July thoughts on the Left, the Greens and the future...

Last July I wrote the words below. As I look at the spectacle of the Parliamentary Party I reflect on how proud I am that every Green candidate and Officer is elected either yearly or prior to the particular election they are contesting. What is wrong for Gods sake in selecting the candidate or MP every five years? Is there to be a class of politician above recall or accountability. Its no wonder that the electorate are cynical about professional politicians. However the experience of June 8 th suggests that things are changing, that the paradigm has shifted. I put down these thoughts to suggest possibilities. I am not even sure on my final thoughts concerning the Greens, the left and the future......

In Plaid Leanne Wood's victory as Leader gives us some historical reflections. A historic victory for the Ecosocialist wing of Plaid while capturing the party leadership has done very little to enable Plaid to move to the left. Jonathan Edward’s victory speech had him quoting Che Guevara , yet last time I read his thoughts he was defending Fox Hunting, John Dixon a former Chairperson of Plaid challenged their credibility on renewable s. The Nuclear issue at Wylfa is the area they do not talk about and across Wales Plaid have patchy records on Green politics. They certainly never talk about certain things and Rhun Ap Nuclear lurks as the Blairite wing of Plaid Cymru waiting for Leanne to fall under a bus. There is much that a Corbyn victory could learn from Plaid’s experience.
I will always feel queasy when I hear members of the SWP or trhe Socialist party quote Marx or Trotsky as if they were Christian preachers quoting Biblical text from a bearded dead prophet. What do we know from history?

It will be only by elements from the Labour party left and a similar move from the Ecosocialists in Plaid that a new mass party of the Welsh left can emerge. I suspect the relationship in the 1920`s and the 1930`s between the left of Labour and the Communist party has distinct parallels between that of the Corbyn wing of the Labour party, the Ecosocialists in Plaid and the Green party at this point of time . The Greens across the UK reached a peak of 70,000 plus members at its peak the Communist party managed 50,000 members . Yet in most places across Wales labour is as monolithic and conservative as it ever was.

Are we at the turning of the tide in Wales , when the Left will be renewed? Is the Corbyn revival a last gleam of the old Labour left? And learn that it will make no impact in Wales Are we about to learn that without the end of capitalism and the collapse of globalisation that no real change is possible. ? I have watched politics for many years and the possibilities seem never-ending.
Long ago Marx predicted that it would be in Germany France and England that the revolution would begin. He argued only there had the contradictions of capitalist production and capitalist society would lead to revolution. Perhaps the real base of historical materialism is the biosphere. Perhaps the revolution in Russia and China was too early and was a historic singularity. Perhaps a world wide revolt will lead us to a situation where Green politics shows us that sustainability and ecological politics cannot happen in one country alone and that it must be a world wide revolt. Perhaps Marx and Trotsky were precursors of Environmental politics.
Perhaps that is what Rudolf Bahro was thinking about when he wrote his book from “Red to Green” . He once said the problem that Marxists and Socialists experienced in the modern world was similar to that of being a Christian in the Middle Ages. There are many sects, many messiahs, many interpretations, many parties and factions. And today I see more than ever that I cannot see clearly into the unknown history and the unknown country that is ahead of us Welsh labour still remains as it always has in many ways.....let us see what happens next..