The book consists
of a collection of interviews edited by Oliver Eagleton, of Zarah Sultana MP,
Leanne Mohamad, Stop the War co-founder Andrew Murray, Our Bloc author James
Schneider, Andrew Feinstein, and former Corbyn speechwriter Alex Nunns.
Oliver
Eagleton is an associate editor at the New Left Review (NLR), a Pseudo-Left
publication that promotes a middle-class, reformist, and ultimately
pro-capitalist perspective. Like all the people interviewed in the book,
Eagleton, through his writing, seeks to channel left-wing sentiment into
reformist, dead-end political projects like "Your Party" and the
Labour Party establishment.
According to
the World Socialist Website (WSWS), Eagleton promotes the illusion that genuine
social change can be achieved through the parliamentary system and within the
framework of the capitalist state, rather than through an independent,
international socialist movement of the working class. He is a specialist in obfuscating
class Issues by promoting "left-populism" to obscure fundamental
class divisions and the necessity of a precise class analysis of society.
Eagleton’s
first interview is with Corbyn’s second-in-command, Zarah Sultana. She is a Pseudo-Left
“figurehead. Her "socialist" or "anti-fascist" rhetoric is
merely a cover for a reformist agenda that ultimately serves capitalist
interests. The feud that broke out between her and Corbyn was more about
factionalism and a lack of Principles on both sides. It was also over who
controls the not inconsiderable £800,000 membership fund, which is still
growing.
Like other pseudo-Lefts,
she presents her "rotten and spineless Labour 'left' colleagues as part of
a fighting socialist alternative to Starmer". Despite her use of rhetoric
such as "class war", her focus
remains within the limits of parliamentary politics and nationalistic
frameworks.
Leanne Mohamad
has no differences whatsoever with Corbyn or Sultana and has spoken on
Pseudo-Left Platforms. She spoke at Jeremy Corbyn's Peace and Justice Project
conference. Like other interviewees, she seeks to subordinate genuine
working-class anger into reformist and nationalistic channels. The WSWS has noted reports of a "bitter
rift" within her campaign team, specifically with the Redbridge Community
Action Group (RCAG), as evidence of the unprincipled and factional character it
attributes to this political current.
Perhaps
Corbyn’s most useful ally in this coalition of frauds is Andrew Murray. Murray
has used his influence as a leader in the Communist Party of Britain, the Stop
the War Coalition (STWC), and the Unite trade union to keep the working class
tied to the Labour Party. Murray is a Stalinist and has a long history in the Communist
Party of Britain. He has been a long-standing adviser in the Corbyn leadership.
James
Schneider, a key figure of the British "left", co-founder of the
grassroots movement Momentum, and former Director of Strategic Communications
for Jeremy Corbyn. Schneider was a
founder member of “Your Party. His Momentum movement was instrumental in facilitating
Labour's purge of left-wing members under Corbyn and in helping contain it
within the confines of the Labour Party bureaucracy.
Andrew
Feinstein’s politics are based on an appeal for a "more moral
government" and "human values," which explicitly rejects a class
analysis of society and obscures the fundamental class antagonisms inherent in
a capitalist system.
Lastly, Alex
Nunns is an author and apologist for Corbynism: Nunns is the author of The
Candidate: Jeremy Corbyn's Improbable Path to Power and the forthcoming
Sabotage: The Inside Hit Job That Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn. These books are
part of a veritable "cottage industry" of "pseudo-left"
post-mortems that fail to provide a genuine class analysis of the movement's
failure,
Eagleton’s
fellow pseudo-left organisations and every political scoundrel under the sun have
welcomed Your Party. Probably the biggest of these political scoundrels is Tariq
Ali. Ali has been intimately involved in the development of "Your
Party" and has now joined it, marking the first time he has been a member
of a political organisation since 1981. Ali will feel at home in this anti-working-class
party. At 81, he still feels he has one more revolutionary movement to betray.
He is also still a darling of the pseudo-left media. Recently, he was asked
What do you think are the prospects for the left today?
He wrote,
“Starmer is dreadful. I’m in no doubt that his policies will create a space
that, at the moment, the far right will try to fill. We need to respond. But we
can’t simply do what we did in the past the same way. In the 1970s, the
Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism were vital, but the world has changed,
the situation is different, and we need appropriate responses. It won’t be
easy, but you know it wasn’t always easy in the 1960s and 1970s. It took time to
build the anti-Vietnam War movement. We were constantly under surveillance and
harassment from the state.
Over the
last few decades, we have witnessed the growth of dynamic movements such as
Stop the War. Today, the struggle around Palestine has brought large numbers
into action. The horrors of Gaza, the complicity of the Western governments in
the slaughter, and the scale of the resistance movement on the streets will
shape a generation. But we need to think about organisational outcomes,
establishing networks and rebuilding a progressive political alternative. For
the left, the Labour Party is finished. We should encourage the small number of
Labour MPS (especially those who had the whip removed) to work with the
Independent MPS to offer an alternative vision and voice for the
future. We need some home, not necessarily a formal political party, for
the 200,000 who left Labour when Corbyn was marginalised and kicked out; a home
to those from the Palestine and anti-imperialist movements; a home for the old
and new left. I think we face a long rebuilding period; there is no quick
fix. But if we sit back and do nothing, things will only get worse.”[1]
Ali, like
other pseudo-lefts, has argued that the new Your Party should be like other
left-wing populist movements across Europe, such as Podemos, Jean-Luc
Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise and Syriza (Greece). However, all these
organisations have, in one form or another, betrayed the working class. Syriza
(Greece), a coalition of the Radical Left, came to power and subsequently
implemented austerity measures. Podemos (Spain) was a political trap for
the working class, built by professional pseudo-left activists and academics. La
France Insoumise (France): a movement led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon explicitly
rejects a class analysis of society, instead relying on populist theories that
pit "the working class against the French ruling elite. It obscures
fundamental class antagonisms, thereby serving capitalist interests. Despite
anti-establishment rhetoric, the LFI ultimately defends the French capitalist
state, including its police forces and military. Mélenchon has called for
increased military spending and supported French imperialist wars. Die Linke
(The Left Party) (Germany) is essentially a capitalist party that functions as
a loyal opposition and ultimately supports the German state's foreign policy.
One person
missing from the book is Jeremy Corbyn. But his politics dominate Your Party. Corbyn
and his acolytes are not leading a genuine socialist struggle but are preparing
a political trap for the working class. Corbyn’s goal all along has been to
subordinate the struggles of the working class to the Labour Party and the
existing political establishment. He has always been pro-capitalist and
nationalist. His closeness to the Stalinist British Communist Party and his
agreement with its anti-working-class British Road to Socialism in his early
political career have kept him in good standing.
His new
party will act as a safety valve for working-class anger and work to prevent a
genuine break from the pro-capitalist Labour Party. It is seen as a
"Labour Party Mark II" that advocates only limited reforms to be
pursued through parliament. The recent feud between Corbyn and his number two,
Zarah Sultana, is evidence of its unprincipled, opportunistic nature.
Corbyn's
platform, which includes campaigning on issues like "peace" and
"social justice" but avoids explicit class analysis, is dismissed by
the WSWS as "studied vagueness" designed to obscure fundamental class
divisions. The WSWS also criticises Corbyn's reliance on and work with the
trade union bureaucracy, which it characterises as having spent the last 40
years "shifting power and wealth away from the working class to the
corporations and the state".
Your Party
is not the party the working class needs. Workers and young people should reject
Corbyn's new party. They should look for a genuine socialist alternative on the
World Socialist Website.
Notes
Corbyn’s New
Left Party: What It Is And What It Isn’t £3.00-mehringbooks.co.uk/product/corbyns-new-left-party-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt/
