have more than a soft spot for them. I think Mick puts his finger on it, the lack of an internationalism is a real problem. But I wish them well. They’re certainly part of the solution.
Mark P, I was thinking more in terms of functional elements of the WCA and the SP.
John. I was told the opposite by one who should know. That it wasn’t close to being mooted – and I entirely accept your word on this matter – is very interesting indeed. I wonder was there a bit of spin going on inside WCA.
Generally, can I say I knew people on both sides of the fall out from WCA (which disintegrated in 2005/6 or so) and respected both. I disagreed with putting a candidate up when we had/have a left candidate in Gregory. But hey, that’s just me. I thought the election would be tighter… I still think the outcome from WCA could be positive in the future and was a bit sorry to hear one activist say he was eschewing electoral politics. I think that’s a pity.
They contacted me and a number of other leftists and asked for a meet, they were open and honest about their aims and made it clear they had no wish to tread on anyones toes….. Whereas the likes of the SWP are happiest when they are rerunning their student days and are most comfortable amongst middle class leftists.
I would be more impressed the the first half of this if it wasn’t always found necessary to accompany it with the second. Students, middle-class, we don’t really want any of them involved, do we?
My real point is, and it’s relevant to socialist discussion and practice in all sorts of ways, that there are two ways of trying to bring about a healthy sort of movment.
One is that we try to be unpleasant and hostile to all the elements that we don’t like or agree with, or otherwise try to shut them out. This is a habit often associated with the sectarian left but in fact by no means confined to those circles. We view many or most other views and tendencies as putting off working-class people (or black people, or whoever else is the focus of our present argument) and lament endlessly, with no shortage of exaggerations, how dreadful the left is – i.e. that it includes so many people who are not like us. Again, this is a habit often ascribed to the sectarian left but it’s engaged in pretty much across the board, not least by ex-members of the sectarian left obsessed by their former organisations.
The second is that we consider a broad movement a good thing in itself and accept that this must necessarily mean a dilution of purity and focus. We don’t engage in the fantasy that there are millions of peope just waiting to rally behind our banner if only we could get our message right (and shut up the people who don’t agree with it) and we perhaps observe that being right is of little value if you are right in such an unpleasant fashion as to make other people wish to be somewhere else while you’re doing it. Less concentration on getting exactly the right message and denouncing one another: more interest on broad ideas and healthy discussion. Acceptance of our own fallibility rather than loud lamentations as to our awfulness.
It can also help to accept that, for instance, students and middle-class people have contributed enormously to socialist movements across the world and across history: and to consider that a good thing. Or alternatively, we can see who we can get rid of, or put off, and with them, also get rid of all sorts of bona fide working-class people who might well meet our criteria, but might also just dislike that way of doing things.
The second is that we consider a broad movement a good thing in itself and accept that this must necessarily mean a dilution of purity and focus.
Very interesting point, and one that can be considered as ‘correct’ from a number of contradictory positions…
Couldn’t agree more with ejh, sadly. Nobody likes a smartarse.
I’d also suggest that socialists should be spending less time trying to convert the masses to the “one true way” and more time looking at autonomous, grassroots working-class activities, and where they happen to correspond with the socialist’s definition of “progressive,” (whatever you as a socialist decide that that might be) doing whatever you can to support them.
But then I never was a vanguardist.
MarkP: “By the way, I see in a copy of Workers Solidarity that just dropped through my letter box a reference to the organisations involved in the Hands of the People of Iran campaign. One of the groups they mention is Working Class Action. Does this mean that WCA still exist, or that some WSM member saw a couple of the WCA heads there and assumed that they were still a going concern?”
I dunno. I’d say that it is very unlikely that the mention was based upon seeing a couple of WCA heads. It is either because WCA was signed up to the HOPI statement and was never removed, or else because a group callling itself the WCA is active in it. Our editorial process is normally pretty good at spotting mistakes and among our editors are people who follow this stuff in detail.
ejh
Of course I welcome socialist from all classes, but as a working class man I am not deaf nor blind, it will be for others to decide whether I am a smart arse but after witnessing first hand the contempt the SWP leadership in England displays towards working class people I will not keep quite nor forgive them.
This bunch of mockney revolutionaries who have an attention span of a nat. have deliberately destroyed not one, but two worth while attempts to build an electoral broad left coalition and for no better reason that their own control freak self interest. [SA-Respect]
If this were not bad enough when they brought down the Socialist Alliance to run off and play politics within George, they slandered and bad mouthed their former comrades, thus no one will be surprised that they are doing the same after they cut up Respect.
Are you saying it was not contemptible to ask working class people to join the SA, in some cases comrades of many years standing left the LP to do so, only to find the SWP leadership deliberately imploding the SA a few months down the road. How much harder will it be to win working class support for socialism after such crass behavior and who benefited from it, not us?
John,
You may feel it is acting like a smart arse by mentioning the aforementioned, I see it as behaving in a class conscious manner.
To be shit on once by mockney revolutionaries is forgivable, to remain silent and allow it to happen twice exposes one as being unfit to be a political activist.
I would just add and this is not directed at John, for any comrades to seriously believe working class people would support a democratic centralist organization is to display a total lack of understanding about what makes us tic as a class. We want an extension of democratic accountability not less; and the WC will never sacrifice bourgeois democracy with all its faults and short comings for a dictatorship of a single party.
Mick – I think your commentary makes my point for me.
ejh’s post is indeed “relevant to socialist discussion and practice in all sorts of ways” today.
Mick Hall is very hard on ejh and has more in common with ejh than he seems to think. What Mick describes fits into ejh’s First Way, and ejh’s Second Way appears to be generally in line with what Mick stands for.
The trouble is – I don’t think it is. I don’t think ranting and rhetoric have much to do with anything I proposed as healthy or helpful.
EJH
I have explained openly and honestly and with passion how I feel about organizations like the SWP and the damage they have done in recent years to the cause of socialism, yet you have not once made any attempt to disagree with what I have said. Instead you have all but accused me of being a sectarian, which if it were not so pathetic would be amusing, as this term seems to be the latest insult in your group think vocabulary, it used to be stalinist which was fair enough, but now when comrades disagree you cry like an automaton sectarian, in an attempt to disguise your refusal to engage with the issues I raised.
I raised important issue as to how [imo] the SWP in England has engaged with working class people such as myself, yet you have nothing to say about this. It is all very well for organizations to claim that they wish to work in a comradely way with comrades who do not belong to their political current, but when they put this into practice in the most undemocratic manner do you really believe we are going to sit quiet and put up with such crap and not raise our voices.
Debate the issues I raised and away with your nasty attempt to slander and smear with your talk about ranting and rhetoric, you sound like some 1930s stalinist with such out dated drivel.
Now before you cry foul and that my reply is rude and over the top perhaps you could try and get it into you head that if you come at people you will be repaid in kind. You treat me with respect and I will do the same when dealing with you.
As I said I raised important issues which go to the heart of building a successful left coalition, democracy, organizational structures, democratic accountability and democratic centralism, if you wish to engage in honest debate, great if not, enjoy the phone box..
DD
What do you believe I stand for?, on re-reading my posts to this thread I have made it clear what I’m against? democratic centralist politics and especially those who advocate them in an underhand manner, but I have made no mention of my own political preference, bar that I found the IWCA comrades sound.
I hope people find this contribution helpful; it is related to the above question and what seems to be one of the big things that divides the IWCA from the rest of the left, or most of it.
Vincent Browne would consider himself of the liberal/left. He slates Labour and Sinn Fein for not taking on the right and indeed for selling out to it in social and economic policy and attacks Ireland’s bowing down to US foreign policy, criticises Islamophobia etc. He calls Mary Harney a ‘danger to health’ etc. So far so good.In the current issue of the Village there is a front page story and interview with Wayne O’Donoghue, recently released from jail.
Now can I admit something; I don’t care how Wayne O Donoghue rebuilds his life; I don’t want anything to happen to him and I don’t think he should be in jail for ever but he killed a kid, for something stupid, tried to cover it up and lied about it. He got out in less than 4 years. I don’t want to hear his story. Browne obviously thinks that confronting conservatism involves taking the opposite side of everything the tabloids hate. Well the world’s a bit more complex than that.
Similarly I remember in about 2000 there was a storm of indignation when people started attacking suspected peadophiles on council estates in England. It wasn’t very nice and some of it was nasty, but hey, so is peadophilia! The Guardian had a cartoon by the impeccablely on message Steve Bell; a grotesque mob of what are now referred to as ‘chavs’ were outside someone’s house. They held up a large Union Jack with ‘Asylum Seeking Peadophiles out!’ emblazoned on it. So there it was, if you were worried about the dumping of child molesters in estates you were also obviously someone who objected to refugees. Of course you were. You had to be, just as if you display a hostility to listening to whinging about peadophiles having rights too then you must be anti-gay.
Years ago I remember a leading SWM member telling us that he didn’t care that his house had been burgled and didn’t begrudge ’some poor guy’ his video recorder. Well I do begrudge that poor guy and while the left seem more concerned about a minority of crims than they do about the rest of us than they well always come unstuck.
Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime as someone once said.
Debate the issues I raised and away with your nasty attempt to slander and smear with your talk about ranting and rhetoric, you sound like some 1930s stalinist with such out dated drivel.
Hmmmm. I wonder if that’s really the basis on which a healthy left is to be based.
the impeccablely on message Steve Bell
In what way is Steve Bell “on-message” and whose message is he “on”?
people started attacking suspected paedophiles
I wonder why there might be an issue with people attacking “suspected” padophiles?
while the left seem more concerned about a minority of crims than they do about the rest of us
It’s a “seem” sentence. We don’t have to demonstrate that aybody actually does think this, we just have to say they “seem” it. And the accusation of course is not a very pleaant one: the left like the nasty people, they’re not interested in us. Which is the voice, not of the left, but of the saloon bar right.
Ed, I think you’ve got it wrong a bit with the village story. The tabloids, in particular the Herald were drumming up a mob against O’Donoghue on the basis that he had refused to take the stand in his trial and therefore had refused to tell the family what had happened, adding insult to injury. There were actually a couple of weeks of hack after hack repeating the same thing. Nobody actually bothered to look at the actual trial to see if it was, you know, true.
So, it wasn’t simply knee-jerk anti-tabloidism, it was showing up the fact that the tabs were totally lying in their mob-raising. Now, personally, I agree with you, I’m not really very interested in the story and I wouldn’t run it on a front cover but it’s not so simple as you make it out to be.
Similarly with Steve Bell’s cartoon, I feel that you are missing the point. To my mind, it’s simply linking together two examples of the targets of media hysteria. You see, while I have a major problem with paedophiles, I have a much, much bigger problem with campaigns against paedophiles instigated by the media – because the media is an extraordinarily unreliable source of information on such problems and it tends to vastly over-inflate the danger to the public of such stuff. It should be recalled that the biggest source of danger to your children from paedophilia comes from you, your family and close friends. It’s not exactly the type of thing that you can incite a mob against though.
I can only go by own experience. I was a member of the SWM 1984-87 and SWP 1987-91 thereabouts.
Discussion on rural crime wave mid 1980s, old people being robbed in Galway etc ‘why should we care about old biddies with money under the bed?’
Leading SWM member.
Discussion on joyriding, big 1980s hysteria, also big 1980s real issue.
‘Workers don’t have cars’
The same leading SWM member. Got laughed down on that but it was made clear that the Workers Party’s participation in an anti-crime march in Darndale showed that they had moved to the right.
London 1989
Several people robbed and needlessly punched and kicked by teenagers in Hackney, including as I remember one of our members.
Discussion; ‘no, can’t have one, crime is the preserve of the right and anyway police harassment of teenagers is the real issue’, ’some of those teenagers are little bastards’, ‘thats racist comrade!’ ‘But I never said they were black’ ‘crime is always a racist issue.’
Btw saloon bars is where the left spend a lot of their time.
Have to say I think Ed is missing the point of the Bell cartoon as well. IIRC the suspect paedophiles included a paedotrician. This was hardly a model of a community standing up for itself. And similarly, I took the reference to be about media coverage, and the targeting of certain groups to whip up mob frenzy. Amongst, to use an old-fasihoned term, the lumpenproletariat.
Working class people it seems to me are able to differentiate themselves between what used to be called in NI ordinary decent crime, and vicious crime that targets the weakest and most vulnerable – those robbing and beating pensioners being the usual example. And they want tough action against those types of people, and I agree with Ed – rightly so.
Chekov,
Reasonable points, I see what your saying but you sometimes the mob are right…killing kids is like, wrong?
As for paedophiles, yes, again of course, in the family is the greatest danger. But are convicted sex offenders not dumped into areas without consultation?
In the SWM any discussion on rape and sexual crime was always drowned out by ‘its the family thats the problem’ but women are raped and killed by strangers too, a lot actually. And call me an old codger but society is more violent now than when I were a lad…christ I am becoming a old reactionary.
Please source the peadotrician story; have heard several versions, always delivered in tones of ‘those stupid chavs, knackers etc’
You don’t have to a racist to object to child molesters living next to you.
And to dismiss all of those who get wound up about this as ‘lumpen’ well, isn’t that just a name the left have for members of the working class they don’t like?
Ed, it’s really hard to have a discussion based on one person’s memories of old conversations with other people. Other people may have entirely different memories…even of the same conversations.
The paedophilia issue – thing is, there is of course an element of the reaction to the mobs which is dismissive of working-class people’s feelings and situation. It’s not to be neglected. But the problem is, with the IWCA this gets elevated to the most important thing – and everybody who objects to the mob gets tarred with the “anti-working-class” brush (God, how they love that phrase). Because everything is run through a prearranged filter of middle-class leftists who only care about criminal and minorities. Which is tiresome, and agressive, and not particularly honest.
The paediatrician story
Thanks for that ejh. I’d heard that a male paediatrician was beaten up by a mob. So lots of stories have a basis but get better in the telling.
Actually I shouldn’t have thought I was sounding like an old reactionary, it was the ‘decent left’ I was looking for, having read some of that Andrew Anthony book. Disagree with him on the Middle East, know what he means about knee-jerk anti American sentiment, but still disagree…but on crime and how the left see it? Have to say, overwhelmingly the left to ME, always come across as having more sympathy for the criminals than the victims.
They don’t actually have more sympathy, though, do they Ed? But because they don’t join in with the get-the-bastards talk, and have the guts to oppose it, people say they do in order to turn the heat on them. It’s not very scrupulous.
Interesting discussion people. And it gets to the core of one of my problems with the WCA approach.
Mick, I don’t want to speak for John but I’m 100% sure he’s no more in favour of Leninist vanguardism than you or I…
Ed,
I do think it’s accurate to describe people who allow themselves to be whipped up into a mob by the News of the World and to mistake a paediatrician for a paedophile as lumpen. That is not to say that everyone who opposes a paedophile living in their area is lumpen. And I don;t think the cartoon was saying that everyone opposed to paedophiles in their area was racist – I think that bit was aimed at the media.
Some crime is the result of circumstance. And some is a career. There is a difference, and they should be treated differently.
A further question is what sort of society is willing to allow an environment to develop where those people make that mistake…
Well indeed. It speaks volumes about the way the education system and general culture in England was destroyed by our darling Iron Lady, and those bounding happily in her footsteps.
Exactly, or even that the society isn’t too pushed about it except as a sort of bear baiting of the working class. I don’t disagree with you though that there is a mob element, lumpen or not, that is the antithesis of politically aware class activity albeit having some of the external forms of same. That’s a real problem – perhaps particularly for the IWCA because how differentiating between the two, arguably, requires a greater depth of analysis than just recourse to the term ‘working class’ as if that’s the alpha and omega of struggle.
The story about the WCA is nearly correct. WCA are still active but Perry was expelled for not supporting HOPI and the group split. Mooney’s group retained the name but he later resigned himself. The rest of Mooney’s group tried to join the ISN but were rejected after a dispute over a woman.
Interesting Spanner… HOPI? I didn’t hear that bit. What was Perry’s beef with them? I knew Mooney had split off and later was election manager for Perry. But I’m pretty sure a good half of his group went with Perry although as the election drew closer another chunk went with the Gregory campaign. Fair split families down the middle… I’m not exactly joking about that either.
Couldn’t be sure of Perry’s problem with HOPI but I heard that he considered them as pro yank/anti Iran but the Marxist/Leninist rump that always controlled WCA fully supported HOPI. Perry was always just a front for the hardline ML’s in the background. Mooney retired after the split and then returned to help Perry but they has a serious fall out during the election campaign and don’t even speak now. Perry’s support for legalisation of drugs caused a lot of hassle within WCA before he was expelled.
Hey, I thought my contacts inside ex-WCA were good…
I like Mooney. He’s not the worst. Although I’d have some serious political disagreements with him. As for the ML rump… hmmm, I’m taking it we’re not talking about their Maoist…
With regards to Spanner’s two recent postings I believe that the term used up north is mixing it. Have to admit to being amused all the same.
Yes, the woman bit doesn’t ring true nor the legalisation of drugs (
– the dangers of commenting in the early hours of Saturday night)… still, something happened… I know Mooney shifted away from the frontline during or just after the Perry campaign and these days expresses a certain ‘reserve’ about electoral politics… Actually just talking about drugs, there was a sort of divide between those who accepted softer vis harder drugs and those who didn’t… but that’s a divide throuughout society…
“The rest of Mooney’s group tried to join the ISN but were rejected after a dispute over a woman”.
this is nothing but rubbish, Mooney or any of the other WCA members applied to join the ISN.Spanner you have been misinformed. The ISN met with A Perry to discuss the general election etc and thats the last formal contact we’ve had.
Spanner is yanking our chain John.
Nice one Spanner…! Funny thing is many groups have probably split over such things.
Just to go back the Paediatrician story – this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4719364.stm
article shines rather a clearer light on it.
The conclusion:
Nevertheless, the story has taken on a life of its own, transformed into a dire warning about hysterical mobs who threaten the fabric of our nation.
The irony is that some in the media, in challenging the scaremongering over sex offenders, indulge in some scaremongering of their own. They raise fears about violent tabloid-reading protesters who will attack, hound and destroy a paediatrician – which seem to be just as unfounded as the fears about thousands of paedophiles stalking the land.
Another view would be that because the story has been exaggerated since the original events, the event did actually happen, somebody was threatened out of their home during the scare. Which is really quite serious. And it’s what happens when we have “get-the-bastards” campaigns.
But amazingly, the story has grown and been misreported since the original events. Well I never. But that’s pretty much always the case with stories, isn’t it?
The BBC magazine story points out the lazy conflation of events hundreds of miles away, the attribution of the actions to people unconnected etc and the snowballing effect of this and other inaccuracies (that this happens or is pretty much always the case is not much of an argument for ignoring it either) and it makes clear that the Paediatrician was *not* forced out of her home.
By what methods has the orignal story grown and been misreported btw? People repeating inaccurate reports based on gossip on blogs or bulletin boards would be one method i reckon.
it makes clear that the Paediatrician was *not* forced out of her home
The story you cite says: <iit was no doubt a very distressing incident for Ms Cloete, who decided to move home shortly afterwards.
The original, at-the.time story says: Speaking for the first time since the attack on the rented home she has vowed never to return to
One thing about the story is that it is often assumed that people’s reaction to it is based on the exaggerations that have taken place since it happened.
But of course, very often they’re not. Very often people remember the story from the time: and very often they have taken the trouble to consult the original stories too.
Reply to post #54, you quote the BBC magazine story as reading
“it was no doubt a very distressing incident for Ms Cloete, who decided to move home shortly afterwards”.
Yet neglect to quote the conclusion of the paragraph – here it is in full.
“It was no doubt a very distressing incident for Ms Cloete, who decided to move home shortly afterwards. But there is no evidence that a mob was involved or of any threats or incidents of physical pressure or violence.”
As it goes, the BBC magazine article says that rather than her being chased out of the community that they rallied around her and that this incident didn’t represent their feelings. Her comments about “moving somewhere more upmarket.” might alos be telling.
People’s reactions might of course be soley based on the original story, the problem is though that the original stories are often not true (as the BBC magazine article demonstrates). It doesn’t really matter when the inaccuracy you’re reporting as fact was first published.
Reply to post #55
From the original article first linked to:
“As a happy coincidence she is moving away from the area – and I don’t think this will be anything to make her regret that decision,” she said.
Mmm. I think that if people vow not to return to places after distressing incidents involving painting paedo on the walls then it’s the case that they’ve been forced from their homes regardless of the subsequent additions of a mob or the contemporary support of the locals.
Not really it doesn’t no.
However, if you feel you have nothing to learn from the BBC magzine article, that it challenges nothing in your approach, then fine. Carry on.
To bring it more round to the IWCA or RA, this old article written at the time is still valuable. What are the left’s instinct’s when thing like this happen (and why?)
http://www.redaction.org/lsa/the_hopeless.html
that it challenges nothing in your approach
Hard to see what it would “challenge in my approach”, to be honest.
What are the left’s instinct’s when thing like this happen (and why?)
“Different to those described in the article”, would be an accurate answer. It’s more ranting in which lefts and liberals and what-you-will are all conflated and in which opinions are ascribed to the whole of that group after being sourced (not always very scrupulously) to one individual or publication). It’sa classic example of a one-size-fits-all analysis being applied to any given situation and bringing around the same conclusion.
Curious line in that Red Action rant:
Remember too, the jeering at the working class in general, when someone scrawled ‘paedo’ outside a paediatricians office somewhere in Wales.
Now let’s consult that BBC piece again:
Dr Cloete returned from work at the Royal Gwent Hospital to find “paedo” spray-painted on her front door.
Post #60. Exactly. You’re right carry on. No assumptions were made on your part. No inacuracies were transmitted. Keep on truckin’.
Post #61, if that article’s ranting god forbid you ever meet a real life ranter. No, it make a series of points and backs them up based on the actual published words of those it’s talking about.
Post #62 – you do have tendency to reject things that you don’t agree with as rants.
I don’t see what’s curious about the lines you post – they’re accurate aren’t they? Someone wrote ‘paedo’ on a paediatricians front door and it was used as an opportunity to attack the working class as a whole. That’s what happened.
Er. no. It wasn’t their office. It was their home. Quite an important difference, and particularly so when you’re in the business of accusing other people of distorting the picture in order to, er, “attack the working class as a whole.”
Not that big a difference actually. Certainly not one on which you can hang a rejction of all, the points in the article on.
Offices/ homes are often in the same building as it goes. Esp outside of London.
<i<Not that big a difference actually.
Oooh, I think I can tell the difference. I’ve worked in a place where I’ve been subject to physical threats (and not just graffiti) and I seem to remember my home being a different sort of place. And you know, I think you know the difference too.
As for “the point in the article” – there really aren’t very many. It’s an extended rant on the aparent stupidity of the whole of the left based on …what? Some passages from broadsheet columnists? Which aparently prove that the left has destroyed the working-class movement in a generation?
It’s the old sectarian purity again, that seeks to show that everybody else is anti-working-class and has betrayed the movement. And it decides that story in advance, cherry-picks a few quotes, fills i nthe very large gaps with some very large and tendentious claims. And then we’re ready to start all over again.
Anyway, i have Mekons gigs to attend. As i said above, if nothing on the RA article hits home, keep on as you are. I’m sure it’ll work out.
Offices/ homes are often in the same building as it goes
But not when someone arrives home from work, that work being at a hospital.
Post 69 – unfortunately we’re not talking about the difference in attacks aimed at homes and those aimed at offices but the accuracy of reports, so the emotional stuff…mean nothing and doesn’t have anything to do with my comment really.
Yep, it’s one big rant ejh, Fine. That’s all it is, that’s all this and people coming from this approach represent – a bunch of ranters. And you talk about purity as you cast us out
Lovely stuff.
That’s all it is, that’s all this and people coming from this approach represent – a bunch of ranters.
It’s not all there is, but unfortunately it’s rather too much of it. It’s the rest of the left is the enemy, they all hate the working-class, ad infinitum. It’s hard to see how that can be engaged with.
One quick point about the BBC article. It is penned by our old friend Brendan O’Neill, of RCP-LM-Spiked-Guardian fame, who is obviously going to have a particularly take on any issues (usually about how the elites are trying to control ordinary people and prevent them from achieving their potential, regardless of whether that potential is fulfilled through multiple air flights a year, not recycling rubbish or holding anti-paedophile protests).
[...] an interesting sequence of comments on indymedia… They follow on from last weeks piece on the IWCA…. Incidentally that has to be one of the best attended threads ever. [...]