People’s Assembly and Left Unity.

Real Left Unity.

Marxist Dentists around the UK leave copies of The Lady and Country Life to stir up class hatred.

At least that was my theory on reading Rachel Johnson’s magazine this morning waiting for an appointment.

One article about a Lady of the British Empire who could not boil an egg,  had crossed the planet, swum with dolphins,  holidayed in the Savanna,  struck me.

I doubt if she was prepared to walk to Liddle to get 15 pence off a tin of sardines.

This, I suspect, is not a lone reaction.

Margaret Thatcher’s death and the rise of UKIP brought back a cold draft of class politics to this country.

Many realised that the Thatcher project, to make everybody stand or fall in the gales of competing on the market, and the pumped-up loathing of foreigners |(notably excepting the USA)  that went with it, is alive and well.

Like many on the left, trade unionists and anti-cuts activists, I am committed to the People’s Assembly Against Austerity.

This is a grand occasion for us to get together on issues that affect us all, to build a constructive left-wing alternative to the politics of hate and the priorities of the wealthy.

It will unite us with our fellows across Europe in opposing the financial forces that have imposed cuts and more privatisation in the UK, and destitution and mass unemployment in countries from Greece and Spain to Portugal – not to mention the misery brought upon UKIP’s bogies in Rumania and Bulgaria.

There is a serious debate to be had about the European Union, and the role of the ”Troika’ in pushing through austerity.

The French left is divided between those who think that Angela Merkel is at heart a pragmatist and will – eventually – see sense and launch an expansionist drive. French president Hollande’s intervention yesterday, in which he proposed a European economic “governance” went in this sense. Some on his side believe in federalism, a politically united Europe.

Others are sceptical. They want a radical overhall of the EU. A few want greater national sovereignty restored.

In the UK we have by contrast, as Seamus Milne noted in the Guardian this week, a debate on Europe whose agenda is set by the right.

This is a threat,

a successful Tory-led campaign to pull out of the EU would risk unleashing a carnival of reaction, anti-migrant hysteria, more attacks on social rights, and a further lurch to the right.

Milne states, rightly,

What has been almost entirely missing from the mainstream British public debate has been the progressive case for fundamental change that has been central to the struggle over the EU and its treaties in mainland Europe. In the 1975 referendum, the left case against the then common market was that it was a cold war customs union against the developing world that would block socialist reforms. But the modern EU has gone much further, giving a failed neoliberal model of capitalism the force of treaty, entrenching deregulation and privatisation and enforcing corporate power over employment rights.

He concludes,

What would be fatal would be to allow the nationalist right to continue to dictate the EU agenda and wrap itself in the mantle of democratic legitimacy. The terms of debate have to change – for the sake of both Britain and Europe.

Much of the British left remain dominated by the anti-EEC ideas of the 1970s.

They have not confronted this menace.

Indeed they think their tiny forces can intervene to make the “progressive” case for a sovereign UK outside the EU.

We need a real campaign in place of this: for a united social Europe!

The People’s Assembly could be a place to make the case of this.

Left Unity.

Some of the left think there is a mileage in the Left Unity appeal of Kate Hudson and Ken Loach.

Recent prominent members of Respect , who failed to protest against George Galloway’ s politics, they are not in a position to preach unity to anybody least of all the ‘left’.

I merely cite this report by Tina Becker from the Weekly Worker to show that this is a dead-end,

Kate Hudson and Andrew Burgin (important driving forces) would have liked the proceedings to have gone differently. After all, the Stop the War Coalition and Respect – organisations both comrades were prominent in – were far more choreographed. But, ironically, bureaucratic coherence in fronts like these was provided by the likes of the Socialist Workers Party, part of the organised left to which LU is to a great extent a reaction. The politically decrepit Socialist Resistance – the one ‘insider’ group – is no substitute.

The proposed political platform written by Kate Hudson was circulated three days before; a proposal for the electoral procedure to the national coordination committee was sent out 20 hours before; the chairs seem to have been pre-chosen on the basis that they had no previous experience of handling big meetings (one chair was actually introduced as someone who had “never attended a political meeting before”). No wonder that quite a few times people in the room (the chairs included) did not actually know what exactly they were voting on. It was pretty chaotic, in other words.

This was also reflected in the rather uneven attendance. Local groups were supposed to send two delegates each, but where more people expressed an interest in coming, they were advised by the interim leadership to simply divide their group into smaller parts. For example, Manchester comrades – all sitting together in the same meeting, in the same room – selected five delegates from different parts of the city. Elsewhere, groups had not even met yet. Andrew Burgin admitted that about half of the “90 or 100” local groups exist only in so far as one person had volunteered to be the local contact. So the reality was that pretty much anybody who wanted to come could do so.

Unless, of course, you happened to be a representative of a political organisation. The interim organising committee had decided to bar existing groups from even sending observers – apart from a representative of the Red-Green Alliance from Denmark, who showed up halfway through the meeting. Obviously it would have been a little harsh to send this poor comrade packing after he had made such a long journey, presumably on a well-informed hunch.

Followed by the latest TUSC (Left involving the RMT, Socialist Party and SWP) election result.

Election of a Borough Councillor for Rawmarsh Ward (Rotherham)  on Thursday 16 May 2013

Baldwin, William George	British National Party	80
Gray, Andrew Tony	Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts	61
Meharban, Mohammed	Liberal Democrats	28
Parker, Martyn Lawton	The Conservative Party Candidate	107
Vines, Caven	UK Independence Party	1143 Elected
Wright, Lisa Marie	Labour Party Candidate	1039

Ipswich People’s Assembly.

Last night Enrico Tortolano,  spoke on neo-liberal economics  and politics  to a public meeting at he UNITE offices held by the Ipswich People’s Assembly Against Austerity.

Up to 30 people turned up her brother  Tortolano,  who has worked on human rights with social movements in Latin America, and now is a research officer for the PCS union as well as writing for Tribune.

Enrico gave a talk of great clarity on how the wealthy have established free-market economics as the foundation of state policy in many countries. Everybody is told to be ‘self-reliant’ as taxes are lowered for the well-off and all forms of redistribution are undermined. We have, Tortolano said, crept back to pre-First World War levels of inequality.

In Britain  attacks on welfare and privatising the state were being pushed through as part of what Naomi Klein called the “shock doctrine”. That is,  taking advantage of a crisis to push through extreme free-market ideas.

He noted that the first to apply this method had been Augusto Pinochet , the Chilean dictator.

The recently deceased Margaret Thatcher had admired the leader of the Chilean coup, which had left thousands of left opponents dead and many more imprisoned and tortured.

From annual get-togethers in Davos (Switzerland), to thousands of ‘think-tanks’ and sympathetic media, their message has been relayed by all the main political parties in the West.

British politics seem to be restricted to the limits set by the ‘orthodox’ free-market economics.

The People’s Assembly, Tortalano said, offered a real opportunity for the left to unite and to put forward a different economic and political strategy. Ultimately the threat to the planet’s resources from the market would affect everybody.

The audience, which included trade unionists, local Labour councillors, library campaigners, and activists from the Green and socialist parties, joined in a fruitful discussion on this talk.

It was suggested that the People’s Assembly should take up the issue of low pay (very important in Ipswich), of the Bedroom Tax, and the fight against the wave of further cuts in public spending that will affect council (above all  County Council) services in the coming months.

The Secretary of the Trades Council, Teresa Mackay pointed out that 80% of the cuts were still to come.

It was argued that the People’s Assembly needs a constructive and a positive message. It was not enough to just fight neoliberal economics and the hatred of the poor and migrant workers stirred up by the Liberal-Tory Coalition.

The left has to offer a democratic  and egalitarian  way of creating institutions  for equality  and collective need.

A co-ordinator will organise E-Mail contacts for the Ipswich People’s Assembly.

Transport will be available from Ipswich to take people to the London Assembly.

In the coming weeks we will be organising a campaign locally to draw attention to the links between Primark and other retail outlets and the terrible deaths of garment  workers in Bangladesh.

As an activist said, “The numbers of the dead just keep rising.”

France, I Year of François Hollande, 150,000 March for Alternative Left Policies.

In Paris on Sunday up to 150,000 demonstrators marched for a  VIth Republic», and against “l’austérité et la finance”.

This was their way of marking one year of Socialist Party led-government and the election of President Hollande.

At the appeal of the Front de Gauche leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon many came to bring a “new broom” to French policies with real brooms, of all kinds.

This morning on French Radio stations supporters of the governing Parti Socialiste expressed their disdain for the sometimes colourful language used by their left critics.

But it was noted that François Holllande,elected with 51,6% of the vote Holland today gets only 25% backing in Opinion Polls.

Below are some reasons for this:

France: Unemployment Up.

Hollande stands accused of failing to offer a serious alternative to financial austerity that would change these figures.

Is there another way out?

At the Paris March  Pierre Laurent Communist Party), Eva Joly (left Wing Greens) and  Jean-Luc Mélenchon (Parti de gauche) argued for new radical left policies (Here).

As the first speaker said,

Nous sommes tous Grecs, Espagnols, Italiens, Irlandais, Portugais, Chypriotes et notre ennemi c’est la finance. La finance dehors, l’humain d’abord !

We are all Greeks. Spaniards, Italians, Irish, Portuguese and Cypriots. Our enemy is finance. Out with Finance! Put Humanity first!“

March for the 6th Republic in France, Against Austerity

Thousands of people are expected to support the firebrand leftist presidential candidate Melenchon, who has shaken up France’s election campaign with a surprise jump in the polls. Melenchon, represents a coalition of leftist parties including the Communists. Supporters of French Front de Gauche candidate for the 2012 French presidential election Jean-Luc Melenchon gathered on the Bastille square in Paris, wave flags as they listen to the candidate’s speech after a march from Nation.Paris,… (from Here)

This demonstration has attracted support from the Front de gauche (le Front de gauche est une coalition de partis de la gauche antilibérale et anticapitaliste réunissant le Parti communiste français (PCF), le Parti de gauche (PG), la Gauche unitaire (GU), République et socialisme (R&S), Convergences et alternative(C&A), le Parti communiste des ouvriers de France (PCOF), la Fédération pour une alternative sociale et écologique (FASE), laGauche anticapitaliste (GA) et Les Alternatifs , left-wing Greens (Eva Joly), the Nouveau Paru anti-capitaliste (NPA) and many trade unions.

• L’appel de Jean-Luc Mélenchon
• L’appel de Pierre Laurent
• L’appel d’Eva Joly
• L’appel de La vie est à nous / Le Sarkophage
• L’appel de Christian Salmon
• L’appel du NPA
• Appel de Fabienne Brugel
• Appel de Zinn-Dinn Boukhenaïssi
• L’appel du PPLD
• L’appel de Gabriel Amard
• L’appel d’Aurélien Bernier
• L’appel de l’association l’Ange Bleu
• Appel de l’AGAUREPS-Prométhée
• L’appel du Front de Gauche

Song,

Le Roi Des Cons de Georges Brassens:
Non certes elle n’est pas bâtie
Sur du sable l’oligarchie

Il y a peu de chances qu’on
Détrône le Roi des cons.

Peuple affamé par l’austérité
Pour engraisser une bande de rentiers

Il y a peu de chances qu’on
Détrône le Roi des cons.

Il est possible au demeurant
De convoquer une constituante

Il y aurait une chance qu’on
Se passe d’un Roi des cons.

Qu’un jour on dise c’est fini
la domination des nantis

Il y a bien une chances qu’on
Se passe d’un Roi des cons.

Peuple debout et prend la Bastille
Pour la 6eme République

Il y a bien une chance qu’on
Se passe d’un Roi des cons.

You can hear this  here.

UKIP: UK Now Has Real Far-Right Populist Politics.

French Left’s Dilemma After Front National Breakthrough in 1984.

Like Cabu’s Grand Duduche  you start by feeling that you don’t want to have anything to do with anybody who voted UKIP.

This came to me when the BBC’s Look East showed a chippie in Great Yarmouth. That town elected UKIP Councillors to Norfolk County Council. The chip-shop owner was vociferous in his UKIP support, as were many others in the seaside resort.

I like Yarmouth chips. They sell them with a choice of sauces. Inspired by Belgium custom  you can get mayonnaise and curry, amongst other flavours.

I will make a point of not going to Yarmouth for my annual day-trip.

The party now has 15 councillors in Norfolk  and scored 23.47% of the county vote - Conservative 32.6pc, Labour 22.75pc, Liberal Democrat 10.97pc, Green 6.55pc, Independent 3.27pc, Christian People’s Alliance 0.13pc, United People’s Party 0.02p

They got a councillor in Ipswich too, in Whitehouse and Whitton.

I will not feel comfortable in the company of anybody who backed James Crossley, or those , 20% of the electorate across town  (and they didn’t stand in 2 divisions) who voted for them in Ipswich.

But that’s a reaction, not a strategy.

A Strategy?

We need clarity on how to deal with UKIP.

For a long time people on the left have been convinced that the threat from the far-right came from the BNP and the English Defence League.

Principally that there was a “massive surge” in hostility towards Muslims.

This view was reinforced by a whole industry of speculation  about the Islamic ‘Other’.

This was always a skewed analysis: there is a little evidence that the masses were ready to engage in a wholesale attack on Muslims.

‘Islamophobia’ was also used by those who took this line to denigrate those who backed the secularists, feminists and trade unionists who, after the Arab Spring, have had to face right-wing Islamist governments.

Now we have a party that has focused on an ‘Other’ that is lot closer to home: the Eastern European hordes from Bulgaria and Romania.

Standing in, of course, for the ‘foreigners‘ already here.

In place of abstract ruminations about the Other, we had better look at an older anti-racist idea: scapegoating.

This is not a vote of the ignored’ working class’s expressing their real needs.

It is the result of a conscious attempt to deflect people’s anger at austerity, stagnating  wages, and mounting personal debt, onto an easy target.

Foreigners, we know, are not the only thing UKIP are about.

They want to make life easier for British capitalists, they attack trade unions and the poor, and their cultural views are a mix of Norman Tebbit, Jeremy Clarkson and the US Tea Party.

They are dyed-in-the-wool free-marketeers.

UKIP councillors will no doubt often make fools of themselves.

But we cannot count on their ability to self-destruct.

We, the left, need to attack them where they are weak: are they for austerity or are they against it?

What will they do to help working people defend their rights?

Will they support the Living Wage?

Will the fight against tax breaks for companies and the rich?

Will they back the NHS?

Internationalism.

Before anything else the Left should shout, loudly, its internationalism!

Against hatred between the peoples!

For European unity of the peoples, the workers and the poor!

For a European Social Republic: level wages and benefits upwards!

Down with the Xenophobes!

Down with UKIP!