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| Portrait of Georges Clemenceau by Édouard Manet. Photograph: By Renaud Camus (license) (cropped) |
The UK Labour Party's old guard establishment of former leaders and ministers has shown a crushing fear of the task of opposing the Tories when out office - out in the civic space where debate, protest and journalism set the political agenda. Yet history shows that it not only can be done, but that it is necessary to making radical change possible.
Clemenceau and the Dreyfus Affair
Georges Clemenceau, a leading figure amongst the French Radicals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, consistently found himself caught between more extreme forces. The man who would go on to be 'The Tiger' of France as Prime Minister during the Great War, was caught between a reactionary government and the revolutionary commune in 1871 and then later made a scapegoat, in 1893, for the Panama corruption scandal.
Georges Clemenceau, a leading figure amongst the French Radicals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, consistently found himself caught between more extreme forces. The man who would go on to be 'The Tiger' of France as Prime Minister during the Great War, was caught between a reactionary government and the revolutionary commune in 1871 and then later made a scapegoat, in 1893, for the Panama corruption scandal.
Ousted at the elections that followed the scandal and frozen out, Clemenceau poured his energies into journalism. After a time championing the radical causes close to his heart, he became wrapped up in a slow burning campaign, one that took several years to catch light, in support of Albert Dreyfus' innocence.
The Dreyfus Affair, involved the scandalous selling of military secrets being pinned on Dreyfus, a Jewish captain, at a time of rising anti-Semitism. Several years after a miscarriage of justice saw Dreyfus imprisoned, Clemenceau was presented with evidence by Arthur Ranc, a Dreyfusard journalist, which was seconded by the Senator Auguste Scheurer-Kestner.
Clemenceau used his position as editor of L'Aurore to demand a retrial. When that trial too proved a farce, he was approached by the famous author Emile Zola. Clemenceau published an incendiary letter by Zola - headed as 'J'accuse...!' by Clemenceau himself - as the front page of L'Aurore. It named names and called out corruption amongst the political class in a letter addressed directly to the President.
In one dramatic stroke - which saw the newspaper's readership increase from 30,000 to 300,000 - the outcast Radical had thrown himself in amongst, not only, the supporters of Dreyfus, but also amongst the opponents of anti-Semitic nationalism.
In one dramatic stroke - which saw the newspaper's readership increase from 30,000 to 300,000 - the outcast Radical had thrown himself in amongst, not only, the supporters of Dreyfus, but also amongst the opponents of anti-Semitic nationalism.
From 1897 to 1899, Clemenceau campaigned alongside others, including Bernard Lazare who had been working to prove Dreyfus innocent since the matter began in 1894, in what has been described as "one of the greatest achievements of French journalism" (Daniel Halevy, in Hampden Jackson, 1946):
"...a close-knit discussion carried on over two years, sustained each morning by an article sparkling with wit, vigour and rationality..."
That journalist-led civic discussion eventually achieved a Presidential pardon for Dreyfus (although Clemenceau thought that still to be an injustice); a sea change in parliament with government and ministers toppling and the Radicals becoming the biggest party, bringing substantial reforms like the separation of church and state, the secularisation of education and the abolition of censorship; and the return of Clemenceau himself to parliament as a Senator.
Labour's fear of impotence
Labour's fear of impotence
In the present, Labour has been warning loudly of the danger of the impotence from which the party will suffer without the institutional mechanisms of the establishment at their beck and call. From Tony Blair to Gordon Brown (Blair, 2015; Mason & Halliday, 2015), the party members have been urged not to vote the Jeremy Corbyn.
Corbyn, according to some of the party's own MPs, is a purveyor of "crazy left-wing policies" who will leave the party out on the British political fringe and will face internal rebellions from the moment he is elected (Wilkinson, 2015). Yet that attitude from the Labour Parliamentary Party can hardly be considered a safer course. It mimics the very same, deeply unpopular, attitude towards its own membership, as the Eurozone held towards Greece. Embracing the status quo as a party of establishment bureaucracy also did little for PASOK, the main social democrat party in Greece, which collapsed at the election in January (Chakrabortty, 2015).
It also ignores Labour's essential problem - it has never changed 'the political fundamentals in its favour' (Kirby, 2015). Labour has always preferred, instead, to use them in its own service. In doing so, the Labour has forgotten about social power in order to play the best they can according to the rules of the political game (Tietze, 2015) - and so cling to an institutional power that comes with serious restraints, from various sources of pressure, and offers ever diminishing returns.
"Although the history of the Left has produced an extraordinary theoretical legacy, which continues to be the nucleus of almost all radical thinking, it has nonetheless left a trail of extraordinary failures in practice.
I understand the dialectical relation between theory and practice, of course, but we have to admit that in real historical terms this dialectic is terribly uneven, to the degree in fact that it may render questionable a great many of these theoretical achievements, which, if we are going to be rigorously leftist about it, cannot really stand entirely on their own." (Gourgouris, 2015)
When pressed, Labour's establishment figures may point to the danger of leaving the Tories with majority power. Yet their power has depended upon an effective control of the civic debate, framing and directing the discussion in a civic space that Labour has seemingly abandoned (d'Ancona, 2015).
Recovering radicalism
This boils down to an essential point: the importance of the social debate makes the direct pursuit of institutional power almost an irrelevance (Gourgouris, 2013).
In order to govern radically, a group first has to engage the public in the civic space, where is fostered the power to govern and change society regardless of hierarchies and institutions (Gourgouris, 2013). Clemenceau and the Dreyfusards were an early modern example of the power there is in the civic space. For radicals, this means encouraging localised self-organisation, opening up a space for teaching and learning, and fighting against alienation.
Labour has already made one big step in that direction when it chose to, effectively, crowdsource a leadership candidate (Perkins, 2015). But this example of radical democracy in action is only a beginning. In order to be a vital part of the Left, Labour has to accept that it is only a part.
Radicalism requires space for protest and critical dissent, for differences of opinion, for discussion, debate and disagreement (Gourgouris, 2015). The radical Left needs the internal antagonism of multi-party politics, not the domination of a singular power. It needs to be an activist outside of parliament and a disruptive troublemaker within it - not unlike the belligerent Clemenceau a century ago.
It looks unlikely that Labour will be able to muster enough enthusiasm amongst progressives to get over the majority electoral line while it continues to preach the values of the establishment. However, if any of the leadership candidates, of which Corbyn looks most likely, can embrace this kind of radical shift in the party - away from centralism, statism and party leader domination - there is hope of a new, more pluralistic, Left mounting a serious challenge in 2020.
References
Gaston Monnerville's 'Georges Clemenceau: Early political career'; in Britannica; 2014.
J. Hampden Jackson's 'Clemenceau and the Third Republic'; English Universities Press; 1946.[Buy Now]
Tony Blair's 'Even if you hate me, please don’t take Labour over the cliff edge'; in The Guardian; 12 August 2015.
Rowena Mason & Josh Halliday's 'Gordon Brown urges Labour not to be party of protest by electing Corbyn'; in The Guardian; 16 August 2015.
Michael Wilkinson's 'Jeremy Corbyn will be ousted 'on day one' as leader, Labour MP Simon Danczuk warns'; in The Telegraph; 12 August 2015.
Aditya Chakrabortty's 'What Greek politics teaches the Labour party: there is an alternative'; in The Guardian; 27 January 2015.
Graham Kirby's 'Labour Beyond Corbyn and the Need for a New Language of the Left'; in Disclaimer; 2015.
Tad Tietze's 'The Failed Strategy'; in Jacobin Magazine; 10 August 2015.
Stathis Gourgouris' 'The Syriza problem: radical democracy and left governmentality in Greece'; on Open Democracy; 6 August 2015.
Matthew d'Ancona's 'George Osborne’s coup: converting Labour to fiscal conservatism'; in The Guardian; 21 June 2015.
Stathis Gourgouris' 'The question is: society defended against whom? Or what?'; in the New Philosopher; 25 May 2013.
Sue Perkins' 'Labour’s leadership contest has energised the public. There’s no going back'; in The Guardian; 12 August 2015.
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