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A chance for change

June 15, 2012 3:34 pm

Author:

David Hodges

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An earlier version of this article was published under the name of David Talbot. We apologise for this error.

The recent GMB-Progress debacle is enough to disillusion even the most hardened Labour member. Those who spend hours campaigning across the country for Labour councillors/MPs to represent people suffering from an incompetent, heartless Government must watch on with a mixture of rage and incredulity. The economic crisis has created the chance for change. Fundamental change in the way the global economy operates. We can either fight to change the Labour party to whichever mould we support or we can fight to change the country.

I was once a member of Progress. Ostensibly, because it was cheaper to join and go to the annual conference than just to go to the conference. I once did the same with Compass. They are both important forums for debate who make useful contributions to the Labour policy sphere. Sometimes I agree with things they say, sometimes I disagree. I have the same relationship with the Unions. If the Labour party conference debates whether to disaffiliate Progress it would become an even more irrelevant, non-event than has transpired over recent years.

The global economy is in turmoil. Lets be in no doubt that neo-liberalism has failed. Low global growth over thirty years has been compounded by the global financial crisis currently engulfing us. The route out is unclear but the crisis creates the chance for change. It is almost unfortunate that great electoral assets for Labour rose at the end of the twentieth century in a time of consistent growth and rising prosperity. The last Labour Government undoubtedly made a significant difference, introducing policies to be proud our party implemented. However, governing at that time made changing the flawed nature of our economy insurmountable. The opportunity for the current crop of talented Labour politicians led by Ed Miliband is greater.

We could continue as we are. We could finance our debt and deficit through decreasing living standards and accept that the portion of the pie will need to be smaller in future years. A dormant population can be easily mollified by the rhetoric of fear. The neo-conservatives have devastatingly demonstrated this case in America by declaring war on the unknown. The Tory Government have successfully followed the theory by using the Greek economy as the barometer for success. We have avoided our dramatic inevitable bankruptcy by a knight (or Prime Minister) on a white horse (formerly of the Met Police) whose austerity has safeguarded our international credibility. Codswallop. It’s worth noting that the supra-national institutions that we all vie for political support from have shameful track records on forcing economies to reform with devastating consequences for the inhabitants.

Our staid political system needs an injection of ideas from across the Labour party. I don’t have a suite of solutions to all our ills but I have the desire and interest to debate with all the people huddled under our umbrella. Many activists are discussing innovative ideas for creating a fairer, more equitable economy and society. The chance for change is now. We can either grasp the nettle or attack each other.

derek

Right! someone’s eat my slice of the pie, can the “pieman” David Talbot make sure we all get a fair share?
http://www.facebook.com/siobhan.omalley.737 Siobhan O’Malley

I agree with much of your article; however, the main problem is that most Progress ‘members’ (including their shadowy board of directors) are fully signed up to austerity. How can they oppose the Coalition when they agree with their policies?

I was reading that someone had won support within the Fabian Society for a windfall tax on bank profits to kick start a new social housing revolution. It was overwhelmingly supported. She was flabbergasted when a senior Progress person came up to her afterwards and loudly accused her of “punishing success”.

It’s a legitimate view . . . in the Tory party. Why not just join the Tories if you agree with the free market and neoliberalism?

I am all for Labour being a broad church, but Progress practice a completely different religion. It’s neither social democracy nor socialism, but neoliberalism!

Nobody is wishing for anyone to be expelled. What we are questioning is the legitimacy of an undemocratic, shadowy private limited company acting as a faction, that is bankrolled by corporations and Azerbaijani oligarchs.

In my view, that is not on.
- Martin
  
  “I agree with much of your article; however, the main problem is that most Progress ‘members’ (including their shadowy board of directors) are fully signed up to austerity.”
  
  And? Just because we’re not pig-headed enough to believe you can wave away the debt with a magic wand that gives you the right to campaign for anything you don’t like to be closed?
  
  The far-left of the party lives in economic la-la land. We all support a plan for growth and jobs, but we have to be realistic that the debt still has to be paid down and this will inevitably be painful.
  
  I am absolutely furious at this GMB attempt to divide the party, but the one small comfort is that most people on the far-left couldn’t run a whelk stall, so I doubt they’ll get anywhere.
  - Pete
    
    Amen, Martin. As a fellow (quite proud) Progress ‘member’, I’m growing rather tired of people accusing us of being “Tory infiltrators”, to quote one LRC member who was of the opinion that the unions should be actively undermining us within the party, and all kinds of other nasty things. The far left seem to struggle to comprehend that being on the right-wing of the Labour Party is wholly different to being on the right-wing of the British political spectrum. As far as they’re concerned, if you’re even just a little bit to the right of them, you belong in the Conservative Party. The vast majority of people who support Progress are decent, honest, hard-working, committed party members and activists – most of them union members themselves I imagine (Unite, in my case) who would very much consider themselves to be on the left of centre – who do not deserve to be harassed like this in the slightest.
    I, too, find this move by GMB absolutely infuriating – and some of the propaganda being thrown around by supporters of the move is even more infuriating. I’m not sure any of them even understand what the purpose of Progress is; certainly, the fantastical version of the organisation being portrayed on some left-wing blogs is nothing close to the reality. I can’t believe these elements of the hard left have decided to turn on their own comrades instead of fighting the Coalition.
    
    I think it’s also worth pointing out that Siobhan up there has a lot to say about these Azerbaijani ties, yet a quick look through the information publicly available on her linked Facebook profile shows that she has an organisation called the “Revolutionär Kommunistische Volksfront” (Revolutionary Communist People’s Front), which apparently supports President Bashar Al-assad of Syria, as a friend, in addition to half a dozen other communist organisations from across Europe. Personally, I find that knowledge to be more than a little bit disconcerting. Perhaps instead of telling members like ourselves to go and join the Tory party where we mostly certainly do NOT belong, she should consider leaving to join the Communist Party?
    
    Or even better, how about we put all of this petty infighting and witch-hunting aside and instead focus on what really matters: taking the fight to the Coalition and working to ensure the election of a strong Labour majority government in 2015.
    - AlanGiles
      
      Funny, Pete, how you “Progress” members so hate ”
      all kinds of other nasty things” being said about your dismal little group, but that you have carte-blanche to go around decscribing those of us that fre not members, and are critical of right-wing solutions which have already been proven to fail both under Blair/Brown and Cameron/Clegg as “hard left”.
      
      And though you beseech the rest of us to “fight the coalition” you and your sort are much more aggresive to traditional Labour than you are to the Coalition.
      
      Seems to me your post and others from other sources, far from wishing to stop “in-fighting” are actually promoting it, with inflammatory langauge – you all seem to have taken your cue from Richards.
      - Pete
        
        Forgive me, Alan, if I gave the impression that I think anyone who isn’t a Progress supporter must be on the hard left of the party. I do not think that; I’m actually very fond of the party’s moderate left and have very proudly supported competent candidates for selection and election locally from the left of the party. Several of those moderate leftists have come out to say that whilst they do not agree at all with Progress, they also oppose this baseless persecution of it. But every party has its extremes; there very much is a small but vocal hard left to Labour, and it seems to me like that hard left – which I think most good and decent party activists would struggle to identify with – is the driving force behind this plan to ‘outlaw’ Progress.
        The attack on Progress is an attack on the intellectual and political diversity that makes our party so great; an effort to outlaw it as an organisation is tantamount to a full frontal assault on on the party’s moderate right wing. That is not good for our party’s democratic integrity. People are perfectly entitled to criticise Progress and its ideas – indeed, like anyone who is a member of a political organisation, there are certain issues I disagree with it on even though I support its broader principles and most of what it has to say. What is not acceptable is this attempt to ‘outlaw’ the organisation, which many on the right of the party quite rightly fear, given that GMB has yet to explain its precise plan of action, will translate into an attempt to purge its membership (or at least prominent elements of it) – dedicated hard-working Labour men and women – from the party.
        This entire issue is a dangerous distraction from what really matters: fighting the Coalition. We do not need infighting and disunity. We are all Labour here and we all agree on the same basic political ethos. We should be working together and having constructive dialogue between the various groups in the party on issues that are controversial, not waging petty wars against each other.
      - AlanGiles
        
        ”
        We are all Labour here and we all agree on the same basic political ethos”
        
        But do we, Pete?. Because I have condemned the welfare reform policies of Purnell/Byrne/Freud on this site, for my disgust – genuine disgust at the way the sick, disabled and vulnerable have been treated by both “Labour” and Coalition ministers, their ugly use of langauge (“scroungers” – pretty rich coming from expenses swindlers like them), I have been called:
        
        “A Marxist nutcase” (Purple Booker – Progress supporter)
        
        “You’re A Tory…he’s a Green anyway” (! – in the same short post) by the poster who uses three diferent IDs on this site
        
        and various other Progress supporters have described me as being “Trotskist”, “far-left”, “hard left” “Bennite” and “Communist”
        
        Then they complain about people being “Nasty” when you snap at them and pay them back in their own coin.
        
        In short I am considered a dangerous extremeist (yes that term has been used too) because I happen to feel strongly that our once great party should continue to support the vulnerable as we always did when we had principles.
        
        If I said these things on a Conservative website, I would expect such a hysterical outburst – but on a LABOUR one?
        
        Progress supporters such as yourself claim we should be fighting the coalition. I don’t mean to imply bad faith, but if that is the case why the aggression by Progress supporters towards genuine ordinary traditional Labour, which is far stronger than they dish out to Coalition supporters and policy.
        
        And how can we fight the coalition with similar policies to them?.
        
        Is anyone taken in by Liam Byrne’s apparent change of tone, or is he, like Martin freely admitted on a LL post yesterday, prepared to change his views to accomodate the tabloid press?
        
        I don’t want to revisit 1997 again as Progress wants to do, and if it is the future of “Labour” you can frankly count me out – I’d rather not vote at all than vote for something I don’t believe in.
      - treborc1
        
        You soft commie you.
      - Pete
        
        God, this comment reply nesting gets ridiculous, doesn’t it?
        
        I would say firstly that you won’t find any argument from me on Freud. A man who freely admitted to knowing “nothing about welfare” on multiple occasions has no business advising on it; if I had been looking for an independent adviser on welfare, I would have gone to the cross-party Social Market Foundation, which has a lot of very good ideas based on comprehensive research, not someone like Freud.
        
        I’m sorry if you’ve been subjected to such attacks from other Progress supporters; though in their defence, a great deal of the criticism on blogs (and from within groups like the LRC) like this has come from persons who genuinely belong to the far, communistic left of the party, like regular commentator Siobhan, and we are subjected to similar attacks (getting told to go join the Tory party gets tiring fast). For what it’s worth, from the things you’ve had to say on policy I don’t believe you’re anything remotely close to a Communist – a democratic socialist, certainly, but not part of the true hard left. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Certainly, I desperately hope that the party does not shift to your kind of positions – but I respect whole-heartedly the legitimacy of your belief that it should.
        
        I’m afraid I don’t think it’s fair at all to say Progress is more hostile to left Labour than it is the Coalition. One or two individuals might be, yes (Progress is a very loose association, remember), but if that was the case in general, so many Progress members wouldn’t have supported Ken in London after his selection (as Progress very much did, contrary to what’s been said). I myself was a candidate in last month’s elections as part of a balanced slate and gave a lot of time to helping out the very socialist Labour candidate in the neighbouring ward. In my experience, when it comes down to the wire, the right of the party is much more prepared to unite for Labour than the left is.
        
        Progress is very much a Labour organisation. Yes, we have some common ground with the Coalition – but that does not make us the same as the Coalition, and Progress has championed plenty of ideas that the Tories would find abhorrent. We are very much left-wingers, but we are also moderates, pragmatists and realists. I don’t see why I should be ashamed of that.
      - AlanGiles
        
        Yes Pete the columns get to the length of one character towards the ends – this is luxury compared to some.
        
        I am glad you agree about Freud – but we have to remember that he was originally invited to do his “work” by Blair and Hutton, then Brown allowed Byrne, Cooper and Purnell to implement his report – what wing of the party are they all one, please remind me? .
        
        Blair is so bowled over by wealth and position he no doubt believes a man’s wisdom and knowledge is commensurate with his bank balance.
        
        Frankly I think their actions was unforgiveable, and yet Ed Miliband retains Byrne as Shadow W & P spokesman – hardly looks as if we have learned from the mistakes of 2006-2009.
        
        I frankly don’t think Progress can be remotely described as a group of left wingers, and I honestly believe the parting of the ways is coming – Progress think traditional Labour is a vice, and traditional Labour supporters like me will never vote for a Progress dominated Labour party. Apart from disliking many of it’s policies, I have a particular aversion to hypocrites and people with low personal integrity, as such as Purnell, McNulty Byrne and Smith manifestly are.
        
        If I wanted to penalise the disabled sick and unemployed I would have joined the Conservative party years ago. If I had wanted this country to be forever going to war, ditto.
        
        It will be interesting to see where the party goes until 2015 – my guess is Progress will win the day, and it will be a choice between Lib-Con, Con-Con or Labour-Con, which is no choice at all as far as I am concerned.
    - Daniel Speight
      
      Pete do you think those knives poking in Ed Miliband’s back were a mistake now?
- Mike Homfray
  
  Absolutely,Siobhan. Progress – whose members have clearly been ordered here to support them – have so little to distinguish them from the coalition. I’m tired of triangulation and looking at the ConDems as having valid ideas. There should be a real effort being made to look towards alternatives to neo-liberalism
  - John Dore
    
    ”
    whose members have clearly been ordered here to support them”
    
    You really are a freak aren’t you.
  - Pete
    
    “Ordered to support them”? With all due respect Mike, that’s utter nonsense. Progress isn’t some kind of evil shadow cabal. Membership is open to any party member for a relatively small sum of money per year; it’s not exactly an exclusive elitist organisation. Members like myself who have come out on blog sites like this to comment in defence of Progress are doing so out of their own volition because they want to stand up for an organisation they’re proud to be supporting. It’s that simple.
http://twitter.com/_DaveTalbot David Talbot

Can I just point out that I absolutely, 100% categorically did not write this article.

Thanks.
- Brumanuensis
  
  Confess!
  - Brumanuensis
    
    We know it was you!
robertcp

Blairites can say very little because they agree with the Coalition. They have two choices. Stay in the Labour Party and shut up or join the Tories.
- John Dore
  
  Thanks for your deep thought and inspired post…. LOL.
  - robertcp
    
    Good to know that my post amused you!
Brumanuensis

I take a fairly ecunemical view of internal party groupings and see no point in expelling Progress. I’m not – as I’ve repeatedly said – a particularly ardent admirer of their overall philosophy, but they have some interesting ideas every now and again. I just really don’t like the precedent we’d be setting by expelling them, in the absence of cast-iron proof of consistent organisational disloyalty.

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