Triumph of the Right!

THE National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) has just announced in a recent e-mail that:
'In the splendour of the unelected House of Lords, through the mouthpiece of a hereditary monarch, the Tories who were elected by 24% of the electorate have announced plans for new anti-union laws.'


Indeed, the Government's Queen's speech did state plans to introduce more anti-union laws, but if recent history is anything to go by the establishment will have little to fear from the body which entitles itself the National Shop Stewards Network.  In fact the above quote just shows just how much the far left as well as the Labour Party delude themselves. 


The Tories may well have cornered merely 24% of the overall electorate; yet the figures show that combined vote share of the parties of the right (Conservatives, UKIP and the Ulster Unionists) increased to 50.5% of all votes cast.  And if the Liberal Democrats are included as a right-wing party then the figure is 58.4%.  The parties that may be classed as on the left (Labour, SNP, Greens, Plaid Cymru and the SDLP) got 39.8% of all the votes cast.


Years ago, the NSSN demonstrated its political impotence after the General Election in 2010, when it split-up, formed itself into an anti-cuts campaign, and became essentially a front for the Socialist Party.  At that time under the influence of some independent socialists, the then Chair of NSSN, Dave Chapple, and some independent syndicalists, many genuine trade unionists left the NSSN when it developed into a political runt supported by the RMT.  Since then it has failed to prevent any Government cuts.


The NSSN has shown itself to be a political irrelevance by participating in the recent elections in May 2015:
TUSC stood 135 parliamentary candidates across England, Wales and Scotland, and it had 619 candidates in the local elections.  The party gained 36,327 votes in the election, or 0.1% of the popular vote. No parliamentary seats were gained and no deposits were saved.


But if TUSC is a political irrelevance, the main stream Labour Party is now being describe as being in 'existential crisis'.  That means that the Labour Party ought to be questioning the very foundations of its own existence.  Thus we have a far left that is virtually non-existent, and a main-stream left in the Labour Party that has as I, and others, have said has outlived its mission.


Part of the problem, which needs further examination, is that the left in this country is patronizing towards the white working-class.  Left-wing politics here is based upon crude formulas, lazy analysis and cookbook thinking.


In The Observer, Nick Cohen wrote:
'The universities, left press, and the arts characterize the English middle class as Mail-reading misers, who are sexist, racist and homophobic to boot.  Meanwhile, they characterize the white working class as lardy Sun-reading slobs, who are, since you asked, also sexist, racist and homophobic.'


The trouble with the English left is that it has got itself stuck in a kind of idée fixe, a mind-set or what Mr. Cohen calls a trance from which it needs to escape if it is going to have any impact on society.