New Politics Initiative launches challenge against rightward drift of the NDP

‘We need a party that challenges capitalism’

The New Democrats are undergoing a process of renewal in the wake of last year’s federal election in which they garnered less than 10 per cent of the vote nationally.

This is in addition to failing to make an expected breakthrough in Nova Scotia, the loss of majority status in Saskatchewan and the loss of party status in British Columbia.

It is obvious to everyone that the NDP is in serious crisis.

With the launch of the official renewal process it seemed that it would be dominated by the right and centre of the party.

Shortly after the renewal process was launched a group of pro-market, pro-Blairite NDPers, calling themselves NDProgress, held a conference in Ottawa to debate a strategy of pushing the NDP more towards the Liberals.

Party Leader Alexa McDonough gave the opening address at that conference.

In her address she agreed with the NDProgress position of moving the party towards One Member One Vote (OMOV). OMOV is masked as being a more democratic way to run the party.

In reality it is meant as a way for the conservative party machine to protect itself from the pressure of party activists, who tend to be to the left of the leadership.

Instead of policy proposals and leadership campaigns being decided at conventions, where they can be publicly and collectively held accountable, these would be decided by mail-in ballots.

Since the party machine controls vastly more resources than any individuals or groups in the party, it would ensure that they would have an even greater advantage in winning votes.

Shortly after the NDProgress conference another conference was organized in Montreal by McGill professor and long-time NDPer Desmond Morton and former party leader Ed Broadbent.

This conference attempted to paper over the differences between the left and the right in the party at the same time as endorsing the market.

The most significant opposition at the conference came from NDP MP Svend Robinson who stated that the market is a mad dog "that should be shot," not "kept on a leash" as other attendees argued.

Attendance at the conference was by invitation only.

However, the organized pro-market consensus was not to last.

Svend Robinson and lapsed NDPer and prominent left-winger Judy Rebick, along with a number of others, including CAW economist Jim Stanford and well known journalist and activist Murray Dobbin, launched the New Politics Initiative.

The NPI has called for the creation of a new left wing party, one "that honestly challenges the assumptions and the outcomes of capitalism."

The NPI explicitly looks to the recent struggles against globalization that have burst upon the scene since the demonstrations in Seattle in 1999.

As they say in their Vision Statement: "… as the incredible protests from Seattle to Quebec City have shown, this is a time of opportunity for the left. We celebrate the victories of our global movement: the defeat of the MAI, beating the pharmaceutical giants in South Africa, the strength of the Zapatistas, local victories around the world over water and waste, the rejection of neoliberalism in New Zealand."

And importantly, the NPI embraces the term "anti-capitalist".

"The left has a huge opening to honestly and forcefully challenge the underlying precepts of a market system that perpetually generates hardship and inequality."

In addition the NPI calls for a "radical internationalism" based on solidarity and openly supports Quebec’s right to self-determination.

This marks a massive shift and potentially historic break in the rightward drift of the NDP.

More than just in its policies, the NPI challenges the passive electoralism that has dominated the NDP for decades and is now leading it down the road to ruin.

As they note, it has been through struggle "not by well-meaning social democrats who were elected to bestow good deeds on a thankful populace from on high" that our most important social programs have been won.

Flowing from this is a different conception of political leadership.

"Our political leaders should see their main job as educating citizens about the failures of our system, motivating and organizing them to fight actively for redress — and then providing a parliamentary voice for the fight backs we aim to inspire."

The strategy of the NPI is to try to draw those leftists who are both members of the NDP and those who are disillusioned with the NDP project.

In the short term it seeks to organize a series of forums around the country to build the NPI and to organize for the national convention of the NDP in Winnipeg in November.

It is proposing a resolution to convention which calls for the NDP to lead the process of founding a new party based upon these principles.

The possibility that the NPI could create an anti-market, anti-capitalist mass party in Canada, is something everyone on the left should welcome.

However, while there are certainly reasons for enthusiasm with the NPI project, it is not without its problems and these cannot be glossed over.

While the NPI states that it is struggle that can win a better world, its strategy in the short term is one of passing resolutions at the NDP convention. It provides no other outlet in activity for those that would seek to get involved, other than endorsing its statement and project.

Those not in the NDP would only have the opportunity to participate in the forums but if they wanted further activity, it could only come by joining the NDP.

Not surprisingly, some see this as a maneuver to recruit new members to the NDP without a strategy for building on the ground, or outside the NDP if the resolution should fail to pass at convention.

The NPI should state clearly that it will break from the NDP and form a new party if the NDP is unwilling to embrace the anti-capitalist movement and build an activist party based upon the day-to-day struggles of working people and the oppressed.

And it needs to prove in practice immediately that it is serious about building struggles.

That means mobilizing people for the demonstrations in Washington against the IMF and mobilizing people around the numerous campaigns against the local effects of globalization — such as private funding for education in Ontario.

If it wants to be seen as a credible alternative it cannot tell people to wait until after the NDP convention.

The NPI needs to live up to its statement that: "Our goal is to empower and organize mass numbers of Canadians to fight for a better world everyday, and everywhere."

Further, it is through building struggles right now that it will prove in practice its arguments prior to the November convention, giving greater strength to its call for a new, different party.

Lastly, it must not be cautious about its organizing. The NPI must be as bold as its manifesto.

If it were to call for riding associations, communities and towns to set up local NPI committees to organize on the basis of its Vision Statement, to build a new socialist party of struggle, that call would be answered by thousands.