To simplify, what were some main failures of the socialist left during Corbynism? They have been covered in this magazine and elsewhere.
- The failure of Momentum to act as a thoroughly democratic centre for socialist strategising, collective decision-making, collective political education, CLP organising, etc. It was, ultimately, an NGO-ised mobilising machine for canvassing, led by bureaucrats. (We see it today in its final form: barely a comms officer and a desk at Pelican House). Without a collective vehicle, most left Labour members remained passive consumers of the brand.
- Led by ‘independent’ big names, a rapid and highly partial theorisation of the strategy of Corbynism, with ‘non-reformist reforms’ as its centrepiece. The non-reformist reforms (NRR) strategy was a reflection of a movement catapulted, unprepared, into the possibility of governing the British state: unable to strategise in the long term and restricted to ‘policy-based’ thinking. As proven, radical policy (even of the extreme neoliberal type) will lead to crisis and coup lettuce-quick. NRRs cannot operate in such a context.
The only competing candidate for a strategy was a vague emphasis on ‘community organising’ and ‘organising conversations’. In its style, a long-term strategy of ‘building power’, but to what end it was never clear. The politics was near-absent. - Thanks to (1) and (2), a necessarily unprincipled semi-alliance with non-socialists across the movement, from Corbyn himself to the local CLP meeting.
Despite these failures, the socialist left in Corbyn’s Labour was relatively sizable. Momentum at its peak had 42,000 members plus.
Like Corbyn’s Labour, people have flooded into the Greens, seemingly hungry for an anti-neoliberal, oppositional politics, represented by a new party leader. Most new members are passive; some are committed socialists. While not immediately challenging for the position of His Majesty’s Government, electoral successes have had a small snowball effect, and a position as His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition may soon be vacant. Though not precisely the same situation, parallels to Corbynism are clear.
To comrades in GPEW, I ask, what are you doing differently? If you are doing the same thing but with far fewer people, why do you expect a different outcome? With Greens Organise making noises about NRRs and community organising, and with Polanski holding back criticism of our relatable Northern Starmer 2.0, I worry there are no answers. Déjà vu pervades.
