Before leaving Labour, I was minded to make an argument not dissimilar to that (disingenuously) pushed by the Jewish Labour Movement and The New Statesman in 2019 I.e. No recommendation of a blanket Labour vote. Their positioning was driven by an overall desire to see the left defeated so the right could salvage Labour from the post-election wreckage. This time, there is zero chance of electoral calamity. As always, the left's position should be in mirror image of what they did then. That is mobilising from a desire to strengthen the position of left wing politics.
As we know, Labour are going to win and win big. But the projected low turnout, the Green Party's positioning, the strong challenges from independent lefts in a handful of seats and George Galloway in Rochdale, plus the traction these are getting on social media has led to a few furrowed brows. The higher ups read the same polls as everyone else. Regardless of the coming vainglorious outpourings post-election, harder heads know there's no love for Starmer or "changed Labour". They understand that many of the seats delivered on Friday morning are partly because of a split on the right and the generalised anti-Tory mood. And that the right will possibly be neutered as an oppositional force for a while has led to the finger wagging "if you want change, you've got to vote for it" slogan.
Millions do want change thank you very much, and have absolutely no faith a Starmer government will deliver it. Therefore, as per the arguments made by Owen Jones and many others, under these circumstances Labour needs to feel electoral heat from the left. This begins with rejecting outright calls for a comprehensive anti-Labour vote. It remains likely that the only socialists who will stand up to Starmer on the backsliding from the few decent commitments in the policy-lite manifesto, on his failures over Gaza, on racism, and on climate change are those elected on a Labour ticket. But electing Labour left wingers is not enough, seeing as recent experience has shown they can be cowed by whip removal/deselection threats. So the returning of Green MPs and independent lefts, such as the disgracefully discarded Jeremy Corbyn and Faiza Shaheen, would serve as a reminder that the left has more heft than street mobilisations. In this context and in nearly all cases, votes for socialist/communist/far left groups are wastes of time. Not because I'm an incorrigible sectarian, but because they generally mean nothing to their recipients and don't lead anywhere. Regarding the petit bourgeois and populist character of the Workers' Party of Britain, my recommendation for those contemplating supporting them depends on the political character of the candidate.
What about tactical voting? As left wing votes should be guided by strategic thinking, and that building left pressure in parliament is guiding most of the extra-Labour left's campaigning efforts, that logically entails minimising pressure from the right. To be sure, having the Tories come third won't be a magical cure-all for the baleful influence the right has, but it would constitute a historic defeat of the most class conscious and reactionary sections of British capital. As a rump Tory party gets on with its civil war with Farage's Reform, the greater the opening for left and Green positions to steer oppositional politics to Starmerism. That doesn't just mean putting on the nose peg and voting Labour in the raft of marginals the Tory collapse is opening up, but also doing the same in straightforward Liberal Democrat/Tory and SNP/Tory fights.
Image Credit
The Dying Earth Omnibus by Jack Vance
Hermsprong by Robert Bage
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
Signs and Machines by Maurizio Lazzarato
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A Heinlein
This Side of Paradise by F Scott Fitzgerald
Alien Embassy by Ian Watson
Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg
The Ice Schooner by Michael Moorcock
Crash by JG Ballard
Malevil by Robert Merle
War With the Newts by Karol Capek
Protector by Larry Niven
The Saints of Salvation by Peter F Hamilton
Fury by Henry Kuttner
The Inhabited Island by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
The Doctor is Sick by Anthony Burgess
Mindplayers by Pat Cadigan
A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne
Planetfall by Emma Newman
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Destiny's Road by Larry Niven
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Fugue for a Darkening Island by Christopher Priest
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
Moving the Mountain by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Sorrowland by Rivers Soloman
Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault
Wise Children by Angela Carter
Shall we get the not-great out the way first? The second Niven on this list was overlong, dull, and didn't add anything to the partially regressed space colony genre. It's here because I remember seeing it in bookshops in the late 90s and thought it might be worth a punt. Ho hum. Hermsprong and A Sentimental Journey were not up to the 18th century standards I've grown accustomed too, both of which committ the sin of boring the reader senseless.
On the great side, there are so many! Fury, Malevil, Mindplayers, Fugue for a Darkening Island are underappreciated SF classics that deserve wider readerships. I also enjoyed Soloman's Sorrowland, a queer decolonial condemnation of the United States. It attacks militarism and the racist exploitation of African Americans, and is one of the best novels from this decade I've read so far. And after taking an age, I finally finished Foucault's Discipline and Punish. This has been my most borrowed but never read library book of the last 20 years, and it's definitely stood the test of time. Not just because the analysis of disciplinary power still seems fresh (seeing as politics still operates with sovereigntist models). It's relevant: as our current forms of governance are breaking down, we have to pay attention to new efforts in this direction. Especially so when the UK is about to elect a government whose project amounts to the modernisation of the state.
If anything, the tbr pile has grown bigger during the month. Expect a few politics titles to crop up in three months time as I start working on stuff about the after effects of the general election. What have you been reading recently?
1. Leaving Labour
2. The Far Left and the 2024 General Election
3. Dismantling Labour's Base
4. Bottling Clacton
5. What if the Tories Come Third?
If you'd told me at the start of the campaign that my party membership would be one of its casualties, I might just about have believed you. The departure was a long time coming, but unlike those who wax lyrical about their leavings as a "liberation" I've experienced this as nothing of the sort. 'Independent socialist' is a contradiction in terms, and being a solo flier is not a good place to be. The reasons for going are outlined in the month's most read post, but tbh they're far from unique. In second are the candidacies of an array of revolutionary/socialist groups and those who seek that mantle. This is followed by the precipitating factor of my resignation - the dropping of Faiza Shaheen and the attempt to deselect Diane Abbott at the last possible moment. Zooming up the charts from the back end of the month is Labour's stupid and politically cowardly decision to pull resources from the campaign against Nigel Farage in Clacton. And coming last was a bit of crystal ball gazing. What happens if the Liberal Democrats become the official opposition?
Fishing around in June's posting pond, I've reeled in two more pieces. There's this one on Keir Starmer's hatchet man, Morgan McSweeney. And leaving off the neat politics, I've added the mixer of science fiction with Emma Newman's Planetfall.
It doesn't take a genius to see what's going to dominate next month's postings. At the top will either be something about the character of the results, the complexion of the first Starmer government, or (knowing this blog's audience) the round-up of the far left's election results. As ever, if you haven't already don't forget to follow the occasional newsletter, and if you like what I do (and you're not skint), you can help support the blog. Following me on Twitter and Facebook are cost-free ways of showing your backing for this corner of the internet.
