Over the past month, there’s been a minor flurry of stories in the corporate media about internal disputes in B.C.’s New Democratic Party (NDP) — a sure sign that Liberal fortunes are sagging. With polls consistently showing the NDP leading Premier Gordon Campbell’s crew, certain political pundits are taking aim at Carole James and the party that looked like a write-off just three short years ago, after their trouncing in the 2001 provincial election.

The renewed attention to the provincial opposition, and the coverage of its strategic debates, is predictably replete with thinly veiled cynicism, red-baiting, and general anti-socialist sentiment. Lost amidst the retro barrage of “fast ferry” cheap shots is a serious assessment of the different strategies and political perspectives being put forward by the broad movement in British Columbia opposed to the B.C. Liberals’ program of cuts and privatization.

In a July column, the Vancouver Sun‘s Vaughn Palmer, from his apparently permanent desk covering the legislature, attempted to make a mountain out of the rather molehill NDP nomination race in Vancouver-Fairview. The contest is between Judy Darcy, former CUPE national president and well-known social activist, and juice entrepreneur Gregor Robertson, co-founder of those expensive yet organically delicious Happy Planet beverages.

After snidely noting Darcy’s history on the “Marxist Left,” Palmer asserts, “âe¦some party members see the race in Vancouver-Fairview as a microcosm of a province-wide struggle between the party’s past and its future.”

The equating of “left” policies and politicians with the past and with “old-thinking” is a subtle (but highly-conventional) practice used by political commentators and pundits, designed to marginalize and discredit proposals for reversing the neo-liberal project, which has for some time dominated the global political discourse.

In an exceptionally flippant commentary in Victoria’s Times Colonist, Sean Holman picks at the same tired theme of old and radical versus new and moderate, again “exposing” internal tensions in the NDP. Holman cites from a charter proposed by the party’s youth wing in order to raise the spectre of communism, the red (and orange?) tide:

“According to the [youth] charter, ‘Canada is a rich country. If the wealth were spread out evenly, each family would be worth $315,996. What we need is a democratic economy where decisions on what is needed are made by the people and not by the corporate elite.’ That’s one step away from calling on the workers of the world to unite and seize the means of production. That proposal would be comical if it wasn’t such a threat to James’ moderation scheme.”

The persistent description of the NDP’s past as some sort of revolutionary insurgency is part of an effort to continue to move the goal posts of political discourse further to the right. A sober analysis reveals the social democratic regime of the 1990s governed in a centrist manner. All three NDP premiers from that period are effectively no longer active with the party: Ujjal Dosanjh made a high-profile defection, and is now a federal Liberal cabinet minister; Glen Clark’s in middle management with Jimmy Pattison; Mike Harcourt is chairing Paul Martin’s external advisory committee on cities.

Many of those disaffected with the party were the traditional base of support for the Left: environmentalists, the poor, and even the ranks of unionized workers. Gerry Scott, the NDP’s provincial secretary, however, is confident that most of the party’s traditional voters are returning to the fold. “It’s a huge challenge [to win the 2005 election], but I’m optimistic. This is an opportunity to get a progressive government in power, and we need everybody working for a positive alternative,” Scott said.

In response to those wary, or unwilling, to unite behind the NDP in an effort to oust Campbell, Scott responded, “NDP governments aren’t ever perfect — Barrett, Harcourt, and Clark all made mistakes — but what we’re saying to progressive voters is that we have one opportunity to get rid of this government.

“We want to work with people, to make positive change. It’s going to be incremental change.”

One organized expression of dissatisfaction with the NDP’s program is a new initiative called Left Turn 2005, which has issued a letter calling for an independent, socialist campaign. Gary Cristall, a cultural worker and supporter of Left Turn, conceded that the group had yet to work out the details of an electoral bid in May, 2005, and it appears that it will be a limited effort, running at most one or two candidates. But Cristall defended the idea of organizing independently of the NDP, saying, “Fundamentally, I’m a socialist and they’re not. I’m tired, and I think a lot of people are tired, of being drawn to vote for the evil of two lessersâe¦ it’s constructive to pose a set of ideas, to actually put forward a set of ideas that people believe in. That’s our perspective.”

Thanks to next spring’s fixed election date, this fall is likely to kick-off an American-style, nearly year-long campaign. The stakes are very high indeed; the B.C. Liberals have carried out an unprecedented attack on working people, and the poor. Even Left Turn’s founding letter recognizes a dynamic that is likely to unite many behind Carole James’ bid: “âe¦like it or not, only the NDP is in a position of being able to defeat the Liberals and end their rampage of destruction.”

Of course, Gordon Campbell’s defeat at the ballot box would not mark the final defeat of his programs. That will take determined mobilization far beyond May 17, 2005.

Derrick O'Keefe

Derrick O'Keefe

Derrick O'Keefe is a writer in Vancouver, B.C. He served as rabble.ca's editor from 2012 to 2013 and from 2008 to 2009.