Left Unity.org / People’s Assembly

[ALB]

Just noticed this in today's papers:

Quote:

… Left Unity, a hard-left party proscribed by Labour, revealed that it would consider a motion to disband itself when it met for its annual conference this weekend. The move is being considered to encourage members to campaign from within the Labour Party.

Let's hope they do it as that will reduce the number of confusionist groups. And let's hope that SPEW follows them in this direction too.

[moderator2]

Goodness me…i had almost forgotten their existence. Out of sight – out of mind, indeed. I did recently go to their website to check on their dismissal of the citizens' wage which was a fairly good rebuttal of it. In Thailand, there is a  word to describe a man who flits from one woman to another. He is called a butterfly and it is used as a verb also …to butterfly. It is an appropriate description …Butterfly politics… moving from one party to the next, especially when enamoured by attractive manifesto promises but then moving on to the next where the nectar is sweeter still. I think we have had experience of this type of serial party joiner. I wonder if there might be an opportunity to pick up a few SPEW supporters if they do dissolve. (i'm not confident that they will) Surely, they cannot all be damned. Can there be a few who are genuine and sincere socialists, if misguided and mistaken? 

[jondwhite]

I could go and leaflet and find out.

[ALB]

Good idea. I hadn't realised that their Conference was being held in Liverpool.

[Bijou Drains]

moderator2 wrote:

Goodness me…i had almost forgotten their existence. Out of sight – out of mind, indeed. I did recently go to their website to check on their dismissal of the citizens' wage which was a fairly good rebuttal of it. In Thailand, there is a  word to describe a man who flits from one woman to another. He is called a butterfly and it is used as a verb also …to butterfly. It is an appropriate description …Butterfly politics… moving from one party to the next, especially when enamoured by attractive manifesto promises but then moving on to the next where the nectar is sweeter still. I think we have had experience of this type of serial party joiner. I wonder if there might be an opportunity to pick up a few SPEW supporters if they do dissolve. (i'm not confident that they will) Surely, they cannot all be damned. Can there be a few who are genuine and sincere socialists, if misguided and mistaken? 

I think you forgot to change your user name again.A little tip I used when I moderated on a site:If I was wearing my Darth Vada outfit, then I knew I was a moderatorIf I was wearing my Princess Leia costume then I knew I was plain old ordinary meIf I was wearing my spiderman pyjamas then I knew it was bedtime.Try it, it worked for me.

[lindanesocialist]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

A little tip I used when I moderated on a site:If I was wearing my Darth Vada outfit, then I knew I was a moderatorIf I was wearing my Princess Leia costume then I knew I was plain old ordinary meIf I was wearing my spiderman pyjamas then I knew it was bedtime.Try it, it worked for me.

That solves the riddle of why you sometimes came to Branch meetings with the Darth Vada outfit, had us  baffled for years. 

[jondwhite]

I attended the first morning of this and brought pamphlets and CDs. Unfortunately as everyone was already inside there was no opportunity to sell them. Maybe a hundred attended, aged mostly fifties and older, roughly sixty or seventy per cent male. The motion to dissolve was proposed by York and to my surprise was a regular feature and met with fierce and widespread opposition. Membership was falling across the country though, as there was a document with the figures. Members didn't agree on what they stood for particularly Scottish independence, one issue they cannot agree a policy on. One ex member who supported Brexit (or should that be Lexit?) shared a circular detailing his expulsion, ostensibly over his membership of Socialist Resistance, which he'd also been expelled from and formed Birmingham Socialist Discussion Group. Members weren't taken in by Corbyn and considered themselves socialists or at least left wing. Members didn't seem self critical but there was no appetite for revolution though and there was a least one trot infiltrator from tiny group Socialist Voice (ICFI I think?) but SWP etc must have given up as there was no sign of any others. Lenin was referenced jokingly in one contribution. I guess this was what the ILP was like. I didn't stay for lunch.

[jondwhite]

If anyone particularly wants further breakdown I can provide some more details on request;Membership figures2016-04: 12552016-06: 12302016-08: 10672016-10: 998Falling by 20% in 6 months.All UK regions falling, outside UK is fluctuating, but small gain (15 to 17).Financials Jan 16 to Oct 16IncomeDonations: £510.40Membership: £26,065.85ExpenditurePrinting: £4,158.54Payroll: £6,491.67Total Income: £26,940.49Total expenditure: £23,404.20Profit for the year: £3,536.29

[jpodcaster]

Interesting figures Jon. You can criticise LU for many things but how many political organisations are that open about their membership numbers and finances?Genuine question – how does that compare with the Socialist Party's membership over the past 12 months?

[jondwhite]

I'm not sure they are open, I just picked up these figures at conference. They're posted without permission sought. 

[jondwhite]

SP membership change over Jan to Oct 16 from what I can glean is overall loss of 6.   joinedleftchangeJanuary02-2February202March220April101May13-2June06-6July01-1August101September202October101   -4

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

out of the 10 who joined during the period, are, or will be, organisationally active and what, if anything, are we doing to ensure they are?

A very pertinent point.Now that the nights are drawing in and the days are growing chillier, some activities such as the street stalls are no longer viable. It maybe perhaps a useful exercise to identify where we can make use of the internet from our cumfy and cosy armchair and laptop. Which websites permit comments, which even allow articles to be posted, which sites will let us engage with others. Cde. Johnson uses Quora to reply to questions. I have a few regular news-sites i respond at, Cde. Culbert adds his views to The Guardian news-items which are later collated and transformed into blog-posts. I am sure many others do similar things on different internet site. All i am saying is can we create a list of the more user-friendly and begin to share the chore about. And the old stand-by…letters to the editor. Always suggested but rarely done and certainly not in a coordinated manner. We are given the epithet armchair revolutionaries, so be it, let as act as suchUsually, in the days of yore, branches would begin a series of indoor meetings, either propaganda oriented or educational classes. I can't see any alternative to following that tradition but i am sure it can be very easily modernised. More use of the internet and comptuers at meetings. Videos of lectures can be watched and then discussed. Likewise, movies can be viewed and opinions shared. Even a book-reading club could be introduced. Something easily acquired and not too technical…i'm not suggesting Capital…but perhaps his shorter pamphlets of other folks…Ragged Trousered Philanthropist is always praised but we could do a systematic study…..many other works of fiction are good reads which inspire discussion…Practical projects can also be experimented with. I am not a particularly good public speaker. I would probably benefit from being made to stand on a table and address an audience to improve for others to judge and criticise comradely. Stuff like that could be undertaken. Make the branch meetings more fun. too…And what about branch outings. I Daniel is getting to be a popular movies…why not go as a group and then talk about the movie afterwards over a beer or a coffee. Invite along family and friends. Who doesn't like a night at the cinema.  Every cinema has discounts for bulk tickets. 

[Anonymous]

jondwhite wrote:

SP membership change over Jan to Oct 16 from what I can glean is overall loss of 6.

I make it an overall loss of 4, not that that's really any better.  And I wonder how many, out of the 10 who joined during the period, are, or will be, organisationally active and what, if anything, are we doing to ensure they are? 

[ALB]

gnome wrote:

I wonder how many, out of the 10 who joined during the period, are, or will be, organisationally active and what, if anything, are we doing to ensure they are?

Two of them have had articles published in the Socialist Standard.

[Author]

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