A reprint of the July 2009 document which argued that our 2003-4 approach to the Labour Party was becoming outdated and might within a couple of years become more outdated, plus an afterword
"The Trade Union Movement, New Labour, and Working-Class Representation" is a 2003-4 polemic against those who said that high-Blairite New Labour was not essentially different from Old Labour, plus a 2025 introduction. "Corbynism: what went wrong?" discusses how the Corbyn surge developed and how it crashed. "Debate on the unions and the Labour Party" is a 2009 discussion of whether the 2003-4 approach was then becoming outdated, plus a 2025 afterword.
Some comrades have, as is their right, reprinted the 2004 document (almost all written in July 2003), "The Trade Union Movement, New Labour, and Working-Class Representation".
To get an idea of the relevance of that polemic to today, it may be useful to read the July 2009 document which argued that the 2003-4 approach was becoming outdated and might within a couple of years become more outdated.
An afterword gives some brief background to the debate and comments briefly on the introduction to the reprint of the 2004 document.
See also "Corbynism: what went wrong?"
Note
Introduction, July 2009
1. How the new facts change the prospects
2. What the dispute is not about
3. Why argue now for a union fight in the Labour structures?
4. Instead, build an alternative "pole" by way of disaffiliation?
5. Does disgust with New Labour rule out revival?
6. The 2010 general election and the lessons of labour movement history
7. Memory
8. Trotsky: "It is impossible to leap over the problem. It must be solved"
Workers' representation after Bournemouth
Why have Marxists ever bothered with the Labour Party?
The Labour Party. is a bourgeois party
How economic crises shape politics
Afterword 2025
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