The "left" and racism in a time of Brexit

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that, after a quarter century on release to my trade union as a full time lay official, and following fourteen years’ service in the purgatory that is the National Executive Council (NEC) of UNISON, I have returned to work.

I am therefore trying to study for a work-related exam and had no intention of blogging at you this weekend. Unfortunately, having expressed an opinion which some found controversial I have been confronted with such a steaming pile of online ordure that I have to say something.

Like many of you, I am sure, I spend some of my online time in that privatised and corporately controlled part of the internet which we know as Facebook. It was there that, after having chaired a characteristically lively but also good humoured and largely comradely meeting of the General Committee of Brighton Pavilion Labour Party on Thursday evening I ventured to express a few views.

I deplored those who – it seems to me – want to make support for Brexit a litmus test of support for Labour’s leadership. Although this was in the context of Corbyn having dismissed three frontbenchers for having signed up to a mischievous amendment from Chukka Umanna it wasn’t that act to which I was referring.

Rather, I was alarmed that some socialist comrades seemed to see the list of those (including leftwing backbenchers) who had supported that amendment (some in good faith) as a “hit list” for deselection, whereas in my view socialists can legitimately take the view that free movement of labour is worth defending (and extending) and that the membership of the EU single market is, in reality, in the interests of workers in the UK.

I was quite prepared for this view to attract opprobrium from some for whom support for Jeremy Corbyn does appear to be more about a fan club than considered support for the principles he has espoused all his adult life – and in particular from those in the semi-detached fan-club who won’t actually join the Labour Party to provide any effective support for the leadership, but are desperately keen to invent reasons why they were right to line up with UKIP and vote for the UK to exit the EU.

What I wasn’t prepared for was a shocking display of (let me generously describe this as) unconscious racism from socialist(?) “comrades” who could not handle being challenged about their Lexit-obsession by a black person identifying the racist consequences of last year’s referendum outcome.

One “comrade” seriously asked a black fellow trade union member “Why does a UK wide referendum effect you more than others?” Seriously. Asked.

I guess the spike in race hate crime after the referendum result may be easier to forget if you weren’t on the receiving end of it. However, the same individual, when it was put to them (not unreasonably) that they would next be telling their interlocutor that they had “a chip on their shoulder” responded with “no i wouldn't say you've got a chip on your shoulder. I’d say you've a boulder on your back (covering both shoulders), which must be effecting brain functions, which has led you to play the race card and call myself and anyone else who disagrees with the public majority of the referendum, racist and a white supremacist.”

Another “comrade” responded to observations from a black comrade that “if you were Black and/or an immigrant and been the victim of racist abuse (as I have many times since June 2016) the views here may be different. But most of you are not and can therefore choose to chase after UKIP voters instead of recognising what is happening around you to your neighbours and friends who are immigrants or children of immigrants like me.” with the response that “I'm from an immigrant working class family who suffered racism from the moment they arrived in this country so your tedious identity politics liberalism doesn't work on people like me but good try.”

On another thread this same “comrade” seriously (seriously) told a black person that they would be rescuing them with a leftwing government in the context of dismissing the concerns which they had expressed (“we'll be saving you from the massive racism a right-wing Tory government would unleash”) – before being demolished in debate by a young white comrade demonstrating that it is quite possible to spot – and call out – prejudice even if one is not on the receiving end of it.

To say that I am disappointed to find that self-professed socialist activists have the same grasp of racism which we sometimes find in newly arrived white managers in the London Borough of Lambeth (who are invariably shocked to learn that the organisation – sensibly – accepts that it is institutionally racist) would be the least that I could say.

The capitalism in which we live is the capitalism which depended upon and was shaped by the Atlantic slave trade. Our cities (and our world) continue to be shaped by the consequences of those centuries of racist genocide and oppression. Socialists who cannot see the absolute centrality of this experience to our struggle today are as far from socialism as those who think that gender oppression can somehow be relegated for future resolution.

Twenty years ago UNISON activists in local government in London fought hard to make our employers accept their institutional racism. We forced them to commission research which showed that white managers systematically favoured white subordinates and admitted in interviews that the ethnicity of an employee was a powerful determinant of whether disciplinary action would be taken against them. I was as shocked then as I am now by the stark findings of that research.

I am not shocked – but I am angry – that institutions can be so deliberately forgetful about their own racism. I am both shocked and angry that self-proclaimed socialist activists can be less intelligent and aware about racism than the institutionally racist organisation for which I work.

Having said this, I can now go back to revising for my exam. If you could avoid annoying me again for the next week or so I would be grateful. 

Time for the Green Party to affiliate to the Labour Party

Now that I am no longer a UNISON representative I think I should turn my talent for writing controversial blog posts which may upset people to the sphere of my Labour Party activity. As regular readers will know, everything I say here is only my own personal opinion and so what I say here I say as an individual Labour Party member and not as Chair of my Constituency Labour Party (CLP).

One of the pleasures of the recent General Election campaign was meeting my old history teacher (and centenarian) Len Goldman. Len, who has given a lifetime to the struggle for socialism, wrote recently to the Grauniad to express the view that; “In the ‘30s we built a united front against fascism. Today’s inheritors of the fascist mantle need to be fought in the same non-sectarian way. Away with party shibboleths, which often hide real intentions. The Labour MPs who helped the Tories by denigrating their democratically elected leader are a prime example. Labour should at least unite with the Greens and welcome others who are prepared to defend the victims of the Tory onslaught and build a fairer, more democratic society. Caroline Lucas is certainly nearer to the intentions of the originators of the Labour party than those MPs I have mentioned.”

Len’s views are clearly shared by many on the left, including many within the Labour Party both nationally and locally. Unfortunately, however, this has been translated into support for a so-called “progressive alliance” which appears to entail one party (or more than one party) standing down in favour of other “progressive” parties. The fact that protagonists of this approach appear to include the Liberal Democrats (late of Coalition fame) within the definition of “progressive” does more damage to an inherently flawed concept.

It is one thing to vote tactically for a Party you like less than your first choice in order to defeat an even worse enemy – but quite another to deny your supporters the chance to vote for their first choice because you want to dragoon them into such tactical voting whether they want it or not. Those who thought that Labour should have stood aside for the incumbent Green MP in Brighton Pavilion have to face the reality that, whilst she increased her vote, share and majority, Labour came second and held a vote from 15,000 local people (many of whom might not have voted Green had we accepted the argument to step aside).

As we face the possibility of an early General Election, it is worth looking at the relationship between the Green Party and Labour nationally as well as locally in order to consider what we should be doing to avoid unnecessary division between those who want to see Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister. A Corbyn led Government will not only face every obstacle beforehand but also sabotage from the deep state, the media barons, the wealthy and their fifth column in our movement after the election. It is worth looking at every opportunity to unite those who will support such a Government both before and after its election.

The Green Party, outside Brighton Pavilion Constituency face an almost existential threat from the willingness of their former supporters to switch to Labour under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn – in the General Election the party with the most lost deposits was the Greens, they only saved their deposit in 11 of the 466 constituencies they contested. Given that you only need 5% of the vote to save a deposit this indicates that the Greens have been marginalised nationally.

In the Isle of Wight, where Caroline Lucas had argued that Labour should step aside for the Greens they got 17.3% of the vote, more than 4,000 votes behind the second placed Labour candidate in a safe Tory seat. Nationally the Green vote fell by more than half. There were fewer Green Party voters in the 2017 General Election than there are Labour Party members (and that means individual members and takes no account of three million affiliated trade unionists).

There is no prospect whatsoever of the Greens winning any more Members of Parliament without a change in the electoral system unless Labour abandons its current socialist policies. The electoral base of the Greens, to the extent that it exists in a few localities was built largely at Labour’s expense in areas where radical voters saw an effective means to express dissatisfaction with New Labour’s obsessions with privatisation and imperialism. Now that Labour has a socialist Leader and a social democratic programme for Government that electoral base is melting like snow in spring.

Of course the situation within Brighton Pavilion is unique. Caroline Lucas is proven to be a popular local MP, twice re-elected with an increased majority and (whilst some of us in the Labour Party might think some of the Green’s electoral campaigning tactics mirror the worst of the Liberal Democrats) plainly impregnable in the immediate future on the basis of the current constituency boundaries. Many Labour supporters in Brighton Pavilion (mistakenly in the view of your blogger, but not in their view) believe that they can support Jeremy Corbyn by voting for Caroline Lucas (and not only because some of them may have believed the lie that there was a risk of a Tory MP in Pavilion).

In these circumstances, and taking account of the seismic change in both the Labour Party and national politics through which we are living, the answer to the question posed (and answered so unconvincingly) by protagonists of the “Progressive Alliance” is that the Green Party should affiliate to the Labour Party in the same way the Co-operative Party does. The Co-op Party has 38 MPs, all of whom also sit as Labour MPs. If the Green Party came to the same electoral agreement with Labour as the Co-op Party they would put themselves on a fast track to increasing their Parliamentary representation compared to their current strategy of electoral isolation whilst waving the mangy carrot of the “Progressive Alliance” at an uninterested Labour Party.

Perhaps if we had some system of proportional representation there would be room for more than one progressive political party, between which alliances might be formed, but in 2017 that is not an option. The ball is in the court of the Green Party and its lone MP, but if that ball is served to the Labour Party we should be prepared to return it in a very positive way. 

Cheerio UNISON!

Within the next hour I shall cease to hold my last UNISON position as I am replaced on our NEC by the excellent Sean Fox.

It's been a wonderful, exhilarating, irritating, exhausting and fascinating quarter century as a Branch Secretary and - for fourteen years - a member of the National Executive.

I am grateful to those who have supported me over the years - and equally grateful to those who have amused me with their opposition.

Thank you too dear readers for your attention.

I won't be going away from here and may pass comment on UNISON affairs from time to time - but no longer as a UNISON representative.

A sorry little episode

I was saddened to see an inarticulate rant in Friday's "London Calling" (the generally tedious and anodyne Regional news sheet at UNISON National Delegate Conference).

The rant, written by one of the stooges of those who brought our trade union into such disrepute by their misconduct in the General Secretary election, celebrates the "leave" vote to which Londoners were so firmly opposed.

More than that, the author (mentioned by the Assistant Certification Officer in her decision for a previous ill-informed rant) celebrates that "we" have taken back control of "our" borders and speaks of "our national interests".

The visceral hostility to migrant workers expressed by the sorry soul who has cobbled this nonsense together is offensive (and, being plainly racist, amounts to a breach by UNISON of our Rules) but, as significant is the anti-working class political illiteracy of someone who believes themselves part of a first person plural which owns borders and has a "national interest".

Those of us who understand the society in which we live know that borders are controlled in the interests of the ruling class and that there is no "national interest" which unites workers with those who exploit us.

I am only pleased to note that the author of this intemperate rubbish is someone who has been repeatedly rejected by our members when trying to get on our NEC.

His delusions of adequacy are not widely shared.

The grandest finale

I cannot say that I have always enjoyed sitting on the top table at the past fourteen UNISON Conferences.

I haven't always agreed with what my NEC colleagues have got up to. Our trade union has not always been united.

However, I cannot imagine a better way to spend my final day on this platform than to listen to the socialist Leader of our Party explaining his plans for Government.

UNISON today is united in support for the Party Leadership and I cannot remember a better moment at any of the twenty six Conferences I have attended since 1992.

Normal cynicism will be resumed as soon as possible.

Retirement? What Retirement? The unspoken last speech to UNISON...

In my fourteen years on the UNISON National Executive Council (NEC) I think I have spoken from the platform on no more occasions than the four on which I spoke, from the floor, in the two days of my last Local Government Conference as a branch delegate.

My NEC colleagues, recognising that I am outclassed by so many of their number as a speaker, have kindly spared my blushes over the years by protecting me from too much public exposure.

This year however, I was asked to speak should Conference reach motion 56 (Retirement? What Retirement?). I appreciated the wit of asking an NEC member who was voluntarily standing down from the NEC and returning to work to speak on a motion with such a title.

However, the motion is too far down the remaining order of business (known as the “snake”) to be taken before tomorrow lunchtime – and now that we have seen the outcome of the process of reprioritisation of Friday afternoon’s business it is clear that the motion will not be taken and hence my last speech to UNISON will not be given.

Although Motion 56 repeated much that Conference had already discussed and so there is no loss to Conference business from its not being taken, it does mean that I will not be able to address Conference on one of the little discussed social problems which has been a, perhaps unintended, consequence of the removal of fixed retirement ages in recent years.

This has created space for a pernicious new form of elder abuse, in which older workers are denied the opportunity to retire and enjoy their pensions under pressure from (for example) partners or colleagues who cajole the older worker into continuing to work even where this is against the wishes and best interests of the worker concerned.

Since I will now be leaving my last UNISON position tomorrow, having successfully engaged in the sort of succession planning which it is the responsibility of all of us to attend to, it will be for others in our Union to consider whether, and if so to what extent, UNISON should address this problem in future.

Individual responsibility and collective irresponsibility

I mentioned a little while ago this morning’s meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) (the second to last such meeting in my fourteen years on this august body). Towards the end of the meeting we descended into pantomime as an NEC member spoke by means of asking questions which he clearly considered to be rhetorical, but then objected when I yelled out answers!

One such question was about collective responsibility of NEC members, a vexed question about which regular readers of this blog will have become quite bored over the years.

Sitting on this top table at the Brighton Conference Centre I recollect when, twenty years ago, my friend and former NEC colleague Roger Bannister led a minority of NEC members off the platform and then proceeded to speak, against the NEC majority, in support of a motion censuring the NEC over its conduct in relation to the Hillingdon hospital dispute.

So those of my NEC colleagues who believe that we have “always” had the approach to the collective responsibility of NEC members which we have now are quite wrong. It will be for the incoming NEC (and future NECs beyond that) to decide how to proceed in future.

(As you can tell by the fact that I am obviously sat on the top table writing irritating little blog posts with which many NEC members might disagree) I am inclined to a fairly liberal approach to collective responsibility within our Union.

It is a complete misconception to apply the principles that apply to collective trade union discipline in our relations with the wider world to our internal affairs. When we negotiate with employers or go into dispute with them it is essential that, having agreed our position, we act as one. This is a correct application of the principle of collective responsibility.

However, when we debate within our trade union then – until we have made our policy decision – we should allow the fullest freedom of expression. From my point of view, a Conference decision is not taken until it is taken and I have never accepted that, as an NEC member, I should hide my own opinion from the members I represent just because it differs from that of the majority of NEC members.

However, the majority of NEC members believe that, once the NEC has agreed its policy then all NEC members should support that policy in internal debates within our trade union. I disagree with that view because I don’t think that the relationship between the NEC and Conference floor should be the same as the relationship between the employer and the trade union – but I can just about follow the logic of the other point of view.

Within the NEC however, the incremental extension of the interpretation of collective responsibility has scaled heights of absurdity as it is now applied to the Committees to which NEC members are appointed. As a member of the Development and Organisation Committee of the NEC I have, for a number of years, been prohibited from speaking or voting at a full NEC meeting against a recommendation from that Committee.

You don’t need much grasp of maths to realise that such an approach to collective responsibility could easily lead to a majority vote of the whole NEC which reflected the views of a minority, rather than a majority of the members of the whole body. (If a Committee with 25 members votes by 13 votes to 12 for a policy which all 25 must then support and is subsequently passed by 34 votes to 33 at the full NEC then the policy of the NEC would reflect the views of 24 out of the 67 members).

I hope that my friends and comrades on the new NEC will manage to bring a little more reason to their future deliberations and will, at least, dispense with the nonsense of “collective responsibility of Committee members on the NEC”. It may take a while longer to get back to the grown-up position of recognising that our NEC is not a monolith.