Bloody Sunday: Murder by British state

by Simon Basketter in Derry
from British Socialist Worker 

The Saville report released on Tuesday stripped away key lies that the British establishment had told for 38 years about the murder of 14 civilians in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1972.

Lord Saville says that none of the casualties on Bloody Sunday was posing a threat or doing anything that would justify their shooting. They were innocent. None of the soldiers fired in response to attacks by petrol bombers or stone throwers.

UK elections: cuts coming whoever forms government

UK elections have resulted in a hung parliament, with no party having a majority of seats.

As expected Labour was badly punished. The Tories (or Conservative Party, the UK’s version of National) are now the biggest party in parliament, but are not as far ahead of Labour as they would have hoped.

The third party, the Liberal Democrats who many expected to make a breakthrough this election and even beat Labour, had a comparatively small increase in votes. But they will most likely choose which of the other two parties will lead the next government.

Results for the smaller parties have been mixed. The Green Party leader Caroline Lucas won Brighton Pavilion, their first seat in the UK parliament.

Caroline Lucas

Photo from Rikki @ http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/11/355209.html

But Respect’s George Galloway failed to get back in. Respect’s other great hope, Salma Yaqoob came a close second in Birmingham Hall Green. Everywhere else Respect and the various socialist candidates did very poorly, with results comparable to those of the Alliance, Workers Party or RAM here.

The Nazi British National party failed to win a seat, but still won half a million votes across the country.


What to make of the results?

John Pilger: Britain’s postal srtike is the war at home

by John Pilger London 23 October 2009 The struggle of striking British postal workers against privatisation plans is as vital for democracy as any national event in recent years. The campaign against them is part of a historic shift from the last vestiges of political democracy in Britain to a corporate world of insecurity and war. If the privateers running the Post Office are allowed to win, the regression that now touches all lives bar the wealthy will quicken its pace. A third of British children now live in low-income or impoverished families. One in five young people are denied hope of a decent job or education. And now, Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government is to mount a “fire sale” of public assets and services worth £16 billion. Unmatched since former PM Margaret Thatcher’s transfer of public wealth to a new gross elite, the sale, or theft, will include the Channel Tunnel rail link, bridges, the student loan bank, school playing fields, libraries and public housing estates. The plunder of the National Health Service and public education is already under way. The common thread is adherence to the demands of an opulent, sub-criminal minority exposed by the 2008 collapse of Wall Street and of the City of London, now rescued with hundreds of billions in public money and still unregulated with a single stringent condition imposed by the government. Goldman Sachs, which enjoys a personal connection with the PM, is to give employees record average individual pay and bonus packages of £500,000. The London Financial Times now offers a service called How to Spend It. None of this is accountable to the public, whose view was expressed at the last election in 2005: New Labour won with the support of barely a fifth of the British adult population. For every five people who voted Labour, eight did not vote at all. This was not apathy, as the media pretend, but a strike by the public — like the postal workers are today on strike. The issues are broadly the same: the bullying and hypocrisy of contagious, undemocratic power. Since coming to office, New Labour has done its best to destroy the Post Office as a highly productive public institution valued with affection by the British people. Not long ago, you posted a letter anywhere in the country and it reached its destination the following morning. There were two deliveries a day, and collections on Sundays. The best of Britain, which is ordinary life premised on a sense of community, could be found at a local post office, from the Highlands to the Pennines to the inner cities, where pensions, income support, child benefit and incapacity benefit were drawn, and the elderly, the awkward, the inarticulate and the harried were treated humanely. At my local post office in south London, if an elderly person failed to turn up on pension day, he or she would get a visit from the postmistress, Smita Patel, often with groceries. She did this for almost 20 years until the government closed down this “lifeline of human contact”, as the local Labour MP called it, along with more than 150 other local London branches. The Post Office executives who faced the anger of our community at a local church — unknown to us, the decision had already been taken — were not even aware that branch run by the Patels made a profit. What mattered was ideology; the branch had to go. Mention of public service brought puzzlement to their faces. The postal workers, having this year doubled annual profits to £321 million, have had to listen to specious lectures from secretary of state Peter Mandelson, a twice-disgraced figure risen from the murk of New Labour, about “urgent modernisation”. The truth is, the Royal Mail offers a quality service at half the price of its privatised rivals Deutsche Post and TNT. In dealing with new technology, postal workers have sought only consultation about their working lives and the right not to be abused — like the postal worker who was spat upon by her manager, then sacked while he was promoted. Or the postal worker with 17 years’ service and not a single complaint to his name who was sacked on the spot for failing to wear his cycle helmet. Watch the near frenzy with which your postie now delivers. A middle-aged man has to run much of his route in order to keep to a preordained and unrealistic time. If he fails, he is disciplined and kept in his place by the fear that thousands of jobs are at the whim of managers. Communication Workers Union negotiators describe intransigent executives with a hidden agenda — just as the National Coal Board masked Thatcher’s strictly political goal of destroying the miners’ union. The collaborative journalists’ role is unchanged, too. Mark Lawson, who pontificates about middlebrow cultural matters for the BBC and the Guardian, and receives many times the remuneration of a postal worker, dispensed a Sun-style diatribe on October 10. Waffling about the triumph of email and how the postal service was a “bystander” to the internet when, in fact, it has proven itself a commercial beneficiary, Lawson wrote: “The outcome [of the strike] will decide whether Billy Hayes of the CWU will, like [Arthur] Scargill, be remembered as someone who presided over the destruction of the industry he was meant to represent.” The record is clear that, 25 years ago, the miners and their union head Scargill were fighting against the wholesale destruction of an industry that was long planned for ideological reasons. The miners’ enemies included the most subversive, brutal and sinister forces of the British state, aided by journalists — as Lawson’s Guardian colleague Seumas Milne documents in his landmark work, The Enemy Within. Postal workers deserve the support of all honest, decent people, who are reminded that they may be next on the list if they remain silent. From www.johnpilger.com Hat tip Green Left Weekly

Peterloo: Ye are many – they are few

From Climate and Capitalism blog http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1029 August 16, was the 190th anniversary of the day when English cavalry attacked a peaceful crowd of 60,000 in Manchester, gathered to call for democratic rights. The event is remembered as the Peterloo, a word that combines the location of the attack, St. Peters Field, with an ironic reference to the recent British military victory at Waterloo. In The Making of the English Working Class, the great Marxist historian E.P. Thompson writes: “There is no term for this but class war. But it was a pitifully one-sided war. The people, closely packed and trampling upon each other in the effort to escape, made no effort at retaliation until the very edges of the field, where a few trapped remnants – finding themselves pursued into the streets and yards – threw brick-bats at their-pursuers. Eleven·were killed or died from their wounds. “That evening, on every road out of Manchester, the injured were to be seen. The Peterloo Relief Committee had, by the end of 1819, authenticated 421 claims for relief for injuries received on the field (a further 150 cases still awaited investigation). Of these, 161 cases were of sabre wounds, the remainder were injuries sustained while lying beneath the crowd or beneath the horses’ hooves. More than 100 of the injured were women or girls.” For many years, Peterloo was a rallying cry for working class and democratic radicals in England, a symbol of the vile nature of England’s ruling class. The lesson they drew from it, a lesson that remains valid today (witness the continuing struggle in Honduras) was summed up in The Masque of Anarchy, written by Shelley to honour those who rallied at Peterloo:

Rise like Lions after slumber
 In unvanquishable number,
 Shake your chains to earth like dew 
Which in sleep had fallen on you – Ye are many – they are few.

Footnote: After this note was written and posted, I discovered that Links had published a very good and much fuller account of Peterloo, and that author Graham Milner had concluded his essay with the same verse from Shelley. See: http://links.org.au/node/1206

UK wind turbine workers occupy for people & planet

A workers’ occupation to save jobs and the UK’s only wind turbine factory is uniting trade unionists and eco-activists. The actions of the Vestas workers are challenging two major myths of market capitalism: that there is nothing workers can do in the face of recession, redundancy and economic crisis, and that the free market can solve the climate crisis. The surge in solidarity from around the world shows where the solution to these crises lie: international solidarity and unity between the workers’ rights and environmental movements. UNITYblog urges readers to spread news of the occupation far and wide and to send messages of solidarity to: http://www.blogger.com/savevestas@gmail.com Vestas workers occupy: 'A fight for jobs and the planet' from Socialist Worker UK Workers at Vestas, the UK’s only wind turbine manufacturer, occupied their factory in Newport, Isle of Wight on Monday evening against plans to close it. Dave is one of the ­occupying workers. He spoke to Socialist Worker on Tuesday. We’ve occupied our factory to save our jobs -- and to save the planet. Six hundred people work here. That many jobs going will have a devastating effect. But there’s even more to it than that. We need renewable energy if we’re going to stop global warming. When the government says it wants green energy and green jobs, it’s criminal that it’s closing Vestas. I’ve worked here for a year and a half but some people have worked here for eight or nine years. We had a meeting on Monday where we talked about what to do. We decided we were going to go for it. People thought, “It’s now or never”. We went in as two teams, from both sides of the factory. All of the doors were locked – apart from the front door! We’ve taken over the offices. This is the control base of Vestas on the Isle of Wight and across the south. There are 30 of us in here. The managers are threatening not to give us any redundancy money at all. They say the payroll is in here and they can’t get to it. But we’re not going to be intimidated. We can see everyone demonstrating outside. There are about 100 to 150 out there now, which is great. We’ve had messages of support from workers at Visteon and Prisme. Workers from the factory opposite and other factories around here have come over too. Support messages are coming in from all over the world. We’re really grateful for them all. And if you can get to the Isle of Wight, that’d be even better.’ Profits come first for bosses Vestas proudly states that, “With a 20 percent market share, and 38,000 wind turbines installed, Vestas is the world’s leading supplier of wind power solutions.” This is not out of concern for the environment. As Vestas chief executive Ditlev Engel said after he took over, “The business had been run by people who were idealists rather than dollar-based.” In 2008 Vestas’s global profits increased by 51 percent to £575 million. And the first three months of this year saw a 70 percent increase in profits to £50 million. The company accounts reveal that last year the 13 directors and executives shared £9.45 million in wages and bonuses. Links

• Occupation blog: http://savevestas.wordpress.com/
• Vestas dispute: Red and green coalition forms to fight wind plant closure

Calls for British left to come together after electoral wins by British Nazi party

The breakthrough for the Nazi British National Party in the European elections held earlier this month has sparked a renewed push to bring Britain's radical Left together. Significant statements have come from three of the main groups – Respect (the party of George Galloway MP), the British Socialist Workers Party, and No2EU:Yes to Democracy (an electoral coalition backed by the Communist Party of Britain, the Socialist Party and the railway workers union). BNP victory shows the need for Broad Left to work together, by Councillor Salma Yaqoob, Respect Party leader. Left must unite to create an alternative: An open letter to the left from the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Call for unity to Defeat BNP, press statement by No2EU: Yes to Democracy coalition convener Bob Crow.

British socialists supporting 'No2EU - Yes Democracy'

Previous posts on UNITYblog highlighted the new electoral coalition in Britain No2EU - Yes to Democracy, which is contesting the upcoming elections to the European Parliament. Significantly, leading members of the coalition are unionists from the Rail Maritime and Transport Union (RMT), Britain's biggest transport union. See The question for NZ unionists: stick with Labour or start building a political alternative? and New left alliance for EU elections Whether to support 'No2EU - Yes Democracy' is being debated by the radical left in Britain. A good statement has been produced by Socialist Resistance, a group involved with the Respect party led by George Galloway. See Supporting ‘no2eu-yes to democracy’ on June 4th

The New Depression: a global confrontation between grassroots people and the mega-rich

Below is a good account of the global economic crisis by Martin Jaques of the New Statesman. He raises some possible global political consequences which are worth considering. Though Jaques is silent on the likely emergence of an international grassroots movement demanding more fundamental changes to the system than the bankers, corporate politicians and business elites will want. The outcome of this coming global confrontation between masses of ordinary people and the mega-rich elite will determine what the world is going to look like in a decade or so. The RAM Plan http://www.ram.org.nz/pdf/the_ram_plan.pdf, which represents the combined thinking of activists and social movements in New Zealand and internationally, has some good common sense ideas for establishing a rational human-centered society. Check it out.

The New Depression by Martin Jacques from New Statesman 17 February 2009 We are living through a crisis which, from the collapse of Northern Rock and the first intimations of the credit crunch, nobody has been able to understand, let alone grasp its potential ramifications. Each attempt to deal with the crisis has rapidly been consumed by an irresistible and ever-worsening reality. So it was with Northern Rock. So it was with the attempt to recapitalise the banks. And so it will be with the latest gamut of measures. The British government - like every other government - is perpetually on the back foot, constantly running to catch up. There are two reasons. First, the underlying scale of the crisis is so great and so unfamiliar - and, furthermore, often concealed within the balance sheets of the banks and other financial institutions. Second, the crisis has undermined all the ideological assumptions that have underpinned government policy and political discourse over the past 30 years. As a result, the political and business elite are flying blind. This is the mother of all postwar crises, which has barely started and remains out of control. Its end - the timing and the complexion - is unknown.

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'This is the worst recession for over 100 years'

by Nigel Morris, Deputy Political Editor, and Sean O'Grady, Economics Editor from The Independent 10 February 2009 In an extraordinary admission about the severity of the economic downturn, Ed Balls even predicted that its effects would still be felt 15 years from now. The Schools Secretary's comments carry added weight because he is a former chief economic adviser to the Treasury and regarded as one of the Prime Ministers's closest allies. Mr Balls said yesterday: "The reality is that this is becoming the most serious global recession for, I'm sure, over 100 years, as it will turn out." He warned that events worldwide were moving at a "speed, pace and ferocity which none of us have seen before" and banks were losing cash on a "scale that nobody believed possible". The minister stunned his audience at a Labour conference in Yorkshire by forecasting that times could be tougher than in the depression of the 1930s, when male unemployment in some cities reached 70 per cent. He also appeared to hint that the recession could play into the hands of the far right. "The economy is going to define our politics in this region and in Britain in the next year, the next five years, the next 10 and even the next 15 years," Mr Balls said. "These are seismic events that are going to change the political landscape. I think this is a financial crisis more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s, and we all remember how the politics of that era were shaped by the economy." Philip Hammond, the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said Mr Balls's predictions were "a staggering and very worrying admission from a cabinet minister and Gordon Brown's closest ally in the Treasury over the past 10 years". He added: "We are being told that not only are we facing the worst recession in 100 years, but that it will last for over a decade ¬ far longer than Treasury forecasts predict." The minister's comments came as the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, admitted the global economy was "seeing the most difficult economic conditions for generations". Writing in today's Independent, Mr Darling said his plans for shoring up Britain's finances included "measures to insure against extreme losses" as well as separating out impaired assets into a "parallel financial vehicle". Unemployment figures out tomorrow are expected to show the number of people out of work has passed two million. The Bank of England's quarterly inflation report, also released tomorrow, is expected to include a gloomy forecast for economic growth. Yesterday, the Financial Services Authority warned that the recession "may be deeper and more prolonged than expected", adding that the global financial system had "suffered its greatest crisis in more than 70 years". Speaking to Labour activists in Sheffield, Mr Balls conceded that the Government must share some of the blame because it had failed properly to control the banks. But he accused the Tories of blocking Labour's attempts to tighten financial rules. He said: "People are quite right to say that financial regulation wasn't tough enough in Britain and around the world, that regulators misunderstood and did not see the nature of the risks of the dangers being run in our financial institutions ¬ absolutely right." The other great depressions: Long Depression, 1873¬96 Precipitated by the "panic of 1873" crisis on Wall Street and a severe outbreak of equine flu (Karl Benz's first automobile did not chug on to the scene until 1886), it was remarkable for its longevity as well as its global reach. In Britain, it was the rural south rather than the rich cities of the north that suffered. The UK ceased to be a nation that relied in any way on farming for its livelihood. Great Depression, 1930s The "Hungry Thirties" were rough on many, at a time when welfare systems were rudimentary. The worst period was from the Wall Street Crash of 1929 to about 1932, but in places such as Jarrow, the unemployment rate hardly dipped below 50 per cent until the economy was mobilised in 1940. However, for many in the south and for the middle classes, the times were relatively prosperous.

Battle of the manifestos

by Grant Morgan RAM Chair 5 February 2009 A telling document has been published in The Independent, one of Britain's foremost social democratic papers. Titled "A manifesto to save the free market", it sets out business editor Jeremy Warner's prescription to save global capitalism from erupting social discontent sparked by the world's first Combo Crisis since the 1930's Great Depression. (reprinted in full below.) Although Warner admits that "unfettered markets would seem manifestly to have failed us", he continues social democracy's historic compromise with capitalism by promoting a 10-point action plan to save the market from itself.

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Lessons for NZ left in UK wildcat strike wave

Workers at the Lindsey Oil Refinery (LOR) in Britain

take strike action to protect their jobs.

by Grant Morgan RAM chair 31 January 2009 Below is a link to a Guardian story about the fast-moving wildcat illegal strike wave among many thousands of construction workers on different sites across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They are taking independent action to protect jobs in an industry where the unemployment rate is already high and climbing fast as the Combo Crisis buffets the British economy.

Continue

See recent Guardian articles:

Thousands may strike over 'British jobs' dispute (2 Feb)

Mediators called in over construction strikes (31 Jan)

A shift of position

by Liam MacUaid 8 April 2009 It’s not often that a leading figure on the far left sets out to “express my disagreements in some humility” and admits to having “shifted my own position”. Alex Callinicos may be starting a welcome fashion in the current issue of International Socialism. As part of an ongoing discussion with Panos Garganas and François Sabado about the connection between broad parties and revolutionaries he says that the evolution of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) in France altered some of his views. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed and hope that this rethink eventually leads him to appreciate the difference between the united front and the wholly owned party subsidiary (Unite against Fascism, Globalise Resistance…). The near universal malady of the Anglophone left. In a certain sense the details of the discussion are not as important as the fact that it is happening. All the formations which have emerged to the left of Social Democracy in recent years have been very distinct and comparing one with another can be as productive as comparing apples with shoes. The LCR has been able to launch the NPA on the crest of a wave of struggles with an explicitly anti-capitalist programme. On the other hand Die Linke has a large group of members from the PDS tradition who are likely to be less receptive to a message of not sharing power with Social Democracy. One of the things that gives this debate in Britain a real urgency is the response of the unions to the loss of 4500 jobs at the Royal Bank of Scotland. It’s “truly devastating” was how they summed it up. There is no hint that they can do anything about it, no suggestion of the workers taking charge of the bank. The absence of an authoritative combative political leadership is taking a heavy toll on the British working class and while it is right that much of the left is building solidarity with struggles such as the one at Visteon that is insufficient. A political response which transcends selling a couple of papers and maybe recruiting a striker for three months is what is required. Some faltering steps are being taken. The No 2 EU campaign has its deficits. Wilfully excluding the SWP because of the Lindsey dispute; a tenuous commitment to internal democracy and some infelicitous phrasing in its propaganda among them. Nonetheless a major union with a record of fighting is contesting an election in opposition to Labour. That’s a big positive and maybe it will be a catalyst for a realignment after the elections. Add to this the fact that Respect still has an electoral base in some parts of the country and the Socialist Party have a habit of getting people elected and the outlines of a new formation appear. That is the significance of Alex Callinicos’ article. It reminds us that the discussion may have been muted recently but that it is still necessary. Under much more favourable circumstances a new party is emerging in France but it has been demonstrated that it is possible to launch a modestly successful project in Britain too. If one were to take a single aspect of the NPA that can be transplanted across the Channel it is its inflexible approach to internal democracy born from an understanding of the necessity of meaningful political pluralism. That is the one thing that is absolutely universally transferable.

George Galloway backs wildcat strikes

from Socialist Unity [UK blog] 30 January 2009 Galloway: ‘It’s about decent jobs, available to all’ Reacting to news of wildcat walkouts from construction sites across Britain, Respect MP George Galloway says: “Despite attempts to confuse and misreport, the fundamental issue that’s led thousands of construction workers to defy the anti-union laws and walk off the job is simple: decent jobs, open for all to apply for. “These walkouts come after years of the construction conglomerates trying to weaken union organisation, divide up workforces and introduce super-exploitation across the industry. “Union activists have told me of unofficial blacklists operating, made all the more widespread by a culture of subcontracting to cut-throat companies. “We used to have a nationally-owned energy sector, which provided secure and relatively good jobs as well directly employing building workers and entering long term contracts with construction companies. “Now we’ve got privatisation, chaos and a race to the bottom where employers across Europe are attempting to drive down pay and conditions. “That’s why the defence of national agreements is so important. It is the only way whereby working people can raise up conditions in the worst companies to those where unions are better organised and have won a fairer share. “So those little Englanders or downright racists who claim they are supporting the construction workers’ walkouts are doing no such thing, because they oppose the very trade union strength that makes a national rate for the job possible. “The Unite union – including the TGWU, which I’ve been a member of for over 30 years – has always stood against scapegoating and discrimination. And it’s stood against the exploitation of foreign workers as a means to lowering pay and conditions here. “The union has been calling for national agreements to prevent undercutting, and for jobs to be open to all construction workers, without blacklisting or discrimination. “That’s got my support. If Gordon Brown really wanted to help construction workers he would rigorously enforce the highest employment standards instead of playing to the right wing gallery with slogans about British jobs, for British workers.”

British socialist Jerry Hicks on refinery disputes

from Socialist Unity [UK blog] 30 January 2009 STRIKE ACTION ESCULATES AS WORKERS FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT TO WORK, But it should come as no surprise! I spoke to Jerry Hicks a few minutes ago. Jerry is the left candidate in the forthcoming election for General Secretary of the Amicus section of Unite. Jerry tells me he has been in touch with the strikers, and this is very far from being a racist or reactionary strike. Indeed, one protester contacted Jerry after reading one of his election leaflets, and had decided to join Unite on the basis of Jerry's socialist arguments - there is no way that a racist would agree with Jerry Hicks explicitly socialist campaign. Jerry points out that socialists, and members of Respect are very welcome at these protests, and we should oppose the attempts by the far-right BNP to hijack these working class protests towards their own racist and anti-working class agenda. Earlier today Jerry Hicks released a statement reminding us that an emergency meeting of the national construction shop stewards forum took place in London as long ago as the 8th January. The meeting discussed the escalating crisis in construction following a series of protests in November and December of last year, over employment rights and also the proposed exclusion of UK workers by foreign companies on power stations and other major UK contracts. The meeting was originally called for at Newark on the 3rd December following a series of protests at the gates of Staythope Power Station. At the meeting shop stewards voted overwhelmingly to organise a programme of demonstrations toward targeted construction projects within the UK power generation sector. Shop stewards and trade union activists find it is hard enough as it is to get a job in the industry because of the black listing by the employers. It is a way of reducing their costs and attempting to break union organisation on the major projects. Rank and file members are preparing for mass disruption on projects throughout the country that refuse to recognise union national agreements. There will be organised demonstrations strikes and mass disruption. We are preparing for a battle to defend our jobs. Jerry Hicks a candidate in the coming election for General Secretary in the UK's biggest union Unite-Amicus is supporting the action. He was present at a recent protest at Staythorpe power station where he sustained a fractured leg, having been assaulted by the police. He said: “This should come as no surprise to anyone. The employers have deliberately and actively been looking for ways to exploit cheap labour while covering their eyes and ears to the growing rage of discontent and ignoring all the warning signs, it's outrageous". Mr Hicks went on to say, "To its shame the union leadership failed miserably to grasp the nettle months ago when the dispute was a crisis in the making. The union needs to confront the employers and organise a national campaign for industrial action." The employers watch and listen to everything we say and do. If the union does little and says even less they drive the boot in harder and our situation gets worse. This is not about race or prejudice it is about the exploitation of labour, playing one worker against another. It is about the employers trying to break nationally agreed arrangements and in doing so it is an attack on the union. Gordon Brown, who at the last Labour party conference said "British jobs for British workers" has created a huge problem all of his own making. He can no longer simply sit on his hands waiting on the sidelines. Meanwhile, other energy companies are observing what happens next as they seek to further exploit the cheap foreign labour market. This issue is as a result of the Employers deliberately exploiting a situation, the union leaderships woeful lack of response and Browns pronouncement, Now they act like the like the three monkeys. Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.

Broad left parties - lessons from Germany

by Andy Newman

from Socialist Unity

26 August, 2008

There has been some recent discussion on this blog about whether or not the circumstances over the last decade have been favourable for building the left.

If we look at England alone, and judge by results then we would reasonably deduce that the situation has been unfavourable.

But let us compare ourselves with Germany. Christian Rickens new book “The Left! The revival of an attitude to life” simply couldn’t have been written in Britain.

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2008 London elections and a broad left alternative to New Labour and the Tories

Below is an analysis of the recent London election results and prospects for building a broad left party in Britain. Both Nick Wrack and Alan Thornett are members of Respect, a broad left party that contested the elections. Nick and Alan reaffirm in their article the strategy of building broad inclusive parties of the left in response to formerly social democratic parties (like the Labour parties of Britain and NZ) embracing neo-liberalism. It's important that those forces committed internationally to the broad left project continue to share ideas, experiences, strategies and tactics. It's for that reason UNITYblog is posting Nick and Alan's article. There's certainly plenty in it that's relevant to us here in New Zealand as we strive to build RAM into a credible broad left party. Of course it's not a case of one size fits all, each broad left formation has to understand its own political environment and what's unique to each country, but there remains much that can be learnt from each other. Particularly as we're all entering new territory, and there's no road map. Some strategies and tactics will work, others will prove to be mistakes, which will be the basis for new learning. If that process happens with an internationalist perspective then a stronger global broad left movement will emerge. As well as fostering informal ties based on a shared political perspective we must also consider how we can move towards international strategies and organisational forms that can pursue those strategies globally. We need to urgently unite the world's grassroots forces for the massive struggle that's upon us. See SW-NZ's statement Organising to build a global broad left movement (17 November 2007).

Respect and the election results by Nick Wrack and Alan Thornett from Socialist Unity 6 May 2008 The New Labour project is falling apart at the seams. Its local elections results were the worst in 40 years, with only 24% of the vote and coming third behind the Liberal Democrats. This is a disastrous result for Brown. In London, the election of Boris Johnson as Mayor and the presence of a BNP member on the Greater London Assembly will disturb and depress all who value the multi-cultural diversity of the city. The most immediate catalyst for the collapse of the Labour vote was the abolition of the 10% income tax rate (i.e. Labour attacking a large part of its core base), but looming large behind that is the economic crisis ­ the credit crunch, rising fuel and food prices set against continuing low wages for a big section of society. Added to this was Brown's inability to spin the New Labour project in the way Blair could do it. All of this raises the prospect of a further electoral disaster in the European elections in 2009 followed by a drubbing in the general election of 2010 and the possible election of a Tory Government. Against this background what are the prospects and possibilities for building a left-wing alternative to New Labour's neo-liberal policies. What is the terrain and what can be achieved? Continue

Lessons for NZ left in UK wildcat strike wave

by Grant Morgan RAM chair 31 January 2009 Below is a link to a Guardian story on the fast-moving wildcat illegal strike wave among many thousands of construction workers on different sites across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They are taking independent action to protect jobs in an industry where the unemployment rate is already high and climbing fast as the Combo Crisis buffets the British economy. The flashpoint came when an oil refinery corporation in Lincolnshire awarded a construction contract to an Italian firm using Italian and Portuguese labour at low pay rates while thousands of local construction workers rotted on the dole queue. Notable features of this strike wave include: 1. It has been started and spread by rank-&-file workers, not by their union officials, after many years of dispirited unionism. 2. The speed of its spread across different sites is truly amazing, especially since the driving force is the rank-&-file, not their union officials. 3. Virtually all these wildcat strikes strikes are illegal under laws passed by Britain's original neocon prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, and shamefully kept on the statute books during 12 years of Labour government. 4. Because many strikers are carrying banners demanding "British jobs for British workers", a debate about whether or not the strike wave is "racist" has erupted in the media and on the left. 5. A mass meeting elected a socialist to the six-person rank-&-file strike committee, an indicator that this blue-collar strike wave is being driven by the class issue of uniting against corporates which refuse to hire local workers at union-set national pay rates in order to lift profitability and depress all wages. As the Combo Crisis really starts to hit New Zealand, which looks likely to be sooner rather than later, we will probably see rank-&-file eruptions here too. After all, many of the present conditions in New Zealand have some similarity with those operating in Britain a year ago, such as: - Years on end of dispirited unionism and historically low levels of strikes. - Harsh anti-strike laws kept on the statute books by both Labour and conservative governments. - A mostly timid and often conservative official leadership of the union movement which generally lined up behind a market-supporting Labour Party. - A massive erosion of traditional class and socialist traditions inside the union movement and among the grassroots in general. - Capitalism's generally successful promotion of nationalism, lifestyle, competition and other divisive alternatives to a united working class. The speed, the seriousness and the contest of ideas in the rank-&-file strike wave now sweeping Britain's construction sites should be a wake up call to RAM and others on the left in New Zealand. The coming economic meltdown in New Zealand will be an historic test for the left. What we do right now is important in preparing workers and others at the grassroots for the mass mobilisations that will be needed to protect people from the devastating crisis of the market. And when the brown stuff hits the fan in this country, as it almost certainly will, the independent left must be ready to immediately work together to win the contest of ideas and to spread the fightbacks as fast and as far as possible. See Guardian article (31 Jan) Mediators called in over construction strikes

Mediators called in over construction strikes

from The Guardian 31 January 2009 The government called in mediators from Acas last night in an urgent attempt to end the dispute over the exclusion of British workers from construction contracts which led to a wave of wildcat strikes across the country yesterday. The attempt to halt the protest came as it emerged that hundreds more workers were ready to join the nationwide strike action. Bosses at Sellafield nuclear power plant confirmed that 900 contractors will vote on a walkout on Monday morning in solidarity with oil industry contractors in Lincolnshire which is at the heart of the dispute after around 300 new jobs were taken by Italian and Portuguese workers. The conciliation service was called in after around 3,000 workers at oil and power plants across the UK staged unofficial strikes in support of workers at the Lindsey refinery at North Killingholme. The TUC claimed the refinery owner, Total, had made an "apparent attempt to undercut the wages, conditions and union representation of existing staff". In angry scenes outside plants from Scotland to south Wales, union leaders spoke out against European workers taking construction jobs in the oil and energy industry ahead of British workers. Outside the Lindsey refinery, some protesters called on their colleagues to march on Downing Street. Shop steward Kenny Ward told the crowd they had to stand together and take on the "greedy employer". He said: "I'm a victim, you are a victim, there are thousands in this country that are victims to this discrimination, this victimisation of the British worker." Total had put a contract out to tender for a £200m construction project with five UK firms and two European contractors. The Italian company IREM won the contract and supplied its own permanent workforce. It is understood 100 Italian and Portuguese workers are already on site and 300 more are expected next month. In apparently co-ordinated action, 700 workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery near Falkirk walked out, and 400 more downed tools at the Wilton chemical site in Cleveland. Early morning protests flared at at least eight other facilities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Downing Street and Davos, where Gordon Brown had been speaking against protectionism at the World Economic Forum, the government came under pressure to respond to the crisis. There was criticism that the award of the contract at the Lindsey refinery appeared to cast into doubt the prime minister's pledge in 2007 to deliver "British jobs for British people". "I understand people's worries about their jobs," Brown said. A Downing Street spokesman said the contract taken by the foreign workers had been agreed "some time ago when there was a shortage of skilled labour in the construction sector in the UK". Pat McFadden, minister for employment relations, said he understood the strikers' concern about employment but could not condone their unofficial walkouts. "What is important in a sensitive situation where tempers are running high is to take an independent and dispassionate look at what is going on," he said. Union leaders were furious that with unemployment rates soaring, British workers had been overlooked. The TUC accused employers of attempting to undercut the wages, conditions and union representation of existing staff. Bobby Buirds, a regional officer for the union Unite in Scotland, said: "The argument is not against foreign workers, it's against foreign companies discriminating against British labour. This is a fight for work. It is a fight for the right to work in our own country. It is not a racist argument at all." Nevertheless, there were indications that far right politicians were eager to seize on the dispute. The British National party, which is hoping to make a breakthrough in this year's European parliament elections, said it had sent a team of supporters to join the 800 workers gathered outside the north Lincolnshire plant. Brendan Barber, secretary general of the TUC, said workers were "rightly angry" at employers who have not given British based workers the opportunity to apply for new jobs but added: "The anger should be directed at employers, not the Italian workers."

At last, the party of social justice has woken up

by Polly Toynbee from The Guardian 25 November 2008 The New Labour era is over - welcome to social democracy. Following in Obama's footsteps, it is suddenly safe to tax the rich and spend to protect jobs. Keynes and Roosevelt are the world's spirit guides through this crisis, because in a crisis social democracy is what works. Yesterday that faith allowed Labour to shed its disguise and follow its nature in a £20bn shower of spending. Yesterday saw the Conservatives strip off their sheep's clothing too, as George Osborne tore into the "unexploded tax bombshell" with gusto, merrily defending the aspirations of the wealthy. Now we can see both parties naked as nature intended, and at last comfortable in their own skins. Symbolism is everything in the volatile irrationality of these times. When markets zigzag between exuberance and despair, confidence is the only currency. The language, the mirage, the smoke and mirrors, it all matters as much as the substance. No one alive has ever lived through such a crisis or faced the danger of a slump so deep, so if enough people say that the right thing was done yesterday, then it was. The stock market rewarded Alistair Darling with the biggest ever one-day rise - so for now, it worked. For years New Labour has forgotten about the power of symbolism. As wealth at the top soared, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had no word of reproof for gross greed and excess. Relaxed about the filthy rich, they "celebrated" vast salaries that spilled over to contaminate the public sector too. On Labour's watch the top 10% consumed nearly a third of national earnings and 54% of personal wealth. This comes too late to check the bonus culture that wrecked the economy, but better late than never. The words are spoken: "Those who have done best in the last decade will pay more" - an average of £3,168 more for earners over £140,000 in 2011. And the sky has not fallen in after all. On the contrary, some sense of the rightness of things begins to be restored. Of course the mega-rich should pay a fairer share of tax. Of course low earners deserve a fairer share of rewards - the cleaners, caterers and carers who earn too little to keep their families above the poverty line - though they didn't get it this time. In poll after poll, from British Social Attitudes to the Guardian ICM, three-quarters of voters say that the income gap is too wide. The Sun tries a feeble jab at Gordon Brown for "turning his back on wealth creators" - but it lacks conviction. Odd how it has taken near calamity to shake Labour from its craven fear of the hyper-rich. The Tories and their press, who inhabit a world where "everyone" earns over £100,000, forget at their peril what "ordinary" really is: only 2% of taxpayers earn more than £100,000 a year. Only 1.3% earn more than £150,000. High earners are always in denial about how exceptional they are, while Labour over the years has colluded by failing to tell the true story about the distribution of wealth and earnings. Here is a reminder of the shape of national incomes now: only 10% of people earn more than £40,000, to reach the top tax bracket. Half the working population earns under £23,000. A couple need £11,000 to rise above the poverty threshold - and over a fifth of people fall below, with a third of children born poor. So now let's hear Labour remind itself and all other opinion formers how little most people have shared in the boom. Labour doesn't need the votes of the top 2% so long as the other 98% see fairness done - but Labour does need to get the facts across, as most people are woefully ignorant of where they stand on the earnings scale. The richest 2% will protest because they think their earnings are ordinary, refusing to believe most people earn so little. Sadly, even the poor think they are nearer the middle than they are. But don't imagine Britain has become Sweden overnight, for this was less redistributive than the symbolism suggests. Alistair Darling had promised "help to every household" - and that's what his VAT cut did. But was it wise and necessary - or even populist? This money would be better spent on the poorest children and pensioners, instead of scattered thin and wide. Out there in the high street - where economists rarely venture - shop windows offer discounts of 20% and 30%, so what chance of a mad rush for 2.5% off VAT? Will people notice? £12.5bn is a huge sum to squander without provable results when it is just not true that every household needs help. Even if unemployment reaches 3 million, that still leaves 90% in secure jobs. Most people will suffer not at all in this recession: on the contrary they will do well as prices fall and the real value of their earnings rises. Though the VAT cut may ease the climate of fear when fear itself is the risk. Some of that great VAT cut should have paid instead the £3bn in child tax credits that would have seen Labour hit its child poverty target, raising half of all poor children over the line. Oddly, Darling promised to set that pledge in law instead of giving the money to fulfil it. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says there will now be no extra children lifted above the poverty line in 2010-11 and the target will be missed. What a missed political chance to challenge the Tories on their compassion. Sadly, the VAT cut will help the poorest least: apart from in their energy bills, they spend least on non-food items while the big spenders get most benefit. The IFS says the VAT cut will only spur the buying of the "most expensive, infrequent items" like white goods and furniture. Good news is capital spending of £3bn dragged forward to create jobs. Good news too is extra spending on helping people find work. Help for small businesses that employ 60% of the workforce is just what was needed. Here is a plethora of good measures, but a huge gamble. Will this send the economy upwards by halfway through next year? Darling risked his reputation in that prediction. Will he be able to prove Labour's action made the difference and all this spending saved the day? But whatever the details and the fine print, history will judge yesterday was the turning point when Labour unfurled its old battle banner for social justice and the Conservatives chose to ride full tilt against it. There is danger for both in abandoning their centre-ground hug of death - but now there is real choice for voters.

Broad left parties - lessons from Germany

by Andy Newman from Socialist Unity 26 August, 2008 There has been some recent discussion on this blog about whether or not the circumstances over the last decade have been favourable for building the left. If we look at England alone, and judge by results then we would reasonably deduce that the situation has been unfavourable. But let us compare ourselves with Germany. Christian Rickens new book “The Left! The revival of an attitude to life” simply couldn’t have been written in Britain. As it says on the back cover: “The left is fashionable again – that is evidenced not only in the electoral success of Lafontaine and co [the Left party], but also the [right wing] CDU, SPD and Greens have rediscovered their social conscience and demand more equality, a greater role for the state and more security. So what actually is the left? And why at the moment are left-wing positions making a surprising comeback?” The Left Party has transformed German politics. In the last national elections they broke through with a remarkable 8.7% nationally and won 54 seats in parliament. As Victor Grossman reports: “Last spring it won seven seats in the city-state of Bremen, finally breaking the East-West spell. However, Bremen is small, strictly urban, and always a bit more liberal. But then came Lower Saxony, where the Christian Democrats had a popular winning candidate, the Social Democrat got walloped - and the Left won eleven seats, creating, for the first time, a genuine opposition.At the same time, in the state of Hesse (where Frankfurt/Main is located), a far more bitter battle was waged. The ruling Christian Democrat Ronald Koch used every dirty anti-foreigner trick in the bag to keep his ruling position, while the attractive young Social Democrat, Andrea Ypsilanti, stole most of the demands of the Left - like calls for a minimum wage and a return to free college education - to steal its thunder and win against Koch. She gained greatly, Koch lost significantly, but in the end he still had a plus margin of a single tenth of one percentage point and earlier this year for the first time the Left crossed the 5% hurdle to win seats in Hesse – in the West.” So for the left there was a win-win situation – a credible and electable left alternative not only won seats, but also moved the whole political climate to the left. It is plausible that the Left Party may emerge as the third party in Germany next year. So what is different in Germany? Certainly there are differences from Britain in term of specific history, but the overall pattern is similar – the transformation of the mass social-democratic party into an unashamed party of neo- liberalism, and a low level of trade union struggle. But whereas the transformation of the British Labour Party has created no national, credible left opposition, in Germany the SPD split and merged with the regional, Eastern based PDS to create a sensational left revival. What is different is that the Left Party in Germany has embraced a broad understanding of what we could describe as coalition politics. We need to understand the political diversity of the Left. Again, as Victor Grossman explains: “For years, the little PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) was confined almost entirely to the five eastern provinces of Germany, the former German Democratic Republic, and to some extent to Berlin. It had hardly a tiny toe-hold in the far more populous ten western provinces, limiting it to the role of a rarely-needed extra in a B-Film. But then it merged with a small but dynamic new West German party, made up largely of disgusted ex-members of the Social Democrats and Greens, who rejected the miserable anti-social, pro-corporation positions and the growing military readiness of both their two parties. Add to this mixture the people’s rapidly-growing dissatisfaction with the whole economy, with the wealthy perching atop more and more millions and billions while working people and the jobless had more and more debts to sit on. The new, merged party started chalking up gains in both the west and the east.” So what do I mean by coalition politics? In the narrow sense, then whether or not the Left are prepared to form coalition administrations with the SPD or the Greens is clearly a dividing line within the Left Party. In some Eastern cities the Left are already in coalition, whereas other members are completely against this in principle. But in the broader sense, the whole of the Left Party believes in forming a broad coalition of all those who oppose foreign military intervention, who call for a minimum wage, for preserving the weakening medical insurance system, for winning back free education, for saving the many unemployed from compulsory, menial jobs at starvation wages, and for ending discrimination against immigrant minorities. Coalition politics means working with everone who is broadly on the left to build an ideological and political alternative to neo-liberalism. They are creating a national mood that expects a change towards greater social justice. This involves a mass, popular re-imagining of what is politically possible, and the rebirth of a credible, mainstream political alternative to neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism. In contrast, in Britain the left is locked into a quarrelsome decline, fighting like ferrets drowning in a sack. The fallacy is that if the left can somehow engage with trade union struggle and local activism then this can build an alternative from the bottom up.This is impossible, and most damagingly is doesn’t connect with the 200000 members who have left New Labour since 1997, or the five million voters who have abandoned Labour over the same period. In the absence of a credible, mainstream national political challenge to neo-liberalism then trade union and community struggles will remain constrained by sectionalism and localism, and those left groups who base their political perspectives on these struggles are doomed to a treadmill of chasing one campaign after another while building nothing significant. What we urgently need to do is build a political vision of an alternative to neo-liberalism, that popularises economic alternatives to the market, and promotes the ideals of social justice and equality. If it is to be effective this must be wider than the activist left, and must connect with the much wider layer who wish there to be a social democratic government – which of course includes the trade unions. Tragically, even the proposed left contender for the leadership of the Labour Party last year did not appear as a credible alternative Prime Minister, which meant that he got little support among the affiliated unions and MPs. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Are the political conditions more favourable for the rebirth of the left in Germany or England? Are trade unions struggles in Germany or Britain more likely to connect with a national mood that social justice is achievable? In truth the left in England have largely squandered an opportunity, where there was a real crisis in social democracy that coincided with a mass movement against imperialist war. The resulting space simply couldn’t be and cannot be filled with politics derived from “Leninism”, however this is dressed up as different flavours of “united front”. The gap between that set of politics and the potential audience is too large. The opportunity that is perhaps still just within our fingers’ grasp is to start to build a radical but pragmatic alternative – an alternative that allows millions to believe that a better world is not only possible, but is also credible and achievable.