Good piece Red Mole. I learned a lot. One addition about Andrew Jordan. He was not only a Campaign Organiser for Scargill's SLP outfit as you point out. He was in fact President of the SLP for four years ( as THE LEFT LANE detailed in part 4 of this 7 Dec. piece https://theleftlane2024.substack.com/p/five-suggested-follow-ups-to-your ) Jordan was reportedly "elected" to that post at the age of 22. Exactly what role Scargill played in Jordan's election is not specified in research I found ... but one can safely speculate that it was considerable, That a person once enmeshed in the SLP's blatantly top-down political culture is now in charge of the YOUR PARTY is, well, bloody frightening and reflects very badly on Corbyn and those in his ex-LOTO troupe who now control in a "Scargillian" spirit.
the unitary national membership structure was a fundamental mistake and it was a mistake of those on the left who supported it as an antidote to fears of a bureaucratic federalised structure. Fighting for control of the the centre now is also a mistake. Local branches must constitute themselves, build their own membership data and communications, and elect delegates to a national council and conference independent of centralised control.
There's something to this. The instinct to build from the base rather than contest the centre has a solid strategic logic: what you build yourself, you control.
But there's a problem. The apparatus controls the membership data, the finances, and the party's legal registration. Branches that "constitute themselves" without access to these resources become parallel structures the centre can simply ignore. The 850,000 who expressed interest aren't reachable from below; their contact details sit on servers controlled by the triumvirate.
The CEC elections matter precisely because whoever controls that body controls whether data flows to branches or stays locked at HQ. A CEC dominated by the apparatus will continue the obstruction. A CEC with genuine grassroots representation might force the opening.
The two strategies aren't mutually exclusive. Build local capacity, yes. But also contest the centre, because that's where the levers are. Ceding the field to the slates guarantees the outcome the article describes: curated democracy, managed decline.
The SLP didn't die because dissidents failed to build alternative structures. It died because Scargill's apparatus successfully prevented any structure it didn't control from having resources or legitimacy. The lesson isn't "ignore the centre." It's "don't let the centre ignore you."
YP could have been launched in a decentralised way where people signed up to local groups that had control of their own data from the start. When Sultana launched a rival membership portal it mirrored the centralised structure of what Karie Murphy had in mind.
800,000 people signed up centrally. We needed local data controllers, at least at the county level and ideally at the lowest viable level. With a rapid mechanism to appoint known and trusted activists to local recruitment teams, accountable to local members, we could have converted more of those contacts into members.
Good piece Red Mole. I learned a lot. One addition about Andrew Jordan. He was not only a Campaign Organiser for Scargill's SLP outfit as you point out. He was in fact President of the SLP for four years ( as THE LEFT LANE detailed in part 4 of this 7 Dec. piece https://theleftlane2024.substack.com/p/five-suggested-follow-ups-to-your ) Jordan was reportedly "elected" to that post at the age of 22. Exactly what role Scargill played in Jordan's election is not specified in research I found ... but one can safely speculate that it was considerable, That a person once enmeshed in the SLP's blatantly top-down political culture is now in charge of the YOUR PARTY is, well, bloody frightening and reflects very badly on Corbyn and those in his ex-LOTO troupe who now control in a "Scargillian" spirit.
Thanks Alan. I've updated the article to reflect that.
A desire for control and the exercise of control runs counter to building power. I have seen this time and time again in my own trade union work.
This isn't only a reminder of the SLP: In December we also noted many similarities with the evolution of Podemos in Spain. https://redmole.substack.com/p/what-podemoss-collapse-teaches-your
the unitary national membership structure was a fundamental mistake and it was a mistake of those on the left who supported it as an antidote to fears of a bureaucratic federalised structure. Fighting for control of the the centre now is also a mistake. Local branches must constitute themselves, build their own membership data and communications, and elect delegates to a national council and conference independent of centralised control.
There's something to this. The instinct to build from the base rather than contest the centre has a solid strategic logic: what you build yourself, you control.
But there's a problem. The apparatus controls the membership data, the finances, and the party's legal registration. Branches that "constitute themselves" without access to these resources become parallel structures the centre can simply ignore. The 850,000 who expressed interest aren't reachable from below; their contact details sit on servers controlled by the triumvirate.
The CEC elections matter precisely because whoever controls that body controls whether data flows to branches or stays locked at HQ. A CEC dominated by the apparatus will continue the obstruction. A CEC with genuine grassroots representation might force the opening.
The two strategies aren't mutually exclusive. Build local capacity, yes. But also contest the centre, because that's where the levers are. Ceding the field to the slates guarantees the outcome the article describes: curated democracy, managed decline.
The SLP didn't die because dissidents failed to build alternative structures. It died because Scargill's apparatus successfully prevented any structure it didn't control from having resources or legitimacy. The lesson isn't "ignore the centre." It's "don't let the centre ignore you."
YP could have been launched in a decentralised way where people signed up to local groups that had control of their own data from the start. When Sultana launched a rival membership portal it mirrored the centralised structure of what Karie Murphy had in mind.
800,000 people signed up centrally. We needed local data controllers, at least at the county level and ideally at the lowest viable level. With a rapid mechanism to appoint known and trusted activists to local recruitment teams, accountable to local members, we could have converted more of those contacts into members.