Not Green but Red!

Not Green but Red!

No2EU - what next? - from A Very Public Sociologist Blog

The bones of No2EU have been picked over by practically everyone on the far left (except for the Socialist Workers' Party, who've maintained a conspicuous silence about it). But what's going to happen next? Will the coalition be scattered to the four winds, leaving each of its components to sort out their own arrangements for the general election? Or, as was hoped, No2EU would result in a commitment to working together to produce something that can be a pole of attraction for all the left?

Thankfully, the news Dave Nellist brought from Monday's national steering committee meeting to the West Midlands gathering of No2EU on Tuesday night was very positive.

At the steering committee all the components of the coalition endorsed further action. The Communist Party said they were preparing to stand candidates as part of their Unity for Peace and Socialism alliance with members of other 'official' CPs domiciled in Britain but wanted to work with its No2EU partners and others.

In the immediate term the steering committee appointed a working group that will report back in September. Its remit is to come up with an alternative name and a basic programmatic document that can be added to later. In addition, another union besides the RMT will be present at the September meeting and committee members will be talking to the leaderships of a further four unions about their participation.

Dave finished his report by noting that our electoral challenge needs to be properly organised - we cannot afford to adopt a cavalier approach to these things. What is certain is millions of voters will be afloat thanks to the collapse of Labour's electoral support. If we are to claim some of that and start building a mass alternative we have to get out into communities with our socialist message now.

Unsurprisingly there was a good deal of discussion. Yours truly welcomed Dave's report after fearing the worst (I had heard mutterings the RMT were only going to be prepared to endorse certain candidates from the sidelines) and asked if the SWP had been approached or were in contact with No2EU. Pete McLaren of the rump Socialist Alliance felt enthused about the developments. He also called for the SWP to be involved because they are significant and said we should debate out the programme on the basis of a mutually acceptable platform. It's guiding method should be on the 80 per cent the far left agrees on and not let the 20 per cent or so we disagree about be a barrier to working together.

Dave Church of Walsall Democratic Labour Party argued we were in danger of going around in a circle if we just chase after elections. We need to be more consistent and seek roots in our communities. He also added that we need to be modest. We all know we'll be fighting to keep deposits rather than seats, but we need also be clear that regardless whether Labour or the Tories win the next election, the working class will lose.

Dave Griffiths of Coventry Socialist Party argued we need to be patient when we're working together. An open debate about the nature of the coalition and its programme is necessary and all left groups should be drawn into the process. But at this stage its de facto federal character should be preserved, so no one component can dominate. Dave was also cautious about the SWP - in light of what happened in the SA and Respect, he hoped to see some more signs of cooperative intent from them first.

Replying to Dave, Clive from Coventry SWP said the presence of himself and another member showed their serious intent. Because Labour is dying on its feet, there is a degree of urgency to all our unity proceedings. He thought there was a wind of change blowing through the trade union movement and what we need to do is give it an electoral expression that in turn can feed into workplace struggles. Alastair from Birmingham SWP said his party found the No2EU name problematic but that our enemies are a greater danger than we are to each other.

Summing up Dave Nellist said the SWP and No2EU had not spoken directly, but bilateral talks between them and the SWP had started. On the question of programme, the CPB signaled that the People's Charter would be pushed by them as the core programme for the coalition (a programme few but only the most chemical pure "revolutionaries" would have problem with as the basis of a left alliance). Dave also said he would like to see the coalition sit down with localised defenders of public services who already have some representation - people like Wigan's Community Action Party and the Socialist Peoples Party in Barrow. But they're only going to come on board any sort of left formation if they feel they have a say in its development. For example, back in the (mark one) Socialist Alliance the SP took a maximum of 40% of its leading positions, despite having the numbers to run it as a straight front group. If we try to hector and dominate localised campaigns when they become part of the coalition, they'll be out the door in five minutes. Therefore we need to exercise self-denying ordinance.

In sum, it's certainly looking positive. There will be something concrete on the table by the end of the Summer, which will be open to debate and modification. There is a commitment to having a more open coalition. The RMT are still on board and at least one other union is interested.

No2EU may not have set the world of electoral politics alight. But as has been constantly pointed out on this blog from the beginning, regardless of its faults it was part of a process that was going to go beyond the European elections. What this meeting did was to offer a glimpse of the far left realignment to come. There have been better times to be a socialist, but the one we live in is going to get more interesting.

Link: A Very Public Sociologist Blog
Link: Southwark Respect statement on the European election results and left unity

"Left unity and Class Politics" by Ian Donaovan

"Left unity and Class Politics" by Ian Donaovan

This is a contribution to the debate about the results of the European and local elections by Ian Donovan (Secretary Southwark Respect).

The analysis of the Euro Elections by Salma Yaqoob (Statement on the euro-election results, 8th June), makes a number of pertinent observations about the reasons for the disaster of the BNP’s winning two seats in the European Parliament.

One point she gets right is that “Labour is wholly to blame for its own crisis and has to take a large share of the responsibility for creating the conditions in which the far right is growing.” Many of the other things she says about the impact of the recession on working class people, about the attacks of the Labour government, the demoralisation which these are inflicting, and the danger that this can drive people into the arms of the far right, are correct.

Yet the political perspective she puts forward as a solution to this situation is badly flawed. Salma is advocating an alliance of ‘progressive’ forces to block the advance of the far right, centred on the Green Party and soft-left elements in Compass. This block assembles forces that are incapable of putting forward, or hostile to, the kind of working class politics that is needed to roll back the encroachment of the fascists in traditionally strong centres of the labour movement such as Yorkshire and the North West. The alliance of liberal, middle class forces she advocates will not stop the BNP; their aims and ideologies will not be attractive in the main to working class people alienated by New Labour whose alientation is fundamentally driven by economic hardship and class anger, which the BNP aims to exploit and misdirect against scapegoats such as immigrants and refugees.

Salma writes: “The broad left must work together, irrespective of party affiliation, to maximise the impact of the progressive vote at the next General Election.” This is wrong, and will not undermine the BNP because the question of a new party, separate from New Labour that will stand up for workers against the Labour government and all its neo-liberal attacks, is central to politically cutting the ground from under the BNP. We do not need a ‘broad left … irrespective of party affiliation’, we need a new broad party of the working-class left that puts class politics at the centre of its perspective. The alliance she is proposing is a cross-class alliance of Respect with the Green Party, and Compass and other soft-lefts.

The Green Party does not, in its ideology, appeal to workers as a class. It does have paper policies on a number of questions that are progressive and would benefit workers, such as opposition to privatisation and anti-union laws, but its central appeal is to people of all classes who want to stop climate change and save the planet for future generations. It has people in it who are sympathetic to workers struggles, but there is also a significant element who see the growth of the human population, and hence mainly of the working class and the poor, as one of the central causes of environmental degradation.

A recent YouGov survey taken between 29th May and 4th June – just before the European Elections took place – is very revealing about the class character of the Green Party’s support. The survey showed that in terms of social grade or occupation, the Green Party’s intended voters had the highest percentage – 64% – of those with a high income (grade ABC1) of all the major parties. That is, of professional people and the like. It also had the lowest percentage of those surveyed in social grade C2DE (36%) – which is predominantly composed of unskilled manual workers.

Conversely, the BNP has the lowest percentage of those in social grade ABC1 – 39%, and the highest percentage in social grade C2DE – 61% of all the major parties.

This is fairly indicative of the reason why it is an illusory idea that the Green Party can be the vehicle for undermining the potential appeal of the BNP to disillusioned working class voters. The Green Party, ‘progressive’ policies notwithstanding, appeals in the main to a middle class, not a working class, constituency, and because of that there is a real social gulf between its base of support and the kinds of alienated working class people, impoverished by the recession, that are in some cases being driven towards the BNP. It will take a completely different kind of politics, which centres its appeal on defending working class interests, to undercut the demagogy of the BNP and undermine this potential base of support.

Compass also is a middle class force. It is the loyal opposition within New Labour, and its left-wing criticisms of Blair and Gordon Brown do not go very far at all. As an example of this, on one key question of importance to working class people above all it showed its true colours. On the question of the housing crisis at its conference on 13 June, it failed to invite a speaker from Defend Council Housing – a campaign that does exactly what it says on the tin – in favour of a speaker from Shelter, the homelessness charity, which is fairly close to the government and places much store in promoting home ownership and first time buyers, and working with Housing Associations and other ‘social landlords’ who are in fact thinly-disguised private-sector organisations. Council Housing is not high on its ‘realistic’ agenda.

At the conference those attending were regaled by the likes of Harriet Harman and Liberal Democrat MPs, as well as the more hesitant, softer left trade union leaders like Billy Hayes. Also speaking was Caroline Lucas, the Green MEP who herself previously made clear her own middle class politics by saying that she equally opposes politics being at the behest of big business or the trade unions. Salma thus gives her credibility as an anti-war activist and Respect councillor to this gathering whose whole thrust is all-inclusive, classless politics hostile to independent working class political activity. This is seriously mistaken.

Compass itself has proved spineless in the face of pressure from the Labour leadership, including on issues that are close to Salma’s heart such as the Iraq War and the ‘war on terror’. Its main figures, most notably Jon Cruddas, supported the Iraq war and only belatedly decided they had been mistaken on this when the allies got bogged down and Bush/Blair’s political justifications were completely discredited. And then there is Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith’s ill-fated proposals for 42 days detention without charge. Jon Cruddas and co showed their true colours by voting for that in parliament. Most recently, Cruddas was seen denouncing those supporters of Unite Against Fascism who chucked eggs at BNP leader and fascist MEP Nick Griffin outside Parliament and disrupted his press conference.

Salma writes that “The challenge for the left is to renew itself and reassert some basic socialist critiques and solutions into mainstream political debate.” It is certainly positive to see a call for socialist politics as a road forward. But the vehicle for socialist politics is the working class; the perspective of Compass, Ken Livingstone’s Progressive London, the Greens etc is not to found a new party to fight for the independent interests of our class but rather to construct multi-class alliances, either for elections or for pressure politics between elections.

The prime example of this kind of politics in practice was Ken Livingstone’s London Mayorality from 2000 to 2008, which came to include Liberals and Greens as part of a ‘progressive’ administration. Which as everyone knows, notwithstanding the Mayor’s refusal to buckle to Islamophobia, involved systematic concessions to the City, and such disgraceful actions as the Mayor calling on workers to scab on tube strikes. These incompatible and often treacherous political forces will never be a vehicle for socialism or anything like it – the best they will ever produce is something like Ken Livingstone’s administration.

This is totally ineffective as a perspective to combat BNP influence on working class people … the concessions Livingstone made to business, and even more the left cover he gave to New Labour, also helped undermine the left and in fact played an important role in paving the way for the BNP’s previous election gain of a representative on the GLA. It was correct to support Livingstone when he broke from Labour in 2000 to campaign against tube privatisation, and correct to defend his idiosyncratic left-talking administration against the Tory challenge of Boris Johnson in 2008 – though the difference between Livingstone and Johnson has not so far been as marked as predicted – but to put forward Livingstone’s London as a model of ‘socialist’ solutions, as this perspective implies, undermines and demobilises the radical potential to advance working class politics that Respect originally had in it.

Finally, Salma’s criticism of No2EU and the SLP cannot go unanswered. She implies that simply by standing and refusing to unite behind the Green candidate in North West England, they allowed the BNP to win a seat for Nick Griffin. It is a conceit of the Greens’ that in this area at least, they were the barrier to the BNP gaining a seat. Yet the figures don’t add up. Salma points at the fact that the Greens fell behind Griffin by around 5000 votes, and laments that if only a small fraction of the combined No2EU and SLP vote of around 50,000 had gone to the Greens, Peter Cranie and not Griffin would have been in the European Parliament. Yet hundreds of thousands of votes were lost to the main parties in the same region – particularly to Labour.

The Green challenge was well known and long prepared. Why focus on the relatively few votes of the two working class campaigns, which were in a weak position in this election for well-known reasons, and yet fail to explain why the Greens did not have the ability to win over the necessary votes from among these many more thousands of disillusioned Labour supporters particularly? This, I think, says something about the class nature of the Greens as explored above. The allegation that simply by standing, the weak working class groupings were responsible for the BNP advance sounds like making an excuse for the inability of the long-established Greens to attract those many more from Labour they might have been expected to.

Salma’s statement, while aiming to promote what she sees as left unity, is in fact promoting something that is non-working-class in its content, and really involves middle class forces lording it over the workers. The shrill tone of various ‘left’ Greens in ‘condemning’ a workers organisation, the RMT, for initiating a left-wing ticket for the Euro elections, reflected sheer middle class arrogance and hardly a democratic spirit either. No wonder the Greens failed to win over disillusioned working class support from Labour – many of whom detest the BNP but failed to vote at all. To mobilise these people politically, a working class party and clearly working class politics are necessary. That is the only kind of ‘progressive’ politics that can be effective on this political terrain. We need unity of the working class left, and that is what leading Respect figures like Salma should be putting their energy into building, not promoting a form of cross-class politics that for all its pretensions, can never be truly socially progressive.

Link: Southwark Respect
Link: Southwark Respect statement on the European election results and left unity
Link: The Junius Blog

No2EU calls for unity to defeat the BNP

No2EU calls for unity to defeat the BNP

No2EU:Yes to Democracy coalition convener Bob Crow has called for urgent discussions involving socialist organisations, campaigns and trade unions to build a concerted response following the election of two fascists from the BNP to the European Parliament.

No2EU was the first progressive EU-critical coalition to stand in Britain in any election and it gained 153,236 votes despite an almost complete media blackout.

The combined vote in Thursday’s poll for No2EU, the Socialist Labour Party and some of the smaller left parties stacks up to nearly a third of a million votes - just over 2% of the total. In Scotland, the combined left vote was close to 4%.

Meanwhile, the Labour share of the vote has dropped by a massive 31%, the Lib Dems by over 7% and the Tories, despite all the hype, have only managed a tiny increase in share with turnout collapsing to just over 30%.

Bob Crow said today:

“There is no question that the BNP have benefitted from the collapse of the establishment political parties and from media coverage that has pumped them up like celebrities on “I’m a Nazi - Get Me Out of Here.”

“Sections of the press, which have deliberately ignored anti-establishment parties from the left, need to take a long, hard look at the way the blanket coverage they have given to the fascists from the BNP has contributed to their success.

“But it’s the collapse of public support for the three main parties - each of which is pro-business, pro-EU and supportive of the anti-union laws - which has created the conditions for the scapegoat-politics of the BNP to thrive.

“The fascists support in former mining communities like Barnsley is shocking and throws down a massive challenge to the Labour and Trade Union movement.

“Along with our colleagues from the SLP and other left groups we won nearly a third of a million votes. From No2EU we won over 150,000 supporters from a standing start in the teeth of a media blackout. That gives us a solid platform to build from.

“We now need urgent discussions with political parties, campaigns and our colleagues in other unions like the CWU to develop a political and industrial response to this crisis.

”I also want to pay tribute to our colleagues from the Hope Not Hate campaign. There is no doubt that without their tireless efforts the BNP would have won even more seats,” he said.

Link: No2EU - Yes To Democracy

Seizing the moment by Steve McGiffen

Seizing the moment by Steve McGiffen - from the Morning Star.

Last month I used my column to try to persuade No2EU - Yes to Democracy to drop its abstentionist line and, should it win seats in the European Parliament, use them to further resistance to neoliberalism and the fight for socialism.

I don't want to return to that subject exactly, though I note that, while there has been no public evolution of this position, candidate Dave Nellist said recently in an interview on these pages that he felt that the No2EU list could and should become the basis of a new workers' party.

That such a party is urgently needed seems to me to be beyond dispute.

The game is well and truly up with the Labour Party. The threat from the BNP must be countered - and fast.

We need a mass activist party and we need it now.

Parliamentary politics is in deep disrepute.

Britain and Europe are run by crooks and liars in the pay of corporate capital. The danger is that the now almost universal understanding that this is the case is currently most likely to benefit the enemies of democracy.

On the other hand, the combination of financial crisis, open greed in the corporate world and corruption in politics offers the left an opportunity to reconstruct itself.

There is a country not very far from here where the left has spent the last 15 years successfully doing just that.

In 1994 the Dutch parliament contained not a single radical socialist.

To the left of the Dutch Labour Party there was nothing but a ragbag of Europhile remnants of moribund left parties, the so-called Green Left.

In the general election of that year, however, the radical left Socialist Party (SP) entered national politics for the first time, winning two seats.

In 2005 the SP, which by then had grown considerably in membership and had nine seats, led the campaign against the European constitution.

Almost two-thirds of the Dutch electorate voted No to this neoliberal con trick.

Over the next two years, the SP tripled its vote in local, regional and national elections.

It is now the country's biggest opposition party both inside parliament, where it has 25 seats, and outside.

With almost 50,000 members, the SP has never succumbed to the tempting comforts of parliamentary politics.

It remains an active presence on the streets of the Netherlands, in its workplaces and social organisations, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with every campaign of resistance to neoliberalism, to the destruction of social provision and of the environment and to the undermining of democracy by political parties which have forgotten what the word means.

Every SP member of parliament, local representative and employee is paid a salary based on the average skilled workers' wage (ED: this needs further discussion as a lot depends on what you mean by an average skilled workers wage).

Those who receive a salary from the state must comply with a rule under which any amount above that level is handed over to the party.

Expenses are paid against receipts and only against receipts.

Such a rule should be the first principle of any socialist political party.

Such a party is badly needed in Britain and must be organised in good time to fight the next general election.

It should adopt a broad but clearly anti-neoliberal platform and make it clear that it will not be confining its activities to Parliament or to council chambers but will be out on the streets and standing at the side of everyone and anyone who is fighting back.

It should be active in its solidarity with every victim of workplace exploitation, of racism or sexism, every person resisting the degradation of our environment, the sullying of public life and the cynicism of the whole pack of political opportunists, from the formerly social-democratic Labour Party through to the BNP.

People want their vote to make a difference.

They want people to represent them who understand the real problems of real people.

If we offer a clear alternative and avoid speaking as if it were 1917 or 1968, or as if we have all the answers and are therefore by definition not interested in listening to people's views and concerns, we can create a new political force capable of setting fear into the hearts of the political establishment.

The tired old argument that standing candidates against Labour will let the Tories in is now laughable.

The Labour Party no longer has the slightest claim on the loyalty of working people or the left.

In any case, it is in for a thorough tonking whatever we do or don't do, so we really don't need to worry about costing it votes.

They have spent the last quarter century collaborating with increasing enthusiasm in the theft of the people's property, not just in the case of the relatively trivial amounts stolen in fiddles expenses, but in the wholesale corporate trough-snouting that was privatisation and deregulation.

They have supported illegal wars and illegal torture camps.

They claim to be "green" while planning new airport runways and new motorways.

They claim to respect civil liberties while allowing the police to behave like the militarised force which is the hallmark of a repressive state.

I believe in a broad and diverse socialist movement, but surely not so broad that it includes the flimflam artists currently governing the country.

The left must seize this moment, before the far-right does.

A salary rule similar to that of the Dutch SP should be at the heart of our programme.

This would leave plenty of money to cover the legitimate, receipted expenses of MPs and other party personnel, reducing or even eliminating the need to claim reimbursement from the state.

Whatever is left would be used to run the party and finance campaigns.

If we tell the people the truth and show them that we live by our principles, we can yet reconstruct our movement, save democracy and begin to offer the real and effective resistance which Britain has not seen in a quarter of a century.

Steve McGiffen is editor of the EU-critical website Spectrezine.org. He is a former environmental adviser to the European Parliament's United European Left group.

Link: Morning Star
Link: No2EU - Yes to Democracy

No2EU - Yes to Democracy Election Broadcast

Vote No2EU - Yes to Democracy on June 4 (Election Broadcast)

The broadcast was televised on Channel 5 on May 26.

It will also be shown on the following stations and times:

* S4C – Wednesday May 27, 7.25pm (Welsh language)

* BBC One - Wednesday May 27, 10.35pm

* BBC Two - Wednesday May 27, 11.20pm

* BBC Wales - Wednesday May 27, 10.35pm

* BBC Scotland – Wednesday May 27, 10.35pm

* ITV Scotland – Wednesday May 29, 10.30pm

* ITV – Friday May 29, 10.30pm

* ITV Wales – Friday May 29, 10.30pm

Video: Tony Benn explains why there should be a referendum on the renamed EU Constitution

No2EU - Yes to Democracy is a coalition of trade unionists, political parties and campaigning groups which have come together to defend democracy here and across the European Union, so lend us your vote in the Euro elections on June 4.

Link: Help Southwark Respect with their No2EU campaign.
Link: No2EU Web site

Interview with Dave Hill who tops the No2EU list in the South East

Interview with Dave Hill who tops the No2EU list in the South East (Dave is in the middle of the picture). Article from the Mac Uaid blog. This article was first published in the The Weekly Worker when Dave Hill spoke to Peter Manson.

How do assess the campaign so far?

It’s the beginning. No2EU is a new party. The manifesto comes out on May 21 – the same day as the national television broadcast. In the meantime I am making a regional broadcast on The politics show.

We reckon that the South East is the area where we can get elected with the smallest percentage of the vote anywhere in the country – we only need about eight percent to get in. And we could be on line to do that – it depends on the way the national publicity goes – there’s only so much we can do locally.

We’ve got a vibrant local campaign – I must say, mainly run by the local Socialist Party, but also with the RMT and some independents.

There isn’t much by way of the Communist Party of Britain in your neck of the woods then?

No, not in the Brighton area. But in other parts of the region, yes, there are – in Kent, Oxford and Southampton, for example, the CPB is active. In the Brighton area, where I’m mainly going to meetings, doing interventions, etc, we have a group of young comrades from the SP.

I believe you’ve recently come out of retirement from politics?

Yes, I joined the Labour Party when I was 16 – I was brought up in poverty in fact. All my family are working class and I was a socialist from a very early age. I was a parliamentary candidate a couple of times. But in the early 90s I started to go deaf. At the same time I was getting pretty disgusted with Labour – this was before New Labour, under Kinnock – because of the expulsions, which I always opposed. I also decided it was time to concentrate on my career.

But then I got new hearing aids from the NHS about three years ago and it made a huge difference to my life – I could actually hear what people were saying! I left New Labour finally in 2005 after 40 years – most of my friends and comrades had left in tranches over the previous years. The sense of relief I felt was incredible.

I then joined what seemed at that particular time to be the major group on the left, Respect, and indeed the International Socialist Group.

Are you still in Respect?

I am a member, yes. I have been engaged in very vigorous attempts to get Respect involved in No2EU. When I saw the campaign was being set up, I immediately got in touch – then it was just the CPB, SP and RMT on board, so I got in at the beginning. I thought, wow, this is what I’ve been looking for for years – a reconfiguration on the left; a trade union-backed, working class-backed movement and hopefully party to the left of Labour.

Respect at that time was still considering standing and I was opposed to that. Since then Respect, I’m delighted to say, along with Socialist Resistance, has come on board and supported No2EU.

Isn’t it more a case of Respect leaving it open to individual members?

Well, you and I are both right. They have supported No2EU except where there are local considerations – we’re really just talking about the North West …

… where they’re voting Green.

My view is that the Greens are a bourgeois party – a lot of them are very good people – but they’re not a working class party and they are not socialist, even though individual members might be.

I could not believe it and I was very angry. My hope is that the layers that have been involved in Respect – that is to say, predominantly the middle and working class layers of the Muslim population and some others – will fully join No2EU. My hope is that after the election the promised convention does take place and I want to see the development of a democratic and pluralist party grow out of it.

But the main forces involved have divergent positions on that. The official position of the CPB is that No2EU is just an electoral platform and after June 4 it will cease to exist.

Well, you go round the blocks probably more than I do, so you will be well aware that there is a momentum building. If there is a tiny vote, then perhaps the momentum will be lost. But I think that by the time of the election No2EU will actually do well. There is a very good chance that there might be one or two MEPs elected, of whom I reckon to be one. The disgust with the mainstream parties is such that many people to the left of Labour have been looking for something substantial they can vote for.

But, to get back to the convention, history moves. I know the SP is very committed to the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party – which incidentally I support – and I think the CPB and RMT will come on board, and hopefully small groups like the Alliance for Green Socialism, which are also involved. I just hope that the momentum will be such that we are living in historic times, so that a successful party to the left of Labour will be launched some time in the next couple of months.

I see from your blog that you are part of the wing that is for taking up your seats if you get elected.

I’ve always admired the integrity of what was the Militant and SP and their position of a workers’ MP on a skilled worker’s wage – even though I’ve disagreed with them historically on various issues.

Here I’m going to be careful what I say – I think the historic position of working class parties and socialists seeking election has always, quite rightly in my view, been to take up those positions and to use them as a platform and an arena of mobilisation. In the South East election material – and indeed in the television and radio broadcast – I have been very firm about saying we are for a worker’s MP on a worker’s wage.

That’s an advance on the position on the website.

Absolutely. I think we should view No2EU as developmental, and that website was put up at the very beginning. I would like to see a development of that in the manifesto. What I’ve been saying when I’ve been interviewed is that we’re working class and socialist activists. We will be mainly in Britain, but of course we’ll be supporting workers’ slogans and workers’ issues in Europe. But there will no bathplugs or bungs on expenses for us!

We’ll be workers’ MPs on a worker’s wage, fighting for working class issues, rights, conditions and pay and opposing privatisation and neoliberalism.

It seems to me that the ‘Yes to democracy’ slogan is without content. It is posed in a way which suggests that the British parliament, House of Lords and monarchy is the alternative.

Yes, I agree with that 100%. I think a better slogan would have been ‘Yes to a workers’ democracy’ or ‘Yes to a socialist democracy’.

We have an article in the Weekly Worker calling for republican democracy.

I’m a convinced republican.

What we’re saying is: abolition of the monarchy and the second chamber, annual parliaments, as with the Chartists; recallable MPs on a worker’s wage, which you’ve already referred to; an end to the secret state …

… I haven’t thought about the annual parliaments, but I agree with retiring the monarchy and giving them all an old-age pension; and getting rid of the House of Lords and having an elected second chamber – if there is to be a second chamber. The term of the parliaments I’m not so sure about.

What I would say in defence of No2EU is, looking at the speeches of Bob Crow, Dave Nellist and various other comrades, it has been pretty clear that it is a leftwing, internationalist campaign that goes beyond the initially thought-up slogans.

I want to ask you about internationalism, but first can I put to you our last point on republican democracy? That is, replace the standing army with a popular militia and the constitutional right to bear arms, as in the United States. What do you reckon on that?

I haven’t given that any thought. I wouldn’t want to comment without doing so and discussing it.

OK, fair enough. Then let me take you up on what you said about internationalism. For example, the platform – which seems to be inspired by the worst part of the CPB’s programme of anti-EUism from a nationalist perspective – comes out against Fortress Europe, but gives every impression of being for ‘Fortress Britain’.

I fully understand what you’re saying and where you’re coming from. During an election campaign I’m not going to attack other constituent parts of the campaign of which I am a candidate.

What I would say is that in my view the enemy is capitalism, based in both the European Union and in Britain. They are the same. What I have been arguing for in the meetings I’ve been involved in is workers’ internationalism with no illusions in the sanctity of British capital. We’re a movement seeking to replace capitalism with socialism – and I’m not just talking about neoliberalism, which is simply the current version of the class war from above.

What I do think is that we’re living in tumultuous times. We’ve seen 30 years of incredible war on the workers since Thatcher and Reagan, and this is the chance that working class, socialist and progressive forces have to ally, nationally and internationally, to pose and to organise for a working class and socialist alternative to combat and replace capitalism.

If the platform read, ‘No to Fortress Europe, no to Fortress Britain’, how would that sound to you? In other words, for the free movement of labour.

I was a politician for many years, so I’m well used to not answering questions! What I will say is that the views expressed, for example, over the Lindsey refinery workers’ strike by the leaders of No2EU from all its sections have not been narrow little Englandism. What they have defended is the rights of all workers in Britain, wherever they might come from.

So I take heart not from the odd phrase that needs developing, but from the more lengthy phrases that No2EU speakers have been expressing on the stump and in public statements.

I agree with what you say about Lindsey and in fact I think the Socialist Party did a good job in helping to divert the strike away from the ‘British jobs’ slogan …

It was a dreadful slogan …

But that wasn’t actually the nature of the strike, which was to defend jobs. However, what about immigration controls? I’m against them.

Well, I’m not sure that the No2EU campaign has got a particular view on that …

What’s your view?

My personal view is that in my political life I’ve been opposed to racism and active in the Anti-Nazi League – and indeed was attacked on two occasions by fascists because of my leading local role in anti-fascist activity. My working life has involved teaching against race, gender and sexuality discrimination.

My view is that this is not a time to have completely open borders. On the other hand, I think that the current controls are racist and that people who are in this country should be treated with full human rights and have full workers’ rights. The conditions under which many refugees and asylum-seekers live are horrendous.

If ever – god forbid – there were a fascist government in this country, then people like me or you would have to seek asylum somewhere else unless we went underground. I would want us to be treated with full human rights and dignity and have the ability to lead a happy, healthy, safe and employed life.

So the anti-racist slant of No2EU is hugely important to me. I fear that now, unlike any time since the late 70s, when the left basically kicked the fascists off the streets, and unlike the 1930s, when the Battle of Cable Street did the same, the dangers of fascism and of a BNP revival are greater at this moment than at any time in the last 30 years. So we must have no truck with nationalistic slogans and must make very clear our internationalist and anti-racist beliefs.

Finally, I do hope that all of the left, including the CPGB, will come into No2EU and make it a democratic and pluralist organisation. I am including in that people like the Socialist Workers Party and Alliance for Workers’ Liberty – I am totally non-sectarian. I look with great hope to the new anti-capitalist party in France, the Bloco de Esquerda in Portugal and some of the experiences of Die Linke. That’s what I want this to develop into.

Editors Note: And on that hope Dave you have my full support - a position I will fight for on the National Council of Respect - Neil Williams

Link: Mac Uaid blog
Link: No2EU web site
Link: No2EU - Yes To Democracy, South East Region

ALICE MAHON BACKS NO2EU

ALICE MAHON BACKS NO2EU - report from the Socialist Unity Web Site.

Alice Mahon, the former Labour MP who resigned last month from the Labour Party after 50 years membership, will speak at her first public meeting since leaving the party in Birmingham on Tuesday, May 26th, in support of the No2EU campaign in the Euro elections.

Mrs Mahon, 71, was the Member of Parliament for Halifax from 1987 to 2005.

She joins a number of former Labour figures backing the anti-EU coalition - including the former leader of East Sussex Council Labour Group, Prof Dave Hill, former deputy Labour leader of Carlisle Council, John Metcalfe, and former election agent for Peter Shore MP, John Rowe, who are all candidates for No2EU on June 4th.

The former Labour MP for Coventry, Dave Nellist, is the lead candidate for the trade union backed campaign in the West Midlands.

Mrs Mahon in her resignation letter said she could no longer be a member of a party “that at leadership level has betrayed many of the principles that inspired me as a teenager to join”. Her letter, sent to former colleagues in her Halifax constituency, was sharply critical of Labour’s failure to deliver a promised referendum on the EU “Lisbon Treaty”.

“If that Treaty is ratified”, she wrote, “we can say goodbye to any publicly owned services…… we will be handing over to private corporations, social services, education, transport and postal services. Even the NHS will be up for grabs”.

Ms Mahon will be joined at the election rally on Tuesday, May 26th, 7.30pm at the Carrs Lane Church Centre, Birmingham by Brian Denny, national officer of the RMT trade union, and West Midlands No2EU candidates Cllr Dave Nellist, and Joanne Stevenson, the General Secretary of the Young Communist League.

Link: Socialist Unity web site

Can you help Southwark Respect? - No2EU activity in Southwark

Can you help Southwark Respect? - No2EU activity in Southwark.

Sunday 24 May - 11.00am - 1.00pm - leafleting
2.00pm - 4.00pm - leafleting

Monday 25 May - 11.00am - 1.00pm - leafleting
2.00pm - 4.00pm - leafleting
(If there are Bank Holiday events we will aim to cover them with leaflets.)

Tuesday 26 May - 6.30pm - leafleting

Thursday 28 May - 6.30pm - leafleting

Respect members/supporters - Can you help next weekend? - please call Ian on 07941936 087

Saturday 30 May - 11.00am - Stall (probably Camberwell. If we have enough people we will try to have more than one stall.)
2.00pm- leafleting
5.00pm- BARBECUE - This is for all supporters and to help raise funds for the Southwark Respect NO2EU leaflet, which has cost over £600.

Sunday 31 May - 11.00am - leafleting
2.00pm - leafleting

Monday 1 June - 7.00pm - NO2EU Public Meeting at Friends Meeting House - opposite Euston Station, with BOB CROW, lead candidate for London, DAVE NELLIST, lead candidate for West Midlands, and others

Tuesday 2 June - 6.30pm - leafleting

Wednesday 3 June - 6.30pm - leafleting

Thursday 4 June - POLLING DAY

Any inquiries - please call Ian on 07941936 087

We hope to see you over the next two weeks. Please try to make some of the activities.

Link: No2EU
Link: Southwark Respect

June 4 and beyond - Dave Nellist

June 4 and beyond - Dave Nellist.

Former Coventry Labour MP Dave Nellist is fighting a vigorous campaign as No2EU - Yes to Democracy's lead candidate in the West Midlands.

Now a Socialist Party councillor in the city, he recalls the 1975 referendum campaign, when the left was united in branding what was then called the European Common Market as "a bosses' club."

"The Labour manifesto on which I stood in 1983 was against the European Community," Nellist recalls. And he hasn't changed his mind since - although Labour has.

"Without No2EU, there would be a largely sterile debate in this forthcoming election, since all the three big parties agree with the free-market philosophy of the European Union - and the only opposition to the EU would come from the far-right.

"New Labour, particularly under Tony Blair's leadership, has become increasingly wedded to big business and so when, for the first time in 100 years, a trade union decided to stand independently in a national election, the Socialist Party wanted to help," he remarks.

In Nellist's view, past campaigns against the EU have suffered from a "confused identity," with business and right-wing politicians being involved.

"This campaign is based solidly on the working class and offers a socialist alternative which no other platform does," he enthuses.

In the West Midlands, Nellist identifies two key issues as jobs and the rise of the extreme right.

Unemployment is rising faster there than most other regions of Britain, which in turn accounts for one-third of all jobs lost in the EU since January.

"Major manufacturers have been taking advantage of the free movement of capital and labour promoted by the EU, to export jobs and factories to areas of Europe where trade unions are weak and wages are low," he says.

Nellist cites the local case of Peugeot at Ryton, where the firm shipped the factory to Slovakia to avoid paying decent trade union rates of pay at £500 per week.

"There, they can get away with paying £350 per month!" he says.

The export of jobs, the import of exploited labour and growing disillusionment with the main parties, particularly in working-class areas, has inflated support for the BNP. The fascists now have 16 councillors in the West Midlands EU region - a third of their national total - and regularly poll votes in the hundreds in local council elections.

"It's not that the people of the West Midlands are becoming more racist - for many, it's a protest vote," Nellist insists. "We intend to offer a trade union alternative to the barmy politics of the far-right."

He fears that merely portraying the BNP as Holocaust deniers - although he notes that "their leaders clearly are" - who believe that the wrong side won the second world war is not enough.

"I think you have to approach potential BNP voters differently," he argues. "Many of them are working class, formerly voted Labour and, in an election where most electors are switched off from the big parties mired in sleaze and scandal, they are unlikely to be won away from the BNP if their only other option is to support one of those establishment parties.

"Thanks to No2EU - Yes to Democracy, working people will be able to vote for a non-nationalist, anti-EU, left alternative in these elections."

And Nellist hopes that its impact will be felt beyond June 4.

"We hope No2EU will be the first step towards the development of a new mass left party. Given the severity of the economic crisis facing working-class people, this is now particularly urgent," he says.

He is particularly encouraged by the new networks being built up during the election campaign.

"Obviously, the organisations involved will want assess the project and their involvement in it - but I hope that after the June elections we can come together to jointly look at what comes next."

The diversity of the No2EU alliance has raised some eyebrows on the left. How does Nellist find sharing a bed with the Communist Party, for instance?

"What has happened is a growing realisation not only that the Labour Party is on a trajectory away from working-class people, but that the forces of the left still inside Labour do not appear to be strong enough to hold back the tide.

"The Socialist Party has always been prepared to work with other forces on the left in any project which advances the cause of the working class, whether that is on the industrial or the political front.

"Having consistently called for 15 years for the development of a serious left alternative to new Labour, we were very pleased that the RMT, the Communist Party and others wanted to form an electoral bloc for the European elections."

On a more personal note, Nellist downplays his own position as lead candidate in the West Midlands. He certainly doesn't miss the Westminster Parliament in which he sat for nine years.

"I found the privileged gentlemen's club atmosphere very unpleasant and, unlike some former MPs who have haunted the place since they left, I've only been back five times in 17 years," he points out.

"Like fellow Militant supporters Terry Fields and Pat Wall, I took only a worker's wage. That made sure we were not sucked into the unreal world we see in recent revelations, but remained in touch with our working-class constituents."

Nellist spent much of his time as an MP campaigning outside Parliament, notably against the poll tax.

"That balance of work - predominantly outside Parliament and involved in working-class struggles - is what I'd like to see any successful No2EU MEP doing," he says.

"Whether it's me is not really the issue, but there clearly is a desperate need for more politicians who don't have their snouts in the trough and stand up for the millions instead of the millionaires," he concludes.

And millions of people in sleaze-ridden Britain today will agree with that.

Link: Read this article on the Morning Star web site
Link: No2EU - Yes to Democracy

No2EU - Yes to Democracy

No2EU - Yes to Democracy is a coalition of trade unionists, political parties and campaigning groups which have come together to defend democracy here and across the European Union, so lend us your vote in the Euro elections on June 4.
No2EU-Yes to Democracy is a response to the growing cynicism across Europe towards the undemocratic direction the EU is taking and to the rise of extremists like the BNP who are benefiting from this disillusionment. Come to one of our public meetings and find out more.

Keep your public services public:
The Lisbon Treaty and the EU’s privatisation agenda represent a significant threat to working class communities and to the services we all rely on.

The renamed EU consttituion forces governments to hand public services over to private corporations – that means handing fat cats control of railways, schools, postal services, energy and even social services across Europe.

Under Article III-147 of the EU Constitution: “A European framework law shall establish measures to achieve the liberalisation of a specific service”. That provision remains in the Lisbon Treaty.

This commitment to ‘free competition’ enshrined in successive EU treaties was the main reason that Tories originally supported the EU. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher signed the Single European Act in 1986 to establish a single European market and John Major agreed the Maastricht Treaty, which created the Euro, the European Central Bank and tied European economies into a ‘Growth and Stability Pact’ that squeezes public investment in public services.
The current economic crisis was created by these discredited neo-liberal policies yet, under the Lisbon Treaty, they become constitutional goals. We should be defending public services in Britain not allowing bankers and eurocrats take them over in order to make money for big business in Europe.

Vote No2EU - Yes to Democracy to defend public services such as Post Offices and the NHS and to renationalise our railways and develop manufacturing in Britain (see web site for more policies).
Now read this: Southwark Respect backs No2EU
Link: No2EU Facebook site
Link: No2EU National Web site