Where is TUSC heading?

I often wonder this myself. The socialist party who I’m a member of are committed to TUSC for the foreseeable future and seem to be the one in the driving seat of the project with the RMT union. Yet I’m no more clearer which direction the project is heading. I know we are not a party and are simply an electoral vehicle for the socialist party and anti cuts campaigners who wish to standing election. So far only a minority of anti cuts campaigners have stood for TUSC with other groups staying away for now. I am disillusioned with our strategy with TUSC and what we see it transforming into. In June’s edition of the Socialist party’s monthly journal Socialism Today Clive HEEMSKERK takes a look at TUSC’s development and gives us his thoughts on TUSC’s results and prospects. I thought I’d give a few comments in reply to his points. “May’s local council elections showed, five years into the worst crisis of capitalism since the 1930s, how deep the alienation from Britain’s ‘traditional’ parties has become. The BBC made a projection of the national share of the vote from the 2013 results – the elections covered 24 million people, but did not include Scotland, Wales, or most big English cities. Despite this element of psychological guesswork, their figures were sobering for the establishment parties. Labour was ahead on 29%, the Tories on 25%, and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) third on 23%, with the Liberal Democrats on 14%. For the first time ever no party had reached over 30% of the vote. These trends were confirmed in the first Guardian/ICM series opinion poll taken after the council elections. It found the three main establishment parties all down four points on the previous month, the first time in the 29-year history of these surveys that all three had fallen at the same time (The Guardian, 14 May). Labour’s 34% is its lowest rating since the immediate aftermath of the 2010 general election defeat. The Tories’ 28% is a low point they had not reached since the 1997-98 Blair ‘honeymoon’. The Lib Dems were on 11%, their lowest score since September 1997. While the poll also showed limits to UKIP’s support – at just 2% in Scotland and 6% in Wales – overall it was up by nine points to 18%. The Guardian editorial correctly described these results as “a rejection of British mainstream politics without modern precedent”.” TUSC’s last few national election results have ranged from 10% to less than 1% more towards the 1% than anything else. In last months county council elections TUSC stood 119 candidates across the country gaining about 8000 votes with 17 of those candidates receiving less than 1% so we cannot pretend we’re having a break through in any shape or form. The lack of direction and analysis of such poor low results is skimmed over by many comrades and a sort of shrug and put it down to working class consciousness just hasn’t caught up. If only we had the trade unions more on side and well we’re only small anyway so we shouldn’t expect too much this side of 2015. Clives analysis of the UKIP vote is interesting and I think underestimates their ability to pull in votes in working class areas. This focus on UKIP just going for council and parliament seats is to miss the point. UKIP as I’ve mentioned before is having an influence in the media and having an affect on the other political parties just to do with its presence. Clive writes “A Guardian reporter interviewed one South Shields UKIP voter who explained: “I was very disappointed that Labour made no effort whatsoever to stand up for ordinary working people’s rights… They ought to change their name. But I’ve found a party now that represents some of the views that I would like”. (4 May) Meanwhile, in Yeovil, a 30-year-old pub worker “said he had not voted before but decided to back UKIP this time. ‘I think the party is the only one that speaks up for the ordinary working man. The rest seem to be more interested in keeping rich people happy’.” The real position of UKIP, for even more brutal austerity in the interests of the capitalist elite, is either not known or shrugged off in the urge to grab the most easily available stick to fight back with. Why not to a working-class alternative? So why is the developing anger not finding a mass electoral outlet in a working-class political alternative to the establishment parties? Clive asks” Well UKIP are not just a protest votes I’ve consistently pointed out they are of course picking up a protest vote element but there is more to this rise. UKIP is tapping into a racist vote element which the Tories used to occupy and have moved away from the working class Tory daily mail reader and are seen as out of touch by many of these former voters. UKIP speaks for the common man many feel now without understanding that they are more in favour of austerity than even the Tories yet they see a savvy politician in Nigel Ferrage who goes in the pubs and talks to ordinary people this is something the etonian Tory can no longer do or connect with the petti-bourgeois nationalist vote. This is summed up with genuine support in those voting UKIP as 25% of voters in the last county council elections could not all have been ignorant to what UKIP stand for surely ? Not surprisingly, one South Shields voter, a North Sea oil worker and former Labour voter, was quoted in the Guardian as backing UKIP because “I want a change. I know quite a bit about Nigel Farage. I’ve seen how he handles himself on Question Time” (4 May). This suggests people are quite aware in some regard what UKIP do stand for which we must respond to. As for TUSC Clive lays a bit of blame for not building a working class political alternative by trade union leaders yes those pesky leaders again who refuse to break with new labour he cries. Yes the same trade union leaders we are appealing to to go for a 24 hour general strike. Clive continues in his piece In its three years’ existence, 582 candidates have stood under the TUSC umbrella, in a range of contests from parliamentary elections, to city mayoral polls, to local council elections. In the recent county council elections, TUSC stood more candidates than the BNP – “the first time in recent history”, according to the New Statesman, that a left-wing party “will be better represented than Griffin’s mob”. This did not stop the BBC from carrying items on the BNP while refusing to acknowledge on its website that TUSC was standing any candidates at all, until the day before polling day. More than 100,000 votes have been cast for TUSC candidates in that three-year period – still a modest electoral record but not insignificant. Overall, TUSC is still only a ‘pre-formation’, a precursor of a future mass workers’ party that could impact decisively on the political struggle against austerity. What kind of precursor of a future mass workers party it is still not clear. How will we get from here to there? It’s these sorts of vague phrases which frustrate me how do we see TUSC. Sometimes we say it’s a first step towards a new workers party with no plan given how we get there other time we play it down saying it’s simply an electoral banner and something bigger may or may not come out of it. Clive claims but it is the most promising development, at this stage, and certainly not one to be lightly pushed aside for ‘the next new thing’. I beg to differ I can see TUSC being swept aside if say Len Mckluskey of unite pulls funding on the labour party however unlikely that is I can see TUSC being dropped like a stone in pursuit of another trade union leader on an adventure if unite went of a new workers party I could imagine we would head for that. An interesting part of Clives article states TUSC, as the name says, is a coalition, and has written to Respect, the National Health Action Party (launched in May 2012), the SLP, the Communist Party (CP) – and, most recently, Ken Loach – inviting them to discuss participation in TUSC, or at least electoral collaboration. The National Health Action Party and the SLP have not responded. Respect replied but declined the offer even of exploratory talks. The SLP and Respect, unfortunately, share the ‘dissolve into us’ ultimately stance of the Greens. Two meetings have taken place with CP officers and they provided a guest speaker to a 2012 TUSC conference, but they have not taken up the offer to join TUSC, with the full rights of a participating organisation and a place on the national steering committee. What is the problem here? It is not a question of TUSC being ‘narrow’ and ‘non-inclusive’, or that the Socialist Party allegedly ‘dominates TUSC’. The coalition is based on agreement on a quite limited core programme, although with a clear socialist clause for democratic public ownership of the banks and major monopolies, supplemented by policy statements for particular elections. Every TUSC candidate is asked to endorse these before they are issued with the legally necessary ‘certificate of authorisation’ ( Clive miss’s the point her what if these groups don’t want to just join a steering committee which I’m still not sure is the best way to organise things. Clive claims TUSC isn’t narrow and isn’t controlled by the socialist party but I can confirm to him I’ve heard from other independents that that is indeed the feeling from outside the main TUSC component groups at this stage and this must be addressed in my view. Later on Clive as you would expect launch’s into attack on the recent left unity project which sadly has not been taken seriously enough by the socialist party and TUSC in my view. A sense of arrogance that we’ve been here before and you’re doomed to fail is the sense you get from the SP when it comes to left unity. It’s barely been mentioned in our paper and there was no report on its national conference held on 11th of May sadly. “Unfortunately, this attractive feature of TUSC – unity with equal rights, not the domination of one group over others – has been used by some of the founders of Left Unity to dismiss TUSC as ‘undemocratic’. Counter-posing ‘one member, one vote’ (OMOV) to the democracy of organisations electing accountable representatives, they have often echoed the propaganda of the Blairite right-wing in the 1990s as they sought to transform the Labour Party into New Labour. John Prescott, who pushed through the OMOV constitutional changes – which, for example, abolished the role of local union delegates in selecting parliamentary candidates in favour of an individual membership ballot –, saw this as more significant in changing Labour than the abolition of its socialist ‘Clause Four’. The plebiscitary ‘online democracy’ of Grillo’s Five-Star movement in Italy, or the German Pirates’ Party – a cyber equivalent of US-style party primaries – is not a model for the workers’ movement.” I’m not sure how Clive has come to this decision the RMT themselves operate using this structure is it right we should be telling the RMT not to use this form of organisation either? Clive goes on and incorrectly states In fact, Left Unity itself is not operating on an OMOV basis. Eight thousand people clicked an online declaration supporting ‘Ken Loach’s appeal to discuss the formation of a new party’ following the release of his film, Spirit of 45, a Guardian article and other media publicity, and over 500 have been reported as attending local meetings. Its first national meeting was composed of local group representatives from ‘minuted meetings of no less than five people’ (and ‘volunteers’ from yet to be constituted local groups), which elected a committee. Well maybe Clive they haven’t yet had their founding conference or formally launched a party. Criticising them before this has happened which I’ve seen many SP comrades do is foolish. We can’t and should not write off Left unity just yet whatever we may feel about the people involved. Clive goes on to state that the RMT do indeed use the same structure so if it’s good enough for the RMT but not for left unity? Clive says “But how is that fundamentally structurally different to the RMT, with its national officers, executive committee and annual conference delegates all elected by union members, choosing its representatives on the TUSC national steering committee? Except that the RMT has 80,000 dues-paying members and has proved its ability through collective action – its social weight – to defend working-class interests. If a viable organisation emerges from the Left Unity initiative, why wouldn’t it want to come into the TUSC umbrella?” Well why haven’t we asked them? Maybe they don’t agree that TUSC’s structures are the right way of doing things and the direction is vague of how we get to a new party. TUSC has never stated it wants to become a party whereas Left unity has done that from the outset. “‘But TUSC stops individuals from participating’. No, that’s not true. The TUSC national steering committee agreed in June 2011 that individual members would have an elected place on the committee through a ‘TUSC Independent Socialist Network’, duly filled at its inaugural meeting in October that year. Nobody has been excluded from a local group, or prevented from setting one up.” The key in this bit is participating acting as foot soldiers not gaming voting rights or membership rights to join an organisation. I’ve said before there are many socialists who have no organisation who want to feel part of something so far you cannot join TUSC as it is not a party and doesn’t appear to want to be one. Yes you can maybe join the ISN or set up a branch but this still does not mean you’re a member of TUSC and have a voice in terms of influencing policy. Lastly Clive puts a lot of the frustration with TUSC down to the lack of a break through with elections. Whilst this is one frustration of course I don’t think this is the only one. I am glad Clive is engaging with independents who wish for a new workers party but engaging and being sectarian when it comes to left unity is an old habit of which the socialist party is finding hard to break with sadly. TUSC is still far too small with only a handful of RMT members involved in building TUSC. Clearly we need to be doing more. I’m glad a national branch officer has been appointed in Pete Mclaren I hope he can get something going on a national scale for those wishing to join TUSC. But now with left unity springing up TUSC will be forced in to discussions and vice versa both groups must find a way of discussing co orperation and genuine unity on a socialist basis. Not to water down our programmes or remain a limited organisation but to state our intentions are clear to remove this failing rotten capitalist system and replace it with a genuine democratic socialist order of society. If we keep watering our programme down to not scare off the working class they will never know what we truly stand for. That’s why I support the idea of a mass revolutionary Marxist party which is needed for now and the coming struggles. Marxism is the science of socialism and a party is necessary. I thank Clive for this article which you can read in June’s edition of socialism today I encourage Marxists to read it and respond in the debate for new workers party.

Challenging ingrained sectarianism on the British Left

I’m a member of the socialist party of England Wales myself and up till now I haven’t really experienced too much sectarian behaviour on the left. I joined after the disasters of the Socialist Alliance, respect and now I’m involved with TUSC via the socialist party. With the addition of Left unity now I’m starting to see what all the fuss is about when people told me the left is riddled with sectarian behaviour. I’ve tried to challenge some obit to a extent online the best I can by offering a comradely open approach to both projects of TUSC and Left unity as do believe the only way we can get anywhere in this country on the left is by working together where we can. We are far too small and insignificant on our own to do it all ourselves. The old phrase United we fight divided we fall is quite apt for the present time. I also wasn’t quite a member by the time the anti cuts groups were setting up and today to have about 3 or 4 now is just silly all looking to do more or less the same thing. Of course I think all cuts should be opposed whether they are labour, Tories or lib dem or green that should be our starting point. But in terms of political representation we could either try reclaiming the labour party which I’m sure reads of this blog know of my views on that anyhow it is a dead end strategy at this point. Not to say it always will be but for now it is. So that leaves us with trying to build an alternative to labour and the debate currently going on on the left is how we do that and what sort of party do we want. Clearly, when over 8,000 people sign a petition in favour of a new leftwing initiative, and the most active set up dozens of local groups across the country, this is something that should be welcomed by Marxists. So far my involvement in TUSC has been mainly around election time effectively TUSC shuts down in between elections as far as I can see it. TUSC receives a fair amount of coverage in our paper of course due to the large amount of by elections of late but you wonder if this would be the case if by elections didn’t keep popping up? In the socialist party we organise meetings under our own names the socialist party branch of … and so on. TUSC is mentioned often in meetings don’t get me wrong and this is to be welcomed but going further and involving local c community groups or other outside forces is not elaborated on as far as I’ve seen. I’ve been criticised publicly and in private on social media platforms such as Facebook for daring to question our party’s direction with TUSC. I’m told I must raise these concerns internally or keep quiet. I don’t think that is quite the comradeliest friendly tone I’ve heard. In fact I’ve received some quite sharp rebuffs for voicing my concerns over TUSC and trying to involve the non aligned socialists we have around us. Each time I’m asked well what would you suggest could we do better? Like it’s all down to me to com up with the magic formula or something. I’m simply stating a fact that we are 3 years into a project a electoral front if you like and yet I’m none more clearer where we want TUSC to go is it a party in the making , is it simply a electoral front for our party or will it be part of a bigger project one day ? All questions I’m struggling to find answers to at present. Maybe it’s more of that wait and sees idea we put out a lot. Don’t get me wrong I fully support TUSC and its key principles of standing anti cuts candidates against the pro cuts parties it is important as Marxist we do provide an alternative for workers. It’s just our methods and practices I’m still unconvinced about and have had for some t time but have kept quiet about. What is sad though is the ingrained sectarianism the left neither the Socialist party nor the SWP the two largest trotskyist groups on the left covered what happened at the recent Left Unity national conference last weekend. (Of course, neither ‘reporters’ nor observers were permitted to attend, but you might have thought that both the socialist party and the SWP would have found a way to inform their readers on the proceedings) as there were some of their members there I do believe. The fact that neither the SP nor the SWP do not lead the left unity project at this stage may have something to do with the lack of coverage who knows. But it should have been reported on even if briefly as it could be a major turning point for the left in this country, equally it may not be but to simply ignore it is a big shame in my view. I’ve also been told the left unity project is riddled with reformists and so called middle class intellectuals. Well wasn’t the labour party full of reformists when the Militant now the socialist party was in it yet we still tried to win over the best workers out there to a Marxist point of view. It sometimes feels to me that the organised left today are not interested in joining something they neither lead nor have a bit of influence in. We all have to start somewhere surely hence we’re starting to organise in unions we have little influence in today too. The problem is that formations like LU do not set out to lead comrades “from reformism to revolutionary positions” at all. They appeal to disillusioned old Labour supporters as they are and as a corollary restrict any “radicalising forces” that join to the reformist milieu. They are designed from the beginning as forums that say, “This far and no further”. Clearly we need to go further than our own parties and our own view of the left. We are a party moving through the class trying to find the best militants but as do the other groups out there claim to be doing so. The key with any new party or grouping of the left needs to be rooted in the Marxists ideas that this system can no longer work for the many and that no amount of tinkering and fiddling with capitalism will work for the 99% and that a truly mass Marxist party with the guidance to take society toward a more advanced society based on the common ownership of the means of production is needed in the here and now and in the coming years and battles to come.

TUSC andLeft Unity, where is the unity ?

Is a very good question I’d suggest. Firstly I don’t wish to criticise any group of people in particular but the recent rise of the left unity project has concerned me on several levels. I did post my initial thoughts on left unit a few weeks back not to everyons liking apparently but the early signs ar not great. The call for unity on the left and for a new party of the left was made by Ken Loach the radical left wing film director who’s recent film “the spirit of 45” has inspired 8 thousand people so far to sign a petition which is a founding idea for a new party. This weekend we hear of the left unity project holding their first national conference. TUSC the Trade Union and Socialist Coalitin of which I’m apart of and stood for recently tried to attend todays left unity meeting in a comradely open manner but apparently were turned away at the door. So much for left unity comrades ? There is much sectarian behaviour on the left right now why did left unity feel the need to set itself up without even acknowledging the existence of TUSC. I mean fair enough you may not agree withTUSC and think it doesn’t go far enough but to go ahead and try setting up a new party without even considerin to involve TUSC and its partners the RMT too smack’s of a bit of sectarian behaviour I’ve noticed for a while. Those who groaned when the left set up rival anti cuts bodies will now surely be smiling again as it looks like history is repeating itself with two rival left of labour projects. Of course we don’t know what left unity will stand for yet or what their aims are I’m sure we’ll find out in due course but for the two projects to not evn enter into some sort of discussion is very sad in my view. I’m a member of the socialit party and any new left party or mass workers party will likely and hopefully in my view see us involved others on the left who are turned off by the likes of us and the SWP and our behaviour over the years cannot simply wish us out of existence. They cantry and ignore us but I think that would be incredible sectarian as we can offer many ideas and organisational practises whichhave worked well for us in the past. For example all elected reps subject to immediate recall, no elected official to receive more than the average wage of a skilled worker and democracy at every level of the party with no appointed officials for them all to be elected by the membership. Key principles I think we uphold to and any new formation on theleft should stick to too. Disappointment and disenchantment with the Labour Party, exemplified by 8,000 signing up in support of the Left Unity statement, is hardly new. For example, when Arthur Scargill broke from the Labour Party the potential existed to immediately rally many thousands. But Scargill did not want any of the groups. He wanted to be the unchallenged labour dictator The most farcical of the SLP’s anti-democratic practices was Scargill’s use of the bloc vote of an ‘affiliated organisation’ - the North West, Cheshire and Cumbria Miners Association, made up of retired members of the National Union of Mineworkers. If conference looked as though it would vote the ‘wrong’ way, Arthur would ensure with just a nod and a wink that the NWCCMA delegates put their 3,000 votes to good use. Any new party or project bringing together Marxists and the left needs democracy at its heart. It cannot function or call itself a party with democracy as a added option in my view. WE strive to maintain democracy in the socialist party and I believe we do so very well. I know at this stage groups like TUSC, respect, Left unity etc hold up broad almost social democratic programmes clearly anti capitalist in nature but comparing these programmes which are small deliberately atthis stage they are often to the right of where we claim to stand. Take the SWP’s adventure with respect many of respects policies were decided and developed to please the likes of George Galloway and other big names involved. The SWP therefore foun itself making bigger and bigger concessions to keep them sweet. We are all aware of George Galloways out of touch views on the likes of abortion and the question of rape too more recently but When these questions came up more often than not respect fudged these difficult questions and left open ended questions like a womans right to choose very broad so you could red into it that it’s a womans right to choose whether to wear a head scarf or not. Not very clear comrades. There is an extraordinary paradox. As capitalism has gone into deeper and deeper into crisis, not only have we seen the Labour Party move further and further to the right, along with the whole of bourgeois society: the left itself has also been moving to the right. And it is common sense amongst comrades on the left that, while within the privacy of our own groups we can talk about Marxism, socialism, the history of our movement and the difficult ideas it has grappled with, when it comes to the ‘children’ - that is, the working class, a class that is meant to liberate itself - we pretend, especially when standing in elections, that really we are just like Labour used to be. That we are committed to a parliamentary road to socialism, to welfarism, to some sort of Keynesian golden age: in short that we are born-again Labourites. Now, I am not arguing that we ought to stand under a banner which simply reads ‘Revolution now!’ In fact we do stand for reforms. Quite clearly we are not in a revolutionary situation and in terms of readying our class to become the ruling class reforms are essential. We must have more democracy, we must have more power within capitalism. So it is not an argument about reform or revolution: it is an argument about what sort of reforms we want and how we go about getting them. That is the question. any Left Unity programme should explicitly state that it is about superseding capitalism. With that in mind it is also vital to stress internationalism. Socialism cannot be achieved in Britain alone. Nor can it be achieved even in Europe alone - though I think we need a bold, pan-European strategic perspective. Socialism is the task of the working class of all countries; socialism is the total transformation of all existing conditions. So, yes, we must argue that Left Unity must have a clear programme that commits us to the global supersession of capitalism. Of course, we have to defend and advance the existing gains of the working class. But that can best be done through a class struggle that does not stop at the shores of Britain.

From Marikana to a new workers party in South Africa

The recent determined struggle of South African miners, who have braved bloody repression by state forces, has created political shockwaves throughout the country. The intensification of working class struggles has exposed not only the ruthlessness of the capitalist system but also the rottenness of the ruling ANC government and its allies in the trade union bureaucracy. Weizmann Hamilton of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), the Socialist Party's sister party in South Africa, spoke to the Socialist about how these developments have propelled the beginnings of a new workers' party with a socialist programme, onto the political agenda. There cannot be any question about the historical significance of the recent strike movement of the miners; specifically, the massacre that took place on 16 August at Marikana when 34 Lonmin workers were mowed down by police. It is no exaggeration to say that that single event constitutes an historical faultline in the post-Apartheid history of South Africa (SA). The impact of the event on the consciousness of the entire population, but especially the working class, will determine the country's future political course. Because what was revealed in those 300 seconds of gunfire - the biggest atrocity in the country since the 1960 Sharpeville massacre - was the role played by all the key political and social forces inside the country. It clarified in the minds of the working class the class character of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government and its relationship to the mining bosses and the role of the state and the trade union leadership. All of these things were laid bare by the massacre in a way that no other event could have, ie it sharply posed the nature of the tasks and the challenges that face the working class in SA. One thing is clear, the massacre was the result of a plan that had been thought through by the state, together with the bosses, and carried out as a premeditated act. It is inconceivable that the decision could have been taken to try and drown the strike in blood without it having been authorised politically by the tops of government. In that sense the administration of president Jacob Zuma has the blood of the Marikana workers on its hands. The manner in which the trade union leadership of Cosatu (Congress of South African Trade Unions) and, principally, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), has reacted to these events, has reinforced the conclusions that workers had been drawing prior to the massacre about what the NUM had been turned into. There is a widespread understanding - even expressed in the media by capitalist commentators - that the NUM has revealed itself as a 'baas boy' union, ie a union of the bosses. There is a widespread contempt for the leadership of the NUM. Everything they did subsequent to the massacre was to reinforce those conclusions. The historical tragedy of these events is that the NUM - the most powerful and influential union, whose history confirmed the most militant traditions of Cosatu - was revealed to be the conduit through which everything that is rotten about the trade union movement has been channelled. The NUM leadership has degenerated to such a level that even after the Lonmin workers, despite the massacre, courageously continued the struggle, forcing management to capitulate into conceding a wage settlement ranging from 11% to 22% - at the highest end, not far off the miners' original demand for R12,500, the NUM leadership could not bring themselves to acknowledge that achievement. On the contrary, they denounced the agreement! The NUM general secretary, Frans Baleni, earns R100,000 (£7,000) a month from the subs of his members and yet he had the temerity to go to the workers and say to them that the demand for R12,500 a month is unrealistic and that it will do damage to the economy! 'Intolerable' In the first instance, the workers had risen up in support for a demand for a decent living wage. And given the substantial profits of the platinum bosses and throughout the mining industry, then the demand for R12,500 a month was entirely realisable. But it was the fact that the miners rose up against the entire arrangement for the perpetuation of their own slavery; that is the most significant aspect of the strike. They were also rising up against the authority of the NUM as the principal instrument for the maintenance of their own subjugation by the mining bosses. This was why the strike was 'intolerable' to the mining bosses and the state and why they deemed it necessary to try and crush the strike in blood. But of course it has had the entirely opposite effect because, now, the NUM is hated beyond the platinum mining industry. With that this has led to a precipitous decline in the authority of Cosatu itself. Cosatu and the NUM leadership has completely failed to appreciate the historical significance of what took place on 16 August. Instead they have attempted to restore the NUM as the recognised organisation of the miners. They even went to the extent of actually organising a "hands off the NUM" demo on 27 October in Rustenburg to, in the words of the Cosatu president, S'dumo Dlamini, 'reclaim Rustenburg out of the hands of counter-revolutionaries'! So against who was this demo being directed at? The workers themselves and, of course, the DSM. Strike committees Fortunately the clashes between the mineworkers and the Cosatu officials were not as bad as we had feared. Nonetheless, it was a humiliating experience for Cosatu's leadership. For a long time they were prevented by their own former members (miners in Anglo Platinum) from getting to the stadium for a rally and could only hold it under the protection of the police! Similarly, when Cosatu's general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi attempted to address thousands of striking miners at the Orkney Mine in Klerksdorp he was chased away. He later blamed, falsely, the DSM for this humiliation. This is the beginning of the end of the NUM in the platinum industry and in the whole of the mining industry but it is also potentially the beginning of the unravelling of Cosatu itself. This is not a certainty but if the leadership does not change course, combined with its failure to address the critical class issue in SA and in particular its determination to remain inside the trap of the Tripartite Alliance (ie the ANC, Cosatu and the SA Communist Party), then it is likely that it will completely disintegrate. The SACP reaction to the Marikana uprising was to say that the workers were being misled by a 'Pondoland vigilante mafia'. In other words workers are incapable of comprehending their own oppression and exploitation! There are a whole host of 'conspirators' who the Cosatu, NUM and SACP leaders identify for the Marikana uprising. They blamed the Chamber of Mines for creating Amcu, attributing the strikes as arising out of rivalry with the NUM. In fact, AMCU is the accidental beneficiary of the collapse of authority of the NUM. Some workers have joined AMCU but now have misgivings because AMCU does not have a radical alternative programme to the NUM and because the main leadership in the mines is the independent workers' strike committees. It is these committees where a framework for the embryo of a new trade union federation exists. As far as the DSM is concerned the committees need to become the repositories for the restoration of the militant traditions of the working class in the trade union movement. The DSM's role in developing workers' struggles Our role is, partly, to be the memory of the working class so that it can retie the knot of history between the old traditions that created Cosatu in the struggle to defeat apartheid, and the new tasks facing the working class today. Last year we took the initiative of calling an Assembly for Workers' Unity (AWU). Its purpose was to face one of the most important challenges in front of the working class. There are three main theatres of struggle. One is the protests against corruption and poor service delivery, which are growing in intensity and frequency. There have been some 11,000 protests over poor service delivery this year. Then there has been an enormous increase in workplace action among organised workers. And then there are protests by students against debt and academic and financial exclusions, in particular over the unaffordability of tuition fees and of student accommodation for working class students. There is a permanent class war taking place along these fronts in the country. However, there is no coordination of the service delivery protests and even of the workplace disputes and no coordination of the student strikes. The student formations have become a mirror image of their political counterparts because they operate as the student wings of the ANC and PAC (Pan African Congress) etc. They have become training academies for the new post-Apartheid elite. At their conferences you see luxury cars in the parking lots. And yet these formations are meant to be representative of the working class! So our approach was to encourage the coordination of struggles within each theatre and across them. This is the concept behind AWU. The AWU pulled in organisations like the Thembelihle Crisis Committee, and invited the Socialist Civic Movement in Mpumalanga, and others, to promote a common programme and platform of action, for example a single day of action for service delivery protests starting in the regions, then provincial and finally on a national basis. We didn't get the response we were hoping for but nonetheless it laid down a marker for future struggles. And it is this same approach that we developed among the striking mineworkers. Our first tactic was to bring together all the efforts of the struggling miners; because up to that point the Lonmin workers were protesting on their own, as were the Anglo Platinum workers. There was a common determination to struggle but no common demands and without any coordination. So we did the obvious thing and encouraged the establishment of strike committees and on a coordinated basis to campaign, firstly, for a general strike across Rustenburg, and then to call for a wider general strike of the miners within the country. At the same time we promoted the idea of unity between the working class communities surrounding the mining areas and the strikers. In Limpopo we have had great success in getting the communities on board not only to support the mineworkers but also the idea of a mass workers' party, which was endorsed at a mass meeting of 5,000. The current 'balance of forces' in the mining industry As far as the recent strike wave is concerned, most areas have returned to work. The only mine still out on strike is Bokoni in Limpopo, where the key members of the local strike committee, (including the chair of the national strike committee) are in jail at the moment. Last week we were able to bring local Cosatu structures on board and stage a protest over the detention of the strike committee. At Anglo Platinum the return to work agreement was signed by the strike committee which is highly significant as officially no provision exists for such recognition in the collective bargaining arrangement in the mine. Although they didn't achieve their demand for R16,500 a month wage they did receive a R4,500 and 'incentive' (partly a loan) which breaks the 'no work, no pay' principle. In reality they have been paid for going on strike! The bosses have also agreed to bring forward pay negotiations which weren't scheduled until May 2013 and to withdraw the threat of mass dismissals. The mining bosses have been forced to recognise the reality of the change in the balance of power in the industry. It represents a defeat for the state and for the mining bosses and for the Cosatu and NUM bureaucracies. The bosses are hinting at massive retrenchments in industry in 2013 so the battles lines are being drawn for a new wave of struggle. There is now a breathing space for the workers to coordinate and develop their organisations and their strategic and tactical plans. Building a new mass workers' party on a socialist programme The strike has elevated the question of a political alternative for the workers firmly and irrevocably onto the agenda. The idea of a new mass workers' party is now part of the political discourse inside the country. Many commentators recognise that this demand has been injected into the political situation by the DSM. The DSM is now taking the initiative to take matters forward. On 15 December plans to launch the new mass workers' party will be announced by the DSM and the miners' national strike committee. Already, at a meeting in Limpopo, 5,000 workers endorsed the call for a mass workers' party. A press conference, preceded by a rally of the mineworkers, will proclaim the political independence of the working class from the tripartite alliance in which they have been incarcerated. The new party will target the 2014 elections. The press conference will happen the day before the ANC's conference, the run up to which has exposed sharp factional conflicts and is likely to prove to be the most divisive conference certainly since 2007 and the eviction of Thabo Mbeki as president. The ANC's authority is in such decline that the strategists of capitalism are encouraging the historically-white liberal opposition Democratic Alliance to "change its demographics", ie elect more blacks to leadership positions to give it greater appeal to black workers, as well as other political alternatives. A resolution proclaiming a new mass workers' party has been discussed by all the miners' shaft committees. The idea will be to launch the new party on 23 March 2013, coinciding with the Sharpeville massacre anniversary. Before that there will be various events, rallies, marches, and a recall campaign of councillors so that they can be substituted with real fighters from the new party. It will be a broad formation with provision for the participation of existing organised political entities. We will be approaching a number of organisations to be part of this process. We are confident that such a new party will fill the political void that has long existed on the left in SA. This will be the crowning achievement of the Marikana uprising. Marikana Commission of Inquiry According to Jacob Zuma the motivation for the establishment of the Marikana commission into the massacre is 'to establish the truth', because no one, apparently, knows why it happened! Prior to the massacre on 16 August, ten people had died at Marikana. Consequently, the workers took the decision to relocate away from the mine and to go to a nearby koppie (small hill) and demanded that management should come and discuss with them. The forces of the state had prepared by portraying the miners who carried traditional weapons as being provocatively armed. A radio interview on 15 August, between management, the NUM and AMCU, publicly stated that negotiations would take place the following day. When AMCU turned up management was nowhere to be found. Later management said that all negotiations were off. It is clear that the decision had been taken overnight to end negotiations and that the strike was going to have to be crushed. Three thousand police were deployed from the tactical response unit with military firepower. Armoured vehicles were deployed, helicopters with snipers and reels of razor wire to trap the workers. Incidentally, the majority of the 34 dead miners were not killed at the spot shown on the TV footage when police opened fire, they were killed elsewhere. Some had bullet wounds to the head suggesting executions. Evidence has also been tampered with. What revelations have so far emerged at the commission completely confirms what workers knew. It is clear that the tops of the ANC and NUM regarded the situation as an 'intolerable' defiance of state authority. The ANC's Cyril Ramaphosa, in particular, is implicated in the massacre. Beforehand he had described the strike as an 'act of criminality'. Ramaphosa is the former general secretary of the NUM who sits on the board of directors of Lonmin (he has a 9% share in the company paid for by Lonmin itself!). Ramaphosa's reputation has been tarnished irreparably. This is a man who was once a leading worker militant who has become one of the world's richest individuals. The role of the commission with its four-month long investigation is partly to take the sting out the situation but is also to cover up the government's culpability. It will probably result in some naming of scapegoats, in all likelihood junior level police officers. The overwhelming mission is to ensure that the government is not held responsible. Even in advance of the commission's outcome Cosatu's leadership has confirmed its political support for president Jacob Zuma. Marikana represents the biggest atrocity since Sharpeville and yet Cosatu has not organised a protest but instead tried to rehabilitate the discredited NUM, whose shop stewards at Lonmin, incidentally, have their offices next to the police station! This article was first published in issue 746 of the socialist the weeky paper from the socialist party of England and Wales detailing workers struggles at home and around the world and pointing the way forward.

A confused state of consciousness

It sometimes feel that decades go by in a year and other times time moves so slowly along and nothing seems to be changing at all.

Well today we are in a period of time where things are changing very quickly indeed. Almost by the day as the governor of the bank of England recently has come our and said. When asked well what’s going to happen next year to the economy he replied I’m not sure what will happen tomorrow let alone next year.

So since the global economic collapse in 2008 ordinary working people can find themselves with all sorts of odd conclusions and ideas where the is a lack of a mass works party as we find ourselves in that situation today.

For a example of this I was in my local pub the other night just casually chatting about politics and the current state of things with Greece and tee economy etc when this guy said to me well I consider myself a Tory always voted for them and feel that it was all labours fault. Maybe labour played their part but they stepped in to save the banks where we were hours away from not being able to use the banking machines and funds drying up. I pointed out they had to do this but should have gone further in fully nationalising the banks under democratic workers control using the banks funds for peoples needs not to save capitalism. But this guy went on although I’m a Tory he claims anyway I don’t agree with all this bonus’s these bankers are still getting it’s a disgrace and should be stopped. So this sort of contradictory idea of apparently being a Tory which in all honesty I’m not sure he was he has probably just been brought up to save and look out for himself which there is some good in that of course but a Tory I think not. By examining the fact that the bankers have run a mock on our economy he points out that even ordinary working class people who you may think don’t get what is going on in the wider picture do get things to a degree. But currently are drawing some wrong conclusions and are perhaps a bit naive in their thinking of how to solve the crisis.

I just find it interesting how consciousness changes and shifts on major shifts in society. As Lenin quite rightly points out consciousness always lags behind reality and this is no different today we are 4 years into the biggest economic crisis in capitalism for a very long time and workers are only now just starting to wake up to the pure class war which is going on in front of our eyes. Workers are starting to rub sleep out of their eyes and look for answers. Unfortunately those answers are possibly not the correct ones at this moment in time but they will learn through experience no doubt.

I can see a situation where when workers or more advanced layers of workers finally realise they have been lead a merry dance for so long that class anger can spill out at a fast rate in unpredictable ways.

Class consciousness is something we as Marxists study constantly looking to see where that build up of pressure is and how it is developing and where that sparks may come where the term the straw that broke the camels back comes into play. There is a build up of anger and frustration by people out there but unfortunately thus far it has only really been shown in the riots of last August which sadly if no proper fight back is forthcoming from the labour movement and the trades unions I could see reoccurring if nothing is offered as an alternative.

I sincerely hope it doesn’t but that lack of an alternative being posed apart from permanent austerity will force people to the conclusions we may not always wish for.

It is important that we as socialists and those who consider themselves Marxists to offer that alternative and bridge that gap in consciousness by raising the ideas and the political understanding with our own ranks but eventually the wider class if we can. It is a hard uphill task but a task we must take up none the less.

TUSC has room to grow

With the recent local elections I’d like to say this can be and I’m sure will be the greatest period of growth for TUSC if the lessons are learnt and put into practise.

Rugby TUSC which I see personally as a shining example has made huge inroads into keeping their vote up and doubling it. If any TUSC branch or future TUSC branch wants an example to follow look no further than Rugby TUSC with pet eMclaren and his comrades heading up a fantastic anti cuts fight. A lesson we can all learn. Work in-between elections are absolutely key in my view. Not being just seen as politicians which we’re not of course who just want your vote and only call round at election time is not the route we want to be going down.

Building a TUSC branch in your area should be the objective and I fully believe this can be done. With socialist party and SWP comrades in most areas there is no reason why we cant form branch’s of TUSC and lay the base for a new mass workers party which can challenge labour in the ballot box, on the picket lines where labour are rarely seen and in amongst the working class where many are now looking for a alternative to labour.

I firmly believe if TUSC hold their nerve and all who support it hold their nerve and double our efforts and raise the name we can start to see major breakthroughs in the coming period.

With the capitalist crisis only going to deepen a party and a coalition like TUSC can really make big gains if it plays its cards right. Forming branches and being seen as always alongside workers in struggle is key if we are not we open the door for others to be seen to be.

TUSC is serious I believe in attracting new layers of workers and existing workers to the banner of TUSC. I am optimistic for our chances going forward and the campaign for a new workers party is gaining support and influence certainly within the trade unions such as the RMT and beyond. This period we can cease for ourselves if the right ideas are put across and the right lessons are learnt by all.

The most important part is putting those theories into practise and making sure we are seen wherever workers turn to struggle as they are likely to in the coming period.

TUSC can be that vehicle for working people if it plays its cards right let us be that banner to win workers too. As a step towards a new mass workers party with socialism as its aim.

Big step forward as RMT officially backs TUSC

As we move slowly towards the coming local elections and elections in London a big step forward has recently occurred with the RMT union publically backing TUSC candidates and allowing its branch’s across the country to back TUSC candidates standing in elections. I am so pleased about this and hopefully will lead the way for more moves of trade unionists standing for TUSC and giving working people a voice.

The national executive of the RMT union has voted to back candidates of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition in the London elections on 3 May.
RMT general secretary, Bob Crow, announced the decision to applause at a rally to launch TUSC’s election campaign to win seats on the London Assembly.
The executive also voted to allow its union branches around the country to back other TUSC candidates in the local council elections which take place on the same day.
Prior to taking the decision, the RMT executive had written to every single branch in the Greater London area to ask if there were any objections to the proposal to back TUSC. There were none.
Bob Crow said:
“While Labour leader Ed Militant may get up and condemn the budget for the rich, what would they do under the same circumstances? Exactly the same, except over a longer period of time. A hundred and seven years ago this union moved a resolution to say we want a party of labour and to get rid of liberalism; now we have to say we need to get rid of Labour and we need a party of trade unionists and socialist.”
Speaking at the same meeting, Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack pointed out that the privatization of the London fire service had started under Labour.
“The FBU rejects the whole austerity agenda”, he said. “We may be small but we can grow. Our message can get an echo – the alternative is a dire future that offers nothing to millions.”
RMT President Alex Gordon, who is the leading candidate on the TUSC London list said:
“The RMT has a proud tradition of fighting politically. There is nothing to be ashamed about being a trade unionist and a socialist – millions of people out there are looking for an alternative. Labour is ashamed of its background. With TUSC, there will be no running away from supporting strikers – it’s on the tin. They’ve got the millionaires – we’ve got the millions who are deprived of a voice”
The backing given to TUSC candidates by the RMT national executive and its general secretary, the FBU London Region and its general secretary, represents a significant step in the building of a left-wing alternative to the Labour Party. This should now be publisised widely and to the wider labour movement that trade unionists do have a voice again and TUSC can be that vehicle for them. Everyone can get involved in TUSC whetheryour in work out of work a pensioner a socialist or a trade unionist this formation can be a stepping stone towards the eventual formation of a new mass workers party we feel.

It is crucial to get official union support on board as not only does this bring the name to a wider layer of workers but also gives us credibility as a force. Many still in the labour party who are disillusioned understandably tell me often well we would leave labour and vote for someone else if there is a credible alternative. Well TUSC hopes and is taking big bold new steps to being just that. With your support and the wider class support TUSC can turn from a minority party to a major force in this country in the coming period.

You can find out more about TUSC and our policies at
www.tusc.org.uk

What's in a name ?

With todays labour party quite clearly not supporting workers or working class people at all i wondered should they be forced or even not think about dropping the name labour ?

To me a young person involved in politics i have only known a pro market, pro privatisation, pro imperialist war labour party and for them to rest on their past success's if you can call them that is a insult to ordinary working people.

It is a fraud to be quite honest for the labour party today who no longer has a working class base like it used to. lenin was right labour was never a socialist party yes but it always had a duel complection having a workers base with a bourgeois leadership. Even in Militant we realised this for those who thought we were reformist for working inside the labour party. But today how anyone can seriously suggest labour represents ordinary working people or is vaguely socialist at all is living in cloud cookoo land to be quite honest.

The likes of the LRC and other good socialists point to the fact the labour party still have the trades union link. This is all very well if this hadnt been severaly hampered by many many anti trade union laws incidentily not repealed by a labour government in power for 13 years.

Small cabals - who have no connection with the radical and heroic periods of Labour - run a machine totally alien to working class people. Any socialist - inside or outside the Labour Party, and it is mostly the latter - is bound to come into collision with them.

This does not preclude "heated debate", not just with the Con-Dems but also with and against Labour councillors and the majority of Labour MPs who are doing the dirty work of the government in justifying cuts and carrying them out at local level.

It is unrealistic to think that workers who are losing their jobs - some of them never to work again - and many seeing vital services destroyed should engage in polite exchanges with 'Labour... Yes Labour councils and councillors'. It is legitimate to express anger and, yes, rage - not just against the Tories and Liberals - but against a Labour caste at local level which is inflicting terrible punishment on working people.

It is also necessary to forcefully take up and oppose those who seek to excuse Labour sell-outs. Some on the left refused to endorse the Socialist Party's implacable opposition to 'all cuts'. But we were at one with those like Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS civil servants union and Bob Crow, leader of the RMT transport workers union. Those who are prepared to accept 'some cuts' are acting as a left flank, apologists for Labour councillors and councils who are betraying everything which the Labour Party originally stood for.

For instance, Waltham Forest council - controlled by Labour - has inflicted £3 million of cuts to wages and conditions of its workers yet £18 million has been paid to 'consultants' whose main job is to make these cuts to jobs and services! And this is as typical of 'Labour' councils as Tory or Lib Dem.

Will local government emerge at the end of the 'cuts programme' in the absurd position of the NHS where "in 2006, Accountancy Age reported that the NHS was spending more on consultants than all Britain's manufacturers put together"?

This scandal was pushed through by the likes of New Labour health ministers Alan Milburn and Patricia Hewitt, who then got cushy, well-paid jobs in the health private sector!

However much of the debate in the labour movement at present is on the character of the Labour Party at present and whether is it possible to reclaim it in the future. We can never say never where politics are concerned. Nor is it theoretically excluded that if a mass workers' party is not urgently built, the impulse for a new party could come from within even a bourgeois party.

Such is the depth of the present economic and social crisis that, in time, this can find an expression even in such a party leading to a left split, out of which could come the basis of a radical or even a new mass workers' party.

Something like this happened in Greece where the 'left-wing' of the liberal capitalist party the Centre Union - led by the late Andreas Papandreou - came out of that party following the overthrow of the Greek military junta in 1974.

Such was the sweep of the revolution in the post-1974 period and the colossal changes in consciousness which this evoked that the objective basis for the new mass socialist party Pasok was created. The present 'Pasok' is a million miles removed from its socialist origins.

But we do not think that it is likely that Labour could be transformed in Britain in the next period. We cannot just 'wait' for future events to hopefully change the Labour Party, while in the meantime the working class goes to hell in a handcart.

We have to seek to exert pressure now through a new workers' party, no matter how small initially. The Labour party has been transformed under the New Labour counter-revolution carried out first by Blair, then by Brown and today by Miliband into a capitalist formation.

In fact, Tony Blair recognised this when he declared that New Labour was an entirely 'new party'. Conversely if Labour is to be 'transformed', as some still hope, then this would effectively mean setting up a new party, which by standing on clear socialist policies would represent a clear break.

Labour's current policies are a continuation of Blair's pro-capitalist agenda. This is expressed in terms of policy; witness Miliband's completely pro-capitalist assault on the trade unions at the TUC. It is reflected also in the internal organisation and character of the Labour Party which is fundamentally different from what existed in the past.

The old Labour Party, of which we were a significant force (through Militant - now the Socialist Party), involved the participation of the working class and the trade unions. It was a 'bourgeois workers' party' - with a pro-capitalist leadership at the top but a base among workers below. But it was also very open and democratic, and the leadership was forced to take account of the rank-and-file and its views.

Those who seek to argue that 'nothing has fundamentally changed' in the character of the Labour Party are mistaken. Compare the present situation in the Labour Party to the 1960s. Harold Wilson, supported by Barbara Castle the Labour minister at the time, tried to push through anti-union legislation.

This was massively opposed by the rank-and-file of the party and the majority of the National Executive Committee. If Wilson had not retreated he would have been compelled to resign. Neither could he militarily support US imperialism on the Vietnam War- despite the urgings of the then US President Johnson - for the same reason.

Tony Blair, however, got the support of Labour's conference delegates - who in the past were solidly to the left of the leadership - for the obscene and criminal Iraq war.

Some object that to describe New Labour as 'capitalist' is an 'exaggeration', because workers are still voting Labour. This, it is argued, indicates that Labour - 'warts and all' - is 'different' from the other two capitalist parties.

Yes, Labour is 'different', in the same way as the Democratic Party in the US differs from the right-wing Republican Party. The Democrats are more 'liberal' but are still a pronounced capitalist party.

So also was the Liberal Party in the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. Sections of the working class and the trade unions in Britain saw it as an alternative until mighty events - the decline of British imperialism and its inability to continue to grant concessions to the working class - undermined this. This prepared the way for the rise of the Labour Party itself as a mass political expression of the trade unions.

Those who furnished the mass basis for the Labour Party were the sons and daughters of workers who previously voted Liberal. This will happen with the building of a new party. Those who have voted Labour and still do can be won to a new mass workers' party.

Even to those who hope that Labour can be changed, we pose the questions: 'What do we do now in the political and electoral arenas? How does the labour movement exert pressure on Labour in order to defeat and change its present craven capitulation to big business, which is disheartening its former and present supporters? By propaganda or vague hopes for the future alone? The bureaucratic caste which dominates Labour is totally impervious to this.


So i would suggest all that are serious about a new workers party should suggest that any new workers party in the future which i'm confident will happen should not include the name labour as it has been shamefully wrecked by the current party which claims to stand for working people but clearly does not.

The labour party on N30 and beyond

Alot of talk this week will be on the big one day public sector general strikes this wednesday of course but many including Len Mcklusky are still hoping the Labour party will back these strikes.

In this piece in the Morning Star :
http://t.co/aeezb0Sf


Len tries to make out Labour can be workers friends and that it can be reclaimed and will hopefully support the unions on strike this week. Sorry Len i do not share this optimism with you pal.

Len speaks a good game but i am yet to be convinced he is serious a bout taking back the labour party. The fact he thinks he can convince Ed Miliband who condemned the strikes on June 30th this year already means nothing to him clearly. It will be interesting to see if Len changes his mind if Ed fails to back these strikes which i suspect he will not.
The pension reforms being force fed to workers by this Con-Dem government and being threatened all the time with taking away any offers and increasing anti trade union laws is as thick and fast as ever from the tories.
But also dont forget these proposals were drawn up by a Labour lord Lord Hutton who suggested these cuts to workers pensions after the Labour government had negotiated a deal not so long ago that was fair.
Ed Balls yesterday on TV admitted that Labour would be having to do something similar making workers in the public sector work longer, pay morea nd get lessas a result of their agreement that workers must pay for a crisis that they did not cause.

With the labour leadership Balls and Miliband together workers do not have a ally at all in fact Miliband was photographed laughing and joking with David Cameron and Nick Clegg on 30th of June this year disgustingly.

I hear that many labour councils and labour members are supporting this week's strikes. I think this is great of course i'm not dogmatic against la bour if their membership supports striking workers that is a good thing but be under no illusion this is easy for the members to back as they hold little influence on the leadership and are many ordinary public sector workers too.
For them to be serious about opposing this government they must urge their councillors and MP's to move to a no to all cuts position and refuse to make cuts at a local council level next year.

As public sector workers prepare for the planned 30 November one-day strike, the question of a political voice of opposition to cuts, along with their strength in the union, is posed.

Pieces like this on Labour List only set to underline many socialist party members views that Labour cannot be reclaimed and a new workers party is needed.
http://t.co/3ZiFTFkE
In the piece the new labour member claims that strikes damage labours electorability and Labour should not be backing strikes instead siding on the side of the public. Not bothering to mention ordinary public sector workers are not only members of that same public but are also tax payers who can vote. This blairite writes them all off in one fail swoop.
I would think it is sufficient to say that as the Labour Party currently stands, it is not really possible to openly campaign for socialist policies, and even if we could, it wouldn't sound plausible to the electorate, bearing in mind the policies carried out over the 13 years of the previous Labour governments. So we see the clear need to independently put socialist policies before the electorate, and try to build a pole of attraction around which the unions can organise politically.

TUSC and the Socialist Party could and should be playing the part of exerting a gravitational pull on the labour movement (and party) towards socialism. But to be able to do that requires a medium (field) of comradely debate and approach.

On the other hand, we do believe that the few socialists who are labouring away to change the Labour Party are pursuing a futile task. Never in its history has the left been so weak both in the Parliamentary Labour Party and among the rank-and-file.

We have pointed out many times that they are like prisoners smuggling the occasional note between the bars to workers outside. Very few workers participate in what is increasingly an empty shell. In fact even the 'shell' may no longer exist if Miliband gets his way and further dissolves the party, particularly the influence of the trade unions within it.

Small cabals - who have no connection with the radical and heroic periods of Labour - run a machine totally alien to working class people. Any socialist - inside or outside the Labour Party, and it is mostly the latter - is bound to come into collision with them.


This would be the case if the LRC or Socialist appeal our comradely cousins still inside the Labour party from our militant days every organised properly into a serious force instead of working largely as individuals. If they took a stronger stance on cuts and fought the labour leadership and appealed to workers to rejoin the party on mass. But so far this is not happening.

It is unrealistic to think that workers who are losing their jobs - some of them never to work again - and many seeing vital services destroyed should engage in polite exchanges with 'Labour... Yes Labour councils and councillors'. It is legitimate to express anger and, yes, rage - not just against the Tories and Liberals - but against a Labour caste at local level which is inflicting terrible punishment on working people.

It is also necessary to forcefully take up and oppose those who seek to excuse Labour sell-outs. Some on the left refused to endorse the Socialist Party's implacable opposition to 'all cuts'. But we were at one with those like Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS civil servants union and Bob Crow, leader of the RMT transport workers union. Those who are prepared to accept 'some cuts' are acting as a left flank, apologists for Labour councillors and councils who are betraying everything which the Labour Party originally stood for.

For instance, Waltham Forest council - controlled by Labour - has inflicted £3 million of cuts to wages and conditions of its workers yet £18 million has been paid to 'consultants' whose main job is to make these cuts to jobs and services! And this is as typical of 'Labour' councils as Tory or Lib Dem.

Will local government emerge at the end of the 'cuts programme' in the absurd position of the NHS where "in 2006, Accountancy Age reported that the NHS was spending more on consultants than all Britain's manufacturers put together"? [London Review of Books.]

This scandal was pushed through by the likes of New Labour health ministers Alan Milburn and Patricia Hewitt, who then got cushy, well-paid jobs in the health private sector!


On reclaming the Labour party we can never say never where politics are concerned. Nor is it theoretically excluded that if a mass workers' party is not urgently built, the impulse for a new party could come from within even a bourgeois party.

Such is the depth of the present economic and social crisis that, in time, this can find an expression even in such a party leading to a left split, out of which could come the basis of a radical or even a new mass workers' party.

Something like this happened in Greece where the 'left-wing' of the liberal capitalist party the Centre Union - led by the late Andreas Papandreou - came out of that party following the overthrow of the Greek military junta in 1974.

Such was the sweep of the revolution in the post-1974 period and the colossal changes in consciousness which this evoked that the objective basis for the new mass socialist party Pasok was created. The present 'Pasok' is a million miles removed from its socialist origins.

But we do not think that it is likely that Labour could be transformed in Britain in the next period. We cannot just 'wait' for future events to hopefully change the Labour Party, while in the meantime the working class goes to hell in a handcart.

We have to seek to exert pressure now through a new workers' party, no matter how small initially. The Labour party has been transformed under the New Labour counter-revolution carried out first by Blair, then by Brown and today by Miliband into a capitalist formation.

In fact, Tony Blair recognised this when he declared that New Labour was an entirely 'new party'. Conversely if Labour is to be 'transformed', as some still hope, then this would effectively mean setting up a new party, which by standing on clear socialist policies would represent a clear break.

Labour's current policies are a continuation of Blair's pro-capitalist agenda. This is expressed in terms of policy; witness Miliband's completely pro-capitalist assault on the trade unions at the TUC. It is reflected also in the internal organisation and character of the Labour Party which is fundamentally different from what existed in the past.

The old Labour Party, of which we were a significant force (through Militant - now the Socialist Party), involved the participation of the working class and the trade unions. It was a 'bourgeois workers' party' - with a pro-capitalist leadership at the top but a base among workers below. But it was also very open and democratic, and the leadership was forced to take account of the rank-and-file and its views.

Those who seek to argue that 'nothing has fundamentally changed' in the character of the Labour Party are mistaken. Compare the present situation in the Labour Party to the 1960s. Harold Wilson, supported by Barbara Castle the Labour minister at the time, tried to push through anti-union legislation.

This was massively opposed by the rank-and-file of the party and the majority of the National Executive Committee. If Wilson had not retreated he would have been compelled to resign. Neither could he militarily support US imperialism on the Vietnam War- despite the urgings of the then US President Johnson - for the same reason.

Tony Blair, however, got the support of Labour's conference delegates - who in the past were solidly to the left of the leadership - for the obscene and criminal Iraq war.

Some object that to describe New Labour as 'capitalist' is an 'exaggeration', because workers are still voting Labour. This, it is argued, indicates that Labour - 'warts and all' - is 'different' from the other two capitalist parties.

Yes, Labour is 'different', in the same way as the Democratic Party in the US differs from the right-wing Republican Party. The Democrats are more 'liberal' but are still a pronounced capitalist party.

So also was the Liberal Party in the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. Sections of the working class and the trade unions in Britain saw it as an alternative until mighty events - the decline of British imperialism and its inability to continue to grant concessions to the working class - undermined this. This prepared the way for the rise of the Labour Party itself as a mass political expression of the trade unions.

Those who furnished the mass basis for the Labour Party were the sons and daughters of workers who previously voted Liberal. This will happen with the building of a new party.

Even to those who hope that Labour can be changed, we pose the questions: 'What do we do now in the political and electoral arenas? How does the labour movement exert pressure on Labour in order to defeat and change its present craven capitulation to big business, which is disheartening its former and present supporters? By propaganda or vague hopes for the future alone? The bureaucratic caste which dominates Labour is totally impervious to this.

But Labour's reaction could be different if a new party was formed, with a solid base among trade unionists. Electoral success for such a party could force change in the current anti-working class, anti-union stance of New Labour. More importantly, it would provide a political voice to millions who are effectively disenfranchised.
We face much ridicule from others on the left and even from some within the Labour party which i accept is enivitable while people still feel the labour party can be changed.
But Keir Hardie in Britain and James Connolly in Ireland - who were pioneers, like we are today for workers' parties - were also ridiculed. They got very small votes initially (Hardie gained 8% of the vote in his first parliamentary election in the Lanarkshire coalfields). They were proven to be correct and their critics silenced by the development of the kind of parties they campaigned for.

What is TUSC ?

The trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) was set-up last year to enable trade unionists, community campaigners and socialists who wanted to resist the pro-cuts consensus of the establishment parties to stand candidates in the 2010 general election.

By registering TUSC with the electoral commission, candidates could appear on the ballot paper as Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition rather than as 'Independent' which they would otherwise have to do under electoral law.

TUSC came out of a series of discussions by participants in the No2EU-Yes to Democracy coalition, which contested the 2009 European elections with the official support of the RMT transport workers' union, the Socialist Party, and others - the first time a trade union had officially backed a national electoral challenge to Labour since the party's foundation.

TUSC is a coalition with a steering committee which includes, in a personal capacity, the RMT general secretary Bob Crow, and fellow executive member Owen Herbert; the assistant general secretary of the PCS civil servants union, Chris Baugh, and the union's vice-president, John McInally; the president of the National Union of Teachers, Nina Franklin; and the recently retired general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, Brian Caton. The Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party are also represented on the committee.

TUSC is a federal 'umbrella' coalition, with agreed core policies endorsed by all its candidates but with participating organisations accountable for their own campaigns. Its core policies include, among others, opposition to public spending cuts and privatisation, student grants not fees, and the repeal of the anti-trade union laws.

It makes a clear socialist commitment to "bringing into democratic public ownership the major companies and banks that dominate the economy, so that production and services can be planned to meet the needs of all and to protect the environment".

Political representation on and beyond N30

So as we near the biggest strike in decades next wednesday workers wil be wondering who do we have to vote for ? who can we rely on to speak up for us apart from our unions ?

The very same question cross's my mind regularly and i do not think it is the labour party any longer. Despite what some of their more left wing members say they cannot disguise the fact their leadership have been silent on the strikes and the public sector pensions dispute till now. On June the 30th Ed Miliband was quoted as saying these strikes are wrong while negotiations are still going on. Of course there were no negotiations going on Ed and his condemnation of the strikes angered many ordinary working people.

There is a change going on and if Ed fails to support next wednesdays action where up to 4 million workers could be downing tools and striking he will loose all credibility he ever had in the labour movement. He'll be a dead force and have no respect left.
So then who will support workers you ask. I think TUSC although a small force at the moment can gain hugely if we place ourselves on the picket lines offering an alternative to the big 3 pro capitalist parties putting greed before workers need everytime.

TUSC - Trade Union and Socialist Coalition were formed a year or two ago and stands against all cuts and no privatisation a stark contrast to labours pathetic too far too fast line to cuts.

It is interesting to note Unite the Union are operating a completely opposing policy to the labour leadership now and oppose labours too far too fast line. We dont believe there should be a single cut made and a explicit no to all cuts stance is needed. Afterall what is a fair cut ?

to us in the socialist party there is no such thing as a fair cut. Why should we dictate who looses their job over another. Why should we decide who is a more important worker. We shouldnt be and that is another reason why i'm against all cuts.

There is plenty money in our society plenty of money at the top of society. 14 billion in bankers bonus's alone last year and you tell me there is no money left to keep local youth centres open, keep our valuable libraries open for all to enjoy and benifit from ?

Nonsense and if you hear labour tell you we need to make the cuts there is no alternative tll them to look up Liverpool city council in the 80's where the Militant influenced council refused to make any cuts and had great success in building 5000 new affordable social housing, new sports centres, pulled down old delaperdated areas and invested in construction and new jobs. Not a single worker lost their job back then despite what people say and that is the route all labour councils shuld be at leas c onsidering. If one labour council refused to pass on the cuts it would have a huge affect on the movement. But just like this year i do not see this happening. Not on a mass scale anyhow. Maybe one or two labour councillors who still have principles may vote against the cuts. But understand they will be expelled for going against labour party policy. What does that say about a Labour Party who expells their own members and councillors who dare to fight for the working class ? absolutely shocking.

So it is essential TUSC is put forward on N30 as a alternative to the capitalist parties and we stand strong against all cuts as we must be providing a beacon to workers who are looking for an alternative to labour who sell them out time after time.

In stevenage this year we stood candidates in every ward and recieved a very good vote. Granted we did not get anyone elected yet but if we compare the Labour party's figures back when they first formed they were getting 1%'s and the like back then and some still supported the liberals for a time . So we need a new break from the pro capitalist parties and i believe TUSC is that force and can be built on and broadened out to bring in all workers in struggle, all anti cuts groups and anyone who opposes this rotten capitalist system.

To find out more about TUSC and how you can support us please visit
www.TUSC.org.uk