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

Afghanistan - what are we fighting for?

Afghanistan - what are we fighting for?

Watch the video and ask yourself - just what are we fighting for in Afghanisatan?

This is an excerpt from an excellent series by John Pilger which is now available in five parts from our old friend AzowRagbak. To watch the entire series, go to:

http://www.youtube.com/AzowRagbak

For those who believe that Green politics is the way forward I suggest you read this:
Joschka Fischer, former leader of the German Green Party, and Foreign Minister, had signed up for a “six digit salary” as an adviser on the Nabucco Consortium which is to build a pipeline form the Caspian Sea region to the EU via Turkey see HERE. The then foreign minister Joschka Fischer, in 1999 supported the war in Yugoslavia, against the wishes of many rank and file party members. Later, they supported sending German troops to the Afghan war, also against the wishes of many rank and file party members. Though armed forces are extremely destructive in environmental terms, especially so during wars.

Link: Nabucco pipeline - Wiki

Link: The War on Terror or the Trans-Afghan Pipeline: YOU Decide Which is Real! - YouTube

Are the Greens an alternative? - Alastair Stevens

Are the Greens an alternative? - Alastair Stevens via the Junius Blog

The success of the Greens in the Euro elections poses some important questions for the left on how to deal with them. Here is a contribution to this discussion from Alastair Stevens.

The failure of the left in England and Wales to create a viable electoral force, and the relative success of the Greens has given the question of the left’s relations with the Green Party a new importance.

The disintegration of the Labour government, the undermining of the whole British party system and the consequent growth of the BNP has also given it a sudden urgency.

The Green Party in action

The Green Party in Britain is often described as the most left wing in Europe. The policies of the party have tended to put them on the left in British politics, but then the yawning void on the left since the advent of New Labour has meant that even the Lib Dems have tried to fish for votes there.

The Greens have also been able to comfortably occupy this space due to their relative distance from power. Other European Green parties have been thrust fairly quickly into power. The electoral system here has meant that they have been mostly excluded from office and the pressures to move right that come with that.

However when they have had electoral success their record has been patchy. The closer they have got to power the less principled they have seemed.

The Green Party has gone into coalition with the Tories in Leeds. In Lewisham they have a base, it is one of their strongest areas in the capital. Yet their councillors there voted for the occupied Lewisham Bridge School to be turned into an academy.

On the London Assembly the Greens played second fiddle to Ken Livingstone’s neo-liberal administration giving it left cover. In reality they did nothing much really against the agenda of turning the city the playground of the rich. Its representatives have been almost invisible, Darren Johnson only popping up in the media to for example join in the attacks on Al-Qaradawi.

As they have become closer to power they have rapidly lost many of their democratic structures. The party that prided itself for its open democratic working has transformed itself quite quickly into a centralised political machine that has tended to revolve around big personalities. This has been seen in the way it moved to having a single leader and in its method of election which over rode the old internal workings of the party.

Darren Johnson, is a case in point. He has accumulated places on bodies at a rate that even Lord Mandelson would be impressed at: “as an Assembly member, Johnson is or has been a member of numerous committees, including the Health and Public Services Committee, the Environment Committee (of which he is the Deputy Chair after chairing for the previous five years), the Transport Committee, the Planning and Spatial Development Committee, the Commission on London Governance, the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA), the Elections Review Committee and the 7th July Review (London Resilience) Committee. He has also chaired an inquiry on nuclear waste trains for the GLA. He is or has been a member of Lewisham Council’s Council Urgency Committee, Elections Committee, Licensing (Supplementary) Committee, Licensing Committee, Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Marsha Phoenix Memorial Trust. He has represented Lewisham Council on the Local Government Association General Assembly.”

So much for a party that prided itself on its grass roots nature.

His fellow GLA member is Jenny Jones, who is also a councillor in Southwark, a role she has been virtually invisible in.

The Green Parties in Europe

The future for the Green Party may be seen in the behavior of its European partners. They have now been in government in all the major European countries and their record has been patchy tending towards downright awful.

In Germany, whose Green Party is still the most important in the movement, they have been in government in coalition at a national level with the SPD (the German equivalent of Labour) twice. They have been in regional governments since the mid eighties.

Hardly had they got into power in 1999 than they were supporting the war in Kosovo. The front man for this was the new Foreign Minister, and former anarchist street fighter, the Greens’ leader Joschka Fischer. This wasn’t the end of their war-mongering, though, as they also supported the deployment of German troops in Afghanistan.

They supported Agenda 2010 and most of the other neo-liberal attacks from the SPD government on the German working class. In April 2008 in local government they joined coalitions with the main right wing party, the CDU, in Hamburg and Cologne.

Elsewhere the record has not been much different.

In Italy much of the ire about the disastrous debacle the left suffered in the last elections has been directed at the performance in government of Rifondazione Comunista. The “Rainbow” alliance of which it was part along with the other smaller communist party the PCd’I was wiped out and won no seats at all.

Yet the Greens took an identical line in government to Rifondazione, voting for the continued occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the rest of the neo-liberal reform pushed by Prodi’s government.

The Greens in France entered a similar coalition with Jospin, and followed the same neo-liberal path.

Closer to home in Ireland the Greens entered a coalition government with Fianna Fail, one of the two main parties of Irish capitalism. In the process they managed to put a road through the historically important Hill of Tara.

The Green Party in Ireland is still in government there despite the absolutely vicious round of cuts now being made. This year’s Irish budget has meant an income cut of up to 8% for workers, a 2% cut in welfare payments, and reduced housing benefits for newly unemployed workers aged under 20.

The nature of the Green Party

The Green Party is a middle class party. This is also true of Green parties throughout Europe.

Its origins lie in the early environmental movement of the 1970s. In Britain this actually also means people like Teddy Goldsmith founder of the Ecologist magazine, and the holder like many Greens of some quite reactionary Malthusian ideas.

The growth of the Green Parties came in the eighties as many who had been on the left moved away socialist politics and any class based understanding of society. In fact the growth of these parties marked a decisive rejection of the concept of class. Even today in the British Green Party’s materials you will not find the word class. True to the radical (and often utopian) liberalism that is the philosophical basis of these parties they condemn “wealth inequality”, and various other elliptical constructions, but they don’t call it class.

The middle class nature of the party is obvious to any who come across the party. Recent a recent poll by Yougov shows this up quite explicitly.

By social grade Green voters were shown to have the highest percentage in the ABC1 category, 64%, closest to the Lib Dems’ 61% and Tories’ 60% (Labour voters 53% and BNP 39%.

Green voters had the second highest median income after the Tories, 32k and 33k respectively, ahead of the Lib Dems 29k. Labour and BNP voters had the lowest on 27k.

Green voters were the most likely to have a professional or higher technical job (doctor, account, teacher, lecturer, social worker) on 32% (Lib Dems 26%, Lab 20%, Con 20, BNP 11).

Green voters were the least likely to be a manual worker (skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled) at 12% (the next least likely being the Lib Dems and Tories, 14% each, then Lab 21%, UKIP 23%, BNP voters proving the most likely on 36%).

It would be possible to go but the picture emerging is one that we know well. The middle class focus of the party is reflected in the party’s policies.

These at root look very similar to most radical petit-bourgeois movements which have appeared over the last two hundred years from the sans culottes of the French revolution onwards. This class, caught between the working class on the one hand and the ruling capitalist class on the other tend to fear both. They fear the domination of the bosses and fear being dragged down into the working class. They are usually against both “big business” and “big labour”.

There is an obsession with making everything smaller and more local. The problem with the big banks were, that they were too big for instance.

Something the Greens were proud of during the London elections last year were was the endorsement by the Federation of Small businesses as the party with policies most friendly to small business. This is something that left wing fans of the Greens, tend not to mention, nor for they tend to point out the Green Party’s Greens Mean Business website.

The lamentable statement by Jenny Jones in the London Assembly is indicative of this attitude (see here for the text of her speech).

Faced with the across the board criticism of the RMT’s tube strike, rather than take the opportunity to forthrightly defend the country’s most militant union, and one that has improved immensely the pay and conditions of tube workers, she merely said that she said that she had “a slight sympathy for trade unions”.

She went on to add that she would have voted for the Tories motion condemning the strike if it had been worded slightly differently.

That is not to say that the Greens are the same as the Tories. They support improvements in workers rights. They adopt progressive positions on many economic issues. They are against poverty and exploitation.

The single greatest thing that would improve the lot of working people would be to repeal the anti-union laws so that workers and the unions can fight for themselves for these improvements. Yet this is a commitment you will not find them making.

A defence of workers’ and trade union rights is not central to their politics. They are rather mixed up with the rights of the self-employed and small business in a manner that appears to put both on the same level. In their voluminous programmatic document, the Manifesto for a Sustainable Society, trade unions appear after self- employed workers.

Though there are proposals to tinker with the law and improve the legal position of trade unions, with such changes as “a limited scope to ‘secondary’ industrial action”, and a range of proposals for ‘industrial democracy’ – albeit mixed in with ideas of ‘partnership’ reminiscent of the rhetoric of New Labour, there is no clear call for a wholesale abolition of the Tory anti-union laws. Though this is formally Green Party policy, it does not seem to find its place in their main public policy manifesto.

The appeal of the Greens is in the main limited to its target audience, the educated middle classes. That is their base, and that is the core of the party. Its appeal to the working class is limited. To the poor it has virtually none. This has been shown quite clearly in the recent elections. In the North West for instance, where much of the left did unite behind the Greens they were unable to undercut the BNP’s vote.

The Left and Greens

Dealing with the Greens is difficult. They often position themselves as a party of the left. They can also be as fanatically sectarian as many on the left.

They have a policy of always standing. They stood against George Galloway and Salma Yaqoob in 2004. They refused to deal with Respect when it was formed. They always stand against the Socialist Party’s councillors in Lewisham. Deals with them that work are almost unheard of.

They have carved out an electoral niche for themselves in some of the new bodies that have been created under Labour such s the GLA. It is one they are willing to defend against all comers. This was shown most obviously by the reaction to No2EU.

This important initiative by the RMT and others was greeted in a most hostile fashion. Even the Green Left “condemned” it (the words of a their leading members who also went on to describe it as a “Stalinist inspired political disaster”, showing the Greens can be adept as anyone in the dark art of political invective).

The reaction of another leading member of the Green left was little different calling for the RMT to stand down in case it loses Jean Lambert her seat.

The fact that the Greens have managed to capture the bottom seats in a number of elected bodies under proportional representation voting systems seems to be giving rise to an assumed right of veto by the Greens over any force standing to the left of them. The argument that standing will lose Green X the seat will be the argument at every election.

A section of the left, most notably in Germany and Scandinavia joined the Greens in the 1980s as part of a retreat from class politics. The result was the propelling into power of the Green Party in Germany and elsewhere and rapid accommodation to the system and its priorities.

There is a threat of that happening here. You can already hear those siren voices inside Respect and on the left. The attraction is understandable, both if you take into the consideration the retreat of class politics and the relative success of the Greens compared to the rest of the left.

When fascists are winning seats in the European Parliament and the GLA the temptation to try short cuts and stop them can be overwhelming.

But to really face this challenge what we need is a party that can address the working class with class politics. The nature of the British electoral system, even when using some type of PR (the d’Hondt method used still tends to discriminate against smaller parties) and the political culture of this country means the electoral space on the left of the Labour Party can appear limited.

Yet the Green Party is not that party, and nor can it be. Its hostility to initiatives towards such a party has also shown that cohabitation and cooperation with the Greens is difficult to say the least.

Lessons of history

There is like a hundred years ago a large amount of churn going on in politics throughout Europe, and for once Britain is not an exception (even if it has started later and is happening more slowly). The two party system, with the two parties being that of the bourgeoisie and the trade unions is weakening considerably.

One hundred years ago in both Britain and America the end of a long period of economic growth and stability resulted in numerous challenges to the status quo. There was a fluorescence of movements from female suffrage to anti-colonialism and demands for social and economic reform. In the US it was the era of “progressivism”.

In Britain one of the most important changes that occurred was the creation of the Labour Party by the trade unions and the solidifying of a form of class consciousness (albeit reformist) that would be the bedrock of the workers’ movement for the next 80 years.

The “social democratic” party created was one of the most conservative in Europe, a symptom not of the innate conservatism of British society (in these years Britain and Ireland were amongst the most turbulent of European countries), but of the failure of the left to break more completely with the ideas of well-meaning liberal reform. The fact that so much of the ideology of the new party was formulated by those with elitist attitudes (such as the Webbs with their utterly disdainful view of the abilities of the working class) is indicative of this.

In the US the situation was different. The trade unions failed to form their own party, and the momentarily successful Socialist Party drifted apart and disappeared into a politically abstentionist syndicalism on the left whilst the “right” of the party were outflanked and absorbed by the middle class progressives from whom they had failed to differentiate themselves in any meaningful way.

Rather than moving to class politics, the putative forces of change were swept into broad ‘progressive’ alliances, which fed back into the Tweedledee and Tweedledum of the American capitalist parties, the Republicans and Democrats.

Unity and independence

The project of the Green Party is a different one from ours. We believe that the working class needs a party that is based on class politics.

The Green Party is a middle class party of social reform that espouses a liberal cross class philosophy. It seeks to convince our rulers that it is in their own interest to change.

That is why we will not be joining the Greens, no matter how much more successful at the ballot box they may seem.

Nor should we should we be forming an unequal “alliance” with them, for in the future the left will probably have to fight against things they do, just as has happened in Europe.

But when it come to fighting for the things that working class people need, if the Greens fight we will unite to fight with them for a better world.

Link: Junius Blog - recommended!

Tackling the 'cancer' of BNP fascism - Salma Yaqoob

Tackling the 'cancer' of BNP fascism - Salma Yaqoob.

The election of two BNP MEPs has removed the cover on a political sewer that should have been sealed for all time. Nick Griffin, a man with a history of anti-Semitism and holocaust denial, now calls for "chemotherapy" against the Islamic "cancer" in Europe. The echoes of the past are deliberate. The choice of words is chilling.

Griffin's election has given the BNP unprecedented access to the media, and he is using it to promote the most vicious racism. His genocidal rantings towards Muslims followed his call for the sinking of ships carrying migrants from Africa to Europe - in other words the premeditated murder of men, women and children on a desperate voyage to escape poverty and oppression.

We should remind ourselves that almost 1 million people voted for the BNP in the European Elections. If there is a cancer in Europe, then it is the cancer of racism. Yet the response from the political establishment to Griffin's remarks has, so far, been less than overwhelming.

Defensiveness and political compromise has marked the response of mainstream parties to the rise of the BNP. It should be clear enough by now. This is not a temporary blip before we return to business as usual. Ignoring the BNP or playing down their successes will not make them go away. It is time for the anti-fascist movement to go on the offensive.

Griffin's Nazi-style outbursts cannot be dismissed as an irrelevant excess by a marginal figure. He knows what he is doing. He wants to make legitimate what was once illegitimate. He aims to shift the centre of gravity of political debate sharply to the right. He knows that his more extreme rhetoric is in tune with his party's membership, and large swathes of his voters. But he also knows that every time mainstream politicians bend to his agenda in an attempt to occupy ground he is staking out, that the racist argument is strengthened.

It is a pattern we have seen all too frequently in recent years. Faced with a rise in racism, politicians seek to ride both horses at once: deploring racism while conceding ever more political ground to the far right.

Isn't this exactly what Gordon Brown was doing when he called for "local homes for local people"? Concerns about housing are undoubtedly genuine. There are too few affordable homes. But that is because successive governments have relied on the market to provide what it patently cannot do. What should be done is to tackle this policy failure, which would provide affordable homes for all those in need. Furthermore, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has revealed that 9 out of 10 social housing residents were born in Britain, giving a lie to the BNP myths bout "local people" losing out to immigrants and asylum seekers. Instead of focusing on these realities, voters are told that their prejudices are justified and that the government will do what the BNP cannot. It is a tactic that is both cynical and ineffective.

Let us be clear. The response to Griffins call to "sink the boats" cannot be one of pledging to do everything possible to keep out immigrants short of launching missiles at defenceless people. His call for "chemotherapy" against Muslims must be met with robust challenge, and not by conceding that fears of Islam in Europe are justified. The alternative is to accept that ever more extreme and dangerous fascist rhetoric will define the nature of political debate in our society.

Those who promote fear and hatred of African immigrants knocking at our door, or of the Muslims already within the gates of Europe, have to be openly and directly confronted. Their arguments have to be dealt with head on.

It is not legitimate to blame migrants or refugees for the recession. They were not the ones who became rich beyond anyone's dreams while gambling away our economy. It is not legitimate to blame immigrants for rising unemployment. They did not close our factories and devastate our manufacturing base. It is not legitimate to blame ‘outsiders' for the housing crisis. They are not the ones who passed legislation that strangled the ability of local councils to build new housing on the scale we need.

And it is not legitimate to scapegoat Muslims, who represent just 3% of the population, for any supposed threat to British identity. The recent Gallup poll on Muslim integration revealed that while only half the UK population very strongly identifies with being British, 77% of Muslims did so. And only 17% of British Muslims wanted to live in an area consisting mostly of people of the same religious and ethnic background as themselves, compared to 33% of the population as a whole.

This is the positive side of our multicultural society. Being ‘different' is not a sign of alienation from society as a whole. Yet while Muslims increasingly identify with Britain and value its mix of people and faiths, more and more people conclude that Muslims are a breed apart. There is a gulf between the reality of our lives and the perception that is created by a constant stream of horror stories.

Today, it is anti-Muslim racism that is at the cutting edge of the fascist strategy. It is effective because it feeds on the suspicion and prejudice that is the theme of so much mainstream discussion of our lives as British Muslims.

Its consequences are real. Already, there are signs that attacks on mosques and individual Muslims may be rising. The police are warning of the danger of far-right terrorism. And, earlier this month we saw an openly racist provocation in Birmingham city centre, under the guise of a protest against "Islamic extremism" - a label that the organiser made clear applied to all Muslims.

We, as British Muslims, have a direct and immediate interest in defeating this fascist threat. The anti-fascist movement must reach out to Muslim communities who are at the sharp end of BNP attacks. But the rise in racism is not only a threat to Muslims. The BNP may be playing down their anti-Semitism and anti-Black racism in order to drive a wedge between Muslims and the rest of society. But to the BNP we are all "racial foreigners" - our very existence as British people denied.

We have to not only unite all those targeted by the BNP, with every possible ally who rejects racism and fascism. We have to also positively assert our multicultural and pluralist society. It is a message of hope that is in tune in an increasingly interconnected world. It is a source of strength and vibrancy. We are one society and many cultures. And we will only remain so if we are prepared to stand up and be counted.

Salma Yaqoob is the Leader of the Respect Party and a councillor for Sparkbrook in Birmingham

Link: Unite Against Fascism
Link: Respect
Link: Stop Britain’s Nazis: come to Unite Against Fascism’s national conference on Sat 18 July:

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Wearing the burqa is neither Islamic nor socially acceptable

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Wearing the burqa is neither Islamic nor socially acceptable -The Independent.

To deny face-to-face interaction is to deny our shared humanity.

I am a Shia Muslim and I abhor the burqa. I am offended by the unchallenged presumption that women covering their heads and bodies and now faces are more pious and true than am I.

Islam in all its diverse forms entitles believers to a personal relationship with Allah – it cuts out middlemen, one reason its appeal extended to so many across the world. You can seek advice from learned scholars and imams, but they cannot come between your faith and the light of God. Today control freaks who claim they have a special line to the Almighty have turned our world dark. Neo-conservative Islamic codes spread like swine flu, an infection few seem able to resist.

The disease is progressive. It started 20 years ago with the hijab, donned then as a defiant symbol of identity, now a conscript's uniform. Then came the jilbab, the cloak, fought over in courts when schoolgirls were manipulated into claiming it as an essential Islamic garment. If so, hell awaits the female leaders of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Soon, children as young as four were kitted up in cloaks and headscarves ("so they get used to it, and then later wear the full thing," said a teacher to me who works at a Muslim girls' school) and now for the graduation gown, a full burqa, preferably with dark glasses.

White liberals frame this sinister development in terms of free choice and tolerance. Some write letters to this paper: What is the problem? It is all part of the rich diversity of our nation. They can rise to this challenge, show they are superhuman when it comes to liberty and forbearance.

They might not be quite so sanguine if their own daughters decided to be fully veiled or their sons became fanatic Islamicists and imposed purdah in the family. Such converts are springing up in Muslim families all over the land. Veils predate Islam and were never an injunction (modesty of attire for men and women is). Cultural protectionism has long been extended to those who came from old colonies, in part to atone for imperial hauteur. Redress was necessary then, not now.

What about legitimate fears that to criticise vulnerable ethnic and racial groups validates the racism they face? Racism is an evil but should never be used as an alibi to acquit oppressions within black and Asian or religious communities. That cry was used to deter us from exposing forced marriages and dowry deaths and black-upon-black violence.

Right-wing think tanks and President Sarkozy of France scapegoat Muslims for political gain and British fascists have turned self-inflicted "ethnic" wounds into scarlet propaganda. They do what they always have done. Self-censorship will not stop them but it does stop us from dealing with home-grown problems or articulating objections to reactionary life choices like the burqa. Muslim women who show their hair are becoming an endangered species. We must fight back. Our covered-up sisters do not understand history, politics, struggles, their faith or equality. As Rahila Gupta, campaigner against domestic violence, writes: "This is a cloth that comes soaked in blood. We cannot debate the burqa or the hijab without reference to women in Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia where the wearing of it are heavily policed and any slippages are met with violence." What happened to solidarity?

Violent enforcement is evident in Britain too. A fully veiled young chemistry graduate once came to my home, her body covered in cuts, tears, bites, bruises, all happily hidden from view. Security and social cohesion are all threatened by this trend – which is growing exponentially.

As for the pathetic excuse that covering up protects women from male lasciviousness – it hasn't stopped rapists in the most conservative Muslim nations. And what a slur on decent Muslim men, portrayed as sexual predators who cannot look upon a woman without wanting her.

We communicate with each other with our faces. To deny that interaction is to deny our shared humanity. Unreasonable community or nationalistic expectations disconnect essential bonds. Governments should not accommodate such demands. Naturists can't parade on the streets, go to school or take up jobs unless they cover their nakedness. Why should burqaed women get special consideration?

Their veils are walls, keeping them in and us out. We need an urgent, open conversation on this issue – which divides the Muslim intelligensia as much as the nation. Our social environment, fragile and precious, matters more than choice and custom should to British Muslims. If we don't compromise for the greater good, the future looks only more bitter and bleak. Saying so doesn't make me the enemy of my people.

Link: More from Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

The wheels come off “the good war” in Afghanistan by Robin Beste, Stop the War Coalition

The wheels come off “the good war” in Afghanistan by Robin Beste, Stop the War Coalition.

We have had weeks of government and army propaganda selling the “good war” in Afghanistan as being for the benefit of the Afghan people and as necessary to Britain's interests. There has been:

• Endless stories in the tabloid media about "our boys" heroism bringing "stability and security" to Afghanistan;

• Armed Services Day on 27 June, with army parades and other events up and down the country glorifying mass murder as a career;

• The sponsoring by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of toys depicting British soldiers as "action heroes";

• The rigid control of journalists reporting the war to ensure only the MoD's version of events gets media coverage.

All of this has been aimed at portraying the war in Afghanistan as an honourable cause on its way to being won. It was meant to culminate in a major British offensive in Helmand Province codenamed Operation Panther's Claw.

Biggest military operation

The biggest military operation by the British military since the invasion in 2001 was always as much a propaganda exercise to sell the war to the British people, two thirds of whom oppose the war in Afghanistan, as a military exercise with coherent aims. As even the pro-war Observer newspaper commented, "The reality is that the war in Afghanistan is increasingly aimless and lacking in coherent strategy."

It was utterly predictable that the wheels would come off the propaganda wagon trying to promote the "good war" with a troop "surge" in Helmand, not least because the Taliban were understandably not too keen to hang around to be incinerated by the horrific firepower used by the US and British military. They simply melted away.

Occasional hit and run tactics were still enough to inflict image denting casualties on the British army. Within the space of ten days, from 1-10 July, ten British soldiers were killed, including the highest ranking army officer to die in battle since the Falklands War in 1982. A number of others were seriously injured, adding to the statistic which we never read about in the mainstream media, that a British soldier has a one in eight chance of being seriously injured or contracting a serious illness when deployed to Afghanistan.

"For the good people of Afghanistan"

The latest British fatality brings the number killed in Afghanistan to 179, equalling the fatalities in Iraq.

According to the army commander of the latest dead soldier, "He laid down his life for his country and for the good people of Afghanistan". This is simply nonsense. He laid down his life for a war which many senior British officers say privately — and a few publicly — is unwinnable.

He sacrificed his life because Gordon Brown — as much a warmongerer as his predecessor — is determined to hold on to the coat tails of America's imperial strategy, wherever it takes British foreign policy, whatever the costs in the lives of those sent to kill and be killed in foreign lands, and whatever the financial cost to a British economy now so indebted that essential services such as the NHS, education and social services face draconian cuts.

Perhaps even the pro-war media is realising the game is up. The Observer now says there has to be "a final burying of the 'war on terror' rhetoric and the idea that what happens in Afghanistan presents a serious security threat that challenges us in an existential way... What is needed is a serious debate about what we are doing in Afghanistan".

The Observer concludes that without this debate, "the war in Afghanistan can only drag on, with deaths on all sides". Such a debate can only reach one conclusion: there is no possibility of stability or security in Afghanistan while a single foreign soldier remains in the country.

It is for this reason that the anti-war movement needs to maintain the highest level of active opposition to a war that is killing Afghan civilians at double the rate of a year ago and bringing endless devastation to country ravaged by the invading armies.

London Public Meeting: Monday 13 July: »The good war? Afghanistan in the Media...

Sign the Troops Out of Afghanistan petition here...

Link: Stop The War Coalition
Link: Military Families Against the War

Respect - which way now?

Respect - which way now?

At the Respect National Council meeting held in London on 27th June, a discussion was held regarding the strategy Respect should adopt in the aftermath of the Westminster expenses scandals and the recent European Parliament election results, including the election of two BNP members in the North of England.

There have been a variety of analyses of these results such as those published by Salma Yacoob and Southwark Respect branch (see this blog lower down).

In advance of the meeting a motion was submitted by National Council member Nick Wrack for discussion. However, this motion was ruled out of order by the National Chair Kay Phillips as it was received after the deadline for motions that she had set prior to the meeting. As a result this motion will now be discussed at the next National Council meeting, to be held on September 12th. It was the feeling of the National Council that this motion deserved wider debate across the organisation and so we are asking that branches and/or individual members consider the issues involved prior to the next National Council.

If individuals, groups of members or supporters or branches wish to make comments with regard to this motion please could they send them by email to myself, the National Secretary, at clive@respectnorthwest.org prior to 5th September so that these comments may be circulated to all the members of the National Council.

Yours in solidarity,

Clive Searle

MOTION by Nick Wrack
This Respect National Committee notes the resolution headed Respect perspectives (elections) that was agreed at the 2008 Respect conference. This included the following:

1. "Conference recognises that Respect cannot, at this stage, present an alternative at elections except in a few places. Conference therefore agrees that Respect will seek to work with other organisations and individuals who also want to build a leftwing alternative, with a view to presenting the broadest possible left-wing challenge at elections. This could include electoral alliances, non-aggression pacts, joint lists and other such methods of collaboration."

We believe that it is imperative that there is the biggest left-wing electoral challenge possible at the next general election, to give working-class people the opportunity to vote for candidates who represent their interests.

We note the continuing fall in the Labour vote.

We note also the recent collaboration between the RMT, the CPB, SP, AGS and others in NO2EU. We also note the recent Open Letter from the SWP.

We would welcome talks between Respect and these organizations and others with the aim of creating a left-wing electoral coalition to challenge at the next General Election.

In order to maximize impact it would be best if this coalition could agree to stand under a single name and with a common minimum programme.

We therefore agree to write to the above named organizations to propose that talks are set up to discuss these issues.

Proposed by Nick Wrack (past National Secretary of Respect)

Editors Note: The Editor of this bog would urge all Respect members and branches to support this motion at the September National Council of Respect - let your branch know your views (members can use the E-mail address posted above in this article)

Link: Respect
Link: Statement on left unity - Southwark Respect

Why not build the houses? - Morning Star

Why not build the houses? - Morning Star Comment

It is always frustrating when you watch a government palpably missing the point and failing to do something which is clearly necessary.

And it is even more so when the government in question is a Labour one, a government which should surely be able to add two and two to make four.

But we should probably have got used to it by now, given that new Labour has demonstrated an ability to miss the point at every available opportunity.

And new Labour's Cabinet shows no inclination to change its dreary ways.

We have an economy which is struggling to keep its, and our, heads above water. We have the best part of three million people unemployed, even by the government's phoney figures.

And that government is sitting by, merely trying to make small gestures to assist the private sector to reflate an economy which is stagnating, starved of cash by a banking sector, in large part funded by the taxpayer, that seems more interested in its bonuses than in recapitalisation.

And we have a construction industry that is overflowing with skilled and idle workers, without the jobs that they need and without the opportunity to exercise those skills. All this while we have a crisis in housing which is reaching epidemic proportions.

According to the National Association of Estate Agents, nearly one in four people claim they are unable to get a mortgage due to the tighter lending criteria being used by banks and building societies.

In addition, the Council of Mortgage Lenders says that eight out of 10 young people are receiving help from their parents to raise the huge deposits they need to buy their first home, which may be all right if your parents have that sort of cash to hand, but doesn't help the majority of young working people one iota.

And, in the midst of this, Shelter Scotland is warning that the number of council homes for rent in Scotland is at its lowest for 50 years.

The charity warns that the figure is 18 per cent lower than in 1998 and the lowest figure since 1959.

As Shelter Scotland director Graeme Brown said: " The figure lays bare the chasm between the number of homes needed and the number available to Scotland's people.

"It's a crisis that's built up over time and can only be solved by building more homes."

And the position in England and Wales is little better, if at all. But the private-sector housing industry is dying on its feet, starved of capital and, given the lack of mortgages for first-time buyers, neglecting the entry-level market where housing is most needed.

The government has made timid noises about changing the system to allow local authorities to recommence housebuilding. However, it's all too little and too late.

A scheme to answer this problem is certainly not rocket science. It's not even difficult to outline.

Release local authorities to restart the housebuilding projects that were, since the second world war, such an important and positive part of their function.

Stop ploughing billions of taxpayers' cash into banks which just pocket it and steer it towards large-scale housing development to answer the clear and obvious need.

And move away from the private sector and back into direct labour for this scheme, cutting out the profiteering cowboys who have been soaking up huge percentages of any public money that they can lay their hands on.

Workers in building, in manufacturing, in transport and in all the myriad skills that the construction industry needs would all gain from having the work.

More cash is pumped into the economy and the claimants become the consumers again. Everyone benefits, those needing housing most of all.

Unfortunately, it's still beyond new Labour to grasp that the bankers and the profiteers have no idea of social responsibility beyond profit.

It ain't rocket science, but it appears that it's still beyond new Labour's free marketeers.

Link: Morning Star
Link: Defend Council Housing

"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