Tag: Owen Jones

Let’s Win This Battle Together

Owen Jones’ closing words at the anti-austerity march on Saturday resonate with me. It is vital that all those represented there, and other progressive forces, work together to win. As Tim Farron says winning is the priority, for without it there can be no change. But as Tim recognises, and as Jeremy Corbyn epitomises, ditching one’s principles for a short-term victory is not winning, it is surrendering. Winning is to be part of the long-term narrative.

What therefore does winning together entail?

 

  1. It requires that the joint opposition epitomised by the march stays together, stays focused, stays in touch, reaches out further and grows, hopefully as the mainstream progressive parties elect leaders who will choose to stand united with the people on the front line.

 

  1. It requires that grassroots organisations, campaigns and battles are co-ordinated, that nobody is left to fight their own battle, or that conversely nobody abandons the overall war to focus on their own problems, dividing the united front and doing the Tories’ job for them.

 

  1. It requires the progressive political parties to work together at a national level, to put aside their own pride, their own interests and work for the common good. We saw arguably the inverse of this in Northern Ireland where the Ulster Unionists and DUP agreed electoral pacts to see off progressive MPs from the Alliance Party and Sinn Fein. But this shows that it can work, and does work.

 

  1. All progressive parties must commit to a pledge to introduce Proportional Representation as soon as they are in a position to do so. Tim Farron has said that if he is elected leader of the Liberal Democrats, then PR as a law will be an essential prequisite to entering any future coalition – not a referendum, not a commitment to look into it, but a pledge to table it as one of the first major pieces of legislation. All parties need to agree this.

Point 3. in my opinion is a vital component of 4. and after stating them above, they need to be expanded upon as a unity. Labour has been the largest progressive party in the United Kingdom since the 1920s and it still holds that position, and some within the party will argue that electoral pacts and proportional representation are unnecessary encumberances, and that Labour will always poll well enough to be a major force.

But 2015’s General Election shows that a political party with one quarter of the total electorate’s support, at something like 36% of the votes cast, can win an absolute majority and whilst Labour is the second party in parliament, it is part of a fractured opposition that is watching the Tories destroy the welfare state.

Maybe Labour can win again sometime under FPTP like how in 1997 they came back from 3 defeats, but the country does not have another ten years to wait for them to get their act together. Labour does not represent its MPs, nor does it even represent its members – what Labour has always respresented is the working man, though you would not this if you listened to the leadership campaigns of some of its contenders.

Electoral pacts are the only solution to ensure that the progressive forces win at the next election, whenever that may be. Winning THAT election has never been more vital for the country. Labour must swallow its pride and stand some PPCs down against Liberal Democrats, Greens, Plaid and even the SNP, if they will live up to their belief in PR and reciprocate.

In turn, the Lib Dems must stand down candidates against Labour, against the Greens and against Plaid where that is needed. The Greens must stand down candidates against Labour, the Lib Dems and Plaid, and Plaid must stand down candidates against Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens where that is a necessary option.

One is not looking to change the face of the system, but to swing key marginals in a progressive direction. Where the Liberal Democrats pose the strongest challenge to a Tory incumbent then the other progressive parties must stand their candidates down. This is going to be a challenge, not least because in the wake of #GE2015 the parties are going to need to look at recent polling data, not exclusively the vote in May 2015 where the Lib Dems, in coalition, saw their vote collapse.

There are easily enough seats available for Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens, Plaid and the Alliance Party to pick up enough to overturn a Tory majority in Westminster. What they must do is dare, and having dared what they must then do is stick to their promises. Labour especially needs a leader who puts decency at the heart of what he does, and that man is Jeremy Corbyn.

 

Winds of Change

Anti Austerity March in London

Though I could not be there, I fully support the unified front against Austerity, and followed closely the march and the speeches made. It was good to see a wide spectrum attending – trade unions, political parties, Socialist Worker, Charlotte Church, Owen Jones, Russell Brand, activists, local groups, and ordinary people.

As a Liberal Democrat I was somewhat concerned I could discern neither a party presence nor any known figure from the party. From Labour, we had Jeremy Corbyn, from the Greens an official contingent featuring both Natalie Bennett and Caroline Lucas, and from Sinn Fein, Martin McGuinness was present.

To a degree, a broad popular movement does not rely on its political party support, but on grassroots movements, but for national representation, and for hope of change it is vital that the political parties are there.

Owen Jones made a strong and powerful speech, and it is this which I wish to blog on, whilst acknowledging interviews that @ChunkyMark (Artist Taxi Driver) did with Charlotte Church, and with Sheila Coleman of UNITE.

Owen spoke about the rights we enjoy today, rights which were not gifted to us by the benevolence of those in power but were won by the struggle and sacrifice of the people. This is a key point – a single march probably won’t achieve anything, but the continuum has always been towards more rights, better conditions, whether it was the early trade unionists fighting for the rights and dignity of the working people, or the chartists fight for democracy, the sufragettes for equal votes, or the marches for equal rights for LGBT people.

Marchers today can rightly be proud at the heritage they now embody, but it is a heritage not just under threat, not just under attack, but one which is facing imminent eradication at the hands of the rich.

IT IS NOT FOR US TO ALLOW MANY OF THE THINGS THAT OUR ANCESTORS FOUGHT FOR AT SUCH COST AND SACRIFICE TO BE STRIPPED AWAY BY A GOVERNMENT OF THE RICH, BY THE RICH AND FOR THE RICH

As Owen said, and as Charlotte Church and Sheila Coleman also said in their interviews with Mark McGowan, the march is not an end but a beginning, it is a start, where we must go into our communities and organise. We have to reach out to people who have not been reached out, and we have to engage them, because it is their rights, not just those of the people on the march which are being destroyed. It is vital not to just “talk to ourselves” but to spread the message, create local activism, and work together.

LET’S STAY TOGETHER, LET’S FIGHT TOGETHER, LET’S WIN THIS BATTLE TOGETHER

I think that’s how Owen ended his speech. If it wasn’t, then it may just as well have been. It was the key aspect of his message, and it is resonates.

The first part – let’s stay together. This is key. Owen showed how the politics of the rich is to set the ordinary person against each other, to convince them that the reason they are losing their rights is because someone else is stealing them. Its the foreigners stealing our jobs! This is absolute nonsense, but it suits the establishment to promote this message to divide the opposition, and by dividing them to rule them.

Let’s fight together – if the various cross-party organisations do not come together to work in unison, then the force of concerted action is lost, as the action becomes divided between many smaller organisations, smaller marches, smaller protests. Grassroots works from bottom up – the local issue will then coalesce with other local issues, to become a regional force, and so on up. But the danger of opposition is that each group can go off on their own, forget about the unity of opposition, fight their own local battles without seeing the larger national picture. It is beholden on the organisers to make sure that these battles form part of a unified opposition to so-called austerity, and to the Tory agenda.

Let’s win this battle together – I am a strong believer both in Proportional Representation and in electoral pacts to achieve the progressive majority under First Past The Post that will allow PR to be passed. With the progressive parties all fighting each other, the vote will be split, the chances of winning will be diminished. Just looking at the Liberal Democrats, there are a dozen seats that could have been won if the other progressive parties had left the field open. The same is true for Labour, for the Greens, and for the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland and Sinn Fein (both of whom suffered from the electoral pact between the Ulster Unionists and the DUP, to prove the point).

I will write more on that latter point, but togetherness is vital for victory, and every progressive party needs a leader who is open to working with other parties to achieve this end. Tim Farron is this for the Liberal Democrats and Jeremy Corbyn is this for Labour.

 

Winds of Change
22nd June 2015