This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[beesley]

I’m not sure if this is a West Midlands Labour thing or a TGWU thing…

https://labourlist.org/2021/07/jack-dromey-why-im-backing-steve-turner-as-unites-next-general-secretary/

It also seems to be a personal thing - Dromey goes back a long time in both the union movement (and partly in his role as Party Treasurer). He's not really a factional person either, from what I recall.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's a T&G thing, mostly. Those divisions are as important - in practice - as 'Left/Right'. I'll repeat my usual observation that the merger was a very bad idea.

[Blair]

It's a T&G thing, mostly. Those divisions are as important - in practice - as 'Left/Right'. I'll repeat my usual observation that the merger was a very bad idea.

In the sense that the two unions weren’t really that suited to each other?

My rather limited knowledge is that Amicus was the right-wing (in a Labour sense) manufacturing and electrical union- while TGWU was largely by 2005 just the dockers (and Lens branch)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In the sense that the two unions weren’t really that suited to each other?

Fundamentally different cultures, yes.

My rather limited knowledge is that Amicus was the right-wing (in a Labour sense) manufacturing and electrical union- while TGWU was largely by 2005 just the dockers (and Lens branch)

Amicus was the result of a long series of mergers being created from the AEEU (itself a merger of the AEU and the EETPU) and the MSF (a merger of the ASTMS and the TASS). The old AEU and EETPU both had histories of serious conflict between right-wing Labour types and actual Communists, although that was a long time ago now. A lot of people who try to bluff knowledge about trade union history like to insist that the main 'right' faction in Unite is pure descendant of the AEU, but in reality it comes just as much from the EETPU tradition. The ASTMS was dominated by what would usually be called the Soft Left (Clive Jenkins was its General Secretary for many years) and the TASS by a much harder variety of Left. TASS in fact had started life as the white collar section of the AEU and political differences were a big factor behind the two splitting. The result of all this was a trade union with a very decentralised power structure (if not to GMB levels) and membership in a pretty wide range of skilled occupations, manual and non-manual.

The old Transport & General Workers Union, of course, was the most centralised major British trade union for the bulk of its history and Unite has ended up following on from that, which was not actually the original plan at all. It was strong in a couple of other areas to those that you mention, with a lot of members in the car industry and (especially) bus drivers and the like.

[Blair]

I regret to inform everyone I’ve had the full bingo of reading an article about Ed M which features both the ‘wrong brother’ dig and the weird idea that air strikes in Syria in 2013 would have stopped Assad.

For those interested… and perhaps a reminder for me to finally stop reading the Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ed-miliband-needs-to-shut-up-and-let-labour-move-on-gxr8z8z7k

[EastAnglianLefty]

The other reason that the merger was bad idea was because mergers in the trade union movement are usually a way of avoiding dealing with falling membership numbers and bank balances, and they usually serve to make the merged union less effective at looking after its members (leading to falling membership numbers and a focus on existing activists, leading to expensive bad decisions, which creates the conditions for a new round of mergers). This was especially blatant with UCATT's integration into Unite a few years ago.

What the union movement really needs is a wholesale restructure of different sections to different unions and a shared set of agreements on basic levels of representation members can expect. But in practice that affects way too many people's powerbases for that ever to be even remotely plausible.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I think labour needs to cut ties with the Union, they don't realy make sense given the present economic structure. Gig workers, Professionals and Free Lancers don't really benefit from the Gig Economy.

[Continential]

I think labour needs to cut ties with the Union, they don't realy make sense given the present economic structure. Gig workers, Professionals and Free Lancers don't really benefit from the Gig Economy.

lol

[CumbrianLefty]

I regret to inform everyone I’ve had the full bingo of reading an article about Ed M which features both the ‘wrong brother’ dig and the weird idea that air strikes in Syria in 2013 would have stopped Assad.

For those interested… and perhaps a reminder for me to finally stop reading the Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ed-miliband-needs-to-shut-up-and-let-labour-move-on-gxr8z8z7k

The writer is a confirmed Tory to boot. Seriously, what's the point?

[LabourJersey]

I regret to inform everyone I’ve had the full bingo of reading an article about Ed M which features both the ‘wrong brother’ dig and the weird idea that air strikes in Syria in 2013 would have stopped Assad.

For those interested… and perhaps a reminder for me to finally stop reading the Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ed-miliband-needs-to-shut-up-and-let-labour-move-on-gxr8z8z7k

Every time I hear about the "Wrong Miliband brother" line I think about the "Wrong Kid Died" joke in Dewey Cox (great movie in case you haven't seen, by the way).

Also I wouldn't bother with the Times when it came to Labour party politics

[Blair]

Interested in any thoughts on this- I struggled with the authors book on the 20th century.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/09/labour-red-wall-working-class-brexit-conservatives#click=https://t.co/d1GbRJFkEL

[cp]

Pretty much agree with everything there. The unspoken criticism contained within it is that Starmer and most of the Labour right are so intellectually vapid they've uncritically accepted the framing of  reactionary/Tory perspectives, to their continuing detriment. In that sense it's a good primer for understanding why and how the Corbyn/left side of the party has achieved its various successes over the past 6 years (and why it's still hanging around despite the 2019/20 rout).

I'd like to see Edgerton fuse this analysis with his ideas about the impending end of Britain/Britishness as a uniting national community and what that might mean for a Labour Party attempting to refashion itself into a more durable and successful electoral force.

[CumbrianLefty]

Its rather a curate's egg tbh.

Critiquing the totally asinine concept of the "red wall" purveyed by much of the media is one thing and is still worthwhile even if it provides an easy target. But to make statements like "Blair in 1997 only polled about as well as Gaitskell in 1959" is psephological illiteracy at best, downright dishonesty at worst. Its a classic example of something that is both "true" and in reality worse than meaningless.

[cp]

If that's the "bad" part of this curate's egg then it must be a pretty impressive good side!

Edgerton's not being dishonest by comparing the 1997 vote share to 1959, and to call it illiterate just seems obtuse as a criticism. It's a stark and compelling illustration of a wider point he's making about how myopic the prevailing media analysis is about Labour's fortunes. Both in the immediate context of recent failures by Corbyn and Starmer and in the broader scope of how Blair's years of misrule are portrayed as a success, the point is that Labour's ability to guide policymaking, shape the political zeitgeist, and represent a broad swath of the electorate - whether from government or opposition - has diminished substantially from the postwar trente glorieuse.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It is reasonable to describe it as psephologically illiterate because at the 1959 General Election there were only two candidates in a majority of constituencies. It is, anyway, always dangerous to treat FPTP vote totals as the same as those generated by a PR poll.

[Blair]

I was confused that the article makes the rather valid point about the need to accept the electorate as it is (rather than a mythical past) while talking comparing vote share across a 70 year period.

There’s also the increasing trend for Labour to run up rather high scores in London and other metro seats: it’s notable that some seats saw a very small change compared to 2017 when the national vote plummeted.

[Geoffrey Howe]

It is reasonable to describe it as psephologically illiterate because at the 1959 General Election there were only two candidates in a majority of constituencies. It is, anyway, always dangerous to treat FPTP vote totals as the same as those generated by a PR poll.

Of course, Gaitskell got 47% of the two-party vote; while Blair got 58% in 1997.

[Blair]

I haven’t heard of this group…it reminds me of the mid Miliband year when we had about 6 internal groups.

The article has a nugget of truth re local government cuts- would be interested who people think is to blame in Labour for the decade long failure on this…

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/14/voters-still-unlikely-to-trust-labour-with-spending-party-warned?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[CumbrianLefty]

Well a significant part of the blame has to lie with those Labour figures who spent much of 2010-15 loudly flagellating themselves that "Labour must apologise for spending too much in government" and proceeding to attack the then leader for not doing so. And often for purely factional reasons too.

[Alcibiades]

Well a significant part of the blame has to lie with those Labour figures who spent much of 2010-15 loudly flagellating themselves that "Labour must apologise for spending too much in government" and proceeding to attack the then leader for not doing so. And often for purely factional reasons too.

With the deeply unfortunate result that said leader decided to barely push back on the same accusations from the Tories during the 2015 campaign.

[Blair]

This is worth watching (and isn’t a comment on the effectiveness of this strategy!)

It reminds me of when a ‘swing’ voter in 1997 was telling Blair he needed to bring back the birch to sort out anti social behaviour.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-politics-57849730

[Pericles]

This is worth watching (and isn’t a comment on the effectiveness of this strategy!)

It reminds me of when a ‘swing’ voter in 1997 was telling Blair he needed to bring back the birch to sort out anti social behaviour.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-politics-57849730

He didn't seem to have much of a narrative, when he was asked about child poverty he just talked about school meals, he didn't get a good soundbite about how the Tories were worse than Labour. It was nice that those voters liked him, but it seems they didn't think his policies were practical, so that's one of those gut feelings about the left that are hard to overcome.

[Cassius]

That first gentleman who spoke to him very much wanted Labour to have uno voce, uno duce from here on in.

[Pericles]

That first gentleman who spoke to him very much wanted Labour to have uno voce, uno duce from here on in.

Maybe Starmer should withdraw the whip from some more people, it worked for Boris. Still, that'd be a high risk move.

[Blair]

Hardly surprising.

https://mobile.twitter.com/YoungLabourUK/status/1415995244781395975?ref_src=twsr...