Revisiting The Road to Wigan Pier

I’ve just finished reading George Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier and thought I’d re share the review by Peter Taaffe the General secretary of the socialist party. It fits my understanding of the b ook and captures the mood perfectly. George Orwell was perhaps the best known of the English socialist writers of the 1930s and 1940s. He is justifiably famous for books like 'Homage to Catalonia' and 'Animal Farm', as well as '1984'. Less familiar, however - particularly to the new generation - is 'The Road to Wigan Pier'. But it deserves to be better known, not only because of his analysis and searing indictment of British capitalism in the 1930s. Peter Taaffe, Socialist Party general secretary The Road to Wigan Pier powerfully resonates with us today because of the obvious comparison with the current economic crisis of Britain and the world, and its effects on the lives and conditions of working-class people. Orwell also elucidates some significant insights on class, poverty and the socialist 'project'. There was no 'Wigan Pier' when he wrote the book because it had disappeared. It was a metaphor for the decay of British society on the backs of the collapse of capitalism. What would he have said - what images would he have conjured up - to describe the massive de-industrialisation, even greater than the 1930s, which took place under Thatcher's reign and continues apace today? One manifestation is the 'mothballing' of the Corus steelworks in Teesside. In the former 'workshop of the world', manufacturing now accounts for only 12% of gross domestic product. In simple prose - Orwell was an advocate and brilliant practitioner of 'plain English' - he paints powerful literary frescos to describe the abject conditions of the working class, particularly the industrial working class, in places like Wigan and the north-west of England. Sears the mind His description of the consequences of unemployment sears the mind, particularly against the current background of the seemingly inexorable rise of those 'on the dole' today. He writes: "A Labour Exchange officer told me to get at the real number of people living on (not drawing) the dole, you have got to multiply the official figures by something over three. This alone brings the number of unemployed to round about six millions." This was because of the number of 'dependents' of the unemployed. But there is also the 'working poor', who Orwell described - allowing for "these and their dependents, throw in as before the old age pensioners, the destitute and other nondescripts, and you get an underfed population of well over ten millions. Sir John Orr [a nutrition expert of the time] puts it at twenty millions." Some things have obviously changed since the 1930s; there are fewer families depending on one income, with more women working, etc. But the real unemployment figure in Britain is not the 'official' 2.5 million or so but is probably at least a third more than this. Taking into account the number of families affected, it is possible to arrive at a figure, not as high perhaps but relatively similar, to that of George Orwell. Poverty Moreover, poverty has mushroomed as all the recent statistics have shown. The desperation of working-class people, brutally charted by Orwell, is present today. Witness the case of a young woman from Hackney who, late last year, threw herself off a tower block, killing herself and her five-month old child, because she had no job, no home and no income. The description of the lives of sections of the working class such as the miners - now largely disappeared as a force because of de-industrialisation and the defeats of the 1980s and 1990s - is unforgettable. He confesses: "I am not a manual labourer and please God I never shall be one, but there are some kinds of manual work that I could do if I had to... but by no conceivable amount of effort or training could I become a coal-miner; the work would kill me in a few weeks." Orwell describes the three-foot wide seams in which a miner is sometimes compelled to work, the three-mile agonising walk to the coalface to start work, the amount of effort required to extract coal and earn even a meagre wage. This would convince most people never even to seek to go down a mine, let alone perform the herculean efforts of the miners and the working class generally. Colossal wealth of the possessing classes Yet the colossal wealth of the possessing classes and British society as a whole has been built on this. Orwell explains: "If I live to be sixty I shall probably have produced thirty novels, or enough to fill two medium-sized library shelves. In the same period the average miner produces 8,400 tons of coal; enough coal to pave Trafalgar Square nearly two feet deep or to supply seven large families with fuel for over a hundred years." The miners may have gone but the working class still labours - sometimes as intensively, as with their modern counterparts in China, for instance, in the new sweatshops of world capitalism. Moreover, when Orwell describes poverty, he does it in an unalloyed fashion; not for him the 'dignity of labour' but exactly the opposite, the arduous spirit-crushing lot of working-class people. Overcrowding We read about the overcrowding from a miner; when he was a child "his family had slept eleven in a room and thought nothing of it." As an adult, "he and his wife had lived in one of the old-style back-to-back houses, in which you not only had to walk a couple of hundred yards to the lavatory but often had to wait in a queue when you got there, the lavatory being shared by 36 people." These conditions may no longer be common - with the widespread introduction of inside toilets, baths, etc. but are in the living memory of many of the older generation of working-class people. Orwell is not, however, completely one-sided, concentrating just on poverty. He also describes the positive communal feelings and the attempt to overcome their circumstances. He writes of his "memory of working-class interiors [of houses]... that reminds me that our age has not been altogether a bad one to live in". But his sweeping condemnation of the consequences of British imperialism comes out clearly: "And this is where it all led - to labyrinthine slums and dark back kitchens with sickly, ageing people creeping round and round them like blackbeetles. It is a kind of duty to see and smell such places now and again, especially smell them, lest you should forget that they exist; though perhaps it is better not to stay there too long." The heart of the book The heart of the book is a forensic, detailed analysis of the class system. Unbelievably, in the 1930s, the very existence of this class system was questioned - as it has been in the 20 years preceding the present economic crisis in Britain and today. Orwell not only describes the plight of the working class but also the deterioration of the conditions of the "sinking middle class". He mercilessly demolishes the snobbery of what is, in effect, his own class, the middle class: "In the kind of shabby-genteel family that I am talking about there is far more consciousness of poverty than in any working-class family above the level of the dole. Rent and clothes and school-bills are an unending nightmare, and every luxury, even a glass of beer, is an unwarrantable extravagance. Practically the whole family income goes in keeping up appearances." He describes himself as being born into the "lower-upper-middle class", "or rather sub-caste". Moreover, he is painstakingly honest about his prejudices in the past, his origins, etc. He writes: "When I was fourteen or fifteen I was an odious little snob." At the same time he describes the period after the First World War: "England was nearer revolution than she has been since or had been for a century earlier." This even profoundly affected the middle class. Orwell describes his (private) school class when, in answer to the question, "'Whom do you consider the ten greatest men now living?'... Of sixteen boys in the class (our average age was about seventeen) fifteen included Lenin in their list." He also describes the great effect on him of Jack London's 'The People of the Abyss' in forming his own socialist beliefs. (He drew on this in his book 'Down and Out in London and Paris', which is good but not as powerful as London's earlier great work.) Clear, simple language He argues for clear, simple language, preferring the word 'robbers' to describe the bosses; the 'robbed' are the working class. This is taken too far when he opposes the use of 'comrade' in the labour movement. This is a good term - although perhaps unfamiliar to workers first approaching socialist ideas - to describe those involved in the common struggle for socialism. He can also be a bit dismissive of socialist theory and other writers. There are other drawbacks in the book, one of the most striking being the underestimation of the state of consciousness and preparedness to take action of the working class. He criticises the "passivity" which he has witnessed in Wigan and elsewhere. But he underestimates the cumulative effect of defeats - the 1926 general strike - as well as the effects of mass unemployment, and above all the lack of an effective leadership of the working class as a whole. Similar problems are posed before the labour movement today. Yet he is uncompromising in his bitter denunciation of "parlour pinks", largely middle-class, uncommitted socialists who may be described as "champagne socialists" today: "All that dreary tribe of high-minded women and sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking towards the smell of 'progress' like bluebottles to a dead cat." Such sweeping language would be completely inappropriate today. After all, vegetarianism, yoga and even the wearing of sandals are not the preserve of the middle class today! Scathing Nevertheless, the type of 'leader' or would-be leader that Orwell describes and is scathing about still infests the labour movement. So do the careerists. Orwell is passionate about socialism and its necessity, seeking to explain it in simple - sometimes simplistic - terms. In his 'Lion and the Unicorn' essay, he writes: "England is a family with the wrong members in control." In his literary criticism of radical writers, he is very sharp and not entirely inaccurate in describing both them and himself at a certain stage as a "snob and a revolutionary". He is also one-sided in what appears to be an attack on "industrialism". Even then, when his approach is questionable, he does bring out issues which are vital for the approach of human beings towards work. The devastating effects of unemployment is as keenly felt as in Orwell's day; with those affected having no "stake" in society. It is particularly criminal that a million young people in Britain and millions throughout the world face the dead end of not having a job. Advocacy of socialism But his advocacy of socialism and what needs to be done is clear: "There is no chance of righting the conditions I described in the earlier chapters of this book... unless we can bring an effective Socialist party into existence. It will have to be a party with genuinely revolutionary intentions, and it will have to be numerically strong enough to act." A similar task is posed today. Moreover, his words touch us today because there are great similarities between now and the period of his writings. He wrote: "It hardly needs pointing out that at this moment we are in a very serious mess, so serious that even the dullest-witted people find it difficult to remain unaware of it." Is this not the situation today in Britain and elsewhere? He goes on: "For enormous blocks of the working class the conditions of life are such as I have described in the opening chapters of this book, and there is no chance of those conditions showing any fundamental improvement... Even the middle classes, for the first time in their history, are feeling the pinch." Ditto again. "Everyone who uses his brain knows that Socialism as a world-system is a way out" His conclusion? "And all the while everyone who uses his brain knows that Socialism, as a world-system and wholeheartedly applied, is a way out... Socialism is such elementary common sense that I am sometimes amazed that it has not established itself already. "The world is a raft sailing through space with, potentially, plenty of provisions for everybody; the idea that we must all cooperate and see to it that everyone does his fair share of the work and gets his fair share of the provisions seems so blatantly obvious that one would say that no one could possibly fail to accept it unless he had some corrupt motive for clinging to the present system." Simple but nevertheless fine words. In other comments about the difficulties of advocating socialism, he takes a swipe at Stalinism without mentioning it by name, the right-wing parliamentary Labour Party of the time - similar to today - and criticism of writers who have not fully immersed themselves in the problems and struggles of working-class people. 'The Road to Wigan Pier' is a very good book, worthy of revisiting by those who have read it before but particularly for the new generation looking for a way out of the "mess" of capitalism that Orwell describes so effectively. We need the likes of George Orwell today, chroniclers of the working class, their lives, loves, problems, etc. but also passionately caught up in the battles of the labour movement and for a socialist world. They would give artistic expression in a much more complicated world and a changed working class to the titanic struggles which loom and will provide abundant material for new socialist writers, novelists and artists.

Broken Britain ? only thing broken in Britain is capitalism

After the UK riots last week we will now be entertained bhy polititian after polititian telling us what we need to do and what we shouldnt do to solve the crisis as they put it.

But if we have learnt anything it is that we havent learnt from our mistakes of the 80's. When there was mass riots in Brixton and Broad water farm in Tottenham. Although on a much bigger scale the same old rhetoric is being churned out by out of touch polititians who have not got the first idea why the people have started rioting. They think to solve this we need better, stronger and more policing to solve this and prevent it happening again.

This is completely missing the point. Looking at the causes and the reasons for the riots is not by any means condoning them at all it is taking time to understand the rioters motives and reasons behind what they did. This is not simply down to criminality although their actions were we must look deeper.

When David Cameron famously said Britain is Broken refering to the country being fragmented and families being disjointed he was not thinking this would come to the fore so quickly into his tenure.

But we did . There has been mass inequality for years in this country gone largely unnoticed by many and the media too. But areas like Tottenham which have not really progressed much at all since the 80's are feeling the force of brutal savage austerity cuts which are making a difficult situation worse still.

It is no coincidence all the areas where rioting took place there is deprevation and povety and a lack of jobs and services for the youth.

So i would say it is not Britain that is broken it is this rotten capitalist system which requires a surplus of workers at any one time when it cant make a profit with something it is not viable to a capitalist despite its social need.

We must highlight to others that Britain is not broken at all but the greed and the nature of the system we live under has failed and failed the people as a whole. Many people in these areas cannot find work and even when they can the pay is poor and not enough for them to live a decent life on.

We must highlight that the root cause of all this is capitalism not a benifit scrounging culture of the lazy and unemployed as many would work if they could find a decent job.

But this goes back years back through previous governments including Labour i'm afraid to say who have let communities such as Tottenham down by providing poor housing, jobs and education in affect ghettoising areas and failing to bring areas up to a good standard for all not just the few.

It is the nature of capitalism that a class based society comes about and one class oppress's another by using the state. We have seen this again with the role and the use of the police by the government.

David Cameron in his wisdom has been talking of bringing in a police chief who has helped solve gang culture in New York and Los Angeles in America. Having not lived there i cant say for sure but i imagine even in those areas there is not a total end to povety and deprevation it is just hidden better no doubt. Just like with next years Olympics in London the poorer run down areas will be kept well away from the tourists and visitors to the games to portray a clean safe image of our capital but yet we all know the issues still remain. Sweeping a problem under the carpet does not make it go away Mr Cameron and you will do well to remember this.

Britain itself is not broken the people are alive and well and starting to wake up to the nightmares of austerity and cuts to their living standards. Be they backdoor inflation or a rise in VAT or a cut to your local youth service we will all before long feel the cuts and austerity bite. It is not time to get depressed and turn to riots but to organise and fightback as a organised collective power of the working class.

As inner cities erupt a mass workers movement is required to defeat the government

this excellent article posted on the socialist party's websitea nd due to be in this weeks socialist newspaper by Hannah Sell, the deputy General secretary of the socialist party. More great articles are available to read online at
www.socialistparty.org.uk

Hannah Sell, Socialist Party deputy general secretary
"The scenes of despair and explosions of anger like those of 1981 will be back on our streets.

"Deprived areas of major cities - if not the central areas, then the 'banlieus' or outskirts as in France - will be the scene of new conflagrations."

This is the warning that the Socialist Party gave just four months ago, in our article on the anniversary of the Brixton riots. This morning thousands of people have woken up to the devastation of their communities.

Today is a tragedy for the small shopkeepers whose businesses have been looted or set alight, the workers whose cars have been burnt out, and perhaps worst of all for those who have seen their homes go up in smoke.

Firefighters have faced horrendous problems trying to fight the fires in the midst of the riots.

The current outbursts of street anger are the biggest Britain has seen since the mid-1980s. Belatedly government ministers have dragged themselves back from their holidays in order to try and 'restore order'.

Parliament has been recalled for Thursday, but so far the only response of the capitalist politicians has been to shriek about "the mob", "criminals" and "mindless violence".

Workers living in the communities affected are inevitably angry at the destruction that has taken place, but will also be enraged by the government's attempts to absolve itself of responsibility for the situation.

Unfortunately, New Labour's response has been essentially the same as that of the Tories. Ed Miliband has simply called the riots "disgraceful criminal behaviour" and has demanded that David Cameron orders "the strongest possible police response".

Diane Abbot, MP for Hackney North and historically on the left of the Labour Party, has called for a curfew to be considered.

The leadership of New Labour has done nothing to point out the reasons why young people are rioting. This is not surprising.

Mass unemployment, cuts in public services and police harassment and stop and search all grew when New Labour was in power. Despite all the capitalist politicians' attempts to ignore reality, it is no coincidence that Britain is burning in August 2011 - it flows from the social conditions faced by a generation of young people in the inner cities.

During the 1980s disturbances, the then Tory government decried those on the streets as "hooligans". Now that those riots are a distant memory, Edwina Currie and other Tories are willing to recognise that the rioters had the legitimate grievances of mass unemployment and police prejudice, but claim everything is different today.

In reality nothing fundamental has changed for youth in inner city areas.

The present events are a cry of rage and despair by members of a generation that has been thrown on the scrapheap. They are not race riots, but involve poor young people, living in the inner-cities, from every ethnic background.


Angry and deprived
The motives of those involved vary, but they centre on a single theme, summed up by one woman interviewed on the Today radio four programme: "I am not a thief but I am angry.

"What have we got? - nothing." Unlike her, others had taken part in order to loot shops. Electrical goods and sportswear shops were targeted in many areas, but so were supermarkets.

In Tottenham, Aldi was emptied, in Lewisham, Morrisons. It was not only 'luxury' goods, but the most basic necessities of life that people were queuing up to take.

What does it say about Britain, an 'advanced' capitalist country, that so many people are desperate enough, and unconcerned enough about the consequences, to take part in mass looting of shops? Young people with a job worth having, and prospects for a future, do not generally take part in such actions.

But in Britain today there are almost a million unemployed young people who have been effectively told they have no prospects for the future. As the world's stock markets tumble, the feeling that capitalism offers no prospects for the 'lost generation' is inevitably growing.

Already, across London youth unemployment is 23%, in inner city areas it is far higher.

Hackney and Tower Hamlets have the highest youth unemployment in the country, with Tottenham not far behind. These young people live a very few miles from the millionaires and billionaires of the City of London, yet have little prospect of earning the minimum wage, never mind getting a decent job.

The real looters are the city financiers who have made billions from gambling on the world's stock markets and looting the economy of whole countries, driving entire populations - as in Greece - into dire poverty.

Is it any wonder, in a society that encourages private entrepreneurs to make a profit by any means necessary, that unemployed youth decide to try and obtain a few goods by whatever means they can?


Ethnic minorities
While the riots are not 'race riots', and involve young people from all ethnic groups, it is true that many are black. The capitalist politicians try to dismiss the idea that racism still exists in Britain today, but that is simply not true.

All ethnic minorities in Britain still earn less, on average, than white people, with differences amongst men ranging from earning an average of 10% less for Chinese men, to 27% less for Bangladeshi men.

Even those ethnic minority communities with very high levels of higher education qualifications still suffer worse pay. All ethnic minorities have higher than average rates of poverty.

Rates of poverty are highest for Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and black Africans, reaching nearly two thirds for Bangladeshis.

At the same time ethnic minorities are barely represented as the managers and employers of big companies. None of the 98 high court judges come from ethnic minorities, and only four of the 563 circuit judges.

Less than 1% of the army come from ethnic minorities. There are pathetically few black and Asian MPs.

British capitalism has proved itself incapable of qualitatively improving the living conditions of all but a tiny minority of black and Asian people.

Anger at police harassment is a major factor in the explosion that has taken place. In Tottenham the spark was anger at the police shooting of Mark Duggan.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has already had to admit that, despite police claims that Mark Duggan had fired at them first, the bullet embedded in a police radio was actually police issue.

People in Tottenham are right to have no faith in the IPCC to carry out an independent investigation. The trade union movement must demand a genuinely independent inquiry, made up of elected representatives from the local trade unions, community organisations and especially the youth.

A similar enquiry is needed into the riots that have taken place and their causes. Many of those interviewed taking part in the riots across the country express fury at the endless police stop and searches that they face.

From 2005 to 2009 police searches of Asian people increased 84% and black people by 51%. Now the state wants to go even further using 'Section 60' to extend their powers to stop and search without grounds for suspicion.

Peaceful protests have taken place on these issues, but nothing has changed, leading to a feeling that 'more' is needed. In Tottenham the family and friends of Mark Duggan had marched to the police station and waited in vain for hours for a senior officer to address them.

This was not an isolated occurrence. One young man in Tottenham told NBC: "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you? Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press.

"Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."


Riot police in Hackney, 8.8.11, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)
Cuts in services
Mass unemployment and police harassment have created an explosive situation. For many, the final straw has been the taking away of the few crumbs which were designed to at least ameliorate the effects of mass youth unemployment.

The government has abolished the EMA grant, despite mass protests, which had at least made it possible for working class young people to attend college.

Despite endless demands on young people to 'better themselves' and 'get an education' the one concrete measure that made it possible to get an education has now been taken away.

In addition, the raising of university tuition fees to £9,000 a year has deterred many working class youth from considering the avenue of higher education.

Other government cuts in already overstretched public services, implemented by Labour as well as Tory and Liberal councils, have also contributed to the situation.

Rather than defend their local communities and refuse to implement the cuts, as the Socialist Party demands and Liverpool City Council did in the 1980s - every single Labour council has slashed public services.

In Tottenham the youth service has been cut by 75%. Nationally, Connexions, the service that provided careers and benefits advice for young people, has been destroyed.

Many local authorities now provide no advice service at all for young people. Yet this is only the first year of cuts; councils plan to implement far more in the coming years.

The government is now trying to dismiss any link between cuts and the riots, yet just weeks before the general election, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg warned that Tory cuts would lead to riots.

It is a sign of the extreme short-sightedness of the current government that it has encouraged cuts in the services which provided an element of 'social control' by the government over young people.

The relatively small sums saved by the cuts will now have to spent ten times over in dealing with the consequences of the riots. In the wake of the riots, community campaigns to demand immediate reopening of all closed youth facilities and of Connexions, funded by central government, could force the government to reverse these cuts.


Hackney, 8.8.11, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)
Rioting- no solution
However, rioting is not the means to defeat the government, but, on the contrary, only damages the communities in which working-class people live, and gives the capitalist class an excuse to increase the repressive apparatus of the state.

The Socialist Party does not agree with those on the left who condone the riots, such as the Socialist Workers Party, whose posters in the areas affected by riots declare them to be a step from 'riot to revolution'.

The present disturbances are an indication of blind rage against the system. Undoubtedly, some of the young people involved will have taken inspiration from the revolutions that have overthrown dictatorships in the Middle East, and the movement of the squares in Greece and Spain.

However, these movements were of a very different character to the riots. While each country has had different characteristics, all the occupations of the squares - from Spain to Egypt - were relatively disciplined mass protests which both opposed and largely prevented acts of violence against local shops etc.

This is one reason that, while all the movements largely began with young people, they were able to reach out to, and win the support of the wider population.

By contrast, while the riots have received huge media coverage, they are allowing the capitalist media and the government to further demonise young people, and to potentially divide the struggle against the government.

However, the government can only be defeated by building a mass, united movement of all those under attack from it. The organised working class in the trade unions have the key role to play.

In Egypt it was when the working class organised general strike action that Mubarak was finally defeated. Historically in Britain, Thatcher's poll tax was not defeated, as some on the left claim, as a result of the March 1990 riot, but because of an organised mass campaign of non payment, involving 18 million people.

Trade union action
This year in Britain, the day that has frightened the government most was 30 June, when 750,000 public sector workers took strike action. Unfortunately, however, on 30 June it was only around one fifth of public sector workers who were called out by the trade union leaders to take strike action.

The leaders of the biggest public sector unions argued against participating, despite widespread demands for action from their members. The failure of the leadership of the trade union movement in Britain to lead a serious struggle to defeat all the cuts is a central reason why the riots have erupted.


Riot police in Hackney, 8.8.11, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)
Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, warned that the cuts would lead to riots, but has not been prepared to take the action that could have prevented them.

If, as we demanded, the TUC had conducted a serious battle to defeat the government, mobilising its seven million members, the government could have been forced from office by now.

If the TUC had called a national demonstration against cuts in October last year, mobilised for joint action with the students in November, and called a one-day public sector strike, it would have mobilised huge popular support, and would have been able to act as a pole of attraction for the most oppressed sections of young people.

Having delayed, the TUC needs to act decisively now. It should immediately call a national trade union demonstration to oppose all cuts and demand a future for young people.

This should be a step towards the next day of coordinated strike action in the autumn, which this time should involve all 4 million public sector workers, and be combined with a one-day strike of school, college and university students.

A trade union demonstration needs to show clearly that the trade unions stand together with young people. The widespread trade union support for Youth Fight for Jobs (YFJ), and its Jarrow March against youth unemployment in the autumn, is one important means to demonstrate this.

However, it is also important the demonstration is called around clear demands. These should include the immediate reinstatement of EMA and abolition of university tuition fees.

It should also oppose any attempts by the government to use the riots in order to increase harassment of young people.

On the contrary it should demand the withdrawal of the stop and search laws being used to harass young people, and clearly oppose any attempts to increase the repressive apparatus of the state; Teresa May previously made clear she would like to bring water cannon and teargas to Britain, and the immediate use of rubber bullets is being considered.

If this is done it will be used in the future against workers and student demonstrations, just as police brutality was used against the students last year.

The trade union movement should also call for control of the police to be placed under the auspices of democratically elected local police committees.

The explosion of anger on Britain's streets is above all a condemnation of capitalism, and its inability to offer the next generation even the measly standard of living that workers have had in the last twenty years.

The trade union movement needs to act to show it is on the side of young people, but to be fully effective this needs to be linked to the struggle to develop a new mass party for workers and youth which stands for a socialist society.

Only by taking the big corporations that dominate Britain's economy into democratic public ownership would it be possible to begin to provide a real future for young people.

Capitalism is incapable of providing even the basics - a decent job, a home, an education - to the next generation. Democratic socialism would mean production could be planned to meet the needs of all and not for profits of a few.

The Socialist Party demands:
An independent trade union-led inquiry into the death of Mark Duggan and into the causes of and policing of the riots. Scrap the IPCC. We need police accountability through democratic control by local people.
End stop and search. No to section 60.
For control of the police to be placed under the auspices of democratically elected local committees involving representatives from trade unions, councils, tenants associations, and community organisations.
For the government to immediately cover the uninsured losses and repairs of all small businesses and homeowners affected by the riots.
For councils to immediately re-house those who lost their homes in the riots. For investment in social house building and renovation, creating jobs and improving health.
For the immediate reversal of the closure of local youth and Connexions services. Funding from central government to pay for it.
No to all cuts in jobs and public services. Free education and training for all. Reinstate EMA and abolish tuition fees. We demand huge public investment in job creation and services.
Build a mass campaign to fight for these demands but also to fight for socialist change in the way society is run, with democratic planning of how we use the wealth and resources of society - under working class control and management, not that of the millionaires.