It’s not been a good week for red Len

Unites general secretary a figure many look to for change has not had a good week with labours reshuffle in its shadow cabinet Len should have been really happy with the removal of his so called blairites in the shadow cabinet the two he identified were Steven Twig and Liam Burn both now gone out of the shadow cabinet yet in their place come Tristram Hunt and Rachel Reaves Reaves being a former advisor to the bank of England and have both set out in interviews over the weekend labour will continue to commit itself to Tory light polices. Reaves who thinks no one should earn more on benefits than in work plays up to the Tory idea of the work shy and the lazy scroungers that the Tories set the narrative and labour chase after constantly. As for Hunt he has come out in favor of free schools and calming labour would promote its own version in government with parent run schools being key to labours thinking. So Len what happened to those blairites in the nest? Blairites apparently gone yet policies much the same? hmm Whatever happened to that general strike Len was organizing for again by the way? Didn’t Len get up on stage on the last TUC march where we all marched again listening to the great and the good sound off to a crowd in Hyde Park? Len was there on the day asking those who want a general strike put up their hands. So people did and yet the tumbleweed from that day on has been remarkable. As I like to say Big Len likes to chime but never strike. Also over the weekend further humiliation for the fighting left union which makes me laugh when I hear the phrase was another hugely embarrassing bit of news which unite oddly hasn’t been able to comment on strangely seeing as it was so loud on shouting about tax evasion Len McCluskey even accused one company of 'daylight robbery' in the Times over the weekend “Britain’s biggest union was accused of hypocrisy yesterday after it avoided More than £2 million in tax. The Times has learnt that Unite has been presented with a bill for £2.3 million by Revenue and Customs.HMRC ruled that Unite had been calculating its VAT in a grossly unfair and Unreasonable way. The union has condemned multinational companies for not paying their fair share of tax. Len McCluskey, its general secretary, even accused one company of Daylight robbery€.Margaret Hodge, Labour chairwoman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, Which scrutinises public finances, called on Unite to pay the bill Immediately Where does this leave our good friend big Len who is so keen on tackling the tax evaders and reclaiming the labour party? In a pretty poor position I would suggest with little in the way of progress in the after mouth of Falkirk West which still hasn’t gone away with the local branch secretary of the labour party there still suspended from office I understand. Relations between Labour and its biggest donor the Unite union will only increase as the run up to the election and beyond grow closer. Clearly Red Len will not be losing too much sleep having just secured another term of office on his nice 6 figure salary and with an army of bureaucrats to support him and the labour party Unite is well placed to get labour back into power to deliver their version of austerity. Not in my name... I am a unite member and hugely oppose its link to the labour party and its constant blank cherubs it gives to the labour party. There is no democracy in terms of the political fund in the party. The changes Ed Miliband wants to force through to mean union members no longer have a collective voice but will have to opt in to fund the labour party could make things very interesting indeed. What Len and other union big cheeses will do next is unclear but clearly like all union leaders they ill not want to loose that seat at the top table with labour and Ed so I am sure there will be some fudged deal that allows Len to say to his members he's won something and while Ed Miliband will be saying we have a new way of funding labour and a party for the future. Who will win out? There is big contradictions between labour and unite which will only increase as time goes on. How will it end? No one knows.

Bureaucrats will be bureaucrats

Today was the Durham Miners gala a big fixture in the labour movements calendar and hot after the recent decision by Ed Miliband to weaken the trade union link between the trade unions and the labour party even more this was always going to be a hotly contested miners gala with various strong opinions on show. Len Mccluskey disappointed me and not for the first time. He came out in support of Ed Miliband his favourite Mp right now and shows no sign of stepping down in his support for the labour leader. Len disappoints me as the socialist party actively critically supported him in the latest leadership election which he romped home as expected. I can proudly say I did not vote for him and I am so glad I didn’t. What I have heard since has less than convinced me that Len is nothing but a left bureaucrat who speaks radical and likes to pose left but will be one of those filing in to 10 Downing St as and when Milibnd gains power as he most likely will do in 2015. I have no shame in admitting I could not vote for Len or Hicks in the last general secretary election no one stood out for me. Comrades told me Len had moved the union to the left which he may have done but still I felt unite was no where near good enough and a vote for Len is a vote for slow yet study progress which is not good enough in this current period. Yes he may have reluctantly supported the sparks eventually but he did not do it by his nature he had to be forced into it. Neither Hicks nor Len support a breaking of the labour link they all call for a reform and a democratisation of the political fund which indeed the socialist party do support but I don’t think this goes nearly far enough. Len McCluskey is a prisoner of the bureaucratic elite in unite and its useless layer of full time officials I’ve had the unfortunate experience of knowing a few and my god if they are the best the union has we are seriously fucked. I’d say all in unite and Len in particular should take head of what Bob Crow said today at today’s Durham miners gala and whilst Bob annoys me in the fact he does not mention TUSC he at least has the right direction of his political outlook. Len unfortunately as much as the socialist party don’t like to admit it is a bureaucrat and what do they do? Look after them and always will do. Their role as Miliband has probably told him is to keep the workers down and not provoke trouble before 2015 where Len and Miliband hope to ride to victory with the labour party. Luckily we have some good trade union leaders including Bob Crow of the RMT union who I’ve always liked and states it as it is. Being quoted in the Daily Mirror today Bob Crow says: An RMT press release: RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: "When Tony Blair is wheeled out to underpin Ed Miliband's attack on the affiliated unions than you know that this is a panic move driven by the demands of big business and a right wing media who would prefer that the working class have no voice at all. "RMT was expelled from the Labour Party almost a decade ago and in that time we have actually increased our political influence as we have had the freedom to back candidates and parties who demonstrate clear support for this trade union and its policies. "With this latest assault by Labour on the unions the time is right to start building an alternative political party that speaks for the working people and the working class communities that find themselves under the most brutal attack from cuts and austerity in a generation. "Clinging to the wreckage of a Labour Party that didn't lift a finger to repeal the anti-union laws despite 13 years in power is a complete waste of time."

The labour union link has been broke for some time now workers need a political voice

T New labour had it in their mind to end the trade union link with the party and they almost succeeded in doing so. After the scandal in Falkirk questions have come up again from some within labour if they should sever the link for good. Owen Jones in his Colum today in the independent writes one of his best articles in sometime. Yet still hasn’t been able to draw the conclusions that labour is dead to working people and has been for a very long time. Owen is a worshiper of the accomplished fact and can’t see something is happening or has happened until it has showed itself to be so. So this current dispute between labour and unite must be playing very much on young Owens’s feelings of the labour party he always told us he’d remain in the labour party until the union link is no more so could this be a turning point for Owen ? “At the weekend, key Labor figures briefed favored Guardian journalists about a proposed final break with the trade unions, since disavowed by Ed Miliband. We cannot be sure who they are. What we do know is that there is a hardened Blairite axis within the Shadow Cabinet, led by former David Miliband campaign managers Jim Murphy and Douglas Alexander, and including Caroline Flint and Ivan Lewis. To give an illustration of their politics, the four privately demanded that Labour should support the Tories’ Welfare Uprating Bill earlier this year, which inflicted real-terms cuts on in-work and out-of-work benefits. None of them ever reconciled themselves to Ed Miliband as leader; whenever he has faced political trouble, Alexander and Murphy’s operations have spun into overdrive. Their expectations of what Ed Miliband must do constantly shift and can never be satisfied. Now that David Miliband has crossed the Atlantic, Murphy is positioning himself as holder of the Blairite flame, plotting to take the leadership should Ed Miliband ever fall. Murphy’s approach to politics was honed from his days in Labour Students, in practice long a recruiting ground for the sort of desperate political careerist who practises party conference speeches in front of bathroom mirrors from the age of six. It is a murky world where positions of power are decided in bars and through private, secretive conversations. When these student hacks evolve into senior politicians, they debate who should be the candidate in what constituency over Islington dinner parties. When Tony Blair attempted to dilute Labour’s reliance on union funds, it ended in the cash-for-honours scandal and a sitting prime minister being questioned by police in Downing Street. Before Labour’s 1997 election victory, the key Blairite ally Stephen Byers floated severing the union link: he ended his political career offering himself as a “taxi for hire” to corporate lobbyists. These union-bashers are completely beholden to private interests, and they want Labour to be, too. Owen Finnish’s by saying The tragedy is that unions are getting precious little from the Labour Party. The irony of David Cameron’s hysterical claims that Miliband is in the pocket of Unite’s Len McCluskey is that it comes just as Labour’s leaders have moved even further from offering a genuine alternative to Tory policies. Even after 13 years of a Labour government, Britain was left with one of the worst records on workers’ rights in the Western world. It was still one of the unequal developed nations, where workers’ wages were falling even before Lehman Brothers crashed, and where a dogmatic attachment to free-market economics ended in a catastrophic financial crash. Public spending was the great break from Thatcherism, and is now being decimated. If unions did not try to get candidates selected in the party they founded who want to stand up for working people, they might as well pack up and become footnotes in history books. It is a sad truth that there are those in the highest echelons of the Labour Party who want to extinguish what limited political voice working people still have. They would wreck a party they owe everything to for their own crude personal ambitions. They must not win.” So Owen there is an alternative and TUSC is building one. We hope to stand a record amount of anti cuts candidates at the next local elections. Those good well meaning and all opposed to the cuts in labour should be considering their membership this morning. Do consider TUSC and help us build an political voice again for workers in this country. Do check out more about TUSC at www.tusc.org.uk

My thoughts behind the unite labour party face off

I think this whole supposed face off in Falkirk west over standing political candidates is a huge shame and I will explain why. I firstly do not believe the labour party can be reclaimed. This would assume it was ever ours the working classes in the first place it never was and people like Owen Jones should get this in to their thick skulls. It was at best as Lenin explained a capitalist workers party with a trade union link and yes the union link still exists today Owen but lets not get excited now. What is happening in Falkirk may be important in the long run but in itself of itself is a simple falling out of personalities and I’d include the general secretary of unite Len McCluskey who I’m loosing patience with by the week at this very moment. I never voted for the guy as I thought he would sell out as he has done already and will do again. In an article published by the socialist party and written by Unite member Kevin Paslow he sets out 3 possible conclusions to the Falkirk situation. Unite now has three possible ways forward. The first would be to capitulate to New Labour. This would be disastrous, not just for its political strategy but for its industrial one too. There would be growing anger and indignation in the rank and file, and doubts would be raised over the union's commitment to fight for its policy. This would cause serious problems for Len and the left leadership of the union and jeopardise their position. The second would be to continue with the current strategy. This would mean the likelihood of further collisions with the Labour bureaucracy, in which Len has already admitted he 'can place no trust'. This would not prevent Unite having to make a decision later on the continued scandal of providing funds to New Labour, to the tune of £9 million since Miliband was elected Labour leader in 2010, with the support of the unions! Immediately, Unite would also face the decision of supporting anti-cuts councillors. The third path is to take the bold step of the union disaffiliating from New Labour. The Socialist Party believes this is the correct road to take. The working class has waited too long for its own party since New Labour accepted the free market and dropped its famous Clause 4, Part IV, which envisaged nationalisation and socialism. This is all very well and I think the most likely line is the second with Len and Ed secretly agreeing behind closed doors to not rock the boat anymore this side of the election at least. Both Len and Ed are big labour supporters which goes without saying and as the general election nears the idea of unity and a win for a labour party will become paramount so I think this is just Len firing off his mouth and ultimately he does support Militant and will line up behind him come 2015 if that is when the next election is to be held. I think this is a lot of posturing from both sides Ed trying to make his mark as a leader and to sure up his commitment to making the cuts and carrying on where the Tories are right now. Ed wants to appear a safe pair of hands for capitalism and if elected no doubt he will be carrying out cuts and carrying on austerity as the market demands. I see no option here for unite who cannot envisage as the socialist party would love to disaffiliate from the labour party the only way they will is by being kicked out. The political fund is hugely labour based and the ruling part of the union is pro labour so no such change is likely anytime soon. For our party we are best focusing on the upcoming conferences in Unite trying to gain influence and raising our ideas. It’s no use shouting off what needs to happen let’s get in there and start punching our weight in the union. Falkirk could be the start of something with unite but it could also be a huge slap down it will be interesting how the union reacts now in the face of the leadership still wanting a labour gov they will be careful not to rock the boat too much so I ultimately see a truce being declared if on the quiet before this coming election who knows after though if weave labour in that will play out interestingly if Tories again I can only see unite moving further to the left as much as the leadership may not want this. Things are happening labour is no longer a party the unite union can back and time will show this. I am no supporter of Len in Unite as I think he is pretty much all hot air he talks of civil disobidence but very little has happened in practica terms he is one of those union leaders who speaks a good game but when it comes to action he is badly lacking for me. What unite needs to do: plan of action: • An emergency executive council should be called to discuss the crisis. • The EC should pass a resolution for a recall rules conference which would have the end of removing the references to Labour Party affiliation from the rulebook, thereby facilitating disaffiliation. This conference should also discuss political representation for the working class. • Should this be carried, Unite should call meetings and conferences of trade unionists, from affiliated and non-affiliated unions, including those linked to TUSC, with the aim of forming a new workers' party which would have the programme of fighting the cuts, scrapping the anti-trade union laws and opposing privatisation of public services. Such a party would truly reflect the needs of the working class and fight in workplaces, communities and in elections for socialist ideas.

Reclaiming the labour party, was it ever really ours?

Many on the left now to fill their vacuum of ideas and principles are now calling to reclaim the labour party including Unite general secretary Len McCluskey who says we must all join labour to reclaim the party for us. He claims it is our party, working people’s party. I am a member of the socialist party and am of the view this is a non starter the democratic structures for reclaiming the party are no longer there plus there is no mass enthusiasm for going into labour to have a big battle to change it. But as the argument is back again I thought I’d look at if the party was ever really “ours” to reclaim. As Lenin described at the time the labour party was a bourgeois workers party with a conservative pro market leadership with a working class mass base. Those who wish to try and argue as the likes of the SWP do that the labour party has stayed the same only have to take a look at where labours mass workers base has gone. It’s been hollowed out. Yes the party still has the trade union link and those like left wing celebrity Owen Jones argue that it’s still tied to the working class and is still a worker’s party due to that link. I disagree; the Democrats in America have a trade union link yet are still an out and out capitalist party much like the labour party today. To understand why today we say the labour party is a fully capitalist party we must understand the transition and factors which have lead to this point. From its very inception it’s been a battle of ideas, of principles and factions. One hundred years ago, on 27 February, 1900, a conference of trade unionists and socialist organizations met to establish the Labour Representation Committee, the forerunner of the Labour Party. This was to be a culminating step in a long struggle by workers in Britain to break with the Liberal Party and establish their own party. The Labour Party was from its inception a bourgeois workers party. At its head were the 'liberal' leaders such as Ramsay Macdonald and Philip Snowden, through whom the pro-capitalist ideology of the ruling class could be transmitted to the working class below. In parliament those leaders succumbed to opportunism, following the lead of the Liberal Party which they had separated from organisationally but not ideologically. But at the same time the party had its roots in the working class, with its working class base acting as a certain counter-weight to its bourgeois tops. One hundred years later, however, in the wake of the collapse of Stalinism and the boom of the 1980s, the pro-capitalist leadership is now completely dominant. The channels through which the working-class base of the Labour Party could hold the leadership in check have been cut off, and the party has made the transition to an openly bourgeois party. The historic task of building an independent mass workers' party is posed once again. But not under the same conditions. Despite the lowering of socialist consciousness generally in society over the past decade, a capitalist workers' party has been in existence for almost a century and that experience will influence the character of a new workers' party, especially in its early stages. In addition, the leadership of the trade unions today is more integrated into the capitalist state than it was at the end of the 19th century. That too will affect the process towards a new workers' party, making it much less likely that the leadership of large national unions would move to embrace a new party as they did in the past. Nevertheless, as in the 1880s and early 1890s, it will be mass struggle arising from economic, social and political crisis which will create the conditions for a new mass workers' party to emerge. And, as then, the intervention of revolutionary socialists in that process will be crucial. Socialists paved the way for an independent workers' party through their propaganda and involvement in the day to day struggles of the working class. But however determined they were to see a new party come into being, they could not transcend the limits of the objective situation. It was the interplay between mass struggle and socialist propaganda and activity which created the conditions under which they could take concrete initiatives to create an independent party of the working class. We believe that, without a major influx of workers into the Labour Party any campaign for rank-and-file control will be ineffective but, as the LRC discovered when it attempted to launch a recruitment drive in the anti-war movement, workers and young people entering struggle have no interest in joining the party they are fighting against. But reclaiming the Labour Party for the working class would require a mass influx of workers, organised around a campaign to remove the Blairites and recreate the party's democratic structures. A socialist programme would need to be adopted, including opposition to all cuts. The Socialist Party has concluded that this is not possible - and that instead what is required is the creation of a new mass party of the working class. If such a party stood on Unite's programme of opposing and reversing all the cuts, abolishing the anti-union laws, etc, it would provide a positive pole of attraction for all those millions of people opposed to the Con-Dems' austerity. The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition is an attempt to build a bridge to such a party. Plans to build it should be stepped up, including holding meetings and debates on the issue of political representation and developing supporters groups inside the unions. With e extracts from Christine Thomas’s excellent article in socialism today on the history of the labour party

The unite general secretary election

Very soon there will be an election for general secretary of Britain’s biggest trade union – Unite the current general secretary Len McCluskey who has only been in the post little over 2 years is holding a snap election to gain a second term. I do feel this is quite an undemocratic move even if his intentions are too sure up support for the left. Many have excused this move and said well we’d not be happy if the right wing did this but its ok for the left to? Seems a little contradictory to me. But putting this all aside the short time given for any challenger is all designed to make it as hard as possible for anyone to challenge Len’s record to date. So far only one has declared and has enough nominations and that is Gerry Hicks who stood last time and gained 50 thousand odd votes. I myself am a unite member and am in a community branch. The community membership set up last year to give the unemployed students and low paid workers a voice. So far this has not been a big success for Unite with only a few thousand joining since its launch. As for Len’s reclaiming the labour party only 5000 have joined the labour party since he urged unite members to join the party and exert influence. With what democratic structures len ? As with Kingsley Abrahams a Labour councillor in Lambeth who voted against cuts in the labour group not even in the council chamber was suspended for his actions yet Len told Kingsley to go back into the labour group therefore accepting the cuts agenda and unite cannot garuntee support to councillors voting against cuts. This is just not good enough for a union supposably against the cuts.It must put its money and support where its mouth is. The united left which is a broad left organisation of left unite members containing the socialist party is backing Len Mccluskey and the socialist party itself is giving critical support to Len. The socialist party did support Gerry Hicks back in 2009 in the leadership contest for what was Amicus back then Gerry stands for a lot of what the socialist party stands for repealing of anti trade union laws confronting them when necessary and for democratic election of all unin officials. To me our position to back Len McCluskey appears more tactical than strategic. There doesn’t appear to be a challenger from the right wing as yet no Les Baylis like before so the idea critically supporting Len will sure up the left in the union i’m not convinced on personally. I myself am torn I actually agree with allot of what Gerry Hicks is standing for. For example he pledges to stand on a average wage of a member in unite this for me is a very important principle and one of the reasons I joined the socialist party and their strength and feeling around this issue that no elected official should receive more than the ordinary man or woman in the street in that area they live in. Now Gerry seems to be quite open and clear about this as for Len I can’t find any mention of him pledging to do this if re elected. As far as I know Len is on a very nice 6 figure salary paid to him by our membership subs. While Len’s record is far better than his predecessors who wasn’t hard to do he still lacks in many areas for me. For example Len claims that unite do no longer give blank cheques to the labour party. This is simply not true Unite has given 6 million pounds to labour over the last 10 years and with no strings attached. His gushing speech for Ed Miliband at last year’s labour party conference really wound me up too claiming it was one of the best speech’s he’s ever heard was disgusting Given the fact that Labour will carry out the cuts if re elected Unite should be pulling its funding on the labour party until it pledges to reverse all cuts, if it does not then we look again at working class political representation . Len does support calls for a 24 hour general strike to give him his due but will this be more hot air from a leader who loves the big speech, the big moment the applause from the crowds yet has been found excusing Labours austerity light cuts agenda when around the Labour party. Unites role in the public sector pensions sell out can’t be ignored either of course it wasn’t down to one union but Unite had the weight it could have used. But McCluskey’s rhetoric doesn’t meet reality. He talks about coordinated national strike action. But back in March Unite’s leadership pulled the plug on action over pensions and isolated the PCS and NUT. The real reason for the election – and McCluskey has admitted this – is to avoid a clash with the general election in May 2015. But it would seem Len with his reclaiming labour project is missing a trick here if there was an election in the same year as the unite general secretary election unite could use its weight to force labour into supporting anti austerity policies. As it is it could be the case that Unite backs labour to the hilt in 2015 whether it supports the union’s policies or not that is an unhealthy relationship. I am for the breaking of the labour party link none of the candidates standing pledge to do that I think unite should be backing anti cuts candidates with a proud record of fighting all cuts. So I am still very unconvinced by Len yet I agree with a lot of what Gerry says I’m still not sure I can vote for him. I’ll have to decide between now and the election but at present the jury is still very much out for me with Len.