Labour Uncut

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Tue Jun 19, 2012 2:58 pm

Given which group oxygen?

mojojojo · **Joined:** Fri Mar 19, 2010 1:33 pm **Posts:** 4271

Our Leader has just made his views on Progress clear in his Unison Conference address

mattomac · **Posted:** Tue Jun 19, 2012 4:20 pm

Malcolm Armsteen wrote:

Given which group oxygen?

Progress the fact that Miliband has his double digit lead and Labour had an excellent May elections people had stopped listening to their bull crap.

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Tue Jun 19, 2012 6:42 pm

I don't really want to be a member of a party that does that sort of thing.
We gave Militant a good chance to come in and work positively but they wouldn't, and formed a party within the party. There's absolutely no sign that Progress have done that - they're hardly secretive - and if sections of the party object to them then they are free to make their case and convince the party as a whole. As are Progress, the Fabians, the Co-Op, Labour left etc.

Another question - when you made a reference to entryism, did you mean Progress or the GMB (there were lots of pronouns there, hard to follow)?

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Tue Jun 19, 2012 7:24 pm

Progress don't really work by arguments though, do they? They work by having good rightwing press contacts.

Not that I'm in favour of expelling them or anything.

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Tue Jun 19, 2012 7:43 pm

It's like the Formula 1 argument - if you aren't winning you aren't trying hard enough. The GMB have got a huge job on their hands, true. Some of the abuse hurled at Luke Akehurst and others has been vile, though. And not even from party members, from left-wingers who refuse to join the party because it isn't pure enough for them...

mojojojo · **Joined:** Fri Mar 19, 2010 1:33 pm **Posts:** 4271

Been toying with the idea of joining the Socialist Party but after hearing about their behaviour in the Southampton dispute at a United Left Unison fringe meeting tonight I'm not convinced.

mattomac · **Posted:** Wed Jun 20, 2012 6:09 am

Malcolm Armsteen wrote:

I don't really want to be a member of a party that does that sort of thing.
We gave Militant a good chance to come in and work positively but they wouldn't, and formed a party within the party. There's absolutely no sign that Progress have done that - they're hardly secretive - and if sections of the party object to them then they are free to make their case and convince the party as a whole. As are Progress, the Fabians, the Co-Op, Labour left etc.

Another question - when you made a reference to entryism, did you mean Progress or the GMB (there were lots of pronouns there, hard to follow)?

I think it's wrong for GMB to push this at a time in which Progress (and that strand of the party) were struggling and had by all accounts had the position of which they wish to push undermined by an upturn in Ed Miliband's fortunes. I have very little time for Progress who I believe are a group agitating for a return to a certain Labour position that would not be beneficial to the party.

In the Oxygen I didn't mean particularly Progress, I meant people like Hodges (Though reading back I guess I meant a certain strand of the party who are still bitter we didn't go for David) who get to bicker from the side about some created fallacy about purges within the party like it's communist Russia.

In the sense of "joining the party" they always appeared to me separate of what the party was trying to achieve, unless it was drenched in rhetoric from the Blair era, Progress would actually benefit from Miliband winning in 2015 they are shackled as much by the Blair victories as most of the party is. The polling says the people wants a party unified.

The Red Arrow · **Posted:** Wed Jun 20, 2012 9:43 am

Unison attacks 'intolerable' Labour thinktank

Trade union speaks out against Lord Mandelson's defence of Progress, branding his involvement as 'desperate'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012 ... k-progress

new puritan · **Posted:** Fri Jul 06, 2012 7:28 pm

Atul Hatwal's been driving those reds out from under the bed again.

Quote:

In January, Ed Balls and Ed Miliband both made public interventions supporting spending restraint. The party leadership came out strongly, albeit briefly, backing the current public sector pay cap.

It feels like a different era.

Since then, the words “public sector pay cap” have not been uttered by any shadow cabinet member. If challenged, what odds on either Miliband or Balls breaking the seal?

It’s likely they would use various verbal constructions and phrases to avoid saying those specific words.

In January, when Len McCluskey savaged Ed Miliband on public sector pay restraint, the Labour leader’s office put out a statement saying, “Len McCluskey is entitled to his views, but he is wrong.”

Hard to see anything like that happening now.

This is why denouement of the battle over Progress is not the end. More like the end of the beginning.

Next, the union tanks will rumble onto a more substantial target. Not just a pressure group but most likely a politician.

Someone who represents a centrist position, a figure who’s humbling will send an unmistakeable signal on the direction of the party.

Their identity hardly matters. A cassus belli will be manufactured, as over Progress.

This is the ineluctable logic of the union position. Only through conflict and victory can the unions anchor the party on the left. Sound strategy. Clause 4 in reverse.

The hard left’s troops are on the march.

http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2012/07/06/th ... the-march/

Absolute turd from beginning to end, really. It really is funny as fuck that these people think the likes of Len McCluskey (who incidentally is opposed to the GMB motion on Progress) and Paul Kenny are 'hard left'. You really have to wonder how these people ever ended up in a party that still describes itself as 'democratic socialist'.

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Fri Jul 06, 2012 8:17 pm

I thought the unions sought to win a motion at conference. I hadn't realised any tanks were involved.

Of course, unions should operate by whispering to sympathetic journalists all the time, like Progress.

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Fri Jul 06, 2012 8:17 pm

You do a sterling job keeping an eye on these clowns, btw.

oboogie · **Posted:** Sat Jul 07, 2012 6:41 am

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

You do a sterling job keeping an eye on these clowns, btw.

Seconded. Thanks New Puritan.

new puritan · **Posted:** Sat Jul 07, 2012 5:57 pm

Ta, but I can't take too much credit - I spotted the link for that last piece over at Left Futures. Thinking about it, though, the shrieking from the Blairite camp about 'hard left' bogeymen is perhaps an indication of just how weak their position is. I don't get the impression there's any serious groundswell among Labour members or the wider electorate for reheated New Labourism. They're yesterday's men, even if they do still manage to attract plenty of dubiously-sourced funds.

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Mon Jul 09, 2012 8:50 pm

Quote:

They're yesterday's men

reminds me of this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/re ... _men.shtml

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