‘Modernism is political’. Okay, it’s not the snappiest start to an article I know, but it gets to the bottom of the phenomenon that is LM, formerly Living Marxism, currently Last Magazine. Confused? Yes they are, but not as confused as the liberal intelligentsia who have been trying to decode what LM means for the past two and a half years.
LM is best known for its libel case concerning its coverage of the war in Bosnia with ITN, which ITN won earlier this year. The case had run since 1997 when LM had published an article claiming that ITN had ‘fooled the world’ with its picture of emaciated Bosnian Muslim men looking out through barbed wire. ITN claimed they had discovered a concentration camp. LM claimed they had distorted the truth through a highly emotive image reminiscent of World War 2 camps. A layer of disinformation masked the truth. LM pleaded to the outside world and presented themselves as the David against the Corporate Media Goliath of ITN.
The case against British Libel law is certain. The laws are regressive repressive and authoritarian. They defy freedom of speech and have to be radically reformed. All they do is protect the rich and powerful against dissidence and a critical press. But this is not about libel law; it’s about the future of alternative political thinking and a coherent left politics. Close after the McLibel Two and numerous high profile Private Eye battles, nothing seemed simpler to a left-liberal movement in desperate search of something to be angry about at the height of New Labour triumphalism. Quickly, groups like the ICA and a queue of liberal lefties jumped on the dubious bandwagon.
But what does LM stand for and where have they come from? They are a group who make strange claims and seemingly contradictory politics. They have argued stridently against any ecological problems, arguing that global warming simply doesn’t exit; that the ‘precautionary principle’ is witness to humanity’s fear of itself; and in favour of biotechnology and genetic engineering. Hence, modernism – with its central belief in progress – is political.
They argue that the distinction between left and right isn’t meaningful any more. They want to reclaim the humanist, libertarian mantle from the communist movement of old. They hate consensus, have no desire to make common cause and love to provoke what they see as the stagnant agenda of liberal Britain. They are Stalinist Thatcherites, a sort of Julie Burchill Collective. They eschew any manifesto or organisation and appear like a loose coalition of potty ex-leftist street generals running amok in the confusing holodeck of post-modern politics.
Frank Furedi is their chief theorist, Claire Fox their ‘front man’ and their former editor is ex RCP leader, Mick Hume. R.C.P? Oh sorry, that will be Revolutionary Communist Party, a leftwing sect of a few hundred members who emerged out of nowhere in the 1980s with a gleaming weekly colour newspaper – this was pre-Eddie Shah – The Next Step.
The Next Step and the RCP of the 1980s came like a bolt from the blue, with its strident macho militancy and seeming unending funds. But whilst most of the left was trying to support the miners, the RCP was bemoaning the lack of a ballot and arguing for them to be armed. Provocative? Well, maybe, but provocateur is probably more the point. Here are some of the gems LM has brought us over the past few years.
- LM on the tobacco industry: spark up!
- LM on biotechnology: only panic-mongering greens are concerned; bring it on.
- LM on religious bigotry: ‘Are you watching Fenian scum’ is not a bigoted chant. No, like wearing an orange shirt, it’s ‘fraternal oneupmanship’ or being ‘aesthetically reflexive’. Or so it goes in Living Marxism’s recent bumper addition – the Last Magazine.
Here’s hoping.
To see how to look at LM’s political analysis let’s have a look at the culture in Glasgow. Last year, Thomas McFadden, a young Catholic teenager was murdered shortly after the Cup Final. Karl McGroarty, a Catholic student, also wore a Celtic jersey that day. He was shot in the chest by a bolt from a crossbow, as he returned home. In 1996, Jason Campbell was jailed for murdering another Celtic fan, young Mark Scott. He had his throat slashed. In 1998 Campbell’s friend, Thomas Longstaff, was given a ten year jail sentence after another vicious attack on a Catholic. Campbell and Longstaff were both defended at their trials by Donald Findlay QC, Scottish Barrister, Dean of St Andrews University, leading Conservative, and who himself was caught on video giving a fine rendition of the Protestant anthem ‘The Sash’ at a post-match piss-up at Glasgow Rangers’ ground, Ibrox. This is the context in which LM published their Scottish correspondents ‘analysis’.
This year again, at the height of Loyalist backlash against the peace process in Northern Ireland, bus loads of people left the West Coast of Scotland to travel to Ireland for the 12th of July parades. It’s a sick kind of ‘left’ which fuels this: a bigotry that divides and conquers more effectively than anything else; a bigotry that is funded by right wing Conservative businessmen like Glasgow Rangers’ chairman David Murray. The traditional line from LM is that ‘left and right has become meaningless’. Yet their very own pages disproves this again and again as right wing zealots put pen to paper in support of their ‘politics’. It is a left that is apolitical that is also ahistorical and seemingly ignorant of the tradition of, say, Larkin and Connolly.
Eat the Rich
The role of radical publishing is to challenge the most fundamental and ingrained beliefs of the society. In the 1980s and 90s Class War did just this. With a tabloid style of agitprop journalism Class War urged readers to ‘Kill the Bill’, ‘Eat the Rich’ and so on. Its readers disrupted the Henley Regatta and other high profile upper class showcase events. Literally ‘attacking’ society events, this chaotic band of anarchists was made up of punks, squatters, hunts saboteurs, dilettantes and troublemakers. Punching toffs and smashing car windows, they had fun each summer. The writing of Class War was visceral, provocative and funny. It may have been politically immature, but it was coherent and genuine and was attached to something real. It was radical publishing which challenged fundamentals. The RCP and LM never did this. The left needs to be challenged, reform and reinvest itself into a meaningful movement. Of that there is no doubt. LM never contributed anything towards this. Instead, looking at the history of this group’s politics, it seems clear it has been attempting something else entirely.
The combative but limited Mick Hume is one of the principal figures on the scene. His heady editorials would lead off each issue of Living Marxism. But it’s not the individual editorials that riled radicals. What has confounded the critics of LM has been the apparently arbitrary nature of their attacks on all the causes that you might think would unite the left, even in disarray.
But LM didn’t recognise the left as a legitimate force, other than as an abstract idea. In LM’s world, the ‘working class’ somehow represents humanity. Sound familiar? Yes it’s the return of 19th century politics except without the struggle, the rootedness in workplace or community; and without the need for any mass movement or even aspiration for change, other than the pesky libel law.
LM’s agenda was clear enough to those tracking them over the years: ‘modernism’ must be reclaimed from the reactionary forces of the anti-technology left that was emerging from the period of the Thatcher Junta. On the streets of Britain the left was reforming. From the Battle of the Beanfield in 1983 to Twyford Down, the heroic fight against the Criminal Justice Bill and the Reclaim the Streets, to the alliance with the Liverpool Dockers to the more recent J-18, Seattle, Washington and Prague protests, a nascent red-green movement had shown some vitality. This was intolerable to the people behind LM.
But if the new political movement was rudderless in dire need of self-criticism and political debate, it had a lot else going for it. It was dynamic, had learnt from each successive battle and, crucially, was forming innovative forms of direct action and utilising new technologies to form a radical new media to by-pass the very corporate media that LM claimed to be against. Groups like Reclaim the Streets achieved spectacular results (such as halting the UK road building programme) by a combination of direct action, popular mobilisation and the dissemination of ideas through newsletters, Websites and email co-ordination. In an atmosphere of apparent political despondency for any radical forces in Britain, self-organised groups had won battles and made their mark. While the media was concentrating on ‘Generation X’, young people were on the streets, taking over derelict housing, arguing for radical politics. Whilst commentators were arguing on the death of politics as people turned away from the old parties and the electoral system, masses of people joined in NVDA and protest. Why would a group like LM be against such action? Supposedly far to the left of the now discredited Labour and Trade Union Movement, LM moved in against a potentially liberating and powerful green-left.
Left and Right
One of the central claims of the LM group is that the distinction between the left and right is now meaningless. This is often stated but rarely articulated. They can remain libertarian and controversial but they ally themselves with no tradition of the left. The sad thing is not that this should be the case, but that liberals and radicals across the spectrum should flock to their defence, dazed and confused by our post-ideological era. Just say ‘libel’ and read the first few lines.
Listen, ‘Marxist’, there’s been much weeping and wailing at your demise but I never thought you were for real.
Provocative or provocateur, you decide.
Beyond Parody
On 5 September the novelist and Daily Telegraph columnist A.N. Wilson announced the end of his column on the Telegraph Website which apparently — I have never read it — parodied the Prime Minister. Wilson wrote:
‘My invention — a sort of Blue Peter presenter with fascist aspirations, a total contempt for Parliament and ultimately for all our democratic institutions — had become a reality. His boastfulness, his empty-headedness and his ruthlessness, combined, rather creepily, with the manners and morals of a lay preacher, had become impossible to parody.’