The failure of the left and the working class today

Today I listened today to Novara Fm a weekly student run radio show from London http://www.novaramedia.com It regularly features great discussion and debate on all sorts of topics. The show is hosted by Aaron Peters and James Butler two communists who I think have a great way of articulating their views and are good broadcasters too by the way. Today’s show was featuring Owen Jones of the Labour left and his thoughts on the labour party and the trade unions. In the last week we’ve seen the TUC conference where lots of hot air was produced as always. Getting on to my main theme of this post which may run and run is the left and the working class of today and where we are heading, if anywhere at all. Now I am no longer a member of any political party and for a very good reason. I was a member of the socialist party and still remains a close supporter of the party but could no longer remain member of late due to various issues which I may elaborate in time but probably not now. The left is a frustrating thing hugely fragmented and split it has so far since the economic crisis of 2007/08 failed to provide a real alternative to the current situation be that inside the labour party which I have been in and now outside which I’ve experienced for myself too. Neitehr side of the left has been able to articulate a real alternative that we can focus around for one reason or another. Political party membership of all colours is at a all time low and yet the mass interest in politics is still very high. Somethingis going wrong you may think. But yet I do think we are in a new era entirely. A era where political parties have had their day to a extent in terms of mass organisation of members anyhow. The economic crisis has not benefited the labour party or the organised left outside the labour party one bit at all. Any forms of new parties including the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition which I had high hopes for and Left unity are still yet to make any sort of impact on people. This may change but I do still think todays left have not come to terms with the new situation let alone began to think of how to address this. By this I ean the new forms of the working class and the new layers entering it. For example there are more women in the workplace than possibly ever before now with a lot of trade union membership taken up by women yet the trade unions and their methods have not changed one bit. They still largely act, as do much of the left that we still live in a industrial based largely white male labour workforce. Nothing could be further from the truth any longer I’m afraid. Failure to recognise this and to reach new layers of BME and women workers is something which I’ve been astonished from with the left who like to pride themselves of reaching new layers. So far I’ve seen very little evidence of this. Also in terms of young people and private sector workers little to no attempts have been mde from the left to engage with these layers so far since the out break of the crisis in 2008. Now this post may sound a bit ranty and not really saying anything but I do think these points need to be made and it is also backed up with my own experiences of the left and the trade unions. They are simply not fit for purpose in my opinion. Hense I am going independent for now. I don’t think at this stage any left group or party has the ideas to move things forward. They are largely stuck talking to themselves and talking of by gone days. Well I’m afraid we live in a new era. A era of uncertainty and new situations that the likes of our leaders have not seen before. I do not have all the answers and I don’t think anyone out there does. I think as a collective we can do but at this stage we are a long way from a break through. The left frustrates me but also gives me hope as there is lots of big opportunities out there if any group or party is prepared to break from the habbits of the past which do no longer work and look forward to a new way of thinking. A new way of organising which brings new layers on board. The young, Women and all who have no voice as it stands today. We can certainly learn from the pasta nd we will do but we live in a new era, one we have not seen before all be it with similar features to the past. Much of the left is held back by its old ways of organising and failing to live in the ehere and now and adapt to that. Those who can adapt and find a way of reaching a mass audience will get a boost. As a Marxist I do still feel workingpeople have the ability and the power to change things. So far the left as a politica force has failed them I’m afraid. To move on we need to learn where we have gone wrong and where we can improve. Will this happen ? We can only hope.

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

Succumbing to reformism and how to avoid it

As Marxists we are all too aware of reformists in the labour movement those who see no alternative to the capitalist system of exploitation and despair. They genuinely think we can reform capitalism into a nicer system which is a bit less brutal. This is completely false in so many ways and is quite a dangerous position to hold too. If you’re a trade union leader you’re quite likely to be reformist or at least confine yourselves to fighting for reforms within the current system however difficult that may look. We encounter them all the time reformists and some are won over to a revolutionary stand point and can develop into good Marxists but the type of reformists around today are the sort who worship the accomplished fact. Much like Owen Jones in the labour party and independent journalist. They do not see the world in a dialectical fashion with all things in constant flux and change. Jones and his ilk see things as static entities and do not see the changes going on in society under their very eyes. For example Owen believes there is a labour party and always will be a labour party he can see no further than the end of his nose unfortunately. I respect Owen a lot he writes some excellent stuff in a national newspaper and is no doubt socialist and fights against capitalism but ultimately does not see things in a process or a Marxist point of view. This is not to do down the likes of Owen as this is not uncommon. Those who support Cuba uncritically think well that’s socialism over there so we must support it without seeing the faults and contradictions locked up in that bureaucratic workers state where there is little democracy there. Reformists are often the ones looking for the easiest answers to everything take for example many in the labour party and see themselves on the left. Many shoot down TUSC and our low election results without seeing that we have a perspective over this and ok the votes are not great but we have had the fore sight to lay down a marker for a new workers party at this stage it is hard. The original founders of the Labour party including Kair Hardie were ridiculed and faced the same bemusement from those who pelted them with stones for daring to stand against the liberal party now look where we are a similar situation where we are laughed at for daring to stand against the labour party who are a fully fledged capitalist party now the second eleven for the ruling class if you like. But how to we avoid falling into reformist ideas ourselves? Its all about having perspectives and a basic understanding of Marxism the scientific socialism which Marx and Engel’s stood by which Lenin and Trotsky stood by too. It is not demanding more than the party can give or getting too down when things don’t appear to be going our way or get too excited if we win a victory. As we know that any reform won under this current capitalist system is only temporary and the ruling class will come back to take it back maybe in a different o name one day. Take the bedroom tax we may defeat this rotten cruel tax but there will be more attacks and unless we put an end to the capitalist system for good the ruling class will keep coming back for more and more as they always do. SO we must warn our younger socialist friends the dangers of reformism while being the best fighters for reforms ourselves whilst pointing out the temporary nature of those reforms. Our eventual goal is the over throw of the existing order of society turn it on its head in a sense for the working class to become the ruling class therefore abolishing itself as a class.

Socialism 2012 onwards to a 24 hour general strike

After a fantastic weekend of discussion and debate in London I feel absolutely shattered. Back in work trying to win the arguments for a 24 hour general strike. The theme of this year’s socialism rally was to kick out the con-dems with a 24 hour general strike. Many of the speakers made references to this. Bob crow on the rally on Saturday night was as good as ever putting the case against austerity and why we need a 24 hour general strike to bring all the disputes together and to start to build the attack on this go and with the aim to defeat it if not force it into major retreat. I thought the sessions this year at socialism were fantastic. The session I spoke in as the introducing speaker on disabilities and how to defend disabled people don’t think that was the title of the session but that’s how it came out anyhow went really really well. I was surprised when so many turned up to hear me speak and others share thoughts and ideas. It was decided we will hold a disabled caucus either in November or early in the New Year somewhere central to further discuss our programme going forward as the socialist party. There was a brilliant in depth wide ranging discussion on Remploy from Les Woodward, contributions from Katrine Williams and Tracey Edwards of the PCS who made excellent points of wanting to work with disabled people as they as PCS members are on the other side of things feeling the pinch and the abuse from working for the government implementing their policies. So I’m glad to hear PCS members are keen to work with disabled people in our caucus and to help further the voices of venerable people. The rally itself in the evening on the Saturday was excellent sadly the South African miner who has played a crucial role in the strikes which have swept the mining districts in that country could not obtain a visa in the end and could not make the event sadly. Neither could the labour or ex labour councillor I should say in Southampton who has voted against cuts down there and has for his efforts along with his friend been expelled from the labour party now for voting against cuts yep that’s right against cuts. Keith sent a message in his absence and made a significant donation to the fighting fund appeal collection on the Saturday night which was very much appreciated. In all we raised 17 K over the weekend with more donations still coming in. A part of this will be going to our international the CWI which includes our rapidly growing section in South Africa who are playing a very important role in the leadership of that militant movement. Peter Taaffe the general secretary of the party like every year was fantastic and great value with his own style of working class comedy always thrown in for good measure. Peter made the case that workers will not put up with a rotten leadership forever and just like in South Africa will move their rotten leaders aside if need be to get the fighting leadership they need and deserve to win. It is crucial in the next period the biggest pressure is put on the TUC to act to name the day for a 24 hour general strike as the first stage of a co-ordianted fight back. Peter also as he always does so well drew the political conclusions in terms of working class representation stating labour would cut more gently, nicely and all that and to workers this cannot do and we need our own party of the working class. We as the socialist party believe TUSC can be a flexible body for this idea it isn’t the finished product or anything near a mass workers party but has made key steps forward in the recent period. The coming on board of the RMT one of the most militant unions out there in Britain is key success to this can be shown in the recruitment of Steve Hedly assistant general secretary of the RMT who has stood for TUSC this year in the London GLA elections on the list has decided to join the socialist party after much careful consideration we welcome comrade hedly on board for the struggle ahead. On the Sunday there were further debates and discussions two sessions one morning one afternoon. I attended the morning session on Historical Materialism with Ken Douglas who really blew my mind in terms of Marxist dialectics, this is the part of Marxist theory I most struggle with. I am continuing to learn as I go on and will never stop learning. In the afternoon I attended the debate with Owen Jones the Labour Left celebrity journalist the question time style debate was very good Owen debate with Clive Heemskerk of the socialist party Clive won this debate I felt although Owen in his usual muddled way came up with some solid points sadly Owen seems to only deal in Accomplished facts and needs to take on board what Nancy Taaffe rightly said we live in exceptional times the old rules do no longer apply if the labour party can’t be reclaimed which at this stage we do not feel it can be Owen and his fan club of labour lefties must draw the conclusions a new party of the working class is needed. The closing rally was brilliant too with Matt Wrack the general secretary of the Fire Brigade Union speaking passionately about the need to democratically publically own the banks and run them for need not profit in the interests of working class people. Matt and his union are facing huge attacks including cuts to 17 London fire stations I have no doubt Matt will stand up for his members and bravely fight all of these cuts as the FBU has been know for in recent times. Hannah Sell the deputy general secretly of the socialist party was last up in c losing the rally and concluded what a fantastic weekend it has been. I’d agree and look forward to building the party and the movement against this government and fighting for a socialist society for the 99%.

Miliband and labour offer no alternative for workers, time for a new workers party

This week we have been drowned in clips and interviews and speech’s room the labour party conference. What has felt more like a rock concert with big pyrotechnics and backing tracks its all felt a very hollow affair. No wonder workers do not turn to the lab our party conference like they once did to see the NEC put under pressure and sometimes turned over by the left. It just doesn’t happen anymore. A fully staged event with few opportunities for debates and what is debated on is strictly chosen by the leadership to not embarrass the party at all in anyway and even if motion is passed in favour of workers it is either forgotten about or heavily watered down. So I ask you what is the point of the labour party conference or of labour at all anymore? With anger rising against the government coalition's austerity programme, Labour is riding high in the opinion polls. But there certainly isn't any enthusiasm for Labour leader Ed Miliband as a future prime minister. In fact he has a lower personal approval rating than Tory leader David Cameron! His speech at the Labour Party conference was seen as chance to re-launch his "vision". He has been praised for his confident delivery but beyond his ability to memorise a speech and which school he went to, what have we learnt about Ed Miliband? More importantly for those drowning in Con-Dem cuts and privatisation, what would a Labour government do differently? Certainly those hoping for any new ideas will have been disappointed. The main theme of the speech - 'One Nation' - was the rehashing of an old idea, and an old Tory idea at that. In fact it was first raised by Tory leader Benjamin Disraeli 140 years ago. Miliband considers him a One Nation politician and he made sure we knew, using the phrase 46 times in his speech! He was forced to reflect the worries of ordinary people, the millions of us who can't find work or are struggling to make ends meet. He correctly said that the system doesn't work for them. But the idea of 'One Nation' cannot square the opposing interests of workers trying to improve their pay and bosses who are trying to cut it. We live under capitalism, a system where society is divided up in to classes. Rarely is this more obvious than now when the super-rich are continuing to rake it in while working class people are expected to pay for their crisis. With four out of five ministers in this government being millionaires it is clear who they represent. Bosses are getting cuts to their tax and to health and safety regulations, we're getting cuts to our pay, jobs and services. Unfortunately, what little concrete proposals there were in Miliband's speech made clear that fundamentally Labour will continue with the same agenda. Listening to other speeches at the conference confirms this. Labour's only alternative to austerity is slightly slower austerity. In many local councils Labour councillors are already implementing huge cuts. They are another party of big business. The 'One Nation' rhetoric is simply a way of masking their true intent, as the claim "we're all in it together" or the idea of the 'Big Society' were for Cameron. Dave Prentis, general secretary of Labour-affiliated trade union Unison, although a Labour supporter was forced to concede that the speech "offered little hope to the millions of low-paid public service workers ... who are going through massive pay cuts, their jobs threatened and their services privatised." In fact Miliband did offer them something: "Tough settlements for the public services and that will make life harder for those who use them and harder for those who work in them." Ed Miliband was elected Labour leader two years ago, largely by the votes of trade unionists. Many hoped that he would lead a return to 'Old Labour'. This hasn't happened. Now members of Labour-affiliated unions should be asking why their money is still going to a party that doesn't represent them. We were right to point this out at the time when Ed was elected that Ed was not red ed but a continuation of New labour if not in name but in practise. Very little has changed inside labour the left are weaker than ever and some still think the party can be reclaimed. Amazingly some are following the celebrity cult culture which the labour left cling on to with the appearance of the young squeaky clean Owen Jones who who writes a column for the bourgeois press in the name of the Independent newspaper. To be fair a lot of what Jones writes is very good his book Chav’s is not bad but he still believes Labour can be reclaimed from within. He has no strategy for this and constantly points to the unions to use their union links more well Owen does this not mean that the unions need to be transformed first before all this. Union tops especially the right wing union leaders are quite happy to play the status quo and sound radical joining with Jones on panels such as CLASS Owens’s new left think tank with very limited demands it has to be said. Owen is very good at telling us what is wrong with the system but rarely offers any alternative despite calling himself a socialist. A socialist doesn’t just say what they are against they put forward an alternative. TUSC can be that political alternative and socialism is the system we need to replace capitalism with. We desperately need a party that will stand up for working-class and middle-class people. The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), supported by the RMT transport union and a number of leading trade unionists in other unions is an important step towards such a party. TUSC candidates will stand in the Manchester Central by-election and the Bristol mayoral election in November on a clear programme of implacable opposition to all cuts. Workers don't need pious speeches about how hard things are, they need support when they fight back. TUSC supporters are proud to stand on picket lines with workers defending their standards of living. There's no attempt to hide whose interests we stand for - it is the 99%. With extracts taken from http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/15380/04-10-2012/miliband-placates-big-business-by-promising-more-tough-settlements-for-public-services

Where has working class pride gone ?

On twitter a guy i know quite well has been trying to start a trend with the tag #workingclasspride as we feel the idea that you can be proud to be working class and accepting of your class in society is not a bad thing.

Why am i saying all this you may think ?
well for years various polititians new labour and tory have been trying to convince us that we're all middle class now. The idea that you can progress and buy your own home and move up the social mobility ladder has been brought well and truely by many that they are not working class any longer.

I have news for them. Many will realise in the upcoming period that they are not as middle class as they think they are. As this crisis of capitalism deepens and we hit recessions and stagnation over years of slow growth or even contraction many people including those who consider themselves middle class will see their take home pay fall and their living standards slip.

But why is there this stigma about being working class ?

Owen Jones teh author in his brilliant book Chav's highlights it correctly. The working and lower class's have been demonised and pushed from pillar to post so it is seen in the media and everyday society now that it is something to be almost ashamed of to be working class and earn a low wage and get by.

Of course many people are still aspirational but for many that reality of moving on in life and out of being a worker is something the vast majority of us will never realise.

Only when the class based system has been abolished will we see people having true social mobility and being able to fulfill their true potential.

But for the ruling class's including successive governments distorting and masking the fact that more of us are working class than we care to know has worked well for them so far. To convince people they are doing ok and they have little to complain about has worked up till now. But as i say things will change. We are currently going through a transition phase i'd call it where people are starting to realise their potential power as a class. This will take a long time i feel but the opening up of struggles on the industrial plain with strikes and workers action will concentrate many peoples minds that we are the 99% that keeps the 1% going. Not by choice but by nature of the capitalist class based system which keeps us in our place.

But this hash tag on twitter we came up with is great it gets people thinking what is good about being working class and how we can start to feel a sense of solidarity and pride in who we are and face up to the realities of the class system. Only by doing this can we realise our full potential.