A very interesting and informative reply (more so than the article that sparked in, imo). Sleeper cells was hyperbolic: you're right, fellow travellers would be the mot juste. Even so, there's no evidence that there is a large number of Trotskyite fellow travellers among those who have joined the Labour Party,. Corbyn's support there is certainly not evidence because, well, he's not a Trotskyite, simply a leftish democratic socialist, much as Benn was (as you point out). I don't think there's any parallel with Trump, to be honest, because Trump is clearly a racist himself, so to support him is to some extent to connive in or at least turn a blind eye to racism.
I quite accept your long-view comparisons - you're right that this is a 'debate' that's been going on in some form since MacDonald (family loyalty reminds me to add the charge of Butskellism to the list of its manifestations). And you're right about the SDP's immediate casus belli, but as I remember, independence from union power was a large part of the way in which they subsequently distinguished themselves from the party they'd left - that being a hot topic in Thatcher's early years.
I'm not sure that restricting the leadership to MPs alone is a dead issue. Look at the way Eagle and Smith coordinated just yesterday to leave the choice between them to MPs rather than the membership, thus bypassing the existing mechanism to whittle candidate lists through second-preference votes. And then there's Will Hutton's recent call for a return to PLP-only leadership elections, which rules members out of the equation entirely. If they can, you may be sure that the PLP will try to take that option.
They don't have to be Trotskyites, they simply have to be unrepresentative of the party and they'll elect an unrepresentative leader. The counter-argument to that is that the existing long-term members voted for Corbyn too.
Benn wasn't simply a "leftish democratic socialist," at least not in the SDP's eyes: they considered him positively dangerous in a way that Foot was not, and Corbyn is not either. But exactly how Corbyn and Foot rank comparatively on that scale is what I don't have enough information to calibrate.
Union power was an issue in those days, yes, but it wasn't a relevant issue for the left-right split that I'm drawing a parallel with today's split on. Indeed, insofar as the SDP had an active beef against Labour's union policy at the time of the split, it was against the right wing ministers in the Wilson/Callaghan government for being, in the SDP's view, pusillanimous.
A call for a return to PLP-only leadership elections would be reactionary indeed, but I find on reading Hutton's article that that's not what he's proposing. He wants a system like what the Tories have, with the PLP to choose two finalists and an electoral college of some kind to pick the winner. Of course, the Tories' latest election was cancelled due to Leadsom's withdrawal, but note that one of her reasons was that she didn't want to be the Tories' Jeremy Corbyn, a leader without the parliamentary party behind her.
The counter-argument to that is that the existing long-term members voted for Corbyn too.
They did indeed, and it's a pretty unanswerable argument too.
I don't know of any evidence that Benn was anything other than a democratic socialist. The only constitutional proposals I ever remember him making (i.e. to abolish the monarchy and the House of Lords) were to introduce democracy where it didn't currently exist.
Hutton wrote:
"Its constitution would put the election of its leader in the hands of the parliamentary party, with a run-off of the two frontrunners elected through a reconstituted electoral college."
On rereading, his words are ambiguous. I can see how you got your reading, but he does quite clearly state that the leader's election would be in the hands of the PLP, which I take to mean that they would choose between two candidates offered by the electoral college (the constitution of which is undefined, but certainly doesn't seem to be one-member-one-vote, like the Tories). To read the college as having the final say makes nonsense of the first part of the quotation. But quite possibly it just is nonsense.
The answer would be "temporary spasm" (in reaction, perhaps, to an overdose of Little Ed). Polls suggest that Corbyn's ratings have gone down even among the Corbynistas, and I don't imagine it's any better among the old-line rank and file.
I didn't say that Benn wasn't a democratic socialist, but that he wasn't simply one. In internal party politics, he pushed democracy to its limit, and expected MPs to tow to any whims of their constituency parties. That was pretty extreme. I don't know of any evidence that Boris Johnson has or had unconstitutional plans either, but he would have been a dangerous PM. There are matters of character that go beyond policy. If you were a Bennite I don't expect you to get this, but to take the most extreme example of this, Mosley's economic policies were extremely foresighted before he turned rancid, yet even those who touted his policies were made nervous by Mosley, and this was long before he turned fascist. I imagine it was something of this sort that made Ann Widdicombe say "there is something of the night" about Michael Howard.
Either Hutton meant that the PLP would choose the finalists and the electoral college would vote for the winner, which I consider the less contorted reading of his words and the less difficult method to manage in practice, or he meant that the electoral college would choose the finalists and the PLP would vote for the winner. Either way there's an electoral college and not just "PLP-only leadership elections," despite the sloppiness of his words "in the hands of the parliamentary party." No, the electoral college would not be the same as the Tories' one-member one-vote, but based on the history of Labour electoral colleges, it would include the membership. And what I meant to say was that the basic structure of the election would be like the Tories', despite the differing composition of the college, and not PLP-only. Although frankly what they have now isn't all that different either, since leadership candidates still have to be nominated by MPs.
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Date: 2016-07-20 10:36 am (UTC)I quite accept your long-view comparisons - you're right that this is a 'debate' that's been going on in some form since MacDonald (family loyalty reminds me to add the charge of Butskellism to the list of its manifestations). And you're right about the SDP's immediate casus belli, but as I remember, independence from union power was a large part of the way in which they subsequently distinguished themselves from the party they'd left - that being a hot topic in Thatcher's early years.
I'm not sure that restricting the leadership to MPs alone is a dead issue. Look at the way Eagle and Smith coordinated just yesterday to leave the choice between them to MPs rather than the membership, thus bypassing the existing mechanism to whittle candidate lists through second-preference votes. And then there's Will Hutton's recent call for a return to PLP-only leadership elections, which rules members out of the equation entirely. If they can, you may be sure that the PLP will try to take that option.
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Date: 2016-07-20 11:33 am (UTC)Benn wasn't simply a "leftish democratic socialist," at least not in the SDP's eyes: they considered him positively dangerous in a way that Foot was not, and Corbyn is not either. But exactly how Corbyn and Foot rank comparatively on that scale is what I don't have enough information to calibrate.
Union power was an issue in those days, yes, but it wasn't a relevant issue for the left-right split that I'm drawing a parallel with today's split on. Indeed, insofar as the SDP had an active beef against Labour's union policy at the time of the split, it was against the right wing ministers in the Wilson/Callaghan government for being, in the SDP's view, pusillanimous.
A call for a return to PLP-only leadership elections would be reactionary indeed, but I find on reading Hutton's article that that's not what he's proposing. He wants a system like what the Tories have, with the PLP to choose two finalists and an electoral college of some kind to pick the winner. Of course, the Tories' latest election was cancelled due to Leadsom's withdrawal, but note that one of her reasons was that she didn't want to be the Tories' Jeremy Corbyn, a leader without the parliamentary party behind her.
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Date: 2016-07-20 01:43 pm (UTC)They did indeed, and it's a pretty unanswerable argument too.
I don't know of any evidence that Benn was anything other than a democratic socialist. The only constitutional proposals I ever remember him making (i.e. to abolish the monarchy and the House of Lords) were to introduce democracy where it didn't currently exist.
Hutton wrote:
"Its constitution would put the election of its leader in the hands of the parliamentary party, with a run-off of the two frontrunners elected through a reconstituted electoral college."
On rereading, his words are ambiguous. I can see how you got your reading, but he does quite clearly state that the leader's election would be in the hands of the PLP, which I take to mean that they would choose between two candidates offered by the electoral college (the constitution of which is undefined, but certainly doesn't seem to be one-member-one-vote, like the Tories). To read the college as having the final say makes nonsense of the first part of the quotation. But quite possibly it just is nonsense.
no subject
Date: 2016-07-20 03:48 pm (UTC)I didn't say that Benn wasn't a democratic socialist, but that he wasn't simply one. In internal party politics, he pushed democracy to its limit, and expected MPs to tow to any whims of their constituency parties. That was pretty extreme. I don't know of any evidence that Boris Johnson has or had unconstitutional plans either, but he would have been a dangerous PM. There are matters of character that go beyond policy. If you were a Bennite I don't expect you to get this, but to take the most extreme example of this, Mosley's economic policies were extremely foresighted before he turned rancid, yet even those who touted his policies were made nervous by Mosley, and this was long before he turned fascist. I imagine it was something of this sort that made Ann Widdicombe say "there is something of the night" about Michael Howard.
Either Hutton meant that the PLP would choose the finalists and the electoral college would vote for the winner, which I consider the less contorted reading of his words and the less difficult method to manage in practice, or he meant that the electoral college would choose the finalists and the PLP would vote for the winner. Either way there's an electoral college and not just "PLP-only leadership elections," despite the sloppiness of his words "in the hands of the parliamentary party." No, the electoral college would not be the same as the Tories' one-member one-vote, but based on the history of Labour electoral colleges, it would include the membership. And what I meant to say was that the basic structure of the election would be like the Tories', despite the differing composition of the college, and not PLP-only. Although frankly what they have now isn't all that different either, since leadership candidates still have to be nominated by MPs.