Tomás Ó Flatharta

With all guns blazing: change and permanence on the British left

Alex Callinicos: “The involvement of revolutionary socialists in a broader political project that finesses the issue of reform and revolution has, of course, been characteristic of various relatively successful radical left projects in continental Europe, as well as of Respect in Britain in the mid-2000s.”

Well, yes. Relative to the “revolutionary organisations”.

AC: “Such projects depend on both their ability to regroup the existing radical and revolutionary left, and the effective challenge that they are able to mount to mainstream social democracy-or, as it is more accurate to describe it these days thanks to its capitulation to neoliberalism, social liberalism.”

Well, yes indeed, both. ALL the existing radical and revolutionary left?

AC: “But Left Unity is precisely not such a regroupment. A tacit presupposition of the project is the exclusion of both the SWP and the Socialist Party. This is justified by appeal to the negative experiences of previous efforts to develop a radical left coalition, notably the Socialist Alliance and Respect.”

Well, yes, and…

–ooOOoo–

http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=948&issue=141

A reply from Richard Seymour here:

http://www.leninology.com/2014/01/questions-to-which-answer-is-already.html

Posted by DD