Recorded very shortly after the general election, Nadia Idle, Jem Gilbert and Keir Milburn get together to mourn the defeat, explore the shock this has sent through the movement and think about its recuperative powers as the left debates the way forward. Highly recommended.
1 comment:
Spiked with Bad Acid Communism.
The disappointment and disillusionment here, following the general election result is visceral & palpable. Such, that one of the contributors recommended forgetting all about the trauma of the defeat for at least six months; instead, socialists/activists should have more sex, take drugs and just hang out!
More serious contributors suggested that now that the parliamentary road to socialist is truly shut for the next five years, socialists & activists should re-engage with their local communities at a very practical level, as a precursor to full blown municipal socialism. I'm not sure this tactic would go down well with the Local Government Association (LGA) Labour Group whose leader Nick Forbes has recently been indulging in anti-Corbyn hostility. Unreconstructed New Labour councillors have, of course, been very much part of the problem for Labour over the past decade. A great bulk of them - Blairite in tooth and claw - have been acquiescent & collaborated in the hollowing-out of local authority functions; they have being remarkably phlegmatic about imposing massive cuts in spending on local services.
The big question, of course, for the Labour Party is its electability. As one of the contributors stated, the British have never put into power a radical left national government (the Attlee Govt was already in power in 1945); and that Labour activists should have been forewarned that they were highly likely to disappointed by another failure to wrestle power away from a conservative establishment, notwithstanding the impenetrability and anti-intellectualism of the ‘Boomer Rube Demo’ living in deindustrialised towns & the rural fringe. The post-boomers need to toughen themselves for the inevitable disappointments that lie ahead and instead focus on the long-haul towards a socialist future (it's a marathon, not a sprint). Against all the odds, Labour should be proud of what it has achieved over the past four years.
All contributors agreed that in order to toughen up and to see the bigger historical picture, a rigorous programme in political education is required, particularly for those who had recently joined the Labour Party. Now, there’s an imperative!
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