Busting the public sector pensions myth

This is a excellent article from this weeks paper. the socialist which highlights the myths on public sector pay and pensions which the June 30th strikes wre all about. I advise all to read this as it will set the record straight on many a myth portrayed by the capitalist media.

1. Public sector pensions are "too generous"
Surely this can only be answered by considering whether the pension does its job: provides a decent standard of living for a retired worker. On this measure no public sector pension is "too generous". The average pension for ordinary civil servants is just £4,200 a year. The average pension in the education sector is £10,000 a year.

The definition of poverty according to the government is living on less than 60% of the median income (£15,568 a year in 2010). No public sector pension gets close to this level.

2. Public sector pensions are "unfair" to workers in the private sector
True, 'Fred the Shred' Goodwin of bank collapse fame, for example, got £16 million. But most private sector workers get a raw deal on pensions. This is because the Tories already helped big business to decimate their pensions. Now they present the private sector as typical of some "natural" pension level, rather than a conscious pro-big business policy choice 20 years ago.

The Con-Dems will even argue that the tax paid by private sector workers is directly funding public sector pensions. But no government ear-marks funds in this way. Again, it is a pro-big business choice by the Con-Dems to cut taxes on bankers and the super-rich.

A successful campaign to defend public sector pensions must simultaneously be the launch point for a campaign to win back the pension rights of private sector workers. We're not falling for the divide and rule myth.

3. The country can no longer afford "gold-plated" public sector pensions
Arguments about the "national interest" include the following variants: "the public sector is too big", "the public debt is too high", "we're living too long" etc, etc. In other words, we should all take a hit for "the good of the country".

But currently public sector pensions are 1.9% of GDP. According to Lord Hutton's report this proportion will fall to 1.4% by 2060 without making a single change! The teachers' pension pot is self-funding, requiring no money from elsewhere.

The claim that we are living longer is another cover-up for Con-Dem policy choices. There is huge wealth in society that could fund earlier retirement on a living pension for all workers in the public and private sectors. The problem is that it is all locked away with the super-rich. The richest 1,000 people in Britain have £395 billion between them.

Socialist policies that took such vast wealth into democratic public ownership and spent it to the benefit of all would mean we could live into our hundreds without worrying about the "affordibility" of pensions.

4. "We're all in this together"
We have arrived at the big lie that explains the half-truths and obfuscations of the other pitiful arguments: "we are all in this together".

The attack on public sector pensions is part of a broader effort to make the working class pay for the crisis of capitalism. In the biggest rip-off in history the politicians are trying to let the banks and financial markets get away without contributing a penny to fix the economy they wrecked. Instead they think they can make the working class pay.

But of course they can't say that to us plainly and that explains the Houdini style contortions in the "debate" on public sector pensions...


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Child povety in Condem Britain as cuts begin to hit

Last Monday on BBc 1 there was a documentary shown called Poor Kids. these documentaries dont come on that often as we are distracted from the real reallities of what really goes on in parts of Britain today as the working class people realise the tories are back at the helm. Documentaries like this one shown last week are shown not because the ruling class wants the mass's to see such things but they are obliged to keep their state funding to show these sorts of programmes to remain somewhat balanced.
The programme was good and underneath i've placed the review of the documantary from our paper this week- the socialist which you can read more at www.socialistparty.org.uk

Three and a half million children in Britain live in poverty. The gap between rich and poor has never been greater. BBC One's "Poor Kids" filmed children in their homes and neighbourhoods and let them talk. What a sad, sickening picture of life in one of the richest countries in the world.

We're told we all have to tighten our belts; that we've all been profligate and now wasteful public spending has to be reined in.

We saw a boy who was bullied for wearing hand-me-down school clothes from his older sister, and a girl who had never had a holiday apart from a school trip to Scarborough. All the children filmed occasionally went without meals, and all of them were cold in the winter because their parents couldn't afford to properly heat their homes.

I normally hate programmes like this. we are very aware that our own children and many of their friends are in the poverty statistics, and I dread programmes that claim to show what it's really like. Aside from the fact that inevitably editorial decisions distort what we see, they also lift people out of their context. With very little commentary we are largely left to draw our own conclusions, and it would be very easy for some viewers to see these children's lives as the product of individual problem parents.

But that is clearly not the case. The statistics injected at various points in the programme showed that these children simply illustrate general conditions. When children talked about their asthma and eczema problems, we were told that poor children are two and a half times more likely to suffer chronic illnesses and 85% of children living in damp conditions suffer breathing problems.

What linked all the families shown was long-term unemployment. One was a single father, struggling to find work that would fit around childcare, while in his city five people chase every job. Officially, the poverty line for a family his size is £1,000 a month after housing costs. This family lived on £420 a month. The father explained that when he was in work their income was that amount a week.

Massive public sector cuts are going to make these conditions far worse. If the government realises its plans, job prospects are going to get much worse, benefits will fall, housing conditions worsen and access to decent children's services, limited as it already is, will be slashed. The happy ending for one child in the programme, when her damp block of flats was knocked down and her family was rehoused, is unlikely to be repeated for many children in this age of austerity.

In fact the people in the programme are the target of Con-Dem attacks. These are the 'scroungers' allegedly living in luxury at the expense of hard-working taxpayers.

The final statistics in the programme were probably the most devastating. On measures of child poverty, Britain comes 18 out of 22 European countries, with only Slovenia, Poland, Hungary and Italy worse. And child poverty is set to rise 11% over the next three years.

Of course the programme offered no solutions. It is up to the Socialist to provide that - to end the horrors of child poverty we must organise to defeat the cuts, and fight for a programme of full employment, and investment in decent housing and public services.


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In this issue


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Fighting the cuts

Strike 30 June

Workers tur

What has socialism got to do with the cuts ?

In the special edition of the socialist a paper by the socialist party for the 26th march TUC demo ther eis a excellent article relating socialism to the cuts and how socialism can help us to a better world. i've reproduced it underneath. You can join the party at www.socialistparty.org.uk

What has socialism got to do with fighting the cuts?

Socialist Party members sell The Socialist, photo Paul Mattsson

Each week members of the Socialist Party sell copies of the Socialist newspaper at workplaces, colleges, stations, town centres and working class estates all over England and Wales, as well as at protests and meetings. Sellers are often questioned about socialist ideas. Here Tom Pearse records such a discussion.

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Socialist seller (S): Fight the cuts - no ifs, no buts, fight all cuts!

Potential buyer (B): Ok, I'm against the cuts but what is the alternative? The government says there is a massive public sector deficit and, if we don't cut it, then it will grow to unacceptable levels. Then the country will go bankrupt.
S: Well, the first thing I'd say is that we, the working people, who are the majority in this country, didn't create this deficit. The rich and their system of capitalism, particularly the bankers, are mainly responsible for this deficit. The previous government stepped in and bailed them out to the tune of about £80 billion directly, with up to £1 trillion in loan guarantees etc.

Also, because of the crisis of capitalism - which again we didn't create - over 2.5 million people in Britain don't have a job - including a million young people between the ages of 16 and 24.

It's the largesse handed out to the bankers and the increased cost to the state in unemployment and other benefits which accounts for most of the deficit.

B: Yes, yes - but this deficit exists. How are we going to pay for it? How can we ultimately eliminate it?
S: Did you know that the total deficit could be wiped out if the rich paid taxes like ordinary people do? Tax avoidance by the rich, according to the PCS civil service union, comes to £120 billion a year, which is almost equal to the total government budget deficit, £143 billion, to be eliminated over four years.

But the Con-Dems are using this situation to pursue a scorched earth policy against all the historical achievements of working class people, the NHS, pay and conditions etc.

This represents an attempt to turn back the wheel of history to the 1930s and in some senses to the 19th century. Working class people are being made to pay for rescuing capitalism in a severe crisis.

B: But if we try to make the rich pay for the deficit, won't they just take their money out of the country?
S: Yes, they might attempt that. But then they would be openly acting selfishly by seeking to flout the democratic wishes of the majority of the British people. We would therefore have every right to introduce measures to prevent them from doing so.

B: But isn't that to attack the principle of private property?
S: When socialists talk about 'private property' we're not talking about the personal possessions of ordinary people - houses, cars, fridges, etc. The private property of the rich and the super-rich comes through the super-exploitation of us, working class people.

They would argue that their profit, which is what Karl Marx called "the unpaid labour of the working class", is necessary in order to keep the system going. We should never forget that profit is achieved by exploitation - sometimes ruthlessly so in China and elsewhere today - of the labour power of the working class.

B: Don't we need rich people to create jobs and anyway, doesn't competition drive invention?
S: There is a grain of truth in the arguments of the bosses. In the past, by investing this surplus - profits if you like - in industry, they played a role in developing society, providing jobs and increased wealth for a time.

But for the last 20 to 30 years investment in factories, in what we would call the 'means of production' - the organisation of labour, science and technique - and the actual making of real things, has dropped dramatically.

Instead they sought to boost their profits in a massive orgy of 'financialisation', the building up of the financial sector at the expense of real production and the creation of jobs. This created a massive financial bubble which has now burst, resulting in the present devastating crisis.

This is a real indictment of the failure of capitalism. The International Monetary Fund has calculated that during this economic crisis, in 2008 alone, the total loss in assets devalued worldwide came to $50 trillion - roughly equal to the value of one year's global output of goods and services! This wealth is being destroyed because capitalism is a system based on production for profit for the few and not the social need of the many.

B: OK, the capitalists failed. But you still haven't said how you would stop them from avoiding any attacks on their wealth.

Selling The Socialist in Waltham Forest, photo Alison Hill

S: If they tried to continue with evasion, if they tried to take their loot out of the country, then a radical socialist government should introduce state controls of all capital coming in and out of the country.

This would be accompanied by the 'opening of the books'. The accounts of all companies should be inspected by mass committees of workers and consumers. This would be a form of workers' control, which is vital as a means of revealing the real wealth and how it is to be controlled for the benefit of the majority.

B: How can you do this in an open and free economy?
S: By nationalising the banks and finance houses.

B: Didn't the British government try this at the beginning of the financial crisis when they took big stakes in the banks?
S: Up to a point yes. But it was not complete nationalisation. And it certainly wasn't carried out in a way that was beneficial to the majority of the people of this country. New Labour left control in the hands of big business managers.

Even when the banks are nominally under our control - that is the state - they are run by and in the interests of the capitalists. Look at the tops of the majority-nationalised RBS bank - they are paying out millions in bonuses to themselves!

Instead we want real democratic nationalisation, conducted in a socialist manner through workers' control and management. This would involve the workers in the banking and financial sector, together with representatives of workers in general and government representatives, as well as depositors and other users, controlling and managing the banks on behalf of the people as a whole, providing cheap loans, mortgages, etc.

B: Won't big business take fright and sabotage any efforts to rein them in?
S: It is entirely possible that this could happen or be threatened. In the past, when minimal measures were taken against them, the capitalists threatened a strike of capital. When the Labour government in the 1970s - led by Harold Wilson as prime minister - introduced a tax on capital, big business, with the help of the newspapers, conducted a ferocious struggle which resulted in 174 amendments to the bill, and effectively nullified the proposed tax increases against the rich.

B. Well there we go. You can't do anything.
S: Now, I didn't say that. If we, the Socialist Party, have majority support, we could do a great deal to counter the undemocratic defiance by a handful of capitalists, seeking to thwart the wishes of the majority.

Harold Wilson and the Labour government, because they would not go outside the framework of capitalism, bent the knee to the bosses' pressure and capitulated. We would have called their bluff and proposed to Parliament a bill to take over these big companies who were threatening to defy and blackmail the elected representatives of the people.

B: But again, would that not mean violating the age-old principles of private property?
S: To invoke this alleged 'principle' is a smokescreen to mask the colossal and undemocratic concentration of power in the hands of a handful of the rich.

A few figures to illustrate this: of the hundred largest economies in the world 52 are corporations and 48 are countries; the top 500 companies control 70% of world trade; the top 200 companies' combined sales are equal to 28% of world GDP but employ only 0.82% of the world's workforce.

In the US, 2% of companies account for almost 75% of business activity. Here in Britain, the Socialist Party points out that 150 companies control 70-75% of the wealth of this country.

In other words a handful of billionaires control what are, in effect, monopoly concerns, which determine what will and will not be produced. They control who will and who will not work, which party they would like to see elected in which government to best represent their interests.

We do not live in a real democracy. Capitalist democracy is where everybody, at least in theory, can say what they like so long as big business, a handful of monopoly companies, can decide what takes place in practice.

B: But how can you break the power of the rich and the big monopolies?
S: That's a very good question. We will propose that these companies be taken over - nationalised by a socialist government which would then organise a democratic socialist plan of production. This plan would be drawn up through the involvement of working class people, representatives of the middle class, such as small shopkeepers, small businesses etc, the users and customers of industry, etc.

B: Two questions spring to mind. Wouldn't nationalisation be, in effect, 'expropriation' of the assets of people who, through diligent work, have built up this wealth over generations?
Secondly, if you take over industry, don't you also 'nationalise' the savings of many, not necessarily wealthy, people who invested in stocks and shares - for instance trade union members who have their pensions invested on the stock exchange?

S: Firstly this wealth and power of big business has been built up, as we showed earlier, by the exploitation of the labour power of the working class.

In the past there was some justification for this - despite the horrors of capitalism in the Industrial Revolution, the slave trade, etc. This was because it built up industry and was therefore ultimately laying the basis for abolishing shortages and boosting living standards.

But capitalism is a system which cannot fully utilise the full potential of the productive forces, as has been shown by the series of crises throughout its history and particularly the present crisis. Karl Marx pointed out that when it begins to hold back production, to destroy wealth, capitalism betrays its "historical mission", which was to develop production.

When it begins to hold back production it becomes obsolete. This does not mean, however, that capitalism will 'automatically' disappear. It needs to be 'helped' off the stage of history by the actions of the working class and the labour movement. So we need a new social system - one that involves a state acting for the majority and not the privileged minority - which is democratic at every level both in the running of industry and society.

But we, that is the working class and the labour movement, are not impervious to the interests of the small investors. Even to the big investors we will be more generous than they are to the poor, those on benefits, etc. Compensation will be paid on the basis of proven need to all whose assets are being taken over by a democratic socialist workers' state.

B: And the ordinary people?
S: It goes without saying that, of course, trade union members and their pensions will be safeguarded; in fact, pensions will be rapidly increased from the current miserable level which the coalition government intends to cut further. All workers - as well as the unemployed, those on low wages, pensioners etc - will enormously benefit from a socialist planned economy.

B: How can you possibly guarantee that, by waving some kind of magical 'socialist' wand, things will improve in the way you describe?
S: There will be no hocus-pocus; there is no mystery in how a socialist planned economy would be organised and will be superior to outmoded capitalism.

Capitalism is a system which cannot utilise the full productive potential of its own system. The output of the world economy is back to the levels of 1989.

But in the 17 countries forming the eurozone, joblessness among the young now officially stands at over 20% (although it's much higher in many areas) alongside closed factories.

In Ireland we have the phenomena of empty 'ghost estates' while millions throughout the world lack basic shelter. One billion people on the planet go to bed hungry every night, an increase of 150 million compared to 15 years ago.

A planned economy would use all the resources which now lie idle, as well as cutting out the colossal waste from unnecessary advertising, duplication of production, etc.

Instead of the measly growth rate of capitalist economies at present - with Britain not really growing at all - a socialist planned economy could rapidly increase production on an environmentally sustainable basis and generate huge extra resources in Europe and the world.

It would increase the participation of the workforce in running society, including production, as well as consumers - through cutting the working day without any loss in pay. This would not lead to a decrease in production but give an enormous boost to it. In schools, in housing, in education, instead of the current cuts, there would be a big expansion. Undreamed of plenty is possible on the basis of socialism.

B: But didn't 'socialism' fail in Russia? Instead of democracy there was dictatorship by people like Stalin.
S: The Russian revolution, in the period immediately after 1917, when the October revolution took place, established the most democratic state in history. It proceeded to take into public ownership the land, industry and finance.

For the first time the majority - that is the working class and the poor peasantry - were in power. They ruled through a system of workers' and peasants' councils.

There were no privileges for the representatives of the people, who lived on the average wage, were subject to recall, etc. These councils, for the first time in history, raised the working class to power and allowed them to rule.

The Russian revolution was seen as just the beginning of the European and the world revolution. Unfortunately, despite favourable opportunities, this did not transpire because of the betrayal of the workers' leaders in the social democratic parties (like the Labour Party in Britain) in the West at that stage. Therefore Russia was isolated and, on the basis of scarcity, a low cultural level and a privileged elite, the bureaucracy began to emerge, personified by Stalin.

This bureaucratic caste betrayed the ideals of the Russian revolution - although the planned economy was still maintained and therefore the system which remained was still relatively progressive compared to capitalism - and gradually established a one-party totalitarian regime.

B: What guarantee is there that your British version of socialism will not go the same way?
S: This will not happen in a socialist Britain. I know this is a bold assertion but it's based on a sober assessment of the different conditions between Britain today and Russia at the time of the revolution. We live in an advanced industrial country, with a high level of culture, access to computers, the social media, etc. We have a powerful and educated working class with its own organisations, the trade unions.

Once working people here carry through such a big social change they will not allow a repetition of Stalinism, for power and privilege to be concentrated in a few hands.

B: But won't those in power just get greedy?
S: Yes, there is always a danger of a bureaucratic layer seeking to control everything. Look at the trade unions today. There are leaderships sometimes on salaries several times that of trade union members. There are leaderships who fear the active participation of the members, particularly militant fighters like members of the Socialist Party fighting to transform the unions so that they reflect the real will of working people.

The only way to check this bureaucracy is through democracy. Trade union and other officials should be elected subject to recall. Such will be the advantages of socialism, particularly implemented democratically, that there would be no possibility of going back to capitalism. This would be as absurd and as utopian as anybody today hoping to return to feudalism, to the hardship of the middle ages.

B: But do you think that the capitalists will just allow you to go ahead and expropriate them without resistance?
S: We will have a democratic majority and under the rules of democracy a minority should abide by the will of the majority. Of course the rights of minorities would be protected. Not just the working class but the intermediate layers of society can be won to socialist system.

Once the mass of working people come together in struggle, a huge social movement, all of those layers of society who are subject to attack by the system, gravitate to the workers' side. This was shown, after all, in the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and throughout the Middle East.

The Con-Dems are attacking the police by proposing to cut their numbers. Even servicemen, on returning from Afghanistan, could be thrown on the dole. Many then can be open to the idea of fighting the cuts. But also this can open up for them the vista of a new society where all the talents can be used.

Nevertheless we are realistic. History has shown that it is not the left, it is not the working class movement, which resorts to force to attain its ends. We are absolutely opposed to the methods of terrorism. But we're not pacifists; we will defend all democratic rights from any forceful attempt to take them away. We fight with democratic means for a democratic majority. But the ruling class does not always abide by even its own 'rules' when its vital interests are threatened.

B: Ok, you've made the case for a socialist Britain. But what kind of set-up will you have in relations with Europe and the world?
S: We don't believe in socialism in one country. Russia shows that there is no possibility of any one country moving towards socialism by itself. Leon Trotsky, the great socialist theoretician of the workers' movement, continually argued against this idea and he was proved right.

The development of the productive forces has completely outgrown the narrow limits of the nation state. The failed attempt of the capitalists in Europe to come together through the European Union is one expression of this.

If Egypt can detonate and assist the movement in Wisconsin, in the belly of the beast, the US itself, imagine if Britain was to go socialist. It would begin to transform the world. The same would apply in any country in Europe, or for that matter the relatively developed countries in Latin America or Asia.

Why socialists should oppose AV

I was thinking to myself a while now as i'm a socialist how i should approach the forthcoming AV referendum and what should i vote for. This article below sums things up perfectly from a socailist, trades union, new workers movement perspective and lets us know that AV will not give us the better democracy it likes to portray. I reccomend all read this bit below. It should explain a lot about where we should focus our thoughts when casting our vote in may.

Barring an unexpected upset in the House of Lords the Con-Dems’ Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill will soon become law, paving the way for a referendum in May to change the method of electing MPs to the ‘alternative vote’ system. What position should socialists take? CLIVE HEEMSKERK writes.

DURING LAST YEAR’S student rising, as police chiefs discussed whether to ask for water cannons to deal with future protests in the age of capitalist austerity, the political representatives of the system were also debating how best to beef up their defences – in this case, their Westminster positions – against the growing rage outside.

The constituency re-organisation aspects of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, nearing the end of its legislative journey, are certainly a clear case of Tory gerrymandering. The number of MPs will be cut from 650 to 600 – a smaller parliament is a long-standing Tory goal – and constituency boundaries will be hastily re-drawn (with local inquiries abolished). This will be done on the basis of an electoral register that excludes an estimated 3.5 million adults (rather than, for example, waiting for the forthcoming census returns), reducing, in particular, the social weight of the inner-cities in parliamentary representation. While the overall electoral registration rate has dropped from 97% in 1988 – before the poll tax – to 91% now, a 2010 Electoral Commission survey showed the disproportionate effects, with 31% of black and minority ethnic residents and 49% of private sector tenants not registered, for example. On this basis alone the whole Con-Dems ‘reform’ package should be firmly opposed by the labour movement.

But the provision to change the voting system in parliamentary elections, from ‘first-past-the-post’ to the ‘alternative vote’ (AV) method – provided there is majority backing in a referendum in May – has won support from sections of the ‘left’, from the Guardian newspaper and the Green Party to, unfortunately, the veteran left-winger Tony Benn, John McDonnell MP, and the PCS civil servants union.

The Yes campaign speaks of ‘a fairer voting system’ but AV is no more democratic than the present position, and arguably less so. More importantly, AV will not make any easier the process of establishing a new vehicle for working class political representation, a new workers’ party, the key task posed, on the political plane, by the era-defining struggle against the cuts. From a longer term perspective, an AV system would create barriers – not insurmountable but real nonetheless – to the prospect of a mass workers’ party of the future winning a parliamentary majority. The Socialist Party will be campaigning for a No vote in the forthcoming referendum.

Is AV ‘fair’?
BRITAIN’S MPs are currently elected in single-member, geographically-based constituencies, in which the front runner wins, even if the vote that he or she receives is less than 50% of the votes cast.

In the AV system proposed in the Parliamentary Voting Systems Bill, voters will still elect one candidate from one geographic constituency. However, instead of voting for one candidate they will be able to rank one or more in order of preference. If, after the first preferences have been counted, no candidate has secured over 50% of the votes cast, then the bottom candidate will be eliminated and their second preferences redistributed to the remaining candidates. This process will be repeated until one candidate reaches a majority or, as not every voter will necessarily list second or third preferences, only two candidates remain and no more re-distributions are possible.

Is this a ‘fair’ system? AV has been used in Australia in single-member seats for the House of Representatives since 1919 and has produced election results as disproportionate on occasions as those under Britain’s ‘first-past-the-post’ system. One example was the election that followed the constitutional crisis of 1975, when the Queen’s representative, Governor-General Sir John Kerr, dismissed the Labour government – elected in 1972 after 23 years of Liberal/Country Party rule – which had enacted some Keynesian measures against big business profits and threatened to close US military bases in Australia. The Liberal Party was behind the Australian Labour Party (ALP) in the national vote, but won nearly twice as many seats after votes were re-distributed, legitimising Kerr’s ‘constitutional coup’.

Another example is last year’s general election in Australia which saw the Greens breakthrough to win their first seat – but they polled 11.76% of the national vote to win one seat, out of 150, compared to the now capitalist ALP’s 72 seats on a 38% vote. In contrast, under the first-past-the-post system, the Greens won their first MP in last year’s UK general election with just 1.1% of the national vote (standing in 334 seats).

AV is not a proportional system. Following the 1997 election Tony Blair established a commission, headed by the former Labour right-winger and Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Jenkins, to study alternatives to first-past-the-post. The Jenkins Commission eventually proposed an AV-plus system, with 80-85% of MPs elected on an individual constituency basis but with others elected on a ‘top-up’ basis to create greater proportionality, similar – although with a more restrictive threshold – to the systems used for the London assembly, Welsh assembly, and Scottish parliament elections.

The Commission considered a simple AV option, noting approvingly that one of its ‘formidable assets’ was the fact that "there is not the slightest reason to think that AV would reduce the stability of government; it might indeed lead to larger parliamentary majorities". (Voting Systems: The Jenkins Report, October 1998) But as the Commission’s ‘remit’ included ‘relieving disproportionality’ – the Jenkins Commission was set up Blair and the then Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown purposely to find ways to entrench and consolidate the process of transforming the Labour Party into New Labour, to make coalitions the ‘new normal’ – so AV was rejected because, "in some circumstances… it is even less proportional than first-past-the-post".

Electoral reform and the workers’ movement
THE DEBATES AROUND the Jenkins Commission, and earlier discussions on electoral reform by the ruling class and their right-wing shadows in the workers’ movement, are instructive, particularly those that took place when the Labour Party was a ‘capitalist workers’ party’ (with pro-capitalist leaders but with democratic structures that allowed the working class to fight for its interests), not fully under the control of the ruling class.

The 1970s, for example, saw the emergence of a Conservative Campaign for Electoral Reform, following the shift towards the left within the trade unions and the Labour Party as a result of the enormous class battles under Edward Heath’s Tory government of 1970-74. A key Tory supporter of electoral reform, the MP Sir Anthony Kershaw, stated its aim at the time: "I feel that electoral reform is necessary if the country is to be run democratically and not against its wishes by a militant minority" (Obituary, The Telegraph, 30 April 2008) Tory representatives welcomed, and noted, the AV-created disproportionate landslide defeat of the Australian Labour government in the 1975 general election.

The experience of Chile was also pondered, where Salvador Allende had initially been elected president in 1970 with 36% of the vote and, under the pressure of the masses, nationalised over one third of industry (the Popular Unity parties subsequently increased their vote to 44% in the March 1973 parliamentary elections, the last elections before the military coup which overthrew Allende in September). Electoral reform, in other words, was explicitly seen as a means to stop the possible coming to power of a Tony Benn-led left Labour government ‘on a minority vote’. (This period, and the 1970s debates on constitutional reform, are discussed in more depth in an article by Peter Taaffe, The Brutal Face of Toryism Behind the ‘Liberal’ Mask, reprinted in Socialism Today No.113, November 2007)

As The Economist remarked in a later debate on electoral reform, summing up the calculating attitude of the capitalists to the different forms of parliamentary democracy, there are "many faces of fairness". The task is to "ask, in each case, what function the elected body serves, what they want to achieve… and is it worth the upheaval" to change the electoral system. (1 May, 1993)

Marxists, in contrast, have always been champions of the widest democracy, including its extension to the economy and society as a whole. The working class has always had to fight for democratic rights like the right to free association (including trade unions), free expression (including workers’ papers), even the ‘rule of law’ against the arbitrary exercise of power and, of course, the right to vote and universal suffrage. Extending and deepening democracy within capitalist society strengthens the working class and its organisations, necessary both for the task of ending capitalism and the building of a new, socialist society. But when it comes to parliamentary systems, the workers’ movement too must look at who is proposing what, why, and in whose class interests.

So could socialists consider supporting AV in the forthcoming referendum? One possible argument is that it would help the development of a new workers’ party, the absence of which is a critical factor today. The transformation of the Labour Party has given the Con-Dem government a freer hand for their brutal measures. Just to compare the meek acquiescence of Labour councils now to the battles conducted in the past shows the consequences of this change. Although they eventually capitulated to Thatcher’s dictates, leaving Liverpool and Lambeth councils to fight alone, at one point 20 Labour councils were preparing to resist the government in the battles of the mid-1980s.

The Labour Party always had the potential to act at least as a check on the capitalists. The consequences of radicalising the Labour Party’s working class base was a factor the ruling class had to take into account. Now the situation is completely different. Without the re-establishment of at least the basis of independent working class political representation, the capitalists will feel less constrained in imposing their austerity policies.

In this situation a more proportional electoral system would increase the chances of an electoral breakthrough by a new workers’ party or a pre-formation of one, such as the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), an electoral alliance involving leading left trade unionists like the RMT transport workers’ union general secretary Bob Crow, along with the Socialist Party, the SWP and Solidarity – Scotland’s Socialist Movement. But would AV further the development of a new workers’ party?

Would AV help a new party?
SOME SUPPORTERS of a Yes vote say that AV would help by removing the argument created by the first-past-the-post system that standing socialist candidates ‘lets in the Tories’. It would be possible, the argument goes, to call for a first preference vote for TUSC, for example, and then recommend a second preference for the Labour candidate to avoid the risk of a Tory or Liberal Democrat victory.

But AV would not make it easier for a socialist candidate to actually win a seat. The closest the Socialist Party and its predecessor organisation, Militant Labour, has come to winning a parliamentary seat under first-past-the-post was in the general election of 1992 when Dave Nellist, the MP for Coventry South East expelled from the Labour Party, stood independently. The Labour candidate won the seat with 11,902 votes, ahead of the Tory candidate with 10,591 votes and Dave a further 40 votes behind on 10,551. If just under 700 Labour voters had voted for Dave instead he would have won the seat. But almost certainly not under AV.

The Liberal Democrats came fourth with 3,318 votes. Their candidate would have been eliminated and the Liberal Democrat voters’ second preferences re-distributed to the top three candidates. If the Tory candidate was in third place, their preference votes would have then been re-distributed. In the polarised context of the general election of 1992, it would have been highly unlikely that Dave would have secured sufficient preference votes to have gained first place when re-distributions had finished.

Since 1992, it is true, with Labour no longer a capitalist workers’ party, there has been a long-term erosion in voters’ ‘identification’ with political parties. Socialist Party candidates in local elections, for example, while winning many votes from those who would otherwise not vote at all, have often been able to win ‘protest votes’ from people who would ‘normally’ vote for other parties (and have secured victories under the first-past-the-post system).

But a protest vote is not the same as voting for a governmental alternative. AV would give a greater opportunity than first-past-the-post for the capitalist parties to ‘gang up’ and swap preferences against the candidates of a future mass workers’ party. Certainly, if a mass workers’ party existed, why should it not take advantage of the splits between the capitalist parties that the first-past-the-post system can not so easily overcome?

There is, of course, no ‘pure’ electoral system not open to manipulation by the ruling class and their political and legal representatives. The Socialist Party’s Joe Higgins was elected as a member of the Irish parliament (TD) for the Dublin West constituency in 1997, and re-elected in 2002, under the multi-member constituency single transferable vote (STV) form of proportional representation. But Dublin West has been one of the most re-drawn constituencies in Ireland in recent years and, in 2007, with a legal dispute ongoing that the number of TDs it elected was one short under the constitutional norm – a full quota would have ensured another victory for Joe – he was narrowly edged out. (He then went on to win a seat in the European parliament in 2009 in another multi-member STV election).

AV, however, is far less than ‘pure’. Whatever the outcome of the referendum, socialists will seek to gain the best advantage possible from the electoral terrain that exists. Militant, predecessor of the Socialist Party, had three MPs elected as Labour candidates in the 1980s – Dave Nellist, Terry Fields in Liverpool, and Pat Wall in Bradford – under the first-past-the-post system. Our sister party in Australia has won council elections under the AV system there. But it would be wrong to give any support to the idea that a system that could be used against the workers’ movement in the future is more ‘democratic’.

What is the alternative?
THE QUESTION ON the referendum ballot paper will effectively present a choice between the current system and AV: "At present, the UK uses the ‘first past the post’ system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the ‘alternative vote’ system be used instead?" Doesn’t a No vote guarantee a further delay in the development of a new workers’ party, as once again workers turn to vote Labour against the Con-Dems?

But that does not take into account perspectives for the era ahead. The Con-Dems are embarking upon the worst cuts in a generation, in a new world situation where there is no way out for capitalism except by attacking the conditions of the working class. Mass resistance is inevitable – and that will transform working peoples’ outlook. Labour will re-gain ground electorally but that does not mean that a force rooted in the mass opposition to the cuts will necessarily be ‘squeezed out’ on the electoral field.

The experience of elections during the anti-poll movement is instructive. While Labour soared ahead in national opinion polls, it was not the only electoral outlet for the mass opposition to the poll tax. The Scottish National Party triumphed on a ‘We’re not paying the Poll Tax’ platform in the November 1988 Govan by-election, overturning a 19,509 Labour majority just 17 months after the 1987 general election (and then refused to support mass non-payment!). The Greens won 2.29 million votes, a 15% protest vote in what is still their highest ever vote in a UK election, in the European elections in June 1989 – as the first poll tax bills were sent out in Scotland and registration began in England and Wales. All this was in the context of the Labour Party still being seen by many workers as ‘our party’, and after a decade of Tory rule.

The 1990 local elections, five weeks after the mass anti-poll tax demonstrations, confirmed this trend. Labour had just made a dramatic by-election gain in the safe Tory seat of Mid-Staffordshire and was ahead by over 20% in national opinion polls. The same polls showed that, as a general sentiment, the government was blamed for the poll tax rather than local councils who were implementing it. (NOP Review, July 1990) But that did not mean that individual councils were let off the hook in the local elections that followed in May. Labour performed poorly in councils where they passed on government cuts to their funding in higher than projected poll tax bills (Rawlings and Thrasher, Parliamentary Affairs, 1991) – while, of course, threatening draconian action to collect the tax – and only increased its national share of the vote by 2%. Significantly Labour’s best West Midlands performance was in Coventry and the only Metropolitan borough it gained was Bradford. In Liverpool, although the overall balance of the council Labour group had shifted to the right after the High Court’s removal of the 47 councillors who defied the Tory government from 1983-87, many councillors still supported non-payment – backed by MPs Terry Fields, Eric Heffer and Eddie Loyden – and Labour consolidated its position against the Liberal Democrats.

Outside of the Labour Party, however, there were only a few anti-poll tax union candidates in 1990, some of whom recorded votes of 20% or more, but the aftermath of the movement showed – if belatedly – what could have been achieved by a wider electoral challenge. The newly-formed Scottish Militant Labour (SML) won four seats on Glasgow council in May 1992, just weeks after another Tory victory in the April 1992 general election (in which Tommy Sheridan came second in Glasgow Pollok with 6,287 votes, 19.3%). In all, from May 1992 to February 1994, SML polled 33.3% of the total votes cast in 17 local council contests with Labour (36.1%), winning six.

The political impact of the anti-poll tax movement was muted by the limited character of the issue and, more generally, by the ideological triumph of capitalism after the collapse of Stalinism and its impact on workers’ consciousness and their organisations, including the transformation of Labour into New Labour. But the next period will be completely different to the 1990s.

The sense of foreboding for the future that grips the more thinking strategists of the ruling class is shown in the debates on the lessons of the Geddes Axe which have taken place amongst Tory historians, not only on how this post-first world war slashing of state spending prepared the way for the 1926 general strike, but also in its political consequences. The early Labour Party, a new workers’ party then, emerged on the back of the attacks on the trade unions in the first decade of the twentieth century but was still a ‘minor party’ when the Geddes Report was published in December 1921. But the Geddes cuts were a major factor in a surge in support for Labour, whose seats rose from 59 in 1918 to 142 in 1922.

The next period will see era-defining events, with great upheavals in consciousness and institutions, including the trade unions, as the impact of the cuts savagery unfolds. The question of independent mass working class political representation will once again be posed. But AV will not aid the struggle to bring such a formation into being and therefore socialists should campaign for a No vote in May.