LENIN'S TOMB

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The worst has yet to come posted by Richard Seymour

I wrote this for Jacobin:

Recently, I proposed a few points about the conjuncture in Britain. None of these were offered in the spirit of hard and fast conclusions, but the aim was to begin to explain the stability and longevity of the coalition government in the face of quite serious social resistance despite its obvious weaknesses. One factor that certainly needs to be added to this list is the delayed, protracted nature of the crisis facing the British working class.

It is often said that this government forgot the lesson that the Thatcherites learned: the need to salami slice one’s opponents, taking on weaker quarries first and only moving on to larger prey after a few demonstrative kills. This government seems to be taking on everyone at once. Its attacks on the public sector have at times seemed to be reckless, its negotiating stances absurdly hubristic, the sweep of its offensive indiscriminate. Yet the two parties of government still have a plurality between them; they aren’t attacking everyone at once, they are attacking certain definite social constituencies, which are traditionally core Labour constituencies. Of course, in the context of the wider capitalist offensive, this means that the vast majority of the working class, and a significant section of the middle class, suffers. But they are doing so in a staged, multilayered fashion, and that has made a difference...

Labels: anti-capitalism, austerity, british capitalism, capitalism, capitalist offensive, the meaning of david cameron, tories, working class

Friday, August 03, 2012

I would very happily dance on Thatcher's grave. posted by Richard Seymour

Louise Mensch would be appalled. The Queen Mother had just died, and I was in a pub near Trafalgar Square. There were some shrugs, and baffled looks, as the news spread. I know I’m supposed to care, but…? Suddenly, a friend very loudly struck up the tune of “Ding-Dong! The witch is dead”. The uncertainty suddenly resolved into mirth. It was the first time that any royal has brought me genuine joy.

Now, according to Mensch, the Tory ‘feminist’, this sort of thing is as serious a form of unacceptable public behaviour as racism. Invited by a young Labour Party supporter to join a party planned in the event of Margaret Thatcher’s demise, she made an issue of it on Twitter. Demanding that the Labour Party “discipline or repudiate those who would celebrate Lady Thatcher's death”, she insisted on a “statement that rejoicing in anyone's death is, like racism, cause for expulsion”. Challenged by a member of the public, she redoubled her contention one could not wish for Thatcher’s death and be a member of the Labour Party.

As far as I know, Mensch is not a member of the Labour Party. She does not pay dues, or vote in its elections. Yet she presumes to have a say over the party’s internal life, and to effect a dramatic change in its rules by virtue of running a Twitter account.

Labour bosses gave in a little to this transparent ploy, issuing an eye-rolling, placatory condemnation. The Tory bloggers claimed victory, and Mensch preposterously waxed magnanimous, congratulating Labour for its good sense. But it is unlikely that Labour are dense enough to expel members for publicly wishing Thatcher’s death, as that would leave them with a rather emaciated party.

All this does not, by any means, make Mensch a bossy, priggish crackpot. I wholly concur with her logic. Like her, Ialso have a Twitter account, and what I want from the Tories is a simple statement that they will expel Louise Mensch at the earliest opportunity. I will keep tweeting until they concede my demands, or at least humour me with a vapid statement.

Still, I want to pursue the moral logic of Mensch’s stance. Mensch is increasingly notorious for taking stances. Readers may recall, for example, her defence of innocent “families” when UK Uncut staged an excessively civil protest at Nick Clegg’s home. Likewise, Mensch stood up for Rupert Murdoch when it was suggested that he was anything other than a great newspaper man fit to run a major company, and protected his son from parliamentary criticism.

Now she is standing up for “Lady T”, who is so reviled that social media like Facebook are overburdened with ‘events’ promising celebrations when she finally gives up her earthly mandate. What these cases have in common is that despite her propensity to speak in an annexed language of progress, she always defends the rich and the powerful, and those in the camp of reaction. In this case she does so while claiming that Thatcher-hatred is in some sense equivalent to racism. To make such a claim requires a degree of ignorance and tone-deafness that is actually difficult to find outside of the Conservative Party.

Racism is a type of oppression. It is linked to a set of practices which systematically exploit, marginalise and devalue those who are its targets. Those who perpetuate it inexcusably add to the sum of human misery. Hopefully it can be agreed, as a minimum, that Thatcher-hatred is not a type of oppression. It has no link to oppressive practices, and indeed no established link to any deleterious effect for anyone’s material circumstances, including those of Mrs Thatcher. This is to say nothing of anything Mrs Thatcher might have done to incur, and thus deserve, popular contempt.

Yet, if Mensch has a habit of this type of advocacy for those who are already rich and powerful, she also has a penchant for sneering at and lecturing those who are not. Who can forget her dim suggestion, delivered with Hooray Henrietta panache, that those protesters in St Paul’s had already enjoyed the full benefits of capitalism by virtue of being able to drink Starbucks coffee. So, you can run a newspaper if you bug a dead girl’s phone, but drink a latte you must foreswear politics. The hysterical denunciations of UK Uncut’s anti-Clegg protest, and now the pettifogging complaints about Thatcher’s haters, are merely typical of Mensch’s impostures.

This is not a difficult pattern to decipher. Mensch, despite her shallow ‘progressive’ rhetoric, is a sycophant of the rich. And anyone with a modicum of self-respect should scorn her pathetic Twitter campaigns, and vow all the more to raucously celebrate the demise of Britain’s most hated leader. And I believe I know a good song that revellers can dance to.

Update: Louise Mensch quits! I declare my crackpot Twitter campaign a success!

Labels: civics, civility, class struggle, conservatism, ruling class, socialism, thatcher, thatcherism, tories, working class

Thursday, July 05, 2012

David Cameron and the big society posted by Richard Seymour

My talk from last year's Marxism:

Full recordings from last year here.

Labels: conservatism, david cameron, gramsci, hegemony, neoliberalism, organic crisis, petty bourgeoisie, ruling class, thatcherism, the meaning of david cameron, tories

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Who are you calling a 'socialist'? posted by Richard Seymour

My latest in The Guardian:

Nick Clegg, a "communist". Vince Cable, a "socialist". This is the euphonious sound of the Tory right on the warpath – and with every marble intact. Dismiss such invective as mere boilerplate if you will, but the increasing tendency to reach for the S word as a polemical armament against the most humble proposals for reform from pro-business centrists has a lineage, which it would be a mistake to miss.

Labels: anticommunism, liberals, nick clegg, obama, sad sack liberals, socialism, tea party, thatcherism, tories, working class

Saturday, May 05, 2012

The anti- vote. posted by Richard Seymour

I am currently on a writing job, so can't spend too much time on this. But the elections deserve at least a word or two on the Tomb.

First of all, let us all rejoice in another Liberal Democide, a Liberal Defenestration, a Liberal Decomposition, a Liberal Debacle, a Liberal Demolition Derby, a Liberal Demise. Let's hug ourselves with pleasure at Liberals Demolished, and Liberals Disemboweled. There is no more civilized spectator sport than rubber-necking at a Liberal Democrash. They're Lib Dead, Lib Dumped, and Lib Derelict. They're finished. Brian Paddick got less than 5% in the London mayoral elections, actually losing to Jenny Jones of the Greens, only just beating the ex-civil servant 'non-party-political' Siobhan Benita (to whom we will return). Nationwide, they were mauled by Labour. Their share of the vote remained in the region of 15%, meaning that they haven't recovered from their nadir last year. They lost over three hundred councillors. They held onto six councils, all in relatively wealthy areas of Cheltenham, Hertfordshire, the Lake District, Hampshire, and Portsmouth. Their long march into Labour heartlands has been reversed, and their retreat has left orange carcasses everywhere. It is not so much that the centre is collapsing, though there is an element of that. It is that the Liberals can no longer occupy any space to the left of the centre.

The wolf-eyed replicant seems unperturbed. Watching him on the news yesterday, I suddenly saw that he had the look of a man who did not give an immense fuck. He said the words 'sad' and 'sorry', and pouted in what might be a cyborg's imitation of human affect. But it was as frigid as a penguin's fart. One imagines him, faced with a demoralised membership and backbench, scowling at them all to grow up and live in the real world. This is what it costs to be in office, to make difficult decisions. There are parties and party leaders across Europe who are willingly immolating themselves in order to implement austerity measures and appease the gods of finance. For Nick Clegg, to be down to 16% in local elections is no great pain. He expects growth to resume at some point before 2015, and Osborne to introduce an inflationary, give-away budget just before the general election. And perhaps there will be some landmark liberal reform just in time for the vote: the abolition of badger confinement, or the introduction of large print safety tags on electric blankets.

Second, and much better, the Tories finally got some of what they are due. Their share of the vote is back down to 31%, they lost the GLA, and they lost over four hundred council seats. Their notoriously ill-disciplined backbenchers are already decrying Cameronite triangulation for having failed to motivate grassroots conservatives with the classic poujadist pabulum: prison for strikers, deportation of you-know-who, and the restoration of the cat o' nine tails. How about that? And the reactionaries are not stupid. They may slightly over-estimate the challenge from UKIP, for now, but they understand the need for a more populist conservatism. One Tory MP complained yesterday that the government had wasted the last budget cutting taxes for the rich when they could have cut fuel duty. The latter would have been a conventionally right-wing policy, while also handing a material incentive to the base. Because the major reason the Tories lost was not due to a Labour surge, but to the complete demoralisation of the right-wing vote. Turnout was the lowest for over a decade. Labour under Ed Miliband certainly can't be credited with galvanising people on the basis of anything so tangible as an agenda. It was almost wholly an anti-government vote.

Third - oh, and this is delicious - the rout of the fascists. As things stand, the BNP seem to have lost every seat they contested, and their mayoral candidate received less than 2% in London. The sad old geezer with the orange Sainsbury's bag who returned twice to deliver BNP newsletters in our area won't live to the see the Fourth Reich after all. Their electoral meltdown, after a decade of constantly expanding their base, seemed to have come very suddenly after their peak in 2009. It must be said, because few will admit it, that it didn't actually happen that way; there was a great deal of hard work by anti-fascists going on below the media radar to split the fascists from their right-wing, racist electoral base, thus preventing these racists from empowering a bunch of Nazis. Such campaigns made all the difference in Barking and Stoke, which were the key electoral battlegrounds in 2010, where the BNP's slide began. Simultaneously, there were ongoing fights to prevent the 'mainstreaming' of Griffin and the BNP, by fighting for a 'no platform' position within unions, student bodies and so on. And of course, the physical obstruction of the far right organised under the canopy of the EDL, whose aim has been to incite the sort of riots and racial polarisation that gave the BNP their first open door in Burnley, Bradford and elsewhere. (How different those cities look and feel today). The EDL's decisive setback, I still maintain, was in Tower Hamlets. Since then, they have been losing momentum and numbers. There is still a mass base for right-wing, racist and authoritarian politics. It just won't find expression in an empowered fascist bloc for now.

Finally, and this is no good at all, Boris Johnson returns to City Hall. His friendships with Alexander Lebedev and Sarah Sands - respectively, proprietor and editor of the Evening Standard - undoubtedly helped. The Standard ran a scare campaign to mobilise the anti-Ken Livingstone vote, claiming that reams of illegitimate votes were being racked up for Ken in Muslim areas. But this would have had less traction were it not for the Labour Right. These people embarked on a sabotage campaign in print and on television, their hatred for him vastly disproportionate to their real political differences with him. Some openly said they supported Boris Johnson and would vote for him. Others muttered darkly that it was far from ideal that Ken was the candidate. 'Hold your nose' and vote for him was Tom Watson's advice. Some of this reflected resentment over the way Livingstone had himself defied the party bosses and the right-wing managerial establishment in the East End to back Lutfur Rahman. More generally, it reflected discontent with Ken's anti-racist, centre-left politics, the way that he would occasionally shoot from the hip and embarrass the functionaries of our increasingly managed democracy. And it has been suggested, and I can't help concurring, that there's a certain amount of resentment in the charisma-free political class over his ability to communicate with the plebs.

I don't completely disagree with those who say that Ken Livingstone helped sabotaged himself. It's true that he could have motivated more people to turn out and vote for him, that his campaign wasn't hugely ambitious and that he's far too fond of the Metropolitan Police. It's also true that he said some stupid things, offered some hostages to fortune, and allowed Andrew Gilligan to provoke him into a ridiculous miscalculation over his tax affairs. But he would have carried an election on this agenda in 2000 or 2004. His defeat cannot largely be explained by his lack of radicalism alone. The fact is that he got fewer votes than the Labour Party itself, which was hardly running on a programme of radicalism; meanwhile, Boris received considerably more votes than the Conservatives. There was an active anti-Ken vote. This could only have been neutralised to the extent that Johnson was successfully depicted as an ally and confederate of the government, which he adamantly refused to be. That is why it was so important that sections of the Labour Right endorsed Johnson, thus colluding in the attempt to represent him as something other than a Tory.

There was also a slight whimper of excitement among some Labourites over Siobhan Benita, a former civil servant who espoused a vague, seemingly apolitical liberalism - a drip, you might say, of the first water. Well, why not? She was a close colleague of Gus O'Donnell, the former Blairite cabinet secretary, and had accumulated supporters such as Sir Richard Branson and Michael Portillo. She had high profile communications experts on her campaign team, who procured some glittering coverage of the passionate 'Mum for London' with her 'People Not Politics' schtick. They made her a t-shirt which, appropriating a recent Stonewall campaign, said "I'm an independent. Get over it." Inevitably her clothing and appearance came up. Because she's a lady and, well, that goes with territory does it not? Between lechery on the one hand, and condescension on the other ("she's awfully pretty, but..."), it seemed that her professional dress and business-like demeanour conformed to a certain ego-ideal among the capital's petty bourgeois ideological producers. She was like Nicola Horlick, supermum, juggling a career and a family, striking an almost Zen balance on all sides. As a consequence, Benita polled much better than pre-election surveys anticipated. But if London's politicos have got that out of their system, I hope it's the last we'll be seeing of that sort of thing. I disapprove of the 'non-political' politician, just as I think we need more of what the bores call 'punch and judy politics', not less.

As for Livingstone, I regret that this was his last election. As the results came in, and his tally crept ever closer to Boris, one almost thought he might do it on second preference votes. To paraphrase P G Wodehouse, the voice of Fate seemed to call him, but it was the wrong number. "Harrow? Is it me you're looking for? No?" No. Goodbye, Ken.

Labels: boris johnson, david cameron, elections, ken livingstone, liberals, london, mayor, nick clegg, tories

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Mayor debate posted by Richard Seymour

The organisers of tonight's mayoral debate, London Citizens, took it upon themselves to vocalise #whatlondonwants. That is, as a civil society organisation rooted in the churches, synagogues, mosques, community groups, trade unions and so on, it drafted a moderate agenda for very mild and temperate social reform, and put this to four of the mayoral candidates: Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone, Jenny Jones and Brian Paddick. The agenda included things like community land trusts and cracking down on dodgy landlords, extension of the living wage, more power and money for civil society groups like London Citizens (this is called better government), safer streets, jobs for young people, and so on.

The actual debate was surrounded by much adornment and ballyhoo. A school choir singing "Lean on Me" while the audience clapped. Many upbeat preacher types exhorting the accomplishments of community and the power of positive attitudes. Headteacher types treating the audience like a school assembly. Children summoning all their courage to mumble their scripted words. "Community leaders" aplenty - a slimy phrase which I detest. I thought to myself: what this event really needs is some corrosive cynicism.

Of genuine interest, however, were testimonials from campaigners and workers, relating stories about a side of London that seemed to make Boris Johnson's head slowly sink forward into his big fat-fingered hands as if to be cradled to a gentle sleep. The most shocking example was of cleaning workers in Hilton hotels, overworked, given no overtime remuneration, and payed such a miserable sum that after rent and utility bills they have only £7 a day to spend on essentials. In London, that's an impossibly small sum. You might want to bear that name in mind: don't caught in a bad hotel.

A few points about the main debate, then. First, quickly, it was only out of politeness that Brian Paddick was actually invited. He's a nice enough fellow for an ex-copper, and he's sporting some very sexy new glasses. And I thought to myself, I thought: "blimey, Brian, you ain't as ugly as I thought". And he even has some policies that aren't complete dogshit. But he's a Liberal, ergo he's a dead man walking. And he didn't do anything to improve his chances. If Jenny Jones wasn't such a repellent candidate for the Greens (more in a momen), they would easily take third position. Aside from anything else, Paddick is far too fond of cliche phrases along the lines of: "not just once a year, but 365 days a year", "taking this forward", "passionate about London ... passionate about people", "same old punch and judy politics". And I thought to myself, I thought: it's lucky Siobhan Benita isn't here as she would have nothing left to say. Which just goes to show, Brian Paddick is not a natural politician. He would be far happier giving up all this lark, growing his hair a bit longer and living with some scrumping hippies in the West Country.

Second, this was a naturally Labour audience. It always is. The organisers make a point of being polite to the point of obsequious to all the candidates, and this ensures a warm reception for everyone. This was true during the general election, when Clegg and Cameron were both feted with every sign of being returning footballers holding aloft a shiny new cup. Yet, despite this, you may recall, Gordon Brown carried the event on a wave of euphoria, and had one of his few real moments during that campaign (because he sounded briefly and vaguely like a Labour person). So, it's Labour territory. This was Ken's to lose; and, he didn't lose it. His fares policy was extremely popular, but not as much as his pledge to restore the EMA for London students. The latter, I would think, he should probably be making more of. His housing policy is pretty bland and not that distinguishable from his rivals. On the police, he hasn't changed his schtick - he's about getting Londoners and coppers 'on the same side again', and putting more officers on the beat. Soft on police crime; soft on the causes of police crime. But it was mainly on issues of national significance that he pulled ahead of his rivals. He beat on the government's public spending cuts, and said that as the economy had just tipped into recession it was obvious they'd taken the wrong course. (Well, they don't think so). He also hammered the bankers, and said that the problem was fundamentally about how they and their greed had been allowed to set the tone in politics and industry for a generation or so. This was all very popular. So, I think he was the de facto London Citizens candidate. And I think he will push Johnson very close in this race.

Third, Boris Johnson confirmed every thesis I have advanced about his campaign, which makes me even cleverer, if that is possible, even cleverer than you imagined me to be. First of all, Johnson wanted nothing to do with being a Tory. He did not once rise to defend Tory ideas. The only whiff of it was when he gently patronised the audience over the call for youth jobs, by saying: "I don't want to create 100,000 new jobs if there aren't young people out there with the skills and the aptitude to do them". But this was small beer when he wouldn't even defend public spending cuts - far from it! When his chance came, he rose to echo Ken Livingstone in saying that, of course, Mr Obama was absolutely right and one should never cut public spending in a recession. He then went on to list his various investments. Then there was the dog that didn't bark. You see, when faced with a simultaneous campaign to impose a Living Wage and create jobs, the Tory's instinctive response is to say, "no, you create jobs by cutting wages. You can have high wages and high unemployment, or low wages and low unemployment. But you can't have high wages and low unemployment, by the power vested in me by hidden hand of the free market." Boris? He was all for the living wage, all for more jobs, all for everything the London Citizens wanted. And, well, if he was inconsistent or coy, he is such a skilled gaffeur that he could amiably bumble and bluster his way out of tight spots. He didn't even raise an eyebrow when he said he would put Ray Lewis - yes, Ray bonkers Lewis - in charge of the Living Wage. Now, of course, it's true that Boris was addressing a Labour audience. But this hesitancy to come out as a Thatcherite, the unwillingness to be seen dead near the government's policies, the desire to come through this without bearing any of the stigma of actually being a Tory, is indicative of what he's about. Boris Johnson wants to lead the Conservative Party. Moreover, his willingness to publicly bash government policy - such as the granny tax - shows that he is unafraid of anything his old friend Cameron might do to him. He knows the leadership is weak.

Finally, and apologies for the slight change of tone, but just who the fuck does Jenny Jones think she is? If you want to patronise and berate people, probably you shouldn't stand for election. If you don't like the sound of other people's voices, maybe just go stand in a corner. Of course, this will sound harsh. But when I tell you that, first of all, she was boring - very boring - you will begin to see my point. And patronising. She patronised the audience not just on the detail of policy, but in every nuance of her tone. Like Brian Paddick, she had a few policies one wouldn't completely turn one's nose up at, but I got the feeling she was there mainly to heighten her profile in the GLA and shore up Ken for a future working relationship. And when she opposed the idea - advanced by London Citizens - of free transport for students, she did so in a tone of voice that was rather like mummy saying 'you can't have that, but it's for your own good'. She explained that her opposition was partially on the grounds of environmentalism, which strikes me as both dishonest and reflecting the worst elements of green anti-consumerism. After all, it isn't as if most students have any choice but to use public transport - all keeping these punitive fares does is ensure that they spend more of their money on the necessary commutes, and less on things they need. Then, when booed for this policy, she chastised the audience "no, you're not allowed to boo me, they [the organizers] said so". Not a joke, this - complete poker-face all the way through. Yes, it's true that the organizers had proscribed booing, but a) this is a pretty risible, pettifogging prohibition at a political debate, and b) if you're a politician and you get an audience this friendly booing, blame yourself. You fuckwit. Jenny Jones lost votes tonight. And if this is her form, which I believe it is, she's a terrible candidate.

So there you are, London. Your choice. You lucky, lucky city.

Labels: boris johnson, green party, ken livingstone, labour, london, tories

Monday, April 02, 2012

The privatization of the NHS posted by Richard Seymour

My latest for ABC Australia:

The rich want healthcare. Believe them about this. They want hospitals, doctor's practices, insurance, patient care, pharmaceutical provision, all of it.
Last year, four out of the 10 most profitable industries in the US were healthcare-related. This was due to the fact that these industries were providing services rather than more tangible products, thus keeping overheads low, and the fact that the services were, in the sickly phrase of Forbes magazine, "need-to-have". That is, compulsory. Need to have, or you'll die.
This is why healthcare is such a prized asset for businesses, and why they are desperate to crack open health sectors globally. And it is one reason why the British coalition government is undertaking the most fundamental demolition job on the National Health Service since its foundation in 1948.

Labels: capitalism, health care, neoliberalism, new labour, NHS, privatisation, tories

Friday, March 30, 2012

Galloway wins posted by Richard Seymour

I won't pretend. I never believed for a second that George Galloway would win the Bradford West bye-election for the Respect Party, much less that he would win with more than 50% of the vote and a majority of more than 10,000 votes, that the coalition vote would simultaneously collapse (the Liberals lost their deposit) and that all this would happen on a turnout of over 50% (very high for a bye-election).

For me it opens up many strategic questions for the Left. Because Galloway seemingly didn't have a huge amount in his favour. He didn't have a lot of money or a powerful local machine. He didn't have a sympathetic media establishment. He didn't have the support of the mosques in Muslim areas, who overwhelmingly backed Labour. The Respect Party for which he stood is not a well-oiled national organization, able to mobilise activists at short notice. One thing he did have in his favour was his renown, but that has obvious drawbacks, and there were many, many Labour big-hitters flooding the constituency - including the Labour leader himself. So, this result is extraordinary and demands explanation. Both Labour and Tory pundits have colluded in a set of bilious talking points: here comes George Galloway 'stirring up tensions' again, he's going to divide the left vote and let the Conservative in, Big Brother cat impersonator, vain cigar-chomper, doesn't care about the real issues that affect this community, meow, go back to Talksport, indefatigability, fundamentalism, demagogue, Armani suit-wearing attention-scrounger, oil-dealing reprobate, hilarious, sinister, Pat Mustard, etc etc. Even Patrick Wintour of The Guardian participated in some of the worst of this, in a frazzled early morning report which repellently suggested that Galloway won by mobilising the "Muslim immigrant" population around a "fundamentalist call" to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and fight job losses. I gather that the offending statements were removed from the article this morning.

We can dispense with these morality tales at once. Anyone trivial enough to be obsessed with them can find many blogs that cater to that particular fancy. There are even blogs who supported the Labour candidate who will have the cheek to talk about 'communalism', which (if you accept this highly problematic terminology) is arguably one of the things that was defeated in Bradford yesterday. We can also do without the liberal lament ("how-dare-George-Galloway-win-an-election", and "he's-ruining-it!"). The most laughable retort came from a Labour politician who suggested that Galloway had won because of his Big Brother celebrity. If he'd lost, that hardly luminous moment in his career would probably have been cited as a cause. We can drop that stupidity as well. Nor do I want to argue the toss with those on the Left who have allowed otherwise sensible disagreements with Galloway to obscure what is most important about this campaign - which is that its victory is a step forward for the Left, and particularly for the working class constituencies in Bradford West affected by racism, unemployment and cuts. I simply take it as read that anyone on the Left with a sense of proportion will welcome this result, and move on.

The major strategic question that the result raises is how the Left relates to Labour in this period. If it was wrong to underestimate the ability of social democracy to revive itself in opposition, it is evidently just as mistaken to underestimate the real weakness of Labour. The fact that Ed Miliband has been aware of the secular degeneration of Labour's base, and seemed to have some vague idea of addressing the problem, doesn't mean that that he has been empowered to do anything. Nor does it mean that his solutions have been anything but feeble. Miliband's solutions appear to be predicated on the idea that Labour's problems in its previously formidable working class strongholds are mainly organizational. That is, they can be resolved by incorporating a passive membership base, further reducing union influence and somehow 'reconnecting' with the 'grassroots'. Either that, or they require better 'communication'. Ideologically, his leadership is weak and prevaricating. The thematic of the 'squeezed middle' interests few and excites no one, while the moronic Blue Labour guff turned out to be deeply damaging. Politically, his leadership has worked to dampen and contain resistance to the cuts within the labour movement. This is in some ways just the classic mediating function of social democracy - don't struggle, just vote for us and we will bargain a better deal for you. But when this mediating function is captive to the logic of neoliberalism, the practical difference that Labour can offer is woefully inadequate.

Harriet Harman, who is far from the worst in Labour's leadership, showed the paucity of Labour's analysis when she insisted that 1) this result in Bradford a purely regional phenomenon, with no wider ramifications, and 2) this has nothing to do with Labour's failure to oppose, since "We've had a completely different argument from the Tories, arguing that they are cutting too far, too fast." The latter, of course, is not "a completely different argument". It is an argument which accepts the principle of austerity; which is to say, it is an argument which accepts that working class people have to put up with a generation being lost to joblessness, with tuition fees, privatization, service cuts, benefit cuts, and the evisceration of local infrastructure. The real problem is that Labour has no sense of how to oppose the coalition, because it has preemptively conceded most of the territory. This is because Labour's leadership knows that if the party wins a general election, they have no intention whatever of adopting a fundamentally different course or of significantly reversing anything the Tories now implement.

And of course, it isn't just Bradford West. There were regionally specific factors assisting Galloway's victory, above all the local hatred for the managerial, machine politics of the Labour establishment. But that machine has been in place for a long time. Nor is it just a question of Muslim voters being disaffected with Labour. The fact that some of the poorest and most oppressed workers in the UK have also been most willing to vote for left-wing candidates shouldn't even raise an eyebrow. It is obvious, or at least it should be to marxists. If it was only Muslims who could be reached on such an agenda, that might be a cause for concern, but Galloway gained more than 50% of the vote by mobilising a multiracial coalition. This was a working class vote for a left-wing mandate. It reflects not just polarization over austerity, a generational transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich, but also Labour's thus far hapless response. The landslide for the SNP and Scottish Labour's ongoing problems, particularly in Glasgow, discloses essentially the same dynamic. It has yet to be tested, but I think Plaid Cymru's new left-wing leadership could seriously strain Labour's presence in Wales. And the Greens' Brighton victory in 2010 shows that wherever there is a serious left-of-Labour challenger, Labour has something to worry about. Galloway had it right in his victory speech: Labour "must stop imagining that working people and poor people have no option but to support them if they hate the Tory and Liberal Democrat coalition partners."

Of course this opens a space, no more than that, for some sort of left-of-Labour formation. We should not be thinking purely or even mainly in electoral terms. Labour's crisis is part of an organic crisis which is engulfing all the parties, and which is changing the relationship between those parties and their social base. It is not just a question of masses fleeing from old banners and flocking under new banners. Those parties which temporarily gain from social democracy's paralysis and breakdown only to emulate the social democrats in their basic mode of organization, often find themselves implicated in the same processes of breakdown. What this crisis is doing is raising the question of new modes of organization, new ways in which masses relate to parties. We know, for example, that there are going to be intense social struggles in the next few years, and orienting properly to those is even more important than exploiting electoral openings. A formation of the militant, anti-cuts left is surely a reasonable goal in these circumstances.

There's another reason why it is important to recognise and act on this opportunity now. The question of austerity was never going to be resolved solely at the level of industrial conflict. The lesson of austerity is precisely that it is at the level of politics that "that the contradictions of the economy are concentrated and that their ultimate resolution is decided." In fact, even industrial struggles aren't won or lost purely at the level of industrial conflict. Their success is partially contingent on the political 'line' that is won in those struggles, which depends on having a wider network of militants and activists plugged into every form of resistance, drawing and sharing lessons across the different fields of struggle, helping to overcome weakness and unevenness and resist the tendency of the union bureaucracy, particularly its Labour-affiliated right-wing, to retreat. That requires a degree of coordination and unity on the militant left that has thus far been lacking. More generally, the struggle against the cuts requires some degree of coordination between different levels and types of activity, and some form of organization that can negotiate a shift from one locus of struggle to another, as events progress. We have already seen that things can look very bleak in the trade unions, then a student protest comes along and changes the whole calculus. Likewise, a string of occupations can be winding down, only for a mass TUC-led anti-cuts protest to re-ignite the whole question. Or, the situation can suddenly be radically re-polarized by a series of riots, and the presence or absence of a left with some weight can make all the difference. And so on, and so on. The fact is that 'austerity' is so comprehensive in its targets that its effects are likely to appear in aleatory and unpredictable ways at various points of antagonism. Negotiating between and unifying these struggles is a strategic imperative, which is why I previously argued that the competing anti-cuts vessels of the Left should merge into a single flotilla. I would now say there is space for a political organization which is more cohesive and ambitious in its objective; not a re-make of past models, nor a revamp of existing ones, but a new formation which quite deliberately sets out to organize and reconstitute those segments of the working class that are now well to the left of official Labourism.

The main obstacle to achieving something here is not the tenacity of Labourism so much as the weakness of the organized left at this stage. But unlike the former, we can do something about the latter. We can certainly solve any problems of organization that have dogged us in the past, provided we acknowledge them. That's why the ostrich-like response of the monomaniacs who can only see Galloway's flaws, and only see the result as a victory for a vanity campaign, is particularly irresponsible. It is a moralistic abdication of the duty to engage in a concrete analysis of concrete situations, to think through the strategic possibilities, to calculate the relative gains and risks of the courses that are now open to us. As I see it, the onus is on the Left to act on this opportunity.

Labels: anti-cuts, anticapitalism, austerity, ed miliband, george galloway, new labour, socialism, socialist strategy, tories, working class

Thursday, March 29, 2012

The sinister magic of Boris Johnson posted by Richard Seymour

My article for Open Democracy on Boris Johnson and London's mayoral contest:

In 2008, the outer ring of rich suburbs in the capital turned out en masse to elect Boris Johnson as their mayor. These suburbs, ripe in the spring air with the whiff of barbecues and bigotry, knew what they wanted. A mayor who would cut all the trendy programmes, put the frighteners on young thugs, sock it to the unions and practice a suitable ambiguity toward London’s unsettling multiculture...

Labels: boris johnson, ken livingstone, london, mayor, neoliberalism, reactionaries, sociopaths, thatcherism, tories, trade unions

A short history of privatization in the UK posted by Richard Seymour

My latest in The Guardian explains the course of privatization over the last thirty years or so:

Royal Mail is being auctioned, and not necessarily to the highest bidder (and stamp prices are going up). The London fire brigade is outsourcing 999 calls to a firm called Capita, at the behest of the oleaginous chair of the capital's fire authority, Brian Coleman. Multinationals are circling hungrily around NHS hospitals. Schools are already beginning to turn a profit. In the technocratic nomenclature of the IMF, this would be called a "structural adjustment programme", but that doesn't really capture the sweeping scale of the transformation. We can see this through a potted history of privatisation in the UK...

Labels: accumulation-by-dispossession, austerity, capitalism, education, fire brigade, neoliberalism, new labour, NHS, privatisation, public services, royal mail, tories

Friday, March 02, 2012

Tories retreat, bemoan isolation posted by Richard Seymour

I really think now is the time to cash in on my previous prognosis that the government would prove to be remarkably weak and potentially fragile at the first sign of a serious fight. Of course, I wasn't the only one saying this, but the reasoning has held up quite well. Yesterday, David Cameron urged British businesses to stand up against the "Trotskyites" of the Right to Work campaign. He knew this would really upset us, as only complete ignoramuses ever use that locution. But he also invited people to notice that the Labour front bench hadn't joined in the red-baiting of the opposition to workfare.

The fact that this petulant lament was followed by a backdown, in which the government was compelled to withdraw the benefit sanctions from the workfare scheme (thus de facto killing the heart of the programme) underlined the fact that the speech was a down-in-flames whimper of defeat and isolation. No one had stood up for the policy, beyond the right-wing press and a few known Tory businessmen like Sir Stuart Rose, who has also castigated the failure of the capitalist class to unite behind their government.

But the reality is that the Tories don't seem to have given business much to unite behind. Few of the participating businesses really seemed to understand the finer points of the policy, just the general idea that they were getting, en masse, millions of free man hours of labour out of the deal. This resulted in hasty, confused statements and retractions being released by companies in quick succession, and eventually the exit of a melanoma of businesses (yes, that is the real collective noun) while others urged the government just to drop the compulsory element that made it such a mouth-watering scheme to begin with. Businesses hadn't signed up for a fight, nor for the embarrassing sorts of flash-mob protest pioneered by groups like UK Uncut to great effect.

In general, I would suggest that while they like the material benefits the government promises them very much, the capitalist class is likely to be very divided over whether the government is capable of delivering it without seeing the whole country burned down in the process, over whether it is part of a coherent growth strategy (a low-wage economy has its draw-backs for large capital), and over whether the Tories are the best party to deliver anything. For, the government are woefully inadequate to the scale of the task they have set themselves of structurally adjusting British capitalism. Their complacent mis-handling of the union negotiations shows this. Actually, so did their astonishingly inept handling of the riots, during which they signally failed to build any right-wing populist capital out of the fiasco. They haven't had a serious class fight in almost twenty years, and during most of the hiatus they have been out of office. Only the pathetic weakness of the opposition has spared them. But as the Trotskyists have shown, it doesn't necessarily take many people to put this bunch on the back foot.

Labels: austerity, capitalist class, capitalist crisis, coalition, neoliberalism, ruling class, tories, trotskyism

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

A joint statement from the Conservative Party and the conservative press posted by Richard Seymour

The government and the right-wing media would like it to be known that they are very disappointed with the lack of scruple, principle and resolve on the part of the capitalist class. In these difficult, austere times, it was incumbent on them to make very public, proud, ostentatious use of freebie labour, and to show class-wide unity in the offensive: not wilt under the slightest pressure from the Socialist Guardian BBC Bloody Trotskyspart General Strike Workers Party.

The aforementioned parties have therefore decreed the following:

1) it is a disgrace that a tiny party with no seats in parliament can make us look likely bloody idiots;

2) of course, we don't look like idiots - they look like idiots, we look great, and we're winning (winning, winning, winning!);

3) businesses have to stiffen their spines and stop pretending that they're embarrassed to be seen in public with us... yeah, well, does our face look bovvered?;

4) you turn if you want to, Greggs, Tesco and the rest, but we're not for turning, unless you want us to. Do you want us to? Do you want some free money? We'll give you free money. Look, have Iain Duncan Smith's house, he doesn't need it, he sleeps in the fucking crypt.;

5) it's not true that we're very unpopular. The SWP is very unpopular. We have written it in our columns, and said so on the television, and now everyone knows just how unpopular the SWP is.;

6) the SWP is a tiny party, completely irrelevant, things would be perfectly okay if everyone would stop talking about the SWP.;

7) the SWP has eaten our hamster.

Labels: hopeless attempt at red-baiting, media, right to work, ruling class, socialism, socialist workers' party, swp, tories, unemployment, workfare

Monday, January 16, 2012

Austerity in Canada: Canadian Labour at the Crossroads posted by Richard Seymour

Guest post by Doug Nesbitt:

A wage cut of fifty percent. An elimination of pensions. Cuts to benefits.

These demands have inevitably led to a major showdown at a locomotive factory in London, Ontario between the 700 unionized workers of Electro-Motive Diesel and Caterpillar, a massive US-based corporation. The workers, members of Canadian Auto Workers Local 27, responded to the employer’s demands with a positive strike vote of 97 percent. The employer, Progress Rail, a subsidiary of Caterpillar, locked the workers out on New Year’s Day.

In addition to facing down a notorious anti-union employer who hammered the American United Auto Workers in the 1990s, there are plenty of rumours about Caterpillar closing the London plant and moving operations to Muncie, Indiana. EMD workers in London make $CDN 36/hour while their counterparts in Muncie are paid only $CDN 12.50-14.50. Indiana is also on the cusp of becoming the first rust-belt state to introduce a "Right to Work" law, a notorious form of anti-union legislation made possible by the even more infamous Taft-Hartley law of 1947, the long-standing crown jewel of American anti-union legislation.

The response of organized labour to the lock out has been swift. The Ontario Federation of Labour is coordinating a mass rally in London on January 21 with buses coming in from numerous cities across the province and as far away as Sudbury and Ottawa. The OFL is anticipating at least ten thousand protesters.

Mainstream media coverage has also been extensive and the shocking nature of Caterpillar’s demands have so far ensured that coverage has been neutral and even supportive of the workers. The story is being covered by all major Canadian dailies, prime-time news hours on CBC and CTV, and has received coverage in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and now the European and Australian press.

Not surprisingly, the federal government has stayed silent. Since they won their first majority government in May, the Tories have gone to war with organized labour. In June, postal workers were locked out by Canada Post, the state-owned crown corporation. The Tories responded with back-to-work legislation which called for pay increases lower than the employer’s last offer.

Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt went further, twice threatening to legislate Air Canada flight attendants back-to-work, even though Air Canada was privatized in 1988. From a party espousing government non-intervention in the economy, Raitt’s reasoning behind intervening in the private sector was that Air Canada was essential to the economy. This absurdity was repeated in October when Raitt floated the idea of defining the “economy” as an “essential service”, thus providing some pseudo-legal justification for further interventions.

The government’s hypocrisy goes further. In March 2008, on the very shop floor of EMD London, Prime Minister Harper announced a billion dollar tax break to industry in 2008, $5 million of which went to EMD London. Two years later, EMD London was purchased by Caterpillar.

Despite its record high revenue and profits in 2011, stemming from sales of its machinery to a booming resource sector (tar sands, mining), Caterpillar is attempting to destroy a union. In addition to their anti-union stance, the threat of roughly two thousand jobs being lost in London, and their profiting off environmental disasters like the tar sands and mining operations around the world, Caterpillar supplies Israel the bulldozers it uses to carry out house demolitions in occupied Palestine.

This leaves labour – and all the political allies of labour – at a crossroads in this high profile, high stakes clash between workers and state-blessed corporate power. The implications for other workers – such as Toronto municipal workers, the locked steelworkers of Alma, Quebec, the York Region Transit workers, and all other workers, union and non-union – couldn’t be greater. Since the Tory victory in May, employers, public and private, have received the message loud and clear: the federal government is siding with them in a sustained attempt to hold down wages and benefits, slash them where possible, and break the ability of workers to resist these moves by breaking their only means of defence: unions.

Is labour up to the challenge? The OFL has already moved the rally’s location from the picket lines outside the factory, to downtown London’s Victoria Park eight kilometres away. The move is explained by the OFL as ten thousand being too many for it to be “safe” on the picket line. What nonsense is this? Fifteen thousand pickets peacefully shut down the Port of Oakland last November in an Occupy-initiated general strike.

Holding the rally in Victoria Park will ensure that is a symbolic display of opposition and nothing more. Only a few hundred of the ten thousand will likely take up Local 27’s invite to the picket lines after the rally. Thousands of protesters will be boarding buses after the downtown rally to head back home and won’t have time to make it to the picket lines.

If you’re having deja vu, you’re not alone. Last year, ten thousand people from across Ontario attended the Hamilton Day of Action against US Steel held January 29, 2011. On the steps of Hamilton City Hall, union leaders and labour politicians denounced the lockout and backed the steelworkers refusing to see their pensions gutted by US Steel. A short march made it around a few cold and deserted downtown blocks before returning to City Hall. As one of the hundreds who lined up for union-sponsored buses back to their respective hometowns, I later that we had marched past the old Stelco building, US Steel’s Hamilton office, without even stopping to do anything.

The days of action in Hamilton and London may boost the spirits of locked out workers, but what will it accomplish beyond this? In the wake of Occupy as well as the Capitol Building occupation in Wisconsin last year against the stripping of public sector bargaining rights, the time seems ripe for bolder action. Bold action could galvanize thousands of Canadians angry at the Tories and the one percent, could overturn the limited range of Canada’s political debates, and maybe just put employers and the Tories on the back foot for once.

The battle at EMD might be lost, but it could still be a turning point for labour by showing a new determination to take more controversial but increasingly necessary actions to counter the “race to the bottom” overseen by an entrenched federal government keen on hammering workers and dismantling hard-won social programs.

Drawing on the Occupy movement, the Spanish Indignados, and the Republic Windows and Doors occupation in Chicago from late 2008, occupying EMD London should be on labour’s agenda. In this sense, moving ten thousand pickets away from the factory is a lost opportunity for initiating the occupation. If this sounds too radical, Egypt and Occupy have changed what’s possible – an occupation could be a galvanizing moment for Canadians and become a worldwide beacon of resistance. And the story of EMD London exposes so clearly the intertwined problems of corporate greed and tax breaks, the war against workers, failing democratic institutions, environmental destruction and imperialism. And what better union than the Canadian Auto Workers, founded on the plant occupations in Flint and Oshawa in 1936 and 1937, to carry this out?

Even if an occupation doesn’t happen but the demand is shouted loud enough – “Occupy EMD!” – it normalizes the idea among networks of workers and activists and lays the groundwork for occupations taking place in inevitable future labour disputes.

The decision to occupy will have to be taken by EMD London workers themselves. But solidarity actions can be carried out across Ontario and beyond. Caterpillar owns Battlefield Equipment Rentals with over 30 locations in Ontario, two in Manitoba and five in Newfoundland. The activist networks built up by the Occupy movement could link up even more with trade unionists to spread the resistance to Caterpillar far beyond London itself. This is what Americans did last August when dozens of Verizon Wireless stores across the country were picketed in solidarity with the communication workers strike against Verizon. The union, Communications Workers of America, even launched an “adopt-a-store” campaign for local activists to show their support, leading to many weekly pickets of Verizon Wireless stores.

Where Battlefield Equipment Rentals can’t be found, pressure can be put on the 166 Tory MPs riding offices in every province, highlighting government complicity with the corporate tax breaks to EMD London. Ottawa labour activists already showed this could be done when they occupied John Baird’s riding office during the postal worker lockout.

In short, the Canadian labour movement needs to reinvent itself and abandon the long-standing attitude towards conciliatory relations with employers, hopeless appeals for government intervention, and a general neglect of the wider, non-union working-class. The lockout in London makes this reinvention both necessary and possible. London could be the place where the labour movement – or at least a substantial minority of activists, union and non-union – recovers a tradition of militancy on behalf of the whole working class and sees itself as a collective force for economic and political justice and transformation.

About the Author

Doug Nesbitt is Co-Chief Steward of PSAC 901 representing Queen’s University Teaching Assistants and Fellows. He was born and raised in London, Ontario and now lives in Kingston pursuing a PhD in History at Queen’s. He also co-hosts Rank and File Radio, a weekly labour news program on CFRC 101.9FM.

Labels: austerity, canada, capitalism, class struggle, labour, liberals, occupy wall street, tories, trade unions, working class

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

From the clutches of (partial) victory posted by Richard Seymour

It can't be that often that a Tory minister, anxious to look smart, does something stupid. Can it? I have watched this government with some perplexity, wondering if I have underestimated its cunning, or if they really do think they can arouse the whole labour movement and organised left in unified opposition, and trounce them in a jiffy. Their complacency as they embarked on a structural adjustment programme more extreme in its intended effects than anything accomplished by Thatcher, whether the blowback comes in the form of student protests, riots or strikes, seems extraordinary. Seemingly convinced that they need not offer any material substratum to secure the consent of a viable social bloc for their agenda, they simply turn to harsher policing. Apparently unable to imagine the riff-raff posing a real threat to them and their superior class allies, they forget the old salami-slicing praxis and just revel in the reluctance of their opponents to fight, pushing them around, taking their provocations to indulgent, extravagant new levels.

And just when it seemed that the government had finally revisited the old techniques of divide-and-rule, offering just enough concessions to win tacit acquiescence from Unison and GMB leaders while attacking and isolating the PCS, Pickles goes and spoils it all by saying something stupid that destroys it. For sure, the deal announced between the government and (some) unions over pensions was awful, so awful that it was a real question whether rank and file workers could be made to swallow it. The government conceded nothing in terms of its bargaining totals, nor the principle issues over which the two sides were in negotiation. Even a moderate, media-friendly Labourite like Sally Bercow was denouncing the agreement as a sell out yesterday. The idea that those who hit the pickets and streets on 30th November were more likely to take such a deal is dubious. But evidently the union bureaucracies who have been most reluctant to fight are now the most eager to call of hostilities and negotiate the terms of surrender. Without the support of union leaders in the big Labour-affiliated unions, getting strike action back on the agenda for the New Year is that bit harder. So, it is only reasonable to infer that Pickles just blew a tactical victory for the government.

The problem now is that the government and the union leaders will be back around the table to patch this up quickly, rush the deal through and make it a fait accompli as soon as possible. Trade unionists are now planning an emergency lobby of the TUC over this, to go with the emergency meeting (you should go) and emergency statement (I invite you to sign). This is a pivotal moment in the struggle against austerity. So much hangs on whether the organised labour movement will even put up a fight. That will make all the different between the vindication of Tory arrogance, and its humiliating reproof.

Labels: class struggle, labour, liberals, public sector workers, strike, tories, trade unions, working class

Friday, December 09, 2011

The Unilever strike, pensions and structural adjustment posted by Richard Seymour

An article for The Guardian about the Unilever strike:

Unilever workers have embarked on the first national strike in the company's history, over the company's attempt to close the final salary pensions scheme, which will result in a 40% reduction in retirement income for many of its workers. The company, in a stunningly inept move, decided to punish the strike by cancelling Christmas parties and bonuses for the workers. Thus, Unilever, a blue chip company that takes pride in its philanthropic past and "responsible" industrial relations policy, found itself branded Scrooge.
Unilever is one of the companies to have weathered the global crisis in robust fashion. In February 2011, its profits were up 18% on the previous year, at some £5.2bn. Labour productivity has always been reasonably high, in part due to negotiated productivity deals with trade unions. Yet, the company is on the offensive against its workforce. Why is this?
Unilever will say that the current pension system is impossible to fund. This was the argument it used in 2008 for closing the scheme to all new entrants, only three years before closing it to existing members as well. The workers argue, though, that the pension fund is financially robust, and that the company itself admits there is no immediate financial imperative driving the cuts.
This is taking place in the context of a record number of firms shutting final salary schemes and replacing them with much less generous settlements. The GMB's negotiator argues that Unilever simply saw an opportunity to follow the trend. But there is probably more to it than that...

Labels: austerity, class struggle, militancy, pensions, ruling class, strike, tories, wealth transfer

Monday, December 05, 2011

For a people's inquiry into the summer riots posted by Richard Seymour

The Guardian and the LSE have published their findings on the summer riots. There is no doubt that this presents valuable data, which broadly supports the argument of those on the Left who said it was primarily a response to political injustice. The analysis acknowledges that, for some, the riots presented an opportunity to obtain free goods. But it does not support the claim that the riots were predominantly an outburst of criminality, or that gangs played a significant role. The riots were mainly political.

It finds: just under half of those rioters interviewed were students, and a significant component of their anger came from the sense of injustice over the scrapping of the Education Maintenance Allowance and the tripling of tuition fees, cutting off higher education and thus life chances for millions; of those who were not students, 59% were unemployed, in contrast to some misleading coverage claiming that a disproportionate number were in work or even middle class; gang members played at most a peripheral role; while there was a wider perception of social injustice motivating the involvement rioters, the issue of police injustice, horrificially underscored by the murder of Mark Duggan, was the most significant cause of the riots; 73% of those interviewed had been stopped and searched in the previous three months. Now, the issue of the police was always marked by a strange silence in the accounts of those who said that it was primarily a matter of 'looting'. Much of the rioting that took place centred on confrontations with the police rather than theft or vandalism. Such theft as did take place was not always clearly pecuniary in motive - often it appeared to be targeted, as did some of the vandalism. In fact, the main form of 'opportunism' that is apparent is where young people, often on the receiving end of police harrassment and violence, saw an opportunity in the breakdown of police control to exact revenge. Because of this, many of the interviewees express pride, not remorse. They say they felt empowered, and would do it again. This is not new. So, all this data is useful and should be scoured carefully, the findings reviewed in their full complexity. Have a look at this video by Guardian journalist Paul Lewis:

However, as I understand it, this study is a limited review of one aspect of the story, that being the motivations and views of the rioters. The other main reports come from the Metropolitan Police, and the government's 'independent panel'. It is undoubtedly possible, through a reading of all of these reports, against the grain where necessary, to acquire a workable political understanding of what took place, and what is highly likely to take place again. It's important that such an understanding should inform a broad political response. The government, far from retreating on its agenda, is gearing up for major confrontations. The police, far from facing justice, have recently been let off the hook over the death of 'Smiley Culture', and now have more weapons with which to threaten people - as student protesters menaced with the possibility of water cannon and rubber bullets can attest. One would like to think that the dominant response will be in the form of social struggles, protests, strikes and occupations. Indeed, that is more or less what one expects. However, the most implausible scenario is that the riots will be a one off. And that's something that we have to be ready for, especially given how insanely most people reacted.

So, here's a proposal - a bit late, but still worth thinking about. We need a people's inquiry into the issues, the narrative, the outcomes and the appropriate response to the riots. It should be funded by subscription or donations, and it would require the participation of people able to put in a lot of hours interviewing witnesses and reviewing evidence. There is a model for this. Recently, I was directed to a number of reports published in the 1980s concerning riots that had taken place. These were unofficial people's inquiries, conducted in a judicious manner with the aim of establishing a full narrative which would disclose what public authorities were reluctant to acknowledge, and what was occluded in media coverage focused on vandalism and violence: police brutality, official racism, and so on. For example, in response to the events in Southall in April 1979, an Unofficial Committee of Enquiry was set up, chaired by Michael Dummett, to establish the narrative, the causes and failure on the part of the authorites. It heard evidence from eyewitnesses, participants, those directly or indirectly affected in Southall. It collated and scrutinised data published by the authorities. The final report was published by the National Council of Civil Liberties. Among the Committee's members were Stuart Hall, who wrote much of the report, as well as Labour MPs such as Joan Lestor and Patricia Hewitt (uh huh), alongside trade unionists, clerics and a representative of the Asian Resources Centre in Birmingham. This doesn't seem to be available online, but I got what I think is a rare copy from Amazon, and I shall be scanning it and making it publicly available as soon as I can. The idea here isn't to retrospectively endorse every conclusion reached, or to say that we can simply mimic every principle of organisation adopted then. Rather, it is to illustrate how a well-organised inquiry bringing together a relatively broad coalition of elements can form the basis for a political response. Now, I don't know how one would begin to go about materially constructing the coalition necessary to get an inquiry up and running today. I don't know what it would cost or who would supply the personnel. But I bet some of the people reading this have a better idea than I do. So, think about it.

Labels: education maintenance allowance, metropolitan police, neoliberalism, police brutality, police shooting, riots, tories, tottenham, tuition fees

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

On Democracy Now about Nov 30th posted by Richard Seymour

Labels: austerity, class struggle, public sector workers, strikes, tories, trade unions

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Nov 30th posted by Richard Seymour

My ABC article explaining the background to tomorrow's strike:

The public sector strike on November 30 will be the largest strike in the UK since the general strike of 1926.
Two to three million workers could take part. Unlike our continental counterparts, coordinated strikes of this kind are extremely rare in the British trade union movement. As such, its political importance, if the action is successful, will be much greater than in the continent.
Why has it come to this? In a sense, the answer is obvious. 'Austerity' involves the most serious attempt to restructure the economy, to the detriment of working class living standards, in decades. It involves reducing wages and pensions, diminishing bargaining rights, cutting jobs and reducing the bargaining power of labour. Everywhere that these measures have been introduced, whether in Wisconsin or Greece, there has been resistance.
Yet, there was no guarantee that the British trade union movement would respond in the way that it has. Decades of declining union composition since the serious defeats inflicted on organised labour – notably, on the miners and the print workers – have left unions in a weaker position.
The orthodoxy among trade union leaders since then has been a form of tactical conservatism known as the 'new realism'. This approach involved unions avoiding confrontation in favour of bargaining with the government of the day. Every sign until last year was that the Trade Unions Congress (TUC) would adopt this approach in dealing with the government's cuts, negotiating to mitigate the effects of cutbacks rather than seriously attempting to obstruct them. Indeed, before grumblings from the shop floor scuppered the plan, union leaders had intended to invite prime minister David Cameron to address congress last year. So, what changed?

Labels: austerity, class struggle, cuts, militancy, public opinion, public sector workers, strikes, tories, trade unions

Monday, November 28, 2011

Strong public support for strikes posted by Richard Seymour

The government has lost the argument:

An opinion poll commissioned by BBC News suggests 61% of people believe public sector workers are justified in going on strike over pension changes.
More than two million people are due to walk out on Wednesday.
The research also indicates differences between men and women in their outlook on the strikes and the economy.
The polling firm Comres interviewed 1,005 adults by telephone across England, Scotland and Wales one week ago.
The poll indicates greater sympathy for the industrial action among women - at 67% - compared with men, at 55%.
Younger people, it also suggests, are considerably more supportive of the strikes than pensioners; almost four in five 18 to 24-year-olds back the action, a little under half of over-65s do.

Labels: class struggle, coalition, labour, liberals, militancy, public opinion, public sector workers, strike, tories, trade unions

Sunday, November 27, 2011

November 30 posted by Richard Seymour

Just a quick note. The political class knows that this strike is going to be huge. For a while, I detected an attempt to play it down, to say that it wouldn't be as big as planned, or to suggest that it would be welcome because the disruption would drive people into the arms of the coalitions and its cuts agenda. But the results from all of the unions have been unambiguous. In most cases, the vote for strike action has been in excess of 80%, and in all cases over 70%. That's an overwhelming mandate for a fight, right across the organised core of the working class. Now the stories of the scale of disruption anticipated are starting to pile up. Worse, the government fears that the strike itself will harden the attitude of the workers, making it more difficult for the union bosses to sell them a duff deal. Now, mark this. Labour, whose leader has repeatedly turned his rhetoric against the strikes, is starting to sound a slightly different note. Alan Johnson, the leading Labour right-winger (and a likely successor to Ed Miliband) came out and defended the strikers, saying: "If they can’t [strike] over an issue as important as their pensions then what can they take industrial action over?" Now, the shadow chancellor Ed Balls has felt compelled to add his "huge sympathy" for the strikers, and blamed the government. The political class are beginning to take note: as Mark Serwotka points out, this is the beginning and not the end of the struggle, but Britain will be a very different place on the day after November 30th.

Labels: austerity, class struggle, cuts, labour, liberals, public sector workers, tories, trade unions, working class