Graham Bash takes issue with Bryn Griffiths’ assessment of how the magazine Labour Briefing moved away from its earlier pluralism traditions.

Earlier this week, Bryn Griffiths launched the Labour Left Podcast which appears on Spotify, and as a video on YouTube here. It is supported by Labour Hub. The first trial episode looked at the history of Brighton Labour Briefing based on an earlier Labour Hub article. The article and the podcast make some trenchant criticisms of how the magazine Labour Briefing in recent years abandoned its earlier ethos. Here we publish a response from Graham Bash, who edited the magazine for many years. While Labour Hub does not share his analysis, we publish it in the spirit of pluralism and open debate which is a source of strength for our movement.

In many ways, Bryn Griffiths’ article and podcast are an excellent look back at Briefing’s traditions, though Bryn has an unreasonable pop at Red Line and our allies at the end. 

But:

First, he starts by too sharply contrasting the early Briefing with the ‘Leninist tradition’ to which many of us who created the early Briefing subscribed, however critically.

Second, he draws too easily parallels between the early 1980s and today. This is not business as usual, and we haven’t ‘seen it all before’. The situation in the Labour Party now is far more serious. Yes, the period in the early ‘80s covered the Bennite upsurge, but it never went as far then as it did with Jeremy Corbyn. The establishment wing of the Party had the fright of their lives with Corbyn – and are determined never to allow the left or the working class ever again to get near the centres of power. 

There are other differences too. Firstly, the economic crisis is now far deeper, with a future Starmer government having far less room for manoeuvre and more likely to attack the trade unions. Secondly, the working class is far weaker than it was in the pre-miners’ strike period of the early ‘80s. Thirdly, the witch-hunt is far broader today than it was then, with the ability of Brighton Labour Party to have the types of debate it had then almost totally destroyed.

 Finally, the left in the Parliamentary Labour Party is now much weaker than it was in the ’80s – as Corbyn found to his cost. Left MPs are having the whip removed and the left is being cut out from selection processes, at both parliamentary and local council level. 

The resistance which must be built will not come in the first instance primarily from the Labour left in their constituency parties – though it must engage with it – but from the trade unions and campaigns against racism, on climate change, etc. How to give this resistance political expression is an open question. It is possible that the relationship between the Labour Party and trade unions may come under huge strain in this period. As Gramsci put it, “The old world is dying, the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”

Third, he draws too sharp a distinction between the early Briefing’s ‘unity’ and today’s ‘everyone hates us, we don’t care.’ Remember, in the very early days, our hit lists of councillors we wanted to deselect? And under Mike Marqusee, whom Bryn rightly lauds, our famous ‘Class Traitor of the Month’ column was launched. Bryn’s memory is selective. 

Fourth, how exactly is he suggesting we should have responded to the antisemitism witch-hunt? Called it out for what it was – an establishment-orchestrated attack on the left – or colluded with it as Bryn’s comrades – Owen Jones, Momentum, The World Transformed and Novara Media – did? Remember how so many of them piled in against Ken Livingstone et al? Hardly the same solidarity that Brighton Briefing rightly gave to Richard Stanton – even though many, including Bryn, did not agree with him on the issue for which he was attacked!

 Graham Bash is a former editor of Labour Briefing.