On Partyism

A light reply to Edmund Griffiths essaylette on building a New Left Party (https://www.edmundgriffiths.com/newparmounlab.html) Possibly not in contradiction. I just want to go back to basics on the importance of partyism (as opposed to cadrism, spontaneism, actionism, syndicalism etc.) 

So, what is a party? At heart, it is a participant in a process: a legal term (“The party of the first part”). A party has an interest in the process (drawing up a contract, disputing in court, winning a vote). Interest here means more than intellectual engagement, it means being subject to the material outcomes of the process. 

The working class is a party to the political process: the ongoing contest over who and in whose interest decisions are taken in society. Likewise, socialists and communists are parties to this process, merely through the articulation of their desires and objects. The working class party, or the communist party is the broad category that covers any agency that promotes, pursues or articulates these interests. 

A Political Party, proper, is the corporate expression of this agency. In UK law, this corporation attracts privileges (name and logo protection) and obligations (reporting on donations and spending). This corporate body is mostly what people mean when they talk about a new left/working class party. The left party exists in any case, but how is it best to be championed (or does it need a champion at all?). The incorporated agent provides essential services to the party: it can formalise position, exclude (disclaim) some positions and actions, and provides authority: who can and cannot speak on behalf of the party. This is a blessing and a curse, since power will seek to recuperate this authority and turn it against the broader movement. The corporate body provides continuity beyond the individuals. 

The Labour Party’s clause 1.2 is an excellent and elegant expression of this: “[The Labour Party’s] purpose is to organise and maintain in Parliament and in the country a political Labour Party.” (and of course, Clause 4 defines the purpose of that party). As it stands, its officials and members do an excellent job at meeting those objects. 

So, I wind to my point: Alastair Cambell used to write OST on people’s papers: Objective, Strategy, Tactics. Objective shapes strategy, strategy shapes tactics. A new incorporation of the left needs a laser like focus on the shared objective. The mess of Sultana/Corbyn situation stems in part because the implicit objective is to forge a parliamentary alliance from existing MPs with different electoral bases. The unclarity of objectives and structures itself is derived from the necessity of the object of welding together existing political teams and individuals: the court politics then follows that set up, and is coupled by the recuperation by a media that itself is built around court politics.