Socialist Resistance

An archive of socialistresistance.org, 2002–2022

Alan replies to the discussion

 ·  28 June 2016  ·  3:28

Alan Thornett of Socialist Resistance replies to the discussion at the London meeting on the outcome of the referendum.

Socialist Resistance public meeting on the EU referendum result, London (reply to the discussion)  ·  2016-06-28 (inferred from content; not stated in the archive)

This is a corrected machine transcript. It began as YouTube's automatic captions, which carry no punctuation and mishear names, and was corrected by hand against the recording: the speaker's own wording is kept, a reading that could not be settled is marked [?], and a passage that could not be recovered at all is marked [inaudible]. Every change is listed at the foot of the page. The recording is the authority; quote from it, not from this.

00:00 Alan Thornett: [inaudible] I'm trying to [inaudible] quite a few things to be — sorry. But we should recognise in this situation that everything is split, absolutely everything is split. The working class is split, the Tories are split, Labour is split, the left is split. Everything [inaudible] because [it's] an earthquake, you know, [inaudible] but everything is split. And the only — the only thing, in actual fact, we've got two main parties — there are only two main parties because of the electoral system. If we had a democratic electoral system, the Tories would be split into two; one would join up with UKIP. Labour would split into two: a right-wing Labour Party and a much more radical Labour Party. That's where politics is. It's held together by the electoral system.

00:30 And what I was saying about PR, my point is it's very important that Labour adopts PR, because it's a winner, it's a vote-getter [?]. It's very important that Labour now [inaudible].

01:01 I don't share the amount of pessimism over Corbyn — like [inaudible], for example, [who] says now if Corbyn goes, the left is politically finished [?]. I mean, I can't — just because [inaudible]. And I think the chances are that we could see another upsurge of young people around this, with the real possibility of winning. And Mark Serwotka was — I mean, actually, today Mark Serwotka defended him to the hilt. He said that what we've got to do is we've got to campaign to get thousands more people to join the Labour Party so that he has another resounding victory. That was Mark Serwotka. And that's not at all impossible; in fact I would have thought that it's possible.

01:33 Now, I don't think they can keep him off the ballot paper. I think that's a false debate, because the rules will be decided by the NEC, and if they kept him off the ballot paper then there'd be a legal challenge. It would be [inaudible] even legally. So I think they could just forget that: he's going to be on the ballot paper. The question is, is he going to win? And so I think that we've got to be part of that, getting every single person we possibly can in the Labour Party and getting the biggest vote possible.

02:04 So I think what I mean about a referendum — you know, it is a — it's very difficult to get [inaudible], and there's no way that we could say that a second referendum would be a better outcome than the existing one, because, as [inaudible] says, they would call foul, and they would appeal to the — you know, "this has been overturned" — and you might get an even bigger exit vote in the second referendum. This is why I think that we have to focus on trying to have an input and influence in what is being proposed as a Brexit framework. And we need to follow it in detail. We need to expose what they're doing. We can't let them do it behind closed doors. And there needs to be an alternative Brexit agenda based on civil rights, democratic rights, everything else — a completely different Brexit agenda. And so I think that's the only way to go in this situation.

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Correction notes (12)
  • Same meeting as Alan Thornett's opening talk (FW6ejyDxLMQ) and Luke Cooper's talk (4FnVWr_SWZw); see those files for the date inference. The opening seconds are garbled (the clip begins mid-sentence) and are marked [inaudible].
  • "the tour is a split labor is split" → "the Tories are split, Labour is split"; "only human terry parties" → "only two main parties"; "if we have a Democratic Left electoral systems the toy will be split" → "If we had a democratic electoral system, the Tories would be split"; "UK labour would split" → "UKIP. Labour would split".
  • "these held together bone by the electoral system" → "It's held together by the electoral system".
  • "about priv" → "about PR"; "a vote Bogut tractors" → "a vote-getter [?]".
  • "like Denmark for example then says" → "like [inaudible], for example, [who] says" — a name from the floor discussion, not recoverable (possibly an SR comrade; unverified).
  • "if Corbin goes off the wells politically is finished" → "if Corbyn goes, the left is politically finished [?]"; "I'm assuming that suddenly doesn't offer Wales politically" → [inaudible].
  • "marks of Walker", "Mark sawako" → "Mark Serwotka" (PCS general secretary; spelling per SR archive). "Williard" dropped as a false start.
  • "we got a campaign those are the thousands of more people enjoy the Labour Party" → "we've got to campaign to get thousands more people to join the Labour Party".
  • "keep them on the ballot paper" → "keep him off the ballot paper" (the argument that follows — rules set by the NEC, legal challenge — is about excluding Corbyn); "NDC" → "NEC"; "liner party" → "Labour Party"; "biggest boat" → "biggest vote".
  • "where fendom", "random ever end up" → "a referendum", "[inaudible]"; "we won referendum" → "a second referendum".
  • "as well and says" → "as [inaudible] says" — probably a speaker from the floor (or Luke Cooper), not recoverable.
  • "xing vote" → "exit vote"; "brexit framework", "Black Sea agenda", "back sender" → "Brexit framework", "Brexit agenda".