Two tribes: Labour and UK Uncut

By Joe Caluori / @croslandite

“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall” – Measure for Measure, Bill Shakespeare (2.1.42)

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last weekend thinking about direct action, and how we in the Labour Party accommodate more confrontational, but still peaceful, direct action into our view of political discourse. Yes, I should get out more.

Many of my good friends in the party have rallied against UK Uncut for their actions on Saturday in occupying Fortnum and Masons. This has threatened to become a slightly nasty spat between many very good and well intentioned people who want very similar things, and I think it warrants a more nuanced reading than it has had so far.

First off – we have to start from first principles. There’s nothing wrong with peaceful direct action, and when legitimate demands are ignored many great people we admire in human history have taken direct action to shock the wider public and those in power into action.

The aims and objectives of UK Uncut – that companies and their owners should not seek to avoid the tax they owe, can have broad appeal from the Daily Mail to the Morning Star. Basic fairness and a dislike for people playing the system is an almost universally held value in the UK.

Whilst I would not take part in occupying a shop, I certainly won’t condemn those who feel they must, especially when they so politely clean up afterwards on their way out. It is certainly true that there are those on the fringes of UK Uncut that are not so well behaved, and there are also some who wrong headedly abuse Labour councillors for passing cuts budgets forced on them by the Tories, even though all we are trying to do is hold up a dented shield to protect the most vulnerable in our communities from the cuts Pickles would make were we to allow him to gleefully seize our budget.

However, UK Uncut are not an organised unit the way a political party or Trade Union is, and inevitably there will be malign trouble makers – but even within a political party this can happen. For example, I wouldn’t hold Neil Kinnock to account for Derek Hatton or Gordon Brown for Eric Illsley or Derek Chaytor.

We have sometimes to look for those outside our party who have something to say in a voice we wouldn’t choose, even if they keep some bad company.

Then there is the accusation of bad timing made against UK Uncut – that they distracted attention from the march – well perhaps – but they have the right to peacefully protest, and we in the party don’t get a veto over who does what. You may as well rage against the weather. We don’t own this protest movement, and if we did it would be easier for the Tories to write it off politically.

I can hear good friends readying themselves to wring me out, so I want to be clear about this. The bovine, nihilistic stupidity of the ‘black bloc’ is rightly condemned by all who are serious about winning a debate over the cuts. I saw one interviewed on TV wearing a cap with the ‘A’ symbol on it saying that he isn’t an anarchist at all, but just doesn’t like the way stuff is – unable to offer any cogent argument, he was merely indulging in primal vandalism.

Likewise, there were many people marching with colleagues and comrades who were older or with families who couldn’t risk the jeopardy of more confrontational direct action even if they wanted to – which 99.9% don’t – and to mock them as ‘A to B marchers’ as some self styled radicals have, is nothing more than the vain worship of their own youth and fervor.

But I’m afraid I still believe that some Labour friends are guilty of a slightly jealous solipsism. It reminds me a bit of the character of ‘Stradlater’ in Catcher in the Rye, who stays up late with the younger boys telling stories and then rages at them when they stay up after he has declared ‘lights out’.

To conclude – history is rich with examples of polite and peaceful direct action that has the power to make people reconsider their environment and look at things in a new way. To dismiss it and try to claim ownership of the protest is wrong and counter productive. Perhaps we haven’t quite got our heads around opposition yet, I don’t know. Let’s condemn the knuckle dragging idiots who endanger peoples safety, but yet retain some perspective and a sense of humour towards those that try to make an interesting point in a new way, even if they do it in ways we would never consider.