Owen Jones. From Jim.
Good analysis. Owen has suffered so much abuse I have not posted. But he politically is going nowhere.
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Tendance Coatesy 
Seems like a bad faith article to me. No idea what ‘social media brand’ is meant to be other than a childish ad hominem. Owen is correct on Labour, they offer nothing and can’t even oppose genocide. I don’t blame him for rejecting his local Labour MP, Emily Thornberry,she is awful.
whophd2ea33c35bc
March 26, 2024 at 6:12 pm
The Greens are not left wing to start with.
Andrew Coates
March 26, 2024 at 9:02 pm
I’ve no idea how you come to that conclusion. They aren’t socialist, yes. But not left wing? Hardly true. Besides which Owen’s project isn’t specific to any party, he even mentions supporting Labour if the candidate is worthwhile, such as those he mentions. I don’t think you are engaging substantively, I didn’t mention the Green party. I’m not a member of it.
whophd2ea33c35bc
March 26, 2024 at 9:05 pm
The Greens are not socialist. Owen Jones is all over the place. His heart is in the right place, but it will achieve nothing
irishfabian+
March 26, 2024 at 9:42 pm
Andrew Fisher, former executive director of policy and research under Corbyn and a self-proclaimed “good friend” of Owen Jones’ has written in the ‘i’:
“The party is not the Keir Starmer fan club. If it was I would leave … While the Labour Party has moved rightwards in recent years , in terms of policy it is if anything slightly to the left of where it was under Miliband, Brown or Blair.”
Jim Denham
March 27, 2024 at 11:54 am
To add, the idea that Jones has become a social media phenomenon above all was most clearly put forward by James Ball in the Times a few days ago though FB friends were saying it immediately.
This move joins around 7 others on the fringes from micro-parties onwards to offer alternatives to Starmer/Labour.
Andrew Coates
March 27, 2024 at 12:05 pm
https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1772909243756106121?s=20
Eg. Yuk!
Andrew Coates
March 27, 2024 at 12:55 pm
Will you be calling for votes for the ghoul in Holborn an St Pancras?
Eric
March 29, 2024 at 4:21 pm
Yes. “
“It is true that the Hendersons, the Clyneses, the MacDonalds and the Snowdens are hopelessly reactionary. It is equally true that they want to assume power (though they would prefer a coalition with the bourgeoisie), that they want to “rule” along the old bourgeois lines, and that when they are in power they will certainly behave like the Scheidemanns and Noskes. All that is true. But it does not at all follow that to support them means treachery to the revolution; what does follow is that, in the interests of the revolution, working-class revolutionaries should give these gentlemen a certain amount of parliamentary support.”
Jim Denham
March 29, 2024 at 5:54 pm
You do know that that pamphlet literally argues for independent Communists standing for Parliament?
“let us share parliamentary seats… and let us retain complete freedom of agitation, propaganda and political activity…”
I’m not getting complete freedom of agitation vibes from you.
The truth is that Starmer has already shown his red-brown colours back in October and millions of working class people see it as it is. Where I live there are Palestinian flags on houses, cars, businesses as well as well attended weekly demos in a display politic engagement you will never see in, say, a general election. The local Labour MPs rebelled against the leadership and called for ceasefire because they sensed the writing on the wall.
Would it kill you to conditionally support Labour candidates if they have a consistent record on Gaza and are willing to eg. commit to fighting for Starmer’s leadership pledges? Basic minimal social dem reformism but without the black check unconditional support?
Or would that be too left wing for Lenin?
Eric
March 29, 2024 at 7:41 pm
I think Lenin expected that once the British workers had experienced the rule of “the Hendersons, the Clyneses, the MacDonalds and the Snowdens” they would reject them and rally to the communists. The experience of the last 104 years has rather comprehensively refuted the schema Lenin expounded in his little pamphlet from 1920.
Francis
March 29, 2024 at 8:29 pm
“The experience of the last 104 years has rather comprehensively refuted the schema Lenin expounded in his little pamphlet from 1920”: some lessons have to be learned over and over again, Francis.
Jim Denham
March 30, 2024 at 10:50 pm
Seriously Jim. It’s a tactical discussion from 100 years ago on precise tactics. I think it’s an interesting and useful document, but you have to out of your mind if you think it’s even supposed to a blueprint for all tactical considerations forever.
(Not that you are using it as a blueprint, you’re just cherry picking what you like.)
Eric
March 30, 2024 at 11:41 pm
“Not that you are using it as a blueprint, you’re just cherry picking what you like”: exactly! It’s called political thinking.
Jim Denham
April 4, 2024 at 9:30 am
Starmer is closer to Lloyd George in terms of class relations. But anyway, you want to support Labour like a rope supports a hanged man? Fine, go for it.
Eric
March 29, 2024 at 8:32 pm
The AWL is an amusing phenomenon – the Trotskyite equivalent of the mid-life crisis. In reality, they have accommodated entirely to the modern-day Hendersons, Clynes, MacDonalds and Snowdens in their politics. But somehow they cannot quite admit it to themselves, and still like to cosplay the revolutionary socialism of their misspent youths from time to time…
Francis
March 30, 2024 at 2:57 pm
The thing is that the Snowdens, Henderson etc. don’t exist anymore. This was Tony Blair’s innovation. Don’t just fail to deliver on social democratic reform, don’t even promise it in the first place. Reduce expectations, and form managerial governments.
And that’s where we are now, even though social reform is desperately needed. We’re told it is impossible, that there are no magic money trees, that state finances are the equivalent of personal finances. Jim is literally voting in politicians who propagandise for Tory propaganda and he thinks it’s Leninism.
Eric
March 30, 2024 at 4:45 pm
 “In reality, they have accommodated entirely to the modern-day Hendersons, Clynes, MacDonalds and Snowdens in their politics”: just like Lenin did, eh, Francis?
Jim Denham
March 30, 2024 at 10:48 pm
Lenin should always be read in at least 3 contexts: a) what was happening in Russia and/or the world socialist movement at the time? b) what were the people he was criticising arguing? What did they say in reply? c) how does what Lenin wrote compare with what he actually did when he had power? If you do that, rather than just using his writings like a theologian as a source of quotations, you may well find that you are not a Leninist, and that his opponents were quite often more correct than Lenin was.
As for the question of whether, where and why people should vote Labour in 2024, that’s best argued on its merits. Lenin is of no relevance here.
Francis
March 31, 2024 at 10:43 am
https://x.com/Weekly_Worker/status/1774507228793278653?s=20
Andrew Coates
March 31, 2024 at 9:30 pm
Don’t worry the workers are flooding into the Labour Party.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/30/labour-membership-falls-by-23000-over-gaza-and-green-policies
Eric
March 30, 2024 at 4:46 pm
Hey Eric: what vote do you advocate at the next election?
Jim Denham
March 30, 2024 at 10:51 pm
Where there’s a good leftwing candidate either standing for or against Labour, vote for them.
Eric
March 30, 2024 at 11:35 pm
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/30/labour-membership-falls-by-23000-over-gaza-and-green-policies
Eric
March 30, 2024 at 4:47 pm
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/30/labour-membership-falls-by-23000-over-gaza-and-green-policies
Eric
March 30, 2024 at 5:15 pm
https://x.com/LeftieStats/status/1774154057059373203?s=20
Andrew Coates
March 30, 2024 at 8:34 pm
But also see for instance this
Do you think there is any point voting for a party that is going to win anyway? So much easier now with the collapse of the Tory Party and the collapse of enthusiasm for Labour to start looking elsewhere.
Eric
March 30, 2024 at 10:00 pm
Well, I’m a member to start with.
Our local Tory MP here is an alt right nutter.
Ipswich is a marginal. The previous MP till 2019 was Labour.
Our candidate this time is good.
Andrew Coates
March 30, 2024 at 10:30 pm
That’s fair, but looking at Jack Abbot’s pitch he’s just saying “vote for me I’m not the Tories”. I’m sure that will work for him in 2024. But it’s not inspiring by anybody’s political standards.
Eric
March 30, 2024 at 11:31 pm
Eric: who would you like to see form the next government?
Jim Denham
March 31, 2024 at 8:30 pm
It’s important not to fall into the trap of lesser evilism. Did Lenin urge a vote for the Liberals to keep the Tories out? If it’s entirely about anti-Toryism then do you favour tactical voting?
Eric
April 2, 2024 at 6:28 am
lenin urged a vote for (and, if possible, affiliation to) the Labour Party because it was (and indeed remains, despite the link being weakened) a trade union -based party that has the support of most advanced workers, not because it was a “lesser evil”. Those arguments remain valid today. And remember, Lenin was advocating a Labour vote just a very few years after the party had supported the biggest slaughter of working class lives in human history (up until then).
Jim Denham
April 2, 2024 at 9:20 am
Read the text. Your reasons are not Lenin’s.
Eric
April 2, 2024 at 11:37 am
I’m very familiar with that text and consider my arguments to be largely in line with it. But of course, times change and modifications and refinements are required. Also, old lessons need to be learned over and over agian (Lenin didn’t and couldn’t have, forseen that). Also, we’re not in a pre-revolutionary situation.
Jim Denham
April 2, 2024 at 2:06 pm
Lenin urged a vote for the Labour Party (though not a blanket vote) to deepen the political crisis of the ruling class and to get a hearing from relatively *backward* workers ie. the great mass who will find themselves disappointed with Labour rule (I don’t care for this vanguardist phraseology but this is Lenin.) The reasoning relates to class dynamics not inert categories or formulae.
As I keep pointing out the current political crisis is in the Tory Party and if anything Labour is now resolving that crisis to resecure bourgeois rule by lowering expectations in what the state can deliver. This is not just about Starmer being a reactionary but being an uncomplicated bourgeois locking out not just socialism but social reform as well.
Eric
April 2, 2024 at 8:50 pm
Eric, I’d appreciate an answer to my question: who would you like to see form the next government?
Jim Denham
April 2, 2024 at 2:04 pm
There is no practical choice. Labour will win. No I will not be happy.
Eric
April 2, 2024 at 2:11 pm
That’s not really a serious answer, is it?
Jim Denham
April 2, 2024 at 2:40 pm
There is no chance the Tories will win and there is very little differences with Labour. Even in your lesser evil terms there are no stakes.
Eric
April 2, 2024 at 6:17 pm
So it doesn’t matter who forms the next government? Tory, Labour: who cares, eh?
Jim Denham
April 4, 2024 at 9:34 am
The fact that so-called left wingers are calling for voting Green (with no demands upon them) and for a rag-bag of “independents” whose only policy seems to be vague anti-Israeli sentiment or even the antisemitic red-brown Galloway, is testimony to the bankruptcy and distance from the real working class of much of today’s “left”.
Jim Denham
March 31, 2024 at 5:28 pm
The Greens in Suffolk, possibly their strongest area (they control one District Council and are in coalition to run others, Ipswich is alone in being Labour) are as left as the lib Dems. I would like to see them topple Therese Coffey at the General Election in Suffolk Coastal but a vote for them in Ipswich is effectively a vote for alt right Tory Tom Hunt.
They also have some pretty odd ball people in their Party.
Andrew Coates
March 31, 2024 at 5:55 pm
https://x.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1774393438718263414?s=20
Andrew Coates
April 1, 2024 at 9:09 am
https://x.com/BylinesEast/status/1775115964310589518?s=20
Suggests Greens are very far from a breakthrough in Suffolk.
Andrew Coates
April 2, 2024 at 12:29 pm
I think this is the biggest illusion. Being in and voting for the Labour Party does not connect you to the working class. The reason the Labour left were so easily routed was because they failed to establish working class roots in working class communities. Labourism is always at least one step removed, at best it is the movement of the trade union bureaucracy.
Your contention that there is an organic Labour movement modifying Starmer’s policy on Gaza is very silly. Starmer is much more worried about losing a large part of the Labour vote.
Eric
April 2, 2024 at 6:39 am
Did the Corbyn years and all the enthusiasm lead to a revival of any of the deep entrist trot sects? They probably gained a few new members, but that’s about it. They really blew it and they will never get an opportunity like that again.
Eric
April 2, 2024 at 6:47 am
Labour have just lost 20 councillors.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-68707225
Eric
April 2, 2024 at 11:39 am
Go ahead vote for this.
Eric
April 2, 2024 at 6:01 pm