Angry not apathetic: what anarchists do instead of voting

As the 2015 general election approaches, the Anarchist Federation explains the anarchist alternative to voting for social change. The general election is here, and once again the parties are all over us like a rash, promising that they will fix things. But you don’t have to be an anarchist to know that nothing changes, whoever gets in. This is why politicians are keen on new methods such as postal voting. Labour, Tory, Liberal Democrat, nationalist (Plaid Cymru, SNP, Sinn Fein), ‘principled’ or ‘radical’ (Green Party, or leftists in some alliance), or nationalist-racist (UKIP etc), the fundamentals of the system are the same. Whether we have the present electoral system or proportional representation, or however many people vote or don’t vote in an election or referendum, as we have just seen in Scotland, capitalism is at the driving wheel globally. As working class people, we are exploited whether we can take part in ‘free’ elections or live under an authoritarian regime. Capitalists and property owners continue to control the wealth that we create, and they protect it through the police, legal system, and military. You can’t complain Non-voters are told that, “If you don’t vote you can’t complain”. But voting under these circumstances is just pretending that the system we have is basically alright. It lets the winning party off the hook. The fact is, we have next to no say in the decisions that get taken by the people we elect. This is called ‘representative democracy’. Anarchists organise by ‘direct democracy’, where we can have a say in every decision, if we want to. We don’t put our power in someone else’s hands, so no one can betray us and abuse it. This really could work globally! Ask us how… Campaigning against voting A “don’t vote” campaign on its own is just as much a waste of time. The same goes for a protest vote for a leftist or novelty candidate. The time and money spent campaigning could be better used fixing some of the problems we face in our lives. Protesting, whether it is spoiling a ballot paper or marching in the street, fails to offer any real challenge. So, anarchists say, vote, or don’t vote. It won’t make any difference. What is more important, is to realise that elections prop up a corrupt system and divert us from winning real change. Don’t vote, organise! We should organise with our neighbours, workmates, other people we have shared interests with, and others who don’t have the privileges that some people have. We are the experts on what we need, and on the best way to run things for the common good. We need to use direct action to achieve this. Direct action is where we solve a problem without someone else representing us. By this we mean, not just protesting and asking for change, but things like occupying, sabotaging, working to rule, refusing to pay their prices or their rent, and striking (but not waiting for union leaders to tell us when we can and can’t!). For example, when workers aren’t paid the wages owed them, rather than asking the government to give us better legal protection, we take action to force employers to pay. The Department for Work & Pensions has even named the Anarchist Federation and the Solidarity Federation among groups that are a serious threat to workfare, because we have shut down programmes. This was achieved with only a few hundred people. Imagine what could be done with thousands! Taking it back In reality, people are understandably afraid of taking the state on. But direct action doesn’t have to mean an all-out fight to defeat capitalism in one go. Anarchists do think that ultimately, there has to be a full revolution. But by confronting the system directly at any point we can start to take control. In fact, all the good things we think of as having been created by the state – free health care, free education, health & safety laws to protect us at work, housing regulations, sick pay, unemployment benefits, pensions – came about historically to put an end to organised campaigns of collective direct action that threatened their power. And where we would fail as individuals, together we can win.

Why vote in elections ??

Today spamming my timeline on twitter is the Unite Union my former union who are cheerleading for the Labour Party victim blaming the disabled and the poor into voting. If you dont vote you dont have a voice they crow. I used to be involved in TUSC and various trotskyists activities to give the "working class" a political voice. I no longer think this is the way to go “Don’t vote? don’t complain” “A + B are both wrong” “Pick one or you’ll be ignored” *picks A* “This is awful” “You voted for it!" are all lines i hear so much. For a trade union to be pushing this sickening line is really taking the piss. lets be honest no one is against voting as and of itself its just its role it plays in watering down disent and diverting militant campaigns into dead ends. Also, what Unite are ignoring in the middle of blaming disabled people is that often polling stations are SIMPLY NOT ACCESSIBLE as many blind people like myself have found in the past. Only around 25% of polling stations at the last European Elections had accessible templates to enable the blind and partially sighted to vote. The RNIB and other blind charity's are campaigning for a online voting system which i wouldnt be against to be honest as enabling disabled people to vote easier if they so wish should be a right they hold. Even if like me they may choose not to participatea nd vote there still should be the chance for all no matter your disability to vote independently for yourself if you so wish. Even as anarchists we can agree with that. Alot of good stuff is written on the anarchist faq which i will quote below. "While anarchists reject electioneering and voting, it does not mean that we are politically apathetic. Indeed, part of the reason why anarchists reject voting is because we think that voting is not part of the solution, its part of the problem. This is because it endorses an unjust and unfree political system and makes us look to others to fight our battles for us. It blocks constructive self-activity and direct action. It stops the building of alternatives in our communities and workplaces. Voting breeds apathy and apathy is our worse enemy. Given that we have had universal suffrage for well over 50 years in many countries and we have seen the rise of Labour and Radical parties aiming to use that system to effect change in a socialistic manner, it seems strange that we are probably further away from socialism than when they started. The simple fact is that these parties have spent so much time trying to win elections that they have stopped even thinking about creating socialist alternatives in our communities and workplaces. That is in itself enough to prove that electioneering, far from eliminating apathy, in fact helps to create it. At its most basic, voting implies agreement with the status quo. It is worth quoting the Scottish libertarian socialist James Kelman at length on this: "State propaganda insists that the reason why at least 40 percent of the voting public don't vote at all is because they have no feelings one way or the other. They say the same thing in the USA, where some 85 percent of the population are apparently 'apolitical' since they don't bother registering a vote. Rejection of the political system is inadmissible as far as the state is concerned . . . Of course the one thing that does happen when you vote is that someone else has endorsed an unfair political system . . . A vote for any party or any individual is always a vote for the political system. You can interpret your vote in whichever way you like but it remains an endorsement of the apparatus . . . If there was any possibility that the apparatus could effect a change in the system then they would dismantle it immediately. In other words the political system is an integral state institution, designed and refined to perpetuate its own existence. Ruling authority fixes the agenda by which the public are allowed 'to enter the political arena' and that's the fix they've settled on." [Some Recent Attacks, p. 87] We are taught from an early age that voting in elections is right and a duty. In US schools, for example, children elect class presidents and other officers. Often mini-general elections are held to "educate" children in "democracy." Periodically, election coverage monopolises the media. We are made to feel guilty about shirking our "civic responsibility" if we do not vote. Countries that have no elections, or only rigged elections, are regarded as failures. As a result, elections have become a quasi-religious ritual. Yet, in reality, "elections in practice have served well to maintain dominant power structures such as private property, the military, male domination, and economic inequality. None of these has been seriously threatened through voting. It is from the point of view of radical critics that elections are most limiting." ["Democracy without Elections", pp. 123-36, Reinventing Anarchy, Again, Howard J. Ehrlich (ed.), p. 124] Elections serve the interests of state power in other ways. First, voting helps to legitimate government; hence suffrage has often been expanded at times when there was little popular demand for it but when mass support of government was crucial, as during a war or revolution. Second, it comes to be seen as the only legitimate form of political participation, thus making it likely that any revolts by oppressed or marginalised groups will be viewed by the general public as illegitimate. It helps focus attention away from direct action and building new social structures back into institutions which the ruling class can easily control. The general election during the May '68 revolt in France, for example, helped diffuse the revolutionary situation, as did the elections during the Argentine revolt against neo-liberalism in the early 2000s. So by turning political participation into the "safe" activities of campaigning and voting, elections have reduced the risk of more radical direct action as well as building a false sense of power and sovereignty among the general population. Voting disempowers the grassroots by diverting energy from grassroots action. After all, the goal of electoral politics is to elect a representative who will act for us. Therefore, instead of taking direct action to solve problems ourselves, action becomes indirect, though the government. This is an insidiously easy trap to fall into, as we have been conditioned in hierarchical society from day one into attitudes of passivity and obedience, which gives most of us a deep-seated tendency to leave important matters to the "experts" and "authorities." Kropotkin described well the net effect: "Vote! Greater men that you will tell you the moment when the self-annihilation of capital has been accomplished. They will then expropriate the few usurpers left . . . and you will be freed without having taken any more trouble than that of writing on a bit of paper the name of the man whom the heads of your faction of the party told you to vote for!" [quoted by Ruth Kinna, "Kropotkin's theory of Mutual Aid in Historical Context", pp. 259-283, International Review of Social History, No. 40, pp. 265-6] Ironically, voting has legitimated the growth of state power to such an extent that the state is now beyond any real popular control by the form of participation that made that growth possible. Nevertheless, the idea that electoral participation means popular control of government is so deeply implanted in people's psyches that even the most overtly sceptical radical often cannot fully free themselves from it. Therefore, voting has the important political implication of encouraging people to identify with state power and to justify the status quo. In addition, it feeds the illusion that the state is neutral and that electing parties to office means that people have control over their own lives. Moreover, elections have a tendency to make people passive, to look for salvation from above and not from their own self-activity. As such it produces a division between leaders and led, with the voters turned into spectators of activity, not the participants within it. All this does not mean, obviously, that anarchists prefer dictatorship or an "enlightened" monarchy. Far from it, democratising state power can be an important step towards abolishing it. All anarchists agree with Bakunin when he argued that "the most imperfect republic is a thousand times better that even the most enlightened monarchy." [quoted by Daniel Guerin, Anarchism, p. 20] It simply means that anarchists refuse to join in with the farce of electioneering, particularly when there are more effective means available for changing things for the better. Anarchists reject the idea that our problems can be solved by the very institutions that cause them in the first place! If genuine social change needs mass participation then, by definition, using elections will undermine that. This applies to within the party as well, for working "within the system" disempowers grassroots activists, as can be seen by the Green party in Germany during the early eighties. The coalitions into which the Greens entered with Social Democrats in the German legislature often had the effect of strengthening the status quo by co-opting those whose energies might otherwise have gone into more radical and effective forms of activism. Principles were ignored in favour of having some influence, so producing watered-down legislation which tinkered with the system rather than transforming it. the state is more complicated than the simple organ of the economically dominant class pictured by Marxists. There are continual struggles both inside and outside the state bureaucracies, struggles that influence policies and empower different groups of people. This can produce clashes with the ruling elite, while the need of the state to defend the system as a whole causes conflict with the interests of sections of the capitalist class. Due to this, many radical parties believe that the state is neutral and so it makes sense to work within it -- for example, to obtain labour, consumer, and environmental protection laws. However, this reasoning ignores the fact that the organisational structure of the state is not neutral. To quote Brian Martin: "The basic anarchist insight is that the structure of the state, as a centralised administrative apparatus, is inherently flawed from the point of view of human freedom and equality. Even though the state can be used occasionally for valuable ends, as a means the state is flawed and impossible to reform. The non-reformable aspects of the state include, centrally, its monopoly over 'legitimate' violence and its consequent power to coerce for the purpose of war, internal control, taxation and the protection of property and bureaucratic privilege. To attempt to reform these is frankly utopian. At its most basic, anarchists support abstentionism because "participation in elections means the transfer of one's will and decisions to another, which is contrary to the fundamental principles of anarchism." [Emma Goldman, Vision on Fire, p. 89] For, as Proudhon stressed, in a statist democracy, the people "is limited to choosing, every three or four years, its chiefs and its imposters." [quoted by George Woodcock, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 152] If you reject hierarchy then participating in a system by which you elect those who will govern you is almost like adding insult to injury! For, as Luigi Galleani pointed out, "whoever has the political competence to choose his own rulers is, by implication, also competent to do without them." [The End of Anarchism?, p. 37] In other words, because anarchists reject the idea of authority, we reject the idea that picking the authority (be it bosses or politicians) makes us free. Therefore, anarchists reject governmental elections in the name of self-government and free association. We refuse to vote as voting is endorsing authoritarian social structures. We are (in effect) being asked to make obligations to the state, not our fellow citizens, and so anarchists reject the symbolic process by which our liberty is alienated from us." with extracts from the excellent anarchist faq http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionJ2#secj29

Looking closer at the state and how it functions

How we perceive and interact with the state is key to many peoples politics. Some on the left and right call for a bigger better state while some want rid of it all together. Some even think it can be used to further the working class's own interests such as leninists who promote a workers state as a start to a transformation of society towards a state-less one. Is this even possible or more to the point desireable ? I quote from the introduction to the state piece over at www.libcomorg "States come in many shapes and sizes. Democracies and dictatorships, those that provide lots of social welfare, those that provide none at all, some that allow for a lot of individual freedom and others that don't. But these categories are not set in stone. Democracies and dictatorships rise and fall, welfare systems are set up and taken apart while civil liberties can be expanded or eroded. However, all states share key features, which essentially define them. What is the state? All states have the same basic functions in that they are an organisation of all the lawmaking and law enforcing institutions within a specific territory. And, most importantly, it is an organisation controlled and run by a small minority of people. So sometimes, a state will consist of a parliament with elected politicians, a separate court system and a police force and military to enforce their decisions. At other times, all these functions are rolled into each other, like in military dictatorships for example. But the ability within a given area to make political and legal decisions – and to enforce them, with violence if necessary – is the basic characteristic of all states. Crucially, the state claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, within its territory and without. As such, the state is above the people it governs and all those within its territory are subject to it. The state and capitalism In a capitalist society, the success or failure of a state depends unsurprisingly on the success of capitalism within it. Essentially, this means that within its territory profits are made so the economy can expand. The government can then take its share in taxation to fund its activities. If businesses in a country are making healthy profits, investment will flow into profitable industries, companies will hire workers to turn their investment into more money. They and their workers will pay taxes on this money which keep the state running. But if profits dip, investment will flow elsewhere to regions where profits will be higher. Companies will shut down, workers will be laid off, tax revenues will fall and local economies collapse. So promoting profit and the growth of the economy is the key task of any state in capitalist society - including state capitalist economies which claim to be "socialist", like China or Cuba. The economy As promoting the economy is a key task of the state, let's look at the fundamental building blocks of a healthy capitalist economy. Workers The primary need of a sound capitalist economy is the existence of a group of people able to work, to turn capitalists' money into more money: a working class. This requires the majority of the population to have been dispossessed from the land and means of survival, so that the only way they can survive is by selling their ability to work to those who can buy it. This dispossession has taken place over the past few hundred years across the world. In the early days of capitalism, factory owners had a major problem in getting peasants, who could produce enough to live from the land, to go and work in the factories. To solve this, the state violently forced the peasants off common land, passed laws forbidding vagrancy and forced them to work in factories under threat of execution. Today, this has already happened to the vast majority of people around the world. However, in some places in the so-called "developing" world, the state still plays this role of displacing people to open new markets for investors. Property A second fundamental requirement is the concept of private property. While many had to be dispossessed to create a working class, the ownership of land, buildings and factories by a small minority of the population could only be maintained by a body of organised violence - a state. This is rarely mentioned by capitalism's advocates today, however in its early days it was openly acknowledged. As the liberal political economist Adam Smith wrote: Laws and government may be considered in this and indeed in every case as a combination of the rich to oppress the poor, and preserve to themselves the inequality of the goods which would otherwise be soon destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by the government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves by open violence. This continues today, as laws deal primarily with protecting property rather than people. For example, it is not illegal for speculators to sit on food supplies, creating scarcity so prices go up while people starve to death, but it is illegal for starving people to steal food. What does the state do? Different states perform many different tasks, from providing free school meals to upholding religious orthodoxy. But as we mentioned above, the primary function of all states in a capitalist society is to protect and promote the economy and the making of profit. However, as businesses are in constant competition with each other, they can only look after their own immediate financial interests – sometimes damaging the wider economy. As such, the state must sometimes step in to look after the long-term interests of the economy as a whole. So states educate and train the future workforce of their country and build infrastructure (railways, public transport systems etc) to get us to work and transport goods easily. States sometimes protect national businesses from international competition by taxing their goods when they come into the country or expand their markets internationally through wars and diplomacy with other states. Other times they give tax breaks and subsidies to industries, or sometimes bail them out entirely if they are too important to fail. These measures sometimes clash with the interests of individual businesses or industries. However, this doesn't change the fact that the state is acting in the interests of the economy as a whole. Indeed, it can be seen basically as a way to settle disputes among different capitalists about how to do it. State welfare Some states also provide many services which protect people from the worst effects of the economy. However, this has rarely, if ever, been the result of generosity from politicians but of pressure from below. So for instance, after World War II, the UK saw the construction of the welfare state, providing healthcare, housing etc to those that needed it. However, this was because of fear amongst politicians that the end of the war would see the same revolutionary upheaval as after World War I with events like the Russian and German revolutions, the Biennio Rosso in Italy, the British army mutinies etc. This fear was justified. Towards the end of the war, unrest amongst the working classes of the warring nations grew. Homeless returning soldiers took over empty houses while strikes and riots spread. Tory MP Quitin Hogg summed up the mood amongst politicians in 1943, saying “if we don't give them reforms, they will give us revolution.” This does not mean reforms are 'counter-revolutionary'. It just means that the state is not the engine for reform; we, the working class – and more specifically, our struggles – are. When our struggles get to a point where they cannot be ignored or repressed anymore, the state steps in to grant reforms. We then end up spending the next 100 years hearing people go on about what a 'great reformer' so-and-so was, even though it was our struggles which forced those reforms onto them. When as a class we are organised and militant, social reforms are passed. But as militancy is repressed or fades away, our gains are chipped away at. Public services are cut and sold off bit-by-bit, welfare benefits are reduced, fees for services are introduced or increased and wages are cut. As such, the amount of welfare and public service provision to the working class in a society basically marks the balance of power between bosses and workers. For example, the French working class has a higher level of organisation and militancy than the American working class. As a result, French workers also generally have better conditions at work, a shorter working week, earlier retirement and better social services (i.e. healthcare, education etc) -regardless of whether there is a right or left wing government in power. A workers' state? For decades, in addition to the struggle in workplaces and the streets, many workers have tried to improve their conditions through the state. The precise methods have differed depending on location and historical context but primarily have taken two main forms: setting up or supporting political parties which run for election and are supposed to act in workers' interests, or more radically having the party seize political power and set up a workers' government through revolution. We will briefly examine two representative examples which demonstrate the futility of these tactics. The Labour Party The Labour Party in the UK was created by the trade unions in 1906. It soon adopted the stated aim of creating a socialist society. However, faced with the realities of being in Parliament, and therefore the dependence on a healthy capitalist economy they quickly abandoned their principles and consistently supported anti-working class policies both in opposition and later in government . From supporting the imperialist slaughter of World War I, to murdering workers abroad to maintain the British Empire, to slashing workers' wages to sending troops against striking dockers. When the working class was on the offensive, Labour granted some reforms, as did the other parties. But, just like the other parties, when the working class retreated they eroded the reforms and attacked living standards. For example just a few years after the introduction of the free National Health Service Labour introduced prescription charges, then charges for glasses and false teeth. As outlined, this was not because Labour Party members or officials were necessarily bad people but because at the end of the day they were politicians whose principle task was to keep the UK economy competitive in the global market. The Bolsheviks In Russia in 1917, when workers and peasants rose up and took over the factories and the land, the Bolsheviks argued for the setting up of a "revolutionary" workers' state. However, this state could not shake off its primary functions: as a violent defence of an elite, and attempting to develop and expand the economy to maintain itself. The so-called "workers' state" turned against the working class: one-man management of factories was reinstated, strikes were outlawed and work became enforced at gunpoint. The state even liquidated those in its own quarters who disagreed with its new turn. Not long after the revolution, many of the original Bolsheviks had been executed by the government institutions they helped set up. Against the state This doesn't mean that our problems would be solved if the state disappeared tomorrow. It does mean, though, that the state is not detached from the basic conflict at the heart of capitalist society: that between employers and employees. Indeed, it is part of it and firmly on the side of employers. Whenever workers have fought for improvements in our conditions, we have come into conflict not just with our bosses but also the state, who have used the police, the courts, the prisons and sometimes even the military to keep things as they were. And where workers have attempted to use the state, or even take it over to further our interests, they have failed - because the very nature of the state is inherently opposed to the working class. They only succeeded in legitimising and strengthening the state which later turned against them. It is our collective power and willingness to disrupt the economy that gives us the possibility of changing society. When we force the state to grant reforms we don't just win better conditions. Our actions point to a new society, based on a different set of principles. A society where our lives are more important than their 'economic growth'. A new type of society where there isn't a minority with wealth that need to be protected from those without; that is, a society where the state is unnecessary. The state needs the economy to survive and so will always back those who control it. But the economy and the state are based on the work we do every day, and that gives us the power to disrupt them and eventually do away with them both."" With thanks to the guys over at libcom for their excellent work and reading material you can check out this article in full and more like it at https://libcom.org/library/state-introduction

Why I no longer believe in elections

I once stood in a local election. I lay that on the table as my confession. I stood for TUSC. The Trades Union and Socialist Coalition and got a modest 59 votes in a big Tory area. I gained nothing out of this no one approached me since and I wonder why I did it now. I think it was more the pressure from one of the main constituent parties that being the Socialist Party who I was a member of at the time who pushed elections in a big way. I cannot understand why looking back now. I am still a big socialist and still believe in a common society run for the many not just the few. But elections and Bourgeois elections are not the way to go in the path to gaining this. I have fallen out with electoral politics. I pay it attention as many workers still look to it for change but for me I know the reality now there can be no change as the famous saying goes if elections changed anything they’d have banned it. Too right! I personally cannot see any benefit to standing in elections you line yourself up and alongside some very shady characters who are hungry for power. I once stood as I said and got very little out of it and wonder what the point of standing is. Many Marxists tell me it gives you a platform well where as that platform got you so far?? A small way towards anything I’d suggest. You’re fighting on the terms of the bourgeoisie and they set the rules you have to play for to get anywhere. I think that is a recipe for disaster the moment you start to conform to the bourgeois rules and boundaries you set yourself up for defeat in the long run. I think our energies can be better used elsewhere in community campaigns and building resistance on the ground. If the likes of TUSc and the Socialist party put as much effort in to building a genuine rank-and-file union movement as they do as pushing their own self serving candidates in TUSC and beyond we may just maybe be in a healthier position. I have been there I have seen it all TUSC and the SP think they can gain out of the upcoming elections not by votes but by recruits yes building the party not the class and the movement. That folks is what it is all about for parties like the Socialist party. So good luck if you’re standing it’s not for me and many others do not look surprised when you register poor results and left wondering why. Allow us to continue the fight for a better world free of hunger and greed.

Succumbing to reformism and how to avoid it

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

Warning against reformism

I was having a talk to a comrade in our party the other day and he was warning us against a tactic that the capitalists could use to help them out of this crisis. One that has been tried before but would not solve the underlying contradictions of capitalism.

As we know the economy in Britain has been based on a financial reliance for some time now and the banks are currently being spanked by capitalist politicians left right and centre. They are falling over themselves to criticise the bankers and their bonuses and we’re hearing terms being introduced a fairer ethical capitalism. If there is such a thing.

But today we have seen more of this idea with Ed Miliband in his speech on “made in Britain”.

Labour leader Ed Multiband is to call for more "patriotism" in manufacturing policy to boost British industry.
In a speech to the manufacturers' organization EEF, he is expected to say protectionism should be avoided but "pride and patriotism" are needed in order for British business to succeed.
He said government should support a 'Made in Britain' mark for products.
Business leaders will suggest measures they want to help "rebalance" the economy over the next few years

This has been floated about several times with the idea of a British investment bank designed to invest in British businesses and manufacturing. This may seem a utopian idea but we could see the state playing a bigger part again as a way of saving the capitalist system from collapse.

Of course the capitalists won’t like this idea straight off but if it means saving their system from ruin and keeping up their profits they may just be tempted. As this financial crisis deepens more radical ideas like this may get more airing. The talk of a fairer capitalism is an attempt to put a nicer face on the exploitation of millions of workers and appear like the system can work for us all. In reality we know differently and we must be prepared to go back to look at “state capitalism” and its ways of working as it could play more of a role in the future.

I am not saying this will happen just saying this could be a possibility for the ruling class to turn to protect their system.

As revolutionary socialists we must learn about state capitalism and take up its meanings. Warning the class that this will not ultimately bring us prosperity and the underlying contradictions of capitalist production will still remain. The contradictions of over production and workers not being able to afford the products they make. This will not also end the periodical boom and busts that capitalism has bred in to it either therefore will not bring fairness and equality to the many still only benefiting the few.

Only a full transformation of society not just state nationalised industry along state capitalist lines but true nationalisation of the banks, top companies and run the economy based on people’s needs not profits of a select few. For this the working class needs to gain power and remove the class system basing production on need first. This can happen under a socialist transformation of society which we must look to convince people of.

Is reformism more utopian than ever ?

Reformism – a programme which restricts the workers’ struggle to allegedly “achievable aims” and fosters the illusion that society can be transformed by incremental changes over a protracted period – was energetically combated by Marxists from the time of Marx.
In the era of globalised capitalism, with its programme of brutal neo-liberal attacks on the working class, these ideas are more Utopian than they have ever been. This does not mean that Marxists must not fight in defence of every past gain or that they should not struggle for improvements in the conditions of the working class. However, we must constantly seek to explain that, even when victories are achieved, these of necessity are of a temporary character – given with the left hand and taken back by the right when conditions are ‘ripe’. It is therefore necessary to build a powerful working class force that can carry through a socialist transformation in the organisation and running of society.
The forces of socialism and Marxism were thrown back in terms of numbers and support in the 1990s. But the viability of democratic and liberating socialism, as propounded by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, retains its validity even in a period of relative isolation of the forces which argue for them. The march of events, the breakdown of capitalism, creates changes in the conditions and ultimately, therefore, in the consciousness of the working class. It can and will bring these ideas back onto the political agenda. That process is already under way, with the strikes of 30th june and 30th november 2011 and the massive 26 of march working calss demonstration the workers are finally starting to feel their power as a class again, This will develop at a ferocious pace. While fighting for socialism, the CWI is closely involved in the day-to-day struggles of working people.
Unlike others who are prepared just to comment from the sidelines, the CWI has never hesitated to get involved in the day-to-day struggles of the working class. Hence, our achievements in a number of countries. Our British section, a pioneer in many fields, as mentioned above, now has the most successful electoral record of any party to the left of the Labour Party in England and Wales. Moreover, in the trade unions we have a more significant number of members of the Socialist Party on national committees and at the base than any other trend on the left in Britain. This has only been possible because our trade union cadres and our members generally have dug roots in local areas and within some of the trade unions.
At the same time, we have never hidden our ideas and our programme, openly proclaiming ourselves as socialists and Trotskyists. More importantly, we have expressed the general ideas of Marxism in a manner that can be grasped by the most developed working men and women. This is why the CWI, in general, has managed to gather some of the best working class fighters into its ranks, although still too few for the tasks ahead i am convinced this will grow as events unfold.


But as the crisis in capitalism deepens which i have no doubt itw ill do the small timid claims for reformism will become increasingly utopian as the ruling class look to take back all of the gains of the working class in the last period. There is a major shift going on out there and there will be chances for the working class to take power if they are ready and prepared for it. This is another reason why a new mass workers party is needed to fight for reforms but point out they may only be temporary and that a fight for a new society based on peoples needs is our true aim as marxists.

A one party state for the rich

I recently c ame across this e xcelent blogpost over at http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/one-party-state-for-rich.html
a world to win, it excellently sums up Ed Milibands speech yesterday with him taking a rightward turn. and highlights the unsurprising nature of the speech.


Shocked or surprised at Ed Miliband equating those struggling on benefits in the absence of jobs at decent wages with bankers and executives whose salaries resemble telephone numbers? You shouldn’t be.

Miliband’s speech on “responsibility” yesterday was only the latest in a long line of pronouncements and actions that marked the definitive end of Labour as a party dedicated to defending workers’ interests and reforming capitalism.

Even so, it was sickening to hear Miliband declaim: “To those entrepreneurs and business people who generate wealth, create jobs and deserve their top salaries, I’m not just relaxed about you getting rich, I applaud you.”

Joining in the open season on welfare claimants, Miliband couldn’t help himself and added: “We will be a party that rewards contribution, not worklessness.” People had to take work if it was on offer rather than claim benefits. And, in future, social housing should only go to those who “contribute” to society.

In over 3,000 words of his speech, he never once referred to unemployment as an issue at a time when the dole queue is heading for 10%. And, of course, he declined to use those two “C” words – class and capitalism. He did, however, find time to quote Blair on patriotism.

Worse, he invoked the wartime service of his father, Ralph, to whip up patriotic and nationalist sentiments about “community”. This is shockingly dishonest too because Ralph Miliband was regarded as a Marxist and wrote critiques of Labour and reformism in books like Parliamentary socialism. No doubt Ralph is turning in his proverbial grave this morning.

Ed Miliband is the latest in a long line of leaders of a party that made its unconditional peace with capitalism a long time ago. The die was cast as far back as the Callaghan government in the late 1970s, when the government went cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund. The attacks on wages that followed led to mass industrial action and the end of Old Labour as we knew it.

The context for parliamentary politics that enabled post-war Labour governments to create the health service and the welfare state changed in a qualitative way in this period. After prolonged class struggles, deregulated, free market globalisation emerged. This demanded flexible, cheap labour and shifting production from advanced to developing economies.

The basis for old-style reformist politics disappeared almost overnight. And out of this train crash came New Labour. The rise of Blairism was not therefore, as is often mistakenly assumed, simply a rightward move or a policy decision aimed at winning elections by capturing the “middle ground”.

More than that, it was a recognition and an acceptance that capitalism had changed and that the best that could be hoped for in future was for wealth to “trickle down” from the top to the bottom. Instead, cheap credit fuelled unsustainable consumption that globalisation called for. The rest, as we know, is history.

The Miliband speech was hailed by the miserable Fabian Society, whose research director Tim Horton said “some on the left may feel queasy about this. But they should understand its logic and cheer it.” Frank Field, the right-wing Labour MP who favours the break-up of the benefits system also hailed Miliband’s speech.

As one comment on Horton’s article, put it: “We now have a one party state, a political class which acts as an administrator of corporate excess, to facilitate resources from poor to rich.” A one-party state is a dictatorship in anyone’s language and that is what we have in a coalition of Tories, Lib Dems and Labourites. Overthrowing dictatorships, of course, is an entirely legitimate social activity.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

Government Con-demned at the ballot box

The general election of May 2010 seems a lifetime ago. For the thousand richest people in Britain, whose wealth has increased by 18%, the year that followed has been a resounding success.

The number of billionaires increased from 53 to 73. For the rest us the year has brought pain, with the biggest fall in family income since 1977 and cuts and privatisation of public services on an unprecedented scale.

The misery inflicted by the Coalition has not been taken lying down. We have seen the biggest student movement in twenty five years, and the biggest trade union demonstration in Britain's history.

At the end of June co-ordinated strike action against the cuts will begin.

Last Thursday however, was the first opportunity for voters to pass judgement on the Coalition at the ballot box. As was widely predicted beforehand, the Liberal Democrats bore the brunt of the population's anger, losing 700 councillors in England and 12 members of the Scottish Parliament.

Slapped, punched and kicked...
As Jonathon Freedland put in the Guardian: "The party was not just given a bloody nose by the electorate: it was slapped, punched, kicked and finally knifed before being left for dead."

The overwhelming defeat of the AV referendum was also a reflection of the population's fury with its main advocates, the Liberal Democrats. Some media commentators have attacked the electorate for voting in the referendum on 'trivial' grounds.

But given a rotten choice between two bad systems, why not vote in order to punish the Liberal Democrats? As even Nick Clegg admitted before the election, AV was a 'dirty little compromise' which would have been no fairer or more proportional than the existing system.

The Tories, by contrast, are breathing a sigh of relief that they have, for now, escaped the electoral consequences of their brutal policies. There are several reasons for this.

In the working class cities of the North the Tories are still hated for the crimes of Thatcher. As a result they had no councillors to lose.

The same is true in parts of London, where there were no elections this year.

Tories
In most of England, however, Tory councils still dominate, despite some gains for Labour including in Gravesham and Ipswich. The Tories were even able to marginally increase their numbers of councillors, largely by making gains from the Liberal Democrats.

This is no surprise - after all why vote for the monkey if you can have the organ grinder?

However, it would be a major error to assume the Tories will escape in future elections. A year into the Coalition government, there is still a section of society who believe the Tory propaganda that it was New Labour's policies in government that were responsible for the misery that is now being inflicted.

However, the Tories have only escaped punishment because the cuts, brutal as they are, are only just beginning to bite at local level. As local services close around voters' ears, anger at the government will increase, including in the seemingly safe Tory shires.

The Tories are aware of the electoral dangers they face, as was demonstrated by their hasty retreat from Suffolk County Council's plans to become an 'Easy' council and privatise virtually all of its services.

Nationally Labour gained over 800 seats despite, not because of, its policies. Millions voted Labour to punish the government, and in the hope that Labour councils would cut less brutally than those led by the Tories or Liberal Democrats. However, they did so without real enthusiasm.

Scotland
In Scotland, the SNP beat Labour decisively. A major factor in this was Liberal Democrat voters switching to the SNP.

However, the SNP also won in some working class inner city seats which were traditional Labour strongholds. This reflected a feeling that the SNP would be far more likely than Labour to fight in the interest of the working class in Scotland.

In reality, the SNP will attack, not defend, workers' living standards. However, the rejection of Labour for a seemingly more combative alternative is an illustration of workers' distrust of Labour, not just in Scotland but across Britain.

Even in Wales, where Labour made gains, it was left one seat short of a majority. Fundamentally, Labour's woeful failure to provide a combative and coherent opposition to the government flows from its support for the essence of the government's policies.

When in power Labour acted in the interests of big business, and in particular of finance capital. More privatisation of public services took place when New Labour was in office than under any previous government.

The deregulation of the City which began under the last Tory government continued apace under New Labour.

When the economic crisis began, New Labour bailed out the banks and demanded that working class people paid the price. Just like the Tories and Lib Dems, Labour support huge cuts in public services, just at a marginally slower rate.

New Labour said it would carry out cuts
In the last election New Labour said it would carry out cuts equal to 4/5ths of those being carried out by the current government. It is no surprise that, at local level, Labour councils are implementing government cuts without hesitation.

Such is the weakness of the Labour leadership they do not even seem to seriously aspire to a majority Labour government. On the contrary, Ed Miliband has again appealed to the hated Lib Dems, obviously trying to prepare the ground for a future Labour/Liberal coalition.

Labour was founded a century ago because the working class was no longer prepared to back the capitalist Liberal party. The development of Labour as - at base - a mass party of the working class, albeit with a capitalist leadership, marginalised the Liberals for an historical era.

It is ironic that today Labour is chasing after the Liberal Democrats just as the Liberal Democrats face electoral annihilation. It confirms again that Labour today is not a mass party of the working class but is one more capitalist party.

These elections demonstrate the worthlessness of the unspoken strategy of most national trade union leaders - to defeat the cuts by voting Labour. The election results will have bought home the need for coordinated strike action against the cuts to many trade unionists.

The weakness of the Coalition government has also been graphically highlighted by the election campaign. The cracks in the Coalition have become fissures.

This does not mean that it is about to collapse, although the pressure of different events - in particular of a mass movement of the working class - could break the government apart within a short period of time.

However, as the attempts since the election of Cameron and Clegg to declare peace show, neither party has any interest in breaking up the Coalition. For the cash-strapped and profoundly unpopular Liberal Democrats, triggering an early general election would be committing Hari Kari.

Coalition
Some on the right wing of the Tory party are bleating that Cameron should take advantage of the election results and break up the coalition in the vain hope that the collapse of the Liberal Democrats would deliver a Tory majority.

The leadership of the Tory party know better and, given their complete dominance of the Coalition, have no pressing reason to bring it to an end. However, as Philip Stevens commented in the Financial Times, "coalitions rot from the bottom up".

At the top, the Coalition parties are clinging to each other and to power. For the Lib Dem activists who are watching their party being destroyed, however, it is a different story.

Clegg
The ousted Lib Dem leader of Nottingham City Council has called for Clegg to resign immediately.

In response to the pressure of the party rank and file, Clegg has promised to be more "independent" of the Tories and for "a louder Lib Dem voice in government".

Objectively, the Lib Dem voice in government is now weaker than ever, but the pressure of Clegg and co. to stand up the Tories over the destruction of the NHS and the scale of the cuts is enormous.

To fail to do so will also be to commit Hari Kari, albeit more slowly.

Therefore the removal of Clegg, splits in the Lib Dems, and even their withdrawal from the government are all possibilities. The Lib Dems might then back an unstable Tory minority government from outside on a 'grace and favour' basis, or perhaps trigger a general election.

There are a number of fault lines for the government, including the difficulties that could be created at a later stage by a referendum in Scotland on independence.

Profound crisis of capitalism
But however it is manifested, the root of the government's weakness is the continuing profound crisis of capitalism in general and British capitalism in particular.

Far from being over, the economic crisis in Britain is ongoing. According to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research Britain output will not reach the levels of 2008 until 2013. And even this may be optimistic.

The latest figures show that manufacturing, previously the part of the economy that had stuttered into growth, now has the second lowest level of new orders since the recovery began in 2009.

The fall in orders is a reflection of very weak demand in Britain, rather than reflecting the weakness Britain's puny exports.

No wonder. On average, workers are taking home £1,088 less a year than two years ago.

Their real pay has fallen by 5% since the beginning of 2009, which was half way through the recession. As the Bank of England governor Mervyn King admitted, workers are already suffering the most sustained fall in wages since the 1920s.

Bad as they are, the government's cuts have only just begun to bite, and will dramatically further depress demand. It is a pipe dream to imagine that British capitalism will be able to compensate with increased exports against a background of a profound crisis of Europe and world capitalism.

No way out

Half-million strong TUC demo, central London, 26 March 2011, against the government's cuts, photo Senan (Click to enlarge)
British capitalism has no way out other than to attempt to offload the crisis on the working class.

However, they are already facing mass resistance to their attempts to do so. The working class flexed its muscles on 26 March - when over half a million people marched in opposition to the cuts.

At the end of June the PCS and NUT, perhaps along with others, will strike together against the cuts and in defence of public sector pensions. In the other public sector unions the call for co-ordinated strike action is growing.

A 24 hour public sector general strike is on the agenda for 2011. This would terrify the government.

The working class in Britain now needs its own political voice more urgently than ever. The Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts candidates in the local elections, who received 25,000 votes, were a step in that direction.

Over the next year the anti-cuts movement can draw the conclusion that it is necessary to stand far more widely to offer an electoral alternative to the axe men and women.

Most importantly, faced with the barbarity of twenty first century capitalism, a growing number of workers and young people are searching for socialist ideas.

Our most important task in the immediate period is to reach them with a clear socialist programme.

Why i dont foresee a left turn for labour

So before i start this may be a contravertial post for some who read this blog and if you are a labour member and easily offended by anything that isnt wholely in support of labour then you may be best not reading this.

Also these are all my own personal views and if you wish to challenge me to a debate i'd be happy to do so. I dont intend to upset anyone and if i do that is not my intention.

Firstly i like many last year after the genearl election as a reaction to the tories gaining power with the aid of the lib dems joined labour. So you may have views on me joining then now leaving labour a month or so ago but i will explain why here.

Now labour in opposition have always tried to play to the mass's and try to appeal to all. This time they are trying to appeal to this so called "squeezed middle" with a new leader since the departure of Gordon Brown after he was forced to stand down last summer has presented labour with a leader in Ed Miliband. I did have a vote in the leadership elections and chose Ed Balls que the critisism which i will take on the chin firmly as i was lead to believe he was the most opposed to cuts and at the time had a no cuts position i thought. I later discovered this was not the case and like all polititains was using this to gain votes from the left. It worked to a extent. I was fooled. I know how lib dem and student voters feel now to be betrayed but this was just the start of a long list of betrayels for me on a personal level.

I take aboard all the critisism thrown my way for leaving labour not even a year into my membership and not staying to fight back against the blairites but i feel like many others labour can no longer be regained by the left.

There is still a element of labour members and supporters who do genuinely believe labour is a left wing party and is socialist . Neither of these terms could be further from the truth. Yes as Tony Benn once said labour may have socialists in it but is no way a socialist party in any shape or form.

Ed Miliband labours new leader has had a slow start and i felt he wasnt making the right noises in changing the direction of the arguement on the need for cuts.

My own position is no to all cuts which i feel goes along with my socialist views and approach to politics. I dont feel the working class should have to pay a penny or loose any services that they depend on due to the mistakes of the bankers.

I should have known better really with labour. I have to admit now that although i'm very involved now i was not always into politics much at all and my decision in joining labour was probably a rushed one and one i put down to my nievity in politics and not discovering what else is out there.

I personally do not see labour party turning left at all in its attempts to regain power and reach out to disaffected voters. Let me explain why.

For many years the left in labour and the left in general have been pushed back and back. One example of this is the purge on the left by Neil Kinnock who expelled many fine comrades from Militant who later went on to form Militant labour and now the Socialist Party as they are known as today.
Any attempt by the left even when it did have more of a base in labour not like today when it is just made of idealists and centrists from the LRC who make good noises in terms of socialism and may well want things to change but do very little about helping it to happen. People in the LRC and left wing members of labour i believe are being quite misleading in their attempts to draw people and socialists back to labour. After the outrageous decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and new labours attempts for privatisation of the NHS, Royal mail with consignia we all remember that especially those in CWU and who cannot forget the way Tony Blair tried to cut the link with the trade unions with labour to move to a party much like the democrats in America today.

We can also not forget how Tony Blair and his new labour government of tories in disguise failed to untighten the anti trade unin laws imposed on the British trade union movement today from Margret Thatcher all those years ago.

Labour are a social democratic party apparently but support changing things within the capitalist system we currently live in. I feel this is reformism in all honesty and quite simply you cannot make the capitalist system fair while the few at the top have the economic power and wealth and the rest have to do the best with the rest.

This was reconfirmed to me when a recent interview with Ed Miliband on labours so called alternative to the cuts and the tories program was
“We’re not about to replace it, but there are different forms of capitalism we can have . . . My socialism is not about a blueprint for the perfect society, but it is about saying we can have a more equal, just and fair society.”

How is that even possible when your still working within the capitalist society and trying to reform it ? capitalism cannot be reformed in my view and only its over throw and a move towards a socialist society will make things truely fairer. This coupled with a worker controlled planned economy with real political democracy will lead to true fairness not this muffled version polititians like to throw about like they know the meanin of the word.

I wont go into my critisisms of Ed Miliband personally here but i dont believe he is against cuts and his apearance on the big TUC demo on March 26th was just insulting quite frankly when his party support the need for cuts and would be carrying out cuts right now if they had won the election last year.
In recent months labour has tried to appeal to disaffected lib dem voters who feel betrayed also after Nick Clegg sold them out to the tories to join the coalition. It would appear especially after one of the four labour MP's who quit the party back in 1981 David owen who left over not being prepared to accept decisions on the EU, on nuclear weapons and on the structure of the party, and so he left The SDP is a lot like labour and new labour especially so we may end up seeing a party in the shape of that in the years to come under Ed Miliband he did always say one of his great politics inspirations is Roy Jenkins. Says alot about where he wants to take labour now.

As for the labour left argueing that there will always be a place for the left and socialists in labour while the trade union link is kept ensuring a link to the working class is a vaild arguement it doesnt stand up when the leadership for years has repeatably ignored the union link and appeared to take the unions funding and said thanks very much leaving the unions with their hands ringing. You do have to question what the unions get out of the labour link these days as it certainly isnt much or anything near a voice if you ask me.


Ed Miliband won't be taking Labour into general, or principled, opposition to the cuts. In his first TV interview as Labour leader, shortly after the shadow cabinet was named, he warned he would not support public sector strikes over pensions, and that industrial action would alienate the wider public and undermine Labour's efforts to fight other spending cuts.

"I don't think we should be talking about industrial action. I think it is very premature to be talking about that", he said. Didn't take long, did it?

So when would be the 'right time' for Labour to respond? When would supporting workers and communities resisting the cuts be the "right thing to do"?

The election of Ed Miliband and his shadow cabinet, even if containing many of 'the Next Generation', has not fundamentally reversed the direction that Labour has taken over the last 20 years. Labour is a party now happy to manage the market economy, and accept all its limitations, even if that means being embroiled in the sacking of thousands of workers across the country.

The coming cuts battles will be the catalyst in town after town, for the idea and building of a new party, firmly rooted in the organisations and communities of working people. The idea will grow that, let down by the three main parties, working people need their own party that will properly defend the idea of public services and public ownership against the current common agenda which accepts that the victims of the recession further punished, rather than the culprits.

The weakness of the labour left to even get their own superstar as some on the labour left like to call John McDonald, on to last years leadership ballot and not recieve 33 nominations faling short and Diane Abbot then taking the token left candidate on the ballot is another clear sign the left within labour is dead and beyond repair and must be abandoned and a new workers party formed.
Diane Abbotts record as a labour left winger doesnt look great.

Through the wonders of Google, I came up with this word to describe her: 'tergiversant' (to change sides or loyalties; apostatise to be evasive or ambiguous; equivocate). Like most Labour MPs she puts herself and her career above all else.

On her own website, after pointing out that in 1987 she made history by becoming the first black woman to be elected to the British parliament, it egotistically states: "She has since built a distinguished career as a parliamentarian, broadcaster and commentator".

Last summer she wrote an article supporting Gordon Brown as party leader, whilst in 2007 she was listed as a member of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs and supported McDonnell in the last leadership election. She is not listed as supporting the 'People's Charter'.

She opposed the 'Blair wars' yet voted against an inquiry.
Today in 2011 she has now been part of the strong majority in the commons who voted for western intervention in Libya against Cornel Gadaffi so how left is she really ?
She also most notably sent her son to a private school to the outrage of many of her Hackney constituents. When questioned about this she replied: "In 2001, when my son was facing secondary transfer, the average numbers of boys nationally getting five GCSE A-Cs was 42%. In Hackney the average number of black boys getting the same result was 9%. And the school in Hackney that we were actually offered was so poor that it closed shortly afterwards.

But since then: a Labour government has poured money into Hackney schools; a series of excellent academies has opened in the borough; attainment levels overall in Hackney have gone up. So if he was transferring to secondary school now, I would not face the same dilemma." So she presumably supports academies.

Did I also mention her cosy late night - on the couch - TV slot with Andrew Neil and Michael Portillo up till recently.

Many within labour on the left argue for this join labour and turn it left approach this is doomed to fail in my view and is creating false illusions of being able to change the party from within.

Of course, the fact Labour did so well in the Oldham and Saddleworth by-election has Labourites all excited that the party looks electable again so soon. Such people are not allies of those wanting to fight the coalition government's cuts. For these Labourite working class betrayers why build for a strike (harms Labour's electoral chances) or go on a demonstration - unless there is a Labour MP addressing the crowd on the need to vote Labour

As has been said, the attitude to the Labour Party and the relationship and role of socialists and revolutionaries to it is an old argument. We have the dismissive sneering of those in the Labour Party that the left outside cannot get decent votes. Well, that depends, doesn't it? The Scottish Socialist Party had six MSPs for a time and Respect had one MP before the usual left splits. I wonder where the Socialist Alliance would be today if it had stayed together. Their policies of MPs on a worker's wage and recallability are even more relevant today in the wake of the electorate's disgust over the MPs' expenses scandal.

We saw all trade union strikes condemned under Blair and Brown. Now Ed' Miliband has recently condemned any idea of unions uniting in strikes against the cuts to bring the coalition government down. This from a man whose election depended on those unions affiliated to the Labour Party and who made a pitch for the votes of workers during the leadership contest.

The gap between the rich and poor widened more under New Labour than it did under the Tory governments before them - fact. We have seen the Labour Party in government take Britain into war in Iraq despite the largest ever demonstration in British history. That dwarfed the anti-Vietnam protests of the 1960s. How many Labour MPs voted for war ?

We saw none of the privatised utilities brought back into public ownership - in fact we saw more privatisations - despite the pledges made against by Labour in the lead-up to the 1997 general election. Private finance initiative extortions continued under the Labour government and anti-union laws were retained. A drive towards funding by big business to move away from reliance on union funding was only set back by the cash for honours scandals!

We soon saw what happened to the promises of an 'ethical' foreign policy, of the government being 'whiter than white' and sleaze-free. We saw increasing attacks on civil liberties, the draconian and misused 'anti-terrorism' laws and a drive for compulsory ID cards - actually revoked by this coalition government! Labour got us involved in the occupation of Afghanistan, remained committed to the renewal of Trident and signed us up to the production of two aircraft carriers (destined to be without planes for 10 years).

New Labour did nothing to restrain the irresponsible gambling by the banks and finance industries and, to top it all, Brown claimed to have abolished 'boom and bust'. How many people because of those grossly irresponsible proclamations (made by a Labour leader, not a Tory) - and in the belief that property prices would forever rise - took out second mortgages or massive credit card debt?

The marketisation of the NHS and education went further under a Labour government than it did under the Tories. Privatisation of our public services were added to by attacks on final salary pension schemes. All the while most Labour MPs acted like they were to the manor born and constantly voted themselves large pay rises, pension enhancements and expenses, whilst urging restraint on the working and middle classes.

New labour were a reformist government wedded to trying to moderate capitalism. But one with a landslide majority and benefiting from a buoyant economy that produced so little gain for the working class Where was the left in the Labour Party during all this? Backing Blair, then Brown in the name of 'unity' and for a Labour victory 'to keep the Tories out' - that's where!

The Labour right have learnt enough to ensure the left will get nowhere near gaining control. Look what happened to the leadership bids of John McDonnell, a good friend of PCS. He could not even get enough nominations to stand as a candidate against Blair, and then Diane Abbott headed him off by playing the diversity card to magnificent effect: she kept John off the ballot, but not the other middle-aged, white males. A far, far cry from the Tony Benn-Eric Heffer challenge of 1982!

Internally, clause four was jettisoned and party democracy crippled, with the result that Labour conference cannot make manifesto policies; MP selection procedures were changed, allowing candidates to be imposed from above; and the Parliamentary Labour Party is not accountable to the organisation as a whole. How will the left be able to operate today? Every democratic change that the LRC argues for will be voted down if those in control (with eager media support) assert that it will hinder Labour's electoral chances.

Labour-affiliated unions will think twice about strike action against the cuts, now Miliband has argued Labour will not support them. Remind me, how many such unions called strikes under the last Labour government? What does anyone think Labour would do back in power with a massive deficit after arguing for cuts at the last general election? This will not be 1997 all over again with the cheerful optimism, seemingly justified at the time in the context of an economic boom.

There will always be those within labour who see things through rose tinted spectecles despite every betrayal. Look at the typical Labour Party membership today - either those who always justify support for Labour, no matter what the betrayals of the working class, with 'the Tories will be worse'; or those seduced by meaningless babble from Blair, Brown and now Miliband.

Those wanting to participate in the LRC and the Labour Party are aiming to engage with people whose loyalty is 'to the Labour Party, no matter how awful'. Instead we should be engaging with those disgusted with all three main political parties, not fostering illusions in Labour all over again. It is not up for change, never really was, and is even less open to socialism today.

It is, of course, far easier to mix with 'socialists' in the LRC than to engage with the mass of the working class outside the Labour Party. It is easier to stay in the Labour Party and have a pint in the bar, commiserating over every betrayal, than start a real working class party all over again. But the LRC is misleading millions of working class people into once again looking to the Labour Party rather than to a real alternative fighting for real socialism with workers faith restored in politics .


The alternative to labour

As socialists on the left we argue for the need for a new workers party.
A century ago trade unioniss and socialists came together to fight for independent political representation for the working class: the result was the Labour Party.

In the past the Labour Party, however imperfectly, provided a voice for the working class. Today, however, New Labour is a party of the giant corporations, its policies a continuation of Margaret Thatcher's attacks on the lives and living conditions of working class people.

Public services are being sold off; the occupation of Iraq has led to the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and over two thousand 'coalition' soldiers; democratic rights are being undermined in the name of fighting terrorism; and the Tory anti-trade union laws, the most repressive in the European Union, have been left almost completely intact.

We believe that the chance to reclaim the Labour Party has long passed and there is no point in continuing to fuel false hopes. The recent success of the new Left party in Germany, winning 8.8% of the vote and 54 MPs, gives a glimpse of the potential for a new left force. We pledge to do all in our power to bring a new workers' party into being in England and Wales.

We believe it would be wrong, at this early stage, to attempt to predetermine the structure or every aspect of a new party. That can only be decided on the basis of democratic debate leading to agreement amongst the forces involved.

However, if it is to be successful, it is crucial that a new party, and any pre-party formations, be open, democratic and welcoming to all those who want to work together against the neo-liberal onslaught on the working class. This means that all groups and individuals, provided they are in agreement with the basic aims of the party, should have the right to democratically organise and argue for their point of view.
This also reaches out to all who do good work within labour and consider themselves left wing and socialist but are feeling disenchanted by Labours neo-kliberal record of the last few decades. We will always welcome all that was good about labour into a new movement for a new workers party. We are not totally against labour for the sake of it we do recognise Labour did do some good things but it is not enough for the working class to live off concessions it needs real representation.

This approach will help ensure the new formation is attractive to trade unionists, community and environmental campaigners, and anti-war activists. Most importantly it will assist in reaching out to workers and to young people who are not yet active in struggle. In this way we can unite the strongest possible forces to build a powerful working class party that is capable of effectively opposing the anti-union laws, cuts, privatisation, environmental degradation and war.

We believe that such a party would represent a fundamental break with the big business parties which currently dominate politics, giving workers the opportunity to resist the neo-liberal capitalist agenda and fight for a socialist programme - including a living minimum wage, full trade union rights and for fully funded, democratically controlled public services.


So i hope if you are a labour member or not you have found my little piece interesting and i hope to have explained a bit more of my position at present. If you would like to discuss anything i have wrote here further do let me know and i again apoligise if i have offended anyone at all that is not my intention at all with this post.