The discursive reconstruction of poor electoral performance: the British Trotskyist left and the 2010 General Election

Abstract

This paper is situated within the rhetorical turn in political science and investigates the discourses constructed by Trotskyist parties in order to justify the policy of electoral participation despite poor electoral performance. A wide range of texts are examined from eight organizations that contested seats in the 2010 UK General Election. The thrust of Trotskyist discourse downplayed dismal vote totals, contextualizing them by reference to pro-Labour tactical voting and elaborating a variety of benefits that emerged from electoral participation. It is argued that such analysis could usefully be incorporated into the study of party responses to electoral problems and setbacks.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Peter Ackers, Alan Finlayson and Mark Wickham-Jones as well as to participants at the PSA 2014 annual conference for comments on an earlier draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. T. Quinn, ‘From two-partism to alternating predominance: the changing UK party system, 1950–2010’, Political Studies, 61 (2013), pp. 378–400.

2. P. Dunleavy, ‘Facing up to multi-party politics: how partisan dealignment and PR voting have fundamentally changed Britain’s party systems’, Parliamentary Affairs, 58 (2005), pp. 503–532.

3. G. Borisyuk, C. Thrasher, M. Rallings, and H. van den Kolk, ‘Voter support for minor parties: assessing the social and political context of voting at the 2004 European Elections in Greater London’, Party Politics, 13 (2007), pp. 669–693.

4. These far left coalitions all include Trotskyist groups, either as formal coalition partners or as party factions. On SYRIZA see Y. Stavrakakis and G. Katsembekis, ‘Left-wing populism in the European periphery: the case of SYRIZA’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 19 (2014), pp. 119–142.

5. Author’s calculations from the European Elections Database, http://www.nsd.uib.no/european_election_database/ accessed 16 July 2014.

6. Author calculations derived from the UK Electoral Commission website http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/, accessed 17 July 2014. The other component of the far left in Western Europe is the communist party family whose vote shares have almost all been declining since the mid-20^th century: M. Gallagher, M. Laver, and P. Mair, Representative Government in Modern Europe, 5th edn (Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill, 2011), p. 245.

7. The issue is not unique to far left parties because mainstream parties, as well as those on the extreme right, also experience periodic electoral meltdowns: in the UK, Labour in 1983 and 2010 and the Conservatives in 1997 are good examples. Nonetheless, extreme left parties face the issue of accounting for, and responding to, poor electoral performance far more frequently than mainstream parties.

8. R.J. Alexander, International Trotskyism 1929–1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991). I use the term ideology to mean a set of beliefs and values that describe the social and political world, identify problems and propose solutions: see M. Freeden, Ideology: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 32.

9. M. Visser, M. Lubbers, G. Kraaykaamp and E. Jaspers, ‘Support for radical left ideologies in Europe’, European Journal of Political Research, 53 (2014), pp. 541–558.

10. For a general history of the CPGB see W. Thompson, The Good Old Cause: British Communism 1920–1991 (London: Pluto Press, 1992).

11. V.I. Lenin, ‘The state and revolution’, in V.I. Lenin (Eds) Selected Works in Three Volumes Vol. 2 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 270.

12. V.I. Lenin, ‘“Left-wing communism” – an infantile disorder’, in V.I. Lenin (Eds) Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol.3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975).

13. J. Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis and Conflict: The CPGB 1951–68 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2003), p. 184.

14. F.W.S. Craig, Minor Parties at British Parliamentary Elections 1885–1974 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1975); F.W.S. Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1974–1983 (Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services, 1984); F.W.S. Craig, Britain Votes 4 (Aldershot: Gower, 1988).

15. See however Alexander, International Trotskyism, op. cit., Ref. 8; J. Callaghan, British Trotskyism: Theory and Practice (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984); J. McIlroy, ‘Always outnumbered, always outgunned: the Trotskyists and the trade unions’, in J. McIlroy, N. Fishman and A. Campbell (Eds) British Trade Unions and Industrial Politics, Vol. 2: The High Tide of Trade Unionism, 1964–79 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), pp. 259–296; L. March, Radical Left Parties in Europe (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011); J. Olsen, M. Koβ and D. Hough (Eds) Left Parties in National Governments (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); E. Smith and M. Worley (Eds) Against the Grain: the British Far Left from 1956 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014). Stephen A. Smith’s recent Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) has a few entries on Trotsky but nothing on Trotskyist parties or the Trotskyist movement.

16. Self-reported membership figures are the subject of much internecine dispute on the far left. Nonetheless, because the literature on mainstream political parties almost invariably works with self-reported figures whilst noting their many problems, I have followed the same practice here. See for instance P. Mair and I. van Biezen, ‘Party membership in twenty European democracies, 1980–2000’, Party Politics, 7 (2001), pp. 5–21; F. McGuinness, Membership of UK Political Parties (London: House of Commons Library, Social and General Statistics Section, 2012, Standard Note SN/SG/5125); S. Scarrow, ‘Political activism and party members’, in R.J. Dalton and H.-D. Klingemann (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Political Behaviour (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 636–654.

17. This claim is based on detailed consultation of the extensive archives of the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL), International Marxist Group (IMG, forerunner of Socialist Resistance, SR), the Socialist Party (formerly the Militant Tendency), the SWP and the Workers Revolutionary Party at the London School of Economics, the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick and Glasgow Caledonian University, respectively.

18. J. Choonara and C. Kimber, Arguments for Revolution: The Case for the Socialist Workers Party (London: Socialist Workers Party, 2011), p. 39 and see also A. Callinicos, The Revolutionary Road to Socialism (London: Bookmarks, 1983), pp. 22 and 26.

19. T. Cliff, A World to Win: Life of a Revolutionary (London: Bookmarks, 2000), p. 139.

20. Socialist Workers Party Central Committee, ‘Election strategy’, Pre-Conference Bulletin, Issue 2 (1978), p. 11, in Nigel Clark Papers, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, MSS 489, File 489/8 and also SWP CC, ‘Parliamentary candidates: by-election campaign – how we expect to build’, IS Internal Bulletin, (September 1976), in Will Fancy Papers, University of London Senate House Library, MS 1171, Box 23/4.

21. One Trotskyist group, the Workers Revolutionary Party, has contested seats in every election since February 1974, but the participation of smaller groups has been more sporadic.

22. Choonara and Kimber, Arguments for Revolution, op.cit., Ref. 18., pp. 57–58.

23. M. Henn, M. Weinstein and S. Forrest, ‘Uninterested youth? Young people’s attitudes towards party politics in Britain’, Political Studies, 53 (2005), pp. 556–578.

24. C. Harman, ‘Is it propaganda? Or do we want socialists elected?’, Socialist Worker, 24 (February 2001), p. 6.

25. The Coventry result is rather unusual because it reflects a personal vote for the Socialist Dave Nellist. He originally held the seat from 1983 as the official Labour candidate until his expulsion in 1991 as a member of the Militant Tendency. Deselected in early 1992, he has since fought the seat for the Socialist Party, obtaining a steadily shrinking vote share.

26. G. Evans and K. Chzhen, ‘Explaining voters’ defection from Labour over the 2005–10 electoral cycle: Leadership, economics and the rising importance of immigration’, Political Studies, 61 (2013), pp. 138–157.

27. See, for example, the Workers Revolutionary Party, ‘Vote WRP! Vote For Socialism!’, The News Line, 9 April 2013, p. 5.

28. Tony Cliff led the SWP and its predecessor organizations for almost 50 years; Ted Grant led the Militant Tendency, precursor of the Socialist Party, for 41 years; and Gerry Healy led the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) for 38 years.

29. P. Mair, W.C. Müller and F. Plasser, ‘Introduction: electoral challenges and party responses’, in P. Mair, W.C. Müller and F. Plasser (Eds) Political Parties and Electoral Change (London: Sage, 2004), pp. 1–19.

30. H. Kitschelt, The Transformation of European Social Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

31. P. Mair, W.C. Müller and F. Plasser, ‘Conclusion: political parties in changing electoral markets’, in Mair, Müller and Plasser (Eds), op. cit., Ref. 29., p. 271.

32. K. Strøm and W.C. Müller, ‘Political parties and hard choices’, in W.C. Müller and K. Stróm (Eds) Policy, Office or Votes? How Political Parties in Western Europe Make Hard Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 1–35.

33. J. Potter and M. Wetherell, Discourse and Social Psychology (London: Sage, 1987).

34. C. Hay and B. Rosamond, ‘Globalization, European integration and the discursive construction of economic imperatives’, Journal of European Public Policy, 9 (2002), pp. 147–67. On critical discourse analysis see N. Fairclough, ‘The discourse of New Labour: critical discourse analysis’, in M. Wetherell, S. Taylor and S. J. Yates (Eds) Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis (London: Sage, 2001), pp. 229–266.

35. T.A. van Dijk, ‘Ideology and discourse analysis’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 11 (2006), pp. 115–140; T.A. van Dijk, ‘Ideology and discourse’, in M. Freeden, L.T. Sargent and M. Stears (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 175–196.

36. See for example J. Martin, ‘Situating speech: a rhetorical approach to political strategy’, Political Studies, 63 (2015), pp. 25–42; A. Finlayson, ‘Political science, political ideas and rhetoric’, Economy and Society, 33 (2004), pp. 528–49; A. Finlayson, ‘Ideology and political rhetoric’, in M. Freeden, L.T. Sargent and M. Stears (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 197–213.

37. Martin, ibid., p. 27.

38. I. Fairclough and N. Fairclough, Political Discourse Analysis (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), pp. 44–45.

39. Fairclough and Fairclough, ibid., Fig. 5.3, p. 195 and also Fig. 5.4, p. 196.

40. Labour Party, Britain Can Be Better. The Labour Party Manifesto 2015 (London: Labour Party, 2015).

41. P. Dick, ‘Discourse analysis’, in C. Cassell and G. Symon (Eds) Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research (London: Sage, 2004), pp. 203–213; van Dijk, ‘Ideology and discourse analysis’, op. cit., Ref. 35 and Fairclough, ‘The discourse of New Labour’, op. cit., Ref. 34.

42. Many of these organizations also produce internal bulletins, exclusively for members and it may be these reveal rather different discourses, as Levintova found in the case of the Russian Communist Party: E. Levintova, ‘Being the opposition in contemporary Russia: the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) amongst social democratic, Marxist-Leninist and nationalist socialist discourses’, Party Politics, 18 (2012), pp. 727–747. However, although internal bulletins from the 1970s and 1980s are available in various archives, contemporary internal bulletins are almost impossible to obtain.

43. van Dijk, ‘Ideology and discourse analysis’, op. cit., Ref. 35; N. Fairclough, New Labour, New Language (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 87ff; Fairclough and Fairclough, Political Discourse Analysis, op.cit., Ref. 38, p. 120ff; and A. Finlayson and J. Martin, ‘“It ain’t what you say…”: British political studies and the analysis of speech and rhetoric’, British Politics, 3 (2008), pp. 445–64.

44. D. Silverman, Interpreting Qualitative Data, 3rd edn. (London: Sage, 2006), p. 276.

45. Thanks to Alex Kelly for assistance with coding.

46. Silverman, Interpreting Qualitative Data, op.cit., Ref 44., p. 286 and see also S. Taylor, ‘Evaluating and applying discourse analytic research’, in M. Wetherell, S. Taylor and S. J. Yates (Eds) Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis (London: Sage, 2001), pp. 311–330.

47. van Dijk, ‘Ideology and discourse analysis’, op. cit., Ref. 35., pp. 126–7.

48. There were several other themes, under this broad heading, although each of them was cited by only one or two organizations. The Socialist Party frequently complained it received ‘virtually no coverage’ (24.4), that it was ‘kept off’ (16.2) television and radio (and see Socialist Resistance 28.1 which complained the left was ‘squeezed out of the picture’). Surprisingly, only one organization referred to the UK’s majoritarian electoral system, Workers Power arguing that ‘the first-past-the –post system … blocks the way to revolutionary anti-fascist candidates’ (WP 53.5).

49. van Dijk, ‘Ideology and discourse analysis’, op. cit., Ref. 35 emphasizes the interconnection of themes in his analysis of a speech by Teresa Gorman MP.

50. van Dijk, ‘Ideology and discourse analysis’, op.cit., Ref. 35., p. 126.

51. van Dijk, ‘Ideology and discourse analysis’, op.cit., Ref. 15.

52. Fairclough and Fairclough, Political Discourse Analysis, op.cit., Ref. 38.

53. See L. Bille and K. Pedersen, ‘Electoral fortunes and responses of the Social Democratic Party and Liberal Party in Denmark: ups and downs’, in P. Mair, W.C. Müller and F. Plasser (Eds) Political Parties and Electoral Change (London: Sage, 2004), pp. 207–233; P. Mair and M. Marsh, ‘Political parties in electoral markets in postwar Ireland’, in Mair, Müller and Plasser (Eds), op. cit., Ref. 29., pp. 234–263; and A. Knapp, ‘Ephemeral victories? France’s governing parties, the ecologists and the far right’, in Mair, Müller and Plasser (Eds), op. cit., Ref. 29., pp. 49–85.

54. Mair et al., Political Parties and Electoral Change, op. cit., Ref. 29.