ONE YEAR TWO ELECTIONS : KEEP MORE THAN AN EYE ON BOTH

Next year will see two elections. Both are likely to be defining moments. The General Election and the election for General Secretary of the country’s biggest trade union ‘Unite’.

Jerry Hicks whose successful legal challenge last year forced an election in the Amicus section of Unite has, after being urged by many, decided to stand again.

He is deeply critical of Unite’s failure to protect its members despite the tens of £millions having been handed over to the Labour Government during what he says are the ‘squandered / wasted years’, meaning the 3 terms of Labour in office.

He also argues that fundamental change is needed in the union’s relationship with New Labour which he describes as being – too close – too cosy – paying too much – for far too little. £13 million of members’ money has been donated since 2005. While supporting over 100 Labour MPs, not even the basic right to re-instatement when unfairly dismissed has been achieved. ‘The returns have been pitiful’.

The union opposes PFI hospitals as well as academy schools yet we are ignored. We demand better pensions yet we have the second lowest state pension in Europe. We should support only MPs or councillors, current / prospective, who support our policies.

Whoever wins the next election, cuts and attacks are staring every workplace, every union member in the face.

Gordon Brown has said Labour would legislate to halve the deficit. £75bn in cuts and even more Privatisation. Nick Clegg the Liberal leader said they would make savage cuts. George Osborne the Tory shadow chancellor boasted that within 3 months of being in office they would be the most unpopular Government since the 2^nd World War.

Given the size and make up of Unite, it makes the election for the union’s General Secretary the most significant union election for decades.

Jerry Hicks has been highly critical as to the wages of the General Secretary. He said “Fat cats in the city are rightly despised, just as MPs who are a world away from reality. Why have a ‘Fat cat’ General Secretary in our union with remuneration in excess of £130,000 living a lifestyle nothing like that of our members.” This will end, if elected he would only take the average wage of a skilled worker. This is certain to strike a chord, as none of the other candidates are likely to say the same.

Jerry Hicks said “Our union leadership, many of whom will seek to become the General Secretary have been unable to face up to Labour. Can our members be sure they can stand up to the Tories if they get in?”

Ends: Notes for Editors: Unite is not only the country’s biggest Trade Union it’s also the biggest single donator to the Labour Party. Jerry Hicks will most likely be the only candidate who is not a senior official of the union. This was also the case last time, however he secured support from every region and sector of the union, coming second, within touching distance of incumbent General Secretary Derek Simpson who will not be standing this time round. Jerry Hicks is thought by many to be a possible winner.

Jerry Hicks can be contacted on Tel: 078 178 279 12 Visit www.jerryhicks4gs.com

Integrated Risk Management Services is a company managed by former members of the Irish Army’s counter terrorist and special forces. One of its employees got himself killed by Bolivian police who claimed that he was involved in a plot to murder Evo Morales. This is the text of a letter handed intto the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs on Friday by Cristian Dominguez, the Secretary of Natural Resources for the peasant organisation, CSUTCB and Cristian Dominguez and Jose Sagarnaga of the Bolivia Solidarity Campaign.

Minister for Foreign Affairs
Mr Micheál Martin
80 St. Stephens Green
Dublin 2

Dear Mr Martín,

As members of Bolivian civil society in Europe we would like to respectfully bring to your attention matters relating to the Irish-based company Integrated Risk Management Services (I-RMS).

We have information that proves that this company employs or has employed well known mercenaries as Coronel Gyla Attila. It is through these mercenaries that Michael Dwyer, an employee of I-RMS made contact with international mercenaries. 

The I-RMS company provides security to Fianna Fáil for its annual conferences as well as providing security for Shell in Rossport, I-RMS had an advert on its website offering armed and un-armed security services internationally. The advert was taken off the website after the death of Michael Dwyer in an armed clashed with the Bolivian police earlier this year.

We would like you to investigate the links between this company and right wing extremist terrorist groups in Europe and the connexions they have with our country Bolivia.  Bolivia is a country undergoing a deep process of social, cultural and economic change, which has the support of rank and file social organisations. Our government is the representative of the people and was elected with 53% of the votes and ratified with 68% of the votes in a recall referendum. Its legitimacy cannot be questioned.

The presence of Irish citizen Michael Dwyer in Bolivia coincided with terrorist attacks perpetrated in 2008 and the first months of 2009, aimed at destabilising the process of change we describe above.
The actions which led to the death of Mr Dwyer started back in Ireland, when he worked for Irish company I-RMS. Your government, as well as the Irish media, have asked the Bolivian government to investigate these facts, and this is now being done. However, we would like to request from your government a full investigation into the obscure aims and methods of companies which employ mercenaries or terrorists, and which openly offer their services in Ireland.

Cristian Domínguez, secretary of defence of natural resources and the environment of the Bolivian Confederation of Peasant Workers (CSUTCB), is currently visiting Europe. He is a survivor of the massacre of Pando in 2008, which was organised and carried out by those who are experts in organisation wars of secession. Mr Dwyer and the machinery he was a part of should be investigated for their responsibility in these events which left men, women and children dead, and many survivors scarred for life.

The proof that exists against these mercenary groups is conclusive, but we are worried that they are still active in our country, Bolivia. For all these reasons, and knowing your democratic and peace-loving record, we would like to request from the office you represent:

1.- A full investigation into the legal status of I-RMS in Ireland and the services it offers, as well as an investigation into any other companies offering international armed security services from Ireland.

2.- An investigation into the links between security company I-RMS and extreme right wing elements from Eastern Europe. There are clear indications that Attila, an employee of I-RMS, was the contact who recruited Michael Dwyer for his activities in Bolivia. 

3.- Taking into account the danger that these mercenaries pose to our democracy and to Bolivian society as a whole, we would like your government to investigate how many people employed by I-RMS have travelled to Bolivia and whether they are still in our territory.

4.- It is possible that other Irish organisations and/or companies are still offering security training to Irish citizens in Bolivia. If this is the case, the Bolivian government should be informed so it can take action to prevent terrorist activities against the Bolivian state.

5.- We would like to know what knowledge does your government have of these facts and what actions has it taken against these groups and their terrorist activities.

6.- Finally, we would like to respectfully ask that the result of these investigations be made public, so these terrorist cells can be disbanded and cease to be a threat to Bolivia and the world.

Sincerely yours,
Cristian Domínguez
Secretario de Defensa de los Recursos Naturales y del Medio Ambiente  CSUTCB
Amancay Colque, Coordinator  Bolivia Solidarity Campaign
Bolivia Solidarity Campaign-Inglaterra: Amancay Colque – Jose Sagarnaga   
ARLAC, Bruselas- Bélgica: Ringo Guzman
Ballet Folclórico Boliviano, Barcelona – España: Severino Viraca
Bolivia Action Solidarity Network-Canada: Marcelo Saavedra Vargas
Cambio Foro Bolivia, Estocolmo- Suecia: Judith Muñoz – Nelson Monsalvez
Centro Cultural Tupac Katari, Estocolmo-Suecia
Comisión Comunicación CPB-EU y CPB-Francia: Jose  Luis Martinez
Comité de Apoyo a Bolivia.Malmö-Suecia: Tereza Moreira – Marcelo Torrez
Comitè de Solidaritat amb els Pobles Indígenes d´ Amèrica M. Antònia Arnau
Consejo Pro Bolivia – Escandinavia: Eulogio Limachi -  Leonor Churquina
Consejo Pro Bolivia- CPB – Alemania: Roxana Soria –  Gladis Schlanbush
Consejo Pro Bolivia Gotemburgo.- Suecia: Walter Vera Rivera -  Jorge carrasco
Coordinadora Somos Mas, Barcelona-España: Rosa Rosa  Krugler -     
Grupo Apoyo a Bolivia, GAB-Estocolmo-Suecia: Jorge Cuenca
Grupo Apoyo a Bolivia, GAB-Växjö-Suecia: Victoria Gonsalez
Grupo de apoyo al MAS, Barcelona-España: Varinia Olivares
Grupo de Apoyo al MAS, Uppsala, Suecia Adriana Petersheim
Latinamerikagrupperna-Gbg. – Suecia: Adolfo Suarez
Por la Comisión Orgánica del Consejo Pro Bolivia en Europa, CPB-EU: Walter
Vera Rivera- Victoria Gonsalez
Presencia Latinoamericana (Frente Bolivia)-Suiza:  Patricia Ogay
Coordinadora Somos Mas, Barcelona, Rosa Kugler
Grupo de Apoyo al MAS en Noruega Julio Cesar Toro

At least I hope he’s an expert. The piece below by Frank Cantaloup is translated from the NPA site and questions the French government’s decision to spend one billion Euros on its vaccination programme.

There’s no truck with homeopathy, herbal tea, astrology or any of that nonsense on this site. So, even though in my experience doctors only say “you’ve got two months to live” or “it’s a virus there’s nothing I can do for you”, that does not stop me getting flu vaccinations. The one for swine flu yesterday knocked the stuffing out of me but seems a lot better than the disease and prompted a bit of research. A French lefty organisation seemed the obvious place to look, not least because Irish people should be grateful to France for preventing an orgy of football related marketing next year.

While the health budget has suffered from austerity, the government has found one billion euros, half of which has been paid by social security contributions – to buy, at four times the normal price, 90 million doses of vaccine. These are vaccines that had not yet authorised for release on the market and which have hardly been tested, despite the addition of additives and preservatives. While the labs swear there is no problem with their vaccine, they have fixed it so that in cases of complications they don’t have to pay a Euro. That’ll come from the medical compensation fund.

This is a one billion Euro scandal. The mortality rate of pandemic influenza is scarcely higher than that of the seasonal flu, though it is more contagious. In contrast to experts who are open to being influenced, the only medical journal which is independent from the laboratories, Prescrire, advises sticking to a “targeted vaccination for people at high risk of serious complications, those around them and caregivers. Different vaccines have been made available some of which use the whole virus and others which use part of it. Some have additives and preservatives and others don’t.

Proponents of “vaccinate more to earn more” have faced a problem: their limited manufacturing capacity. So, to produce more with fewer antigens, they have put additives in their vaccine (Focetria, Pandemrix) that stimulate the immune system, but are also accused of promoting autoimmune diseases. They also added preservatives such as thimerosal, a mercury derivative whose presence is no longer recommended in vaccines since 1998, because of the neurotoxic potential. Cevalpan uses whole inert viruses. Yet vaccination with this type of vaccine in the U.S. , was stopped in 1976 for causing one case of severe paralysis per 100 000 vaccinations

For the journal Prescrire, fragmented vaccines without additives and without Thimerosal such as Panenza have the best risk-benefit ratio, especially for infants and pregnant women when they are considered at risk. They come closest to the vaccine for seasonal influenza which is widely felt to reduce complications by 50% and mortality by 80% among the target populations.

Experts funded by the labs; vaccines which have not been thoroughly tested; a government which chooses mass vaccination as its first hope preventing people missing work despite unnecessary risks to the general population. No wonder there is a lot of scepticism.

Only 17% of the population wishes to be vaccinated and not always the ones who needs it! The piece by Frank Cantaloup below is translated from the NPA site and questions the French government’s decision to spend one billion Euros on its vaccination programme.

In many ways the similarities between Obama’s foreign policy and that of Bush are much easier to spot than the differences. Here’s a good example. It’s a Q&A session with Obama’s press spokesperson on Foreign Policy.com.

Yesterday Israel approved the construction of 900 new housing units in East Jerusalem. The White House said it was “dismayed,” declared that “these actions make it more difficult to our efforts to succeed” and reiterated its belief that the status of Jerusalem should be resolved through negotiation.

Needless to say, the alleged “dismay” was not accompanied by concrete action to encourage the Netanyahu government to reconsider its position. Instead, the White House underscored its de facto capitulation by altering the title of its own press release. As Spencer Ackerman reports here, the original press release was entitled “”Statement by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the Approval of Settlement Expansion in Jerusalem” (my emphasis). That rather bland expression was apparently too hot, however, so the words “approval of settlement expansion” were stripped from the title of online version that appeared later. If you access it now, it is merely a “Statement by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Jerusalem.”

But if you really want to see the contortions that our policy imposes on long-suffering press secretaries, read the following excerpt from State Department spokesman Ian Kelly’s press briefing yesterday, and ask yourself if this how a representative of the world’s most powerful country ought to sound.

QUESTION: On the peace process, Israel has approved today the construction of 900 new housing units in East Jerusalem. How do you view this approval at this specific time?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think, Michel, you’ve heard us say many times that we believe that neither party should engage in any kind of actions that could unilaterally preempt or appear to preempt negotiations. And I think that we find the Jerusalem Planning Committee’s decision to move forward on the approval of the — approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem as dismaying. This is at a time when we’re working to re-launch negotiations, and we believe that these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed. So we object to this, and we object to other Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes. And — just to repeat what we’ve said all along, our position on Jerusalem is clear. We believe that the – that Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the two parties.

QUESTION: Can you tell us, did this come up in Ambassador Mitchell’s meetings in London yesterday? Apparently, we were told that he met an advisor to Netanyahu, asked them to not permit these new buildings, and then that request was flatly turned down.

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Andy, I just don’t want to get into the substance of these negotiations. They’re sensitive. I think you’ve seen the Israeli — some Israeli press reports that did report that this was raised in the meetings. … But I don’t want to get into the substance of the discussions yesterday in London. …

QUESTION: How long is the U.S. going to continue to tolerate Israel’s violation of international law? I mean, soon it’s not even going to be possible — there’s not going to be any land left for the Palestinians to establish an independent state.

MR. KELLY: Well, again, this is a — we understand the Israeli point of view about Jerusalem. But we think that all sides right now, at this time when we’re expending such intense efforts to try and get the two sides to sit down, that we should refrain from these actions, like this decision to move forward on an approval process for more housing units in East Jerusalem.

QUESTION: But should U.S. inaction, or in response to Israel’s actions, then be interpreted as some sort of about-face in policy – the President turning his back on the promises he’s made to the Palestinians?

MR. KELLY: You’re — okay, you’re using language that I wouldn’t use. I mean, again, our focus is to get these negotiations started. We’re calling on both parties to refrain from actions, from – and from rhetoric that would impede this process. It’s a challenging time, and we just need to focus on what’s important here, and that’s –

QUESTION: Well, what actions (inaudible) the Palestinians taken recently that would impede progress?

MR. KELLY: Well, as I say, we would discourage all unilateral actions, and I think –

QUESTION: Fair enough. But the Palestinians –

MR. KELLY: We talked yesterday –

QUESTION: — don’t appear to be taking any unilateral actions. It seems to be (inaudible).

MR. KELLY: Well, we did talk yesterday about the – and I want to make sure I get my language right here – about the – discouraging any kind of unilateral appeal for United Nations Security Council recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That would fall in that category of unilateral actions.

QUESTION: Okay. So the Palestinian call for this, which was rejected by both the EU and yourself yesterday, you’re putting that on the same level as them building — as the Israelis building –

MR. KELLY: No, I’m not saying that. You just said that, Matt. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that –

QUESTION: Well, you’re saying you’re calling on both sides to stop doing these things.

MR. KELLY: We are.

QUESTION: Yeah. But the rhetoric from the –

MR. KELLY: I’m not saying they’re equivalent.

QUESTION: — Palestinians is not actually constructed in a –

MR. KELLY: I’m not saying they’re equivalent. I’m just saying that we — they — we have to treat these things as sensitive issues.

QUESTION: You said a little bit earlier that we understand the Israeli point of view on Jerusalem. Can you explain what you mean by that?

MR. KELLY: Well, you have to ask — I’m not going to stand up here and characterize the Israeli point of view on –

QUESTION: No. I’m just asking you, if you understand the Israeli point of view on Jerusalem, why are you saying that this is not a good thing?

MR. KELLY: I’m not saying we support the Israeli point of view. We understand it.

QUESTION: Right. And then, last one on this, you characterized this decision by the planning commission as dismaying.

MR. KELLY: Yes.

QUESTION: You can’t come up with anything stronger than “dismaying”? I mean, this flies in the face of everything you’ve been talking about for months and months and months.

MR. KELLY: It’s dismaying.

QUESTION: Yeah, you can’t offer a condemnation of it or anything like that? (Laughter.) I mean, who is in charge of the language here.

MR. KELLY: I have said what I have said, Mr. Lee. . .

QUESTION: Would you say, though, that your own envoy has – does he have any leverage at this point, given the fact that the Israelis not only refuse, but blatantly have ignored his wishes on this?

MR. KELLY: Well, let’s take a step back and let’s also recognize that both sides agree on the goal, and that goal is a comprehensive peace. That goal is two states living side by side in peace and security and cooperation. So that is why we continue to be committed to this. That is why Special Envoy Mitchell meets with both sides at every opportunity, and why we are continuing to expend such efforts on this. So let’s remember that, that we do share a common goal.

QUESTION: Well, where’s Senator Mitchell today?

MR. KELLY: I believe Senator Mitchell is on his way back today.

QUESTION: Could you give us just a brief synopsis of the progress that Senator Mitchell has made in his months on the job?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think we have – we’ve gotten –

QUESTION: Yeah, maybe if the –

MR. KELLY: — both sides to agree on this goal. We have gotten both sides –

QUESTION: Ian, they agreed on the goal years ago. I mean, that’s not –

MR. KELLY: Well, I think that we – this government –

QUESTION: You mean you got the Israel Government to say, yes, we’re willing to accept a Palestinian state? You got Netanyahu to say that, and that’s his big accomplishment?

MR. KELLY: That is an accomplishment.

QUESTION: But previous Israeli administration – previous Israeli governments had agreed to that already.

MR. KELLY: Okay, all right.

QUESTION: So in other words, the bottom line is that, in the list of accomplishments that Mitchell has come up with or established since he started, is zero.

MR. KELLY: I wouldn’t say zero.

QUESTION: Well, then what would you say it is?

MR. KELLY: Well, I would say that we’ve gotten both sides to commit to this goal. They have – we have – we’ve had a intensive round or rounds of negotiations, the President brought the two leaders together in New York. Look –

QUESTION: But wait, hold on. You haven’t had any intense –

MR. KELLY: Obviously –

QUESTION: There haven’t been any negotiations.

MR. KELLY: Obviously, we’re not even in the red zone yet, okay.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: I mean, we’re not — but it’s — we are less than a year into this Administration, and I think we’ve accomplished more over the last year than the previous administration did in eight years.

QUESTION: Well, I – really, because the previous administration actually had them sitting down talking to each other. You guys can’t even get that far.

MR. KELLY: All right … Give us a chance …

QUESTION: It seems Senator Mitchell is focusing in his meetings on the Israeli side. Is he — does he have any plans to talk with the Palestinians, or there is no need now for that?

MR. KELLY: Well, he, as I say, he had meetings yesterday with the Israelis. He’s coming back to the U.S. now. He always stands ready to talk to both sides. There are no plans at this moment to meet with the Palestinian side.”

Try this for a compare and contrast exercise. The spin from Labour following Elizabeth Windsor’s speech was stressing the leftish, social democratic aspects of their plans for the remainder of this Parliament. It certainly gladdened Polly Toynbee’s heart. That’s followed by an editorial from the Morning Star which was slightly less thrilled.

Not dead yet. Alive, alive-O was Labour’s message heralded by trumpets. Though delivered in deathly regal deadpan, here was a programme with substance flashing out a lighthouse reminder of what Labour stands for. Electioneering? Of course, and why not?

The Westminster village had made up its mind long before Her Majesty drew the goat’s skin parchment from the velvet bag. The last gasp of a fag end government would be nothing but old smoke. The 13 bills delivered in seven minutes would, they said, not catch the public eye.

What’s more, most of these laws would never see the light of statute book. Westminster group-think says a party caught in the downward vortex of the opinion polls can make no upward headway, whatever its policies.

These three received opinions may not be quite the eternal verities they seem. Many bills will pass, many will be welcomed – and the Conservatives could still just fail to win an outright majority.

“Fake dividing lines,” David Cameron protested as Labour did indeed lay out policies to define gut differences. That is what politics are made of. “Government can be a force for good,” was how Mandelson painted the thick, red line.

That theme ran through a raft of bills that nail future governments to hard targets: whoever is in power will at least be shamed if they miss the mark. The equality bill obliges all state bodies to narrow the gaps between rich and poor, while the child poverty target is enshrined in law.

The Tories protest these are no more than political traps, but if so Labour has deliberately made themselves their victim too, writhing at missing both child and fuel poverty targets.

Watch as Cameron votes ostentatiously for these good causes in the Commons while his whips in the Lords ensure these awkward bills never make it into law. That’s politics too.

One great tombstone of a bill marks the site of the real election battleground. Labour’s fiscal responsibility bill sets in stone a commitment to halve the deficit in four years, and it causes grave alarm. Labour says the markets need reassuring, but economists of right and left warn that it is irresponsible to cut too deep too soon with an arbitrary law that ignores economic circumstance.

However, since Cameron has promised deeper, quicker paying-down of debt, both sides next month must show their poker hand at the pre-budget report. The election is still to be lost and won on how the public views their choices on tax and public service cuts – the eternal political dividing line. All this so far is mere skirmishing on the eve of the battle of the budgets.

Westminster may be over-hasty in dismissing the speech as a packet of fag-end gestures, given the pleased press releases from relevant groups. “Delighted” and “welcomed” came from groups glad of the sizeable £650m for free home care for the 400,000 frailest old people. Is it a gimmick? Pooling NHS and local council budgets to help people out of blocked hospital beds and back home with intensive “re-enablement” care makes financial as well as social sense.

It’s not a gimmick to stop convalescents being bundled into expensive nursing homes where they stay for ever if intensive care at home can get them back on their feet. Cameron’s claim that the money comes from cutting other disability benefits is just plain not true.

There is nothing gimmicky about one-to-one tuition in primary schools and the first year of secondary to make sure every child learns basic literacy and maths. How else to reach the remaining non-readers?

Unions are pleased with protection for agency workers and they welcomed the curb on future bank bonuses. The last hereditaries finally lose their ermine, cluster munitions are banned and carbon capture legislation is serious stuff.

Will the bills pass? Group-think in Westminster says no, but history says yes, many will get through.

Labour’s current favourite period for historical study is John Major’s last six months before his surprise 1992 win. With a small and rebellious majority he squeezed 12 bills through: he abolished the poll tax and brought in school league tables in that time.

But in this fifth session of Labour’s third term, inevitable regrets hung thick in the air. If only poverty and inequality targets really had been the number one cause of the last 12 years. If only climate change had been a priority back then. If only … a hundred regrets.

Missing was the bill that was the one bold act that could have changed the argument at the next election: a referendum on proportional representation would have been a cause to bring back erstwhile Labour voters, leaving Cameron defending an indefensible system. Like Blair before him, Brown bottled it, too much the old tribalist for real reform – and Labour may come to regret that most bitterly of all.

Morning Star

It’s difficult to know whether to feel more angry or embarrassed by the shabby contrast between the Queen’s Speech and the Labour Party political broadcast.

The broadcast put forward a heroic, class-based history of the Labour Party, albeit embellished by some distortions of the truth which portrayed it as the party of fighters and believers.

In contrast, the Queen’s Speech exemplified the squalid, opportunist and dishonest state to which the party has been reduced by 12 years of new Labour government.

Just two months ago, the Prime Minister told trade unionists that he would belatedly introduce legislation on equality for agency workers, which the government had blocked since 2002, before the next general election.

A month later, Tory shadow minister Jonathan Djanogly plucked the figure of £40 billion over 10 years as the supposed cost to business of this measure.

Now, Gordon Brown has deferred implementation until October 2011, when he is unlikely to still be in office.

Look at some of the other “pledges” in the Queen’s Speech – a Bribery Bill that will put the onus on companies to ensure that their staff do not bribe foreign officials.

Sounds great, but will it see the light of day, given that Brown’s predecessor intervened to bring about the quashing of the inquiry into BAE bribery that greased the wheels of a Saudi arms deal?

And what about the House of Lords Bill, which dangles the carrot of a House of Lords that is 80 to 100 per cent elected?

Labour has had since 1997 to put democracy before inherited wealth and power and it has utterly failed, substituting a combination of political patronage and sales of peerages for services rendered.

It is instructive that it fell to the preposterous chancer Peter Mandelson to lecture his fellow un-elected lordships, those of the Tory persuasion, that they should not hold up legislation because they are no longer the “masters in our political system.”

Had Labour’s current leadership the merest hint of the political backbone of those celebrated in the broadcast – the party’s founders, the women battling for the vote, those who fought fascism at home and abroad, those who campaigned for the NHS or worked to isolate apartheid – the anachronism in a self-styled democracy of a non-elected second house, to say nothing of a hereditary head of state, would already have been consigned to history.

Brown, like Blair before him, appears to have no political principles other than to remain in office.

And to do so he needs to keep the trade unions onside, to supply elections funds and foot soldiers, which is why the Child Poverty Bill, Equality Bill and Personal Care at Home Bill are floated as post-election action points.

This is despite the government having already fallen behind its child poverty eradication targets, rejected the back-in-favour idea of making large companies divulge gender pay gaps and denied all but the neediest minority the right to free personal care.

And it’s despite the dropping of draft legislation proposed with a flourish in June, such as the Housing Bill and the Jobs Bill. How can anything ministers say be trusted?

The leadership’s tawdry neglect of working people’s interests means that it will be an uphill struggle before Labour is again seen, as the broadcast has it, as “the party for hope, for change, for a better future.”

Napkins are hardly indispensable to a meal but they are one of those luxurious fripperies that you might indulge yourself with on special, more formal occasions. That gives them something in common with the left’s attitude to democracy and it’s a subject that’s been bugging me for a while.

Quotes from Trotsky are a rarity on this site since you can prove more or less anything by a bit of selective quotation but this one expresses a pretty timeless truth:

“Classes are heterogeneous; they are torn by inner antagonisms, and arrive at the solution of common problems no otherwise than through an inner struggle of tendencies, groups and parties…. An example of only one party corresponding to one class is not to be found in the whole course of political history.” (The Revolution Betrayed p. 267.)

To which we can add that parties and organisations are heterogeneous and torn by inner antagonisms simply by virtue of the fact that they are comprised of individuals and sub groups with a variety of partial experiences and insights. The paradox is that in Britain it’s precisely those currents and individuals which locate their origins, no matter how indirectly, in Trotsky’s critique of Stalinism, which most regularly ignore or chose not to understand this essential part of what he had to say.

Ernest Mandel who was able to draw on the experience of a bureaucratised workers’ movement and the Stalinist states enriched the Marxist appreciation of democracy as a non-negotiable principle. If there is a single text which underlies the ethos of this site it is probably his Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Socialist Democracy. Writing of a political culture in the European workers’ movement which put a premium on “unity” and the absolute authority of actually existing leaderships he asserted that: “There are no infallible party leaderships, or individual party leaders, party majorities, “Leninist central committees.””

Lots of people disagree with this hypothesis in deed, if not in word. A repeated behaviour in the various attempts at pooling the forces of the British left has been exactly this assumption that one small group of people is, for all practical purposes, as near infallible as makes no difference and they have the right to make decisions for everyone else. This is the path to leadership by clique or secret groups. Even on occasions where the formal appearance of democracy is preserved, there is simply a test of the strength of voting blocs rather than a choice between alternative political lines. The only way to avoid this is for free and open conflict between structured and coherent option. You can call these things programmes, factions, tendencies parties but as soon a restriction is put on them two things happen. The first is that a limit is wilfully set on dissent and the other is that de facto cliques emerge. Another avenue is that chosen by the team around Ken Livingstone, which having got the formality of elections out of the way, made a virtue out of not being accountable to anyone.

If you had to pick the single most important reason for rejecting this way of working it’s because it offers a paternalistic, substitutionist and elitist corruption of Marxism’s emancipatory message, replacing a small group’s ideas for those that emerge in the conflict of opposing tendencies. This idea is largely kept locked away to stop it getting a bit scruffy through daily use and is dusted down for occasional propaganda and educational purposes when it’s not so important to win a vote.

Now let’s make the imaginative leap that we are in a post revolutionary society. At the best of times these are societies under great external pressure and, as Cuba demonstrates, one response to this is the restriction of the freedom to organise alternative parties or unions even if they are in favour of the revolution. Is it possible to conceive of an organisation in power which has a history of not allowing open dissent internally permitting freedom of criticism of the government or the right for opposition parties and media to exist? That’s an imaginative leap too far.

Marxism is still paying a price for its association with the lack of socialist democracy in Eastern Europe. It gave social democracy an advantage for decades and today the emphasis on public unanimity, winning every vote or packing meetings to make sure they produce the right result makes Anglophone Marxism unattractive to either many people with experience of rudimentary trade union democracy or social movements like the more imaginative climate change campaigners. They should be lining up to join organisations which offer a coherent global critique of the world but prefer more fluid ways of acting and an imperfect consensus based decision making process.

Mandel was inflexible on the utter necessity for thoroughgoing democracy in organisations with pretensions to provide leadership to the working class.  “Any restriction of free political and theoretical debate spilling over to a restriction of free political mass activity of the proletariat, i.e., any restriction of socialist democracy, will constitute an obstacle to the revolutionary party itself arriving at correct policies. It is therefore not only theoretically wrong but practically ineffective and harmful from the point of view of successfully advancing on the road of building socialism.” Self evidently we are far from a position in which any organisation is able to restrict mass political activity but we do repeatedly see a contempt for democracy and the right to dissent prevent the sort of real unity in action that makes political convergences possible. You could even says that even as a shortcut it’s “ineffective and harmful “.

This is the conference report from the national office.

The Respect annual conference took place in Birmingham on Saturday with 210 delegates attending from all corners of England. New branches and new branch leaderships were well represented, reflecting the continued growth of Respect in the last few months. Three key themes of dominated proceedings: anti-racism and defense of multiculturalism, resisting the public service cuts agenda of the three old parties, and international solidarity.

One Society, Many Cultures

Respect Party leader, Salma Yaqoob, introduced the opening session. Salma laid into New Labour for creating the conditions under which the British National Party has grown with its attacks on the Muslim community and increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric.

She described how, since 9/11, Labour has resisted any examination of the disastrous role of its own foreign policy in creating a homegrown terrorist threat, leaving the impression that there is something intrinsic to the religion and culture of British Muslims that presents a threat. She cited Jack Straw’s attacks on Muslim women who wear niqab; the attacks on mainstream Muslim organizations like the Muslim Council of Britain and Muslim Association of Britain for “sitting on the sidelines” in the fight against terrorism from the former Secretary for State for Communities, Ruth Kelly; and the Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) agenda, now described by Liberty as the ‘biggest spying operation’ since the Cold War.

Salma challenged myths about immigrants being responsible for the recession or shortages in housing and concluded by emphasizing Respect’s twin track approach in tackling racism. On the one hand, upholding and defending multiculturalism and challenging all forms of racism; and on the other hand, challenging the social inequality that allows the politics of resentment and division to breed.

The following discussion was by far the best of the conference. Not only was the quality of contributions largely very impressive, but they also conveyed a deep sense of commitment to tackling racism and an engagement in that struggle. There was a serious debate about the tactical flexibility that Respect required to engage public debates and organize against the BNP and the English Defence League provocations. There was also discussion of the role of immigration in the economy.

Resisting the Cuts Agenda

George Galloway MP led this session focusing on the recession and the politics of an alternative to economic crisis. The session was dominated by the strategy for the General Election due next year. He insisted that, given that his election campaign had begun in Poplar, he would stand as a Respect candidate and not as part of any alliance with minor left-wing groups.

Where there is no credible Left challenge, Galloway called for a vote for Labour on the grounds that Labour can be pushed to deliver while the Tories are rotten. Respect is part of the labour and trade union movement and is not indifferent to the prospect of a Tory landslide. Respect can play a small role in helping to avoid this scenario. Where there are credible left of Labour candidates such as Caroline Lucas, Peter Tatchell, Dave Nellist or Val Wise, they should be supported.

The concentration of resources should be directed at Respect’s target seats and towards winning more councillors. A breakthrough would enable Respect to act as a pole of attraction for those looking for an alternative to Labour.

Where we can establish friendly relations with any other progressive party or coalition, Respect will do so but we have an opportunity to advance the left by getting Respect MPs elected. If we fail, it will not be for the want of trying. Unfortunately, the discussion did not have time to reach beyond this debate into the highly relevant areas of the recent postal dispute and our alternative strategy to the public service cuts.

A message to the Respect Conference from Peter Cranie, the Green Party candidate in the North West at the European Elections supported by Respect, was read out to an enthusiastic ovation.
Motions on electoral alliances, supporting the People’s Charter, the political content of our election campaign and alternative strategies to deal with the economic crisis were passed. Respect agreed to affiliate to the Campaign for Free Public Transport.

These will be posted onto the website very soon.

Internationalism

This was introduced by Andrew Murray, Stop the War Coalition Chair, who received a standing ovation for his passionate call for opposition to the war in Afghanistan and for Respect to use its strengths to help Stop the War reconnect with its core support. Francisco Dominguez of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign gave vivid insight into the Bolivarian revolution 10 years on, the threats it faces, and the importance of international solidarity.

Kevin Ovenden outlined exciting new developments in Palestinian solidarity, describing the way that Viva Palestina was fast becoming a global campaign, finding new and significant support in Malaysia among other places, and deepening its productive relationship with the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

Motions calling for support for the VSC, opposition to the Honduran coup, opposition to military involvement in schools and opposition to Trident were passed.

Constitutional and Party Business

The Respect elected a new National Council reflective of the greater breadth of the organisation achieved in the last year. It also voted to alter the manner of election of the National Council in future years to enable developing areas to participate. We also amended our constitution so that we are now officially the Respect Party.

The conference demonstrated the powerful sense of strategy and direction emerging from the new group of officers. The strengthened local and national structures of Respect were apparent along with a wave of new faces. It is indicative that 78 new members were registered in the week running up to the conference alone.

Respect has a huge responsibility as the best placed left of Labour electoral force. The conference gave strong evidence of the commitment of the membership to stepping up to the task.

Peter Cranie’s Message of Support:

“In the Euro Election campaign both Salma Yaqoob and George Galloway took the unprecedented step of endorsing Green candidates, recognising that the Greens represented the best tactical option to keep the BNP out of power. This was a courageous step and I sincerely thank you, and your many colleagues from Respect, that supported us in the Euro Elections.”
“In the North West the Greens were less than 5,000 votes away from defeating Nick Griffin in an electorate of 5 million. Sadly, the Labour Party betrayed anti-racist voters in our region by distributing leaflets that stated “only a vote for Labour can stop the BNP” – a clearly false claim in a proportional election. We will never know how many anti-racist voters were misled by that claim.”
“Left unity has been incredibly difficult to build. We all know the pitfalls. The fact that Birmingham Greens democratically decided not to stand a candidate against Salma Yaqoob is a signal back that progressive political parties can work together.”
“The time has come to build anti-racist unity on the left. When faced with greatest far right threat in Britain since the 1930s, we must respond. Respect and the Greens have shown what is possible, and I hope that a new type of politics will be possible in the coming years. We must ensure that in 2014 that the BNP are ousted from the two Euro seats they have won, and cut off the oxygen of publicity it has given them. I hope we can work together to achieve that aim.”
“I wish you every success with today’s conference.”

 The Campaign against Climate Change Trade Union Group has produced a 50 page pamphlet, ONE MILLION CLIMATE JOBS NOW. This comes out of an alliance of a wide range of unions, campaigns  and experts and can be downloaded here.

This is not a policy report intended to be read by a few and gather dust. It is the first step in a national campaign to make the government employ a million unemployed workers to save the climate. It contains the arguments workers need for building that campaign. It will take mass action to make the government act. But first we have to convince people. Here is how we start:

You can get one copy for £2 or ten at a time for £15 from: The Campaign against Climate Change, www.campaingncco.org, info@campaigncc.org, or 0207-833-9311, or from the following people at union head offices:

Anne Elliott-Day at PCS

Manuel Cortes at TSSA

Tony Kearns at CWU

Janet Pantland at UCU.

Then sell the pamphlet at all the union, political and environmental events you can.

The key step is to get a small group of union activists together to start organising. Four people in a room in your town is enough. The Campaign union group will send a speaker. Contact Martin Empson on 07958535231.

Then contact union branches and workplace groups in your town. Ask the reps to take five or ten copies. If they take it and like it, try to get a speaker to a branch meeting or stewards meeting. Contact by phone is better than email, contact in person is best.

Organise a public meeting for One Million Climate Jobs Now in January or Feb. This does not have to be large. All it has to be is the largest meeting of union members about climate ever in your city. That’s not very big. For speakers contact Martin Empson 0795853231.

The Campaign will be sending out copies of a petition and a model union resolution, and will campaign for the TUC to call a national demonstration.

A longer report will come out in March. And the Campaign against Climate Change will have a national conference on Saturday March 15 in London to discuss how we organise to win a million new jobs.

Some of the more senior members of the Mac Uaid clan used to mortify their flesh by going on pilgrimage to Lough Derg. It involves fasting, getting by on black tea and dry bread, walking barefoot, and keeping continuously awake for a period of 24 hours. My occasional trips to Birmingham serve the same purpose without improving my chances in the hereafter.

Yesterday’s Respect conference took place in Sparkbrook, the constituency which Salma Yaqoob has a strong chance of winning in next year’s election. There were about two hundred delegates with a pretty good geographical spread from Southend, Dorset and Liverpool as well as the Birmingham and London redoubts. It’s worth mentioning that the conference voted to drop the “Unity Coalition” tag and adopt the new name The Respect Party.

The first part of the conference was marked by a vigorous and mature debate over a couple of major strategic issues. Salma opened the morning session which was themed around “one society, many cultures”. She explained how she had got into politics as a result of the wave of anti-Muslim prejudice after September 11. She rightly attributed the rise of the BNP to the pro-war, pro-capital politics of the three major parties. As if it were necessary she reaffirmed that she was opposed to the attacks on New York and London, as well as any attacks on innocent people. In a backhanded tribute to her local profile someone has taken the trouble to produce a glossy leaflet which has been posted to anyone with a white sounding name on the local electoral register which aims to put her and Respect in the same camp as the demonstrators who protested in Luton at the troops’ homecoming parade. You don’t do a job like that unless you are seriously worried she’s going to win the seat. Accusing Gordon Brown in his recent speech on immigration of pandering to racism she countered that the best way to oppose racism is to tackle it head on and went on to call for investment in housing, infrastructure and and working class people to cut racism at its root.

Racism and the rise of the far right dominated the discussion that followed. One speaker said that in his industry jobs were being taken and wages driven down  by skilled workers from Eastern Europe.  This is a real concern in sections of the working class and Salma struck the perfect note in acknowledging his concerns by describing the collapse of the manufacturing sector, Labour’s reliance on the City and trickle down theory to create jobs and the failure of union leaders to organise workers to defend their conditions.

Much of the rest of the discussion was over the way to deal with the rise of the far right. On the general principle that a new party is needed for working people there was no dissent expressed. On the issue of whether or not to call for state bans there was disagreement, broadly speaking along the lines that have already been discussed at length on this site and elsewhere.  Summarising the debate Salma said “we do not fetishise tactics. At times it’s right to take to the streets.” Some of us might quibble with the weight that she attached to complimentary statements from senior police officers and backing from the Lib Dems. However a point that some lose sight of in this discussion is that Respect’s leadership makes no claims to be revolutionary Marxist and that a relatively new organisation is debating its tactics against the far right in a developing situation.

In victory, magnanimity. Not

The second section was on the theme “resisting the cuts agenda” and had motions on electoral strategy, the crisis, the politics of our election campaign, electoral alliances and the People’s Charter. This was introduced by George Galloway. Revisiting some of the theme’s from the first session he insisted that he was standing only as a Respect candidate and not as part of any alliance with minor parties, specifically the Communist Party and the Socialist Party. Asked a direct question as to who Respect supporters should vote for if there is no Respect candidate he said that they should vote Labour, though he did make several exceptions including Caroline Lucas, Peter Tatchell, Dave Nellist and candidates standing against particularly venal ministers like Geoff Hoon, adding that assigning degrees of venality to Labour ministers is no easy thing. The criteria were that they had to have a chance of winning; be credible or opposing one of a small band of Labour ministers. His reasoning was that a Labour government, no matter how bad, is more favourable to working class people than any Tory regime. He also argued that when Respect wins three seats in Westminster next year that it will become the magnet for all those seeking an alternative to Labour and, for this reason, has no need of alliances with the left.

My take on this is that a building strategy based solely on winning elections is as flawed as a financial strategy which relies solely on being lucky at the bookmakers. Salma had already indicated the lengths to which her opponents are willing to go to deprive her of  the seat and there is already a well known history of electoral dodgy dealings in Birmingham. Then there’s the small fact that elections are very unpredictable. Effectively this approach requires achieving a set of victories no small party has ever managed before and then assuming that everyone else will want to join it. Or, more precisely, everyone else who is not already on the organised left. A recurring theme in George Galloway’s contributions was use of the phrases “left group”, “Trotskyist” and “far left” as terms of abuse in much the same way you might call someone a “Bon Jovi fan” or a “Tory”.

A vote to take an emergency motion on supporting the child of No2EU was defeated by a margin of just over two to one. The rest of the resolutions were accepted. As in the morning session the debate had been frank but conducted with maturity and without rancour. Then, in a interesting new procedural innovation, George Galloway replied to the debate after the vote had been taken.

One would have hoped that he’d have remembered Churchill’s maxim “in victory, magnanimity”. Instead he decided to give the small group of child of No2EU supporters the same treatment that Socialist Resistance had received from him, John Rees and Lindsey German at the 2005 conference or Neil Kinnock doled out to Militant. It was ugly though at least this time there was not a howling mob ready for a lynching. He asserted than “No2EU had objectively helped Nick Griffin get elected by standing against the Green Party’s Peter Cranie. The good bit was that he shares a healthy distrust of the progressive nature of prison officers as a mass. On the negative side any of the valid criticisms he did make of child of No2EU, including its lack union support, the certainty of its small vote etc were lost in a flurry of contempt for the organised left and the strong sense that a group of the leadership was determined to drive out two newly elected members of the national council and a small number of members in Southwark. It poisoned the rest of the day.

The international debate was squeezed by pressure of time and was followed by some constitutional housekeeping.

On reflection the decision to try to pulverise the supporters of the new coalition was the worst possible choice a leadership could have made. It sent a message that dissenting political views are not something to be given space and time to show that they are right or wrong. Instead they are something to be ridiculed and isolated. Quite how these methods will attract people looking for a home outside the Labour Party  is something that is not apparent.

Have you ever wondered how you would do a supermarket boycott action? This helpful video shows Manchester PSC’s recent visit to Morrison’s supermarket in Chorlton. 25 protestors entered the store, collected Israeli and illegal settlement goods on sale, leafleted shoppers, and staged a protest at customer service.

“We could ask groups of activists to participate in a X-factor style competition of who can do the best supermarket action” suggests film maker Richard.

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Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign
http://www.psc-manchester.org.uk/
email: contact@psc-manchester.org.uk

END THE SIEGE OF GAZA
BOYCOTT ISRAELI GOODS