Organising the left and the Judean Peoples front or the Front of Judean People..

The trouble with the left in London and everywhere else in the world for that matter is that there is always some smaller section within a section that wants to do things in a different way. So we get a situation where there are at least 38 different versions of the Left. This is of course good news for pure democracy but it does not help those of us who aspire to change the world. This is especially the case in a country like Britain where the electoral system does not allow for smaller parties to gain any real power. So the logical thing would be for those of us on the left to unite and form a single party? And of course this is where the problem starts, in other words we will never agree that George Galloway or Jeremy Corbin or someone from the SWP will be good enough to be our leader nor will we ever agree to form one single party. We did of course form the Labour party (trade unions) and my argument has always been we should all be in there fighting for change.

But there are two levels where the left needs to win battles. The first is to organise nationally and form or be part of a single party (the Labour Party) the second is to understand that locally we must build up a trade union movement that can inspire members and attract more into membership and this can only be done by us producing new activists who can take on the hard day to day work and do the complex reorganisations and casework that affect our members. My main frustration comes when I speak to some people who simply think that wining an election and making a good speech is good enough. Your problems start once you are in there and you need to deliver. So locally and on the front line the left must understand that agitating has its place but doing the real bread and butter stuff that members need and being able to do the hard work is much more important if you are to expect people/members to follow you when you need them to take action. More recruitment and spend more time learning how to do the job because it is no good saying that you can drive a formula one car when you have never had a driving lesson! Organise locally and build a truly fighting union that takes on board what the majority of members want is the answer.