Untapped Seams

Seeing the aged Arthur Scargill on television after he had lost his court case against the NUM, a most startling thing occurred to me.

Far from being a creature from beyond the grave, Scargill remains the Leader of a political party which, although in January Radio Four had to apologise on air for having declared it "defunct", last year out-polled the BNP at the elections to the Scottish and Welsh devolved bodies, beat that party in every local council ward that they both contested, and achieved the same against the English Democrats. Read that over again: in every ward where the SLP stood against the BNP, the SLP beat the BNP; and in every ward where the SLP stood against the English Democrats, the SLP beat the English Democrats.

Now, don't get me wrong. The SLP was never just the straight breakaway from Labour that it was often assumed to have been. At least half of its members belonged to the pro-Soviet faction rendered homeless by the winding up of the CPGB and the transition to the proto-Blairite Democratic Left, the revisionism of the CPB being altogether unacceptable to them. It says a lot about any party that it can suffer a significant secession calling itself the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), which can then spend its time denouncing the Morning Star for criticising North Korea.

But mention of Britain's original Eurosceptical newspaper, much loved by the 2010 intake of Labour MPs and subscription to which by Departments of State is vigorously promoted by a hugely ambitious Labour Whip even more lately returned to Parliament, places this situation within a broader context. The Morning Star's masthead appears on the montage illustrating the BBC's newspaper review (although Tribune does not even get that), but the paper itself is never featured, and some Departments of State take the comic cuts Daily Star, which is owned by a pornographer, but do not take either of the only voices, daily and weekly, of trade unionism, of the peace movement, and of the Left's unbroken opposition to Eurofederalism over more than 60 years and counting.

Likewise, a party in broadly similar vein, albeit with very serious failings both ideologically and organisationally, simply does not exist to the BBC and the wider media, not even when it out-polls the BNP and the English Democrats, of which former, in particular, media coverage can on occasion approach saturation level. That was never more evident than in the run-up to the last European Elections, when the media blackout of the SLP was joined by the media blackout of No2EU - Yes to Democracy, even to the point of heavily editing Question Time prior to transmission in order to excise an articulate expression of support for it from the audience.

Will that happen again next time, both against the SLP and against TUSC? Not that there ought to be any reason for TUSC, in particular, to contest those elections. If Labour has the wit to declare itself in favour of an In-Out referendum and the significant repatriation of powers by primary legislation regardless of the outcome of that referendum, as well as the wit to have purged the decrepit federalist nutcases of the EPLP as ruthlessly as Blair purged the Tankies and fellow-travellers who were once a sizeable presence within it, although at least that position involved opposition to the Monster Plot itself. By these means, UKIP might very well be kept off the top spot, with Labour taking it instead in all 11 mainland regions. Why not?

In the meantime, look at the people campaigning against the withdrawal of their bus services or the closure of their libraries. That is Middle Britain, the land of the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, the country that opposed the Iraq War but which no one was able to lead well enough in order to stop that war, or at any rate to stop British participation in it. There is a very British lack of anything to anchor the Left while also co-ordinating broad-based, inclusive campaigns like those, and while acting as a friendly critic and a critical friend of, in British terms, the Labour Party. At best, and just imagine what the worst must be if you do not already know, we have to make do with the SWP, "Workers" who have never so much as ironed a shirt or changed a light bulb in their lives.

A venerable old national daily newspaper and a venerable old national weekly newspaper, both with Parliamentary Lobby access, are treated as if they did not exist. An electoral coalition extending even to the Liberal Party was blacked out by the entire media other than that national daily newspaper. As is a political party, however flawed, which beats the BNP and the English Democrats whenever it fights them at local level.

And both the cuts and the wars carry on, and on, and on, and on, and on.