On Saturday 29^th September the British group Socialist Resistance organised a very interesting day of discussion in London on the new European, broad, pluralistic, left parties. It was a kind of update of their seminal conference on the same theme held in London in 2000. Minus one or two of the organisations that have since died or shrunk. As is common on the British left there was no cognisance of Ireland or the ULA in the published programme for the day.

It was also a kind of  ‘film of the book’ of the uneven but instructive  New Parties of the Left: Experiences from Europe (Resistance Books 2011).

Both Tomás and I were at the 2000 meeting but as it was a busy weekend I unfortunately could not travel to this meeting. Never mind, technology has since allowed us to attend meetings without actually going to them and many of the speeches were recorded and put up on the Socialist Resistance website. The actual line up seems to have departed slightly from the advertised billing.

Below is the line up for the day and then the filmed speeches in the rough chronological order in which I think they were delivered.

Des Derwin

New parties of the left

A day of debate organised by London Socialist Resistance

Saturday 29 September, 10:30am – 5pm

With Stathis Kouvelakis (Syriza), Kate Hudson (Respect), Adam Hanieh (author and activist), Sandra Demarcq (NPA – France), Andrew Burgin (CoR), Alan Thornett (Socialist Resistance), Michael Voss (Red Green Alliance – Enheidlisten, Denmark), and Phillipe Nadouce (Front de Gauche).

At ULU, Malet Street, London, WC1

stathis-kouvelakis-on-greece-6376827

kate-hudson-on-new-left-parties-6376775

denmark-s-red-green-alliance-6376835

the-radicalisation-in-the-arab-world-6376840

the-need-for-broad-parties-of-the-left-6376878