the right is not immune
Interesting post by Whiggy about the tensions within Act.
It's often protrayed that only the left have these kinds of problems, but clearly this is not the case and the conflict is much deeper than the titbits we get in the media.
The talk about expulsions is particularly worrying. We've been through two splits in the Alliance and no one has been actually expelled (although I believe this used to happen in the 1990s, before I was involved). Expulsions tend to indicate actions or activities considered traitorous by the bulk of the membership, but in my memory nothing of that nature has surfaced in the media in regard to Act. I wonder if Whiggy would care to expand?
6 comments:
The Board expelled Christchurch Board Member Robin Booth last year over (I think this was the excuse anyway) an unpaid restaurant bill for an ACT meeting in Christchurch.
The ACT Candidate at the '99 election which Sir Roger and Stephen Franks were so keen to get rid of survived a narrow vote and is still active in the party today.
Honestly, at least the Alliance split up over something vaguely important.
I'd hardly describe Booth's expulsion as a split, it was more of a moronectomy.
ACT has generally been quite tolerant of dissent. There's a world of difference between the way ACT dealt with the anti-war ranting at their national conference last year and the way Labour uses thugs to drag away any dissenters.
so do you think the current situation is basically over, as it is in the Alliance (ie one side have left or accepted defeat and the Party has started rebuilding)?
As an ex-member, I would say that the situation is quite recoverable. But as for the reasons I left, well, that's better left unsaid I think. But needless to say, the right is better at handling internal issues than the left. The left do seem very self-indulgent, whereas the right do seem better at maintaining an outward facade of unity for the sake of obtaining and retaining power.
i think you are right Aaron - lefties take internal dissent and conflict too personally, whereas the right sort of grudgingly admire the power plays of others. of course that's a generalisation.
i genuinely feel that Labour has become more like the right in that regard, since the Fourth Labour Govt - or at least many of the high level activists have (the membership probably hasn't).
I note that the members of left wing political parties tend to have side organisations which tend to factionalise. Whether this is a union, environmental organisation, gay rights or a human rights group, they tend to factionalise more easily. While the left in this sense have marshalled these forces well (at least within Labour) they equally can be a noose. For example, the strident militant union forces in the 1970s and early 1980s did much to keep Labour out of power by ruining the outward appearance of unity.
On the right, political party members don't tend to branch out into similar factions. Within the parties there may be forums where people can express interest and contribute towards policy, but I don't see the same level of competing factions within the membership. Putting it bluntly, National and ACT members see themselves as ACT members first and foremost, whereas maybe Alliance, Green and Labour people might identify themselves as aforesaid party members AND an Engineering Union member, or maybe a unionist first and a Labour party member second.
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