A Leap Toward Radical Politics?
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- Published on Monday, 06 June 2016 23:15
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1265 .... June 7, 2016
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A Leap Toward Radical Politics?
The Leap Manifesto is, in a way, Canada's version of the burst of Left and socialist energies that have come with the Bernie Sanders campaign in the Democratic Party in the U.S. and the Jeremy Corbyn leadership win in the Labour Party in Britain. As with these, the explosion of popular interest reflects general disquiet about the limits of recent protests demanding changes from the state but having no strategy to transform it, on the one hand; and disappointments with electoral politics and social democratic parties that only seem to reinforce neoliberalism, on the other.
The Manifesto gained national prominence through a favourable resolution passed at the recent NDP Convention encouraging discussion of it within the party. But the Leap... Manifesto also has an independent existence coming out of climate change struggles in Canada over the last decade, particularly with respect to pipelines development to further increase extraction of oil from the tar sands and First Nations sovereignty and ecological justice demands.
The Discussion Paper below from the Socialist Project invites debate on the specifics of the Leap Manifesto's proposals. This will unavoidably involve serious reflection on the complex politics of building a social force -- and literally inventing new strategies -- able to address the urgency of climate change, First Nations struggles over land and self-government, and the authoritarian neoliberalism spreading in Canada.
Frustrations with what has come to be called ‘neoliberalism’ -- the hyper-capitalism of stunning inequalities, ever-deeper commodification of all aspects of our lives, environmental degradation, corporate-driven trade pacts, and the narrowing of substantive democracy -- have seriously discredited traditional political parties. This has often included parties on the social democratic left.
Canada's New Democratic Party (NDP) seemed immune from this for some time. But in the aftermath of their disastrous showing in the 2015 federal election, and the dramatic developments at the NDP's Edmonton convention in April, the federal NDP has been drawn into the maelstrom. Delegates at the convention did the previously unthinkable: they not only refused to give their current leader, Tom Mulcair, the traditional strong vote of confidence, but for the first time in party history directly rejected the incumbent. The rejection clearly extended to a rebuke of the architects of the party's recent electoral platforms, notably expressed in the extent of support that delegates registered for the social movement-inspired Leap Manifesto, with its focus on ecology, indigenous rights, and social justice, all downplayed in the fall NDP campaign.