Monthly Archives: July 2024

A New Popular Front for Ireland? (2 of 3)

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– Demonstration against the extreme right in the presence of the new Popular Front – 15/06/2024 – France / Paris – Place de la Nation a Paris, manifestation contre l extreme droite. PUBLICATIONxNOTxINxFRAxRUS OlivierxDonnarsx/xLexPictorium LePictorium_0293005

Supporters of the New Popular Front in France start from the view that the task of the day is to defeat the far right while in Ireland it is to defeat the mainstream right.  In the first, alliance is made with the mainstream right and in the latter with the non-mainstream right that still parades a certain amount of fake radicalism.  Since neither the mainstream right or its fake radical opposition will break from capitalism the left makes compromises that it really can’t deny because it has accepted that the task is to defeat the far right, in the case of France, or the main right wing parties in the case of Ireland.  Since it is the mainstream right that has facilitated the rise of the far right in both countries the left has allied itself with the cause of this rise in France and discredited itself as an alternative.  In Ireland, the logic of the proposed policy is the same but simply lags behind France in its development. This is all pretty straightforward.

The following problems arise.  In order to create a left majority, the idea of ‘the left’ is expanded to include anyone opposed to the far right/mainstream right who proclaims itself as in any way left or socialist.  This includes those who have been in government and who have attacked the working class when they were there; for example the Socialist Party (SP) in France and Sinn Fein in Ireland. 

Since the world is full of parties with socialist or communist in their name that are anything but, it is necessary to know how to determine who exactly is a socialist.  In the case of the SP and Communist Party in France this is relatively easy – they have been in government and made it clear that they will defend French capitalism.  In the case of Sinn Fein, they have also been in office and present themselves as the most enthusiastic defenders of the institutions that are the product of a ‘peace process’ set up by British and US imperialism.  Sinn Fein’s claims to socialism are threadbare to non-existent.

Acceptance of any of these parties’ bona fides means that you join rejection of any coherent definition of socialism, ally with parties that defend capitalism and thus all of its consequences, and means that you then cease to offer genuine socialist politics. This is not because you have proposed some joint action for a specific purpose but because you propose to enter into a government with them with the pretence of a radical or socialist programme. This is not a policy you can turn off and on, becoming true to your claims in-between. This is not a slippery slope you can climb back up, but a result of the slippery slope you have already descended.

The use of words such as ‘radical’ or ‘left’ to justify alliances that cannot be described as socialist, as if there was something other than socialism that offers adequate answers and promises a different society, is one illustration. One consequence is that being on the ‘left’ becomes decisive over being socialist, with the latter robbed of any distinct meaning; all necessary because you have admitted that there is a task more important than fighting the capitalist system and socialism. This task, or ‘stage’, amounts to defending the so-called democratic version of capitalism from the far right, or ending years of the mainstream parties in office without ending the system they represent, as if they were the problem and not an expression.

The far right in France, and main bourgeois parties in Ireland, are here to stay in the foreseeable future, so the argument that there should be an alliance between the ‘left’ and the mainstream bourgeois parties in France, or a ‘left’ in Ireland that includes Sinn Fein, will hold as long as they do. This means that uncompromising opposition to both is fatally undermined and the rationale for an independent socialist alternative is permanently suspended.

The fundamental problem is therefore that the task of organising and politicising the working class to defend its own separate interests as understood by socialists is subordinated, if not entirely dispensed with, in order to defend a particular form of capitalist rule in France, while in Ireland it is to pretend that the latest generation of ‘radical’ nationalists are a genuine alternative to the rule of their historical equivalents.

We see this again and again in the politics of the ‘lesser evil’ – in relation to the war in Ukraine as well as opposition to the far right.  It is not an accident that the New Popular Front in France and united ‘left’ in Ireland support the imperialist war. The view that the separate organisation of the working class under socialism is the only safeguard against the far right is forgotten.  The view that the prime task is not to defeat the far right or replace one bunch of nationalists with another but to advance this organisation and politicisation is opposed.

Attempts are made, in relation to both France and Ireland, to claim that the policy of a popular front is part of, or at least not incompatible with, this sort of organisation but the alliance with fake-socialists and mainstream bourgeois parties makes such claims impossible to sustain.  This is fundamentally because of the second problem with the whole idea, which is that these left fronts are not about the mobilisation of the working  class but an electoral alliance.  The mainstream bourgeois parties might tolerate temporary expressions of mass support for an alliance with themselves but will never support an independent mobilisation of the working class, because this would have to involve opposition to them to be genuinely independent.

In France the previous Socialist Party government of François Hollande used the state to attack French workers mobilising against its anti-working class policies.  Sinn Fein has no tradition of independent working class organisation and even during the height of mass participation in the struggle against British rule in the North, when it wasn’t trying to manipulate it and subordinate it to its armed struggle, it repeatedly went behind the back of the mass struggle to negotiate in secret with the British state.

Today, People before Profit repeatedly declares that it supports ‘street politics’, and that while ‘a shift left will strike fear into the hearts of the establishment and the very privileged elite . . . . Our best defence against them is mass mobilisation from below on the real issues and injustices faced by ordinary working people.’  Supporters of the NFP in France point to the mass demonstrations in support of the NFP as showing the compatibility of mass struggle with electoral alliances.

Paul Murphy argues that ‘to overcome their opposition and actually implement the ecosocialist change necessary to resolve the crises faced by people would require a left government basing itself on people-power mobilisation from below.’  In reality, street politics, pressure from below, and ‘mobilisation from below’ in support of a left government are all precisely acceptance of the subordinate position of the working class to a left alliance and a left government.

A current within People before Profit put it well when it said that ‘Electing former traitors to disappoint workers is not a good strategy. Thinking that any amount of protest “from below” can make these snakes anything other than what they are is magical thinking.’   This applies to Ireland as much as France.

Paul Murphy stated that ‘I lost count of the number of times people said to me during the recent election that no matter who they vote for, nothing seems to change. I can’t blame them.’  However, instead of arguing that voting for an alliance that will include Sinn Fein is the answer he needs to explain to workers that the only way to change society is for the working class to do it itself, certainly not to promise that he and his organisation will to do it for them.

The whole article by Murphy makes it clear that radical change, sometimes even called socialist change, is to issue from a left government, to come down from on high with all the benefits of its manifesto to be acclaimed by a grateful working class; forgetting all the lessons of history and all the teachings derived from it by Marxists.  Governments don’t rule, classes and their states rule.  This is why Marxists call for workers ownership and control and a workers’ state, not a bunch of left politicians surrounded by the levers of office to be used through a capitalist state and bound by and to the economic power of the capitalist class.

Promising to achieve the change set out by PbP from a left government is actually worse than the misadventure of the NFP in France.  In France the excuse is that the enemy is at the gate, even if it fails to realise that its other enemy is inside the gate with it.  In Ireland, PbP are promising not only that it will thwart the far right but will transform Irish capitalism as well – and with Sinn Fein!

Sinn Fein has demonstrated with its new policy of opposition to the accommodation of refugees that it will continue moving to the right, which PbP can follow by pursuing its ‘left unity’ or reject by tearing up its electoralist strategy and looking for an alternative. The new SF policy is really a two-fingers to its proposal and flushes any pretence it could be part of any genuine left project down the toilet.

‘Street’ politics, ‘pressure’ and ‘mobilisation from below’ of a top-down project to deliver radical change for the working class is not new. It is not the working class achieving its own emancipation.  It is the working class being employed to support someone else doing it for them; feeding it the illusion that the capitalist state is the vehicle for its delivery.  It makes its activity subordinate to the politics of the left alliance, just as in France today the working class is subject to the machinations within the NFP and the vetoes of discredited politicians such as Holland, once so decisively rejected he didn’t bother standing for President a second time.

The alternative of independent working class organisation and action is not difficult to understand.  It is very difficult to achieve, but then liberation and emancipation by the state is impossible.  Sinn Fein is not going to become a genuinely socialist party and the Irish civil service is not going to deliver an Ireland of equality and working class power.  No amount of PbP TDs will make it happen.  The history of class struggle across the world is littered with self-declared socialists who promised to deliver for the working class but didn’t understand that what they promised could only be delivered by the working class itself.

Back to part 1

Forward to part 3

A New Popular Front for Ireland? (1 of 3)

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It’s not often that in politics you get to carry out an experiment that will tell you what will happen if you propose to take a certain course of action, but that is what we have with the proposal for the Irish Left to copy the creation of the New Popular Front in France.

People before Profit have proposed that a left pact that includes Sinn Fein should stand as an alternative alliance to the current Fianna Fail and Fine Gael government that will seek a new government mandate later in the year.  Its TD Paul Murphy has explained that a new mandate ‘would be a ‘disaster’, further ‘ratchet up’ the ‘scapegoating of asylum seekers’ and ‘embolden the far right even more.’   In this, the left should ‘take inspiration from the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) in France.’

There are so many issues with this it is difficult to know where to start; but let’s start with the most obvious.  In France the NFP was put forward as a way to stop the election of a far-right government of the Rassemblement National (RN).  This has involved an electoral alliance of the NFP with the main French bourgeois parties in which left voters were asked to vote for these parties where they were placed second in the second round of voting. Just like in Ireland, this alliance claims that it has been the policies of these parties that has helped incite and support the far right in the first place.

So, in Ireland, an alliance with the main bourgeois parties in France is held up as the example to follow in order to defeat the same main bourgeois parties in Ireland.  It might be claimed that this is not what is meant by copying the NFP example but that is only true if you ignore the politics involved, and politics is what it’s all about.

At a very basic level the proposal is all about what you are against and not what you are for, a common charge against the left by the right that the left continually confirms.  The far-right offer an alternative, even if it is reactionary and built on lies, while the main bourgeois parties offer the status quo, which includes all the powerful and hegemonic political, economic and ideological forces in Ireland and the world.

When faced with the slender possibility of presenting its own alternative government following the elections the hastily constructed joint platform of the NFP in France has been no help; the main point was purely negative – to allow the creation of a pact that would stymie the far right.  The NFP includes the very parties who led to the collapse and discrediting of previous left governments composed of the Communist Party and Socialist Party.  The former is now a shadow of its former self while the latter has been allowed to climb back up from its utterly discredited rule between 2012 to 2017 under President François Hollande, also back from the dead and part of the NFP.

With stopping the far-right as its prime and overriding purpose, there can be no objection to further capitulation to the main ‘centrist’ parties, which suffered the biggest defeat in the elections and to which the majority of the French public is bitterly opposed.  Now, along comes the united left to form an alliance to prop it up.  While the left in Ireland portrays the French elections as a victory for the left it ignores that this was a victory (of sorts) of an alliance with these discredited bourgeois parties, which have an effective veto over the formation of any new government.

What now remains to be determined is the exact configuration of the caretaker government cobbled together from the fragments of the NFP and bourgeois centrists before the next presidential election in which the far-right will then again claim to be the only real alternative to the rotten establishment.  Such are the fruits of short term surrender of principles, or opportunism as it has long been known as.

The relevance to Ireland is clear enough.   The left alliance proposed by People before Profit only has the remotest credibility because it must contain Sinn Fein, so this party must be called ‘left’ because it can’t be called socialist, which shows how this is a purely relative term, loaded with ambiguity and therefore dangerous in application.

The political experiment I alluded to at the start of the article also relates to the fact that Sinn Fein is already involved in a coalition government in Ireland, and with one of the most backward and reactionary parties in Europe.  What’s more, the DUP and Sinn Fein seem to get along famously, with differences not over fundamental policy but just how the sectarian pie is carved up between them.

The Stormont regime is a now a byword for disfunction and incompetency, but these are just expressions of its sectarianism.  This sectarianism has made it easy for Sinn Fein to join with the DUP in imposing austerity while trumpeting the fact that it is now the leading party in the whole rotten edifice.  Widespread acceptance of this arrangement has been possible mainly by portraying the North as a place apart with different rules that don’t apply in the rest of the country.

People before Profit thinks it can form an alliance with Sinn Fein in the South, telling it that its project of a coalition with Fianna Fail (FF) or Fine Gael (FG) would face a veto on any radical change.  It has sought to persuade SF that its attempts to make this work have failed, including its overtures to convince FF & FG that ‘you were not advocating a radical left programme’, and its ‘reluctance to clearly oppose the government’s scapegoating of asylum seekers.’  Yet this is the party that PbP portrays as ‘left’ and a vehicle for radical change!

It’s not even that PbP is promoting this with its eyes closed – blinkers maybe – but even the most blinkered can’t ignore the hypocrisy of Sinn Fein and its talking out of both sides of its mouth; one of the reasons its vote fell so far from expectations in the recent local and European elections.

Everyone knows that Sinn Fein was expecting to be in government after the next general election, with the prime candidate for partner being Fianna Fail, one of the evil twins that are the target of PbP and which it regards as the over-riding priority to defeat. If this strategy, its record in Stormont, its promise of good behaviour, and its failure to challenge the scapegoating of asylum seekers; if all this is not enough to expose the real character of Sinn Fein then we must ask the question – what compromises are PbP prepared to make for an alliance with it?

If there are none, is this because the joint platform will be so anaemic, the politics of SF and PbP are so similar, or because the priority is to get FF and FG out so it doesn’t matter?  If there are compromises to be made, what are they?

Forward to part 2

Marxism and Gender Identity Ideology (5) – Believe as you’re told

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It’s always been said that if you’re going to tell a lie, tell a big one.  The more outrageous the better. It immediately requires a big denial that itself feels like it is making a big claim.  A big lie also has numerous and wide consequences, so denial equally requires a lot of follow-through.

For many people the social opprobrium of denial is enough to impose silence and there are lots of incentives to keep schtum, including entreaties to ‘be kind’, be ‘on the right side of history’, not to be a bigot – or what seems to work better – not have anyone call you one.  And so many people on ‘your side’ seem to go along with it, and so many not on ‘your side’ seem to be against.  Anyway, it all involves a small number of people so let’s not get exercised about it.

An additional factor is the temptation not to think too hard about it all, lest you end up having the debate in your head that you have been insistently told you can’t have outside it. The ‘no debate’ mantra of some trans activists thus functions at two levels.  It immediately fences off from acceptable discussion disagreement with the view that men can become women – and in doing so claim all their rights – and treats such disagreement as akin to racism or homophobia. The assertion itself is therefore free from questioning.

Since there is now a fashion for the introduction of hate crimes in certain countries, the subjective views of those carrying out alleged criminal acts are also taken into account; meaning that what you think can also be taken as an aggravating factor and in effect become an ancillary crime itself. We are not quite in ‘thought-crime’ territory but we are definitely in the land of ‘impure thoughts’, so you must not only do as you are told but believe it as well.

I have written before that this ‘no debate’ mantra is the cause of the ‘toxicity’ of the (non) debate, so is largely the result of the virulence of tans activism.  Of course, this is a product of the preposterous nature of the claim itself but the consequence of this combination – of the outlandish claim and command to agree – results in the anger of those critical of the claim, and their exasperation at those who just want to ignore it, or turn a Nelsonian eye to the whole thing.

Again and again, however, the ideology hits you in the face, with the claim to be a uniquely vulnerable and marginalised minority clashing with the obvious support accorded to it by the state and other institutions.  Often, when it does, it’s because the consequences of the claim once again conflict with reality.

Let’s take an example I came across in the past week.

My wife was asked to complete a survey originating from Kings College in Britain, the purpose of which was stated as follows:

‘We would like to invite you to participate in this online survey which will explore how anxiety, emotion and wellbeing are experienced in the body after primary breast cancer and in secondary breast cancer. Before you decide whether you want to take part, it is important for you to understand why the research is being done and what your participation will involve’

‘We know that many people struggle with their mental health after primary breast cancer and in secondary breast cancer. Breast cancer and our emotions are also both rooted in the body. However, research has not yet explored how people feel emotions in their body during and after breast cancer, and how this can impact people’s general wellbeing.’

The survey is designed to take about 30 minutes, so not a quick on-line poll: ‘The purpose of the study is to understand how interoceptive sensibility – how someone feels able to sense their internal bodily sensations – impacts people’s experiences of mental health and wellbeing after primary breast cancer and in secondary breast cancer.’

By way of context, Cancer Research UK records that there are around 56,800 new breast cancer cases in the UK every year and that it is the most common cancer in females with around 56,400 new cases every year (2017-2019) but not among the 20 most common cancers in males, with around 390 new cases every year (2017-2019).  This translates into an annual death toll among women of 11,415 and among men of 85 with a mortality rate of 33.9 and 0.3 respectively. This means that women account for over 99 per cent of deaths from breast cancer.

So, if men can also suffer from breast cancer and it is not a women-only disease, perhaps we can accept the use of the word ‘people’ in the survey from Kings College.  What is hard to accept is one of the questions at the start of the survey, which I captured on my phone and the range of potential answers expected and requested:

Question and permitted Answers:

If we were to be (very) charitable, we might say that the survey is about subjective responses to having had or still having breast cancer and that it is a valid objective to distinguish, and then compare, the subjective response of women, men and trans individuals. The permitted answers forswear the outer reaches of trans ideology by lumping together a number of ‘identities’ and excluding the myriad of others of uncertain number.

In doing this however, we would have to ignore the biological basis of cancer and that the overwhelming risk attaching to it is not ‘gender’, whatever that is, but sex.  We would also have to pass over the recognition by the survey’s authors that the study already recognises the primacy of biology by stating that ‘Breast cancer and our emotions are also both rooted in the body’ and that ‘The purpose of the study is to understand how interoceptive sensibility – how someone feels able to sense their internal bodily sensations. . .’

The problem is that the question is designed to find out not only what ‘gender’ someone thinks they are but what sex they are, and if someone were to reasonably state that non-binary/genderqueer/agender/gender fluid are not a sex then the question is at best ambiguous. At worst it is an invitation to accept gender identity ideology; that all the answers are equivalent and gender = sex and there are more than two.  If you don’t accept this equality then you would be entitled not to answer the question on the grounds that you do not have a gender identity.

In this case, from any scientific perspective, the survey is flawed. And in any case, anyone studying the responses who thinks ‘I don’t know’ is a valid answer to the question ‘how do you personally describe your gender’ has a big problem. Is the respondent stupid, confused or does she or he think that the question is stupid or the result of confusion?

Occam’s Razor would lead one to the conclusion that the survey is an example of gender identityideology positing the salience of self-ID to the feelings of women who have or are suffering from cancer. Does this matter?

This is often the question used to puncture opposition to expressions of gender identity ideology.  In this case the scientific soundness of the survey is called into question by mixing incommensurate concepts.  The introduction of the survey, on the stresses of having cancer, to be read by participants before they complete it, is keen to avoid causing further stress, advising ‘that you contact your GP in the first instance.’  One wonders how a question relating to a disease that by over 99 per cent affects women could put this category at the bottom of eight when attempting to identify its public.

Perhaps this will also be excused as a mistake, but that would be to deny the claims of gender identity ideology for which such a question is totally appropriate and absolutely necessary.  Don’t ask why, because that is to presume an explanation that itself presumes reasoning that itself must be open to interrogation, and that would require a debate.

Back to part 4

Forward to part 6

The Northern elections point in only one direction Or do they?

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There are three take-aways from the Westminster election in the North of Ireland.

First, Sinn Fein continued to make progress, defending its existing eight seats, including securing bigger majorities in a number of constituencies, and making gains in others that promise two more in the future.  It sealed its position as the biggest party in the Westminster elections, to rank alongside earlier local and Assembly successes, although small comfort for its failure in the local and European elections in the South a month ago.

Second, the Alliance Party, as the main face of ‘others’ in the North – neither Orange nor Green, Unionist or Nationalist – lost one seat and gained another, so stood still with a small drop in the share of the vote of 1.8% on the 2019 election.  The ‘Alliance surge’ has stopped surging.  At 15% of the vote it does not come anywhere near marginalising the sectarian division and the basic conflict over the existence of the Northern state.

Thirdly, and most dramatically, the  DUP lost three of its eight seats, very neatly lost another in East Derry and saw a dramatic fall in its majority in East Antrim.  It lost from all directions: from the Alliance Party, Ulster Unionist Party and the uber-unionist TUV.  In the case of the last, the defeat of Ian Paisley junior brought a smile to most faces in spite of the identity of the victor, such is the likeability of the loser.  Even some of his colleagues were reported not to be too displeased. The only real bright spot was securing the seat of its new leader in East Belfast.  A fall in the share of the vote of 8.5%, or a proportionate fall of 28%, is a disaster.

So what does it all mean?

Some nationalist commentary repeated familiar lines about ‘the writing on the wall’ and ‘the arrow pointing in one direction’ into the ‘inevitable future’ (Brian Feeney in The Irish News) – all references to the writing pointing to a future united Ireland.  Unfortunately it’s not so simple, even for the biggest party.  It won 27% of the vote, and when you factor in the lowest turnout for a Westminster election in the history of the North of 57.47%, we can readily see that 15.5% of the electorate does not a revolution make.

Over 42.5% found no reason to vote, which undoubtedly reflects a number of things, including apathy in constituencies in which a nationalist candidate hasn’t a chance, but even in the 2022 Assembly election, with a more proportionate system, Sinn Fein got 29% in a 63% turnout, or 18% of eligible voters.  In this election the pro-united Ireland vote was just over 40%.  If this is the writing on the wall, the wall is far away, the arrow points to a very long road, and the inevitability of a united Ireland is not quite the same as that of “death and taxes.”

Sinn Fein continues to advance in the North without any justification deriving from its now long record in office at Stormont.  The latest reincarnation of devolution managed to set a budget for departments without agreeing what they were going to spend it on – what were its priorities?  It spent plenty of time passing motion after motion lauding all sorts of good things with zero commitment to doing anything about them, while utterly failing to account for the public services it has been responsible for.  These, such as the health service, have fallen into a crisis worse than anywhere in the rest of the UK. 

For Alliance, its still second order existence testifies to the inability of the status quo to satisfy Northern nationalists or provide evidence that Unionists really are as confident that the state is as British as Finchley.  Its existence at all, however, is held to define what is necessary to change this status, which is not simple growth of Irish nationalism.  Convincing the ‘others’ of a united Ireland is argued as the key task for nationalism, which must include current Alliance supporters.

In this, Sinn Fein is not succeeding, in fact it doesn’t realise it isn’t even trying.  It continually berates other nationalist parties, especially in the South, for not joining ‘the conversation’ on a united Ireland, and calls out the necessity of planning for it; as if talking about it brings it any closer never mind making it inevitable.  It’s like being lifted by the cops who want to have a conversation with you – where you do all the talking.  Where are Sinn Fein’s plans?

The biggest issue however, that has signalled a step to a united Ireland, has been Brexit, and it is this that has done to the DUP what it did to the Tories in Britain.  While the victory of the TUV was most obviously a result of the failure of the DUP to prevent ‘the Irish Sea border’ that resulted from Brexit, it also lost because it lied about its deal with the British government that would supposedly make it disappear.

The Alliance victory in Lagan Valley was partly due to the constituency MP Jeffrey Donaldson being sent for trail on sex-offence charges, but this copper-fastened a prior loss of personal credibility as author and prime advocate for the deal.  With the Brexit disaster in the background every credible opposition to the DUP looked that bit more attractive and its most vocal supporters, such as Ian Paisley and Sammy Wilson, suffered.

The local political commentator Newton Emerson noted that the DUP losses in very different directions made it difficult for the DUP to know where to pivot.  This dilemma exposes the real demoralisation within unionism that sought to strengthen partition by supporting the UK leaving Europe but found itself inside a part of Ireland less aligned with the  sovereign power.  There is no mileage in continuing to fight it, so they won’t follow the TUV in doing so, but this means that it remains exposed to this more rabid unionism with only the old age of its leader Jim Allister as the pathetic hope of future redemption.  

It can keep quiet about the whole thing and hope it disappears as an issue but there are at least three problems with this.  First, its opponents will remind people, people will remember DUP stupidity themselves, and much as Keir Starmer might try to ignore it and think he can evade its worst effects, it’s not going away and neither are its effects.

A bit like the election in Britain, a thoroughly boring campaign had some more noteworthy results.  The stasis, if not stagnation, in politics within the North continues but events elsewhere are not so stable and have their effect.

UK elections – who needs a majority?

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The Labour majority of over 170 seats with only 34% of the vote is the lowest-ever winning share.  With around one third of the vote it gained two thirds of the seats. The turnout of around 60% was a drop from 67% in 2019 and the second lowest since 1918, meaning around 80 per cent of those eligible to vote didn’t vote for Starmer, whose personal rating is a net minus of 6.  Even in his own constituency his vote fell dramatically, by 15.6%.

His victory is due to the Conservatives having their worst ever result.  Polling indicated that 48% of those intending to vote for Labour were going to do so mainly to get rid of the Tories.  Had the Reform Party not existed, and its reactionary support voted Conservative, it would have beaten Labour by around 38% to 34%.  Yet for receiving 14% of the vote Reform got around 1% of the seats.

From this, two things are obvious: the British electoral system is a fraud with scant claims to democratic legitimacy and Starmer’s Government has the same lack of popular foundation.  The bourgeois media can’t ignore all this completely but can be expected to move quickly on.  One only has to recall that Starmer’s Labour received less votes than the supposedly disastrous Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 and 2017 to appreciate the treatment the media would dish out to the lack of legitimacy Starmer’s result would be accorded had Corbyn still been leader. In 2024 Starmer’s Labour won 9.7m votes with 33.8% of the vote while in 2019, in Labour’s supposedly worst result ever, Corbyn’s party won 10.2m votes with a share of 32.1%.  In 2017 Corbyn’s Labour won over 3 million votes more than Starmer did today – 12.9m as against 9.7m.

It is estimated that a quarter of 2019 conservative voters switched to Reform while the Liberal Democrats achieved their best ever result by surfing the wave of getting the Tories out by targeting their seats in the south and south-west of England.  Labour also benefited by the collapse of the SNP vote in Scotland following 17 years of failed SNP rule and the scandals that have engulfed the leadership of the party.

The short-sighted and primitive call from some on the left who simply called for the Tories to be kicked out has been exposed for the worse than useless advice that it so obviously was.  Everybody was out to get the Tories , and the election revolved around their losing it rather than Labour winning.  As we have seen – the Labour vote went down.

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The Labour slogan was the vapid and vacuous one-word ‘Change’.  The bourgeois commentariat has welcomed it as a change from the incompetence, chaos and instability of fourteen years of Tory rule and a return to the previous, apparently boring politics.

True to their superficial appreciation of events, or at least as they recycle them for the consumption of the population, this ignores the commitment of Starmer to essentially continue with Tory policies.  This includes a commitment to ‘growth’, to retention of the commitment to reducing the debt over five years; minimal increase in taxation; resolution of the problems of the NHS; commitment to increased defence spending, and a promise not to reverse Brexit in his lifetime.  He has also committed to come down hard on immigration and to do so more effectively than the Tories.

How growth can be achieved without investment (increased borrowing and therefore increased debt); without a larger workforce (while reducing immigration), and without expanding either the domestic market (through pay increases Starmer has vowed to oppose) or the export market (while never rejoining the EU), is left unexplained.  It all looks exactly like the situation created by the Tories but without smug incompetence of Cameron, the wooden hopelessness of Theresa May, the performative chaos of Johnson, ideological blinkers of Truss, and the MBA qualification in cluelessness of Sunak.  All Starmer brings personally is his own brand of dislikeability and penchant for lying on the scale of Boris Johnson.

Normally a new right wing government with a mandate would be able to wield their electoral victory as a weapon against workers, through restricting public sector pay, reducing public services and welfare, and increasing taxation.  Given Starmer’s short but filled-to-the-brim history of U-turns, it would not be a surprise to see him attempt to impose austerity on public sector pay, reduce the scope of state services such as the NHS, increase taxation, take yet more reactionary measures to be seen to reduce immigration, and attempt unsuccessfully to get something meaningful from the EU in terms of better market access.  None of this will lead to significant additional growth.

Brexit is an issue that will not go away even if all the parties try to ignore it as they did in the election; just as the proxy war against the biggest nuclear arms power in the world was also ignored.  The previous election that promised that Brexit would get done resulted in it not getting done, thus not addressing all the problems created.  The lack of strong support for Starmer’s government will matter when he is called upon to do so.

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Starmer managed to maintain the support of most of Labour’s voters while pivoting to the right, to win over disenchanted Tories and others simply wanting rid of them without caring particularly over who replaced them. This having been achieved, there is no reason for any of them to offer his Government any continuing support.  Even his claim to introduce integrity into government after years of Tory sleaze looks like previous broken promises given his huge catalogue of gifts and the sponsorship of his party and colleagues by private corporate interests.

His support for Brexit will anger the majority of Labour members and supporters who oppose it and who will see more and more evidence of why they are right to do so.  A harder line on immigration will do nothing to improve growth, will antagonise some supporters and will legitimise those on the right, including the Reform party, which is in second place in almost 100 constituencies, the majority of which are held by Labour.  Reform has already demonstrated that its rabid xenophobia is more convincing and attractive to reactionaries than that of the Tories, and this will apply to Starmer’s reactionary nationalism.  Pursuing the same policies will engender the same problems that brought down the Tories and the same vulnerability to right wing competitors, who will always be able to out-bid its reactionary solutions.

The Liberal Democrats did not increase its share of the vote but had its best result because it targeted Tory seats.  An anti-Brexit policy could protect those gains while targeting Labour supporters opposed to Brexit and Starmer’s continuing demonstration of its failure.  The Green Party also increased its vote and became a more credible alternative, even if its gains in two Conservative seats demonstrates its essentially petty bourgeois character and opposition to any sort of socialism.

Unfortunately, the pro-Palestine candidates elected are not a coherent left alternative while fortunately the false and fraudulent alternative represented by George Galloway was defeated.  The battle for the socialist movement is not through creation of yet another electoral alternative but assisting in the working class resisting the policies of Starmer’s government and defending its interests.  Only by working class resistance and a movement created out of it could an electoral vehicle be constructed as a subsidiary part of the movement.

The Conservative Party has lost many of its most rabid pro-Brexiteers and will always come second in competition with Reform on the basis of opposition to the EU.  Just as with the Labour Party, sooner or later being a bourgeois party will mean having to represent its interests, which means reversing Brexit.  This applies to the Liberal Democrats as well so that a party realignment to achieve this will have to take place.

Only the rabid reactionary nature of the Reform membership can hobble its further development or blow it up. There is no point in the traditional conservative section of the Tory party seeking any sort of accommodation with it, yet there is no point in the reactionary petty bourgeois sections of the Conservative Party and the Reform Party remaining separate.

The results of the election; the economic challenges facing the new government and resistance to it; and the proliferation and confusion of party supports, all point to a political realignment.  A real socialist alternative cannot be declared or created out of the organisations that exist but likewise can only come to the fore as a result of developments in the class struggle, arising as a result of working class opposition to the the new government and its attempt to carry through the failed policies of the Tory government that has just been humiliated.  A cause for some optimism. 

French elections: when Left unity is not such a good idea

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The second round of the French parliamentary elections on Sunday will determine whether the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) of Marine Le Pen will be able to win enough seats to form a majority government or perhaps do so in coalition with others.  Stopping this has become the priority for the French left, which has united in a New Popular Front, recalling that of the original in the 1930s.  It consists of La France Insoumise (LFI) led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the Socialist Party (PS), the French Communist Party (PCF), Greens and the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA).

To secure the defeat of RN, third placed candidates of the NPF have pulled out in favour of Emmanuel Macron’s bloc of supporters.  Left unity against the far-right has thus also meant arms-length unity with the discredited Macron Presidency.  While this alliance has placed opposition to RN as the key issue, his defeat has been the stand-out message of the results.

The growth of the Rassemblement National and vote for the New Popular Front demonstrates that the people have given their verdict on Macron’s increasingly arrogant, unpopular and discredited Presidency.  By withdrawing in his favour the NPF has accepted fundamental agreement with him, or rather, agreement on fundamentals.  The unity achieved means that this encompasses almost all the left, from the utterly discredited Socialist Party to the New Anti-capitalist Party, which proves that its anti-capitalism is purely rhetorical, never mind socialist.

The Left has once again chosen what it considers the lesser evil on the basis that parliamentary elections are the litmus test of politics: that which will ultimately determine your political stance.  When the choice has to be made, this Left has decided that there is no such thing as an independent working class politics separate and opposed to all varieties of capitalist political movements.  The lesser evil is indeed evil, one that the Left has embraced just as the majority of the French people have rejected it.  Marine Le Pen can now argue that only she is implacably opposed to what the majority has also decisively rejected.

Support for the discredited ‘Republicans’ of Macron’s Ensemble is justified by the threat of the far right and the idea that liberal bourgeois politicians are principled and reliable defenders of bourgeois democracy.  This means that the Left has embraced the primacy of defence of this democracy, with its dependence on the power of the capitalist state; the influence of money and capital over political decision making; the exclusion of any sort of economic or social democracy; and the acceptance of the capitalist system, with all its inequality, oppression and violence.

Were the Left seeking to protect the limited democratic rights allowed by this democracy, that permit the working class to more freely organise, it would have understood that the weapons required to defeat the far-right lie not simply or mainly in parliamentary elections, but in the organisation and political mobilisation of the workers’ movement.  Such a political mobilisation of the working class is opposed by its ‘republican’ allies.  If, or when, the choice comes down to a militant working class or the far right these republican defenders of ‘democracy’ will ally with the far right against it.

The Left’s political opportunism, the surrender of political principle for short term advantage, in this case the possible defeat of far-right Rassemblement National, will not make up for its subordination to the republican friends of capitalist democracy and the exposure of the feebleness of its opposition to the discredited and unpopular Macron Presidency.  The policy of short term gain fails to recall the observation that the long term for the opportunist is just a long series of short terms.  Lesser evil follows lesser evil . . .

The New Popular Front naturally forms its alliance on the basis of supporting the French imperialist contribution to the war in Ukraine, the provision of weapons to Ukraine and of French troops within the war zone – calling them “peacekeepers” changes nothing.  Its programme fails to denounce the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and of course fails to call on French workers to stop the delivery of arms to the Israeli state.  As we have said, the political mobilisation of the working class movement is not part of its policy.  If it were Macron and Ensemble would be repudiating its assistance. The NPA project of an alliance with bourgeois democracy requires a bourgeois programme.

There is nothing very much new in this New Popular Front, the Left in France has been supporting the lesser evil for a long time, each time delivering another iteration; a lesser evil groundhog day, or déjà vu all over again, as it may be put.  Starting with the 2002 Presidential election run-off between right-wing candidate Jacques Chirac and the neo-fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen, the Left responded by endorsing Chirac as a defender of democracy against Le Pen. It was such a success we are here again with the Left defending the establishment while the far right adopts the mantle of opposition.

That this policy is a clear failure should by now be obvious, but that would be to mistake the purpose of the policy, which is not to promote independent working class politics but to maintain bourgeois democracy and to be the Republic’s loyal opposition.  Such a policy puts this left in opposition to the working class and makes it prey to the contradictions of capitalism, which currently involve imperialist war in Ukraine, genocide in Gaza, the militarisation of France and the bill for it to be paid by its workers.

The New Popular Front is unwilling to challenge capitalism, supports imperialist war, restricts itself to vacuous moralising when faced with genocide and will shatter itself when the bill is forced upon French workers.  The logic of its position is to join the discredited bourgeois forces inside a government, which would bolster the credentials of Rassemblement National and demoralise its own supporters, as some of its constituent parts have already done.  It will no doubt go down singing its lack of regret as it repeats the failed policy of the 1930s original.

Marxism and Gender Identity Ideology (4) – looking at a progressive movement?

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We noted at the end of the previous post that there is a reason why it might be thought that the demands arising from gender identity ideology are regressive and reactionary, and for this reason should not be ignored.

In his book ‘Trouble with Gender’ the philosopher Alex Byrne remarks that it is ‘tempting to search for some hidden meaning’ in the actions of one prominent supporter of the ideology – ‘a sign that the current trouble with gender ultimately makes sense, rather than being an inexplicable cultural spasm that will eventually recede into historical mist, leaving some wondering whether it happened at all.’ 

If, for some leftists, the whole thing is therefore a diversion; is it a diversion into reactionary territory that should be ignored, even while recognising that it has many left supporters that should be challenged?

Marxists are constantly having to combat diversions from working class politics.  We are constantly facing challenges to our understanding of the world and the political responses that are required.  We only need to think of those who find reasons to support either the Western imperialist/Ukrainian alliance on the one hand, or the Russian capitalist state on the other, in the current war (that socialists should oppose outright) to see that these divisions are unfortunately common.

On the face of it gender identity ideology is reactionary, except that it pretends to be progressive, and this pretence is often effective.  I am reminded of the old TV show ‘Catchphrase’ in which contestants have to identify the familiar phrase represented by a piece of animation that appears block by block on a screen.  Today we quite regularly see feminist meetings being harassed by men dressed as women, often by young people masked up and acting in a threatening manner.

In times gone past this would have been seen as unacceptable and aggressive misogyny.  Today, many leftists support these men as the oppressed and damn the women as bigots.  The ‘Catchphrase’ presenter used to tell contestants to “say what you see”.  The upside-down inverted world of gender identity ideology prevents many from seeing what is plainly going on in front of their eyes.

The assertion that gender identity is what defines us and not sex is ‘explained’ by a leading inspiration of the movement, Judith Butler: “If gender consists of the social meanings that sex assumes, then sex does not accrue social meanings… but rather, is replaced by the social meanings it takes on; sex is relinquished… and gender emerges… as the term which absorbs and displaces ‘sex’” (Bodies That Matter, p. 5).

The substitution of gender identity for sex as the means of understanding the world, through claiming that this is how the world is actually structured, has profound consequences, not least the necessary imposition of an utterly changed comprehension of society and how it should order its everyday life.  Since the vast majority of people recognise sex as fundamental to the existence of humanity, its functioning in society, and how we relate to each other, it is necessary to impose this alternative ‘reality’.

The attempt to do so necessarily produces all the exaggerated features of gender ideology activism, including incoherence and self-righteous aggression.  In the ‘Weekly Worker’ article quoted before, even its sympathetic author notes that what he calls the ‘abolition of the oppression of trans people’ through imposition of rules against ‘transphobic speech would have unwelcome results that mean it could not be supported: ‘the workers’ movement should want to abolish it – but not at the price of losing freedom of speech and communication.’  Yet attacks on freedom of speech is a stand-out feature of this trans activism. Although not all agree, there are far too many examples of trans activism targeting women who meet or speak publicly in defence of sex-based rights to demonstrate that the ‘toxicity’ of the ‘debate’ around it is overwhelmingly the result of the approach of one side.

The censorial, hyperbolic and aggressive character of much trans activism is neither incidental nor accidental but a necessary feature of the movement. The necessity to make people perceive the world in a way that it is not makes the mantra of the movement “no debate” inevitable.  The claim to rights that cannot belong to them, that transwomen should have all the rights and prerogatives of women for example, cannot be substantiated so are camouflaged by appeals to ‘be kind’, attempts to associate themselves with the cause of gays and lesbians, and constant declarations of their special vulnerability and oppression. 

None of this is enough, so ‘no debate’ exists to forcibly try to shut down those asserting women’s sex-based rights. The attempted suppression comes in many forms, from censorship in academic journals and books; intimidation of academics in work, discrimination involving loss of employment in work, and foul and vicious threats on social media.  All justified by shouting that those critical of gender identity ideology are ‘Nazis’.

One example of the hyperbole gives a flavour of the approach. When the British Cycling organisation announced that the female category in competition would only be open to “those whose sex was assigned female at birth and transgender men who are yet to begin hormone therapy”, a transwoman cyclist published a statement stating that “This is a violent act, British Cycling are supporting this, they are furthering a genocide against us. Bans from sport is how it starts . . .” It should not need pointing out that if you want to see a real genocide you should look elsewhere – at the fate of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

It is often declared that to call into question the claims of this ideology is to deny trans people’s right to exist and constitutes violence against them; not metaphorical violence but actual violence.  To disagree is to endanger them and is proof that the critic is transphobic and bigoted.  A climate of censorship and fear of social exclusion has enveloped much of the left on the issue, a movement which needs the stifling of free speech like a hole in the head.  On this ground alone the growth of gender identity ideology is reactionary.

This shutting down of debate and presentation of the ideology as one of liberation against oppression prevents appreciation of its obvious reactionary consequences.  The erasure of sex removes the possibility of same sex attraction; ironic since the T for transgender has attached itself to LGB and come to dominate it.  Lesbians and their activities can now be attacked and sanctioned as transphobic for not considering transwomen, i.e. heterosexual men, as sexual partners.  Same sex attraction becomes impossible because it is ‘exclusionary’. Sex has been displaced by gender so that a heterosexual man declaring himself to be a woman can claim to be a lesbian and in doing so ‘change’ his sexual orientation.

Women, shorn of any essential biological reality are unable to identify, comprehend, explain, and fight the grounds of their oppression.  The ideology declares that while ‘transwomen are women’, women (females) have become ‘cis-women’, who become ‘privileged’ in comparison because their gender identity aligns with their sexed body.  This is the case even though it is also claimed that the sexed body is either a social construct, can be altered, or is irrelevant:

‘The quest for ‘gender recognition’ is not therefore an effort for an individual to change sex, but for an individual to be recognised in their true sex or gender (hence the change in nomenclature from ‘sex-change’ surgery to ‘gender-affirmation’ surgery). As Rothblatt argued in 1994, “we are not changing our sex. We are changing our gender…Our sex is the same as it was when we first entered the doctor’s office—the sex of our minds and our soul” (Rothblatt, Martine. 1994b. ‘Unisexuality: The Wave of the Future,’ Third International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy Proceedings, Appendix E, pp. E1-E6. Quoted in Jones, Jane Clare. The Annals of the TERF-Wars and Other Writing (p. 40). Kindle Edition)

to be continued

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