UK Politics: Your Party Success Includes A Campaign Against Bureaucracy

Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana

From Steve McKenzie

Branch Secretary of Bexley (London) UNITE Community Branch*

 

There has been a disturbing trend over the last few days. Almost everybody I have asked if they have signed up to Your Party answers in a similar way. 'After last week, I'll see how they perform first' 

The damage caused, by what was seen spat between Corbyn and Sultana, appears to have resulted in a fairly serious setback. 

They were the face of the split, the real cause was the bureacratic power grab, with those who really pull the strings attempting to get control of the email list, and future financial control.

This is a similar way as a bureaucracy gets control in a trade union, first they seize control of the executive, and through that control of the financial arrangements and recruitment committees. 

Centralisation, a top down approach, nepotism and cronyism has led to serious allegations of corruption in some unions.

Bureaucracy means subordinating the interests of the work to the interests of one’s own career. It means focusing the attention on places and ignoring the work itself.

 

This has always been the modus operandi employed by most bureaucrats in both the industrial and political wings of the Labour movement.

The debilitating effect on our movement is there for all to see, for anybody who scratches beneath the surface. It has had a devastating effect.

Unions not providing a basic service, shedding members at an incredible rate of knots, mired in corruption, the appalling, and some say terminal decline of the Labour Party. The methods of these elements who have already damaged our unions, left their fingerprints all over the recent spat in Your Party. 

 

As we struggle to get Your Party off of the ground, we must rid ourselves of these methods and the elements that practice them. Instead of a top down bureaucracy we want democratic accountability and genuine membership control. Read the previous piece on this subject here.

 

*UNITE, the  has community section that allows non-members from the community to pay 50p a week dues and receive some assistance.