Showing posts with label Democratic Socialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democratic Socialism. Show all posts

Saturday 7 May 2016

Text of Resignation Letter to Labour Party Dated Today


Dear X –

It is with regret that I resign from the Labour Party. Could you remove me from all membership and e-circulation lists? I do not think this will come as a surprise but it strikes me as good mannered to give some reasons. It would appear that I made a mistake in re-joining the Party and it is for me to take responsibility for my misjudgement. The reasons may, however, be instructive because I am not alone in my concerns. 


1    Lack of Respect for Dissent Within the Tradition

The insulting response by the Labour In Europe representative to my dissenting position on the European Referendum and the failure of the Chair to offer any reasonable opportunity for a reply would not in itself be sufficient cause to leave.

What provided sufficient cause alongside other issues of concern was the discovery that a Party Conference decision was not merely the basis for the decision of the Party Leadership to unite around the pro-Remain policy (which is reasonable) but that it was clear that those who disagreed with the policy would, more generally, not be treated with respect but rather treated as the enemy within.

I was not alone across the Party in finding pressure, often bullying (though I would never accuse anyone in XXXXXXXXX CLP of this), being placed on Members not to promote a dissident view but to follow a ‘line’, an attitude that I thought was one that went out with the old Communist Party. This lack of respect for reasonable dissent within the democratic socialist tradition was, frankly, shocking.

2     Lack of Respect for Evidence-Based Debate

The recent furore over Livingstone’s radio comments was equally disturbing. In fact, Livingstone had expressed an opinion based on a reasonable interpretation of certain facts. He had not expressed any anti-Semitic opinion whatsoever and that was clear at the time. Another MP then barracked him aggressively in public and in an un-comradely way.

Again, if this had resulted in an open debate about what Livingstone said, it would be classed as political education. It may be that the balance of opinion might reasonably have contested his position. Instead, Livingstone was virtually witch-hunted in public and the MP who verbally attacked him not only escaped any censure for his appalling behaviour but was protected by the Whips.

The matter was then ‘framed’ in the media  as one of general antisemitism (which was un-evidenced) in terms that bode ill for future freedom of debate and speech. Once again, the Party appeared to be moving towards the adoption of ‘lines’ and the rejection of open debate and away from a strategy of public political education which is the only way to engage honourably with the British people.

One aspect of this farrago was that the thuggish behaviour of the Labour Right and the intemperate arguments of the Labour Left were both derivative of the fact that each had its own constituency based on identity, Jewish or Left-Muslim in this case, which leads me to the third reason …

3     The Infiltration of the Party by Identity Politics

One thing that has radically changed since my earlier period with the Party is the further intensification of American-style identity politics as an acceptable ideology for a democratic socialist party. I find myself very uncomfortable with identity politics because it collectivises not the people as a whole but sections of the population around their attributes and beliefs. It is an indirect concession to fascism.

This is not to argue against action against discrimination and inequality when it disproportionately affects people with certain attributes (gay, black, female or whatever) but only to argue that action on discrimination and for equality is based on people being persons first and having attributes second. Identity politics creates communitarian blocs in which activists purport to speak for others.

Locally, I was disturbed at the dominant role played by radical feminism and was particularly disturbed to find local activists both giving a platform to a rival party (the Women’s Equality Party) and organising and publicising an event which would be ‘women only’, discriminating against men and using the Party brand for a sub-ideology of exclusiveness.

There is no issue here with supporting the Women’s Equality Party or with having women-only or men-only events in a free society. There is every issue with a democratic socialist party conniving in this or any other form of sectarian behaviour. It would be equally disturbing if we were offered Muslim only meetings or LGBT only meetings under the Labour ‘brand’. I want nothing of this.


What do all these have in common? They represent a closed-in exclusive activist ideology that is deeply alienating to dissent within the democratic socialist tradition – a person can be disrespected because they are a) critical of the European Project, b) educated, meaning here willing to test opinions against facts and undertake a civilised debate, and c) male (and, no doubt, the wrong skin colour in some contexts).

Enough is enough. The Party was founded on general working-class representation and on Enlightenment principles based on educational improvement and equality. The post-Marxist infiltration of the Party has created something else entirely – a liberal-left middle class party that expects group-think as a matter of course and reinstates communitarian ideology in place of political pragmatism and liberation ideology.

This has little to do with Left and Right – I am a Corbyn supporter and the Labour Right have led on the promotion of identity politics – but everything to do with civilisation and progress. The Labour Right are far more culpable in general than the incoming Left but I am reluctant to waste the rest of my life trying to contribute to a Party in a state of near-civil war, one in which my core values are clearly not respected.

Having said all that, I want to emphasise that there is no rancour or issue with the local Party (other than the failure to challenge visiting officials and identity activists). I know that the members are hard-working, decent, intelligent and good people who have made great strides in a very conservative local environment.  I wish them individually well but it would be wrong to stay silent.

Unfortunately, I cannot wish a Party well that I fear would bring its new habits of discrimination, authoritarianism and evasion and avoidance of challenging debate into high office. Armed with the machinery of the State, there is a serious risk that this culture of disrespect for dissent, of rejection of open debate in favour of media brawling and of discriminatory identity politics could become oppressive.

It is simply not enough to say that we should put up with these flaws in order to ensure a Labour Government, especially one that can reverse neo-liberal austerity measures. History teaches us that a Government that does not have core values based on reason and respect is a very dangerous Government and an anti-austerity culturally authoritarian Government could be very dangerous indeed.

If the Labour Party wants to win my vote (since that is now what it has come down to), it will have to demonstrate to me and to others that it represents the interests of the whole working population and not that of special interests, that it adopts pragmatic evidence-based policies and that it can accommodate reasoned debate and criticism on major existential issues.  At the moment, the Party is not for me.

The resignation is effective immediately.

Kind Regards

Tim Pendry

Friday 29 April 2016

Enough is Enough - When You Are In An 'Ole, Stop Digging ...

I have been weighing up whether the Labour Party is worth the candle after around nine months of re-engagement, having, once again, observed it from the inside. I decided to try and be as objective as possible - does it match what I believe and is it good for the people of this country? These are the only two considerations for me. There is another consideration: is it good for my petty personal interest but, frankly, I would probably never have been a Labour Party supporter if that was so. Politics is about interest but it is also about values and I place values before interest while others (which is their right) do the opposite. Let us weigh up the evidence.

FOR THE LABOUR PARTY

1. There is no other party that at least purports to protect the interests of the most vulnerable in our society although a) the least worst is perhaps not the best, b) the record of Labour in office under Blair was chequered to say the least with its distracted interest in international issues, and c) there are 'conservative' forces that are equally evidentially concerned with the causes of poverty and with solutions (represented within the Labour Party by the increasingly isolated Frank Field).

2. A significant element in the leadership including the Leader represent the forces of peace and redistribution although a) the rest of the leading networks in the Party seem determined to oust it by fair means or foul and b) this values-driven element (of which I approve) seem to be consistently politically inept and naive.

3, It still represents the bulk of the Labour Movement although a) the trades unions seem no longer to be concerned about society as a whole but only with their special interests and b) the trades union movement is now largely associated (with exceptions such as the sterling work done in the transport, construction, retail, banking and manufacturing sectors) with a defensive strategy to maintain a large and often inefficient state sector as producers rather than having much concern with the services to be supplied.

AGAINST THE LABOUR PARTY

1. It is not organisationally fit for purpose. It has hollowed out in the North. It has lost Scotland and is under pressure in Wales. In the South, it has become dominated by naive cultural activists of the liberal-left in a state of alternating outrage and despair. In some urban areas, its structures are controlled by ethnic feudal elites. Its elected representatives are narcissists and out of control. Its leadership is weak, though not always a weakness of its own making. The party apparat (the professionals) have far too much influence and control within a supposedly democratic party. It is collapsing from within.

2. It has become dominated by cultural and identity politics for short term urban electoral reasons at the expense of class and national interest politics. Its European policy - thrust upon it by the apparat - alienates much of its working class base and is deeply flawed in its analysis of the nature of the European Project, aligning it further with the international liberal economic system. It has allowed itself to become distracted by urban culture wars between ethnic groups. It has also aligned itself with the movement to control thought and language and avoid free debate ('liberal totalitarianism') and it connives in the rewriting of history for political purposes. It has refused to face the very real problems created by global flows of migrants and tried to suppress all debate on the matter. Parts of its apparat have been taken over by sectional identity elements, most notably radical feminism (which is not to be confused with the commitment to social and economic equality between persons of all genders).

3. It has totally neglected any form of political education nor has it encouraged critical thinking and open debate (although the Leader has made moves in this direction on Trident and other matters though signally not on Europe). It has confused political organisation and building a party with issues campaigning as if it was little more than a giant NGO. It has acted as claque for the campaigning of NGOs that collude with other political interests. If its policies are coherent (which is to be doubted), they are poorly communicated.

In short, on the debit side, the democratic socialist and labour party of the early twentieth century has turned into a chaotic and naive liberal-left party that floats on the tide of history instead of creating it. It became little more than a mass of aging tribal loyalists supporting a small number of paid opportunists and cynics (amidst which men and women of integrity are undoubtedly to be found), all of limited horizon and education, but also without or with decreasing experience of mass social and political organisation.

The 'Corbyn revolution' merely brought all this out into the open - within a party that has been rotting for decades - by introducing a new and unstable force of passionate and inexperienced people who contain within their cohort ideologues as their most active element, an element even further disconnected from those in the working class whose livelihoods do not depend on the public sector.

From being a national working class party, the Labour Party has become an inchoate coalition of sectional special interest groups including urban ethnic groups and ideologues with increasingly little to say to a people who are suffering not only from austerity in the short term but neo-liberalism in the long term. The commitment to a subsumption under a European ameliorative neo-liberal project should be the last straw for many natural supporters of a genuine class and community-based democratic socialism.

The positives for the Party would be enhanced if a) it ceased its trajectory towards a civil war organised from the Right and unified itself around a national redistributive and democratic programme that eschewed culture wars and identity politics and offered a viable anti-austerity strategy or b) it was simply destroyed and replaced by a national democratic socialist party that could undertake this programme more effectively.

To recover ground would require a) the re-imposition of party discipline at every level around a programme that mediated between the party members and the general public where the party apparat and elected representatives were subject to the authority of a Leader elected by the members, b) the intellectal content of the party's programme to be radically upgraded to rely on only evidence-based solutions to value-driven problems instead of rhetorical and cultural position-taking c) the trades union movement either returned to a socialist position or partially sidelined as a special interest group and d) the liberal internationalist programme to become secondary to a pragmatic national democratic and redistributive programme.

None of these changes seem likely. To maintain and vote for the Party in its current condition is irresponsible. Placing values to one side, the national interest would not be served by having a Government of half-baked thinkers with ill-thought out policies and a propensity to legislate in the direction of thought and language control, let alone behaviour control. Worse, this Party would have half its eye on the absurd dream of transforming the European Union into a socialist paradise and be subject to the whims and fancies of whichever faction demanded some life-denying ideological policy to maintain a Parliamentary majority.

So, as Lenin, put it - 'What Is To Be Done?'. First, when one is in an hole, the first rule is to stop digging. This mess is not something that ordinary members can possibly have any control over. There is no sign that the Party Leadership has a grip on things and can make the necessary changes. Across the Party and the Labour Movement, the ruling elite are like ferrets in a sack or large rats fighting over a small cake. There is nothing to be done within the Party. It is degenerate in the most fundamental sense.

All the ordinary person can do who has the values that should have been expressed by a strong Labour Party is to stand back and not only let it implode but hope it implodes quickly so that something can take its place or that, perhaps, one or other of the 'civil war' wings of the party can be transformed into something that can represent the aspirations of the mass of the population while not being led by some maniacal cuckoo in the nest like the unlamented Tony Blair, the Conan of the Middle East.

The argument that anything is better than the Tories does not stand up any more. Idealism is not enough. Politics is about power and that means the competent control of a powerful and dangerous State, including the deep state aspects of it. It does not mean getting office in order to be taken over by the State as happened under the last Labour Government. Whoever is incompetent at controlling the State leaves the Deep State to control us. A competent democratic force that challenges the State is always preferable to an incompetent one that is the creature of the State. The Tories need to be challenged by something far more competent than they are, tougher, disciplined, even brutal in its support for core values of redistribution, democracy, community and individual freedom, including the freedom to dissent.

The Labour Party has become a waste of the space given to a radical, progressive, democratic force in this country. It will cease to have my membership. It will cease to have my support until it deals with the key issues of organisation and discipline, cultural and identity politics and values-deriven political education. None of these changes are likely and so I await something new that can do practical things for our poorest and most vulnerable, ensure maximum freedom and opportunity for the majority, maintain our national identity along progressive lines and control and limit the State and other institutional forces. I look forward to seeing pigs arrive at Terminal 1 Heathrow ...

My text of my resignation letter to the Party will follow in due course. This farrago was not what I signed up for.

Sunday 10 April 2016

An Update on the Brexit Debate - The Creation of Democratic Left Network

It is time for a report back on our limited involvement in the struggle for British national self-determination and democracy which will reach its climax yet not conclude with the vote on Brexit on June 23rd, 2016. The last campaign report was the text of the Speech given at the TEAM EU Counter-Summit given in November of last year - this is now available as a YouTube video courtesy of PaxVista TV (see below).



One of the major themes of that talk was the need for Right and Left to collaborate on an issue of massive importance to the general population of the country. A secondary result of our discussions in November was the realisation of thedegree to which the Labour Party had been appropriated by a 'soft left' Euro-socialist machine dependent on Brussels and, on this issue, by the Old Labour Right.

My own experience and that of others of being dismissed, of falsehoods about our position and even something close to bullying of dissent within the Party has led some of us to (in effect) suspend our engagement with the Party until June 24th and concentrate on the issue of Brexit. This issue is existential as far as this country and its democracy are concerned and it trumps mere party advantage.

Previous posts on this blog have supplied some of the reasoning behind a commitment to Brexit from a Left perspective but it was quickly recognised by myself and others that something more was required than individual protest. The issues raised by the rise of a pseudo-democratic European Left were far bigger than Brexit alone.

Earlier last month, a number of activists, all Labour Party members, combined to create the Democratic Left Network [DLN] which now has its own web site, blog, twitter account and Facebook Page after herculean efforts by dedicated members of the younger generation with real world jobs to hold down. This in turn has been nurtured and supported by the non-partisan Democracy Movement although DLN is wholly independent.

Although I have stuck to my guns in being distanced from direct activism in Leave.EU, I made a point of attending the last Advisory Board Meeting to explain what the Democratic Left Network was, how it would work and how it would collaborate with older Labour Movement organisations such as the Campaign Against Euro-Federalism [CAEF] and the Trades Unions Against The European Union [TUAEU]. We found an atmosphere of collaboration and support on all sides.

Our ideas have been tested in public meeting since and have not been found wanting. Liberal-left and democratic socialist opinion is confused, feels led by the nose and is beginning to ask some serious questions about where we are heading if we Stay in the European Union. In fact, DLN, whose Editorial Board will be confirmed on April 14th, does not exist solely to fight for Brexit from the Left. It exists to fight for improved political education and for democratic socialism on the Left.

The DLN intends to continue to exist and to grow stronger after June 23rd regardless of the result. Its position on the European Union has emerged logically out of a democratic socialist position that stands against the capture of the Labour Party and Labour Movement by a failed liberal-left on the one hand and by pseudo-democratic rightists on the other. Democracy and socialism are seen here as equal parts of the same whole in defiance of both Liberal Democrats and latter-day Bolsheviks alike.

Our concern is two-fold in the current debate. The first to raise the status of political education and free and open debate and to stand up and show those overwhelmed by propaganda but who have doubts about the technocratic neo-liberal and barely competent European Project that they are not alone and that they should feel free to speak out and raise issues of concern. The second is to expose the absurdity inherent in the posture of Varoufakis and his muddled associates that Britons should vote to stay in the European Union on the dubious grounds that it can be democratised and socialised - as DLN has pointed out in robust terms.

Varoufakis himself describes the crisis of the proto-State in devastating terms. It is puzzling that he continues to believe that his band of idealists could persuade the middle classes of Northern Europe to vote for their own demise when the most logical outcome for Europe, if it survives the crisis, is to become an integrated empire where its citizens are reduced to fodder for the neo-liberal project.

Our view is that the vote on June 23rd is an opportunity to transform not only Britain but also Europe by showing Europeans that they can escape from the machinery of liberal federalism and neo-liberal economics through national self-determination and internationalism in preference to supranationalism. In understanding this, they can then escape from a deep pessimism about the possibility of social change within the United Kingdom, one that seems to have affected depressive left-wing intellectuals and made them give up on the project of empowering the people to take command of their own destiny.

Tuesday 8 March 2016

The Naive and the Cruel - The Ideological Struggle for the Heart of Europe

Part of the pro-European Union pitch relies on the promotion, mostly from Marxist intellectuals and fellow-travellers in the Academy, of a naïve anti-Atlanticist economic model which is designed to appeal to the younger generation. Needless to say, both the Atlanticist neo-liberal and this neo-socialist European model are deeply flawed but the latter is naïve where the former is cruel. Because the former is cruel, the latter becomes attractive and so it must be ripped apart by serious democratic socialists before it gets traction.

The two key issues neither side are addressing are a) the massive impending flow of refugees this year and possibly in subsequent years and b) the economic instability of the Eurozone in the context of a global slowdown not only in Europe but also in China and the US.

These people are not getting it – a perfect storm of an economic system on the edge and massive population shifts for which there has been no preparation does not lead to democratic socialism but to authoritarianism and national populism. And eventually to violence which can only be handled by the surveillance society (and not that either).

The only real solution is the restoration of flexible and responsive national democracies in a framework of internationalism (not supra-nationalism) in which democratic socialists (not neo-socialist liberals) restrain the forces of reaction and maintain ‘civilisation’ before returning to effective long term power and the rebuilding of the welfare commonwealth - and then perhaps returning to the construction of a new collaborative Europe from the ground up.

The economic projects of the European neo-socialists are doomed on massive welfare costs and the revolt of the Middle European middle classes from the taxation and inflation required. A system built on the assumption of constant high economic growth relying on cheap labour and minimal infrastructural investment has been called out by history. Eight years after the 2008 Crash, the reliance on the 'inevitable' up-turn looks more futile than ever. There will eventually be a massive structural up-turn on technological innovation (biotechnology, nanotechnology, AI/robotics) but it will be fiercesomely disruptive and our elites are simple not competent enough to handle it.

Even if they get into power, like the French Popular Front in 1936, our backwards-looking soft Left will be out of it within a year or two. The logic that destroyed Tsipras still exists within the European Project and Varoufakis can appear on TED as many times as he likes with his 'alternative strategy' but it is little more than the same old intellectual failure re-packaged for dim-witted liberals.

Worse, this is not the way to help the refugees or the working population most threatened by break down. Both deserve better - they deserve realists and not idealists, a political class prepared to get stuck in and bring peace to troubled regions, fund reconstruction for destroyed territories, turning camps into viable townships where return is not possible. We must match migration aspirations to labour shortages and not rely on spurious human rights claims and the demand for ever cheaper labour to feed the maw of late capitalism. Liberal internationalist idealism (as opposed to democratic socialist internationalism), the deontological impulse of the cultural studies departments, is at the very root of the murder and mayhem we see across the peripheries of the West.

The liberal idealists who now sit, like Cnut before the waves, at the leading edge of European 'socialism' are worse than simply naive, they are potentially destructive in that naivete, part of a failed elite instead of the vanguard of a new democratic socialist political elite (there I have said it) that will transform the condition of the people under conditions of democracy, technological innovation and socio-economic redistribution within an internationalism of free democratic welfare states.

Sunday 27 September 2015

Shifting Position - On Rejoining the Labour Party

Two weeks ago, I decided to rejoin the Labour Party, I had left the Party in 2004 in growing disgust at the 'imperial' expansion by force of allegedly liberal values and the lack of progress in building a case with the public for a moderate and sensible democratic socialism in one country able to collaborate constructively with socialists, democratic socialists and liberals elsewhere in the world.

As recently as May of this year, I produced a fairly blunt analysis of why Labour had failed to win the 2015 General Election. This turned out to be one of my most widely circulated posts. Only last month I gave a similarly pessimistic view of politics under the two 'bourgeois' factions of one centrist liberal and increasingly culturally totalitarian 'National Party'. This latter piece had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the importance (to me) of transparency - I wanted readers to know where my biases and prejudices came from so that they could winnow them out when taking what they could from my work. Unusually, I am not trying to persuade anyone of anything. All I am trying to do is to get my readers to think for themselves and challenge their own assumptions as they challenge mine.

Last month, I hinted that I could rejoin the Labour Party but I was pessimistic: " ... the Labour Party is so appallingly decadent that the Tories now look relatively competent. How did that happen? ... The British Labour Party is little more than the defensive manouevre of conservative special interest groups terrified by the onward march of history. I may join it again if Corbyn wins even though his politics are not mine (though I know and respect the person)"  

Because of that pessimism, I declined to do what I considered to be dishonourable and send in my £3 to join a bandwagon, vote for Jezza and then claim to be one of the faithful. What I underestimated was not only the level of discontent within the Party (whose activists I had prematurely dismissed as variants of Orwell's cart horse in 1984) but the impressive personal performance of Corbyn and the radical shift of opinion within huge stretches of the trades union movement persuaded me that I was wrong to stand aside. The trades unions seemed to have finally got that being the servant of urban liberals was demeaning, that the union gift of power to the Blairites in the 1990s had achieved little and that trying to regain power through a quasi-Leftist intellectual Blairite like Miliband was not going to work.

I took time to decide whether to rejoin the Party but when the decision came, it seemed right even though much of the pessimism remains. It was helped by the estimable old Labour Right winger Tom Watson being elected as ballast (as Deputy Leader) and John Prescott's statesmanlike call for Party Members to respect the decision of the Members and rally round the new Leader. 

Meanwhile, the brutal negativity of the media, of the Blairite Right and of all but the most humanely civilised of Tories such as David Davis showed us that Corbyn would have an uphill struggle. His fundamentally decent principles may stand little chance against the crude sociopathy of the radical centre with its little trotters dug firmly in the pork barrel of late capitalism and its brute determination that its sty not be cleaned out. But I was wrong about Corbyn's victory as Leader (I thought up to the wire that Burnham would get it on second votes) and I could yet be wrong about him being Prime Minister. But perhaps it is time to drop my 'cold realism' and show a little faith in the democratic socialist dream.

I said in my August posting that Corbyn's politics were not mine - I am probably an edge more nationalist, more libertarian, more aware of market reality and more wary of some of the ideological Marxists in his advisory circle - so the question arises - why? Why rejoin now as a moderate democratic socialist when a lot of middle class intellectual non-Marxist democratic socialists are running for cover. There are five core reasons other than blind sentiment to my old tribe and a mad desire to make an absurd existentialist commitment to something decent:-
  1. The man matters. I knew him as my Constituency MP in Islington North in the 1990s and I was struck then by his fundamental integrity, decency and intelligence. I saw him at close quarters act on a sensitive human rights issue and discovered how much senior Conservatives respected him as the 'go to' man in this area. Everything he did during the weeks of election campaigning confirmed that integrity and also his courage, courage in standing up to stupid and biaised journalists and for what he believed.
  2. I don't like fools and bullies and much of the attack on him (not admittedly by the competing candidates who conducted themselves well throughout) was either intellectually stupid or sheer thuggery. The attacks made me look more deeply into what he was actually saying and not what he was reported as saying. I was impressed
  3. The attack dog mentality on his economics was worse than overdone, it was criminally ignorant. There is, in fact, more in common between serious financial market practitioners and Shadow Chancellor McDonnell than there is between either of these and the fools who have run our country into the ground. The pragmatism of Corbyn was ignored - there was no absurd rhetoric from him in the end but only a systematic commitment to the betterment of the mass of the British people which became even more clear in the notes of Ann Black, elected NEC constituency representative of the first NEC meeting held under his auspices as Leader,
  4. I persist in seeing the Party as it is currently structured as decadent. This is a direct function of the democratic centralism of Tony Blair and his refusal to have an intelligent debate about party engagement at the 1996 Party Conference. An internal revolution ensuring that a democratic socialist was in control of the democrat centralism created by Blair would show up its internal contradictions and force some form of democratic reform and mobilisation on the Party. The rival candidates to Corbyn were remarkably lack-lustre and the brutes of 1997-2010 had clearly failed to create their own succession for the sake of country and party - liberal egoism at its worst.
  5. Although he had to undertake something of a u-turn because of the demands of the party elite that he had inherited and of the system of forums and fixing at the top, Corbyn was prepared to open the door to important debate on key isues where the Party had previously closed off debate - the European Union, Trident, the Monarchical Constitution and the State, and socialist economics. I would disagree with important aspects of Corbyn's position, including his u-turns on some of them, but what he was doing was opening up ground for serious discussion and political education in a way unseen in three decades. This was not an excuse for disunity and internal party warfare but an opportunity for serious debate and discussion on the facts.
So, on all these grounds - the man, the frightened negativity of the failed old guard, the pragmatism underlying the policies of the man, the opportunity to transform the Party into an agent of national debate and mobilisation and the fact that new ideas were being permitted to be heard even if they may later be rejected - the re-joining of the Labour Party became a 'no-brainer'.

What next? The first thing to recognise is that, once a field general in the struggles of the 1990s, I am now no more than a foot soldier in a back water so it behoves me to watch and wait for at least six months while I understand how this party has changed since I was last a member in 2004. I also have businesses to run and a hinterland of my own - interests that have nothing to do with politics. 

This does not mean I won't be involved in politics but my instinct is to show solidarity and support for the New Leader and for the Party while it negotiates the vicious attacks of the dim and lazy low lives in the Press and from cynical and opportunist political opponents from inside and outside. If a successful coup is mounted against him by Blairites before he has had a chance to prove that he is the wrong person for the job, then my pessimism returns - I shall just bugger off to a private life again - but the long haul is the reconstruction of a democratic socialist Party capable of reaching a mass base and winning an election in 2020 without falling into the hands of loopy ideologues, becoming authoritarian on private life under the influence of post-Marxists or showing weakness when faced by serious challenges like mass economic migration or the blow-back from the petty wars of the previous Labour administrations. Be in no doubt, the Party is never anything other than a means to an end - a better Britain - and loyalty to any other end such as office for the sake of office is sheer simple-mindedness.

My one political commitment is to a 'leave' vote in the British European Referendum that must take place before the end of 2017. My opposition to the European Union has been consistent since the first Referendum of 1975. It is based on a a rational critique of the sheer danger of its aspirations to become a liberal super-state based on bureaucratic centralism, the suppression of national self-determination and, ultimately, on the economics of the free market at the expense of welfarism in a 'competitive world'. It is German-dominated (albeit with France as junior partner) and I find this a problem. 

The appalling management of the Ukraine crisis (which might have brought us to war), incompetence in the handling of the refugee crisis and the morally repugnant treatment of Greek democracy by neo-liberal ideologues are only elements of my wider outrage at the presumption of this system which is designed to ensure that democratic socialism is impossible from the Atlantic to the Urals and from the Mediterranean to the Arctic. Take a look at the TTIP and that should be enough to know that the destiny they have chosen for us is to be happy serfs and little more except that we will get to vote for our serfdom every few years or so. I expect to say more on these issues in due course. 

Meanwhile, this blog may change tone a little. The Frontiers series will continue (and will eventually be packaged in a separate blog as we have done with the Tantra and Basic British History series) and there will be occasional essays on culture as before but you may see more politics. Let us leave it there ...