Ken Livingstone’s Farewell: A Blow to British Socialism
London mayor Ken Livingstone was a symbol of what remained of Marx and Trotsky in British mainstream politics. Now he's gone.
Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers
Red Ken was never really so red in office but his politics were infused with enough influences from the Marxist left to make him a symbol of British socialism — his defeat in the London mayoral elections effectively marks the death of that movement.
It has been a slow death for a tendency which was once at the heart of the Labour Party, helping shape the policies which created the welfare state, but which now lacks even a single figure around which it can rally. There is no left-wing radical capable of garnering enough support to even irritate the Labour leadership — Prime Minister Gordon Brown was elected uncontested as Labour leader because the handful of old-school socialists in parliament simply couldn’t muster enough nominations to even get someone on the ballot.
In the 1970’s the Labour left was a broad coalition ranging from radical democratic reformists, the kind who had helped build the party in the post-war years, through to Stalinists and Trotskyists who really had little in common with the party’s purpose. The left was still at the heart of the labour movement. Socialists led trade unions into militant industrial action, left-wing figures led a large and active peace movement and the Labour Party leadership - although in the control of relatively conservative social-democrats — always had to take into account the views and potential response of the comrades to their left. But the beginning of the end came with Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1979.
Thatcher called the left outside for a fight and made sure she was ready for the battle. Her right-wing government took on the once-powerful miners’ union, led by the Stalinist Arthur Scargill, and smashed it to pieces - it was the beginning of a sharp decline for the trade union movement. In local government Livingstone led the resistance in London and Thatcher removed him with a touch of Soviet style — dissolving the Greater London Council that he headed. Meanwhile the Labour Party leadership, sick of their efforts to regain electoral popularity being constantly undermined by Trotskyists entryists, primarily the thuggish mafia known as the Militant Tendency, expelled many leading activists.
There were protests from the likes of Tony Benn and sections of the old ‘broad church’ on the Labour left but most members were glad to see the back of the Trots and the party attempt to regain the trust of an electorate who had viewed them as unable to deal with extremists. Then came a decade of Labour, led by Neil Kinnock, then the late John Smith and eventually and most radically Tony Blair, marginalize the hard-left and reposition the party in the center ground.
Blair ended even the formal pretence of socialism in the Labour Party - removing references to ‘common ownership’ from the constitution of a party which had already replaced, as its symbol, the communist style red flag with the softer touch of a red rose. There was plenty of moaning and sarcasm but little resistance from the left and when Blair proved that gaining the center ground was the way to win — the left’s long claim that moderation didn’t win votes was proved to be utterly false.
At the height of Blairism there was only one figure of the old-left who maintained any sort of profile and who garnered a reasonable level of support — Livingstone. Blair wanted him far away from power but he ran for the newly created post of executive mayor of London as an independent and won. He was later brought back into the Labour fold and won again.
A popular media figure, Livingstone remained attached, for a yet to be explained reason, to a small Trotskyist sect known as Socialist Action whose members were rewarded with well-paid advisors jobs in the London administration. During his second term Livingstone, turned to communalist politics by allying himself with Islamists and alienating the Jewish community. Although it is probably true that he lost more support over his decision to replace the capital’s red double-decker buses with more modern ‘bendy buses’ than over his anti-Israel and pro-Islamist posturing, Livingstone’s ‘jobs for the boys’ with his leftist supporters was surely one of the factors behind his fall.
He also paid the price for Labour’s overall fall in popularity. The premiership of Gordon Brown has failed to deliver the ‘bounce’ that was promised when the Scot replaced Blair as Labour leader and Prime Minister, his leadership has deluded the party faithful and unimpressed the voters and so there was no party factor to help Livingstone against the clownish, but likeable, Conservative Boris Johnson.
The British socialist left’s last recognizable figure is out of power just at the moment when the moderate wing of the party is facing an acute crisis. It may seem like a missed opportunity for Livingstone and the left but it is typical of a movement that has failed, utterly to offer an alternative to Blairism at any stage in the past decade and who since the 1970’s have produced little but a list of failures.
Some American readers may rejoice at the death of British socialism but the problem for those trying to build a serious left of center politics in the UK is that without socialism as an anchor, the radical left has drifted into a pathetic, nihilistic oppositionalism and allowed itself to be entranced by Islamism, crude ‘anti-imperialism’, anti-Americanism and even Anti-Semitism.
Livingstone traveled that road himself and his defeat, while bad news in the short term for Labour in London, will have caused few tears among those looking to build a new and progressive centre-left politics.
“Jimmy Bradshaw” is the pseudonym of a British Social Democrat.
| Comment |  Digg This |
 del.icio.us |
 |
 |
 PJM Home |
14 Comments
Andrew Ian Dodge:Thatcher was hardly “right-wing” she was more centre-right. It amazes me how bitter the hard-left are still about Thatcher and especially the sale of council houses. (My wife heard a rant on the subject yesterday.)
May 5, 2008 - 3:45 am Don:Socialism, lovely idea, all owning everything, none in economic extremis, none too rich nor too poor. Reality? People are selfish and will take advantage given opportunity. Good ol’ Soviets . . . “they pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work” . . .great example of Socialism. Others? The British labor unions destroying most of the industries who’s workers they were “protecting” (MG, Morgan, Rover, Triumph . . .). The Left in Britain destroyed not just the empire, but the confidence of the British public
May 5, 2008 - 4:09 am Wearyman:A fine article by Mr. Bradshaw, and an excellent summation of British politics in the last several years. However, if I may make a short comment on his second to last paragraph, where he says:
“Some American readers may rejoice at the death of British socialism but the problem for those trying to build a serious left of center politics in the UK is that without socialism as an anchor, the radical left has drifted into a pathetic, nihilistic oppositionalism and allowed itself to be entranced by Islamism, crude ‘anti-imperialism’, anti-Americanism and even Anti-Semitism.”
I think he misses the point. Modern politics doesn’t NEED a strong leftist group. Indeed, a weak and disorganized left is a sign of a healthy political landscape. Leftism and it’s extensions, socialism and communism, are Political DISEASES and not a part of healthy political discourse.
In Britain, it means that politics there is returning from the wilderness of socialism. The stronger the right becomes, the healthier British society becomes, as right issues tend to focus around more “traditionalist” issues of home and hearth, personal responsibility and social morality, along with national issues such as fiscal responsibility, smaller government and strong national defense.
A stronger right will also be able to more effectively oppose the creeping Sharia (AKA: Islamism) culture that threatens the very foundation of British society. Leftism in any country invariably attempts to appease the Islamists. This tactic always proves fruitless, as the Islamists demand nothing less that total submission to Islam and Sharia law. Any step in that direction is always a mistake. Strong right interests understand this phenomena, and work to oppose Islamism wherever it is found, particularly at home.
Ultimately, the marginalization of the extreme left will only serve to alienate them from the British populace, further weakening their hold on the government and the culture at large. This is a very good and healthy thing.
Now, if the British right can just do something about the leftism of the Beeb.
May 5, 2008 - 7:25 am Dark Helmet:Hurray for London!
Perhaps now they will get the guns back and throw the invaders out and send them back to mecca.
Fight England! Fight! For your very soul.
May 5, 2008 - 7:39 am Garrett Stasse:I’m not so sure Livingstone’s ouster signifies much of anything other than a head rolling off an emaciated body. The decapitation was done long after the crimes had been committed — Britain’s current acquiescence to every leftish snit comes to mind — so the effect is merely symbolic. Brits have pretty much given up on their country and themselves and are content to be trendily anti-American instead of dealing with significant social and political problems. Ousting Livingstone does nothing to solve them because the damage has been done by others more entrenched, like the BBC.
May 5, 2008 - 2:51 pm d neal:To Don (see above):
Morgan is still cranking out their idiosyncratic classis retro cars in malvern link. The rest of Brit motor industry? Gone.
May 5, 2008 - 3:12 pm Edat:Now that Londoners have gotten rid of Red Ken, Torontoians can get rid of Moron Miller. His latest stunt is throw another 2.5 millions at the homelessness industry.
Insanity definition _ Keep doing the same thing and expect a different result.
May 5, 2008 - 4:52 pm David:This is incorrect, NuLabour is just a media spin or gloss over the old tax and spend socialists that existed in the 70’s. All you have to do is have a good look at Ed Balls to see just how incorrect you are. The independence of the Bank of England means nothing, Blair kept the Unions under control by keeping Thatchers union laws, because that was what killed Labour in the 70’s. Economic policy is one area where they have tried to restrain their socialist leanings, so open markets and no nationalisation, but they have taxed so heavily that many companies are starting to leave the UK.
It will take another 5 to 10 years to sort out the mess that they made Britain yet again.
May 6, 2008 - 3:22 am Eric Dondero:This is perhaps the greatest victory worldwide for the libertarian movement. Libertarian Geert Wilders is the most popular Dutch politician. Bob Barr, Libertarian for President is now polling at 4% (Zogby) in the US. And a bonafide libertarian wins the Mayorship of London England.
Good days for libertarians indeed.
May 6, 2008 - 7:32 am BMoon:What the Brit’s, the Europeans, all westerners need to do now is throw out Rousseau, Marx, Nietzsche - all totalitarian, statist, utopian fanasies- and get back Loretta to where you once belonged- Locke, Montesque, Jefferson, and the Bible.
May 6, 2008 - 9:16 am pch1013:“The rest of Brit motor industry? Gone.”
Someone forgot to tell these people.
May 6, 2008 - 12:51 pm John Samford:Doesn’t matter. England is dead. They have decided to become Euro’s instead. What matters is who runs the shop in Brussels, not which pony boy is prancing around London.
May 7, 2008 - 10:22 am Silvio:The concept of “The Right” has lost any sense in Europe. It may be seemed paradoxical but just the socialist and generally leftist parties are fascist in the classical sense of the world as it demonstrates their support of Islamic fascists and terrorists. The recent Italian elections are indicative in this sense. The electoral victory of Berlusconi and the “right” Alemanno in Rome by a huge margin (Rome was always a feud of communists) is possible to interpret as a reaction but in very positive sense. Berlusconi’s victory, I think, means also a reaction against Islamic arrogance. The Italians are tired of these foreigners who, like grasshoppers, destroy their country. The victory of the Spanish Socialists is an anomalous case in the European context. PSOE (Spanish Socialist Labour Party) is a typical fascist, anti-Semite and philoterrorist Party that organized the terrorist carnage 11 march 2004 in Madrid and presented its work as the revenge of Islamists for the Spanish participation in Iraq invasion. That is the great “secret” of the electoral victory of Spanish socialists (then and now). I was a direct witness of these shameful events.
May 8, 2008 - 1:10 pm Brandon Heslop:England…what has happened to you? I, an American, can hardly understand it. You used to be great! All that stuff about “ruling the waves,” thwe stiff upper lip? Big fan, here.
I find it somewhat ironic, that the “black sheep” of the British Imperial Family, shall we say…the one who rebelled…is now the only shining example of what used to be “Britishness.” All of America’s best cultural currency ultimately derives from England. The right to bear arms? Did you know that while the French, the Italians, and just about everyone else in Western Europe often had strict restrictions on how could own weapons in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the English had none of the that? English monarchs required the English to - not only HAVE WEAPONS - but KNOW HOW TO USE THEM? And some people wonder why the French were so frequently, and successfully, invaded. The English? Once…a silly little incidence back in…Oh, 1066, I think.
You let this hateful rabble into your country, you let them feed off your system. Can’t you people spot a Goddamn parasite? Now, you treat the last generation of Britons who knew what honour was - those brave souls who fought, suffered, and died for you sorry lot back in WWII - with contempt.
“There Will Always Be an England…” Really? At this rate. WAKE UP. The world and I love and need you.
God save the Queen…I guess it’ll have to be God, the way things are looking.
-B.
Jun 25, 2008 - 12:31 am