ABOLISH Lèse-majesté 

ABOLISH MONARCHY

Thai court grants Thaksin bail, other politically charged cases to be heard in July

Panu Wongcha-um
Updated Tue, 18 June 2024 


Exiled former PM Thaksin returns to Thailand

By Panu Wongcha-um

BANGKOK (Reuters) -Thailand's influential former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a powerful backer of the largest party in the governing coalition, avoided pre-trial detention for allegedly insulting the monarchy after a criminal court granted him bail on Tuesday.

Separately, the Constitutional Court set July 3 and July 10, respectively, as the next hearing dates for two cases involving the opposition Move Forward party and the incumbent prime minister Srettha Thavisin.


Srettha, a political novice who took office last year, faces potential dismissal over a cabinet appointment.

The Move Forward party, which won last year's closely fought election but was unable to form a government, could be dissolved for its campaign to amend the royal insult law.

Thaksin, Srettha and Move Forward deny any wrongdoing.

The Constitutional Court also ruled that an ongoing selection process for a new upper house, which started earlier this month, is lawful, clearing the deck for 200 new lawmakers to take over from a military appointed senate later this year.

The court cases, which risk deepening a decades-old rift between the conservative-royalist establishment and its opponents, such as the populist ruling Pheu Thai party and the Move Forward party, have raised the spectre of political instability and rattled markets.

Thailand's main stock index, which dropped to its lowest level since November 2020 on Monday, gained more than 1% on Tuesday morning before trimming gains.

(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um, Panarat Thepgumpanat, Chayut Setboonsarng and Orathai Sriring; Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by John Mair and Ed Davies)


Thai Royalists Make Risky Bet in Fresh Showdown With Thaksin

Patpicha Tanakasempipat
Sun, 16 June 2024 




(Bloomberg) -- Last August, former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra returned to his homeland after 15 years in exile following a deal with royalists who once ousted him in a coup. That marriage of convenience is now at risk of falling apart, potentially unleashing more political turmoil.

Members of Thaksin’s ruling Pheu Thai party aren’t sure whether that deal still holds, according to people familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters. While they are optimistic the government will survive, they won’t know for sure until courts decide on separate legal cases involving both Thaksin, who could be thrown in jail, and Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, an ally who faces possible disqualification, the people said.

When that might happen is unclear. Thailand’s Constitutional Court plans to meet again on Tuesday to consider more evidence on a petition filed by 40 senators seeking to remove Srettha, 62, over allegations of ethical violations. On the same day, Thaksin, 74, is set to be indicted in a royal defamation case. The proceedings in both cases could move quickly or still drag on for months.

If that wasn’t complicated enough, the Constitutional Court is concurrently hearing a case on whether to disband the pro-democracy Move Forward party over its pledge to amend Thailand’s lese majeste law, which forbids criticism of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and other top royals. The party, which won the most seats in last year’s election, is seen as the biggest threat to the royalist establishment, and kneecapping it risks triggering more street protests.

“It would be improper of me to discuss what’s to come in the future,” Srettha told reporters in Bangkok last week when asked about the cases.

The uncertainty is rattling investors who once cheered the possibility that Thailand may finally see more political stability. Foreign funds have pulled more than $3 billion from local markets this year, sending the nation’s benchmark SET Index to a four-year low. It’s now the worst performer of all global bourses tracked by Bloomberg in the past year.

Thaksin so far has little to show from joining hands with his former enemies. Dissatisfaction is growing with Srettha’s government as it struggles to implement campaign pledges to hand out cash, help farmers deal with debt and raise the minimum wage, all while targeting annual economic growth of 5%. It has also sought to strong-arm the central bank into cutting interest rates to spur the economy, which the World Bank forecasts will fail to expand at an annual pace greater than 3% through 2026.

Why this is all happening now — and just how much the legal cases are connected — is the subject of much speculation in Bangkok. Thaksin’s opponents don’t have a clear path to forming a stable government unless they stage yet another military coup, a scenario that can’t be ruled out in a nation that has had about a dozen of them since ending absolute monarchy in 1932.

One theory is that the royalist establishment wants to rein in Thaksin, who has kept a high profile since he was freed from detention in February after King Vajiralongkorn commuted his eight-year jail sentence for corruption to just a year. Thaksin has been a constant presence on television, meeting with hordes of supporters, ministers and officials. He also attempted to broker a peace agreement in Myanmar and met with Malaysian leader Anwar Ibrahim in a bid to resolve a longstanding insurgency in southern Thailand.

Although Thailand’s conservatives may depend on Thaksin for now to counter Move Forward’s rapid rise in popularity, his ambitions are increasingly breaking trust with the establishment, according to Teerasak Siripant, managing director at BowerGroupAsia in Bangkok.

“Since Thaksin’s return, there were expectations from the establishment about what he should or shouldn’t do,” Teerasak said. “They had expected him to be behind the scenes, but that’s clearly not what’s happening. We’re seeing the same image that we have long had of him: he wants to be someone great in Thai society.”

While Thaksin’s royal pardon was the clearest sign of a behind-the-scenes deal, the terms of any agreement remain a mystery. Not much has fundamentally changed since Pheu Thai joined forces with royalist military-backed parties last year: Both still need each other to form a government that doesn’t include Move Forward, whose stronger-than-expected performance in last year’s election represented a slap in the face to the royalists — and a challenge to Thaksin’s electoral dominance.

Thaksin has strongly denied any wrongdoing, publicly blaming his lese majeste case on “the man in the forest” — a nickname referring to former army chief Prawit Wongsuwan, 78, who served as deputy junta leader after a 2014 coup that ousted the government of Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra. A party official deflected questions from reporters about Thaksin’s comment regarding Prawit, who now leads the conservative Palang Pracharath Party in the ruling coalition and has long headed the military’s Forest Preservation Foundation.

“The case is baseless — it’s fruit from a toxic tree,” Thaksin told reporters on June 8, in his first public comments about his legal troubles, which stem from remarks he made in 2015 in the wake of the military takeover. “It’s an example that shows how charges are abused after a coup.”

Thaksin’s remarks can be interpreted in a number of ways, the people familiar said: Either he’s confident the deal that brought him back to Thailand is still intact and he feels protected, or he’s sending a warning shot to the establishment that he’s ready to fight if they lock him up again, or that he’s looking for a scapegoat and signaling he’ll fall in line.

Thaksin similarly blamed Prawit for orchestrating the case against Srettha. The senators backing the petition came together on their shared frustrations over Thaksin, and some of them aim to pressure him into accepting a conservative leader, according to people familiar with the situation.

Although the petition was backed by a small fraction of the 250-member military-appointed Senate, it’s now one of several moving parts that could bring down the government. The senators who initiated the petition are betting that Thaksin would still keep the coalition together and reluctantly back a conservative for prime minister, because he doesn’t want to go to jail and still wants to bring his sister Yingluck, 56, back from exile.

But that is a big gamble. If Srettha is disqualified, only seven people are eligible to become prime minister, including Prawit. The two options from Thaksin’s camp are his 37-year-old daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, and 75-year-old Chaikasem Nitisiri. Both are believed to be long shots: it’s unclear if Thaksin wants to expose one of his children to the messiness of Thai politics at the moment, while the latter has had serious health issues in recent years.

If it’s not someone from Pheu Thai, Thaksin could pull the party out of the coalition and seek to link up with Move Forward. Although there is bad blood between the parties, and that scenario remains unlikely, together they would control a majority in the lower house of parliament.

In that case, they would likely back 43-year-old Pita Limjaroenrat, an outcome the royalist establishment would want to avoid. That’s why the Move Forward dissolution case is so important: If the party is disbanded, Pita wouldn’t be able to stand as prime minister.

In a scenario in which Thaksin doesn’t support the conservatives and can’t form a government with Move Forward, it would likely lead to a fresh election. And given that anti-establishment parties won nearly 60% of seats in an election a year ago, that’s a risky proposition for the military-backed conservatives.

By going after Thaksin, the royalist elites got themselves into a conundrum, according to Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. The most likely scenario, he added, is that they let Thaksin off in the end.

“They don’t want Move Forward to be in government, but now they’ve got a Pheu Thai government that they are undermining directly,” Thitinan said. “They want to teach Thaksin a lesson. But it depends on how he responds.”

--With assistance from Philip J. Heijmans.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

Four Thai court cases that could spark political crises
Reuters Videos
Updated Mon, 17 June 2024



STORY: Thailand is facing a critical week of four court cases that could unleash a political crisis, with the fate of the prime minister and the main opposition hanging in the balance.

Thai politics has been defined by decades of struggle between its military-supported, conservative-royalist establishment clashing with populist parties like those backed by Thaksin Shinawatra and now a new, and progressive, opposition.

Each case this week is wrapped up in that tension.

Here's what you need to know about them.


:: How is the Prime Minister involved?

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has been accused by a group of conservative senators of breaching the constitution when he appointed a former lawyer with a conviction record to his cabinet.

He denies wrongdoing.

He only took power in August, but could face dismissal if the Constitutional Court rules against him.

If he is removed from office, a new government must be formed.

The court will likely announce the next hearing or verdict date on Tuesday (June 18).

:: The case against the former premier

Thaksin Shinawatra, the influential former premier who was ousted in a 2006 military coup, is to be formally indicted Tuesday in a Bangkok criminal court on several charges, including allegedly insulting the monarchy in a 2015 interview.

Criticism of the monarchy is forbidden under Thailand's tough lese-majeste law, which carries a maximum jail sentence of up to 15 years for each perceived royal insult.

After the indictment, the court will then decide whether or not to grant bail to the 74-year-old billionaire politician, who denies wrongdoing.

:: Opposition under threat?

Another case could lead to the dissolution of the progressive Move Forward party.

The opposition party holds 30% of seats in the lower house after winning last year's closely-fought election but was blocked by conservative lawmakers from forming a government.

The Constitutional Court is considering an Election Commission complaint that alleges the Move Forward party breached the constitution with an attempt to reform the country's royal insult law.

The party denies any wrongdoing.

The court is expected to announce the next hearing or verdict date on Tuesday.

:: What about the Senate election?

The Constitutional Court will also rule on Tuesday on a petition challenging the legality of the process to select a new 200-member Senate.

If the process is canceled or delayed, it would temporarily extend the term of the current Senate, which was hand-picked by the military after the 2014 coup.

Military-appointed lawmakers have been central in determining government formation, including last year’s maneuver to block Move Forward from forming a government.

Thailand's ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra indicted for defaming monarchy

NEWS WIRES
Tue, 18 June 2024 at 12:05 am GMT-6·1-min read




Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was granted release on bail hours after he was formally indicted Tuesday on a charge of defaming the country's monarchy in one of several court cases that have unsteadied Thai politics.

Thaksin, an influential political figure despite being ousted from power 18 years ago, reported himself to prosecutors Tuesday morning and was indicted, Prayuth Bejraguna, a spokesperson for the Office of the Attorney General, said at a news conference.

A car believed to be carrying Thaksin arrived at the Criminal Court in Bangkok but he did not come out to meet reporters. His lawyer Winyat Chatmontree told reporters that Thaksin was ready to enter the judicial process.

A few hours later, the Criminal Court said Thaksin's bail release was approved with a bond worth 500,000 baht ($13,000) under a condition that he cannot travel out of Thailand unless he receives permission from the court. The same car left the court shortly after without Thaksin being seen.

The law on defaming the monarchy, an offense known as lese majeste, is punishable by three to 15 years in prison. It is among the harshest such laws globally and increasingly has been used in Thailand to punish government critics.

Thaksin, now 74, was ousted by an army coup in 2006 that set off years of deep political polarization. His opponents, who were generally staunch royalists, had accused him of corruption, abuse of power and disrespecting then-King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died in 2016.

(AP)


Thaksin, Thai PM Caught Up in Legal Cases as Crisis Deepens

Anuchit Nguyen, Pathom Sangwongwanich and Janine Phakdeetham
Tue, 18 June 2024 at 1:40 am GMT-6·4-min read



(Bloomberg) -- Former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra faces a trial in a royal insult case while a top court ordered his ally and Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin to submit more evidence in a case seeking his ouster, deepening a political crisis that’s gripped the Southeast Asian nation.

Thaksin, a two-time former prime minister and the de facto leader of the ruling Pheu Thai party, was arraigned under Thailand’s stringent lese majeste law that protects the royal family from criticism. The 74-year-old politician was granted bail after his lawyer posted a 500,000 baht ($13,590) bond.

Read: Thai Royalists Make Risky Bet in Fresh Showdown With Thaksin

Hours after Thaksin was indicted, Thailand’s Constitutional Court asked Srettha — who heads the Pheu Thai-led coalition government — to furnish more documents and evidence in the case seeking his removal. This was in relation to allegations of ethics violations in appointing a cabinet minister who spent time in prison.

While the outcomes of the cases are far from certain, the litigations pose risks to Srettha’s government that was formed in the aftermath of last year’s messy general election. They also signal the possible unraveling of a deal that saw Pheu Thai and a clutch of pro-royalist and military-aligned parties joining hands to take power and paved the way for Thaksin’s return from a 15-year exile.

The political uncertainty have rattled Thailand’s financial markets, prompting foreign investors to pull almost $4 billion from the nation’s stocks and bonds. The benchmark SET Index of stocks has slumped to a near four-year low, ranking it the worst-performer of all global bourses tracked by Bloomberg in the past year, while the baht is Asia’s worst performer after the Japanese yen this year.

“Rising political risks have dampened any investor optimism about Thailand’s quick economic recovery,” said Varorith Chirachon, an executive director at SCB Asset Management Co. “The lingering legal cases against Srettha and key political parties will probably derail government’s attempts and focus in implementing much-needed economic policies and stimulus.”

The Thai stocks index pared gains in the afternoon session when it got a chance to react to court news. It ended morning session 1% higher but is now down 0.6%.

The charges against Thaksin, 74, stem from an interview he gave in Seoul in 2015 that prosecutors deemed had breached Article 112 of Thailand’s penal code. It carries a maximum jail term of 15 years for each offense of defaming the monarchy.

The attorney general last month decided to indict Thaksin, saying there was enough evidence to press ahead with a trial. Thaksin has rejected the charges and his lawyer has vowed to contest the case in the court.

“The case is baseless — it’s fruit from a toxic tree,” Thaksin told reporters on June 8, in his first public comments about his legal troubles, which stem from remarks he made in 2015 in the wake of the military takeover. “It’s an example that shows how charges are abused after a coup.”

The court seized Thaksin’s passport and ordered him to be present on Aug. 19 when it will begin scrutinizing the evidence in the case.

Thaksin is currently on parole after being sentenced in corruption cases. He’s due to walk free after his royally commuted jail term ends in August.

He held the country’s top political office from 2001 until being ousted in a 2006 coup. His sister Yingluck Shinawatra, whose government was overthrown by a coup, remains in exile after leaving Thailand in 2017 before a court sentenced her to five years in prison for dereliction of duty over a controversial rice purchase program.

Srettha’s Troubles

The legal trouble for Srettha meanwhile arises from a petition by a group of 40 senators who alleged “serious violation of ethical standards” in the April appointment of Pichit Chuenban, a former lawyer for the influential Shinawatra family. Pichit was not qualified to become a minister after being sentenced to six months in jail in 2008 for attempting to bribe court officials while representing Thaksin, according to the senators.

Although Pichit resigned from the cabinet last month, saying he wanted to save Srettha from any legal troubles, it hasn’t stopped the court from probing the accusation against the prime minister. Srettha has said he was confident he could weather the court scrutiny, adding that his decision to appoint Pichit followed the law.

Srettha now has 15 days to furnish fresh evidence. The court will review the case again on July 10.

The constitutional court will also resume hearing a case on whether to disband the pro-democracy Move Forward party over its pledge to amend Thailand’s lese majeste law on July 3, it said in a statement. The party, which won the most seats in last year’s election, is seen as the biggest threat to the royalist establishment.

Move Forward has said it plans to “fight tooth and nail” against the dissolution threat, saying its loss would amount to an attack on democracy.

 Bloomberg Businessweek

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for Lèse-majesté 

ABOLISH  Lese-majeste 

ABOLISH MONARCHY

Former Thai PM Thaksin to be Charged With Royal Defamation


The pact between Thaksin’s camp and the royalist establishment, which allowed the former leader to return from self-exile last year, may be starting to fray.

By Sebastian Strangio
May 29, 2024

A supporter waits in front of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s residence before Thaksin was released on parole, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024, in Bangkok, Thailand.Credit: AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn


Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will be charged with defaming the country’s monarchy Thai prosecutors said this morning, three months after the leader was released on parole in another criminal case.

“The attorney-general has decided to indict Thaksin on all charges,” spokesperson Prayuth Bejraguna told reporters. Thaksin was absent from today’s hearing due to a COVID-19 infection, but will need to appear before court on June 18 to be formally indicted, Prayuth added.

The lese-majeste complaint was filed by royalist activists in 2016, relating to an interview that Thaksin gave the year before to South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper, in which he alleged that the Privy Council had backed the May 2014 coup which ousted his sister Yingluck Shinawatra’s government.

Perceived criticisms of the Thai monarchy are harshly punished under Article 112 of Thailand’s penal code, also known as the lese-majeste law, which carries prison sentences of up to 15 years – and which government critics claim has been routinely used to hush up dissenting voices.

As Reuters notes, Thaksin’s case will be the highest-profile case among more than 270-odd Article 112 prosecutions working their way through the Thai legal system. Just this week, two separate Thai courts sentenced an opposition parliamentarian and an activist musician to prison terms for insulting the monarchy. Thaksin also faces a charge under the Computer Crime Act.

In a country where judges routinely bend with the political winds, the attorney-general’s decision to press ahead with the lese-majeste charge points to possible cracks in the political compact that has led to Thaksin’s political rehabilitation and comeback over the past nine months.

Last August, Thaksin returned from a long period of self-exile to begin serving a prison term for abuse of power dating back to his time in office. After the rapid dilution of his eight-year sentence, he was released on parole in February.

The former leader’s rehabilitation reflected a sudden détente in the two-decade-long political war between Thailand’s conservative establishment, clustered around the monarchy and armed forces, and Thaksin’s populist political machine, which carried his parties to victory in every election between 2001 and 2019.

This was made possible by the political realignment in that followed last year’s general election, which saw Pheu Thai eclipsed by a more progressive challenger, the Move Forward Party (MFP), which won the most seats of any party. In the complex political maneuverings that followed the election, the MFP was sidelined as Pheu Thai joined with a coalition of conservative and military-backed parties and formed a government under Srettha Thavisin. The former real estate developer was on confirmed as PM the very same day that Thaksin landed at Bangkok’s Don Meuang airport.

Under the terms of this political compact, Thaksin’s eight-year prison dissolved away; after receiving a royal pardon, he ended up serving barely six months, all of it in a relatively plush private suite at a prison hospital. (This former public enemy number one did not spend a single night in prison proper.) Conversely, the fact that attorney general has now decided to charge him under Article 112 suggests that this political compact between Pheu Thai and the establishment is fraying, if it hasn’t come apart entirely.

Thaksin has arguably not done his own cause any good. Since being paroled in February, the former leader has almost contemptuously asserted his influence over Thai politics. As The Diplomat’s Bangkok-based columnist Tita Sanglee noted earlier this month, the 74-year-old has “wasted no time traveling to major provinces in Thailand’s north and south. He was seen visiting development sites and mingling with political bigwigs, high-ranking local officials, and businesspeople, effectively flaunting his regained influence.” He also made an apparently stillborn attempt to establish himself as a mediator in the conflict in Myanmar, and is believed to have influenced a disruptive cabinet reshuffle earlier this month.

It is possible that the tribunes of the military-royalist establishment, including the Palace, have been angered by Thaksin’s political activities and his rapid return to active politics. It is also possible that many were never quite able to get over years of cultivated bitterness toward Thaksin and his allies.

Whether or not this marks a resumption of the war between the Shinawatras and the establishment remains to be seen – but the course of the lese-majeste case against Thaksin will likely offer a strong indication.

UK
DINOSAUR DEBUT AT REPUBLIC DAY EVENT

Huge dinosaur puppet named 'Chuck The Rex'.

May 8, 2024


On May 5th last year, the coronation of King Charles, anti-monarchy campaigners were arrested under dubious circumstances despite having formally arranged with Metropolitan Police an agreed protest along the route. Charges were later dropped, and a substantial compensation payment is being negotiated.

One year on, organisers from Republic staged their first Republic Day rally in Trafalgar Square. It’s planned to be an annual event bringing together the ever-growing number of republicans calling for an elected head of state instead of a hereditary, expensive and privileged monarchy.

Several hundred people attended the event during the afternoon, and huge banners adorned the walls of the square with the slogans ‘Abolish The Monarchy’ and ‘Change The Country For Good’.

Speakers included poet/musician Femi Nylander, ex-MP and author/musician Norman Baker, writer/actress Kelechi Okafor, and Republic founder Graham Smith. Activist Peter Tatchell spoke alongside Floris Muller, who is the leader of the Dutch anti-monarchist group, Republiek.

There were also cultural contributions from poet Martin Hayes (Culture Matters), and a video of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown reading Benjamin Zephaniah’s poem ‘Tea With The Queen’.

Later than originally planned, a 15 foot-high puppet made its appearance and circled round the square – a huge dinosaur called ‘CHUCK THE REX’.

Over the past year, Republic have staged protests at Royal venues and events, and they vow to continue and grow the movement calling for a referendum on the future of the monarchy, with its abolition to be replaced by an elected head of state. Polls are moving in their direction, with support for Charles dropping, especially among younger people.



More info and get involved at Republic.

Anti-monarchists celebrate Republic Day for 1st time in UK

Republican groups call for 'better, fairer, and more equitable democracy'

Behlül Çetinkaya |06.05.2024

Anti-monarchists, holding banners, gather to stage a protest against the Royal Family and to demand the abolition of the monarchy on Commonwealth Day in front of the Westminster Abbey Church in London, United Kingdom on March 11, 2024.

LONDON

For the first time, anti-monarchists in the UK celebrated "Republic Day" on Sunday, the same day as King Charles' first coronation anniversary.​​​​​​​

Representatives of republican groups from Norway and the Netherlands also attended the Republic Day celebration held at Trafalgar Square in London.

The event was organized by anti-monarchist group Republic, whose members carried banners and signs saying "Not my king" and "Abolish the monarchy."

"You have public days every year, on this anniversary of the coronation, on this anniversary of Charles being anointed our head of state, refusing to stand for election and we will keep on going until the monarchy is abolished," Graham Smith, leader of Republic, said at the celebration.

Smith added the group wanted "better, fairer, and more equitable democracy."

Arguing that the members of Britain's Royal Family do not deserve the positions they hold, he said that when the royals leave, the country would elect parliamentarians and presidents its people could be proud of.

"We are responsible for those decisions because we might get it wrong. Yes, you might choose someone who is no good, but then we can choose someone else later," he added.

Extremism definition: UK Government's definition a 'smash and grab' on human rights, Amnesty International claims

Michael Gove unveiled the UK government’s new definition of extremism on Thursday

By Alexander Brown
Published 14th Mar 2024, 12:47 GMT

The UK government’s new definition of extremism has been condemned as a “smash and grab” on human rights by Amnesty International.

Launched by communities secretary Michael Gove on Thursday, the definition describes extremism as “the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance” that aims to “negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others”, or “undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights”.

Groups covered by the definition, which is designed to include conduct that falls short of criminality, but is still deemed “unacceptable”, will be denied access to government funding and prevented from meeting ministers and officials or gaining a platform that could “legitimise” them.

Levelling up, housing and communities, Michael Gove has outlined the UK government's definition of extremism. Picture: Lucy North/PA Wire

However, the policy has attracted criticism from charities, human rights groups and opposition parties, as well as Tory MPs

Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International’s chief executive, labelled the expansion of the definition a “dangerous gimmick”, that had come in the wake of protest calling for a ceasefire.

He said: “From the Prime Minister’s disturbing Downing Street speech earlier this month, the introduction of further anti-protest measures and now the expansion of the extremism definition, it looks as if the government is set on shrinking the space for dissenting views and the right to protest.

“An overwhelmingly peaceful protest movement seeking an end to Israel’s mass killing of civilians in Gaza is being used by ministers to clamp down on our civil liberties, the irony is crushing and frightening.

“This dangerously sweeping approach to labelling groups and individuals ‘extremist’ is yet another smash and grab on our human rights by a government which has become a serial offender in this regard.

“This attempt to stigmatise legitimate, peaceful political activity is taking us further down the road toward authoritarianism. This expansion will lead to further misuse and discrimination. Today’s announcement is a dangerous gimmick and this whole enterprise should be abandoned.”


The Muslim Council of Britain also attacked the proposals as “flawed”, warning they were “undemocratic, divisive, and potentially illegal” and “may involve defining established Muslim organisations as extremist”

Labour has claimed the new definition raises more questions than answers and was “very unusual”.

Shadow Treasury minister Darren Jones told the BBC: “The slight confusion really is that the government has focused on this definition today, which is not in relation to the counter-extremism strategy, which is now nine years out of date. It’s not an action plan for agencies and others about what action they should take in communities across the country. It’s not even a legal definition.

“All it really does is prevent the government from financing organisations or individuals. That rather implies that Michael Gove is worried they’re doing that at the moment, which raises more questions than he’s been able to answer this morning.”

Mr Gove insisted the definition would not impact free speech.

He told the Commons: “Our definition will not affect gender critical campaigners, those with conservative religious beliefs, trans activists, environmental protest groups, or those exercising their proper right to free speech.

“The government is taking every possible precaution to strike a balance in drawing up the new definition between protecting fundamental rights and safeguarding citizens.”

How the UK's clumsy new definition of 'extremism' could be turned on its own government

The latest announcement isn't about security challenges - it's about culture wars

H A HELLYER

NATIONAL, UAE

Protests against Israel's war in Gaza have ignited heated debates about extremism and Islamophobia in Britain. Sopa

The British government unveiled this week its proposed definition of what “extremism” apparently means, which it purports should become the basis for excluding groups and individuals from state funding, as well as top official engagement.

There is extremism we need to be aware of, without question. I was previously appointed by the UK government to be deputy convenor of its working group on “tackling extremism and radicalisation”, and I take the issues of extremism, radicalisation and terrorism very seriously. But the newly announced definition does not help the necessary work Britain needs to do in order to face down these threats. On the contrary, it makes the work more difficult, and, potentially, aids in even more extremism.

The government’s definition purports that extremism is the promotion or advancement of an ideology that seeks to “negate or destroy” individual rights and freedoms; or seeks to undermine or replace the UK’s system of democracy; or wants to create an environment that permits others to do either of the former two.

There is a reason why the UK’s political and legal systems have been so careful about defining extremism for so long – because the attempts thus far have been utterly unworkable and open to abuse. This latest endeavour is no different.

When it comes to “terrorism”, Britain’s political elite managed to come to a definition that has, more or less, held up in the face of the judiciary and other legislation. It was not easy to do, and there continues to be challenges, but it has managed to do the job. When it comes to defining “extremism”, however, the very notion is so incredibly subjective, any partisan political effort is going to be ideologically bound. Good policy, however, relies on impartiality and consistency. This definition is neither.

In a practical sense, how will this definition be applied? How is “undermine” to be defined, for example? In the definition, the rights suggested relate to the Human Rights Act of 1998 – but at one point, the Conservative government was discussing proposals to abolish the Human Rights Act. Is the government thus guilty of extremism? There is the point about “replacing” the UK’s system of democracy; does the abolition of the monarchy, or the House of Lords, qualify in this regard? Will republicans thus be targeted under this kind of definition?

There is a reason why the UK’s political and legal systems have been so careful about defining extremism for so long

Common sense suggests that the answer to both questions would be “no” – but that is part of the problem. The policy is so poorly constructed that such scenarios are actually entirely in keeping with the wording, and it would only require political will to push them forward. It is why, for example, even several senior Conservative politicians, who each served as home secretary, opposed the very process that led to this definition. Other politicians, like Lord Peter Hain of the Labour party, noted that such a definition could “probably have been applied to the suffragettes in their day”.

The reality is, of course, that the definition has less to do “extremism”, and more to do with something far more base in nature. The definition isn’t about security challenges; it is about culture wars. The UK’s Conservative party is well aware that a sizeable proportion of its voters are, for lack of a better word, tribalistic; right-wing populism has become an incredibly attractive tool by which to get their attention and hold their support. In the midst of that culture war between the populist right and the rest, many regrettable policy decisions are taken.

Note, for example, how just recently, the deputy chair of the Conservatives, Lee Anderson, expressed Islamophobic remarks about the Muslim mayor of London; the party refused to admit that the remarks were, indeed, Islamophobic. But they suspended Mr Anderson from the party, and the reaction was telling. The leadership’s refusal to call out the comments for what they were – Islamophobic – was not enough to hold the backing of much of the party’s voting base, who expressed not only support for Mr Anderson, but anger at his suspension. The end result: Mr Anderson went to the more right-wing Reform Party, which is competing with the Conservatives for the same voter base.

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To be blunt, that part of the voter base is not simply conservative; it is sympathetic to identitarianism and racist politics. It is why, for example, the Conservatives took so long to condemn as racist the remarks of a Conservative donor, Frank Hester, who had been offensive about a black Member of Parliament, referring in particular to her skin colour. Eventually, they did – but they also refused to return the money he had provided the party. Even now, Mr Anderson’s comments haven’t been described as Islamophobia. There are numerous other examples, particularly when it comes to Muslims and ethnic minorities. The sad reality is that the Conservatives have embraced one set of extremists who are inclined to racism and bigotry and, ironically, have created an “extremism” definition to placate that set of extremists.

With that context in mind, it is clear the extremism definition is not only coming into being as a result of the culture wars – but that it is likely to be a tool used within the culture wars. The extremism definition is likely to be aimed disproportionately at Muslim groups, especially given who the progenitor of the definition is: Michael Gove, a Conservative politician who has long been infamous for public statements that target and problematise British Muslim populations. Moreover, the taking-up of valuable resources to implement any policy based on this definition is going to take up capacity that is incredibly limited, rather than focus such capacity where it is needed.

Muslim Britons will bear the brunt of this regrettable and entirely avoidable mistake – but we should not fool ourselves. As we let these culture wars play out, Britain itself has lost a battle. The irony is that some Britons think they just won one instead.

Published: March 14, 2024,

H A Hellyer

Dr HA Hellyer is nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies

UK

From Serfdom to Labourism

MARCH 2, 2024

LABOUR HUB 

Liam Payne looks at the developments that led to the emergence of the modern Labour Party and draws some important lessons for socialists today.

In articles for the left-wing newspaper Labour Standard in 1881, Friedrich Engels called on the nascent socialist movement in Britain to turn its efforts to organising a party of labour. While created initially to represent the interests of the working class in the expanding franchise of capitalist representative democracy, Engels believed that if this party started off as a separate entity to the existing bourgeois political parties, it would gradually shift towards a more explicitly anti-capitalist, socialist position. Engels stated to Karl Marx’s daughter, Eleanor, that it was “an immediate question of forming an English Labour Party with an independent class programme.”

Six years later, at the Trades Union Congress in Swansea, James Keir Hardie rose to give a speech which excoriated the political leadership of the trade union movement and their slavish devotion to the Liberal Party, with its bourgeois agenda. Hardie had formed the Scottish Labour Party the year before, and his speech presaged the uptick in union militancy and broadening of trade union organisation and representation initiated by the ‘New Unionism’ movement. This ruptured the conservative, ‘craft’ nature of the trade unions and opened them up to the majority of the working class, attempting to guide them in more radical directions. As labour historian Henry Pelling noted:

“Hardie’s lone protest at the 1887 congress was the beginning of a movement which in due course transformed not only the Congress itself, but the whole political structure of the country. It was the prelude to the New Unionism and to the changes to political outlook to which New Unionism gave rise.”

Enter the Fabians

The trade union movement had tried for some time to ride the tiger of liberalism in the hope of gaining some much-needed legislation for the movement and the working class in general. The theory behind this strategy came from an understanding of British parliamentary political tradition. Then as now, this dictates that political parties do not necessarily need to be held to any specific programme or manifesto which they have put their names to. Their position on any issue would largely be based on the prevailing context in which it arose, and the balance of forces within the party’s orbit and society in general. In terms of the Liberal Party, this meant the emerging power of the organised working class pitted against the more entrenched interests of the hegemonic capitalists. This strategy had proven largely ineffective.

To add to the political flux, the trade unions weren’t the only organisations interested in this question of political representation. Billing itself as ‘Britain’s oldest political think tank’, the Fabian Society was formed in 1884; taking its name from the Roman general Fabius, who defeated an invasion of the Italian peninsula by biding his time, building and conserving his forces, and striking the enemy when the opportune moment for victory presented itself. The Fabians are an elitist organisation, interested in using their privileged positions to influence those with power to follow a supposedly left-wing agenda – they called this strategy ‘permeation’.

Despite claiming a left-wing political stance, the Fabians were mostly interested in applying the empiricism of their analysis to British society in the aim of making it more efficient and technically rational. For a period at the beginning of their existence, this took the form of an antagonistic attitude towards the prevailing capitalism of the times, which they felt was incapable of such rationality. The Fabian Society claimed this made their analysis and proscriptions ‘socialist’. Capitalism has modified in many ways since 1884, and so has the attitude of the Fabian Society towards it – not in a progressive manner. Since their inception, the Fabians had been interested in the question of the best political organisation for them to attach themselves to and begin their shady work.

At the time of Hardie’s efforts at the TUC, the Fabians were establishing links in an effort to ‘permeate’ their ideas into the upper echelons of the liberal establishment. They aimed to assume prominent positions within Liberal Party organisations and through these influence the party’s political programme – utilising the twin intellectual tools of fact-based research and the new discipline of political science to argue their case based on expediency instead of ideology, in the tradition of staid British empiricism. To give them some organisational weight, they sought to enlist the various working-class and Liberal-aligned Radical societies in their native London to this cause.

Formation of the ILP

After failing to gain much support at the 1887 TUC conference, Keir Hardie attempted to begin the formation of a national party of labour himself. In 1891 he tried to arrange the coordination of the numerous ‘independent labour’ election candidates that had begun to emerge from the ‘New Unionist’ moment. Hardie reiterated his reasons for this attempt in the following manner:

“Should the Liberals get into power at the next election their neglect of the Labour question will compel some plain talking… I believe we have more to hope for from that party than from the other, but this applies to the rank and file only, and not to the leaders.”

In early 1893, Hardie finally got his wish. A conference of the various socialist groups and interested trade unionists convened in Bradford and formed the Independent Labour Party (ILP). The Fabians – the ‘future of the left since 1884’ – poured scorn on this seminal development. Famous author and leading Fabian, George Bernard Shaw wrote in an article on the conference “what can we do but laugh at your folly?”

The Fabians sent two delegates to the conference, one being Shaw. Their credentials for involvement in the conference were only approved by two votes by the other delegates. The Fabian strategy of ‘permeation’ was by this time well known amongst the nascent socialist movement in Britain and was unpopular. The elitist Fabians were understood to have no intention of relinquishing their privileged positions of influence within the liberal establishment and so were seen as bad faith actors by a large section of the Bradford conference.

In the midst of the conference procedures, an interesting and far-reaching debate took place around the naming of the new party. The Scottish Labour Party delegates agitated for the party to be called the ‘Socialist Labour Party’. This was rejected by other delegates as they felt it would limit the reach of the party, isolating it from working-class voters who were not yet aware of socialism, either theoretically or practically. Prophetically, ‘New Unionist’ leader Ben Tillett railed against any title associating the new party with “hare-brained chatterers and magpies of Continental revolutionists” – the new party would be wedded totally to representative democracy and pursue solely the parliamentary road to change.

Nevertheless, the ILP was largely made up of socialists. These were the dedicated men and women who undertook the novel strategy of creating a political party of the working-class which would work in lockstep with the country’s growing trade union movement. Their socialism was of a practical kind, however, as Tillett had alluded to. The aim of the Bradford conference was to create a vehicle of independent political representation for the working class, which could adopt its own programme of radical reforms for British society in the interest of this social layer. Engels thoroughly approved of the whole endeavour:

“The rush to Socialism, especially in the Industrial centres of the North, has become so great that this new party right at this first congress has appeared stronger than [the] Fabians… since the masses of the members make good decisions, since the weight lies in the provinces and not in London, the centre of cliques, since the programme in its main points is ours.”

Unions rethink

By the 1890s, the trade unions were beginning to reassess their relationship with liberalism. Driven by the vision of the ‘New Union’ upstarts and punitive government intervention in industrial disputes, there was a growing receptiveness to Hardie and the socialists’ ideas around independent working class political representation.

The unions were learning a harsh lesson in the prerogatives of state power in a capitalist society – with their advance threatened by government legislation favouring the bosses over them. Anti-trade union legislation, such as the legal creation in 1893 of a ‘free labour’ association to supply blackleg labour to break strikes, had begun to seriously erode the position of the trade unions.

Initially, they sought to counter this legislative attack through recourse to the law courts. Here, again, they learnt a salutary lesson about the objectives of the law in a capitalist society – with the employers’ ‘property rights’ nearly always trumping the right of working people to defend themselves and their class in any way. A general economic upturn in Britain at the end of the 19th century had also increased the trade union movements financial strength. These factors led to new thinking amongst the movement and its leaders.

Growth of the LRC

In 1900, the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) was established to create an electoral alliance between the ILP and other political parties of the left in Britain. Attempts were made to have the trade unions affiliate to the new body, but these were initially met with a lukewarm response. An increase in the severity of the legislative and legal attacks on trade union rights would soon change this.

The Taff Vale judgement of 1901 saw the High Court decide that the funds of a trade union were liable for the loss of company profits caused by strike action. The case was brought by the Taff Vale Railway Company against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. The union won a reversal of this decision at the Court of Appeal but was then defeated again when the case was brought before the House of Lords. The judgement essentially removed strike action as a method of trade union agitation due to the drastic financial consequences a strike could now cause.

A further House of Lords judgement later in 1901 also found trade unions liable for company profit loss caused by organised boycotts. These had the catalytic effect on trade union attitudes towards independent political representation for the working class that the socialist movement had been agitating for since Hardie’s TUC speech in 1887.

The affiliated membership of the LRC rose from 375,000 in February 1901, to 469,000 one year later, then on to 861,000 in 1903. Large unions such as those representing engineers and Lancashire textile workers finally affiliated and brought their large financial power behind the new political movement.

The LRC used this newfound support to arrange for the creation of a central fund for the organisation, which would provide the financial backing for them to stand candidates in elections across the country and support elected representatives in the days before these roles were salaried. By-election successes in disparate areas of the country throughout these years started to prove Hardie’s point that the political ground was fertile for such a new working class political organisation.

Keir Hardie’s role

After achieving his aim of creating an independent working-class political party, backed by the growing power of the trade union movement, Keir Hardie stood down as the chairman of the ILP. This did not mean that he was completely relinquishing his position in the movement, however. In his excellent study, Origins of the Labour Party, labour movement historian Henry Pelling paints a rather unflattering picture of Hardie from a democratic socialist and Labour left perspective:

“He believed, with Carlyle, that history is made by great men, who can provide leadership for others. He was conscious that no one could guide the I.L.P as well as himself, and in spite of all the principles of ‘democracy’ he was determined to continue giving it that guidance in the pages of the Labour Leader, which remained in his personal control. It was significant that whenever conference time came round he was careful to insert a note in the paper urging the branches not to follow the practice of binding their delegates to strict instructions, but to leave them free to be influenced by the debate, which would of course be dominated by himself and his colleagues.”

The ILP though, was only one constituent part of the larger and more amorphous Labour Representation Committee. Despite the socialist fire of the ILP and its members, the LRC was mostly made up of people yet to be converted to the cause, and dominated by trade union leaders who would have been much more comfortable sticking with liberalism if it could only be slightly more accommodating to their interests. Pelling attests that the main reason this accommodation was not forthcoming from the Liberal Party was due to the domination of its new constituency caucus system (a forerunner to today’s constituency parties, such as Constituency Labour Parties) by the domineering middle classes: unwilling to share power and representation with the upstart working-class movement, and openly hostile to any ideas of socialism and even Fabian ‘permeation’.

But old habits were hard to break. The LRC, and even the ILP, found it very difficult to articulate a clear, concise and separate ideological position to the mainstream Liberal Party in most issues of the time. Reporting on the ILP conference of 1901, the then Manchester Guardian stated: “What must strike a Liberal… is, one would say, how much of the proceedings is devoted to the advocacy of traditional Liberal principles.”

After the LRC shed the Marxist element that had helped create it, it was dominated by ex-Liberals at the executive level. One Ramsay MacDonald, who was dubbed by the venerable Hardie as Labour’s “greatest intellectual asset”, sided with his old Liberal comrades on most issues at the time. In the words of Pelling again:

“Hardie, who had been much more friendly to the Radicals since the outbreak of the South African War, in October 1901 publicly advocated a ‘frank, open and above-board agreement… for well-defined purposes’ with the anti-war Liberals. There was little enthusiasm for this among the Socialist rank-and-file; yet eighteen months later Hardie was apparently prepared to connive at MacDonald’s secret electoral understanding with the Liberal whips. With the leaders of the Socialist wing acting in this fashion, how could the non-Socialist elements be expected to keep clear of Liberalism?”

Lessons for today

Today, once again, there is a major political party claiming to represent the interests of the British working-class. The organised working-class, in the form of the trade union movement, have once more allied themselves to this electoral vehicle in the hope of gaining some legislative succour, with ever diminishing and depressing returns. Elitist, anti-democratic and non-socialist organisations have again aimed to control the direction of this political party by ideologically infusing its leadership with their ideas and prejudices – using the working class rank-and-file as their foot soldiers. The party establishment are still thoroughly ashamed of the socialism which is supposed to be their self-appointed intellectual backbone.

Decades of anti-trade union legislation and legal precedent have once more been allowed to pass almost unchallenged by this political wing of the labour movement. The leadership is still in the hands of those much more at home in the liberal political tradition, and the few leading lights of the socialist left again fail to adequately challenge this aberration, and even at times give it enthusiastic support. The party has long struggled to define what it believes socialism to be, which has led to much regurgitation of liberal talking-points in place of class politics. Rank-and-file party democracy has almost always been largely scorned, and the constituency parties have mostly become a moribund bastion of the privileged and conservative middle-class and are used, if at all, to bend the party to their interests. Despite a few noble attempts, this political representative of the working class has failed to properly evolve as Friedrich Engels hoped it would back in 1881.

Today, once again, if this party were to win the next general election, while perhaps slightly better than the alternative, their neglect of labour issues should be the cause of some ‘plain talking’.

Today, once again, the task of forging a path ahead and out of this morass falls to the socialist left.

Liam Payne is a Labour Party and Campaign for Socialism member based in Edinburgh.

Image: https://picryl.com/media/portrait-of-keir-hardie-8e5dfb. Creator: Wikimedia Commons  Credit: Wikimedia Commons via Picryl.com. Licence: PDM 1.0 DEED Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal

 

Learning from the Socialist League

FEBRUARY 28, 2024LABOUR HUB EDITORS

Liam Payne draws some lessons for today from the labour movement in the 1930s.

When the Independent Labour Party (ILP) disaffiliated from the Labour Party in July 1932, the Labour left was rent asunder. Many socialists involved in Labour were also ILP members and decided to follow their party conference decision and leave the Labour Party. Others, inside and outside the ILP, decided to ‘stay and fight’. Within a month of the ILPs decision, these remnants of the current which had started the Labour Party formed the Socialist League.

Origins

In his study of the Labour left, A Party with Socialists in it, Simon Hannah describes this new organisation of the Labour left as “part think tank, part grassroots activist network, part left pressure group.” They set out to orient the Labour Party once again towards a socialist politics through publishing materials on socialist theory, policies and practice.

The ILP’s disaffiliation and the subsequent formation of the Socialist League came on the back of the disastrous second Labour government of 1929-31, led by Ramsay MacDonald. The League attracted many Labour members who would go on to make a name for themselves in the movement: people like Aneurin Bevan, Barbara Betts (later Castle), Michael Foot and Harold Laski. These Socialist League members further helped to found both the Left Book Club and the journal of the Labour left, Tribune. Hannah goes on to describe the depth of the challenge that the Socialist League represented to the labour movement establishment:

“The Socialist League in some ways represented the most advanced internal theoretical challenge to Labour’s gradualist approach, and certainly reached the most radical conclusions based on their research, analysis and lived experience. It sought to win the party to a transformative strategy, and in doing so transform the party itself.”

The new organisation began strongly, establishing 70 branches across Britain and having marked success at the Party conferences of 1933 and 1934. It soon joined forces with the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda and subsequently managed to replace arch- rightwinger Ernest Bevin as that organisation’s chairman. Adopting the prevailing empiricism of the British labour movement, the Socialist League sought to flip this rather conservative approach to socialism into irrefutable arguments for a transformative leftwing direction from the labour movement.

At its inception, the Socialist League aimed to use its organisation as an information and propaganda tool for their socialist message. The purpose was to educate and agitate the grassroots of the labour movement with leftwing theory and practice. In this vein, the League propagated around major flashpoints of the day, such as unemployment, the efficacy of socialist planning instead of market mechanisms, whether the Labour Party was an adequate vehicle for socialism, and the threats to any socialist programme taking effect – disappointingly, only threats external to the labour movement. They sought to “develop a healthy intellectual party culture”.

Aims

Unlike many in labour movement leadership positions, the Socialist League recognised the primacy of class struggle as the defining contradiction of the capitalist mode of production. Member-intellectuals like Harold Laski also recognised that Parliament and a parliamentary majority were insufficient mechanisms to ensure a socialist advance. Any socialist government would need to be protected and driven by an extra-parliamentary movement of dedicated activists: Laski had to retract a public statement he made to the effect that he believed the monarchy would sabotage any left Labour government.

In the usual Labour Party fashion, the Socialist League progressed its theoretical education and agitation into motions to the Party conference. Motions were proposed to abolish the House of Lords and to enact an ‘Emergency Powers Act’ at the beginning of a socialist Parliament – to take control of the country’s financial, industrial, and commercial structures, if necessary. In 1932, a Socialist League conference motion to nationalise the Joint Stock Banks in order to prevent the age-old establishment sabotage of capital flight, was passed.

In foreign affairs, the Socialist League adopted an anti-colonial position, again at odds with the movement leadership, pushing the Party conference into supporting a position of “socialisation and self-government” for India in 1933. They believed that the League of Nations was a supremely flawed attempt at generating world peace, due to its acceptance of the imperialism of its western creators. They only supported League of Nations positions that they felt would be of benefit to the working classes of the world.

The Socialist League’s analysis and proposals had one glaring weakness. They never reckoned with the establishment tendencies at home within the labour movement itself. They had no strategy for navigating the Party and trade union leaderships and bureaucracies, which were bastions of the non-socialist elements that had attached themselves to the labour movement. Establishing their organisation so shortly after the treachery of MacDonald in 1931, the League reduced this episode to one of timing – if the Labour Party could only force through its socialist measures early enough after winning power, they could avoid such catastrophes in future.

As Simon Hannah summarises: “While radical compared to the constitutionalism of the party and the conservatism of the trade union leaders, the League’s approach was still a parliamentary route, though one which accepted the importance of extra-parliamentary action. In effect, their socialist programme represented a series of laws that a left Labour government could implement, with their success guaranteed by the speed of the legislative agenda – hence the need for emergency powers within days of being elected – and the active support of the wider working-class movement.”

(Contemporary) Conclusions

Fast-forward to today and the lack of an organisation such as the Socialist League on the contemporary Labour left is obvious. There is an urgent need for a coordinated grassroots movement aiming to develop a healthy intellectual culture within the labour movement, by offering up socialist analysis and proposals for our times. The need to ally such an intellectual offering with strong links to leftwing movements operating outside of the strictures of Parliament and local government, is as clear as it was in the early 1930s.

With any routes to power within the Party – and thus Parliament – thoroughly blocked off by the vindictive and sociopathic Labour right, creating an alternative left culture within the Party’s grassroots, which then reaches outside to the unions and the extra-parliamentary left, would be a useful base for the remaining socialists in Labour to anchor themselves to, and would provide a proactive use of their energies and capabilities.

It has become increasingly and depressingly apparent that we cannot wait for any direction from ‘above’ in these matters. Stalwart left Labour MPs are in survival mode, and others that have associated themselves with the left are now dropping the red-clothing they donned to try and gain favour from a restive rank-and-file during the Corbyn years. In addition, a Scottish Labour MSP has been caught lying about a Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign protest at his constituency office, after his version of events were publicly corrected and rebuked by both Police Scotland and a broadsheet journalist who were in attendance. This protest was arranged because of the MSP’s shameful connections with BAE Systems, a major arms exporter to Israel. That this was from one of only four MSPs associated with the Campaign for Socialism in Scotland is thoroughly embarrassing for the Labour left in the arena of extra-parliamentary politics.

Clearly, such a movement must grow out of the remaining left members and organisations of the Labour Party rank-and-file – the lessons of the Socialist League can help in this endeavour.

Liam Payne is a Labour Party and Campaign for Socialism member based in Edinburgh.

Image: Aneurin Bevan. Creator: National Portrait Gallery London. PDM 1.0 DEED Public Domain-Market 1.0 Universal