Why I resigned from Left Unity

Feminists Brook no Debate on  'Safe Spaces' - Manchester Branch suspensions

I resigned from Left Unity nearly a month ago. Set up in a blaze of publicity, it has fallen victim to identity politics and navel gazing. It reports that it has 2,000 members. If so they make next to no impact. There is no internal life in the organisation, no paper or journal, and criticism of policies such as ‘safe spaces’ for women are frowned upon or, as is the case in Manchester subject to censorship and suspension.

Ironically, despite the number of ex-SWP members, such as Richard Seymour in LU, they have taken up the SWP's forlorn campaign - understanding nothing and learning even less

Socialist Resistance of the 4^th International, a chameleon group that long ago abandoned any class analysis or Marxism, has no problem with identity, as opposed to class politics. The emigrants from the SWP have failed to understand that the problem with their leadership was not a failure to appreciate feminism, but a failure to create a democratic culture where the leadership could be held to account, unlike the present day oligarchy.

No campaigns have been organised nationally (what use a party?) and now we hear that those who have spoken out, in the Manchester Branch have been suspended and the e-mail list shut down. Left Unity: Freedom to criticise must be defended - Laurie McCauley reports on his suspension from Manchester branch Left Unity was supposed to be different. A pluralist party, we were told, which could accommodate varied views within its ranks. The mistakes of the ‘old left’, of enforcing a false ideological unity that only led to splits, would be avoided. Openness and transparency were to be the order of the day. . It was a Socialist Resistance member, the miserable Ian Parker, who proposed the suspension and the closure of the e-mail list.

As Laurie writes: ‘Left Unity was supposed to be different. A pluralist party, we were told, which could accommodate varied views within its ranks. The mistakes of the ‘old left’, of enforcing a false ideological unity that only led to splits, would be avoided. Openness and transparency were to be the order of the day.’

It is clear to me that a small group of feminists and men they have guilt-tripped into agreeing with them, have effectively begun to ‘purify’ the organisation. No doubt it will be a good experience for these women before they continue their journey to New Labour.

What began this episode was when Dawud Islam, a former deputy leader of Respect, was demonised for the heinous crime of not coming to a snap judgement on the guilt or innocence of Steve Hedley, a trade unionist accused of domestic violence. His own union, the RMT found he had no case to answer but being working class he must be guilty of something!

Meanwhile LU, which has a Rolls Royce constitution but precious few people to fill all the new posts, flounders about making no impact whatsoever. Ironically, it has adopted the SWP campaign against a 'racist' UKIP, thus entirely misunderstanding this party.  That is why I resigned.

Tony Greenstein

Thursday, 29 May 2014

Dear Left Unity,

I have always supported the idea of a broad party to the left of the Labour Party that would include a spectrum from the left of the Labour Party to the far-Left. I have therefore been extremely disappointed in where Left Unity is going, or rather not going.

I sent an Open Letter to you earlier this year  and asked that it be published on LU’s web site, a request that was ignored. I notice though how Fred Leplat, a prominent member of Socialist Resistance has an article on the web site and certain other members have privileged access. Clearly some people are more equal than others.

Despite having a flying start LU has become entangled in the sectarian politics of feminist and anti-racist identity politics, which 20 years ago were characterised by women for Palestine and Jenny Bourne of the Institute of Race Relations as profoundly reactionary. But then who is to say which identity trumps another identity? It has led to LU becoming an organisation primarily focussed on itself. In prioritising the demands of a few inconsequential feminists with no political base, whose desire is not to be challenged politically but for people to accept their arguments because of the ‘identity’ of those who make them, it has abandoned the most basic democratic norms. It wasted a whole day last December in London debating a constitution for an organisation 100 times as large.

Since then most mailings from the Centre have concerned elections for the multiplicity of posts in LU. Barely a word has been issued concerning prioritising campaigns such as the destruction of the NHS or the welfare state. Bogus issues of interest to just a handful of careerists, such as intersectionality, have been deemed of more importance instead.

It is little wonder that LU didn’t see fit to stand candidates in the European elections when it has such pressing internal issues to deal with. The result is that UKIP and its anti-immigration policies have been given a free ride and LU has abandoned what could have been an effective platform for introspective navel gazing.

As a political activist in the student movement, Irish, anti-fascist, unemployed and Palestine solidarity campaigns, for the past 40 years, I have wondered in amazement at where LU’s leadership believes it is going and its complete lack of strategy as the old, seasoned cooks of the left – Socialist Resistance, the SWP émigrés and people like Andrew Burgin, Liz Davies and Kate Hudson – have taken an organisational and political grip over LU.

LU’s leadership could do worse than to look at the success of Syriza in Greece and try and learn some lessons. However I fear that they are too fixed in their views and politics to learn lessons from anyone. They insist on following the same strategies that embraced Respect and destroyed the Socialist Alliance. Politically LU has demonstrated complete impotence on questions like Ireland. My conclusion is that the time for success has now passed and what is left is a terrible missed politically opportunity.

I have therefore decided that no purpose is served by my continuing to remain a member and I have decided to resign from Left Unity.

In Solidarity

Tony Greenstein

Left Unity Conference



A banner headline which didn't match the strap lines



Another Missed Opportunity as feminists and reformists link-up

Left Unity is the brainchild and founding father, the distinguished socialist film maker Ken Loach who has produced more radical and socialist films that I can remember.

Ken Loach - Left Unity's guiding light

 According to its own web site, as one might expect, the new Left Unity (it’s doesn’t call itself a party!) saw a successful launch for Britain’s new and latest socialist project.  All inclusive, democratic, it is the ideal counter to the sectarianism of the far left sects.

If only things were as simple as that.  For a start it involved a glossing over of political differences.  This was made possible by the utter madness of having a constitution more fitted to a party 100,000 strong, not one that is 1,200 and, according to a seasoned ex-member of the Morning Star Communist Party, Andrew Burgin, is expected to increase to 2,000.

There are not only branches, but regional structures, a National Committee and an over-weight Executive.  It would seem that some members are going to be burnt out just attending the meetings and since the life-style feminists were determined to ram through positive discrimination then no doubt the structures are not going to function for long if at all.   Activity and campaigning is going to be at a minimum.

A simplified branch structure, feeding into an Executive would have sufficed.

Politically the main problem is that a large number of members are political refugees from the SWP, like Richard Seymour.  Unfortunately they have drawn all the wrong conclusions from the shipwreck of what is left of the SWP.  The problem in the SWP wasn’t feminism or the lack thereof.  It was a failure of democracy and the determination of women to get the leadership clique to accept that rape and sexual molestation are unacceptable in a socialist (or any) organisation.  Comrade Delta i.e. Martin Smith, managed to be acquitted by a jury of his mates, not because there was no positive discrimination but because the SWP lacks all democratic control by its membership.  Indeed Alex Callinicos and co. were very clever.  The majority of those involved in acquitting Smith were in fact women.  The only dissent on the Disputes Committee came from a man.  Positive discrimination, which is written into the new Left Unity project’ constitution, comes from a faulty analysis (see more later).

A conference session

What one didn’t get the sense of was any active political involvement by many of the women.  Perhaps this was best epitomised by Liz Davies, a barrister who chaired the first session and did her best to call women or men she knew.  The afternoon Chairperson was no different.  Some habits die hard!  Ms Davies in particular doesn’t seem to have a sense of shame or political honesty.  At the 2001 Socialist Alliance Conference when the Socialist Party walked out and the SW P began its take over of the Executive, via ‘independents’ like Liz Davies, she accepted the role of Chair of the SA knowing full well, not least because a caucus at lunch time pointed it out to her and her partner Mike Marquesee, that she was, to be blunt acting as the SWP's patsy.  A died in the wool reformist she is typical of the new feminist bureaucrats.

What was even more confusing was that the Chair couldn’t decide whether the Aims and Objectives were part of the constitution.  He ruled against but the agenda stated differently.  If so, then we have a party that is committed to the mixed i.e. private and public, economy.  A great start for a unified socialist party, which is probably why the term ‘left’ rather than ‘socialist’ was the order of the day.  There were 4 platforms – Class Struggle, Socialist, Communist and Left Platform.   The latter won out with a ¾ majority.

Kes - the first of Ken Loach's films I saw and possibly the best

But there were some recognisable seasoned cooks, from the left groups like the perennial Alan Thornett, who the last time we spoke berated me for having opposed the SWP’s move in the Socialist Alliance to create Respect.  Nothing it would seem has changed for this veteran of the Workers Revolutionary Party.  And his Socialist Resistance is one of the better groups on the far left.

Left Unity conference

All hell broke out when I had the temerity to oppose positive discrimination.  Apparently that made me a member of the far-right, according to one hysterical woman that followed me.  The points I made were simple:

i.              In a political party you vote for someone according to their politics.  You should not have a free ticket because of your sex.    

ii.             If you are going to have positive discrimination for women, then why not for black women, gays, the low paid, disabled transgendered etc.  It is a recipe for fragmentation, not unity and socialism is about unity if it is about anything.  However judging by some of the screeching feminists, this is probably a good thing.

iii.            In   my own union, UNISON, there is the most advanced form of positive discrimination there can be.  It’s called the ‘diversity agenda’.  Every fraction, from black lesbians to the low paid and women are represented.  The only problem is that a union  which has a largely female leadership, led by Dave Prentis, sells-out its members, mainly working-class women, every year. 

This really got the sisters howling.  But since it’s only nurses, teaching assistants, carers etc. who experience the 'benefits' of UNISON's positive discrimination then who cares.  Female barristers and bankers are more concerned with 'glass ceilings' than strikes and class struggle.  But since there seemed to be few if any working-class women (or men) at the conference it probably didn't matter.

It is a sign of how the democratic norms of the SWP have been imported into Left Unity that the Chair made no attempt to quieten the cat-callers, quite the contrary.

But of course positive discrimination is not something particularly socialist or ‘left’.  Anyone who remembers that photo of the 101 Blair Babes, women labour MPs, most of whom owed their position to all–women short-lists, might also recall that when it came to the vote against the Iraq War in 2003, 40% of male Labour MPs voted against war and just 25% of female MPs voted against the war and many of them were the old, traditional socialist working-class women, like Alice Mahon, who had become an MP in the absence of any positive discrimination.

To get 500 socialists in a conference hall, without a solitary Socialist Worker seller, is an achievement.  However I fear that Left Unity has already reached its apogee and the way from now on will be down.  Left Unity has been set up on the basis of a false analysis of the problems facing the socialist left which is not that we don’t all come together but that there is no shared strategy.   

This is, in turn, the product of a working class that has been defeated and restructured (atomised) with a consequent weakening of trade unions.  The problem with Left Unity is that the debate on the Constitution prevented any discussion or debate on strategy or elections through lack of time.  This was a serious, if not fatal mistake.

A case was also briefly made by the Republican Socialist Platform for a party with its roots in the English revolution (1649), in contrast to the two main platforms, Left Party Platform (1945) and Socialist Platform (1917).

Tony Greenstein