num

Ed's joined our campaign for a deft left. Will you?

Those of you who were at the Bull & Gate gig on the 18th September will have heard us debut one of Billy Brentford’s new songs: Deft Left. As we keep reminding you, the comeback is over now, and, once At Ebbw Vale is released we hope we can draw a line under the ‘band who got lost behind the Iron Curtain’ stuff that everyone is so fascinated by, and start to properly emphasise the fightback.

The key to the fightback is the formation of a deft left, with visceral heft. As Billy asks us in the first verse: what happened to the anger? It’s not like I remember, when fighting Mrs Thatcher.

Well the new leader of the Labour Party has joined our campaign for a proper, angry, fighting left. As the photo above demonstrates.

Join the fightback. Help us form a deft left. Bring the visceral heft. It’s going to be a key component of December 18th. See you there.

Oh, one other thing to take note of: it’s 95 years to the day since Comrade Keir Hardie died. We’ve come a long way in those 95 years. But not nearly long enough. Remember Keir Hardie and all he did for us – in Scotland, in South Wales and in Westminster. Let’s hope Ed Miliband is also remembering him, and looking to take on his mantle. It’s a massive responsibility, Ed. The project is far from over.

Best union banner ever! Marx, Lenin and Kier Hardie. That's socialist iconography, right there.

Keir Hardie would have loved his Socialist R&B. Of that there is no doubt. And Socialist R&B loves Kier Hardie.

Many of you will remember a song we used to do, back in 1984, called ‘Rise Up With Violence’. And you’ll probably remember that, after a few airings, in November that year it suddenly became ‘Don’t Give Up, Rise Up’. Everyone used to ask us why.

We shied away from explaining it, back then. Events were too recent and too uncomfortable, and the sentiment of the whole song remained the same – just the first line of the chorus changed to reflect a change in our thinking. Of course, we accept that there might be a defining moment of revolutionary change. But we acknowledge that the counter-hegemonic ‘hearts and minds’ approach leading up to that, as outlined by Antonio Gramsci, is not just the most attractive, but will prove the most successful means to achieving our end.

We knew this back then, of course. But the events of November 84, when two comrades from the NUM dropped a concrete post onto a taxi carrying two miners intent on crossing the picket line and returning to work, clarified our thinking. What did it accomplish? The death of a taxi driver and the imprisoning of two comrades, all from an act of violent desperation when a hearts and minds approach didn’t seem to be working.

That re-adjusted our focus on what needed to happen for revolutionary change to come about. Individual acts of terrorism, or Boys’ Own plans for armed insurrection, are an infantile way forward. Counter-hegemonic struggle is about the transformation of common sense. It doesn’t happen overnight. But when it does happen, the ‘violence’ is a single moment, when one class symbolically takes power from another. By the time that moment happens, the revolution has already occurred.

Our role is to play a small part in the facilitation of that counter-hegemonic struggle. Don’t give up: rise up.