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- Peace (2)
- People not profit (4)
- Planet (3)
- Planning (6)
- Power and politics (7)
- Statements (10)
- 23/06/2008: Transport Meeting at the Convention of The Left
- 06/06/2008: Working class people deserve a party to speak for them by Nick Wrack
- 03/06/2008: What is the true cost of Britain's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan?
- 03/06/2008: John McDonnell MP: After Labour's electoral disaster - we need action on policies.
- 03/06/2008: Can Brown be beaten by John McDonnell’s Manifesto? by Mark Hoskisson
- 04/05/2008: First thoughts on the elections
- 17/04/2008: Towards The Convention of The Left: Progress so Far.
- 17/04/2008: The missing theme - trade unionsim at home and abroad
- 07/04/2008: What they're saying about the Convention of the Left
- 10/03/2008: A Socialist Vision of Health Care in a World Out of Balance
Blogroll
- Communist Party of Britain
- Communist Students
- Convention of The Left
- Greater Manchester Association of Trades Councils
- Greater Manchester Respect (renewal)
- Green Left
- Labour Briefing
- Labour Respresentation Committee
- Liverpool Trades Council
- Manchester Green Party
- North Manchester Against Wars
- Permanent Revolution
- red pepper
- Respect
- Scottish Socialist Party
- Socialist Workers Party
- Stop the War Coalition
Supporting blogs
How Can The Left Develop Agreed Policy and Practice
by John Nicholson
The Left is weak, organisationally. This doesnt mean a lack of campaigning activities - stop the war demonstrations, CND’s Easter rally at Aldermaston, Heathrow camps, solidarity with Gaza, support for trade unionists in Shelter, NHS Mental Health, and education. And maybe weakness means fluidity - anything could happen?
But we are weak.
So, at this time, would it be good for The Left to seek to develop some agreement on both policies and practices - which could be useful for the future? For example, what should our policy be on migration - “no one is illegal” - no immigration controls, no borders? - and then how should we be organising this in practice - through a broad campaign against deportations and for the right to work? with a distinct current arguing for no-one is illegal position within it? This is a two-fold debate - what we want, and how do we get it.
Or perhaps we could ask questions rather than setting out policy - what should we support in Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iraq/Iran? what is our vision for socialist healthcare? should education be secular? should public services be re-nationalised - and if so how? what is a 21st century socialist response to the consequences of neo-liberal economics? can the planet be saved without socialism?
And how should we organise to achieve our demands?
[Answers on a blog please - www.socialistunity.com, www.conventionoftheleft.org.uk]
Or we could build up a programme for The Left from existing examples (such as Socialist Outlook’s recent four point outline - www.isg-fi.org.uk; or the Communist Party of Britain’s Left Wing Programme - www.communist-party.org.uk) and debate these openly in order to arrive at some broad agreement.
Then we can discuss how we should organise ourselves, to put such policies into practice: - generalising from the example above, for example, perhaps through a broad organisation with a distinct socialist current within it?
Could we debate any or all of this, over the weeks and months ahead? Would it be useful for the Convention of The Left to address further in September?