McDon’t vote for him / The First War of Indian Independence / Ultra-left?

McDon’t vote for him

Will he? Won’t he?

Has John McDonnell got enough nominations from MPs to challenge Gordon Brown for the leadership of the Labour Party or hasn’t he?

In circumstances where even Brown has felt it necessary to claim he will be distancing himself from the never-ending spin of the Blair years, the pussyfooting of the McDonnell campaign about whether they have the numbers is worthy of a Campbell or a Mandelson.

Who’s the McLefty?

But how Left is the McDonnell challenge?

With the patience of Job, Labour Lefts have been waiting 12 years for a contest. But John’s coat of many washed out greys makes even self-flagellation look more attractive than supporting his bid.

Meacher - the 'centre-leftist' candidate - has been widely derided by McDonnell supporters as being too right. But how do they compare?

Who wants the basic state pension at £114 p/w and who wants it at £119 p/w? That's right, McDonnell and then Meacher. On National Minimum Wage, its £7.50 p/h (McDonnell) and £7 p/h (Meacher), whilst, er, the European Council Decency Threshold level is (a little) higher!

Which is more Left of the following? -

- ‘We should not merely reverse these market downsides, but celebrate a strong revival of the public sector and expand it in areas such as free law centres, affordable housing and rail travel’ - Meacher.

- ‘The end to privatisation of public services’ - McDonnell.

One appears to be calling for renationalisation (Meacher), the other for status quo (McDonnell). Of course, neither would do either.

Looking through their programmes in detail, you'll notice how similar they are. So if you are a Left Labour type who was cursing the heretic Meacher, you’ve really got to do the same for McDonnell. I mean, you're not a hypocrite are you?

McDonnell's programme

He’s hardly Harry Perkins. His programme includes:

- The end to privatisation of public services.

Well, there aren’t so many left to be sold off. Quite a few council, central government and health services, I suppose, but I wasn’t aware of any great initiative by the government to flog those off at present.

But there’s no talk about re-nationalising anything from McDonnell. Even a left reformist will usually suggest taking back former public services - transport, energy and more.

Revolutionary socialists, on the other hand, would not support buying them from their shareholders (which is the usual definition of nationalisation). We argue for taking them from the owners, with financial compensation only in the case of proven need - you can see it as the reclaiming of stolen property, if you like.

- Defence of comprehensive education and the abolition of student tuition fees.

There isn’t a comprehensive educations system. The rich sent their kids to private schools. A formal grammar school system remains in a few areas and both faith schools - funded by the state, run by the superstitious - and various half-opted out schools e.g. City Academies - run by businesses - exist everywhere.

There’s also no end of jiggery-pokery from pushy Guardian reader types shoving working class kids out of the way in the rush to get their Constance a place at the ‘best’ school.

So let’s replace all the above with a comprehensive education system - abolish all non-comprehensive schools. Match that McDonnell.

It’s correct for McDonnell to say he will abolish student tuition fees. But even the LibDems can sign up to that one. So why the silence about student grants - you know as paid back in the hard-core Left days of, er, Callaghan and Thatcher?

Communists say pay students a decent grant to enable them to be educated without running up debts. I’m sure that would be more than paid for by scraping Trident.

McDon’t vote for him

I wouldn’t expect McDonnell to call for much. But as the Labour Lefts haven't been as excited since the run for the Deputy Leadership, in 1981, by Labour Christian Socialist MP Tony Benn (who was in the news recently in connection with giving his Cabinet Minister son £100,000s of shares) how about just a few Bennite measures - call for council houses to be built, renationalise the railways, rent control?

Did I say Bennite? I could also mean Wilsonite from the above list. But there's nothing approaching any such reforms in McDonnell's programme. Why are Labour Lefts bought so cheaply? Have they no minimums?

I fear that the McDonnell candidature will be just one more painful lesson about who runs the Labour Party for the small number of slow Lefts that have an (emotional, financial, pharmacological?) dependency on the Left wing party of capitalism. And as for self proclaimed 'revolutionary socialists' signing up for this dishwater - give us our flag back.

I recall, on leaving the Labour Party in 1986, being painfully aware that I was doing this four years too late (after the Bishop’s Stortford agreement). I (still) fear that I will have a hard time justifying those extra years to a future revolutionary tribunal enquiring about my political history.

But what sort of Lefts give money to the Labour Party nowadays - the intensely stupid, the mad or the very, very bad?

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The First War of Indian Independence

Commemorated this past week was the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of The First War of Indian Independence (known as the ‘Indian Mutiny’ to imperialist lackeys and those subjected to the culture and teaching of same).

In 1857 the East India Company maintained a lockhold over India, particularly since the Battle of Plassey one hundred years before. The war ended the rule of the East India Company and instituted direct rule of the colony by the British government.

As well as the vast sums that it made from trade, the East India Company heavily taxed residents - and it would appropriate their property if they couldn’t or wouldn’t pay. It seized Princely territories through devices such as usurping the property if the ruling family didn’t have a male heir. You can still see the outcome of the company’s plunder in many a fine country house or church in England.

I remember walking round the Indian National Museum in Kolkata (Calcutta). It took me about 15 minutes. I’d forgotten that the Indian National Museum is in fact the British Museum, or is places like the Tower of London where the purloined Kohinoor diamond rests in one of Elizabeth Windsor’s crowns.

How to revolt

When you revolt, you play for keeps. You kill your enemy. If you don’t deal a fatal blow to your better-resourced oppressor then their vengeance on you is likely to be at a higher and more shocking level than you ever managed. You do all you can to ensure they don’t get the chance to return the blow.

After the Revolutionary War, the victorious Americans treated the American Tories (British loyalists) in ways that would have made the American Civil Liberties Union collapse under the weight of its own caseload. They were right to do so. Britain may have been defeated but was to be a menacing presence over the infant American republic for years to come. Redcoats remained in New York City. Britain set fire to the White House in 1812. No weakness could be shown in the face of such a threat.

In the Indian uprising, Europeans leaving Kanpur (Cawnpore) were massacred, despite having been offered free passage. European women and children, kept as hostages in the city, were killed. The execution of these prisoners was wrong although it could be argued that it was necessary to protect the captors from being identified and hung if the Brits returned.

But the retribution by the Redcoats - the Devil's Wind - was to blow a lot more fiercely than ever did the pressure of the sepoys’ violence. In Delhi, the Redcoats besieged the rebel capital and, on breaking through, the British troops proceeded to loot and pillage. Large numbers in the city were cut down in retaliation for the Europeans and Indian collaborators that had been killed by the rebel sepoys. Many British soldiers asked to be discharged from the Army soon after the war so that they could establish themselves with the great wealth that they acquired.

After the end of the war, the Redcoats hanged or "blew from the cannon" (tied across the mouth of the barrel and shot fired through them) the majority of sepoy prisoners. Many innocent villagers were hanged on suspicion of being mutineers in a spirit of revenge that led to numerous atrocities.

The rebels should have been a lot more brutal when they had the chance.

Echo

What was the response of Lefts to this uprising? As the sound of that gunfire, of those long ago exchanges fought with cannon and muskets, has a modern resonance.

I mean the revolt was one that restored a monarchy (the Mughals) that claimed all India, and also brought to power some local hereditary plutocrats with lesser ambitions but deeply malevolent outlooks. The rebellion also provided a route to importance for some other very reactionary religious figures.

It was an uprising that was designated as a ‘jihad’ by some and saw some communal conflict between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims (and more) as well as sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims.

And what about the position of women if the rebels had won? Under British rule evangelical Christians at least called for them to be educated. Under rebel (and British) control, not only were women denied an education; no-one went to school except for a minuscule minority. Widows were forbidden from remarrying, some were even pushed or jumped onto the funeral pyre of their dead husbands.

I haven't yet found any information about any contemporary British groups that may have been called something like 'Radical Women for the Redcoats - Just Say No to Sexism', but maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.

The most famous reason given for the ‘Mutiny’ was the (probably untrue) claim that new gun cartridges - that needed to be torn open in the sepoy’s teeth - were greased with pork or beef fat and thus breached the religious sensibilities of Muslims or Hindus and Sikhs (and more).

Surely just for this superstitious baloney alone, those like Karl Marx - the inventor of scientific socialism - wouldn’t have countenanced any support for the natives. Surely he would have acclaimed the Redcoats for their bringing of the Age of Reason to the backward Indian masses as part of the glorious sweep of history.

Of course not, Lefts supported the revolt. They were enthused by it despite every wildly exaggerated (and a few true) reports of the foul treatment of captured European soldiers, women and children.

The prominent Chartist, Ernest Jones, who had previously been imprisoned for sedition welcomed the War in his book ‘The Revolt of Hindoostan’.

Marx and Engels wrote a lot on the War, as correspondents of a New York paper but where they restricted themselves to factual reports of the course of the campaign. But beyond the pages of the capitalist press they wrote how the colonial exploitation of India led to the uprising, noted the general unity displayed by those professing differing religions and were clear in their support of the rebels natives. See the apt quote, from Marx, in the comments box below that Adam Ford has unearthed.

And I’m the ‘non Marxist’ (according to some) for supporting the Iraqi and Afghani resistance!

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Ultra-left?

You may have read the comments others have made about this website in the ‘What others write’ box (top right).

One of the silliest slights you will read there is where ExTrots have called my views ‘ultra left’. Search the Southpawpunch index for more on why this description isn’t true.

But then I suppose that as the distance of these ExTrots from revolutionary politics increases over time, the perspective of a rapidly retreating object will only give a very narrow vector on its original position. Isn’t there some physics from Einstein that talks about shifts in colour as objects accelerate and recede?

So I was a little surprised when something from Webland was brought to my attention. If you search Google for - ultra left wing blogger - you will (currently) receive 541,000 results. And what’s the position of my site in this list of more than half a million web addresses?

First.