I wrote this as a response to an article I’d read online about the Labour Party being a “socialist” alternative. I know there are many articles defending and attacking Labour at the moment, but I felt the need to address, albeit briefly, some problems that exist within the Labour party.

Here’s the link to the article: http://www.leftwards.co.uk/marxism-and-why-it-shouldnt-be-a-taboo-in-21st-century-britain/#comment-1208

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The response is as follows:

Hello, and firstly let me apologise if this comes across a little crass; but this article is very much a non-article. What are you addressing? That the Daily Mail is a bastion for scoundrels and a massive perpetrator of hypocrisy? That Marxism isn’t much more than “sociological concept”?

In fact, a new generation of people are beginning to look into understanding Marx and learn that has influenced much more than just sociology. What Marx did was scrupulously analyse the capitalist mode of production and the capitalist society and the need for change from that society to further develop human-kind. If you took the time to read Lenin or Trotsky, then you would understand also that these Marxists weren’t blood thirsty violent thugs. These were men with the vision and compassion to change society and fight for the human race, not to attack the masses or terrorize them. Maybe this quote from Leon Trotsky can help you gain a grain of understanding: “In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their own powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes toward a great avenger and liberator who someday will come and accomplish his mission.”

I could carry on with more defence of Marx (but for that I’d ask of you to read more of his works). But my main qualm lies with your naivety about the Labour Party. Where should I begin? With the open opposition to left ideas from the Gaitskellites in the 1940’s? Maybe the failing of the Labour government to fully implement the demands of the strikers in the 70’s that effectively brought down Edward Heath? The betrayal of the Labour party by Neil Kinnock in the 1980’s in selling out his own Liverpool council to Margaret Thatcher’s whims? The expulsion of Militant members?

To have the audacity to claim that it was Blair who was the undoing of the Labour party is a rebuttal of history. As a member of the Socialist Party (formerly militant) I must firstly address, preemptively, some criticisms you (or the reader) may have of Militant. The whole “they were too left” nonsense is merely an acceptance of lies without questioning its source. The Labour Liverpool city council (backed by Militant) is a contradiction of said nonsense. A council which, through a program of protection of public sector services and housing construction (among other things), a massive swing in the vote TOWARDS Labour. And why? Because the Militant council was prepared to oppose Westminster demands and fight for their constituents and the working-class of this country. Where is this “opposition” from the Labour Party this day and age? Yet Millitant still, in every general election, called for a vote for Labour and supported them since its inception in the 60’s. Yet they were labelled sectarian. Hmm.

I speak about this lack of “opposition” as a victim of the weakness in Labour. My hometown (the biggest in it’s county) has seen its Hospital downgraded to a nurse-led unit, implemented and not opposed by a Labour Assembly Member (hereafter AM). But is this the only example? No. In Wales, a country which has a Labour majority in the Assembly, I have witnessed Labour councillors and AM’s implementing cuts to public services, hospital downgrades, rise in wages to council executives but cuts to other departments and the implementation of the vicious bedroom tax. Oh, what’s this? If Labour get in in 2015 “the bedroom tax will be repealed” I here you cry. Well, a lot of good that’s going to do for the families that are forced towards pay day loans, relying on food from foodbanks and the family of the late Stephanie Bottrill.

And what about Labour members who do in fact fight for the working class? Two Labour councillors in Southampton, backed by the Socialist Party for its anti cuts stance, were expelled from the Labour Party for opposing cuts! This is how opposition is treated within the bureaucracy that is the Labour Party. The current Labour government is nothing but a small plaster placed over the fatal wound that is 21st century British Capitalism.

So this leads me on to yet another problem. Ed Miliband is no more socialist than Tony Blair. His father must be spinning in his grave. “Oh, we’ll cap energy bills”. Tony Blair pledged to nationalise the Railways in 1997. That clearly didn’t happen. Instead Blair, amongst other things, implemented Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) and took us into an imperialst war! Democratic party, huh? Another example of the bureaucracy is the Labour party conference. The conference voted on Nationalisation of the Royal Mail, yet Miliband didn’t pledge to do this. If Miliband was at all “socialist” then he could reinstate the original clasue IV, nationalise utilities and railways, keep the NHS and Royal Mail public, repeal PFI and scrap the anti-trade union laws This is SUPPOSED to be the opposition leader, right?

You state that “(…) getting Britain to embrace socialism again is a task Labour face in the run-up to the 2015 election. We’ve lacked an alternative to free market thinking since the Thatcherite turn of Labour under Blair, however this doesn’t mean that the party can’t once again establish itself as a movement for the working people at large.”

Miliband’s contradiction of wanting to “make Capitalism work for more people” is an inclination of what Labour in 2015 will do: Carry on with the same Thatcherite, Neo-Liberal policies, but with a softer touch. How could Labour also establish itself as a movement for “the working people at large” when it wants to cut its ties with the Unions? The movement and organisation which helped Keir Hardie build the Labour party and are the foundations for the Labour movement are being abandoned. A student (not a Socialist Party member) in a meeting I attended this week summed up Labour’s stance, a stance which has always existed but accelerated by Blair and now Miliband, by stating that “Labour’s break with the unions means that they are only going to be pushed further to right to compete for funding with big business. This isn’t an alternative.”

You are right about one thing though; the need for an alternative. Luckily, it does exist and is growing. In the Socialist Party but also the Trade Union Socialist Coalition. An organisation that works in the interest of the working class. An opposition which the workers in the UK need to lead them, not to Milibandism but, to socialism. You’re free to come along to a meeting.

If you are interested, here’s a link to their websites:

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/

http://www.tusc.org.uk/

Marxism is alive in the 21st century. It isn’t a taboo. Worker’s of the world unite!