Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

John McDonnell, Labour Party: I have been a member of the Labour Party and involved in politics for over 45 years.  I have spent these years as a campaigner in my local community and nationally for what I consider to be basic rights- the right to a decent roof over your head in a safe, secure, clean, green environment, a good quality truly creative education, a job and income you can live on, trade union rights at work and an NHS fully funded in public hands so that we receive the treatment we need when s ick.  Throughout the New Labour years, Jeremy and I stayed in the Labour Party and fought for socialism. That meant in 2015 we were there when our chance came. We suffered a defeat in December. But not because of our policies. Public ownership, ending tuition fees and reversing NHS privatisation are all hugely popular. They're all still Labour Party Policy, as is the Green New Deal, and we need to organise to keep it that way. Party members can be forgiven for feeling demo...

From the British Labour Party special conference "The report also makes it clear that there should be no return to old models of nationalisation that were adopted after second world war.  They were state industries designed mainly to modernise the economy and provide basic industries to subsidise the capitalist sector.  There was no democracy and no input from workers or even government in the state enterprises and certainly no integration into any wider plan for investment or social need.  This was so-called ‘Morrisonian model’ named after right-wing Labour leader Herbert Morrison, who oversaw the post-war UK nationalisations." Models of public ownership

A critical review of UK's Labour Party economic policies Bill Jefferies' conclusion is that "What seems very radical and alternative now is firmly predicated on the existence of the market and will prevent measures that challenge or threaten that market in the future. The fact that socialism, a real alternative society and different world, plays no part at all in these alternatives is telling. Economics for the Many, in the words of McDonnell, aims to ‘inspire people with an alternative’ to neoliberalism by showing that another world is possible. Another world is possible but the arguments for it remain to be made." Economics for the Many

"Opposition Labour Party plots overthrow of Capitalism" —Reuters Note the use of the verb "to plot", which is defined by Oxford Dictionary as "a plan made in secret by a group of people to do something illegal or harmful." It is scary: we have just discovered that there is "a plot", "a secret plan", that Corbyn, McDonnell and their guerrillas have been organising a parallel underground organisation and an armed wing of the Labour Party in order to overthrow the system, possibly with the support of Cuba and China, with promises from North Korea that she will send advisors once the new regime is estabilshed.

Given the state of British capitalism today,  will capital tolerate even a modest social-democratic measure?

"The four freedoms of the single market have made it easier for companies to move money, goods, services and people around the EU, but workers have not benefited. There has been virtually no growth in UK  per-capita incomes  since the start of the financial crisis in 2007, something that has not happened outside wartime in the modern age." Why the moaning? These are sound arguments on Brexit, I think. As regarding whether the British could relate to "radical socialism", I say no. The  voters " would rather have Theresa May running the show than Jeremy Corbyn, just as in 1992 they decided to stick with John Major rather than take a risk with Neil Kinnock." And recent polls give Boris Johnson a lead.

John McDonnell  

There have always been Marxists in Labour but it has never been a Marxist party (or even, by some definitions, a socialist one). Its 2017 general election manifesto was social democratic in nature, vowing to reform rather than replace capitalism. But in his speech, McDonnell couched the party’s pledge to renationalise “water, rail, Royal Mail and energy” in more radical terms: “It’s a significant development as a result of the new exploration of the ideas of Marx.” John Mcdonnell and the rebirth of British marxism?

I read some Marx (and I liked it) By Richard Seymour On The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, the host asked Shadow chancellor John McDonnell if he is a Marxist. Obligingly, he said “no”—but admitted that he  had read Marx and learned from him alongside traditional Labour economists like R H Tawney and G D H Cole. Jeremy Corbyn has since leapt to his colleague’s aid, describing Marx as a “great economist.” In philistine, managerial British politics, McDonnell’s comments felt like a blushing confession: “ I read some Marx and I liked it .” Predictably, senior Tories have in response warned darkly of an “ Islington cabal ” of revolutionaries. But what exactly in McDonnell’s agenda is Marxist? A tax freeze for the 95 per cent doesn’t need the labour theory of value to stand it up. Borrowing only to invest doesn’t depend on Marx’s theory of the commodity form. Renationalising the railway is as close to common sense as it gets in politics. If McDonnell is a Marxist, so is...