I was discussing this very thing with a comrade only the other day. Alas, the Left are all too quick to jump and support the next big social media endeavour.
These often begin with the very best of intentions, but soon descend into yet another platform for social(ist) media personalities to massage each other’s egos within what’s effectively an echo chamber.
Momentum, Don’t Leave Organise, Socialist Telly and such like, have already or are close the verge of falling into this trap. Project for Peace and Justice will end up doing the same.
Why? The Left, particularly those within the Labour Party, only feel empowered when they have a ‘Leader’ they can look up to. Jeremy Corbyn is the most recent example.
This reliance on a figurehead comes as an unwelcome distraction, scuppering the chances of basic agitation in the workplace and communities which are in dire need of support for their own class struggle.
I dare say my own experience of this is not too dissimilar to elsewhere in the country. The Left is preoccupied at Branch, CLP and Regional levels in putting a considerable amount of time, effort and resources into securing a majority on their respective executives.
In some cases, these efforts are met with resistance from the right-wing, organised by paid staff at ‘county party’ level or where a sitting right-wing MP utilises salaried staff and/or associated resources to mobilise against the Left.
There are only so many hours in the day and only so many comrades willing to put in a shift when it comes to galvanising support for a left-wing candidate for an executive role.
In the time I’ve had to reflect and decompress since resigning all Exec positions and LP membership, it has revealed to me what Lenin and James Connelly said of the Labour Party is as true today as it was when written over a 100 years ago.
The fragility of the Left is in its laziness and lack of steel when it comes to operating in the local (and for that matter, national) political arena. For the multi-layered puff pastry of an organisation from which they operate, such as the Labour Party, only serves those who are on the make.
