Posts Tagged ‘European Left’
Class War in the UK.

Anarchy in the UK: Coming Sometime, Now.
I don’t recall much humour during the 1970s and 1980s industrial disputes.
This was the kind of cartoon the mass readership far right press published at the time:

Anthony Burgess, chiefly remembered for the film based on his book A Clockwork Orange, published this in 1978, which expresses the mood of the right and sections of the rightward moving intelligentsia.
1985 (from James Nicholl Reviews – if anything too kind, the prose is worse even than the ideas and plot).
Britain, or Tucland (from Trades Union Congress) as it is known in 1985, languishes under the doleful lash of syndicalist trade unionism. Britain has been transformed from the vibrant (if, as Burgess admits in his essays, steadfastly stupid) society of yesteryear to one in which predatory tribes of homosexuals roam unchecked, an alien society quietly infiltrates, and any worker can provoke a general strike for such absurd goals as a reasonable wage and safe working conditions.
Poor Bev Jones, once a paid intellectual, was driven out academia when his sort of academia was defunded for irrelevancy in the eyes of the dullards now running Tucland. Now a — unionized, of course! — confectioner, he lives a not-especially-fulfilling life with a wife whom he apparently loves in the passionless, vaguely repelled way of the British of Burgess’ sort. The couple has a daughter, whose promiscuous ways and general lack of intelligence make her a perfect example of the modern Tuclander.
Bev abandons his moping submissiveness after his wife is left to burn to death as a result of a fireman’s strike. He becomes a steadfast anti-unionist. Unfortunately, while the author seems to be on Bev’s side, most of his fellow Britons are not. Bev’s feeble attempts to speak out against the flaws of Modern Society see him stripped of his union card, his job, and his humble niche in society.
There seems to be a ray of hope when Bev discovers the Free Britons, who oppose Tucland for their own reasons. As Bev will discover to his cost, just because he is on their side does not mean that they are on his.
Burgess did not shy away from racism,
Bev’s underage daughter Bessie, who is addicted to soft pornographic TV shows, at one point is found watching “Spiro and Spero” (Latin for ‘I breathe’ and ‘I hope’ respectively), who transpire to be “a pair of cartoon dolphins who spoke English on the Chinese model: You Say He Not Come I Know He Come I Know He Come Soon.” Later, she sends him a postcard from the city of Ghadan (Arabic for ‘tomorrow’), where she has become part of the harem of an Arab sheikh, which reads “der dad i am alrit ere tely very gud i am ok luv besi.’
But today:

Lynch’s reply:

Yet, even the Spectator has began to publish some kind words for unions.
The Spectator has published this …
“Mick Lynch is not a normal union leader in that he is, well, normal. It’s as if he has taken the best bits of previous examples of the job and moulded them into a finished article – the working-classness of a Ron Todd, the temperament of Bill Jordan, the passion of Rodney Bickerstaffe and the wit and wisdom of another rail union leader, Jimmy Knapp, one of the nicest I ever dealt with.”
Still….
France: Return of the Left. Radical Democratic Socialism Replaces Left Populism.

The French Left is Back.
The Official results of the first round of the French Parliamentary elections are out.
It is heart-warming to see that a united left has done well. Less encouraging was a record rate of abstention – only 47,51% the electorate voted.
This low-turn out tends to go against the claims of those who, not long ago, were talking of a “post-political” disengagement of people across the world from elections. The reason they claimed was that only varieties of centrist accommodation to neo-liberal globalisation were on offer in the ballot box. France had President Macron’s Ensemble! bloc moping up that vote, and what remains of the classical right outside his fronts and satellites, Les Républicains. Those who reject that consensus could choose the extreme right, and anti-globalist national populists of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National. The sovereigntist RN remains pro-domestic private enterprise, tempered by welfare for nationals, and a strong state. A very different alternative is the united left with a radical democratic green and socialist programme NUPES (Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale).
The reasons for the high stay-away percentage in France have yet to be explored in depth. Some think that once the Presidential election has taken place people lose interest in further contests so close to that election (Macron won in this April) . Others claim that for the Legislative battle the campaign was low-key – though having watched some NUPES meetings live there was plenty of stirring speechs and ideas around. No doubt there are still those around who will claim that the left was not a “real” radical alternative.
There was also a host of minor parties for all tastes and shapes. They include those from Trotskyist parties – the Parti ouvrier indépendant démocratique (POID, Lambertist split from Lambertist POI), 115 candidats, Lutte ouvrière, 553 candidates, Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA) 17 candidats (backing NUPES in many other places),animal rights, Parti animaliste, (429 candidates), the Union des démocrates musulmans français (UMDF, 85 candidates ), and many more.
One point worth noting, Socialists and others who stood ‘dissident’ left candidacies – over 60 of them make little electoral impact, remaining marginalised. (Législatives 2022 : chez Hollande, Le Foll ou Delga, point de salut hors de la Nupes).
This result was even sweeter:
The NUPES alliance did well largely by combining together the left votes. That is by not fragmenting them in competing candidacies. Two probable results stand out, La France insoumise (LF) of Jean-Luc Mélenchon (who did not stand) is likely to win between 95 and 115 seats (in the outgoing Parlement they only held 17) the Green party, Europe écologie les verts (EELV) who do not have MPs in the National Assembly, between 20 and 30 The Socialists, PS appear likely to remain stable at 24-29 as are the Communists (PCF) at 10 to 16 seats.
A few years ago it looked as if parts of the left (not least the PCF but also the PS in their former working class constituencies ) would disappear from the national electoral map, obliterating (whatever one thinks of their historic record) historic links between the French left, the labour movement and its working class origins. While NUPES has found new strength in the diverse new working class and public sector employees in the banlieues of metropolitan France it is good to see the Communists fight the battle of the Second Round face-to-face against the far-right in the North of France (LES DUELS NUPES/RN. l’Humanité).
La Macronie continues to try to thwart the left. According to NUPES, they had the biggest national total, with 6 101 968 votes ( 26,8 %), while the Interior Ministry gives them 5 836 202 votes ( 25,7 %). By coincidence Macron’s Minister’s figure put them second, behind his Boss’s party, Ensemble, 5 857 561 25,75%……
This has not pleased NUPES:
Then there is a row over whether Macron’s bloc will call for a vote for the left if they are standing alone against the far-right in the Second Round…Known as the Front Républicain a dispute broke out last night on this issue:
Macron’s side have at least partially backtracked, after saying they would decide, ‘case by case’. Others will vote – in such duels – left against the far-right. But the state of play on this topic seems to change from hour to hour.
The character of the new left bloc that has emerged will be clearer after next week’s run-off elections. But as observers are already noting, the effect of what the Tendance and others called “Mélenchon’s toning down (of) his left-populist rhetoric about “federating the people” against the “elite”, “la caste” beyond political divisions” is sinking in. Some might wonder also how far the claim to be standing in the perspective of being a Prime Minister was serious…
For academic and populist theorisers of Mélenchon, restricted circles it is true – in France his admirers are more enchanted by his citations of Victor Hugo’s poetry than explications of the new ‘ère du peuple‘ – this turn about will be hard. All those years of mastering the jargon of left populism – the “discourse theory” of Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (on the creation and articulations of the People, ‘affects’, the signifier ‘democracy in the political imaginary, the Enemy), said to be, if not the inspirer of his strategy, or an adviser of his Movement at least a fellow left populist thinker. The time reading and listening to the LFI leader’s own call to Federate the People against La Caste, the Oligarchy, his celebration of the Bolivarian Revolution, and ‘charismatic leaders’, not to mention Mélenchon’s call for a ‘Citizens’ Revolution’ in the Hexagon, (1) all that seems from the remote, antiquated, fading past…..
*****
(1) “Les formules sur la révolution citoyenne, l’insurrection citoyenne ont disparu du texte commun.
C’est le chapitre sur les questions de désobéissance à l’Europe qui ont a été le plus profondément modifié, ce qui confirme le rôle des institutions européennes dans le verrouillage néolibéral de toute politique. Toutes les mesures de blocages prévues par AEC, l’utilisation du droit de véto, la désobéissance aux règles européennes, sont limitées et tournées vers la volonté de « faire bifurquer les politiques européennes », de travailler à modifier les règles incompatibles avec le programme en étant « prêts à ne pas respecter certaines règles ».
Au plan international, un chapitre sur l’OTAN est fondamentalement modifié : le retrait du commandement militaire et par étapes de l’organisation sont supprimés du texte commun (sauf pour le PCF et LFI)..dans lesquels est réitérée la volonté de renforcer et démocratiser l’ONU.
Législatives (France) : De l’Avenir en Commun au programme de la NUPES, quelles évolutions ?
LE MOAL Patrick