Left Socialist Blog
Socialist Action ‘Guru’ John Ross.
In discussion about the Labour Party the name ‘Socialist Action’ often comes up.
We will not comment on the truth or otherwise of the details in this report,
Jeremy Corbyn acts as peacemaker between rival Labour factions after Neale Coleman quits
Labour insiders claim a pro-Livingstone group is battling for power with a camp led by John McDonnell, the shadow Chancellor and Mr Corbyn’s closest political ally.
The Livingstone faction, dubbed “the Kennites”, includes Simon Fletcher, a former Ed Miliband aide who ran Mr Corbyn’s leadership campaign and is now his chief of staff, the job he did for Mr Livingstone at City Hall. The “Kennites” are said to be less ideological and more pragmatic than the McDonnell group. They favour a conciliatory approach towards the Shadow Cabinet members and backbench MPs who have differences with Mr Corbyn.
The more hardline McDonnell camp includes Seumas Milne, a columnist on leave from The Guardian newspaper, who Mr Corbyn persuaded to become his director of communications after a shambolic start to his leadership. He is credited with injecting more discipline into the operation. But critics claim he is a divisive “control freak” who wants to be in charge of policy as well as communications and to supplant Mr Fletcher.
Mr Milne takes a less tolerant view of dissenting MPs than the “Kennites” and is said to have pressed Mr Corbyn to sack more Shadow Cabinet critics in this month’s messy reshuffle than he eventually did. Shadow ministers angrily accused him of briefing journalists during a Shadow Cabinet meeting that Labour MPs would be whipped to vote against UK air strikes against Isis in Syria last December. When they saw the briefing on their smartphones, a rebellion forced Mr Corbyn to concede a free vote.
Team Corbyn have insisted there was “no row” between Mr Milne and Mr Coleman and dismissed as “complete rubbish” speculation that Mr Fletcher could walk out because of a rift with Mr Milne. One insider said: “Seumas is the conduit and gets all the flak. It’s not a clash, more growing into office pains. Everyone is learning as they go along, from Jeremy downwards. The stakes are high and everything gets magnified.”
The article continues,
Some Labour Kreminologists claim the current dispute can be traced back to a bitter split on the hard left in the 1980s when Mr Livingstone fell out with Mr McDonnell, his deputy as leader of the Greater London Council (GLC). Mr McDonnell accused Mr Livingstone of selling out after he refused to defy the Thatcher Government by not balancing the GLC’s books. Mr McDonnell chairs the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), which he founded in 2004 to reach out to left-wingers outside Labour. LRC figures attacked Mr Livingstone’s Socialist Action group as “plastic socialists”. The rival factions have even been compared to Russia’s hardline Bolsheviks and more moderate Mensheviks, who split in 1903.
This is something in this.
Simon Fletcher was indeed a member of Socialist Action. as were other key members of the GLC team – in the 1980s and later when Livingstone returned as London mayor (200 – 2008). Redmond O’Neil, Jude Woodward, and John Ross (who was his “Economics Adviser”) are the best known of the ‘org’. But it is rather more than ‘Livingstone’s group’.
Socialist Action learnt its trade in the 1980s, backing the Labour Campaign group,
This unusually close agreement between a parliamentary faction and an extra-parliamentary organisation resembles the alliance between horse and rider.
The MPs assure us that Socialist Action is cured of its youthful radicalism, and will cheerfully prostrate itself by selling the MPs’ abysmally boring Campaign Group News.
It is said that this prostration developed wider during Livingstone’s time as London Mayor. But being errand girls and boys is part of a broader strategy.
Socialist Action, as John Sullivan’s handbook on how to organise on the British left, is at no pains to note, is a descendant of the International Marxist Group.
But those of us on the left who were in the International Marxist Group in the 1970s – and others who took part in the split in the 1980s which gave birth to Socialist Action – have more fundamental reasons to be hostile to the ‘elite groupuscule’.
The leader of the IMG John Ross (also known as Alan Jones – note to journalists) and founding figure of Socialist Action took an anti-European stand during the 1975 referendum. Even those in our opposing tendency who also supported a No vote accused him of nationalism. Those of us who were pro-Europe (we advocated abstention at the time, which was a serious error) could frankly feel this in our bones.
To be blunt us lot – called at the time Tendency A – hated his guts.
By extension, that means anybody associated with them, right to the present day. And it’s true to say that some of the people in the Labour Representation Committee come from those opposed to the ‘Rossites’ from way way back. But many do not- age is the most obvious reason – and yet they hold equally forthright views about the organisation.
Why?
Well there are plenty of reasons and they are less and less to do with the past and a lot more to do with what Socialist Action stands for today.
These are a few:
A central part of their present ideology is the ‘anti-imperialism of fools‘.
This is their analysis of the “current phase of imperialism” (What is the current phase of imperialism? May 2014).
Michael Burke begins by observing that after the collapse of the USSR the US has tried to impose its power – from the Gulf War, to the attempted “hijacking” of the Arab Spring. But this was now at a standstill. The US faces an impasse. Why?
…the economic rise of China has warranted a strategic ‘pivot’ towards Asia in an attempt to curb the rise of the only economy that could rival US supremacy in the foreseeable future. Given this absolute priority and the reduced circumstances of the US economy, it has been necessary to suspend new large-scale direct military interventions elsewhere.
This curb on US power has had immediate and beneficial consequences for humanity. Syria could not be bombed and neither could Iran. In these, Russian opposition to US plans was a key political obstacle, especially as the US wanted to deploy multilateral and multinational forces to do its bidding and needed the imprimatur of the UN Security Council. The US response to this blockage has been to increase pressure on Russia, most dramatically with its ouster of the elected Ukrainian government in a coup and its attempt to breach the country’s agreed neutrality by bringing it into NATO.
This curb on US power, however limited or temporary, should be welcomed by all socialists, by all democrats and simply by all those who desire peace. Instead, we have the strange spectacle that some on the left have raised the charge that Russia is imperialist, or that China is, or countries such as Brazil, or India or South Africa are ‘sub-imperialist’!
This is not a coincidence. In the US State Department’s frustration it has produced every type of calumny against Putin, including that he is an imperialist[i] and akin to Hitler. Self-styled socialists who simply echo these charges are not highly amenable to logical argument. But it is vital for socialists to understand the nature of imperialism and its current manifestation[ii].
Rather than echo the frustrations of the US State Department, socialists and communists welcome the current impotence of the US, for however long it lasts and however limited it is. In 1997 a triumphalist US imperialism set out its bold plan to brook no global or regional opposition and to be able to fight two major wars simultaneously[xii]. In 2013 the US and its allies were unable to begin bombing Syria.
Imperialism is the enemy of all humanity and its set-backs or defeats are a cause for celebration as they represent an advance for all humankind and the struggle for socialism.
So China and Putin have thwarted the US….. that is ‘anti-imperialism‘ for the modern day.
This is a recent screed by this genius of the world revolution, (Socialist Action John Ross. 29th of November)
How to really defeat ISIS
The effective measures that would really defeat ISIS are very simple – the fact Cameron doesn’t propose them shows he is lying about trying to destroy ISIS.
1. Turkey should be told it must close within 24 hours the main supply route across its border to ISIS at Jarablus and at other border crossings. If it does not a UN Security Council Resolution will be adopted imposing financial sanctions on Turkey, as with Iran and North Korea, and the UN Security Council will authorise coalition bombing for 5km inside the Syrian border with Turkey to cut supply routes to ISIS from Turkey.
2. Saudi Arabia should be told it must cease all transfers of money to ISIS. If proof is found of any further such transfers a UN Security Council Resolution will be adopted imposing financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia as with Iran and North Korea.
If these measures are adopted they would, unlike Cameron’s bombing, lead to the crushing of ISIS. A resolution of the House of Commons should be adopted to embody this.
If Cameron refuses to adopt this policy it shows he is not in fact trying to defeat ISIS. Therefore no support can be given to his proposed bombing.
No supplies no funds, ISIS will just disappear off the face of the earth.
No more slavery, no more torture, no more genocide.
Why didn’t World Imperialism think of it before?
Cretins…..
It’s also worth noting that Ross still loves his country,
Britain is also one of the world’s great historical nations. I love my country deeply, and the enormous contributions it has made to world culture and science, and in which struggles such as the Suffragettes or to create our health service are a source of great pride. There are regrettably some things in my country’s history, as with every great state, which I am not proud of. Some of these I mentioned and were crimes done by Britain to China.
He loves China too,
Note for Jeremy Corbyn – How China made the world’s largest contribution to human rights
By John Ross. October the 20th.
Sections of the British media present a supposed choice that Britain has to choose between either pursuing purely economic interests or criticising China over ‘human rights’. This posing of the issue is totally false – China should be supported precisely because of its contribution to human rights. China has done more to improve the overall situation not only of its own people but of humanity than any other country in the world – as the facts show.
Who doesn’t love Ross.
Well, us lot still loathe him and his mates.
But it’s more important to say this. A group that rejoices in Putin’s ‘anti-imperialist’ foreign policy – not to mention anybody who foils the power of ‘imperialism’ and any set-back for the US (without specifying why this is in itself good) – is part of the “political confusionism” our French comrades talk about. A group that celebrates the Chinese regime, on the basis of some kind of ‘economist’ reductionist view of human rights, has no place on the democratic socialist left. And why on earth does Ross feel the need to talk about his deep love for his “country”?
**************
See also this virulently hostile account of the groupuscule. The strange history of Socialist Action Martin Thomas.
Tendance Coatesy 
Deja vu.
“Some Labour Kreminologists claim the current dispute can be traced back to a bitter split on the hard left in the 1980s when Mr Livingstone fell out with Mr McDonnell, his deputy as leader of the Greater London Council (GLC). Mr McDonnell accused Mr Livingstone of selling out after he refused to defy the Thatcher Government by not balancing the GLC’s books. Mr McDonnell chairs the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), which he founded in 2004 to reach out to left-wingers outside Labour. LRC figures attacked Mr Livingstone’s Socialist Action group as “plastic socialists”. The rival factions have even been compared to Russia’s hardline Bolsheviks and more moderate Mensheviks, who split in 1903.” – Andrew Grice (Independent. 21/01/16)
“Something to do, perhaps, with events from 1985 when John McDonnell, then chair of the GLC finance committee, fell-out bitterly with GLC leader, Ken Livingstone, over the latter’s retreat in refusing to set a budget.
Over the years, LRC activists have been disparaging about the Socialist Action coterie around Ken Livingstone. “Plastic socialists” is one insult I’ve heard repeatedly.
…
It’s a divide that has always plagued the hard left.
In 1903, the Russian communists split along similar lines. The Mensheviks sought compromise with the moderate left parties as a route to revolution while the Bolsheviks viewed confrontation and control of these groups as the only route to success.” – Atul Hatwal (Labour Uncut 29/12/15)
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/12/29/kennite-vs-corbynite-split-in-the-leaders-office-reruns-eternal-hard-left-divisions/#more-20464
Unless “Andrew Grice” is a nom de plume for “Atul Hatwal” (or vice versa), there’s a clear case of plagiarism here.
John R
January 22, 2016 at 2:20 pm
Oh, and remember when NUS (initially) refused to back the Kurds against ISIS, a prominent “Student Broad Left” member (Aaron Kiely) supported that decision.
“Ms Bouattia’s stance was backed by fellow NEC member and Labour councillor for Ockendon in Thurrock Aaron Kiely [Student Broad Left]. In a tweet, since deleted, Mr Kiely wrote that her “amazing” speech had challenged the “Western, racist narrative around ‘ISIS'”.” – National Secular Society (Oct 2014)
http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2014/10/nus-votes-against-motion-on-iraqikurdish-solidarity-citing-islamophobia
John R
January 22, 2016 at 2:38 pm
Andrew, I don’t think that this ‘dispute’ within Corbyn’s staff has much basis in reality. Why would Seumas Milne attack the Rossites, given his clear stance on the rest of the world?
Colin (@colin_odr)
January 22, 2016 at 3:01 pm
John – absolutely.
And when I skimmed your quote it took a whole to realise that the above is a different article!
Furthermore, on the other comment: this anti-Kurd position is not exactly something that us lot forget either.
Colin, I agree, which is why I did not comment on that aspect of the report.
As you say, Milne would be politically close to their camp.
There is always a personal side though.
For example, Redmond O’Neill.
This is what the mad Bob Pitt said about him,
“I KNOW it’s not done to speak ill of the dead, but in the case of Redmond O’Neill, who played a prominent role in the London mayor’s office during the eight years that Ken Livingstone held power, I feel an exception should be made. Particularly so, in view of the gushing and entirely uncritical tributes to him that have appeared since his demise.
Having had some experience of working with him in the mayor’s office during 2004-8, I saw another side to O’Neill, namely the abuse and bullying of staff for which he became notorious at City Hall. It was the kind of behaviour you would expect from the worst sort of manager in the worst private sector company.
:
The problem was that O’Neill and other individuals who had spent decades running a small Trotskyist group on that basis suddenly found themselves at the head of a much bigger and broader organisation, where they antagonised and repelled people by importing the arrogant, top-down, authoritarian culture that characterises the internal life of the far-left sect. There is a striking parallel here with the behaviour of the SWP leaders in Respect.”
http://hurryupharry.org/2009/10/30/redmond-oneil-obituaries/
Andrew Coates
January 22, 2016 at 5:58 pm
Agree that this stuff is largely froth: there’s very little to choose politically between Livingstone, Socialist Action and Milne – all of whom are neo-Stalinists. McDonnell, though, is more principled and politically cultured – and is certainly not particularly close to Milne.
Jim Denham
January 22, 2016 at 11:21 pm
McDonnell has always struck me as European left-wing democratic socialist, who’d always have been at home in many Continental parties who have Parliamentary representation, Socialist, social-democratic or just to their left.
There would have been little doubt that if he had been in one – including the Parti Socialistes in France or Belgium, he’d already have been a Minister.
Andrew Coates
January 23, 2016 at 11:42 am