Campaign for a New Workers' Party

The first steps of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition

2010-06-04T03:11:00.000-07:00

THE EARLY EFFORTS to establish working class political representation did not meet with easy success. In his first contest as an independent labour candidate, in the 1888 Mid-Lanarkshire by-election, Keir Hardie sometimes lost the then standard ‘vote of confidence in the candidate’ at his own public meetings. At a time when most trade unions supported the Liberal Party, the governmental alternative to the Conservatives, workers would frequently shout him down for ‘splitting the vote’. That was not the response received, however, by the candidates of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in May’s general election, even if the votes they won were no greater than the pioneers of the early Labour Party.

Clive Heemskerk

That TUSC’s vote would be squeezed in the context of a polarised general election was recognised by its participants when it was formed in January this year. The ‘Americanisation’ of British politics, with the capitalist New Labour party no longer seen by workers as ‘our party’, has created a deep sense of powerlessness amongst millions of working class voters. A report by the Department for Communities and Local Government, published without comment during the election, revealed that just 22% of people now feel they can at all ‘influence decisions affecting Britain’. (The Guardian, 30 April) What is this if not an expression of the effective disfranchisement of the working class, in the absence of a mass workers’ party that had the confidence of the working class to fight on their behalf?

An upsurge of workers’ struggle, which will come, could dramatically transform that consciousness – and create the basis for a new workers’ party to develop with mass traction. But, in this election, TUSC could not fill the vacuum. Those workers who did come out to vote – and the turnout rose in this election from 61% in 2005 to 65% – plumped for ‘the lesser evil’ against the threat of the Tories. Creditable votes were won by TUSC candidates in Coventry North East (1,592), Tottenham (1,057) and Glasgow South West (931) but generally TUSC polled no higher than Socialist Party and other left candidates had in previous elections.

The main purpose of TUSC, however, was to reach the most militant workers, in the trade unions and the unorganised as well, with the arguments for independent working class political representation. And in this it achieved some important successes. Twenty-one TUSC candidates were officially endorsed by the executive committee of the most combative industrial trade union in Britain today, the Rail, Maritime and Transport workers’ union (RMT), and a similar number of RMT branches backed and donated to local campaigns. Outside the RMT, support was won for individual candidates from branches of the Communications Workers’ Unions (CWU) and the GMB and UNITE general unions, and the Scottish region of the Fire Brigades Union. This follows – and, indeed, deepens – the process started by the formation of the No2EU-Yes to Democracy coalition, backed by the RMT, which contested last year’s European elections.

The TUSC steering committee includes, in a personal capacity, the RMT general secretary Bob Crow, and fellow executive member Craig Johnston; the assistant general secretary of the PCS civil servants union, Chris Baugh, and the union’s vice-president, John McInally; the vice-president of the National Union of Teachers, Nina Franklin; and the recently retired general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, Brian Caton. Amongst the TUSC candidates were nine branch officers of the UNISON public sector union, a CWU branch secretary and an assistant secretary, a University and College Union branch secretary, and three RMT branch officers. These latter included Bill Rawcliffe, the RMT senior steward at Jarvis Rail, who only decided to stand, after a mass meeting of rail engineering workers, when Jarvis went into administration on March 25th and made 1,200 workers redundant.

Significantly, it was not until the Jarvis workers decided to stand a candidate that Bill received a concerned phone call from his local New Labour MP Ed Miliband! This fear the capitalist politicians have of workers taking ‘politics’ into their own hands is just a hint of what a trade union-based workers’ party could achieve in the future, in beginning to change the balance of forces in favour of the working class.

TUSC exists precisely to be a ‘Doncaster on a national scale’, in other words, a banner available to be taken up by workers moving onto the political plane. The steps that were taken in this election – small though they were – on the road to re-establishing independent working class political representation, alone justify the TUSC campaign.

The outcome of the election, with a Tory-Lib Dem government and the Labour Party now in opposition, does not change the task that TUSC has set itself. The character of the Labour Party, transformed in the 1990s into New Labour, has not been changed by the election vote. There was, in some areas, a return – very limited at that – of its working class vote, out of fear of the consequences of a Tory government. A detailed survey of voters conducted by Greenberg Research confirms this, concluding that people “voted Labour to defend public spending” but that there was no “ideological content” to this, “no vision that brought people to Labour”. (The Guardian, 17 May). How could it be otherwise after 15 years of New Labour consciously counter-posing itself to ‘Old Labour’ as a pro-market, ‘business-friendly’ party? The actual result still saw the biggest fall in seats for Labour since 1931, the lowest share of the vote since 1983, and 4.9 million fewer votes cast for Labour than in 1997.

Most important, however, is the fact that the nature of a party is not determined just by the composition of those of vote for it – otherwise the US Democrats would arguably be a workers’ party (and the 19th century Liberals too). Another critical factor in the dual character of ‘Old Labour’ as a ‘capitalist workers’ party’ were the possibilities that existed in its structures for its working class base to assert their interests against the party’s pro-capitalist leaders. Those channels were systematically destroyed in the past two decades and the election result has not changed that. The crisis of working class political representation persists and will be starkly revealed in the events ahead, as the new government unleashes its ‘savage cuts’.

While all analogies are limited, because different conditions effect how social processes unfold, Hardie found himself contesting the 1888 by-election as a local miners-nominated independent labour representative because the Liberal Party, then in opposition to a Conservative government, refused to accept him as their candidate. Other ‘labour representatives’ had been allowed as Liberal candidates on other occasions but Hardie’s candidature had developed out of bitter strike movements against local Liberal-supporting mine-owners and was not acceptable to the Liberal Party leadership. In the ‘Greek-style’ battles to come, with the new wave of Labour-controlled councils, for example, passing on Tory-Lib Dem cuts, the prospect of independent trade union and anti-cuts candidates will grow.

TUSC emerged out of discussions by those involved in the No2EU election coalition – launched, it should be remembered, just 15 months ago – which in turn was a response to an upsurge in workers’ struggle in early 2009, particularly the Lindsey oil refinery construction workers’ strike and RMT battles against European Union directives undermining workers’ rights. No2EU, involving the RMT, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party of Britain, Solidarity–Scotland’s Socialist Movement, and others, worked on a ‘federal’ basis, with decisions being reached by broad consensus while each participant had the right to produce their own material supporting the coalition. The Communist Party, which was an active member of No2EU, eventually decided not to be involved in TUSC – while the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), after some debate, was invited to join in March – but the consensus method of organisation was carried on into TUSC. While discussions will no doubt take place on the best way to organise the coalition as it develops in the future, certainly for the next period the federal approach must continue.

By continuing to group together in an electoral coalition the most militant leading trade unionists in Britain today, TUSC can be an important catalyst in furthering the process towards independent working class political representation.

Discussion on structures and democracy

2010-01-22T08:20:00.000-08:00

NOW IS THE TIME FOR DISCUSSIONS TO COMMENCE ABOUT THE STRUCTURE WE WOULD LIKE FOR OUR NEW PARTY argues CNWP Press Officer and Socialist Alliance National Secretary Pete McLaren

BACKGROUND
The last CNWP Conference eighteen months ago agreed a resolution from the Socialist Alliance which committed the CNWP to start the discussion as to how we develop from a campaign for a new workers' party into that actual party. The full text of the resolution is below.

Briefly, the resolution recognised the urgent need for the left to get its act together and campaign for a new workers' party given Labour's shift to the right, the vacuum that leaves, and the threat posed by the Far Right. It was agreed this would be achieved by bringing the left together whilst building the party within the wider working class, and that therefore the time was right to start moving towards a pro-party alliance or a pre-party formation that would begin work to determine the structure and rules for such a party. Part of that process would be to turn Declaration signatories into members, with branches where there are enough members.

THE RATIONALE
So why did the SA want the CNWP to move forward in his way? There has clearly been some frustration at the gradual rate of progress since the Campaign for a New Workers Party was launched in March 2006, nearly four years ago. That Launch Conference asked the CNWP Steering Committee to start considering “which type of structure would best suit a Campaign for a New Workers' Party that would encourage supportive left groups/alliances, unions, independents, tenants, community groups and others to work towards unity at their own pace”. A Steering Committee meeting in September 2007 agreed to begin “longer term discussions on the structure of a future party.”

However, these discussions have not yet started. This is partly because the CNWP, quite rightly in my opinion, put most of its energies in 2009 into 'No2EU-YestoDemocracy' and subsequent Post-No2EU developments. Both represent a huge step in the right direction - Left Coalitions with Trade Unionist backing for both the Euro and next General Election moves the whole party building process significantly forward, and, indeed helps shape that Party. This puts renewed pressure on us as the campaign for a new workers' party to start sorting out exactly what sort of party we want - and what sort of party would work.

THE TIME IS RIGHT
This is not about declaring a new workers’ party now. It is about starting the discussion about what that Party should be like and look like so that we are ready when the base has been built and/or conditions dictate that we move a lot faster.

Present conditions are indeed making the need for a new left party more urgent. On the one hand, workers are suffering from the worst Recession in living memory. All establishment parties are striving to make workers pay for the crisis. With no left alternative being offered, workers are turning to the Far Right in significant numbers as a protest vote, many of whom could be won back if there was that working class alternative. On the other hand, there is a new mood for unity across the left, not seen since the high point period of the original Socialist Alliance around the time it stood 98 candidates in the 2001 General Election. Calls for the left to work together, and for a unified left electoral challenge, have been made recently by a number of Trade Union leaders, including Jane Godrich (PCS Pres), Bob Crow (RMT Gen Sec) and Mark Serwotka (Gen Sec PCS). Leaders of socialist organizations have gone further, calling for a new workers’ party. Bob Crow stated in a No2EU Supporters Bulletin on June 8th that we “now need urgent discussions with political parties, campaigns and trade union colleagues (e.g. CWU) to develop a political and industrial response to the crisis.” Dave Nellist has been more explicit in calling for a new party. The SWP called in the summer for a left conference to discuss a "single, united left alternative to Labour”, and the AWL have called for a new Socialist Alliance.

FIRST STEPS ALREADY TAKEN
With growing support for the notion of a new left party, we really do need to start discussing the type of structure we would prefer. We have already agreed a new Party must be open, inclusive and democratic, representing all strands of the movement – including left organizations, trades unionists, those opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those campaigning on environmental issues, pensions, racism and tenants rights, encouraging all such organisations to work towards unity at their own pace. The only structure that could possibly reflect and represent such diversity would be federal, recognizing the traditions and backgrounds of each ‘sector’ whilst campaigning together on agreed policies and projects – around the 80 or 90% we can all agree upon. That may, especially in the short term, mean accepting that organizations would act in their own name whilst making it clear they are also a part of the Party as a whole. In elections, for example, if an organization has built roots under its own electoral title, it may wish to retain that title – taking the Socialist Party as an example, this could mean standing as ‘Socialist Alternative (the SP’s registered electoral title) as part of the 'Left Workers Party’ or whatever.

We have also agreed to become a Membership campaign and that process has begun with a number of the 4,000 CNWP Declaration signatories having formally become members. Membership itself confers rights and responsibilities which need to be defined in a set of rules or some sort of Constitution. We have already agreed a minimum membership fee and to organize regional CNWP meetings at which all CNWP members will be entitled to vote. We have also agreed to set up local branches where sufficient membership exists. What we now need to do is to encourage more and more supporters to become members, to hold the regional meetings on a more consistent basis, and set up the local branches of the CNWP. We will then need to define the relationship of these branches to the regional meetings, and vica versa, and the relationship of both to the national Steering Committee. That will be the first steps towards defining a structure that suits the Campaign for a New Workers' Party and be able to evolve as we move into a being an actual Party.

LEARN THE LESSONS - WE MUST AVOID DOMINATION BY LARGE ORGANISATIONS
It is also CNWP policy for no single group or organization to be allowed to dominate a new Party, and to put in place mechanisms which ensure that full and frank discussions are allowed and a wide range of opinions are represented on all policy making bodies. This was agreed to prevent any takeover as happened within the original Socialist Alliance in 2001. Decision making bodies thus need to represent all opinion by including representatives from each affiliated organization, and I suggest representation, along with affiliation fee, be proportional to size, and representation for independents elected directly by independents. There also needs to be agreement that whereas it would be hoped decisions would be made by consensus, if consensus did not exist nothing could be progressed without the formal approval of, say, 51% of affiliated organizations and 51% of the representatives of independents. This may sound cumbersome, but more often than not decisions would indeed be by consensus. In any event, with such a diverse number of organisations being represented - political organisations, trade unions, tenant and community groups, women, black groups, organisations opposed to racism and other forms of exploitation, and, of course, independents, all separately and in their own right, no one group is so likely to dominate anyway.

MY SUGGESTED MODEL - AFFILIATION AND REPRESENATION BASED ON SIZE
This would require a structure that included a large enough Steering Committee type body for all affiliated opinion to be represented. I would suggest one representative each for those organisations affiliating with less than 100 declared members, two representatives for those with up to 250 declared members, and one additional representative for each additional 200 members above that number - with an affiliation fee that reflected those declared numbers. For example, the affiliation fee could be set at £50 for organisations declaring up to 100 members, and an additional £30 per additional 100 members. That would mean an organisation with 50 members would pay £50 affiliation and have one representative; an organisation with 350 members would pay £140 affiliation and be entitled to three representatives. An organisation with 1,000 members would pay £320 and have five representatives. These figures are purely suggestions.

In addition, independent individual members should be entitled to elect one representative for every 100 individual independent members. An 'individual independent member' being a "Party" member who is not also a member of an affiliated organisation. Each local branch should also be able to elect one representative per 100 members up to a maximum of three representatives. Branches could elect on a similar basis to Regional meetings to be held when necessary, there being no need for Regional bodies to themselves send representatives to the Steering Committee. Regional views could be articulated by Branch representatives within that Region.

There will need to be an agreed minimum number of national and local meetings. Given the importance of 'bottom upwards democracy' within a new left party, there should be regular Branch meetings, monthly or bi-monthly, an annual Conference open to all members and at least one other national meeting of members each year. Conference and national members meetings would be the supreme decision making body, with the Steering Committee responsible for policy between Conferences and national meetings. Annual Conference should directly elect functional Officers as deemed necessary by Conference following recommendation from Branches and the Steering Committee, with nominations from individual members, Branches and the Steering Committee. Conferences and national meetings should be open to all fully paid up members, with voting weighted as within the Steering Committee, and not individual, so that voting becomes proportional to declared size of organisation, with the same proviso that 51% of both organisations and individual independent members would need to support a policy before it could be enacted

CONCLUSION - LET's CREATE THE PROTOTYPE
The CNWP has already agreed a number of initial steps towards determining a structure for a new workers' party. The crisis of capitalism, and growth of support for the far right, make the need to develop such a Party that much more urgent. Events, including the experience and performance of No2EU and its successor, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, will help promote and shape that Party. We must be ready to be able to suggest the outline of a structure for such a Party which has already been debated, modified and broadly supported by those at the forefront of campaigning for that Party. The ideas expressed here are very much open to debate within our ranks over the next few months - they are but the start of a lengthy process. Their essence is federalism based on consensus and proportional representation of all traditions and backgrounds which become part of the new formation, and is very much part of the process of moving from a campaign for a new workers' party into a pre-party formation which, shaped by events, could become the prototype for the real thing.

The actual resolution passed which commits us to start this debate
1. This Conference welcomes the initiative of the CNWP Officers in organising a Discussion Forum on the Way Ahead for the Left at the start of Conference.
2. Conference recognises there is an urgent need for the left to get its act together given the fact that:
Workers increasingly accept that Labour can no longer be reclaimed
Labour’s shift to the right – or far right - means there is a vacuum which the left could, and should, fill.
Recent election results would, if replicated in a General Election, return a Tory Government with a large majority, its policies influenced by an increased vote for the far right
There is the growing threat posed by the racist/fascist BNP
3. Conference confirms its view that the best way to confront these issues is to campaign for a new socialist party – a new workers’ party. In fact, that is essential. Conference agrees that, as part of the process of building a new workers’ party, it is necessary to bring together as many of the disparate left forces as possible, in addition to the work being done to build the Party within the working class – within Trade Unions; tenants and community groups; the black community; women; youth; and all those oppressed by capitalism.
4. Conference therefore agrees that the time is right to start moving towards a pro-party alliance or a pre-party formation that, as well as campaigning for a new party, will also begin work to determine the structure and rules for such a party. Conference recognises that this not only requires that declaration signatories be more involved in the work of the CNWP, but also requires a democratic legitimacy that the present signatories/supporters based system fails to give. To address this, the CNWP will become a membership based campaign, with branches where sufficient membership exists. This is part of the process which will lead, sooner rather than later, to the formal launch of the new workers’ party.
5. Existing and new Declaration signatories/supporters will be asked to take out membership of the CNWP, the fee being determined by Conference or, between conferences, the Steering Committee.

Launch of Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition

2010-01-19T08:45:00.000-08:00

LAST WEEK saw the culmination of a series of discussions by participants in the 'No2EU-Yes to Democracy' European election coalition to see whether another alliance could be constructed for the forthcoming general election.

The result is that there will now be an election challenge, under the newly-registered electoral banner, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC).

No2EU was an alliance for a specific election, registered as a party as required by electoral law, involving the RMT transport workers' union, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party of Britain, Solidarity - Scotland's Socialist Movement, the Socialist Alliance, the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party and others. This time the RMT is not formally backing the coalition. However, RMT branches and regional councils will be able to apply to the union's national executive to support, politically and financially, individual candidates in their area. And Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT, is supporting TUSC in a personal capacity, and will serve on its steering committee.

Places have been reserved on the committee for the core organisations which participated in No2EU, who will now decide on their involvement in the new coalition. Also involved in a personal capacity are other prominent trade unionists, including Brian Caton, the general secretary of the Prison Officers Association (POA), and leading national officers of the PCS civil servants' union. While there is no formal involvement of a national trade union, this is still an important coalescing on the political plane of the most fighting trade union leaders in Britain today.

RMT
A number of local RMT branches, and other trade unionists too, have already declared that they intend to stand candidates in the general election but have not registered a 'party name'. Now, if they wish, such candidates will be able to appear on the ballot paper as Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition rather than as 'Independent'. Candidates from community campaigns, and other socialist organisations that have not been involved in the discussions to date, will also be able to stand under the TUSC banner.

The coalition has agreed a core policy statement which prospective candidates will be asked to endorse. As a federal 'umbrella' organisation, however, coalition candidates and participating organisations will also be able to produce their own supporting material. This was the approach successfully adopted by the No2EU campaign, which allowed the different organisations involved to collaborate under a common banner.

The core policy statement reflects the differing perspectives of those involved in the discussions leading to TUSC's formation. It recognises that amongst potential coalition supporters there will be "different strategic views about the way forward for the left in Britain, whether the Labour Party can be reclaimed by the labour movement, or whether a new workers' party needs to be established", the latter being the position of those in the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party.

But with the coming ferocious attacks on public spending, wages, living standards and workers' rights, regardless of which party (Tory or New Labour) forms the next government, the coalition aims to bring home the urgent need for "mass resistance to the ruling class offensive, and for an alternative programme of left-wing policies to help inspire and direct such resistance". The coalition is also needed to check the growth of the Far Right by providing a socialist anti-racist alternative for those who are fed up with the politics of the establishment parties and are looking for ways to protest

Core policies
The core policies include, amongst others, opposition to public spending cuts and privatisation, calls for investment in publicly owned and controlled renewable energy, the repeal of the anti-trade union laws, and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

The statement 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".

Coalition candidates will offer a credible challenge to New Labour, for example, in the contest between Socialist Party councillor and former MP Dave Nellist and the defence secretary Bob Ainsworth in Coventry North East. But while in some cases its vote may be squeezed, in the context of a polarised election the coalition will still have a significant impact particularly inside the trade unions in forcing a debate on the crisis of working class political representation. This itself is important preparation for the events to come.

The lack of formal endorsement of the coalition from even left-wing trade unions like the RMT, the POA, the PCS or the Fire Brigades Union will be a disappointment for many workers.

The trade union leaders involved in the coalition, who enthusiastically back it in a personal capacity, felt that more time is needed to convince a broader layer of their memberships to take such an important step at this stage. This is a reflection of the ambivalent consciousness of many workers about the coming election, with a deep hatred of New Labour but also fear at the prospect of a Tory government. But we can be confident that big events, both before the election and after, will at some point compel the unions to move decisively onto the political arena.

What is clear is that without a qualitative change in the situation in Britain, through the development of independent working class political organisation to initially at least check the pro-capitalist parties, the ruling class will have a freer hand to impose their austerity policies. Many commentators have referred to the 2010 election as a 'turning point' contest and for the working class it will indeed herald the onset of a new age of 'savage cuts', whichever establishment party wins. The launch of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition is a modest but important step in the development of a movement of resistance.

To sign up as a launch sponsor of TUSC, in a personal capacity, send the necessary details (name, address, trade union/position, etc) to TUSC, 17 Colebert House, Colebert Avenue, London E1 4JP or e-mail the electioncoalition@btinternet.com

Coalition to stand general election candidates

2009-11-30T07:32:00.000-08:00

A coalition to stand trade union and socialist candidates in the general election has been launched by organisations and individuals who participated in ‘NO2EUYes to Democracy’, the left-wing coalition that stood in the European elections. We call on everyone who wants a working-class alternative presented at the general election to get involved.

Following the European election in June participants in ‘NO2EU-Yes to Democracy’ have continued to discuss the possibility of constructing a coalition for the general election. Given the current lack of political representation of ordinary working-class people in British politics, the organisations and individuals involved in those discussions regard it as vitally important to organise a general election challenge. As a minimum, we intend to stand against as many current cabinet ministers as possible, together with other ministers and prominent ex-ministers who have been complicit in New Labour’s anti-working-class policies.

Our intention is to put forward candidates in the coming general election as a federal coalition under a common name, with a steering committee of participating organisations and trade unionists that operates by consensus. The coalition’s name has not yet been decided. The issue of its name and core policies still will be the subject of further discussions. Efforts will continue to secure the further participation of trade union organisations, prominent trade unionists and all those who want to see a pro-working-class alternative presented at the election. If you want to get involved or help in any way, please contact us at electioncoalition@btinternet.com

Notes:

‘No2EU-Yes to Democracy’ was a left-wing coalition of the RMT transport union, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), the Alliance for Green Socialism and others formed specifically to fight the 2009 European elections. This coalition has the backing of the Communist Party of Britain, the Socialist Party, the Alliance for Green Socialism and is supported, all in a personal capacity, by Bob Crow (general secretary RMT), Brian Caton (general secretary Prison Officers’ Association), leading national officers of the PCS civil servants’ union, and national executive committee members of the CWU, UNISON, FBU and USDAW trade unions.

Defend Public Services – make the councillors pay at the ballot box!

2009-11-19T07:38:00.000-08:00

Up and down the country, in every town and city, local politicians from the 3 establishment parties – Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrats – are cutting services and preparing to axe hundreds and thousands of jobs. From street cleansing to social services, from meals on wheels to books in libraries, most councils are planning bigger cuts over the next 2 to 3 years than ever before. Every council seems to have the same aim: to deliver fewer services with less employees, sharply shrinking the local council along the way. Not a single local family will be unaffected by their plans.

And there's little serious political challenge from the big 3 parties – apart from some synthetic indignation to embarrass local opponents – as nationally all 3 establishment parties agree that 'deep', 'fundamental', even 'savage' cuts should be made to pay back the billions used to subsidise the bankers, their bonuses and their system. Of course it isn’t the £76 billion cost of Trident that they want to cut, or the billions being spent on occupying Afghanistan; it is our public services. And it could get worse.......

Whoever wins the next general election, Tories or Labour, there will be a sustained attack on public services, and the jobs, wages and pensions of those we all employ to look after our communities, as the next government, of whatever hue, seeks to make our families pay for their economic crisis. Both big parties have a target of £90 billion to be slashed – that's equivalent to the entire year's spending on the NHS, And in spite of past promises, this will extend to all services, including health, education and social care, where in addition to direct cuts privatisation will be extended and speeded up. If the establishment parties get their way, more and more public services will be replaced with charity hand outs in a return to the 1930s.

We can’t accept this. Council workers will have to fight to save their jobs, wages, pensions and conditions – but they shouldn't have to fight alone. We all rely on essential public services; all trades unions have to be prepared to fight alongside the public sector unions to save the services we need.

Under Threat:

- 350,000+ public sector jobs;

- Services sold off to private profiteers;

- More closures and outsourcing – and the biggest winners will be the 'consultants';

- Welfare benefits frozen or cut;

- More young people denied a job – or, if in university education, facing a lifetime of debt.

Build the Fightback:

- For a joint campaign of public sector workers, other trades unionists and community activists, including local TUCs and community groups such as pensioners' oganisations;

- Lobby every Council or Primary Care Trust meeting threatening cuts or privatisation;

- Support direct action, including occupations and sit-ins.

The Campaign for a New Workers’ Party (CNWP) was set up four years ago. We believe that the political opposition to the common agenda of the big 3 parties must now be stepped up. Already a new, national, electoral coalition is being developed, seeking to challenge Cabinet Ministers and dozens of other MPs at the next general election, involving the RMT and other trades unionists, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, IWA, AGS and others.

But we believe every working class community threatened with cuts and privatisation should stand trade union, socialist or community activist candidates against the big parties at next May's council elections. Make the cutters pay at the ballot box!

At the moment the only pressure on the big 3 parties comes from the bankers and big business – that's why Labour, Tories and Liberal Democrats are almost indistinguishable when it come to support for cuts. People are rightly angry at MPs and their lifestyles and expenses, but we can't leave it to a few TV stars to challenge the status quo – we need hundreds and hundreds of anti-cuts candidates – drawn from ordinary people, from our communities – challenging at the next elections. We've prepared a pack on 'How to stand as a councillor' – write to us if you'd like a copy. Let's really break the mould of British politics!

If you'd like to help in our work to build the CNWP in every community, to campaign to break the trade unions from New Labour, and to step up the fight to create a new workers' party, join us – it could be the best way to defend the Welfare State and out Public Services.

SAVE OUR SERVICES

Overwhelming support for breaking the Labour link in London CWU

2009-09-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

An overwhelming 98% of postal workers in London have voted to withdraw CWU funding from the Labour Party. While this was only a consultative ballot it reflects the alienation and anger most postal workers feel towards the Labour Party.

Naomi Byron, London CNWP

Postal workers in London have been on one day strikes regularly since mid-June against management attempts to slash jobs and casualise the workforce to the extent that no postal worker would have a regular delivery round or duty.

After the first day of strike action the CWU London divisional committee declared that: “We in London will give them till the end of this month to force Royal Mail to agree a National Agreement or we will start ballot London members on whether they fund the Labour Party. ...[We know this will bring us at risk of discipline from the National Union but sod it] we are not going to stand by and fund the Labour Party whilst they allow Royal Mail to attack the workforce in the most hostile manner we have ever seen.”

New Labour and their goal of privatising Royal Mail are behind all the attacks Royal Mail management have launched on the workforce. They want to destroy it as a public service and sell it off to be asset stripped by the same kind of "investors" that destroyed Rover, making a £40 million profit for themselves into the bargain. But with Royal Mail the profits from asset stripping the entire national infrastructure needed for deliveries (including massive depots in city centres) would dwarf those made by the Phoenix four.

The biggest obstacle to privatisation has always been the postal workers' union. This dispute is not about modernisation or combating so-called "Spanish practices", it's about Royal Mail and the government trying to smash the CWU to create a casualised workforce that any private buyer can use and throw away as they please. They want most postal workers to have no regular duties, and to turn up to work just to do whatever management pick for them that day.

This means not only smashing the union but destroying the Royal Mail as a public service. In East London Royal Mail are suspending collections before 4pm from most Post Offices and post boxes, and some people haven't had any post for days. This isn't due to the strike action but because management are trying to force workers to deliver up to twice their normal workload!

For example pickets from the Docklands delivery office explain: "they're getting rid of 10 delivery walks and giving those duties to people on top of their existing work. In one case they took what took another man six hours to do, and said to another do it all on top of your own duty. Even with help he only left the office at 12:30pm to start deliveries, and that was after management told him to stop sorting mail and take out what he'd done already. So far he's bringing work back every day. On top of that he's got about 1000 residential addresses due to open because of a huge new complex."

The reason Peter Mandelson's most recent attempt to privatise Royal Mail failed last July is the fighting spirit that postal workers in London and across the country have shown against these attacks, and the temporary drying up of bids from big business due to the economic crisis.

This temporary postponement of privatisation is nothing to do with the money the CWU has given to Labour – over £6 million since 2001! Instead of increasing the CWU's influence, continuing to prop up the Labour Party's finances has made the union look weak and encouraged the government to attack them. Most CWU members are disgusted that their union continues to fund the party which is trying to destroy them.

The ballot asked members if they agreed with the CWU London Postal Division that the CWU should stop funding the Labour Party. The result is a resounding blow against those within the CWU, and the wider trade union movement, who argue that the unions should continue to fund New Labour. It will enormously increase the pressure on the CWU national leadership to implement conference policy by holding a national ballot on whether or not to keep the Labour link.

The CWU conference in June 2009 voted to ballot members on withdrawing funds from the Labour Party if they continued to privatise Royal Mail. While Mandelson was forced to delay the privatisation temporarily, New Labour is still clearly committed to continue the process as soon as big business bidders available. The government is also backing Royal Mail's current attacks on the workforce as part of the drive for privatisation.

CWU members need to put pressure on their union leadership to implement a national ballot on the Labour levy. But the debate cannot be confined to just stopping funding to the Labour Party. The issues now are achieving a ‘yes’ vote in the present ballot for national industrial action, and how to successfully develop that national action. Also the need for the CWU to develop a political voice to add to their industrial muscle and organisation that has kept Royal Mail in public hands over the last 20 years.

We need a new workers' party. As many CWU members as possible should attend the conference called by the RMT on 7 November to launch a workers' list of candidates to challenge the main three parties of big business in the general election.

The RMT's decision to stand a workers' list (No2EU – yes to democracy) in the Euro elections in June, in a coalition with other trade unionists and socialist groups, which the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party supported, was a historic step forward. It's the first time since the founding of the Labour Party that any trade union has stood a national list of candidates against Labour.

Standing postal workers and CWU members against New Labour ministers and MPs responsible for attempting to privatise Royal Mail, on a programme of opposing privatisation, job cuts and defending public services would strengthen both the CWU in its fight against Royal Mail management, and the possibility of developing a new party for working people out of this coalition of workers' and trade union candidates.

The Tories winning the next election would be a disaster for working people. But even if Labour somehow managed to scrape through, they will be even more savage in their attempts to cut public services than any party for over 100 years. Whichever party wins the next election will try to force through savage cuts to public services including the privatisation of Royal Mail. The most effective way to build opposition to this is to link the industrial struggle CWU members are involved in to establishing a political voice.

Vote to Break the Link with New Labour!

2009-09-15T07:34:00.000-07:00

CWU Members Need a Political Voice

CWU members in the London Region are holding an indicative ballot over whether or not the union should continue to give money to the Labour party. This follows a myriad of attacks on the Royal Mail at the hands of Brown and Mandelson and a concerted attempt to push through the privatisation of the postal service.

CWU members across the country are rightly livid at the fact that millions of pounds of their money still goes to lining the coffers of a party that represents the interests of big business and private companies. Since 2001, over six million pounds of CWU members’ money has been paid to the Labour Party, with £417,676.35 lining their pockets in 2009 alone! The huge Anger at this was reflected in successive debates about affiliation to New Labour at CWU national conference. At the 2008 conference, a motion was moved by Judy Griffiths, a supporter of the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party:

“In moving Composite 101 calling for support for the CNWP from The Welsh Valleys and Coventry Branch at the 2008 conference I referred to the number of motions and rule changes appearing on the agenda that were critical of Labour and made the point that this government has acted as viciously towards the trade unions and workers rights as had the Tories.
In the postal dispute Brown made it abundantly clear to the CWU whose side he was on when he told striking postal workers to go back to work.”

At the 2009 conference, the union leadership backed a resolution to ballot membership about withdrawing funds from New Labour if the government went ahead with privatising Royal Mail. This resolution was pushed to avoid an immediate discussion about disaffiliation, but its endorsement by conference was still an important step.

New Labour is still ideologically committed to the privatisation of the postal service, as Peter Mandelson’s actions over the summer attest. However, in the face of the biggest economic crisis for generations, the big business bidders have temporarily dried up. Billy Hayes and the CWU leadership will undoubtedly use this as an excuse to further delay the vital debate about the CWUs political fund and how workers can most effectively further their interests.

But we all know that attacks on our postal service continue, that a national agenda is being pursued to cut back services and attack the union, and that this is fully supported by New Labour.

Whilst the issue of Royal Mail privatisation and Post Office closures are key issues for the CWU so too are the wider issues of the Anti-Union laws, privatisation, cuts In public spending, tuition fees, prescription charges, privatisation of NHS services and the lack of decent council housing.

In addition, BT which was privatised by the Tories has been left in private hands under Labour to be run by fat cats resulting today in cuts in pensions for BT employees, the proposed loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the industry and a pay freeze just to add to the misery. Agency workers have been dismissed overnight with a weeks notice. Workers in the outsourced and divested sector face the same attacks in many cases from a weaker position as they struggle to retain union recognition.

All this points to the fact that New Labour no longer represents the interests of working people. We need to break the link with Labour and make steps towards a new mass political party that can actually fight in our interest. The CWU London Region ballot could be an effective way to force this debate along and activists in the union should be campaigning for a strong vote to withdraw funding. This, along with initiatives being taken up by activists in other unions, could help prepare the ground for a working class electoral challenge to New Labour.

Members of the PCS will shortly begin a consultation on backing trade union candidates in elections. The RMT backed the first ever all-Britain working class challenge to New Labour in the recent European elections and hopefully a similar trade union based electoral list will be put forward at the next general election. It seems the log-jam is beginning to break; CWU activists have an important role to play in this.

Not one more penny to big-business Labour!
Vote to break the link with New Labour!
Support trade union candidates that represent our interests
No to cuts and privatisation!
For a new mass workers’ party

No2EU: A step towards a workers' political voice

2009-06-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

No2EU-Yes to Democracy held its launch seven weeks ago. Initiated by the railway workers' union - the RMT - this hastily constructed electoral alliance succeeded in winning 153,236 votes in the European elections on 4 June; 1% of the total cast. The combined left vote across Britain was 340,805, 2.25%.

Hannah Sell

No2EU-Yes to Democracy brought together the RMT, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party of Britain, the Socialist Alliance, the Alliance for Green Socialism, supporters of the CNWP, some branches of Respect, and others. Amongst its candidates were leaders of the most militant struggles in Britain this year including the convenors of the Enfield and Basildon Visteon plants, members of the Lindsey construction workers' strike committee, and Rob Williams, victimised convenor of the Linamar car components plant.

Many workers reached by No2EU were enthused by it. In the short time of its existence however, especially given the media blackout it suffered, No2EU was only able to make a very limited impact on the political consciousness of the mass of workers. No2EU has had more coverage in the capitalist media since election day than it had in the whole campaign!

Of course, no new left formation will be able to instantly gain the confidence of workers, even once it has gained visibility or 'recognition', workers will still rightly want to test it out in action over a period of time. The RMT is one of the most militant trade unions in Britain. Many of No2EU's candidates, not least the Socialist Party members, have a long and proud record of campaigning in the interests of the working class.

However, the campaign itself was very new. In these circumstances, convincing more than 150,000 people to vote for it indicates the possibilities that exist for the creation of a fighting left alternative. In areas where candidates had an established electoral record No2EU received higher results, polling 4.5% in Coventry, for example.

Given the little time there was to establish No2EU's profile, the name of the campaign was a certain disadvantage with some. It was very attractive to a layer of workers who are angry with the way European law is being used by employers and the government to undermine their pay and conditions - including the Lindsey construction workers who raised £400 to help fund No2EU. However, there were other workers - consciously looking for a left or socialist alternative - who if they had not heard about No2EU did not realise that this was what it represented. Undoubtedly some of these voted for Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party (SLP), which polled slightly more than No2EU.

While still modest, the combined vote for the left was the highest ever on a national basis in a European election, and represents a step towards building independent political representation for the working class in Britain.

Many workers looking for a left alternative to New Labour will be understandably disappointed that there was more than one left list standing. Sometimes such clashes will be unavoidable; unfortunately the SLP were unwilling to come together in a common campaign for the European elections. However, the desire to create the strongest possible electoral voice for the working class is completely correct. No2EU was an electoral bloc that aimed to do just that - bring together different organisations around a common programme in order to maximise its electoral impact. The programme of No2EU was inevitably limited as a result, although not, as some have suggested, nationalist. On the contrary it called for 'international solidarity of working class people'.

At the same time, the different component organisations had complete freedom to produce their own material. The Socialist Party, for example, produced leaflets putting forward our socialist programme and explaining that our candidates, if elected, would only take a workers' wage.

A similar approach is needed in the general election. We want to make sure that - in as many seats as possible - socialist and working-class fighters are on offer as alternative to the establishment parties. The CNWP appeals to all trade unionists and socialists, including the SLP, who want to see such a challenge to work to create an electoral bloc on a bigger scale than No2EU was able to achieve.

Opposing the BNP

One of the main motivations for No2EU was a desire to provide a left alternative to the far-right racist BNP. It is clear that, in some working class communities significant sections of the population were so angry with all of the pro-big business establishment parties that they turned to the BNP, which is falsely posing as a party of the 'white working class'. In Barnsley, for example, traditionally a strong Labour area, the Labour vote collapsed from 45% to 25% and the BNP vote increased from 8% to 17%. In reality, as their opposition to last year's public sector strikes and the historic miners' strike shows, the BNP is anti-trade union and anti-strike, nor does it effectively challenge the domination of Britain by a tiny, massively wealthy, capitalist class.

However, the BNP will not be defeated by just pleading with workers not to vote for it. It is necessary to begin to create a mass party that genuinely stands in the interests of all workers, regardless of nationality. No2EU was a step towards creating such an alternative. In response to the results, Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT and No 1 on the London list, put the blame for the BNP's gains firmly at the feet of the big "pro-business, pro-EU" parties and went on to point the way forward:

"Along with our colleagues from the SLP and other left groups we won nearly a third of a million votes. From No2EU we won over 150,000 supporters from a standing start in the teeth of a media blackout. That gives us a solid platform to build from. We now need urgent discussions with political parties, campaigns and our colleagues in other unions like the CWU to develop a political and industrial response to this crisis."

The CNWP believes that the next step has to be to build a workers' challenge to the establishment parties in the general election. Yet some have argued that No2EU was wrong to stand in the European elections, particularly in the North West, because, it is suggested, had No2EU voters voted Green, the racist BNP would not have been elected.

The reason that the BNP won two MEPs was the complete collapse of Labour's vote. As a result the BNP took two seats despite having a lower vote in both the North West and Yorkshire than in 2004.

Moreover, it is wrong to suggest that No2EU should have stood aside for the Greens. The Green Party nationally has never been willing to reach electoral agreements with socialist or left candidates, despite attempts by organizations on the left to discuss doing so with them.

If No2EU had simply stood aside it is wrong to image all of its voters would have transferred to the Greens. The majority of those who did vote Green undoubtedly saw them as a left alternative. At local level Green councillors have supported neoliberal anti-working class measures, but on a national basis, unlike in Germany or Ireland where they have entered neoliberal governments, they are as yet untested and are seen by some as 'left'.

However, in the North West, despite New Labour's vote collapsing compared to 2004 by more than 230,000, the Greens were only able to increase their vote by 10,000. In Yorkshire the Greens only increased their vote by 14,000.

Nationally the Green vote increased by more than half a million, but this was disproportionately concentrated in areas with a larger urban middle class. Across Yorkshire, Greens polled 104,000 compared to the BNP's 120,000.

However, the picture is not the same in the working class, deprived South Yorkshire towns where the BNP made the biggest gains. In Barnsley, where the BNP received 17% of the votes the Greens received 6%.

This is a reflection of the fact that the Greens are not seen by most workers as a party that stands in their interests, and are therefore not capable of cutting across the growth of the BNP.

No2EU was only one step towards creating a new mass workers' party that could cut across the BNP, but it was nonetheless important for that.

For the first time since the foundation of the Labour Party, a national trade union took the decision to stand, alongside others, in a national election on a left programme.

It was the duty of socialists to support such an initiative. The RMT has now established the idea that the labour movement can stand its own candidates in elections.

The civil servants' union, PCS, is currently discussing moving in a similar direction. All such steps should be encouraged.

When workers begin to find their own political voice it is the duty of socialists not to stand on the sidelines criticising, but to engage and work to make sure that those first steps can develop into a mass movement.

CWU members need a political voice

2009-06-18T09:18:00.000-07:00

The return of Mandelson to the Government and the proposed privatisation of Royal Mail emanating from the Hooper Review should be the final confirmation to the leadership and activists in the CWU that the Unions relationship with Labour is an abusive one.

Judy Griffith, CWU (personal capacity)

For a decade the issue of funding of Labour has been the subject of discussion at the Communication Workers Union (CWU) Annual Conference. Varying degrees of support have been won for breaking the link with the Labour Party culminating in the 2008 conference agreeing to ballot CWU members over support for Labour if the government moves to privatise Royal Mail.

In light of Labours intent to carry privatisation through, conference policy should be implemented immediately with a recommendation by the NEC to vote to withdraw funding.
The issue of “what alternative?” has always been used by the leadership as the cover for remaining affiliated to Labour.
In moving Composite 101 calling for support for the CNWP from The Welsh Valleys and Coventry Branch at the 2008 conference I referred to the number of motions and rule changes appearing on the agenda that were critical of Labour and made the point that this government has acted as viciously towards the trade unions and workers rights as had the Tories.
In the postal dispute Brown made it abundantly clear to the CWU whose side he was on when he told striking postal workers to go back to work.

The Government pushed through ‘market freedom’ for the break up and privatisation of Royal Mail -something even Thatcher was scared to do. This allowed cheap-labour delivery firms to cream off profitable business, leaving Royal Mail with unprofitable parts, leading to the attack on pay and conditions.
From the minute MPs’ voted for that, a battle between the workers and government appointed bosses was inevitable as they sought to close Mail offices and reduce the workforce. The ‘relationship’ with Labour got us nowhere except a life or death battle for our union and jobs.
Now, precisely when the bankers ‘free market’ is most discredited Labour propose to privatise the Royal Mail! They want to leave the taxpayers with the debt and hand the profitable parts to private companies. They want to further hammer our conditions and our union.

Labour has voted for and continue to close Post Offices. Closing 2,600 by April 2008. We have to witness the hypocrisy of Labour MP’s (and now even Tories who closed 3,542 while in office) turning up to ‘protest’ at closures they have voted for! Like Tony Soprano when he covers his backside by attending the funerals of people he’s had bumped off! Saying one thing, but doing another, the government is at the forefront of these attacks on our union and it’s members.
Whilst the issue of Royal Mail Privatisation and Post Office Closures are key issues for the CWU so too are the wider issues of the Anti Union Laws, Privatisation, Cuts In Public Spending , Tuition Fees, Prescription charges, Privatisation of NHS Services and the lack of decent council housing.

In addition, BT which was privatised by the Tories has been left in private hands under Labour to be run by fat cats resulting today in cuts in pensions for BT employees, the proposed loss of 10.000 jobs in the industry and a pay freeze just to add to the misery. Agency workers have been dismissed overnight with a weeks notice, so much for the ‘Power Up For Agency Workers’ campaign. Workers in the outsourced and divested sector face the same attacks in many cases from a weaker position as they struggle to retain union recognition.

The unions’ policy on Public Ownership of the Telecommunications Industry once again has been ignored by the union when considering its political strategy.

Any remaining doubt that the funding of Labour is in any way beneficial to our members in the CWU must now surely be cast aside. While some in the leadership may still believe that there is no alternative, this position is becoming more and more difficult for them to defend.
If individual members and activists in the CWU wish to remain in the Labour Part

y, including the General Secretary who has stated that he “will die in the Labour Party” then that is their prerogative, however it should not be the determining factor in relation to the political strategy of a union that faces thousands of job losses across the Postal, Telecoms and Financial Services Sector.

The leadership of the CWU in referring to the proposed job losses and the financial position of the union have raised merger with other unions as the solution to secure the unions’ financial stability.

The real alternative surely would be to stop financing Labour to the tune of millions of pounds, and to launch a huge political campaign jointly with other unions such as the RMT, PCS, FBU and POA etc to begin to construct a New Workers Party to contest elections. One that could provide an alternative to the current main parties who all ultimately defend capitalism and the private sector which is so spectacularly failing the working people of Britain and the world.

This is the alternative that is required to provide our members and workers generally who have not bothered voting or have turned to the BNP to protest at being ignored by Labour.
Given EU laws are the fig leaf Labour ministers hide behind to justify privatising the Post Office it would clearly have made sense for the CWU to support the RMT-initiated No2EU – Yes to Democracy European elections list with its anti privatisation and pro workers rights stance and mobilise our members behind it. The CWU should be at the forefront of ensuring that a workers’ alternative such as this is offered at a general election when it comes.

Dave Ward the Deputy General Secretary of the union made the point at the National Protest against Royal Mail Privatisation in Wolverhampton on the 14th March when he said that “there is a need for a political alternative to what is currently on offer and it doesn’t necessarily have to be through Labour” this to huge cheers from the crowd.

The issue will be on the agenda again at the 2009 conference, by then however the union should already have carried out the mandate from 2008 conference and have balloted its members. Failure to do this would be extremely damaging for the current leadership of the union as the onslaught of job cuts and privatisation takes its full hold.

Unions no longer have a political voice and face 3 establishment parties who oppose us. Currently the union gives money to the Labour Party, but what for when they vote to attack us? When they keep the most anti union laws in the western world that make it harder for us to fight to defend our conditions?

Trades Unions should work for new party to stand up for working people, a party that would stand up for the millions not the millionaires. The CWU should be playing its’ part in building such an alternative.

For a workers' alternative to the bosses' parties

2009-05-05T08:56:00.000-07:00

THE NATIONAL UNION of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) has initiated an electoral alliance for the European elections that will be contesting all of the seats in England, Wales and Scotland in the elections on 4 June. This is a temporary platform for the European elections, entitled No2EU-Yes to Democracy, with initial support from the RMT, Socialist Party, Solidarity–Scotland’s Socialist Movement, the Indian Workers’ Association, the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), the Morning Star newspaper, the Socialist Alliance, the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party and others.

The Campaign for a New Workers’ Party’s steering committee urges all CNWP members to support No2EU-Yes to democracy. This is the first time since the formation of the Labour Party that a trade union has taken an electoral initiative on an all-Britain scale. The transformation of the Labour Party from a workers’ party at base – albeit with a capitalist leadership – into an unalloyed party of big business has left the working class without a mass party for well over a decade. The absence of such a party has been a central factor in holding back the confidence of workers to struggle in defence of their pay and conditions. The fact that the RMT has taken this step, however tentative, is therefore enormously positive.

The candidates for No2EU-Yes to Democracy include leaders of the Lindsey oil refinery construction workers who went on strike in January and of the Visteon car components workers currently blockading their factories. Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT, will be heading the list in London, and a number of RMT regional officers will be standing around the country. Coventry Socialist Party councillor and CNWP chair Dave Nellist heads the list in the West Midlands. In the North West, the regional UNISON NEC representative and CNWP secretary, Roger Bannister, is heading the list. In Scotland, Tommy Sheridan is second on the list. Other candidates include car workers fighting job losses, postal workers resisting privatisation, health workers, teachers, fire-fighters and other public-sector workers. This list offers an alternative to the pro-capitalist parties, and its candidate lists are dominated by some of the most combative sections of the working class in Britain today.

No to the BNP

The campaign is partially motivated by an understanding of the urgent need to provide an alternative to the far-right racist British National Party (BNP). There is a real danger that the BNP could capitalise on the anger with New Labour and succeed in winning one or more MEPs in this election. The BNP will never be cut across by bland campaigns pleading with people not to vote for racists. The implication of such campaigns is that workers should vote for the pro-capitalist parties in order to stop the BNP. Only the development of a genuine working-class alternative, combined with a serious campaign against the BNP, will be able to effectively undermine them. This electoral initiative is taking an important step in that direction by offering a left, anti-EU alternative.

Keep Britain out of the eurozone

The programme of No2EU-Yes to Democracy is limited. Nevertheless, it seeks to oppose the European Union (EU) from a working-class, non-nationalist standpoint. The EU has not been central in most workers’ minds up to the present time. However, recent developments have made it more of an issue, at least amongst those workers who have been directly affected, and perhaps increasingly amongst a wider layer. It was central to the Lindsey construction workers’ strike. It was under the EU Posted Workers Directive and subsequent European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings that the Italian-registered company, IREM, was able to employ workers not covered by the union-enforced national construction industry agreements.

No2EU’s programme takes up the different aspects of the EU’s neo-liberal laws. These laws arise from the support of this government, and all European governments, for neo-liberal anti-working class policies. EU laws provide them with an additional lever with which to drive through their pro-big business programmes. For example, the EU's public spending criteria gave New Labour an excuse to privatise capital projects like new schools and hospitals, by means of private finance initiatives and the disastrous public-private partnership on London Underground, which increase the costs of public services and subsidise corporate profits. The government’s plan for the part-privatisation of Royal Mail, the first step to its complete sell-off, is linked to the EU’s 2007 Postal Services Directive to introduce a deregulated postal services market.

Step forward

In Britain we do not yet have a new mass left party – or a significant step towards one such as exists in Germany, France and Greece. However, we are faced with an important beginning. We have the leadership of a militant trade union that is prepared to take the responsibility for initiating the development of a political voice for working people – at least in the European elections – that will oppose all the capitalist parties and provide an alternative to the far-right, racist BNP. They will undoubtedly face attack from the capitalist media for daring to stand up. All those who are serious about building a new mass workers’ party should offer every assistance in ensuring the campaign is a success.

What do union members get from Labour link?

2009-03-03T08:51:00.000-08:00

A growing number of left activists in the trade unions are frustrated with the continued financial and political links between the unions and the Labour Party. This is hardly surprising given the attacks on working-class people carried out since Blair's New Labour government was elected in 1997.

A UNISON member

Privatisation of the NHS and other public services continues at a frightening pace, funding for local government has been cut, welfare benefits have been slashed and public-sector workers have had their pay held down, all to pay for the growing crisis in the capitalist economy.

In reality, though, the mood of a layer of activists about the Labour link drags behind that of the union rank and file, most of whom no longer see the Labour Party as a political voice for the working class. This can be seen in the good votes gained for candidates in union elections who call for the link to be broken.

But with a few notable exceptions, the union leaderships are reluctant to abandon Labour. Unwilling to face political reality, they exaggerate both the differences between Labour and the Tories and the importance of the 'concessions' they have got from Labour. These concessions are exemplified in the 2004 Warwick Agreement and subsequent agreements. Many clauses in these deals are minimal and some are laughable in the light of events.

The commitment to work in Europe "for the introduction of employment protection for temporary and agency workers" rings hollow when you consider the massive pressure on Labour MEPs from Downing Street to oppose the ending of the UK's opt-out from the European Working Time Directive. This has forced many temporary (and permanent) workers to work in excess of 44 hours a week.

Equally contradictory is the agreement to "engage in effective dialogue over the future of public-sector pensions". In March 2006, local government workers had to resort to a massive strike in defence of the local government pension scheme.

Public-sector union Unison has described the government's agreed protection against a two-tier public sector workforce (due to privatisation) as a lottery, and recently conducted a survey of Unison branches to ascertain just how meaningless it is.

Yet many of the union leaders talk vaguely about the need to "reclaim" Labour, with no plan, nor any programme to set about this. In fact, at Labour's last conference the trade unions actually agreed to reduce their voting influence at the conference!

Many trade union leaders actually prefer the fact that the power of conference has been replaced by the 'behind the scenes' activity of the Policy Forum, where they can hobnob with ministers and party big-wigs.

Lost members

Labour has lost millions of members, most of them drifting away disillusioned. Its constituency parties are largely dead, engaging in little local activity. Any that still have the temerity to move against right-wing MPs face suspension and/or witch-hunts of activists.

For example the Labour Party national executive recently suspended East Lothian constituency Labour Party after it passed a motion of no confidence in its Labour MP, former Unison president Ann Moffat.

The trade union leaders are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. They know that New Labour is a lost cause for the working class, but they are frightened of the alternative.

A new democratic party of the left would draw in precisely the left activists that they fear within their own organisations, those socialists who are being witch-hunted in Unison for example.

Knowing how unpopular the link with Labour is, the union leaders often attempt undemocratic, bureaucratic manoeuvres to prevent debate on this issue within their own unions. This is the case in Unison.

The Fire Brigades Union pulled out of financing the Labour Party following the Labour government's attitude to its national strike, the RMT was expelled from Labour for supporting the Scottish Socialist Party, and the PCS has recently set up a political fund on the basis that it will not be used to support Labour.

What is now needed to boost the campaign for a genuine, left political voice outside Labour is for unions such as these to call together trade union and community activists, and others on the left.

They should discuss the current political situation with a view to establishing a broad anti-cuts, pro-public service platform to start to mount electoral challenges to Labour from the left.

Such a move would serve as a pole of attraction to shop stewards and other union activists, renewing the campaigns within the unions to withdraw support from Labour.

The Campaign for a New Workers' Party (CNWP) was launched by socialists, trade unionists, community campaigners and young people who had had enough of the establishment parties and wanted to fight for a working-class political voice.

It is pushing for Labour Party affiliated unions to break the link with the Labour Party and is popularising the idea of a new, independent mass party for working people.

A new mass workers' party would play an important role in linking up many different struggles taking place across the country and giving more working people the confidence to fight back.

Labour's abandoning of the working class

2009-02-09T03:28:00.000-08:00

Increasingly, the media and politicians talk about the 'disadvantage suffered by white working-class people', and the need to 'listen to their concerns'. Hazel Blears, the government's Communities Secretary, says New Labour should fight to win back support in white working-class communities that feel abandoned by all mainstream political parties, in order to halt the rise of the far-right, racist British National Party (BNP).

Naomi Byron

But rather than change its policies - like reversing privatisation, ending the housing shortage by a massive expansion in council housing or socialist nationalisation to save jobs - New Labour is cynically playing the race card.

Instead of listening to the real concerns of working people, these big business politicians are going along with the sensationalist and divisive way that the media has begun talking about the "white working-class" as something separate and distinct from working-class people of other races.

A useful report by the Runnymede Trust refutes the false 'racialisation' of these issues and pointed out that from housing to education to health "where the white working-class are losing out, it is to the wealthy rather than to migrants or minority ethnic groups."

Contrary to media headlines that white working-class boys are losing out dramatically to black and minority ethnic groups in the same income bracket when it comes to GCSE results, the biggest gap by far in education results is social class.

Wendy Bottero, one of the report's contributors, points out: "We should look at the impact of the closure of the manufacturing industries which once dominated working-class communities; the neo-liberal deregulation of the labour market which has made their jobs less secure; the sponsoring of middle-class advantage through 'parental choice' of schools and the marketisation of education; the sell-off of council housing which concentrates the most disadvantaged in the remaining estates; and the stalling of incomes and expenditure at the bottom of society while the wealth of the rich rockets."

The current media debate, says the trust report, "exaggerates the differences between ethnic groups and masks what they hold in common. By stressing the whiteness of the white working-class, the class inequality of other ethnic groups also slips from view.

"This sidesteps the real issue of class inequality, focusing on how disadvantaged groups compete for scarce resources, rather than exploring how that scarcity is shaped in the first place. If we really want to understand disadvantage, we need to shift our attention from who fights over the scraps from the table, to think instead about how much the table holds, and who really gets to enjoy the feast."

Working-class people of all races and backgrounds have no organised political voice and are marginalised, frustrated and angry. The real question is what can be done about it. That is why we are fighting for a new workers' party that can act as a channel for working people to take collective action to defend our rights and fight for a better future.

Divisions

Attempts to whip up the racial divide between working-class people are extremely dangerous, and must be fought. The only rights and improvements working-class people have won have been through our own collective struggle. The fight against racism and division is an absolutely essential part of this. The question of racism, particularly racist discrimination in the workplace and attacks against black and Asian people, is still a burning issue and one that needs to be taken up by the whole workers' movement.

Racism is deeply rooted in capitalism because the profit system makes use of 'divide and rule'. The more big business and the media succeed in creating resentment and division along racial lines, the harder it is for working people to fight back and improve our lives.

The more the main parties try to play the race card to prop up their collapsing votes, the easier it is for poisonous groups like the BNP to look respectable, gain support, and divide working people further. Help us in building a genuine alternative for all working people in the form of a new mass workers' party.

The working class needs its own mass party

2008-11-12T08:50:00.000-08:00

The following is a report by Dave Carr of the discussion forum on working class political representation hosted by the Campaign for a new Workers' Party recently as part of Socialism 2008.

The closing rally of Socialism 2008, hosted by the Campaign for a New Workers' Party (CNWP), was on the theme of the fight for a working class political voice. Chairing the rally was Save Huddersfield NHS Kirklees councillor Jackie Grunsell.

The first speaker, chair of the CNWP and Socialist Party councillor Dave Nellist, highlighted the damaging legacy of eleven years of New Labour's big business agenda - wars, unemployment, economic insecurity and a massive wealth gap.

Dave attacked the return of sleazy Peter Mandelson as a government business minister. He referred to Mandelson on his appointment as effectively saying: 'I want to start where I left off - with the privatisation of the Post Office'. Dave demanded that the trade unions, who have funded New Labour that in return attacks pay and conditions, end their political affiliation.

Kevin Ovenden, a national leader of Respect, congratulated the Socialism 2008 organisers for their prescience in advertising the event with the subhead 'Marx was right' in advance of the current financial crisis! He spoke about the victims of this capitalist crisis, pointing out the extreme levels of poverty in inner city areas like Tower Hamlets where Respect has elected councillors and the MP George Galloway.

He said that Respect, which emerged from the anti-Iraq war movement, has had a difficult year because of its split with the SWP faction and recognised that Respect is not the 'finished article' in terms of working-class political representation.

Comedian and socialist Mark Steel started by saying that the biggest enemy on the left was cynicism - that the world can't be changed. But, following the election of Barack Obama, everyone believes it can - even reactionaries like George Bush!

Mark went on to criticise what he considered to be the failure of the socialist left - its failure to embrace small campaigning groups and propensity to "squabble".

Unfortunately, Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS civil servants' union was too ill to attend.

Hannah Sell, deputy general secretary of the Socialist Party, said one of the main obstacles to convincing broader layers to subscribe to the idea of building a new party and fighting for socialism is summed up by sympathetic people we meet who say "But can you really change anything?" Of course, the massive events of the last few weeks have radically changed people's political consciousness, namely, the crisis in capitalism and Obama's victory.
Hannah contrasted the government's £500 billion bank bailout with the union pay demands of all public sector workers which amount to only £5 billion - which the government says it cannot afford.

On the question of disagreements on the left, Hannah emphasised that striving for unity is very important but that in the course of this socialists must learn the lessons of previous failures to build new workers' parties to avoid repeating the same mistakes.

On the question of a new workers' party, the left trade union leaders have a vital role to play.
They can begin by calling a conference of trade unionists to discuss the need for workers' political representation.

Hannah concluded by saying: "the wave of capitalist triumphalism of the last 20 years has ended. We're now entering a new period in history where the ideas of Marxism will be embraced by mass movements of the working class."

Videos of this discussion forum are being hosted on the Socialist Party's website and can be viewed here.

Building a new workers' party: Trade unionist initiative needed

2008-09-10T03:44:00.000-07:00

A number of left trade union leaders have recognised that the Labour Party in councils and in government is not going to stop trying to push through privatisation, cuts and other attacks on workers' pay and conditions. Some of them have drawn the conclusion that a new workers' party is necessary, but they have not yet taken early steps towards building such a party.

John McInally, vice-president of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), argues here - in a personal capacity - the need for the left trade union leaders to organise a conference later this year or early next year to discuss what steps could be taken. John is a member of the Socialist Party.

"The eleven years of Labour have been absolutely fantastic for the super-rich. Having a friendly Labour government has almost been better than a Tory one". If you wanted to sum up the record of the New Labour government then this statement from Philip Beresford, author of The Rich List, needs little elaboration.

In fact there is an arguable case that says New Labour is better for the super-rich than a Tory government. More privatisation has taken place under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown than under Margaret Thatcher and John Major combined.

Inequality is greater now than when New Labour came to power, the wealth of the super-rich has trebled, the multinationals and banks have made profits hand over fist and an unprecedented assault on public services has taken place.

Plus of course there has been the imperialist war in Iraq, which, amongst other things is the costliest and bloodiest privatisation in history.

The "moral compass" Brown claims he is guided by, looks catastrophically askew - there is not just the unforgivable privatisation of education, including the encouragement of creationists to 'educate' our children, but the promotion of the 'me first' unrestrained consumerism of a society falling deeper into crisis.

Corruption and sleaze

New Labour has been a sorry tale of corruption and sleaze. No lie is too big to tell; Brown's assertion that there would be no more 'boom or bust' is one of the worst examples, especially as he was aware that the boom for which he took credit, was based on unsustainable levels of cheap credit and ruthless exploitation of cheap immigrant labour. On the latter point, Brown fuelled racism with his call for 'British jobs for British workers', a slogan of the far-right British National Party.

In pursuing its "war on terror", also a major element in stoking up racism, New Labour has driven through some of the most oppressive legislation ever, that will be ruthlessly used against the labour and trade union movement at some future stage.

The Labour Party was never a socialist party but it was formed by the trade unions and workers saw it as the best vehicle for representing their interests; they saw it as 'theirs'.
Labour governments established the National Health Service and introduced other social advances, albeit in response to pressure as a result of struggle by workers on the industrial and political front. Socialists and Marxists played a crucial role in these struggles, something that has been airbrushed from history in the interests of the ruling class and labour and trade union 'leaders'.

New Labour will not be reclaimed by the working class. Even if the diminishing band of activists who think it can be rescued toiled for decades, they could never achieve their objective, not least because the democratic structures that may at one time have made such an endeavour possible have been completely shattered. There is no credible basis upon which to argue the Labour Party is reclaimable. To do so is a distraction from, and a barrier to, the task of developing an alternative form of political representation. Investing further precious time and energy in pursuing this unobtainable goal is a waste of time and a fetter to building a genuine alternative.

The biggest obstacles to the development of such a political alternative are the leaders of the New Labour-affiliated unions and the Trades Union Congress (TUC), whose behaviour in the face of New Labour has been craven. They argue that we must concentrate on avoiding the re-election of a Tory government, ignoring the fact that New Labour is no longer capable of beating the Tories precisely because it has carried out unpopular 'Tory' policies.

Even during the long eighteen years of the Thatcher/Major regimes, the trade union leaders closest to the Labour 'modernisers' like Neil Kinnock argued we must not take strike action because it would damage the chances of the return of a Labour government.

Disgracefully, they stood to one side during the great miners' strike of 1984/5, collecting money and making fine speeches, but eschewing the type of solidarity industrial action that would have finished off Thatcher. They also tried to disrupt and sabotage the tremendous non-payment battle against the poll tax, arguing that we must 'obey the law' as otherwise no future Labour government could govern with credibility and authority.

The majority of national trade union leaders have accepted the logic of the market and can conceive of no alternative to pro-big business governments. Unfortunately, this is even true of some who were seen as part of the 'awkward squad'

Yet New Labour has given the union leaders virtually nothing in return for their support, for instance Brown has firmly declared there will be no relaxation of the anti-trade union laws. As private sector donors desert Labour and with the party virtually bankrupt financially as well as in every other respect, the unions are expected to foot the bill - currently 92% of funding comes from affiliated unions.

Instead of using this leverage to insist on even the most minimal concessions to help working people, the union leaders incredibly are content to allow the pro-market agenda to continue, hoping desperately that a few scraps might be flung in their direction.

The tremendous industrial potential of the trade union movement has been held in check and concessions left unclaimed by those leaders who argue there is no alternative to Labour.

Action gets results

The recent tanker drivers' strike demonstrated that while the industrial working class has shrunk, its impact and effectiveness can still be enormous. However, in recent times the main arena for struggle has been in the public sector, with left, campaigning leaderships like those in the PCS (Public and Commercial Services union) and RMT (Rail Maritime and Transport union) taking the lead. It is there that workers are learning the fundamental truth that if you do nothing the bosses and government will walk all over you and that campaigning works and action gets results.

The PCS's record under the leadership of general secretary Mark Serwotka, president Janice Godrich, and the Left Unity leadership, with the Socialist Party playing a key role, has demonstrated political and industrial campaigning work based on and underpinned by a willingness to take action when required.

Where action is deliverable, effective and sustainable, it can build workers' confidence and wrest concessions. There is an alternative to bending the knee.

The consistent campaigning record of unions like PCS and RMT throws into sharp relief the failure of the Labour affiliated union leaders who are incapable of even securing the easing of the anti-trade union laws. Even on the question of agency workers and on issues of basic equality, equal pay for example, New Labour has pulled up the drawbridge and told the Labour-affiliated unions: 'you have no alternative, it is us or the Tories'.

There is now a real need to move to begin to build a viable and sustainable alternative to Labour capable of starting the process of offering working people the type of political representation they need and deserve.

As a first step, a conference must be held of all those who support and are committed to building such an alternative. In doing so we cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the last decade where a series of initiatives have failed; the Scottish Socialist Party, the Socialist Labour Party, the Socialist Alliance and Respect being the most obvious examples.

Any new configuration promising political representation to workers cannot simply be announced as an accomplished fact that demands the immediate allegiance of workers, but instead must be patiently built and tested. To be successful, some very basic, minimal, but critical conditions are needed.

Firstly the trade unions have an important role to play. This does not necessarily mean, at this stage, the complete endorsement or affiliation of any trade union.
What is required is the support and endorsement of genuine left socialist leaders and activists in the trade union movement and their engagement in building such a formation. We should also see this process as being predicated on a commitment to stand trade union based candidates in elections.

Secondly, the task of building such an organisation needs to begin with an alliance agreed around a minimum but extensive programme capable of attracting millions of workers to its banner. In the Socialist Party's opinion this should include a socialist clause. However, this, along with the other demands, would be decided by democratic discussion among the forces involved.

There is no contradiction in the expressions 'minimum' and 'extensive'. Minimum, in the sense that some issues almost pick themselves and around which agreement can be secured. But extensive in the sense that such a programme, if fought for and achieved, would mean tremendous steps forward for working people. The programme must address what needs to be done to defend workers' interests but also define and articulate their hopes and aspirations.

Demands

Such demands would surely include: opposition to cuts, privatisation, war, fascism, racism, nuclear weapons and destruction of the environment; for a living wage for all, a properly funded welfare state with well-paid and trained staff delivering vital services in communities where they live and work; repeal of the anti-trade union laws; and international workers' solidarity.
Thirdly, if the left is serious about building a genuine and sustainable alternative then we must say upfront and without mincing our words that the lessons of history must be learnt; in creating any such alliance there can be no place whatsoever for the destructive rule or ruin tactics that have characterised the dead ends of recent years.

An undemocratic, top-down approach will not work. The young people who are becoming active in struggle in the 21st century, correctly have a horror of bureaucracy.

Their experience of the betrayals of New Labour and the right-wing trade union leaders, combined with the effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union - which capitalism worldwide falsely equated with genuine socialism - mean that democracy is particularly vital to the new generation.

It is crucial that a new formation be open and welcoming to all those who want to work together against the neo-liberal onslaught on the working class. It must be based on a federal structure where groups and individuals have the right to democratically organise and argue for their position. Differences cannot be airbrushed away but neither can they be the most prominent feature that defines a new configuration.

Where one organisation is initially numerically dominant, we need to find ways to make sure that the views of other significant currents and trends are heard and that consensus is sought on key issues.

Trade union involvement would be vital in providing a real sense of 'discipline in action' of the type that should apply in the best examples of industrial action - concentration on priorities, and debate without the type of sectarian demoralisation that sometimes targets even the best left union leaders rather than employers and the political establishment.

This is especially important in setting out clear and disciplined campaigning work.

Union involvement

Who then should be involved in such an initiative? Given acceptance of the points outlined above then there is surely no reason why any organisation should exclude itself. It would be naïve to suggest that all would be plain sailing. But active trade union involvement would greatly increase the chance of developing an effective organisation that is intent on sharply focusing on the programme that workers see as relevant to their day-to-day lives.

What about those left Labour MPs who have tried to keep the socialist flag flying amidst the corruption of New Labour? They also should be involved in building alternative political representation for workers.

Some of these MPs argue that it is best they remain in the Labour Party for the foreseeable future because they at least provide some limited representation for workers and trade unions in parliament and to lose that platform would be a setback. However, by remaining inside Labour they give a degree of credibility and 'left cover' to a party that is antagonistic to the interests of the working class and is, to put it bluntly, an enemy.

Secondly, it is simply wrong to assume, as some do, that if such MPs stood under the banner of a trade union based organisation in the future then they would automatically lose their seats.
On the contrary some of these MPs - who have built up considerable capital with activists and workers by opposing the New Labour project - could very well, standing on a programme such as that outlined above, not only win their seats but be highly effective tribunes for building the alternative to the rotten political establishment New Labour is now a torch-bearer for.

Building an alternative to New Labour is not, and cannot be, a risk free business. But the greater risk by far, is failing to recognise that the main historical and political task currently in front of socialists is to build a political alternative. Hesitation now in firmly espousing that cause can only be a fetter, or at least an impediment, to building an alternative, no matter how unintentionally.
The debate will continue on these and other matters. But it is clearly now time to organise a conference that, while focusing on the industrial issues facing workers and the unions, is also capable of addressing the key task of beginning the process of developing effective political representation. A key aim should be standing candidates as outlined above.

To avoid this issue would be an abdication of responsibility and would disappoint and disorient the more politically conscious workers in the trade unions and working class. To pose the question of what is required, how to develop the struggle politically as well as industrially, but then dodge the only real answer - building a mass political alternative to represent the interests of our class in the way the parties of the political establishment represent the bosses and the millionaires - is no longer an option.

There should be no extended delay in organising such a conference, but it is important to get it right.

That indicates informal discussion between interested groups, but especially left leaders in unions like PCS, RMT and undoubtedly others, to set out the basis of the conference and hopefully have an aim of holding it at the end of this year or early next year.

Socialists should be clear that such an initiative will incur the wrath of New Labour and the leaders of the affiliated unions (especially when they see their own best activists expressing support for such a development) and even in unions like PCS there will be opposition.
But without political representation we cannot effectively defend the interests of union members, let alone those of workers generally, never mind achieve what we deserve and need.

The case for building alternative political representation for working people is unanswerable and the task set out by history can no longer be avoided.

¡el socialismo es LA LIBERACION!

2008-08-27T01:47:00.000-07:00

Merseyside Campaign for a New Workers’ Party presents…
a film by Ken Loach and Jim Allen (1995)
“Land and Freedom”
the SPANISH CIVIL WAR against FASCISM
followed by discussion and speakers including
SPECIAL GUEST: Ian Hart, starring actor

7.30pm, Thurs 16th Oct
at LIVERPOOL COMMUNITY COLLEGE, Myrtle St.
the latest of our ‘City of Culture’ alternative events highlighting working-class culture in Liverpool www.myspace.com/cityofculture08

For the millions, not the millionaires!
The Campaign for a New Workers’ Party is promoting a working-class alternative to the far right and the three big-business parties. Visit: www.cnwp.org.uk
Next local meeting: 18th Sep, 7.30pm, Casa, 29 Hope St
T 07910 097 607 (Clara) E cityofculture08@yahoo.co.uk

Liverpool CNWP Alternative Capital of Culture Event

2008-08-12T03:17:00.000-07:00

DAVE SINCLAIR
Photographic Exhibition
31st July – 28th August
Liverpool Dockers Strike
1995-97
FACT Centre
88 Wood Street - Liverpool, L1 4DQ
t: +44 (0) 151 707 4441 - www.fact.co.uk

----------------
Dave Sinclair is a photographer from Liverpool who now lives and works in East London. He started taking photos in the late '70's while studying art at Liverpool Poly and travelled around Britain in the '80's. He was the Militant newspaper staff photographer from '85 to '90. He is publishing a book with the Bluecoat Press of about 100 photos from this site called 'Dave Sinclair's Liverpool'
More of his work can be seen on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dave_sinclair_liverpool_photos/
-------------------
ALTERNATIVE PROGRAMME - City of Culture 08
"Liverpool is Capital of Culture in 2008 but many people feel bitter that culture has become a product marketed by the CoC Company. The emphasis of the event has been on blockbusters events with limited and often expensive entrance fees. The marketing of our city has been put first rather than its people and their fantastic culture.

Although we support the title of European Capital of Culture for Liverpool, we want to put forward the wonderful working class and grassroots culture our city has. The intiative was launched by the Merseyside Campaign for a New Worker's Party – www.cnwp.org.uk
a Capital of Culture for the millions, not the millionaires.
www.myspace.com/cityofculture08

National Shop Stewards Network

2008-07-25T05:31:00.000-07:00

Debate on political representation

One of the eagerly awaited workshops at the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) conference on 28 June, was a debate about political representation. Giving introductions from the top table were: Dave Nellist, chair of the Campaign for a New Workers Party (CNWP) and Unite member; Unjum Mirza, Left List and a RMT member: and John Rogers, Labour Representation Committee (LRC) and Unison member.

Chris Moore

The way forward for working class political representation is clearly a key issue facing trade union activists today, with New Labour driving through privatisation and attempting to hold pay below inflation in the public sector. In May, Labour suffered its worst local election results since records began, and more recently a 17.6% swing to the Tories in the Labour heartland of Crewe and Nantwich and a humiliation in the Henley-on-Thames byelection.

Dave Nellist spoke of the need for a new independent party of working people saying: “It’s not so much what direction for the Labour Party, but how to build an alternative”. He listed some of New Labour’s crimes, including: “Seven wars, the consolidation and extension of private ownership in health, education, prisons and council services”. They protect the rich, while abolishing the 10p tax rate and they means test those who claim benefits.

To have any chance of reforming the Labour Party, Dave estimated it would need the injection of at least 50-100 activists into each constituency and 30-60,000 overall. But instead of this, the reality is: “A sclerosis within the organisation of the Labour Party and a haemorrhaging of members with 200,000 leaving since 1997. Neil Kinnock expelled socialists in the 1980s and Tony Blair expelled socialism itself. Today we have one party of capitalism divided into three and they all protect and extend the influence of big business”. Blair and Brown have “consolidated and codified Thatcherism”.

Dave warned that the growing political vacuum is not guaranteed to be filled in a progressive direction and pointed to the threat of the BNP. Issues such as immigration are used by right wing parties. As recession bites and public services are contracted, these parties could grow.

For these reasons the CNWP was launched some years ago to begin the process of building a party for working people. But he explained it will be experiences that will significantly change the situation. For instance the Fire Brigades Union left the Labour Party after fire fighters had torn up their party cards during their dispute. He also explained how attempts like the Socialist Labour Party, the Socialist Alliance and George Galloway’s Respect were lessons on how not to build among working people.

Dave said that a call from trade union leaders, such as Mark Serwotka of the civil servants’ PCS union and Bob Crow of the rail workers’ RMT: “To organise a serious conference on building an alternative to Labour, would get a response”. He also explained the importance of popularising the challenges to the Labour Party such as the FBU member who stood in Gloucester and the NHS campaigners in Kidderminster and Huddersfield.

The Left Party in Germany has 57 MPs. Although they have the advantages of a national figure, Oskar Lafontaine, and an election system of proportional representation, a new party could also grow rapidly in Britain. He described left Labour MPs as: “Prisoners of the New Labour machine smuggling notes out”. If left MP John McDonnell called for a new workers’ party “he could fill the Albert Hall with activists”.

Unjum Mirza, from the Left List, which was formed after the recent split in Respect, said: “The crisis of political representation is part of the wider crisis”. He talked of food riots while the price of basic foods shoots up, the housing crisis and the rising cost of oil, saying that ‘who pays for the crisis, is the backdrop to the crisis of political representation’.

He said: “The key goal of fighting for political representation comes from the mood from below”, adding: “The primary task is to generalise the mood to fight back, it’s not for us to pay for the crisis it’s to raise the combativity of our class”. He mentioned the Left Party in Germany to illustrate the potential for political representation. Quoting the 1916 Clyde workers, he said: “We are with you as long as you represent us, if not we act independently”. Political representation is not just the electoral front but is linked to war, housing and other issues.

John Rogers from the Labour Representation Committee, a left grouping within the Labour Party, and Lambeth Unison, said: “The bosses have three parties and the working class have not got one”. Admitting that “workers have almost no voice in the Labour Party”, he said it was not worth starting on the government because he would never finish. He went on: “So what do we do? I don’t think any of us really know”. Later, he said: “Somehow we’ll work out the answer”. But he claimed that: “Our lack of understanding is nothing compared to the confusion of the trade union leaders”. Mentioning the motion at Unison’s conference calling for a review of the political fund, he said it was not about disaffiliation from the Labour Party.

He used the examples of a rally for the RMT cleaners and a speech in Parliament by victimised trade unionist Karen Reissmann to show that the LRC still has a role. He said the handful of socialist MPs in the Labour Party can help to boost morale in an industrial dispute and the LRC can be used to book rooms at Westminster.

Various people then spoke from the floor. Roger Bannister of Unison explained that the union’s rules blocked any call for disaffiliation at Unison conference, with those that campaigned for it being witch hunted. But the resolution that was put forward would lead to a pro and anti Labour Party debate. He said the leadership of Unison knew that “if the members were allowed to debate the issue of disaffiliation, the tide would be against the Labour Party”.

Nancy Taaffe from Unison said the question of political representation has to be resolved and that Unison has to put the interests of members before the interests of the Labour Party. Gary Clarke from the postal workers’ CWU asked how many last chances his general secretary Billy Hayes wanted to give the Labour Party. Workers Power member Jeremy Dewar, a vice chair of the CNWP, said if John Rogers believes the bosses have three parties when workers have none, the obvious answer is to form one. Alec McFadden said: “Without a new workers’ party, the next generation will suffer”.

Tony Mulhearn, a member of PCS and a leader of the Liverpool Council in the 1980s and Terry Pearce from Unite, both asked if John Rogers still believes the Labour Party can be reclaimed. Tony said that by staying in the Labour Party, left MPs only legitimise the role of the right wing. Several delegates asked: What is happening in the Left List; what are its aims; what has happened with Respect; and where is it going? Unfortunately no answers were given and an opportunity was lost to draw further lessons from the shipwrecked Respect project.
NSSN delegates were inspired by the compelling case put for a new workers’ party but were left with more questions than answers from those speakers who as yet do not support this call.

(all trade union members spoke in a personal capacity)

Workers face breadline Britain

2008-06-12T07:09:00.000-07:00

Campaign for a New Workers' Party Conference
Sunday 29 June 2008 11:00am - 5:00pm
South Camden Community School, Charrington Street, London NW1
Book tickets now at www.cnwp.org.uk/conferencetickets.htm

We’ve had a New Labour government for eleven years. Eleven years of war, tax increases, pay restraint, cuts and privatisation for most of us, and eleven years of nirvana for the super-rich. The richest 1,000 people in Britain’s wealth has more than quadrupled since New Labour came to power – it has gone up by 15% just since Brown took over as prime minister.

No wonder New Labour’s poll ratings have been plummeting and Brown is so unpopular. For the first time since 1997 the nightmare scenario of a return to a Tory government is a real possibility. Millions of working class people who remember the Thatcher years are rightly horrified by the idea of a Cameron-led government.

The Campaign for a New Workers’ Party doesn’t want a return to a Tory government either. But nor do we want to spend our lives having to choose between two virtually identical parties for the super-rich – like trying to decide whether you would rather suffer from cancer or heart disease.

That is why we are campaigning for the trade unions in Britain to stop funding New Labour, and to begin building a party that actually stands up in working class people’s interests. Since 1997 trade union leaders have handed over more than £100 million of their members’ money to New Labour. New Labour have taken the money and kept on kicking trade unionists in the teeth. Enough is enough!

So far over three thousand people have signed up to support the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party. However, we need to do more. The need for a mass party that stands for the millions not the millionaires is more urgent than ever. A political voice is desperately needed for the millions of public sector workers battling against the government’s pay freeze, for local communities trying to stop their Post Offices or hospitals closing, for anti-war and environmental campaigners.

If you agree, come to the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party conference. The conference will discuss resolutions from local CNWP groups and affiliated organisations on the way forward from here.

From 11:00am - 12:30pm before the opening of the CNWP conference proper, the CNWP is hosting a discussion on the way forward for the left and the fight for a working class political voice.

Speakers confirmed so far include:

Bob Crow RMT
Dave Nellist Campaign for a New Workers' Party
Simeon Andrews Labour Representation Committee
Rob Hoverman RESPECT
Dave Church Walsall Democratic Labour Party
Mike Davies Alliance for Green Socialism

Shattered Illusions

2008-06-12T07:03:00.000-07:00

The following letter from a Campaifn for a New Workers' Party supporter in the Public & Commercial Services Union (PCS) was sent to the civil service union magazine, PCS View, which is sent to all PCS members.

Back in 1997 many PCS members welcomed the election of a 'New Labour' government, believing it offered a radical alternative to the Tories. The illusion was quickly shattered, however, when Blair and Brown launched their attacks on public servants' jobs, pensions, pay and working conditions.

Our members no longer harbour any illusions, as we saw in the recent local elections. They are able to see that it is now nothing more than a party of big business.

We are in a situation where the three main political parties are indistinguishable from one another. At the last general election we saw the amazing spectacle of MPs from Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems engaged in a bidding war over how many civil service jobs they could axe.

So, if none of the main parties represent public-sector workers and workers in general, what are our options? Sadly, due to the virtual political vacuum that currently exists in Britain, the British National Party (BNP) has gained a certain level of support among traditional Labour voters on the basis of populist slogans that hide their true fascist and racist agenda.
In my opinion this makes it even more important for the trade union movement to talk about the question of working class representation and the need to link with community groups and socialists to build a new, broad-based party free of big business and capable of representing working people and driving the BNP back into the sewers from which they came.

PCS does a great job of defending our members' interests but I believe in the long term, the issues facing PCS members require political change.

Dave Lunn, Birkenhead

I told my union: "We need a new workers' party"

2008-05-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

THE TRADE union, Unite, recently wrote to its members "to determine your thoughts on how you think the country is being run". According to the covering letter, "the Prime Minister wants to ensure his government listens and delivers on matters that concern Unite members."
Campaign for a New Workers' Party (CNWP) supporter Colin Trousdale returned this response to Unite general secretaries Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley:

Lancashire
May 2008

Dear Derek and Tony,

With regard to your letter dated 28/4/08 with the attached survey (copy included just in case you have not actually seen it). I think the first thing you should ask Gordon Brown is why, eleven years on, the anti-trade union laws have not been repealed, then break the Labour link at the very least until this is done.

My grandfather and father, both good trade union activists and Labour supporters, must be spinning. This is not the party I remember as a child or indeed as a young man. Tony Blair has blood on his hands and no matter how fervently he throws himself into his new-found religion he will not absolve himself.

Then we have the appointment of Gordon Brown as opposed to a democratic election (shades of Jackson's AEEU), in through the back door of Number 10 which he then throws wide open to the hated Thatcher. A bigger insult to working-class people & trade unionists I cannot imagine.

On a local level I have a "Blair Babe" champagne socialist MP, Jack Straw's former secretary, whose only political conviction was to join the Westminster gravy train; who devotes most of her column in the local paper to her and her daughters' trips to Covent Garden opera and a jaunt to La Scala.

This is whilst sanctioning the sale of Rossendale hospital (a bequest to Rossendale people from a local philanthropist) for conversion to "yuppie" flats and upgrading Rawtenstall health centre to a PFI polyclinic adding, and I quote: "There's plenty of room to extend on the fields at the back".
We need a new workers' party, one representative of working-class people by the people for the people. To this end I enclose a petition for a new workers' party. Perhaps you could petition the staff in your office and see what they think and perhaps pass a copy on to Gordon to see if any of his backbenchers might like to sign up to a workers' party.

Since I have been old enough to vote I have voted Labour at every opportunity but would very probably waste my hard-earned vote rather than vote for them in their present guise if there was no socialist alternative in place for the next general election. I await your response with anticipation.

Yours in unity,

C Trousdale.

Socialism “à la” French: A new Party in France

2008-05-19T03:17:00.000-07:00

Below is a report by Clara Paillard of a meeting hosted by Merseyside CNWP on the fight for a working class political voice in France which was addressed by Marie-José Douet on 12 May 2008.

On the 12th May, 21 supporters of Merseyside CNWP welcomed Marie-José Douet, French socialist and member of Gauche Révolutionairre, at the Casa. She provided an inspiring insight into the political situation in France, 40 years after the May 68 revolution. Gauche Révolutionairre participates in the recent campaign for a new party in France. The Ligue Communiste Révolutionairre (LCR) has been leading the call but members of local organising committees are from many different groups and left radical tendencies.

Marie-José, also known as ‘Dadou’, has been touring England to give talks about May 68 and meet up with British comrades. On her way around England, she travelled by train and was shocked by the major differences between the state of different stations, depending on local wealth and the privatised rail companies. In France, the railways are still public but under constant attack by French government and capitalists, as are other public services, the hospitals, young people… “Who will defend the workers?” asked Dadou.

As in the UK, the lack of political alternative in France stops the struggles being translated into politics. Workers are not represented politically. “We said it for a long time: we need a New Workers’ Party,” says our French comrade.

Similar struggles are happening on both side of the Channel. Workers’ rights are constantly undermined by the forces of global capitalism. For Dadou, the new party needs to defend workers’ wages and jobs and show that the capitalist system is the global problem. A socialist alternative needs to be provided.

This new party is a tool for struggles; it should bring together different existing organisations and allow them to keep their identity as well as allow youth and new workers to join the party. It is crucial that new members are involved, can express their view and fully participate in the Party.

However, it is not that simple. Our French comrades are organising into local committees. Growth of the committees was cut across by the municipal elections, and numbers participating vary in different cities. The LCR is not homogenous; not everyone agrees on what main alliances should be made: with workers and youth in struggle, with the anti-Globalisation movement, or with the Greens. It seems important for existing groups not to dissolve themselves and keep their political identity whether revolutionary or otherwise.

Dadou said how important it is to grow numerically but also to discuss ideas for a future Party programme. We should not miss the chance to create a new workers’ party and to change society. The developing crisis will provoke big struggles against the system, which can raise the question of revolution. 40 years ago, the biggest strike in France brought 10 million people into the street. Factories were occupied, trains were stopped, ports blocked, managers locked into their offices… It shows that workers can manage themselves without the bosses. Workers of today need to regain their confidence and create new parties that represent them properly.

The French comrade concluded with a quote from a worker involved in 1968: “We belonged to no-one, we belonged to ourselves. We thought that was socialism.” Dadou added, “We need to put that question [of socialism] and confidence back on the agenda.”

Many questions were asked, making a lively discussion and the event ended up around a pint of beer late that night. This talk was part of the City of Culture 08, an alternative programme to the main celebrations, which seeks to highlight the role of the working class in the history of the city of Liverpool. For more info, see blog www.myspace.com/cityofculture08

New Labour battered at the polls - working class alternative desperately needed

2008-05-08T06:14:00.000-07:00

"Opinions differ as to whether this should be called Labour's worst defeat since 1973 or 1968 or 1066" (Andrew Rawnsley, Observer, 04/05/08)

Last week saw New Labour battered in the local elections and the victory of the Thatcherite Boris Johnson in London’s Mayoral elections. Labour has gone from 11,000 councillors in 1997 to 5,000 today. With the Conservative Party taking 44% of the vote nationally, the nightmare of a Cameron-led Tory government after the next general election is now posed.

Many working class people are rightly horrified at this prospect. But the choice between New Labour or the Tories overseeing public service cuts and attacks on our pay & conditions is little more than being asked to choose between cancer or heart disease – neither is particularly appealing and the end result is the same!

Politicians and commentators have been lining up to pass judgment on the results – many of them blaming the fact that New Labour has no ‘foot soldiers’. Of course they don’t; New Labour has haemorrhaged members over the past decade and many of those who have quit the party in disgust are those who made up the active base of the party. If a party is pursuing neo-liberal, anti-working class policies it seems obvious that they’ll have trouble mobilising working class people to campaign for them!

In London, incredibly, Boris Johnson was able to campaign as a candidate of ‘change’ posing as a ‘fresh face’. He was able to do this without going into any real detail about his policies or politics. In a political vacuum when a clear alternative is not posed, cosmetic differences and ‘personality’ can be pushed to a greater extent and Johnson capitalised on this. However, the woolly comedy character that Johnson put forward in the election is a cover for an out-and-out Thatcherite who wants a strike ban on the London Underground and an extension of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) policy.

Across the country, the London result has been reflected with councils falling to the Tories in former ‘Labour heartlands’ and those parties that have collaborated with New Labour, such as Plaid Cymru in Wales, taking a hit as well.

But in areas where a clear working-class alternative was posed an indication was given of the difference that a nationally organised left-wing challenge could have. In St Michaels, Coventry, Socialist councillor and CNWP national chair Dave Nellist was returned with a 300 vote majority. In Barrow, Michael Stephenson, standing for a campaign against academies, ousted Tory council leader Bill Joughin in the local elections. Fire-fighter Phil Jordan came second in Tuffley ward in Gloucester City. With 594 votes (33.4%), he beat both Labour and the Liberals.

Arrogant Labour politician have bluntly argued that there’s no alternative to them to beat the Tories. But these elections have shown that New Labour are now so hated there’s a real prospect that they can’t beat the Tories. Moreover, they have shown that genuine left campaigning candidates can win or do very well where that choice is given. We can’t settle for the so-called ‘lesser evil’ – death by a thousand cuts or death by the guillotine is still death!

The fight for a new mass party based on working people, the trade unions and community campaigners is now more urgent than ever. If you agree, join the campaign for a new workers’ party today, come to our national conference on 29 June and help in the fight for a political alternative to the bosses’ parties.

Germany, France today - Britain tomorrow

2008-03-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

The following article has been written by Terry Pearce, one of the TU officers of the CNWP, on how the process towards forming a new mass workers' party may unfold and the tasks facing those of us who are fighting for such a party.

For a prolonged period we have seen international capitalism in the ascent in the class struggle, especially in the US and UK. Blair and Bush believed that capitalism faced a golden future with deregulated economies and a flexible de-unionised work force. Whilst it is true that the working class has suffered defeats, it is also true that the working class has not been crushed during this period. In the UK we have seen a slump in trade union membership to around 6 million and a number of sections of workers such as the miners driven back to work following the bitter strike of 1984 - 85. We have seen similar set backs for workers around the world, including in the USA. However in spite of these problems the working class remains intact and is beginning to show signs of starting a fight back, at the same time international capitalism is being rocked by a crisis in its banking system and the US is now officially in recession.

There never was a golden future for capitalism. Together with a looming crisis, there is the growth in competition from China and India as well as a potentially revolutionary situation developing in their own Latin American back yard. Added to this the unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have created a totally unstable situation for capitalism on a global scale. We see both the US and UK governments pumping billions of dollars and pounds into their faltering financial institutions and the markets swing around wildly. Whether we are facing a real crisis of the capitalist system is hard to determine at this stage however one thing is certain the hoped for golden future is turning a very dark shade of grey.

The question for us is how do we react to this fast moving situation, how can we work to build militant resistance to the inevitable attacks on workers wages and conditions by the New Labour government as it seeks to solve the problems of capitalism at the expense of the workers. One thing is certain to me - we must build a political alternative to New Labour and the Campaign for a New Workers Party is a good beginning. While a minority on the Left say that workers will never turn their backs on the Labour Party, the reality is the Labour Party has turned its back on workers. This is a process we have seen elsewhere over the last period and we are now seeing signs that workers in a number of countries are breaking from the pro-business ex-social democratic parties.

Recent Regional elections in Germany and France have shown that an increasing number of workers are fed up with the rightward drift of the ‘traditional parties’. In Germany, De Linke has united a number of left wing factions including disillusioned activists from the SPD along with ex-Communist Party members from the old East Germany. They have seats in the German Parliament and recently won up to 14% of the votes in Regional Elections, in several Regions winning seats and holding the balance of power. This has shaken the SPD leadership so much that they are making left noises in an attempt to shore up working class support. Whilst De Linke is far from being a revolutionary party it is stirring up memories in the minds of many SPD members of a more militant past before its leaders totally capitulated to class collaborationist politics. It is not clear at this stage where De Linke will end up politically, however at this moment it is beginning to attract support from an increasing layer of activists disillusioned and angry at the role of the SPD leadership.

In France it can be said that French President Sarkozy and his right wing policies have enjoyed one of the shortest political honeymoons in history, almost as short as the one he enjoyed with his new wife. Not only hit by a wave of strikes he has now suffered a shattering defeat at recent regional elections. This is not just at the hands of the so-called Socialist Party but also from a growing Left vote. The votes for the LCR were quite significant in some areas of the country, and are as much a judgment on the Socialist Party and their rightward political trajectory as they are of Sarkozy. With the virtual collapse of the French Communist Party there is a political void on the Left, and with the move to right of the SP a new political party of the working class must be built in France.

Whilst we cannot of course make precise comparisons in the UK with developments in Germany and France, it is clear that workers are becoming disgruntled with the old worn out ex-social democratic parties that have become in many cases so pro-big business as to appear no different to the Conservatives. In the UK workers have no mass party that represents their interests and at this time there has been no significant left split from the Labour Party, however hundreds of thousands have left the Labour Party in disgust and this situation could change rapidly as tensions grow over the next period between the trade unions and New Labour. Whilst there are always dangers of a move towards the far right at times of capitalist crisis I believe that we will see a revival of militancy amongst organised workers as well as a growth of angry campaigning in local communities as services are slashed and privatised. The CNWP must intervene politically in all of these developments with our arguments for a new workers party that is totally opposed to the pro-business policies of New Labour. The developments in Germany and France could be the music of the future; we must make sure we play our part in building a fighting political socialist alternative to capitalism and the establishment parties in this country.

Terry Pearce
CNWP

None of the establishment parties call for: Troops out now!

2008-03-14T04:27:00.000-07:00

"Labour's slavish support for the bloody invasion and occupation of Iraq is shameful.
It has not been about the 'restoration of democracy' after Saddam - but protection of America's political and economic interests, particularly oil.
We urgently need an independent, political alternative for working people that would be anti-war, socialist and internationalist."
Councillor Dave Nellist
Chair, Campaign for a New Workers' Party.
Labour MP from 1983-1992

We need a new mass party that's:

For the millions, not the millionaires
Anti-war, anti-cuts, anti-privatisation

Five years ago, millions of ordinary people took to the streets of London in opposition to the threatened invasion of Iraq. Tens of thousands of Labour Party members tore up their party cards in disgust at Blair & Brown’s actions. It's not just the war that repels people; on the question of public services, pay, union rights, pensions, council housing and much more, the Blair-Brown axis has overseen a fundamental change in the nature of the Labour party. Bluntly, it's now a party for big business and the super rich.

The big anti-war demo on February 15 2003 offered a chance to redress the balance in British politics - if the call had been put out to launch an anti-war, anti-privatisation, pro-public services party from the platform, then on that day alone tens, if not hundreds, of thousands would have signed up. Unfortunately, this was a missed opportunity, but the fight for such a party is still going on.

A new mass party that stood for the millions, not the millionaires would be a powerful ally to the anti-war movement and also act as a focal point for struggle against cuts, privatisation and all the other attacks that we face.

It seems simple really: if the bosses have now got three parties, isn't it about time we had one of our own? If you agree, sign up to the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party today.

How can an alternative to the main parties be developed?

2008-02-19T04:47:00.000-08:00

The following article has been written by Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the civil servants union PCS, describing the attacks being made on public-sector workers by the government and calling for left unity in opposition to them.

It’s over ten years since the Tories were thrown out of office. But instead of Labour beginning the long overdue process of reversing the effects of 18 years of Tory rule we have a government in crisis. Attacks on low paid public servants, massive inequality between rich and poor, privatisation, war and sleaze all continue. The replacement of Tony Blair with Gordon Brown seems to have had no effect on policy.

PCS is in the front line of the government’s attacks on the welfare state and public servants. The recent Comprehensive Spending Review announced cuts of £30 billion across Whitehall departmental budgets. This comes on top of a so-called ‘efficiency programme’ that has seen tens of thousands of jobs lost in jobcentres, benefit offices, pension centres, local tax offices and other service delivery points. These cuts are seriously damaging the basic provision of public services.

Recently in Stirling, churches gave out 134 food vouchers people who were entitled to social security payments, but couldn’t get them because there weren’t enough staff working in the DWP. Crisis loans, by definition the most urgent social security payment, should be dealt with urgently. They were taking five weeks because of 40,000 civil service job cuts.

And those job cuts mean the government cannot deliver new programmes for the long term unemployed and lone parents. So contracts are given to charities and private sector companies, who will be paid by results. Profit will be made delivering welfare to the most vulnerable and needy people in our society.

After criticising privatisation and outsourcing in central government as a waste of taxpayers’ money, Labour has now privatised and outsourced more work from central government to the private sector than the previous eighteen years of Tory government. We have seen the disgraceful sight of a handful of former senior civil servants enriching themselves to the tune of £40 million from the privatisation of QinetiQ, while hundreds of jobs are to be cut. And yet Gordon Brown reassures the CBI that there will be still more privatisation.

Meanwhile, we have seen embarrassing failures such as the loss of the personal data of Child Benefit recipients blamed on low grade administrative staff rather than the policies of privatisation, de-skilling and job cuts pursued by management under instruction from the government. To cap it all, public servants have been told to expect sub-inflation pay deals for at least the next three years.

Many PCS members need to take a second job, never have a holiday, and worry at night about which bill to pay. Yet they are expected to take pay cuts while billions are paid in city bonuses, and the average pay of the FTSE top 100 directors has risen in a year from two million to 3 million pounds.

Our experience is replicated across health, education, and local government. People are dying of infections in hospitals because they’re not clean due to privatisation and lack of investment. In Belfast, a school built under a PFI contract lasting 25 years will soon shut because of low pupil numbers. However, because the education authority has signed a contract lasting 25 years, it will continue to pay up to £400,000 per year to a contractor to operate a school that will not actually exist.

Some people argue that these examples are just isolated acts of political expediency designed to keep the Tories from regaining the initiative. But they represent a real commitment to free market ideology. It is not surprising that people are rejecting the notion that New Labour is as good as politics can get.

There are two tasks that arise from this. First, in PCS we have had organise and campaign to defend ourselves industrially from the effects of Labour’s policies. In addition to the two days national strike action last year, disputes are flaring up in different parts of our membership with industrial action plans being presented each week.

But the issues we face are common across the public sector. And it is clear to any activist that we need industrial unity to fight the attacks that union members face. When I speak at rallies of public sector trade unionists many of them – lecturers, health workers, teachers, civil servants, local government workers or fire-fighters from across the range of unions – say to me that if the government attacks us all we should collectively stand up and defend ourselves.

For example, the government now tells public sector workers that they are the cause of inflation and public sector pay must be limited to increases of 2%. The response must be to prepare for united, joint action. In 2005 such a response successfully stopped cuts in public sector workers’ pensions. We need that approach again over pay. The impact of all public sector workers on the picket line on the same day would be huge. If they can do it in France, we can do it in the UK.

But, secondly, we need to do more than mount an effective industrial campaign. We need to consider what can be done in the political arena to challenge the new pro-business, anti-welfare state consensus between all three main parties. Without ending that consensus we may win industrial victories but its clear to many trade unionists that won’t stop employers coming back year on year for more cuts, more privatisations and to drive down pay. To make our advances stick, we need political change.

This has led to a growing debate within the trade unions about political representation. When this debate takes place, the question quickly turns to the existing political choices that we have.

When I meet government ministers and raise the problems trade unionists and public sector workers (particularly civil servants) face, the response is the same. I’ve heard it from two of the most senior figures in the government and from some in the TUC General Council – that no matter how bad it is for workers under this Labour government, the Tories would be worse.

Being asked to accept pay cuts, privatisation, and the running down of the welfare state because otherwise we’ll get a Tory government that will cut pay, privatise and destroy the welfare state is ridiculous. It’s a contradiction that must be confronted. Accepting it hamstrings our opposition to the attacks on us. My experience is that more and more workers reject it.

In the unions there is a need to tackle those that say that loyalty to Labour must be our absolute and overriding priority. That is at the heart of everything we are up against. We must make it clear that acceptance of the Labour leadership’s arrogant belief that they can tell us that, no matter what, every five years we will have to vote Labour because otherwise we’ll get the Tories, invites them to become more right wing, more neo-liberal, to make more and more cuts.

My absolute and overriding priority is defending PCS members who are being kicked from pillar to post, regardless of which party is attacking them. I am in no doubt that the 2005 PCS ballot on setting up a political fund was won, in part, because we would not donate to, or affiliate to any political party – including Labour.
We are using the Political Fund in the PCS Make Your Vote Count campaign. This is truly radical because it treats all parties (except the fascists) the same. It gives everybody equal access and allows local candidates to tell their constituents where they stand – on public services, on pay, on privatisation. We then publish the answers, let them speak for themselves and let our members decide where their vote should go. The more we do this, the more pressure it will place on the parties and candidates. In the run up to the council, GLA and mayoral elections in May, we have written to other non-affiliated public sector unions asking them to join us in this. Five have already agreed to do so.

Our Make Your Vote Count campaign is putting a degree of pressure on politicians. But the ‘first past the post’ electoral system works to marginalise those who stand out against the prevailing political consensus. We should be arguing more vocally for proportional representation. A few years ago the Scottish Socialist Party gave us proof that with a fairer electoral system people will vote for radical policies. 6 SSP MSPs were elected in the Scottish Parliament, as well as 5 Greens - meaning 10% of the parliament in Scotland was made up of people who were to the left. If it can happen in Scotland then it can elsewhere. PR would break the stranglehold of the three main parties on political life and give a voice to the millions who want something better.

Even under the existing electoral system we have seen the election of George Galloway as an MP, of Respect councillors in Preston, Derbyshire and in East London, and Socialist and left-wing independent candidates in Coventry, Lambeth and elsewhere. That has given people hope and inspiration.

But these advances are limited in scope. We must recognise that these organisations are not strong enough to challenge the prevailing political consensus.

We have to confront the split nature of the left. On 17 November last year, I found myself speaking to three competing left events in London - the Labour Representation Committee, the Socialist Party and the Respect conference. At all of them I argued that to break the dominance of the pro-business, anti-welfare state consensus we must have unity, both industrially and politically.

Crucially, we need the trade unions to be involved to give us a bedrock on which to build. Already we see the FBU and the RMT, no longer affiliated to Labour, looking around to see how they can take forward issues politically, possibly even standing and supporting candidates. In the North West there is the fantastic prospect of 15 firefighters standing in the local elections.

If we want to make progress, we must accept that the left in the Labour Party have an important role. Some people say that because their position in the Labour Party has been so weakened that John McDonnell could not get on the ballot paper for the leadership contest, they can be dismissed or simply told to leave the party. I believe that is wrong. We must find ways to work together.

For those outside the Labour Party, this means confronting the narrow mindedness which fails to recognise that candidates such as John McDonnell, consistent opponents of the policies of privatisation and cuts, must be supported. As Chair of the PCS Parliamentary Group he has been a staunch supporter of our campaigns. It would be inconceivable for us to turn our backs on him or his supporters.

Similarly, those on the Labour left must deal with the situation whereby they are expected to vote for every Labour candidate regardless of their politics or face expulsion. For example, we see Bob Wareing, a principled Liverpool MP who stood against the war being prepared to stand as an independent after having Steven Twigg, of all people, imposed as New Labour candidate in a working class Merseyside constituency. Every socialist must surely know who to vote for in that contest.

Our loyalty must be to our class, not to our party card.
Now is the time to take the debate in the trade union movement a step forward. We must reject the idea of blind support for New Labour regardless of the consequences for workers and the general public. We must organise industrial resistance to job losses, pay cuts, and privatisation which unites workers in different unions. And we must ask how we can seriously address the question of how we can develop a credible alternative to the political consensus offered by the main parties. What unites us is far greater than what divides us. The task for those who share this analysis is to make it a reality.