Open Letter to Ken McLeod. posted by Richard Seymour

Ken McLeod Reinvents Political Fantasy Literature

I fired this one off to Ken McLeod after reading an indecently underdressed argument against the Respect Coalition on his blog. Ordinarily, I only duel with the political Right, but this drivel really got my hackles up.


Hi Ken,

I know you're a major SF author, so I was quite pleased to discover you had a blog. I've never read any of your books, unfortunately, although I did catch your contribution to the debate at Marxism with Mieville and Roberts. Fascinating stuff, although I've never got my literary tastes round to secondary-worlds and so forth. Lean more toward Christopher Fowler's urban settings, etc etc.

Right, the thing I'm writing to you about.

I can't really account in my mind for your attack on the Respect Coalition, and since the only reasons you give in your blog are those of other authors, I suppose I'll have to deal with those.

"All the attempts to build a new alternative to the Labour Party, as history has shown, will come to nothing. Various attempts, of an ultra-left or opportunist variety (they are head and tail of the same coin), all ended in shipwreck. The different sectarian groups on the fringes of the labour movement have been attempting to build the revolutionary alternative to Labour for decades and achieved nothing." (Rob Sewell).

I suppose 'history' shows us a lot of things, but I wonder if Sewell is serious in suggesting that the Labour Party could never be supplanted by another political force. Is 'history' that unyeilding? Have sweeping changes much more radical than this never occurred? Did not the foundation of the Labour Party itself involve precisely a split with the political giant of the 19th Century?

And by the same token, if 'sectarian groups on the fringes of the labour movement' have so far achieved nothing, isn't it perhaps time to start achieving something? Isn't that what the SSP has been doing? Isn't that the idea behind trying to unite the radical, Green, reformist and revolutionary left? If Sewell will insist that George Galloway is an opportunist or ultra-leftist, will he honestly say the same of Salma Yaqoob or George Monbiot? And why is it essential at every point for him to imply that noone could ever wish to form an alternative to the Labour Party for any but the most mercenary or fanatical reasons? Given the present conduct and performance of the Labour Party, could not a reasonable case be made for a new alternative?

The Labour Party as presently constituted neither has the desire nor the ability to attract the kind of membership capable of pushing it in a different direction. And the direction it is headed in at the moment is so transparent, it requires wilfull blindness to miss it. At the last Labour conference, the membership backed the leadership on every key question, never failing to back it by less than two to one, usually by three to one. They clapped and cheered as every vile shibboleth of the right was paraded in New Labour clothing (well, naked then).

So, why the need to forever cling to this party? Well, Sewell would answer:

"On the contrary, forces are already gathering within the trade unions to take back the Labour Party for the working class. In the coming period, the edifice of Blairism will come crashing down. The Labour Party will take a sharp turn to the left as in the 1970s (after decades of rightwing domination) as the unions press for working class policies."

Such self-delusion is hard to digest, let alone reckon with. The Labour Party would rather lose a key union sponsor than move to the left! They would rather see the RMT take their money and support to the SSP and the Respect Coalition! They would rather force unpopular policies through parliament and cut huge swathes off their vote than move to the left! (Recall also, comrades, that Labour's "left turn" during the 1970s resulted in the 'social contract', monetarism, public spending cuts, the rise of fascism, and the election of Margaret Thatcher. All hail Labour's "left turn"!)

Bob Pitt's adumbrations hardly entitle him to a respectful response, but let me excise a few key points and deal with them ordinally:

1) "We had seen it all before, having sat through almost identical rallies organised first by the Socialist Labour Party and then by the Socialist Alliance."

Those organisations did not have the background of 2-million strong street demonstrations , the democratisation of the political fund in the trade unions , and the revival of industrial militancy to kick-start their campaigns. They didn't have too many Muslims in their either, which can prove a potent electoral force.

2) "There we had heard the same emotional denunciations of Blairism, at the expense of any objective assessment of the relationship of forces within the labour movement or the level of political consciousness among working people, and the same confident but baseless predictions that the new political formation would attract widespread popular support."

The level of political consciousness among working people undoubtedly invites inspection. Who can say if the labour movement has more AWL members or CPGB members? But the recent spate of elections successes for union leaders of the left indicates something less than satisfaction with the present state of things. The reappearance of trade union militancy as a force to be reckoned with might also indicate something more than dissatisfaction.

3) "But instead of facing reality and drawing the necessary political conclusions, the anti-Labour left seems intent on going through the same pointless exercise over and over again".

So, we should draw the conclusion that no matter how much circumstances change, no matter how infuriated, cynical and dismayed working people become, no matter how much money we raise, no matter how many new members we attract, no matter how many people hit the streets and no matter what the indications from the trade union grass-roots, we can never ever challenge the hegemony of the Labour Party. I'd call that fatalistic if it weren't so generous a term...


Well, that's it Ken. You don't add any of your own arguments beside a few standard insults, and you impute opinions to SWP members whom you know and have known, and who remember what Marxism is. Well, I know what Marxism is. It isn't reformism. It isn't fatalism. It isn't fear of trying something risky and getting it wrong. It isn't stoic acceptance of "reality" (as in the mind of Bob Pitt). It is precisely the attempt to use every available means to change reality, to break the deadlock of depoliticisation, and to grasp the opportunities afforded by the antiwar movement.

At least, Ken, please, if you must diss the Respect Coalition , I plead with you not to invoke the thoughts of these tired wordsmiths whose arguments aren't worth the paper they're wiped on.

Yours fraternally...

Judging from his website, Ken McLeod enjoys a fight as much as I do. I look forward to his response.